Author: admin

Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, at the Royal United Services Institute on 4th March 2014.

The internet is of course an awe-inspiring achievement.

Look at what it does – it allows people to access vast amounts of information and to connect across the globe in ever more complex ways. It is a fantastic tool for innovation and creativity, with digital startups and clusters in every corner of the UK, creating jobs and driving growth, and it has been instrumental in supporting the push for greater freedom, civil liberties and democracy around the world.

The security services are similarly awe-inspiring. Look at what they do: GCHQ has an illustrious history, from the code-breakers who defeated the Enigma machine and shortened the Second World War by at least 2 years, through to the contemporary fight against terrorism. As Deputy Prime Minister I have of course visited all 3 intelligence agencies and met the public servants who work there, and I have huge admiration for their talent and for their dedication.

International terrorism continues to present major challenges. Since 9/11 we have seen serious attempts at major acts of terrorism in Britain typically once or twice a year. Most of these plots have been thwarted and around 330 people have been convicted of terrorism-related offences. New threats arise all the time from new sources – we face a new source now from people travelling to Syria, becoming radicalised and then returning to the UK. But it is not just terrorism. The threats we are facing are many and varied. They include the dangers posed by rogue and failing states, nuclear proliferation, transnational serious and organised crime, and cybercrime.

In an increasingly interconnected world, where the threats to our safety are also globalised, we rely more and more on intelligence-led security interventions to protect our people from harm. That means agencies who understand the internet, who understand how those who would do us harm use it, and who have the capability to identify and pursue them.

There will always be a question about how we balance the competing principles of freedom and security, and how – in a democracy – we achieve widespread political consent for the way in which we strike that balance.

This has been true in every age. But it is a particular question for now, as the potential and opportunities of the internet stretch out before us, as new technologies connect us ever closer together, and as terrorists, criminals and the authorities who try to track them down become ever more sophisticated in their operations and techniques.

Unfortunately, this debate has become caricatured in a way I believe is neither helpful, nor allows us to make progress on some of the vital questions of principle that are at stake.

This is not a binary debate between good and evil, between the forces of freedom, democracy and civil liberty on the one hand; and on the other a surveillance state, concerned only with mass collection of information on its citizens for the purposes of social control.

It is, rather, a debate about the strength of our democracy and its interaction with parts of the state that are, by their nature, secret.

It is this set of questions:

– are the capabilities of the state proportionate to the risks we face?

– do we have the right legal frameworks to protect our citizens’ human rights, freedom of communication and privacy, even as technology develops?

– do we have the right oversight regime so that the agencies and those who work in them are held to account for their activities within those frameworks?

– are we completely unstinting in the pursuit of transparency so that we are always confident that secrecy – where it is used – is a necessity, rather than simply a habit?

As President Obama has done in America, it is time to bring these questions into the mainstream of political debate.

This is a set of questions that I have been involved in for a long time, and one that requires constant discussion and challenge.

The public debate that has surrounded the Snowden leaks came on the back of a long running public and parliamentary debate about communications data.

Again, this was a debate that some caricatured in very black and white terms. But again, viewing this debate only from its 2 poles misses the point.

My challenge to the Home Office’s comms data proposals was not an argument with law enforcement about the need for investigations to keep pace with new modes of communication on the internet. But in a world where internet freedoms are so highly fought for and highly prized, had we found the right, proportionate response to this capability challenge? Had we struck the right balance? My answer to this was no, and so I said that the proposed Comms Data Bill could not proceed.

There is another reason that I think we should be talking about this now. Over the past several years we have seen many of the pillars of our society deeply weakened through crises that eroded public trust. Parliament through the expenses scandal, the press through phone hacking, our banks, the BBC, the police. In each case we are having to work hard to rebuild public confidence. From these examples we have also learned that unless we act quickly to strengthen public support for these institutions, these failures can quickly become corrosive for the future. I do not want the agencies to suffer the same fate.

It is vital for the future safety and security of our country – as well as the rights and freedoms of our citizens – that we work tirelessly to sustain and support public trust in the security services, and secure widespread political consent for their activities and reach. And we should not be afraid if this means greater openness, and reform.

Privacy is integral to a free, fair and open society. A society in which views can be freely expressed in public and in private, whether it’s criticism of the government or an idea for a new business. A society in which people can move around freely and associate with whomever they please. A society in which people can reach their full potential, where no-one is enslaved by ignorance or conformity.

None of these is possible if we are constantly worrying about who might be reading our words, watching our movements, or monitoring the company we keep.

This idea – the notion that privacy is fundamental to democracy – is enshrined in article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to private and family life. Crucially, it is not what is termed an absolute right. Your private affairs are protected, but only up to a point: if you’re intent on breaking the law and harming others, the state can invade your privacy.

This is a balancing test – the public interest in preventing crime has to justify the level of intrusion that the state wishes to impose.

Or as John Stuart Mill put it:

…the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.

Our intelligence agencies work within this legal and ethical framework in the defence of a liberal, open society. They have a duty to uphold the privacy of law-abiding citizens as well as the responsibility for investigating and disrupting threats to our national security.

The question is not whether the agencies uphold these values or comply with the framework. I don’t doubt that. The question we need to ask ourselves is whether the frameworks we have set for them are fit for the internet age.

The agencies’ practices, of course, have evolved along with the communications they seek to intercept: first telegrams, then telephones, fax, email. When the internet went mainstream in the late 1990s, a new information medium was born and with it new modes of communication: discussion forums, web-based email, instant messaging, voice and videostreaming over IP, social networks, blogs, and micro-blogs.

The online world engulfed and digitised established technologies like video, music and print. Encryption flourished as individuals and businesses became increasingly concerned about cybercrime. And the web of course went mobile, extending its reach via smart phones and tablets into every corner of our lives.

This new medium has brought unprecedented opportunity, innovation, and the spread of new ideas. But it has also opened up new possibilities for criminals, terrorists and hostile states to plot, recruit and carry out attacks, while concealing their identities.

So the agencies have, rightly, harnessed the power of new technologies to ensure that our ‘signals intelligence’ (or SIGINT) capability keeps pace with the technologies that people are using.

Meanwhile, the sheer amount of data we are generating has just gone through the roof. 22 billion letters are delivered by Royal Mail each year. That sounds like a lot, but roughly 2.4 trillion emails are sent every year in the UK. That’s more emails sent in 4 days than letters delivered in a whole year.

Then there’s the 1 billion tweets, 23 billion Google searches, 70 billion Facebook views, 145 billion text messages, and 160 billion instant messages sent in the UK each year. Our online data and communications dwarf our real-life, real-world communications; and this trend is set to continue.

As the data mountain has grown, so has the capacity to store it, analyse it, and extract value from it. That is in many ways good news: for example, it means companies can offer us free services and applications driven solely by advertising revenues.

On the other hand, few of us are really aware of the size and nature of our electronic footprint. Smart phones, for instance, keep track of so much more about us than could ever have been possible in the past – including recording our location on a regular basis. But we understand little about who retains such data, and what it might reveal.

All this puts a lot of stress on the notion of privacy. We had a foretaste of this with the ID cards scheme, where people started to understand the potential for abuse if government was able to link together disparate databases (banking, immigration, health, benefits, criminal justice).

The coalition government acted quickly to respond to public concerns about ID cards, decommissioning the scheme and destroying the national identity register that sat behind it.

But that was a public scheme, debated in parliament and in living rooms up and down the country; the recent leaks have triggered a global debate about what governments can do with this data in secret.

The issue I want to focus on today is what happens when personal internet data is collected in bulk by our intelligence agencies.

As President Obama has said in his speech on 17th January, responding to the report of his Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies:

The combination of increased digital information and powerful supercomputers offers intelligence agencies the possibility of sifting through massive amounts of bulk data to identify patterns or pursue leads that may thwart impending threats. But the government collection and storage of such bulk data also creates a potential for abuse.

President Obama is referring there to the vast quantity of information that is generated by us all, every day, in our communications over the internet. This includes so-called metadata, the contextual information which describes the ‘who’, ‘when’, ‘where’, and ‘how’ of our communications, alongside the ‘what’ – the content itself. When this is collected on a large scale, it is referred to as bulk data.

GCHQ is legally able to collect bulk data as part of its work in countering threats from abroad. The national security justification for doing so is straightforward. If we are talking about an international terrorist network that we want to disrupt, then we want them to be able to find out who is talking to whom.

That network may be operating across several jurisdictions and in parts of the world where we could not access industry-held data even if we wanted to. And so bulk data allows our analysts to trace those interactions, those networks, while leaving the overwhelming majority of the data untouched. In other words, this is the way we collect the haystack in order to find the needles.

