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Thatcher's Economic Policy
Six steps, about nine minutes, a question at each. You need no economics and no preparation, only a willingness to guess before you are told.
Step 1 of 6
Before 1984, Parliament had passed new laws limiting what a union could legally do. A union that broke the new rules on strikes could be sued. The government would not settle national strikes by negotiating with unions.
The question
In 1984 Britain still dug its coal from deep mines, called pits, and 139,000 people worked in them. A pit was often the only employer in its village. When the government's Coal Board set out to close some of the pits, the miners' union called its members out on strike. Coalfields across Britain stopped work for a year.
What you'll be able to answer
Thatcher's Economic Policy · this module is lit
The strike ran from 12 March 1984 to 3 March 1985, and the miners lost it. Britain got through it without a single power cut, because Margaret Thatcher's government had spent years stocking coal at the power stations. The union itself was beaten by a court case. Two of its own miners sued it. The union's rules promised members a vote before a national strike, and no vote had been held.
Six steps cover why the Coal Board acted, the vote that never happened, and what was left of coal mining ten years later.
Take a guess
The Coal Board said how many jobs its plan would cost in that first year. How many?
Coal was more than a job in a pit village: the village existed because of the pit.
On 6 March 1984 the National Coal Board told the unions it would cut capacity, the coal its pits could produce, by four million tonnes within a year.
The government owned the board, a industry. Its losses were larger than all its savings. 30 of its oldest pits caused 90 per cent of the loss.
The government had hired a new chairman, Ian MacGregor, six months earlier. He had run British Steel. The main opposition party said he had cut nearly 120,000 jobs there.
Cutting capacity meant closing pits, but the board would not say which pits it meant.
Cortonwood, a pit in Yorkshire, had been told it would stay open for five more years. Miners had moved from other areas to live near it, expecting the work to last. Instead the board gave it five weeks' notice to close.
The board wanted yearly coal output to fall to 97.4 million tonnes. It also said what the plan would cost in jobs in its first year.
For scaleCoal mining employed 139,000 people in 1984.
It is March 1984 and pits in Yorkshire and Scotland have already stopped work.
You are one of the leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers, on its ruling committee, the executive. The union's president, Arthur Scargill, is beside you. Together you must decide whether to turn these area strikes into one across the whole country.
Your own Rule 43 says a national strike needs a ballot, a vote of all members. At least 55 per cent of those who vote must be in favour. Rule 41 is the other route. It lets each area, a regional branch of the union, strike with the executive's approval and no ballot.
The union's rulebook allowed two kinds of strike. A strike across the whole country needed a ballot of every member. A strike in one region only, called an area strike, needed no ballot, just the leadership's approval. The leaders wanted a strike across the whole country. They called it many separate area strikes, which needed no ballot, so they never held the vote. Any miner who wanted to keep working now had a way to fight back: he could ask a court to rule that the strike broke the union's own rulebook. Two miners did exactly that, and won.
Some other areas have already held votes, and they voted against striking. Parliament is discussing a law to require a ballot before every strike, but it has not been passed, so in March 1984 no law demands one.
You lead the union. The Coal Board will not name the pits, and Yorkshire and Scotland are already on strike. What do you do?
Arthur Scargill and the executive made the area strikes national on 12 March 1984 with no ballot. On 19 April a special conference of the union cut the share needed to win a ballot from 55 per cent to half, and no national ballot was held after that either.
What followedTwo working miners, Taylor and Foulstone, sued their own union. On 28 September a judge, Mr Justice Nicholls, ruled that the strike broke the union's own rules. The union carried on with the strike anyway. On 10 October the judge fined it 200,000 pounds for ignoring the court, which the law calls contempt. On 26 October he sent in accountants to take control of the union's money.
The ballot law Parliament had been discussing did become law that July, four months after the strike began. That law played no part in the court case. The case that broke the union was brought by its own members, under its own rules.
Take a guess
In a normal year coal made about 80 per cent of Britain's electricity. What share did it make in August 1984?
Britain got through the strike without a single power cut caused by it.
