Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher will be given an official but not a state funeral when she is laid to rest in central London next week.

Serving members of all three armed forces will line a parade route in a procession that will take the cortège from the House of Commons to a service at St Paul’s Cathedral on either Wednesday or Thursday next week.

World leaders and political figures including Mikhail Gorbachev, Nancy Reagan and every living British Prime Minister – Tony Blair, John Major, Gordon Brown and David Cameron - will attend.

The evening before her funeral, which will take place with full military honours, the body of the former Finchley MP will rest in a chapel at the Palace of Westminster.

She will then be carried by hearse to the Church of St Clement Danes in The Strand where the coffin will be transferred to a horse-drawn gun carriage.

The cortège will pass up Whitehall, along the Strand, down Fleet Street and on to St Paul’s, where the funeral, likely to be watched by millions worldwide, will take place.

Meanwhile, in her old constituency this morning, Finchley Labour became the latest local political group to pay tribute to the Iron Lady.

Chairman Janet Bagley said: “I offer my condolences to local Conservative Party activists and to Margaret Thatcher’s many friends and supporters in Finchley.

“The Labour Party opposed many of her policies, but she undoubtedly made a huge impact both as local MP and Prime Minister.

“Her period in office changed the face of Britain, although her political legacy will always arouse intense controversy.”