On the other hand, the civil liberty concern about holding bulk data is also clear. Some critics argue that the very act of collecting untargeted data on law-abiding citizens is an invasion of privacy, regardless of whether it is ever looked at.

Others argue that it is acceptable to do so abroad, but that data collection in the UK should be strictly limited to information on named individual suspects. All would agree that once governments hold bulk data, there is of course a risk that it could be misused, for example to monitor legitimate political protest.

Again, I don’t think the answer to the dilemma sits at either pole. The idea that the security services should be able to track communications in order to pursue or disrupt serious criminals and terrorists is not controversial. If, in order to do that effectively, the judgement is that there is no practical alternative to bulk data collection, then to some degree we should allow it.

But the questions are then those of necessity and proportionality, the same principles which govern established data protection law, and start from the principle that the government should intrude as little as possible into private affairs:

– how long is the data stored, by whom, and how much of it?

– how can the collection of extraneous data on law-abiding citizens be minimised?

– who should authorise access to the data that is collected? Should permission be granted internally within the agencies, or should it be signed off by a minister, an external body, or by a judge?

– should metadata be treated as less sensitive than content, despite that fact that it can tell a great deal about an individual’s private life?

– what kind of analysis can the data be subject to?

– oversight – is the way we supervise all this sufficiently robust?

Currently, the ability of the agencies to gather the content of a communication – what is actually said and its associated metadata – is governed by a legal framework, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which has a strict system of warrants that need to be signed off by democratically accountable ministers (the Foreign or Home Secretaries) before content can be accessed. In my experience, the agencies pride themselves, rightly, on their strict adherence to this framework.

But those laws were written 14 years ago, before the internet revolution had really taken hold.

Some privacy experts understood what might happen with the advent of the internet, and did raise concerns at the time of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill. But these were not widely understood, and government proceeded regardless. The result is that some aspects of RIPA already feel outdated.

For example, in the internet age, is the distinction that RIPA strikes between external and internal communications valid, and what does it mean in practice? The mission of GCHQ is first and foremost about countering threats from abroad. But when it comes to internet communications, the distinction between ‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’ is all but redundant.

The email that I send to my friend who lives a few streets away from me is likely to be routed via the United States; the video that I watch on YouTube may be retrieved from a server in Finland, Chile or Singapore. Transactions that feel intuitively like they take place within the UK now qualify as external communications, and traces of them may end up in GCHQ’s servers.

In other words in the course of carrying out its core function, monitoring the ‘external’ communications of those who threaten our national security, both the content and the ‘metadata’ of our domestic communications may as a consequence be collected and stored.

Whether that data is ever interrogated is a separate question, but that simple fact about collection jars with the perception that most people have of GCHQ as a predominantly foreign intelligence agency.

These facts pose intricate and difficult questions. The challenge, then, is for careful analysis and practical solutions, and to determine where the right balance can be struck.

How, therefore, should we proceed?

I have and will continue to have the highest respect for the professionalism of our agencies. They conduct their work in good faith and the scope of their activities is constrained by laws, including the Human Rights Act, which require them to operate in the public interest. That being said, I am concerned about 2 things which risk undermining their reputation and, by extension, their long-term effectiveness.

First, our current framework assumes that the collection of bulk data is uncontroversial as long as arrangements for accessing it are suitably stringent. I don’t accept that.

I agree, of course, that strong access controls are vital to prevent employees from going on ‘fishing expeditions’ once a store of data exists. But the case for collection itself has to be made, not assumed, and it must be shown to be proportionate. This is particularly true in a world where – as we have seen in recent weeks in the context of NHS data – people are starting to question the uses to which their data are put and to demand that government does more to obtain their informed consent.

Second, the public interest cannot be democratically determined behind closed doors. Decisions exercised in obscurity cannot be relied on to command public confidence when they come to light.

It is not enough for the agencies to claim that they accurately interpret the correct balance between privacy and national security: they must be seen to do so, and that means strong, exacting, third-party oversight.

The first of these observations is a cultural problem. The second is a systemic problem flowing from secrecy. Both point to the need for better scrutiny, oversight and challenge.

These issues will need to be revisited in the next Parliament. I believe that thinking and analysis needs to start now, so that we are in a position to take early decisions after the next election.

I would like the next government to be able to draw on an independent assessment of the issues at stake. The ISC is conducting a review into privacy and security which I expect will provide a valuable contribution to a wider discussion. But there is an important role for independent think tanks and NGOs too, and that’s why I’m delighted to be able to announce today that the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) has agreed to establish an expert panel to review the use of internet data for surveillance purposes.

The panel will consist of a group of experts, drawn from the worlds of intelligence, technology, civil liberties, and law, and chaired by Professor Michael Clarke, RUSI’s Director General. They will look at the principles that ought to govern our use of surveillance, examine current practice, and make recommendations for reform and, where necessary, new legislation. They will look at the specific challenges I have set out today, including the proportionate use of bulk data, but also the question of access to communications data held by private companies too.

This is not an approach that I have been able to agree within government with my coalition partners. For now, Liberal Democrats are leading the way, and we will be the first political party to debate these issues at our Spring Conference later this week.

I hope that as it progresses, the review that RUSI will lead will be able to garner support from across the political spectrum.

I will now turn to the concrete changes that I would have liked to see enacted by this government, and which don’t in my view require the kind of detailed reflection that we need on data, and which could be done promptly.

To start with, we should introduce more transparency and openness where we can do so without jeopardising operations. Secrecy is essential for the agencies to conduct their operations, but if blanket secrecy becomes an unthinking default response then public trust will suffer.

The assumption should always be for openness where possible, secrecy where necessary.

We would set up a new single web portal – we could call it “surveillance.gov.uk”- to act as a single source of information about the work of the agencies. New reports, legal rulings and statistics would be posted here to give them due prominence.

More significantly, we would follow the example of the private sector and publish annual transparency reports with a breakdown of the requests made under RIPA for access to comms data held by internet service providers and telecoms firms.

For the first time people will be able to see which agencies request access to data, on how many individuals and for what purposes.

Next, oversight. The oversight mechanisms are complicated and – in my view – unnecessarily difficult for a layperson to understand. This means that the very mechanisms that are supposed to reassure the public are, in fact, inaccessible and unconvincing.

The public face of agency accountability, the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, has been criticised for being overly-deferential, and I think anyone who saw the recent public hearing with the 3 agency heads would agree that the pre-cooked questioning, whilst welcome as a new innovation, was no match for the kind of raw grilling that the US agencies receive in front of their congressional oversight committees. We have recently given the committee more powers and resources, but questions remain about its effectiveness and I consider the ISC to be on probation in its present form. The ISC has to persuade the public that they are really capable of holding the agencies’ feet to the fire.

The danger, whether in perception or reality, is that we have a closed shop, especially when the Chair of the Committee previously served as one of the sponsor ministers for the agencies in Whitehall. If the public believe that there is no grit in the machine – no real push to challenge the agencies in a tough and exacting way where needed – that in my judgement is a serious political liability for organisations that can only operate with a high degree of public trust. I am clear that we need to simplify and open up the systems and institutions that oversee agency activities, to ensure they behave in a sufficiently challenging way, and to increase engagement with the public.

That is why today I am calling for the following reforms.

First, the ISC should be further strengthened as the parliamentary body that provides scrutiny and challenge. The membership of the committee should be expanded from 9 to 11, to match the standard size of select committees. The holder of the chair should in future be an opposition party member, to avoid accusations that the committee is too cosy with the government of the day. Hearings should be held wherever possible in public. And budgets should be set in public for 5 years ahead, to allow it the stability to plan a long term work programme.

Secondly, changes should be made to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), which considers complaints against the use of intrusive powers by the intelligence agencies and others. At the moment there is no right of appeal – if the IPT rules against an individual, his or her only recourse is to the European Court of Human Rights. We should enable appeals to be heard in this country. We should also introduce greater transparency to the work of the IPT, with the reasons for rulings published.

Thirdly, we should create an Inspector General for the UK intelligence services, with reinforced powers, remit and resources.

This role would replace 2 existing offices, the Interception of Communications Commissioner, and the Intelligence Services Commissioner. The requirement for those individuals to have held high judicial office should be removed to allow recruitment of the new Inspector General from a wider pool. My hope would be that over time, this post would have a greater public impact, increasing the general understanding of the agencies’ work and how they are held to account.

So, in conclusion, what kind of internet do we want? An internet which is open, vibrant, a force for change, a place where private conversation can take place without fear? Or, at the other extreme, an internet that becomes a tool of social and political control rather than liberation? In some parts of the world, that dystopian version of the future is already becoming a dangerous reality.

