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Call to “let Scots stew” during 1980s Margaret Thatcher schools row

The files were released by the National Archives in Kew
The files were released by the National Archives in Kew

Treasury chiefs wanted to “let Scotland stew in its own juice” during a long-running teachers pay row which caused chaos in the classrooms in the 1980s.

Correspondence that can be made public for the first time today reveals how Margaret Thatcher’s government responded to the most sustained campaign of industrial action in the history of Scottish education.

Almost 15 million pupil days were lost during the 1984-86 dispute, which led to the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) teaching union launching targeted action against Tory seats north of the border.

The Iron Lady was for turning, in this instance, accepting pleas from Malcolm Rifkind, her Scottish secretary, for a wide-ranging inquiry that would eventually draw a line under the dispute.

But newly-released records show a number of senior figures in the Tory government were strongly opposed to ordering what became the Main Inquiry, and instead wanted to focus first on resolving a parallel teachers pay row south of the border.

On January 28, 1986, party chairman Norman Tebbit phoned Downing Street to say that “under no circumstances should the Scottish Office tail be allowed to wag the English dog”.

He added that Scottish teachers should be told there was no reason they should be “bloody minded and treated differently”.

A month later, Treasury official JB Unwin wrote to Mrs Thatcher saying: “The Treasury remain strongly opposed to either an inquiry or a statutory review body, and would still prefer to let the Acas process take its course in England and Wales, and let Scotland stew in its own juice.”

Mr Rifkind was adamant that an inquiry was required, however.

He wrote to ministers: “We have had a series of explosions of public anger with a steady level of discontent in between, kept going by media coverage of the dispute that is much more intense than in England and Wales.

“The threat to examinations will produce further acute difficulty for us and our colleagues in Scottish regions who face re-election in May.”

He later added: “For the sake of the government’s credibility with the Scottish people I need a decision tomorrow which makes sense in Scottish conditions, and I am quite clear that the best – indeed the only – solution on offer is a wide-ranging independent inquiry.”

Reacting to the records, EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said last night: “Given the disdain with which the Thatcher-era government treated Scotland and its workers, particularly public sector workers, these revelations will come as little surprise to Scotland’s teachers.

“The teachers’ industrial action campaign of the 1980s, led by the EIS, was a significant milestone in industrial relations in this country.

“It marked the first time that any group of workers, anywhere in the UK, successfully stood firm in defiance of a concerted, ideologically driven attack by the Tory government.”