Quotes By Theresa May

I was a teenage godmother.

We're getting rid of bureaucracy, so that we're releasing time for police officers to be crime fighters and not form writers.

Flexible working is not just for women with children. It is necessary at the other end of the scale. If people can move into part-time work, instead of retirement, then that will be a huge help. If people can fit their work around caring responsibilities for the elderly, the disabled, then again that's very positive.

Within the E.U., in a wider context, people are increasingly recognising the need to prevent the abuse of free movement.

Like Indiana Jones, I don't like snakes - though that might lead some to ask why I'm in politics.

No, I can tell you one of the first things that happens to a home secretary when they arrive in the job is that they are given a briefing about the security matters that they will be dealing with and I deal with security matters on a daily basis.

The aim is to create here in Britain a really hostile environment for illegal migration.

If you can speak English, and you can get a place on a proper course at a proper university, you can come to study in Britain.

Today, there's an expectation that you get to know public people. In the past, it was much more what you did and how you presented yourself.

Well can I just make a point about the numbers because people talk a lot about police numbers as if police numbers are the holy grail. But actually what matters is what those police are doing. It's about how those police are deployed.

People have to make journeys, what we want is people to have alternatives in public transport so that they can make a choice about the sort of way in which they're going to travel.

I'm not sure I should reveal the sources of my clothes.

I believe it's important that we ensure that the police have a modern and flexible workforce. I think that's what is necessary, so that they can provide the public with the service that they want.

I will not allow a Delia Smith cookbook in my house! It's all so precise with Delia, and it makes cooking seem so inaccessible.

People will be able to raise their concerns: what are local officers doing about the drug dealing in the local park? What's happening about the pub where all the trouble is? And the police will have to respond.

Tying money up for 40 years doesn't sound appealing when you are young.

National security is the first duty of government but we are also committed to reversing the substantial erosion of civil liberties.

Obviously local people will have their local voice through the police and crime commissioners that they've elected to determine their local policing.

In tough times, everyone has to take their share of the pain.

It's always an interesting experience for a politician to be heard in silence, I have to say.

We are mandating forces to hold regular neighbourhood beat meetings. These meetings will give local people the chance to scrutinise the work of their local police.

Starting with the highest-risk countries, and focusing on the route to Britain that is widely abused, student visas, we will increase the number of interviews to considerably more than 100,000, starting next financial year. From there, we will extend the interviewing programme further across all routes to Britain, wherever the evidence takes us.

And it is crucial of course that chief constables are able to make decisions within their budgets about how they deploy their police officers to the greatest effect to ensure that they're able to do the job that the public want them to do.

There's much more we can be doing in Parliament, we could be giving more power back to people at local government level, through local referendums.

Just as the police review their operational tactics, so we in the Home Office will review the powers available to the police.

There is nothing inevitable about crime and there is nothing inevitable about anti-social behaviour.

You don't think about it at the time, but there are certain responsibilities that come with being the vicar's daughter. You're supposed to behave in a particular way. I shouldn't say it, but I probably was Goody Two Shoes.

We've got a first class leader at the moment. David Cameron is dealing with the issues that he was left by the last government very well indeed.

I'm not someone who feels anger on particular issues.

Look, we constantly live looking at the issue of the threat of terrorism.