In others, where people are only just becoming connected and the infrastructure for the internet is at its early stages, other governments are looking to this debate to guide them as to how the relationship between the state, the citizen, and the internet should be governed. We have a duty to ensure the UK stands proudly for the free and open internet.

Yet it is in all our interests to ensure that we can enforce the law in the online world in the same way we enforce the law in the offline world, targeting terrorist and criminal networks and preventing attacks from taking place, precisely to safeguard the free and open society that we want.

The challenge is to preserve their ability to keep us safe without altering the fundamentally open nature of the web.

I strongly believe that if we are going to establish an enduring basis of trust between the public and the intelligence agencies in the internet age, then the ideas I have set out today constitute the bare minimum that is needed. We cannot foresee what the internet will look like in 10 years, let alone 50 or 100 years. But we can confidently predict that the exponential growth of personal data and our ability to analyse it will continue unabated.

The way in which governments make use of that data should be of fundamental concern to anyone who cares about liberal democracy.

Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, at Southfields Academy on 27th February 2014.

I know that a lot of you are in the process of making some big decisions about your lives and I know how stressful and complicated that can be.

For your generation, more than any other previously, there are a dizzying array of options – endless courses and acronyms to choose from. That can be extremely difficult to navigate.

You’re also making these choices at a time when we’re emerging from the biggest economic crisis in living memory.

We already had a historical problem with youth unemployment in this country: even before the recession, it was rising. And this problem was exacerbated back in 2008, when our country was hit by the cardiac arrest in our banking system.

So, since we came to power, the coalition government has focused on doing what we can to help more young people get onto the right path.

We’ve created a record number of new apprenticeships, including establishing more high-level apprenticeships in professions like accountancy, publishing and law.

We’re raising the quality of vocational qualifications and, from this September, new Tech-Levels endorsed by employers will offer a genuine alternative to students seeking to enter a particular trade or occupation.

We’ve launched Traineeships, which are a stepping stone to more people getting a job or starting an apprenticeship.

Through the Youth Contract, we’re making it easier for businesses to take on young people. This includes a hugely successful work experience programme, which has created an extra 100,000 work placements so far.

We’re abolishing the job tax for young people: cutting the National Insurance contributions businesses need to make for employees under 21.

And, at last, the number of young people out of work is coming down. Over the last 3 months, youth unemployment has fallen by almost 50,000.

But we need to do more. As our economy gets stronger, I want to make sure that every young person shares in the recovery and that all of you can realise your ambitions and full potential.

For some of you that will mean going to university.

As I was saying earlier this week, it’s important you know that there is absolutely no financial barrier to you doing that: access to university is about your ability, not your ability to pay.

You’ll remember a couple of years ago the government took the decision to allow universities to raise tuition fees. At the time a lot of wild predictions were thrown around, claiming that thousands of young people would have to give up on the dream of a university degree. But I made sure that didn’t happen.

I made sure that no student pays a penny up front – you don’t pay anything back until you leave university, get a job and you’re earning at least £21,000.

I made sure that your repayments depend on your salary – so, if you earn less, you pay back less every month.

I made sure that, if you don’t earn enough to pay it back, eventually the money you owe is written off.

I made sure it’s actually easier than before for disadvantaged young people to get a degree by increasing the grants and support that’s available and by forcing universities to open up their doors and attract more students from lower income homes.

So not only have the predictions failed to materialise – the opposite has happened. We’re seeing more people applying to university than ever before; more young men and women are going to university to do full-time courses than ever before; and there is a higher proportion of young people from poorer backgrounds going to university than ever before.

So if you want to go to university, providing you work hard, you can.

But what if university isn’t the right option for you? Unfortunately, there is still a barely concealed snobbery in this country against vocational education. For far too long, academic qualifications have been seen as better than vocational qualifications. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Look at any successful economy, like Germany or the Netherlands, and you’ll see that their vocational system is every bit as strong, well-respected and popular as their higher education systems. These countries are getting it right.

So, last year, I commissioned a government review – along with the Prime Minister – to see what more we could do to boost vocational learning, simplify the system and give you a helping hand as you make these important decisions.

Today, I want to announce 3 specific changes we’re introducing to help you do that.

Ensuring the best advice and guidance possible

First, we’re going to make sure that every young person gets good careers advice and guidance at school. So you know what courses, training and jobs you could do in the future and the skills and experience you need to do them.

Some schools like here at Southfields Academy already do this brilliantly, but too many young people aren’t getting what they need. In a recent survey, Ofsted found only 1 in 5 schools were giving all their students detailed careers support. And, for a lot of the young people I meet, careers guidance currently feels like a tick box exercise squeezed into lunchtime break with a busy teacher, who no doubt already has a lot on their plate.

So, we are issuing new guidance for schools, in the next few weeks, that will set out just what good careers advice should look like. Ofsted will be looking more closely at the quality of careers advice and support available when they inspect schools.

We hope this guidance will give every student guaranteed access to the best-quality careers advice available, whether that is face-to-face, online or via the phone. And one of the most important changes we’re introducing is that schools will have a new responsibility to develop close links with employers, across their local area. This is so more young people can get the chance to meet successful business people, spend time working in their organisations and access valuable support like coaching or mentoring from people in the careers they want to do.

This shouldn’t just be down to our schools doing more.

All of us – as parents, employers and former students – have a responsibility to help prepare our young people for life in the real world and need to get involved.

If you want to become a lawyer, a chef, a plumber, accountant or IT engineer, what’s better than sitting down and talking to someone who actually does that job, or even visiting the place where they work to see what it’s like?

We’re giving schools the flexibility to decide how best they can meet the standard of support Ofsted is looking for and we will see how this works over the next few months.

But, if it still feels like young people aren’t getting the support they need, there are some specific things that I would like us to do in the next Parliament.

This includes encouraging a representative for local employers to sit on every school governing body and that also every school collects and publishes more detailed, up-to-date information about their pupils’ destinations post-16. This is to ensure more schools can be judged not only on their students’ exam results, but also on what they do after they leave.

So, if you’re fed up with the careers advice you’re getting now, you’ll be able to look forward to speaking to career experts, meeting people who know about the jobs you want to do and getting valuable experience in the workplace.

Planning for your future

Secondly, we want to create a UCAS style system for all 16 year olds.

Why do we need that?

Well, at the moment, if you want to go to university, all the information you could ever need about how to do that is available to you via the UCAS website. You can research different universities and courses, check what A-Level subjects and grades you need to get in and, of course, submit and check your application.

That doesn’t happen if you want to do some other kind of training.

So at 16, when a lot of you are having to choose whether you go to college, do an apprenticeship or train for a particular trade or occupation, we think it’s only right that you get the same guidance and support as those going to university.

That’s why, as you’re studying for your GCSEs, you’ll get the chance to sit down and search, via a single website, the full range of college courses, apprenticeships, traineeships and other work-based programmes on offer in your local area. Once you’ve found an option that works for you, you’ll be able to apply for your preferred course.

Your local authority will be responsible for providing that site, based on the latest information available from schools, colleges and employers. Your local authority will also need to ensure there’s a place for you in education and training. And we will publish data regularly to show how successful local authorities have been in helping their young people into training or employment.

Ultimately, I want to see this process become a rite of passage for every 16-year-old: helping you to make an active choice about your future and set out a clear plan for the road ahead.

Helping you back on your feet

Finally, what about those young people who can’t find a job and don’t know where to go for help?

Right now, if you’re 16 or 17, and looking for work, you can’t go to your local Jobcentre for advice about how to find a job. The rules say that you can only go to Jobcentre Plus at 18 or above. That just seems wrong. Surely we should be getting in there early and supplying you with the support you need right now to get into training or work.

So I’m pleased to announce that government will now be testing a new approach in selected Jobcentres across Britain. This, for the first time, will give 16 and 17-year-olds access to personalised jobs advice and support through Jobcentre Plus.

You’ll, finally, have someone there you can talk to about your options and who can give you information about different schemes like apprenticeships and traineeships and help you apply for jobs or training places. If needed, they’ll also work with organisations like the Princes Trust and other providers to ensure you can get valuable skills and experience.

In addition, we’re also going to increase the support available to 18 to 21-year-olds looking for work. From this autumn, we’ll be running pilots with 15,000 young jobseekers.

From day 1 of signing up for unemployment benefit, these young people will need to show they have those maths and English qualifications that every job demands. If they don’t, their adviser will get them on that training immediately to ensure that if you’re not earning, you’re still learning.

We’re looking at using the latest online learning technologies, so you can fit this training around the other responsibilities in your life.

If you don’t do this training, you won’t get your Jobseekers Allowance.

And critically, if you find a job, this training won’t just stop. You’ll be able to carry on with it, until you get the skills you need.