Margaret Thatcher's government had prepared for exactly this. Coal stocks had been built up at the power stations and the pits before the strike. The Central Electricity Generating Board ran the power stations. It had bought more coal and stored it in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.
Power stations burned coal, so people expected a miners' strike to cut off the electricity. Britain never lost its electricity in this strike, because the oil-fired stations built when oil was cheap ran instead.
Each power station burns the one fuel it was built for. Britain still had stations built to burn oil, left over from the years when oil was cheap. Nuclear stations kept running at full power all the time. Together, oil and nuclear stations made most of the electricity. Meanwhile the coal stations burned the coal already piled up at them.
Coal production fell 58 per cent in 1984. The country still used almost exactly as much energy as the year before. Oil imports rose by more than 30 per cent.
Nearly 12 million tonnes of coal were still stacked at the power stations when the miners went back.
For scaleOil and nuclear together made 66 per cent of Britain's electricity that month.
Take a guess
The Coal Board sold the coal the pits dug. Who paid for its losses during the strike?
The strike slowed the whole British economy. The economy grew 2.5 per cent in 1984. The official estimate was that growth would have been between 1 and 1.25 percentage points higher without the strike.
Growth measures how much more the country produces. Coal that miners do not dig is that never happens, so growth falls. The oil bought to replace the coal was produced abroad, so it did not count as British output.
The Coal Board sold the coal the pits dug. When digging the coal cost more than buyers paid for it, the taxpayer paid the difference.
Police in England and Wales arrested 8,788 people during the strike and brought 10,372 charges. Scotland had about 14,000 miners on strike and about 1,400 arrested.
Nobody gave an official total cost for the year at the time. Some members of Parliament gave their own estimates of the cost, but these were not official figures.
For scaleEven before the strike, in 1982 to 1983, the board paid 366 million pounds in interest on its debts.
On 3 March 1985 the union's elected delegates met at a conference and voted 98 to 91 to end the strike. The miners went back to work two days later.
Miners had been returning to work through the winter. The union's money was still under the court's control, so it could not support the men who stayed on strike.
The strike had run from 12 March 1984, when the union made the area strikes national, to the conference vote on 3 March 1985.
The miners went back to work after a year on strike. On what terms did the strike end?
Source: ONS, labour disputes, working days lost (BBFW)
For scaleThe vote was 98 to 91, a margin of seven delegates.
Take a guess
A third of Britain's pits closed in the two years after the strike. Why did closures speed up?
One third of Britain's pits closed in 1985 and 1986 alone, the two years after the strike was lost.
The union had spent a year on strike and won nothing, so it could not strike again soon. No agreement protected any pit, so the board was free to close them.
Coal mining employed 139,000 people in 1984, across more than a hundred pits.
Britain has no deep mines at all now. Kellingley, the last of them, shut in December 2015.
For scaleCoal mining employed about 850,000 people when the industry was taken into public ownership in 1947.
Thatcher's Economic Policy
Can you answer each one now? Tap to check.
Why did the miners strike in March 1984?
Why did the strike fail to stop the country?
What followed the miners' defeat?
Can you remember each figure? Tap to check.
What the Coal Board announced on 6 March 1984
What the union's own Rule 43 required before a national
Coal's share of Britain's electricity in August 1984
What the took off Britain's growth in 1984
The vote that ended it, on 3 March 1985
People employed in coal mining, 1984 and 1994
You met three terms in this module
, ,
Coal mining employed 139,000 people in 1984 and 7,000 by 1994. No official body has said what would have happened if the miners had won.
[1] What was announced: Hansard, HC Deb 7 June 1984 and HC Deb 4 February 1985, Coal Industry Dispute. Stan Orme, 4 February 1985: 'On 6 March 1984, the NCB announced that it intended to cut capacity in the coal mining industry by 4 million tonnes.' 7 June 1984, col 458: 'the NCB admitted that the plan would mean the loss of 20,000 jobs this year and a cut in output to 97.4 million tonnes.' Col 459 on Cortonwood: 'It was said that Cortonwood had five years of life and miners moved from other areas to live near it. However, it was given five weeks' notice to close.' Both are Opposition front bench and uncontradicted; the announcement was made to the unions at a consultative meeting rather than to the House, so no minister states the figures. Col 458 also carries the preparation, from the same front bench: 'By 1984 they had been able to build up coal stocks at power stations and pits', and the CEGB had been enabled 'to buy coal and stock it in Rotterdam for importation'. Col 457 has Orme meeting 'Mr. Scargill and his colleagues'.
