London, July 14 : Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher will be the first Prime Minister since Sir Winston Churchill to be given a state funeral when she passes away.

It maybe recalled that Churchill was given a state funeral on January 29, 1965, and now Thatcher will be given a similar honour, and it is expected to cost the exchequer about three million pounds.

The plans for the Thatcher funeral have the approval of the Queen and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, reports The Mirror.

The funeral will be held at St. Paul''s cathedral in central London. It has not yet been decided if her body will lie in state at Parliament''s Westminster Hall.

The plans will cause fury across the land because her time in office in the 1980s was deeply divisive and she was hounded out by her own party over the hated poll tax.

Labour MP and former miner Ronnie Campbell, was stopped from proposing a Commons'' motion putting a stop to the lavish send-off.

He said it would split the country.

Thatcher, 82, closed mines, shipyards and steelworks in Labour''s heartlands and her "cruel and divisive reign" should not be commemorated, he added. (ANI)