For all young jobseekers, after 6 months out of work, your advisor will also help you get a work placement.

This is so you can get first hand experience of being in a workplace, as well as help build your confidence and develop more of the skills prospective employers want.

If these pilots are successful, I want to see them rolled out across the country: putting earn or learn at the heart of the support we give you.

Conclusion

So, imagine: if you’re a young person who has felt that you can’t get the careers advice and guidance you need to figure out what you want to do next, you’ll now get it.

If you’re a young person who can’t get the same quality of information and support to make your choices as your friends who want to go to university, you’ll now get it.

And if you’re a young person who can’t find the help you need to get a job, we want to ensure you can get it through Jobcentre Plus. That includes making sure you have the essential skills for work.

Together, these changes will help us simplify your choices, end the snobbery surrounding vocational education that limits your prospects and support you as you make these decisions.

We want every young person to be able to follow their chosen path. This is my commitment, and that of the Liberal Democrats, to you: to do whatever we can to ensure you get an equal shot at the life you want.

That’s how we will secure your future and Britain’s long term success: building a stronger economy and fairer society for this generation, the next and all those that follow.

Thank you.

Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, at Bishop Challoner Catholic School in London on 25th February 2014.

University isn’t for everyone. Sometimes vocational training is better – an apprenticeship or a course other than a degree.

But it is important that, if you aren’t considering university, it’s for the right reasons.

I want to make sure not a single one of you is being put off a degree because you think it’s something you can’t afford.

I’m sure you know that, a few years ago, government took the decision to allow universities to raise their fees.

There was a fair amount of anger about that.

The previous government had introduced fees, increased them and then commissioned a review into raising them again.

But what matters to me now is that you know you can still afford to go to university – and that you don’t let the myths that have emerged crowd out the facts.

I made absolutely sure that it wouldn’t turn a degree into a luxury for the very rich.

I made sure that no student pays a penny up front – you don’t pay anything back until you leave university, get a job and you’re earning at least £21,000.

I made sure that your repayments depend on your salary – so, if you earn less, you pay back less every month.

I made sure that, if you don’t earn enough to pay it back, eventually the money you owe is written off.

I made sure it’s actually easier than before for disadvantaged young people to get a degree by increasing the grants and support that’s available and by forcing universities to open up their doors and attract more students from lower income homes.

I understand why, when I said these things at the time, people were sceptical. That certainly wasn’t helped by some of the wild predictions being thrown around: student numbers would plummet; university places would need to be slashed; for thousands of Britain’s young people a university degree would become a thing of the past.

But not only have these predictions failed to materialise – the exact opposite has happened.

We now have the highest application rates ever.

More young men and women are going full-time to university than ever before.

A higher proportion of students from poorer backgrounds are going than ever before – 18-year-olds from disadvantaged homes are actually 70% more likely to enter higher education than they were 10 years ago.

Entry rates for students from nearly every ethnic minority are at their highest level ever.

So to all of you, to each and every one of you: if a degree is what you want, you can still have it – you’ve just got to work hard. We’ve even removed the arbitrary cap on the number of university places available so as many people who want to go, can.

To the mums and dads in the room: if you’ve always hoped to one day see that framed graduation photo of your son or daughter on your mantelpiece – you can still have it.

Whatever you heard in the past, don’t let it lower your sights for the future.

University may not be for everyone, but it is open to everyone.

Getting a degree depends on ability, not ability to pay.

The highest ever application rates. More people doing full-time courses than ever before. A higher proportion of young men and women from disadvantaged backgrounds going. Higher grants to help the poorest students. No one paying back a penny until they’re earning a decent wage. And, if they can’t afford it, no one paying a penny back at all.

Forget the myths; be led by the facts, and make the right decision for you.

Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister, on 10th February 2014.

A lot has happened since I spoke here last February. At that time, critics of the government’s economic strategy were still clamouring for a Plan B. Around the country you could feel a growing restlessness as people wondered when, if, things would get better. And, in government, we just had to hold our nerve.

Today, a year later, it’s clear that was the right decision. Growth is back, unemployment down, 1.6 million jobs created in the private sector, the deficit reduced by a third, confidence returning. There is a lot more to do, but Britain is now firmly on the road to health. My party takes a lot of pride in that, we know there are people out there who didn’t think we had it in us. But we entered coalition precisely to provide the stable government needed to fix the economy. And, without the choice the Liberal Democrats took in May 2010 to secure that stability, Britain would not have the steady recovery, rising employment and shrinking fiscal deficit we now enjoy.

We also made sure that the Coalition’s economic strategy is about more than deficit reduction. Sorting out the nation’s finances is essential, but just as important is investing in the things that drive growth. That’s why, despite all of the difficult savings we have had to make, we have still invested in record numbers of apprenticeships; a £3.2bn Regional Growth Fund; the world’s first Green Investment Bank, pioneered by Vince Cable, and we’re investing more in infrastructure as a share of GDP over this decade than under the whole period of the last government.

The Liberal Democrats also understand that it isn’t government that creates jobs and growth, it’s the businesses and investors of Britain who do that. Our task is to create the right conditions for you to power our economy forward. That’s why we stuck to our joint coalition plan, despite considerable political pressure to change course. And we are doing everything we can to protect British trade as the country’s most, you might argue only, properly internationalist party. As we head towards the European elections in May we will continue to make the case for Britain’s membership of the EU – our biggest export market – for the sake of prosperity and jobs.

For all these reasons there would be no sustained recovery without the Liberal Democrats. We have finally been given the chance to show that Britain’s economy can be trusted in our hands. We are not complacent. The trauma in our banking system at the end of the Labour years was profound, much worse than anyone realised at the time. Our continued progress must not be taken for granted, there is still a long way to go; this will not be a one-parliament job.

So my message to you tonight, as Britain’s business leaders, is this: the Liberal Democrats want to finish the job we’ve started and we want the chance to finish it in a way that is responsible and fair. That begins, of course, with completing the task of balancing the books. Sound public finances will not, alone, deliver growth, but they are the foundation on which everything else is built. This is taking longer than the Coalition had hoped, and we’ve been very open about that, extending the timetable was the right thing to do. In the Autumn Statement we set out a plan to get debt falling as a proportion of GDP by 2016/17 and to get the current structural deficit in balance a year later. That is the right timescale and the one to which the Liberal Democrats remain absolutely committed. If I am in government again, this is the plan I want us to stick to.

Ed Balls has now confirmed that Labour think they can put all this off until the end of the next parliament. Borrowing more, piling on more debt, diminishing the confidence of our creditors. But it’s reckless and it threatens the stability that’s been achieved. Ed Miliband keeps promising a recovery for all. But there will be no recovery at all if you won’t see through the difficult decisions and get the job done.

The Conservatives, on the other hand, agree we need to finish what we’ve started, but they will not do that in a way that is fair.  To hold our country together in these difficult times, it is essential that everyone makes a fair contribution. But the Conservative Party has ruled out asking the very wealthy to pay even just a bit more in tax to help the ongoing fiscal effort. Instead they are going to find all of the necessary savings over and above Whitehall cuts by reducing the support we give to the working age poor. The Conservatives have made a deliberate decision that this one group – the working age poor – should be singled out for especially tough sacrifices. When George Osborne says he wants to take a further £12 billion from the welfare budget, that’s actually who he’s talking about. He’s not talking about taking away the universal benefits enjoyed by the very rich, the free TV licences handed out to very wealthy older people. He’s talking about the people scraping by on the minimum wage, the jobseekers who’ve found themselves temporarily down on their luck, the men and women trying to earn their way out of poverty, often working more than one job. Of course we need to get welfare spending at sensible levels. But not through an assault on the hardworking people we should be helping stand on their own two feet.

By contrast, the Liberal Democrats will continue to rely on a mix of tax and spending measures to fill the black hole in our finances, just as we have in this Coalition Government. The Conservatives have decided to break with the approach they have signed up to in government with us in order to pursue spending cuts alone, but I believe, as do most mainstream economists, that a mix of tax and spending measures is the most economically and socially responsible way to proceed. That’s why, for example, my party will continue to advocate a small levy on properties worth over £2 million.

At the same time, the Liberal Democrats want to keep cutting income tax for ordinary taxpayers. That will be the main item Danny and I push for in the Budget again. In the next parliament we would raise the personal allowance so that no one pays any income tax on the first £12,500 they earn. It’s our flagship policy because it’s how we make work pay, and it’s our way of making sure the British people know that this recovery is theirs.

So, unlike Labour we’ll finish the job. Unlike the Conservatives we’ll finish it fairly.

What then? My party will be agreeing our manifesto over the coming months. I’m not going to pre-empt that process, we’ll set out our fiscal position in detail in due course. But I can tell you that, as we agree it, we’ll have two big objectives in mind.