[2] The chairman the government hired: Hansard, HC Deb 28 March 1983, National Coal Board (Chairman). Nigel Lawson, then Energy Secretary, announced Ian MacGregor's appointment on 28 March 1983, to run from 1 September 1983 for three years, calling it 'excellent value for money for the taxpayer' despite a 1.5 million pound transfer fee to Lazard Freres. MacGregor came from the chairmanship of British Steel, 1980 to 1983. His record there is stated in the debate only as an Opposition charge, 'the destruction of nearly 120,000 jobs', which is why the module gives it as the Opposition's figure and not as a count. John Smith for the Opposition: 'this is an extremely foolish appointment that will divide a great industry.'
[3] Why the board was cutting: Hansard, HC Deb 15 November 1983, Coal Industry Bill. Peter Walker, col 737: the NCB's accumulated losses were greater than its reserves, leaving it 'technically insolvent'. Col 752, citing the Select Committee: 'In 1981... losses incurred in 30 of the Board's older collieries totalled some 228 million pounds, equivalent to 90 per cent. of the industry's operating deficit.' Col 743, Orme: the board paid 366 million pounds in interest in 1982-83. Col 751 puts national coal stocks at 58 million tonnes against 34 million five years earlier; that is a backbench figure, so the prose states the build-up on the front-bench authority above and leaves the tonnage to this note.
[4] What the union's own rules required: Wray and Allsop, Damaged by Democracy: the National Union of Mineworkers and the 1984-85 Strike, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal 23(2). Rule 43: 'A national strike shall only be entered upon as the result of a ballot vote of the members taken in pursuance of a resolution of a Conference', with 55 per cent of those voting in favour. Rule 41 allowed area action with the National Executive's sanction, which is the route used. The 55 per cent threshold was cut to a simple majority at a special conference on 19 April 1984, during the strike.
[5] What the courts did: Hansard, HC Deb 11 December 1984 and HC Deb 19 December 1984, National Union of Mineworkers. On 28 September 1984 Nicholls J restrained the NUM from calling the Yorkshire strike official, because it breached the union's own rules. On 10 October he fined the union 200,000 pounds for contempt: 'A great and powerful trade union, with a large membership affected by the court orders in question, has decided to regard itself above the law, and to make this plain repeatedly, emphatically and publicly on a nationwide basis.' Sequestrators were appointed on 26 October and had recovered 8,500 pounds by 11 November, over 8 million having been moved to banks abroad. The case is named at col 426 of the 19 December debate as Taylor and Foulstone v the NUM, a private action by two working miners rather than by the government or the Coal Board.
[6] When the new law started: Trade Union Act 1984, legislation.gov.uk. Royal Assent 26 July 1984. Section 22 brings Part II, the secret ballot requirements at sections 10 and 11, into force two months later, on 26 September 1984. The strike began in March. NO INSTITUTIONAL SOURCE SHOWS THE 1984 ACT'S BALLOT PROVISIONS USED AGAINST THE NUM AT ANY POINT, which is why module 5 no longer calls this the strike the new law was written for.
[7] Whether the lights stayed on: Hansard, HL Deb 4 March 1985 The Miners' Strike, and HC Deb 26 November 1984 Electricity Generation. Government statement the day after the strike ended: 'during the period of this dispute, industry at large was able to obtain the energy supplies it required. There were no power cuts due to the dispute, and there are still nearly 12 million tonnes of coal stocks at Britain's power stations.' Alastair Goodlad, 26 November 1984, share of electricity produced by the electricity boards in August 1984: coal 33 per cent, oil 49 per cent, nuclear 17 per cent, hydro and gas 1 per cent. NOT VERIFIED and therefore not stated anywhere: the coal stock held at power stations in March 1984, and whether voluntary restrictions were requested.