The first is delivering decent, high quality public services while maintaining control of state spending. After nearly a decade of austerity this will be one of the biggest challenges for the next government. We need to start having a proper debate about how we do it. At the moment all we’re getting from left and right is the same, familiar argument about the size of the state. On the left we have the prospect of an unaffordable, bloated state built on irresponsible borrowing, unsustainable debt, spending for spending’s sake. On the right, talk of an ever shrinking state, in other words cuts for cuts’ sake. And both are, in my view, putting ideology ahead of good sense. When we have finally sorted out our public finances, why would we suddenly start spending money in a way we can’t afford? Equally, after years of reining in spending, why would we be remorseless and dogmatic about further cuts? What Britain will need is a carefully calibrated approach, government living within its means, while still providing the services people need – first class schools, top quality healthcare, a modern transport system, more homes. And, once we’ve completed the fiscal consolidation and the economy is growing, the services the nation relies on should benefit from that growth. I expect the best way to do this will be broadly to maintain the share of our nation’s wealth used to deliver public services and investment. Once we are paying our way as a country again, the resources we apply to our common good should grow as the economy grows.

Our second objective must be to get debt down to sensible levels as a share of GDP. This issue is going to present a particular challenge to progressive politicians. There will be a temptation, once the structural deficit has been dealt with, to revert to pre-crash assumptions about debt. That is clearly where the Labour party is. In fact, they seem to want to go back to their bad old ways without even dealing with the deficit first. But this is a very dangerous reflex, for one big, simple reason, when we emerge from this crisis, our debt will be twice as high as when we went in. By the middle of the next parliament, it will be over £1.5 trillion – almost 80% of GDP. Some people say that’s ok we can afford the interest, we dealt with high debts after both of the wars, we can do it again now, but that argument doesn’t hold anymore. Think of the world we are living in today, gone is the time when we were one of a very small number of dominant players in the world economy. Increasingly our debt is held by overseas and institutional investors in an evermore competitive global environment. Britain simply cannot rely on servicing very high debts as easily as we have done in the past. We’re already spending a huge amount on servicing our debts. By 2015/16, debt interest will be our third biggest item of annual spending, after social security and the NHS. To put that in context, for that money you could build around 6,000 new schools, or increase the NHS’s budget by more than a half.

We are also an ageing population. It is good news that we can all expect to live longer, but it will come at a price to future generations. The costs of health, social care, pensions are forecast to rise inexorably over the next 50 years. Without policy action, by 2062 the OBR expect our debt to hit 99% of GDP. If we leave today’s debts as they are, those future pressures will be unbearable. And, if we hand over high levels of indebtedness to our children and grandchildren, all we will do is leave them more vulnerable to inevitable future shocks. I hope no politician in this country will ever again claim to have ‘ended boom and bust.’ In an interdependent global economy downturns are inevitable. And if we go into another recession with a high debt to GDP ratio it will be much harder for us to keep the confidence of creditors, to keep the cost of borrowing down. And, as any good Keynesian will tell you, our ability to stimulate our economy will be massively reduced. How can any progressive advocate that? As we have seen in other European countries, when a country loses control of its finances it is the poorest who suffer most.

The job of progressives is to shape the world as it is, not as it was or as we would like it to be. And the Labour party needs to recognise the way the world has changed. In an era of globalisation, integrated financial markets, when we are just emerging from the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression and facing huge demographic challenges, we must be alive to the danger of persistently high levels of debt. Yes we will need to invest, my party and I have already committed in the next parliament to keep investing in the country’s productive infrastructure for the sake of our long-term well-being. But it must not come at the expense of our long-term stability. Investing to drive future prosperity must be coupled with sustainable finances – and that’s the balance we will strike. The Liberal Democrats will plot a course which safeguards investment, which protects future generations from future shocks and which ensures that, instead of spending more and more of our money on servicing the interest payments set by international bond traders, we spend it on the support and services the British people need.

For these reasons, in fifteen months I want us to get into government again to finish the job we’ve started, to finish it fairly and, as we head towards the next stage of our recovery, to protect the progress that has been so hard won. Tonight I hope to leave you knowing that you can rely on us. I want you to know that the Liberal Democrats are a party of business precisely because we can be trusted with Britain’s recovery. And because we are determined to build a strong and resilient economy in which Britain’s firms can flourish. Over the coming years I want us to do that together. I want the nation to come out of this crisis better, stronger than when we went in. And every day that I am in government, that is what I will strive to deliver.

Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, on 20th January 2014.

The problem with mental health

Man Up. Pull Yourself Together. Winners don’t quit – these are some of the negative reactions that greeted Jonathan Trott’s brave decision to leave England’s recent Ashes Tour due to a stress-related condition. No-one would have said those things if Jonathan Trott had broken his wrist, but it’s typical of the different ways that we treat physical and mental health.

It’s damaging. It’s unhelpful. At least 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem at some point in their lives. That pretty much means that behind every door in Britain, you’ll find a family that includes or knows someone dealing with a mental health condition.

It’s a dad who is off work with stress; a mum suffering panic attacks; a teenager with an eating disorder or a lonely grandfather coping with depression. It’s a good friend who’s feeling suicidal, a neighbour’s son dealing with schizophrenia or a work colleague managing bi-polar disorder.

These are people’s everyday lives. And, as a society, we need to accept that.

We’re still not comfortable talking about mental health. Just imagine yourself stood at the school gates, chatting to other parents. Almost all of us would be fine with mentioning a relative with diabetes, or a family friend undergoing treatment for a broken arm or leg. But, if a loved one was struggling with a mental health problem, would you have the same conversation? For most people, probably not.

I’m not saying everyone should suddenly start talking to strangers about their personal struggles, or the intimate details of their family’s private lives. But I am saying that, when it’s a mental health condition, you shouldn’t have to be so scared about how the outside world will react.

It’s true that over the last few decades huge progress has been made – not least because of campaigning by people and groups in this room. But, all too often, attitudes to mental health are outdated; stuck in the dark ages; full of stigma and stereotypes.

It’s the old-fashioned view that mental health problems should be kept hidden: something to be ashamed of and somehow less deserving of our sympathy or attention than physical illness.

It means a lot of people don’t really understand what those living with mental health problems are going through and how we can help them. And that just puts more strain on the families trying to cope with these difficulties.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve met people with a variety of mental health problems. And all of them have stories about how that lack of wider understanding about mental health makes their lives harder.

Many of them told me they’d found it difficult to get work, because employers had questioned their commitment, or ability to do the job.

Others said they’d struggled to ask for help and had experienced delays, or difficulties in getting the right treatment. On their worst days, all of them felt cut off and alone.

I talk a lot about the need for Britain to build a stronger economy and a fairer society.

But we can’t have either, if we ignore this issue, while there are people suffering in silence and their talent and potential are going to waste.

So it’s time for us to bring mental health out of the shadows and to give people with mental health conditions the support they need and deserve.

And I want to pay tribute to those who have stood up and spoken about their own struggles. Whether they are celebrities like Stephen Fry, Trisha Goddard, Ruby Wax, Frank Bruno, Alistair Campbell and others, or everyday heroes like Jonny Benjamin, Wayne Goodwin and all those talking about their experiences in Time to Change’s new publicity campaign. And I know that some of them are here today.

Slowly, but surely, you are transforming people’s attitudes about mental health and ensuring that those who need help know that they are not alone.

I also want to thank the mental health experts and professionals, carers and volunteers – including many of those in the room today – working across our health and social care sectors to deliver the highest quality of services they can. It’s because of your tireless work that, despite the challenges, Britain remains a world leader in this field. And, across the country, we have examples of some of the best possible mental health care in the world.

That includes in Birmingham and Solihull, where they have mental health teams working in Accident and Emergency Departments. This is to ensure that anyone turning up in A&E with mental health difficulties, or substance misuse problems can get help there and then. Doctors and nurses are also trained to recognise the signs of mental health problems and to work with these teams. This is hugely important because it means that a person’s mental and physical health can be treated together.

And at Oxleas Mental Health Services, which I visited last week, and which is already seen as an innovator in this field, where they are taking a new approach to gathering feedback from their patients. This involves producing short films based on patient interviews about care, which are then viewed and discussed by the patients and staff to identify ways to improve services.

We also have world-class cutting edge research. For example, last year, the Mental Health Biomedical Research Centre in South London identified a way to predict how individuals will respond to certain drugs, by studying images of the brain. This could help us develop better treatment in the future.

The challenge ahead

So the government has decided to take a bolder and more focused approach to mental health and wellbeing.

You have a passionate advocate in Norman Lamb, as in Paul Burstow before him. They have and will both continue to fight your corner every step of the way.

In 2011, we launched our new Mental Health Strategy setting out our vision to revolutionise our mental health services and improve the availability of high-quality treatment.

For the first time ever, through the Health and Social Care Act, we’ve enshrined in law the equal importance of mental health alongside physical health.

We’ve made mental health a top priority for NHS England. And they are committed to delivering the change that’s now needed.

These are all vital first steps. But important as they are, they still haven’t made enough of a difference for enough people. And some people with mental health problems are still being treated in ways that are frankly unacceptable.

Waiting times for common mental health services are still too long, especially in certain areas of the country.

There have been stories of people of all ages being transferred, sometimes hundreds of miles, to access a bed. And some children with severe mental health problems are still being cared for in adult wards.

Face-down restraint is still being used – despite clear evidence of how damaging it can be.

And we are still not doing enough to address the often serious physical health problems of those with mental health difficulties. On average, the life expectancy of a man with severe mental illness is 20 years less than the rest of the population. For women, it’s 15 years.

All of this must change.

We recognise that we’ve got a mountain to climb. Physical health has been the priority in our health service for years. That’s what’s generated headlines. It’s where the targets have been set. It’s where the bulk of the money has been spent.

And it’s going to take a huge effort to turn that around and give mental health the focus it deserves, especially when financial pressures are so tough.

So today, we’re launching the government’s new mental health action plan. We’re setting out the top 25 areas where we want to see immediate action to ensure equality for mental health and increase access to the best-possible support and treatment.

It’s a call to action – across the NHS, the mental health sector and wider society – too champion change, to transform outdated attitudes and practices and to improve the lives of people with mental health problems.

Helping young people

That includes better care and support for our young people.

In Britain, 1 in 10 children aged between 5 and 16 have diagnosable mental health problems. These young people often fall behind at school; they lose their confidence; maybe they don’t learn how to interact with others; and there can be knock on effects for the rest of their lives.

We know that there are therapies that can really help. And, working with the NHS, we’ve made them available in more and more areas. But there are still too many places where children can’t access this support.

Much of my focus in government has been about giving our young people, especially the most vulnerable in society, the best possible start in life: helping more of our young people with mental health conditions is an essential part of that work.

And that’s why it’s so important to me that the NHS will be extending these therapies to more children and young people. And it is government’s ambition that, by 2018, every child in England who needs this kind of care will be able to access it.

We’ve also committed to tackle many of the problems young people with mental health conditions face when the system starts to treat them as an adult.

Imagine: you’re a young person who’s had to deal with a serious eating disorder. You’ve found the courage to speak up and get help and it’s making a huge difference. As you turn 18, you need to make the move from our child and adolescent mental health services to adult care. This can mean different institutions, different kinds of treatment and different staff. That can be incredibly difficult to cope with.

These young people already have to make some big decisions about their future: whether it’s going to college, leaving home, or getting a job. And if the changes in the support they’re getting aren’t managed properly, it can leave them feeling even more rejected and isolated than they did before. They find themselves with no-one to talk to about what’s happening too them and to help them with the choices they need to make.

As a result, many young people – who still need treatment – drop out of the system all together, just when they were starting to get the help they needed. This makes it harder for them to recover and build the future they want for themselves.

For example, if you are a 17 year-old girl with anorexia, you should have meetings to discuss how your care will be transferred and when. You should also get help to develop a plan for your future care, taking into account how much you’d like your family to be involved. Most importantly, in the 6 months after you’ve moved, if you’ve missed appointments, there should be someone in place who can help you get back into treatment. And, after a year, you and your family should be asked about your experiences and how your treatment and support could be further improved.

That’s an incredibly important step forward. And it is my ambition that this becomes standard practice across the whole of the NHS.

There are already some great examples of local innovation in this area. This includes in Norfolk and Suffolk, where their Youth Mental Health service supports young people from 14 right through to 25, and also in Lancashire, where young people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder are getting help to make the transition to adult care successfully.

We should learn from these areas where the results speak for themselves – the improved lives of so many young people.

Greater choice and certainty

Secondly, we want to give greater choice and certainty to mental health patients across the board.

Since 2008, if you’ve needed a hip or knee replacement, you’ve been able to choose exactly which hospital you want to go to for treatment. You’ll also know that you should never have to wait longer than 18 weeks for your operation.

But, if you’re a mental health patient, you don’t get these same rights and choices about where, when, or how you receive treatment. What kind of message does that send, when all of these decisions are taken out of your hands and always made by someone else?

We’ve been talking about patient choice in the NHS for years, but not for someone with mental health problems. This has to change. And, starting from April this year, for the first time ever, people with mental health conditions will have the same legal right to choose where they go for care.

So, for example, if a young man visits his local surgery because he’s worried he might have schizophrenia and his doctor thinks he needs specialist help: now, instead of just automatically referring him for treatment, this young man’s GP will work with him to decide the best service for his needs. And that includes being able to choose the person and provider who will lead his care.

And, from next year, we plan to introduce very clear standards on access and waiting times for mental health services, so that he will also know what kind of treatment to expect and when.

Most importantly, there will be professional help and guidance available for anyone who feels like they can’t make those kinds of decisions about their care alone.

And to give mental health patients more information about where the best services are available and also to improve services, we will be applying our Friends and Family Test to mental health. This means we will be asking patients who’ve used a service, as well as staff, about whether they would recommend it to their friends and family. And, as announced last week, there will be a Deputy Chief Inspector for Mental Health at the Care Quality Commission to shine a spotlight on poor care and showcase the best.

Change across the public sector

In addition, we’re working hard to ensure that the needs of those with mental health problems are considered not just in the NHS, but also across our public sector: with better support in education, employment, the justice sector, housing and elsewhere.

For example, it’s estimated that almost 50% of prisoners suffer from anxiety and/or depression, compared with 15% of the general population. But many of these conditions aren’t diagnosed until they go to prison. So we’re investing £25 million to ensure that expert help is available at our police stations and criminal courts to spot mental health problems, get people the support they need and so help tackle reoffending.

We also understand that mental health can be a barrier to people getting into or back into work. And we asked the research institute, RAND Europe, to come up with ideas about how we can better support those with mental health problems into employment. Today, we’re publishing their report which sets out some exciting recommendations for change, including making sure that our health and employment services work more closely together.

Working together

But, ultimately, it’s going to take all of us working together to achieve the change in attitudes to mental health that we need.

So, I want everyone – in this room and beyond – to commit to achieving our ambitions for better mental health in Britain: creating an environment together where it’s okay to talk about mental health. And where we can be open and support each other.

And today, with government support, Time to Change is launching its new ‘Time to Talk’ campaign across the country. This will include information and guidance to help people talk openly about mental health and get support. It comes ahead of the, first-ever, Time to Talk Day on 6 February.

So if you think someone you know may be struggling: talk to them. It could be just a quick chat over a cup of tea, but it could make all the difference to someone.

If you’re in the media and entertainment industry help us to put an end to the sensationalist stories, inaccurate reporting and negative stereotypes which promote stigma. Give people with mental health problems the chance to tell their stories.

If you’re an employer, work with us to build on the good practice that’s already out there – for example at organisations like BT who understand that the mental well-being of their staff is central to their success as a company. Together, we need to give more people with mental health problems the chance to work and the flexibility and support they need to do their job well.

And, finally, if you’re a professional or expert working across the NHS and mental health sector, or a politician or public sector worker, help us to make mental health a priority across the system.

It’s time for us to bring mental health out of the shadows. It’s time for us to close that gap. It’s time for us to talk about mental health and ensure that everyone, whatever their background and whatever their circumstances, can live a healthier, happier and more successful life.

Thank you.

Below is the text of the speech made by the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, on 24th October 2013 at Morpeth School in Tower Hamlets, London.

The fundamental reason why, I believe, education matters so much is to ensure every child has a fair chance of a successful life. That’s also why, I expect, many of you got into this profession in the first place.

Yet despite the efforts of successive Governments and the progress made to raise education standards in this country, on average, children from poorer families still do worse than their better off peers.

As last week’s report from the independent Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission shows, here in Britain, your parents’ income still remains the biggest indicator of what you’ll go on to achieve. More than your talent and potential. And more than in most other countries in Europe.

Some claim this is just a fact a life. They argue that any chance for social mobility in this country ended when the final bell rang for grammar schools, and disparage any efforts to break the link between disadvantage and achievement as social engineering at its worst.

I cannot accept this view. In politics, and in this Coalition, what motivates me and my party – more than any other issue – is increasing social mobility: building a fairer society, where everyone can succeed, irrespective of the circumstances of their birth.