[8] What came out of the ground: Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics, Chapter 1 Long Term Trends, Table 1.1.2. Thousand tonnes of oil equivalent. Coal production 72,696 in 1983, 30,719 in 1984 and 56,572 in 1985. Coal imports 3,713, 7,980 and 9,482. Petroleum imports 43,543 in 1983 and 59,146 in 1984. Total inland consumption for energy use 196,764 in 1983 and 196,402 in 1984, so the energy system did not shrink, it substituted one fuel for another.
[9] What it cost: Hansard, HL Deb 19 February 1985 Miners' Strike: Overall Cost, and HC Deb 1 May 1985 Coal Industry Bill. Earl of Gowrie, col 474: the strike 'reduced growth in the gross domestic product by between 1 and 1.25 per cent, in 1984, to 2.5 per cent'. Col 475 cites Command Paper 9428 and the Chancellor's Autumn Statement for a 1.5 billion pound addition to public expenditure, and declines a fuller estimate: 'It is too soon to give any new estimate of cost.' Peter Walker, 1 May 1985, col 315: 'Total losses for 1984-85 are expected to exceed 2 billion pounds, very largely due to the strike.' Larger totals in the same debates are backbench estimates rather than official costings and are not used.
[10] Arrests: Scottish Government, Policing of the miners' strike 1984-1985, impact on communities: independent review. England and Wales, 13 March 1984 to 5 March 1985: about 187,000 striking miners, 8,788 arrested and 10,372 charges brought; of 5,653 concluded cases, 4,318 convictions and 1,335 acquittals. Scotland: about 14,000 strikers, about 1,400 arrested. The timeline in the same review gives 12 March 1984 for the NUM making the area strikes national, and 3 March 1985 for the delegate conference ending it, 98 to 91. The 12 March entry names the actor: 'National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) President Arthur Scargill unites various strikes into nationwide industrial action, without a ballot', which is what lets the prose name Scargill and his office. The Commons Library debate pack CDP-2024-0015 gives 'over 11,000 arrested and around 8,000 charged', footnoted to an academic book; the two counts do not reconcile and are not merged.
[11] How it ended: Hansard, HL Deb 4 March 1985, The Miners' Strike. 'Yesterday, at a delegate conference of the National Union of Mineworkers, a decision was made to end the industrial action which has been conducted by some sections of the NUM over the past year. The conference decided that there should be a return to work tomorrow.' The statement records no agreement of any kind and no undertaking against future closures, and calls it 'this unjustified dispute, which has taken place without a ballot'.
[12] Days lost to strikes: ONS series BBFW, working days lost to strike action, United Kingdom. Thousands of days: 3,754 in 1983, 27,135 in 1984, 6,402 in 1985 and 1,903 in 1990. 1984 is the second highest year of the whole post-war record, behind 1979.
[13] The decade in outline: House of Lords Library, The UK economy in the 1980s. Trade union density stood at 52.4% in 1979, its highest point since the war, and 37.5% by 1989.
[14] What was left: House of Commons Library, General debate on government support for coalfield communities, CDP-2025-0028. 'employment in coal mining falling from 139,000 in 1984 to 7,000 in 1994', and 'The UK's last three remaining deep cast mines all closed in 2015', Kellingley in December. The Library attributes the long decline to falling demand for coal and to mechanisation rather than to the strike. The National Archives' British Coal Corporation Appraisal Report gives 13,100 employees at privatisation in 1994 and 16 deep mines; that is a British Coal headcount against the Library's whole-industry figure, and the two are not merged.
[15] The episode chart: ONS series BBFW, labour disputes, working days lost, UK, monthly. Open Government Licence v3.0. Retrieved 30 September 2026. The monthly count covers all strikes, not only the miners'.
Country data from the World Bank (CC BY 4.0) and the UNDP Human Development Report (CC BY 3.0 IGO)
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