So, when we came into government, in education, we prioritised three things:

First, ending Labour’s micromanagement of our schools. For thirteen years, Labour responded to every problem in our education system with a new target from the central government – frustrating our teachers and stifling the creativity needed to drive excellence across the board.

Second, we wanted to use the muscle of the state to level the playing field so that all children can flourish – not just the well-off. That’s what our £2.5 billion pupil premium is for – additional money to help close the gap, which we are beginning to see having an effect.

And, third, we wanted to make sure that the state is intervening where it can make the biggest difference – when children are young. Access to high-quality early years education helps give children the best possible start in life. That’s why I have made the early years a personal priority: we have increased the hours available for three and four year olds and extended it to two year olds in families which are most feeling the squeeze. Last month I announced free school meals for all children in infant school; and, one of the first things David Laws did when he became Schools Minister was insist that we rebalanced the pupil premium so that more of the money goes to children when they are in primary school, to help them catch up before they fall too far behind.

Freedom for schools; a level playing field for all children: and more support for children in their earliest years.

It’s an approach that seeks to drive diversity and autonomy within the schools system, but with the guarantee of opportunities for all.

So freedom, yes, but with fairness too. For liberals, it is essential we provide both.

FREEDOM WITH FAIRNESS

I’m proud of our work over the last three years to increase school autonomy, which, in Government with the Conservatives, has been through the academies programme. It is Liberal Democrat policy to give all schools, whether they are academies or not, those same freedoms to attract and reward excellent teaching, set their own term dates and vary their school day.

We believe greater autonomy enables school leaders to take responsibility in those areas where they know what’s best for their pupils, whilst also giving them the freedom to innovate.

But it shouldn’t surprise you if I say that, although we work well with the Conservatives, our two parties still have differences of opinion – some strongly held. And looking to the future, there are aspects of schools policy currently affected by the priorities of the Conservative Party which I would not want to see continue.

For example, whilst I want to give schools the space to innovate, I also believe every parent needs to know that the school their child attends, whatever its title or structure, meets certain core standards of teaching and care. A parental guarantee – if you like.

Parents don’t want ideology to get in the way of their children’s education. They don’t care about the latest political label attached to their child’s school. What they want, and expect, is that their children are taught by good teachers, get taught a core body of knowledge, and get a healthy meal every day.

What is the point of having a slimmed-down national curriculum if only a few schools have to teach it? Let’s teach it in all our schools.

And what is the point of having brilliant new food standards if only a few schools have to stick to the rules? Let’s have quality food in all our schools.

That’s my philosophy. Diversity amongst schools, yes. But good universal standards all parents can rely on too.  And, frankly, it makes no sense to me to have qualified teacher status if only a few schools have to employ qualified teachers.

Over the last ten years, there’s been a revolution in the way in which we’ve recruited and trained our teachers. Whether it’s through the on-the-job learning offered through schemes like Teach First and School Direct or the continued contribution of our universities to educating generations of Britain’s teachers.

Together, these diverse routes into the classroom have raised the public profile and status of our teachers and enabled more graduates, more teaching assistants and more people from a range of backgrounds to join this profession. What all of these routes have in common is that at the end of them you are recognised as a Qualified Teacher. And I want every parent to know that their child will benefit from this kind of high quality teaching.

That’s why I believe we should have qualified teachers in all our schools.

That means free schools and academies too.

This view has sparked quite a bit of excitement this week – and some criticism: the idea that, if you seek to give parents reassurances on basic standards, you are somehow turning your back on school autonomy. And, equally, that having open differences of this kind is bad for Coalition government.

Let me say something on both points.

In my first ever speech as Lib Dem leader, back in 2008, I called for a new generation of schools which could be set up by different providers, like educational charities, parents and voluntary organisations, providing they had the right credentials. My party supports school freedom. At our conference in the spring of this year, the Liberal Democrats passed a motion celebrating the unprecedented freedom granted to head teachers and teachers by the Coalition Government. The party wants to see all schools have more freedoms like academies.

But I am totally unapologetic for believing that, as we continue to build a new type of state funded school system – in which parents are presented with a dizzying range of independent, autonomous schools, each with its own different specialism, ethos or mission – parents can make their choice safe in the knowledge that there are certain safeguards. A safety net, if you like, to prevent their children from falling through the cracks.

So, yes, I support free schools and academies, but not with exemptions from minimum standards. That’s the bit I want to see change. And that will be clearly set out in our next General Election manifesto.

There is nothing – absolutely nothing – inconsistent in believing that greater school autonomy can be married to certain core standards for all.

And I am totally unapologetic that the Liberal Democrats have our own ideas about how we do that.

Ultimately, the Labour Party is hostile to school autonomy – their instincts always take them back to Whitehall’s heavy hand.

Meanwhile, many on the Right are hostile to setting minimum educational standards. At least they are in academies and free schools. In maintained schools, however, the Conservatives seem to believe it is alright to micromanage things down to which ancient British kings are taught in history class. All that I ask is that we seek to deliver the same balance of freedoms and core standards across all schools.

And, in the liberal centre, the Liberal Democrats – and, I believe, most parents – know that there is a balance to be struck:

So in the future, the Liberal Democrats will seek to build on everything we have achieved in this Coalition – driving greater diversity and freedom in all our schools.

But, as we do, we will also strive to make sure that every parent can send their children off in the morning, knowing that, whatever kind of school they go to – academy, free school, maintained school, whichever – their sons and daughters will be taught core subjects, by qualified teachers and they’ll get healthy meal.

On this and other aspects of education policy the Liberal Democrats will carry on setting out our stall: for example, last month I made it clear that I will want to see schools funding protected in the next Parliament – that’s a Liberal Democrat priority for our next manifesto.

People have a right to know what our vision for the future is. And explaining that vision is perfectly consistent with the Liberal Democrats being proud of what we have done in this coalition, and continuing to work with our coalition partners to deliver radical reform and the strong government the country needs. Being in Coalition today doesn’t prevent either of the Coalition parties setting out how we may differ in the future. That’s how Coalition works.

TEACHERS

And I can tell you today that one area where we have agreed further reform is on better support for our teachers and school leaders – the people who are too often missing from the debate on structures and standards.

It’s a cliché to say it, but no less true that what you never forget about your school days are those teachers who changed your life.

A good teacher knows how to inspire and enthral a class of children to learn – whatever the subject.

He or she recognises each child for the individual they are, and does whatever they can to help that child build on their talents for a happy, successful life.

As a father of three school-age children, I also speak from experience when I say these are the teachers that your children never stop talking about when they get home from school.

That special connection – with someone who makes you as enthusiastic about learning, as they are about teaching – is what defines, for many of us, the very best in education.

It’s what we want for our children. It’s what we expect from our local schools. And critically, it’s what the brightest and best teachers in Britain strive to achieve every single day.

As Jemima Reilly, the head of this school, told us, “We are proud to attract and maintain good quality teachers…we give our teachers the space to grow and in turn their students grow and flourish alongside them.”

And as Ofsted has pointed out, if you’re a poor child going to school in some parts of Britain, you’re less likely to do well than poor children here in Tower Hamlets.

This isn’t just Britain’s inner cities that we’re talking about here. In some cases, these are relatively prosperous regions like West Berkshire and Shropshire and our seaside towns like Blackpool or Hastings.

The issue isn’t that there aren’t brilliant schools or teachers in these areas. There are.

But there are also weak schools and schools which have simply stalled.

These schools are failing many children – including from disadvantage backgrounds – who with the right support and attention could thrive.

The good teachers in these schools want to learn from their better performing neighbours. But they don’t have a clear idea about how to start that conversation.

They want to improve. Do more for local children and parents from all backgrounds. But they don’t have the right leadership and skills on site to boost their performance.

They want to share their own knowledge of what works beyond their own classroom with their colleagues. But don’t know how to make that happen.

They can’t progress. Their schools are stalled and could do much better. And, worse of all, the children they teach are heading for a life defined by their background not their talents.

We already know that some good Local Authorities are meeting that challenge by helping schools in their area find good leaders. And our ‘Similar Schools’ data is designed to help schools – without that kind of support – to link up and learn from outstanding schools tackling the same issues as them. So, as we improve the information available online, I’d encourage more schools to use it.

But we need to do more if we’re to tackle this issue nationally and ensure that more schools can benefit from the expertise of our best head teachers.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE – HEAD TEACHERS

That’s why I’m pleased to announce today that the Government will be setting up a programme to get outstanding leaders into the schools that need them the most.

The Department for Education will be setting out further details in due course. But what I can say is that there will be a pool of top talent within the profession, a Champions League of Head Teachers, made up of Heads and Deputy Heads, who will stand ready to move to schools in challenging circumstances that need outstanding leaders.

So if you’re a school facing tough challenges and finding it hard to recruit an exceptional leader, you’ll be able to call on this team and request someone with a proven leadership track record.

We’re looking for experienced Head Teachers ready for a new challenge, or bright Deputy Heads looking to take the next step and lead a school.

If you are selected, we’d need you to make a real commitment to the school, its staff and its children.

You’ll receive help to relocate to the areas where you’re needed and the necessary professional support to turn around your school. And we will work to help you in your new role taking on this challenging school.

This is entirely voluntary. No one will be forced to accept one of these positions or move.

We want the first of these leaders to be in place from September 2014.

Initially the scheme will start small, but our ambition is for this team to become as important to our education system as Teach First.

CONCLUSION

So in conclusion, if we’re to build a stronger economy and fairer society in Britain then we need every child in every region of our country to be succeeding.

That’s the vision I have for education in this country. A system built on greater choice, innovation, accountability and excellence: designed to benefit everyone.

Where every school has the freedom, autonomy and resources to thrive.

Where every teacher is empowered to be the best, progressing and improving throughout their career.

Where every parent has a guarantee that their child will receive the best standard of education available.

And where every child gets the attention, support and excellent teaching they need to achieve the happy and fulfilling life they want.

Below is the text of a speech made by the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, at a community event at the Peabody Centre in Islington on 24th May 2013.

Can I thank you all very, very much for being here and can I thank, particularly, everybody at the Hugh Cubitt Centre, all the volunteers here, everyone from the Peabody operation. You’ve helped us to organise this at very, very short notice indeed.

It was a suggestion made to me by friends of mine in the London Muslim community just yesterday, that we should get together at a time of obviously heightened anxiety, given the horrific events in Woolwich. And to be able to gather together like this, given how busy everybody is, is a real tribute to everybody at the centre, and indeed to all of you.

We are represented here in all of the wonderful diversity that we know is modern London: different political parties, different faiths, different communities, representatives from the armed services, from the police. I really am very, very grateful to you all for being here. And I hope that – in fact I know that I speak on behalf of everybody here when I say that my heart goes out and my thoughts are with the family and the friends of Drummer Lee Rigby, who was so brutally and savagely killed in Woolwich.

I think in many ways, the fact that we’ve come together is much more important than what anyone’s actually going to say at the event because the fact that we’re here together from so many different directions, from so many parts of the diversity that is London is a – sends out a message.

It sends out a very, very simple message of hope over fear, of community over division and that is immensely important. I think that you’ve done all of that and that by coming together in that way, by sending out that clear signal, you really have provided a great service to all of the communities who are asking themselves searching questions in London and across the country today.

Because let’s be clear. People who inflict such random, savage violence in the name of some entirely warped ideology or some entirely perverted concept of religion in the way that we have seen on our television screens – which has been made all the more unsettling I think, because the individuals concerned dressed, spoke, appeared to all intents and purposes like so many other young Londoners that we might come across every day of the week.

Let’s be under no illusion. What they want, of course, is to sow that corrosive seed of fear and division. What they want is for governments and the authorities to overreact in their immediate reaction. What they want is for communities to turn inwards and away from each other. What they want, in short, is to spread fear.

Fear is an extraordinarily powerful emotion and when fear takes root, all of us as individuals, we will avert our gaze from someone who we might be fearful of, who we weren’t before. We might cross the street away from an individual who we’re not so sure about. We might worry about our children and about our families in a way that we haven’t done before.

It has a very, very corrosive effect on every part of our lives and we have a choice. We have a choice to either allow that powerful corrosive feeling of fear to seep into every second and minute and hour of our lives or we can make a choice that we’re not going to change our behaviour. We’re not going to disrupt normal life. We’re going to continue our life as before. We’re going to continue to reach out to each other. We’re going to continue to look people in the eye. We’re going to continue to be the diverse community that we are, and you have made that choice by coming to this event.

London has made that choice by celebrating this kind of event and it has shown once again how unbeatable London is in the face of this attempt to sow fear, sow division and sow mutual suspicion in our community. So I want to pay genuine tribute, to each and every one of you for making that choice. It is a positive choice and is the most powerful dignified reply and rejection of what we saw and what we heard on Wednesday in Woolwich.

Finally, before I ask the Deacon and others to speak for themselves, I want to pay special tribute to those amongst you who are leaders and spokespeople of our Muslim communities. The fact that all of you who’ve spoken out so very clearly and so very cogently and so very quickly to reject it utterly. As the Prime Minister quite rightly said, what we heard from these two individuals was a total unqualified betrayal of Islam, a religion of peace was being distorted, turned upside down and inside out, perverted in the cause of an abhorrent and violent set of intentions from those individuals.

As I heard from someone in a discussion we just had earlier this morning, terrorism has no religion because there is no religious conviction that can justify the kind of arbitrary, savage, random violence that we saw on the streets of Woolwich. So thank you for speaking out as forcefully as you have done. Thank you for speaking out as clearly as you have done for a great salvation religion, for your faith, and for the communities in which you live and in which you lead.

And in that spirit I would like to simply conclude by repeating a verse from the holy Quran, verse 32, chapter five. If anyone kills a human being, it shall be as though he killed all mankind, whereas if anyone saves a life it shall be as though he saved the whole of mankind.

Thank you very much.

Below is the text of the speech made by the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, on immigration on 22nd March 2013.

Today I want to talk about immigration. Not asylum; that’s an important distinction to make – immigration. The debate is opening up, and that’s a good thing.

We’ve now heard from the Labour party about some of their mistakes in office. And the Prime Minister and I are setting out how the Coalition is correcting those mistakes. Me today, David Cameron on Monday.

The political mainstream has a duty to wrestle this issue away from populists and extremists. A duty to shift what can be a highly polarised debate – particularly in difficult economic times – onto practical and sensible ground. And the Liberal Democrats take that responsibility very seriously.

This morning I will explain why, in order to remain an open and tolerant Britain, we need an immigration system that is zero-tolerant towards abuse. Tolerant Britain, zero-tolerant of abuse. That’s the vision the Coalition is working towards.

Before I do, I want to make one thing clear: the Liberal Democrats will never seek to outflank our opponents because we think that’s what people want to hear.

Yvette Cooper said, recently, that we must avoid an “arms race of rhetoric” on immigration. I agree. That kind of low populism patronizes the British people and it is an insult to the many migrants who have contributed to our country. British society has been shaped by migrant communities in ways more profound than any cliché about chicken tikka masala, or Notting Hill Carnival, or Polish builders can ever express.

I’m the son of a Dutch mother – she, herself, raised in Indonesia; a half-Russian father; husband to a Spanish wife. Like millions of Brits, if you trace our blood lines back through the generations, you end up travelling around the globe. And I’m a liberal. I’m immensely proud of this nation’s wonderful diversity and openness. Those are great British traditions too.

Of course, if you believed every headline, you’d think that when immigrants aren’t stealing British jobs. They’re all living the high life in 12-bedroom Kensington mansions, courtesy of the state. But that’s a complete caricature of the truth.

The majority of people who come here work hard and make a contribution. Many have served – and still serve – in our armed forces. And if every member of an immigrant community suddenly downed tools, countless businesses and services would suffer. The NHS would fall over. And in a globalised economy, where talent is as mobile as capital, no nation can succeed by pulling up the drawbridge.

British firms depend on outside skills and expertise in order to compete. British universities too. The reason this country has a world-beating research base is because we are a magnet for the brightest and the best. That’s why, when the Coalition put limits on the number of migrants coming here from outside Europe, it was important to Vince Cable and me that students – genuine students – were excluded from that.

It’s why, more recently, the Coalition has rejected proposals to impose a visa regime on visitors from Brazil. Where a minority are abusing the system, we need to deal with that – whatever nationality they are. But a new visa regime would deter Brazilian tourists, discourage Brazilian investors and Brazil would simply do the same to us, hampering the access British companies have to one of the world’s fastest growing markets.

So, yes we are bringing immigration under control, and I will explain how. But I want UK firms to be in no doubt. The Coalition’s priority continues to be growth and building a stronger economy. I’m clear that well-managed immigration is a key part of that.

The problem is that the system has not been well-managed. It has been grossly mismanaged. I welcome Labour’s recent admission that they got it wrong. But the fact that this mea culpa is immediately followed by mud-slinging, by an attempt to blame the Coalition for the problems that remain, suggests to me Labour still don’t understand just how wrong they got it.

The previous government left us an immigration system in disarray. I cannot stress enough just how chaotic it was. The first thing they did, after coming into office, was stop checking if people were leaving the country. They got rid of exit checks. They weren’t counting people in and they weren’t counting people out either.

Seven different immigration Bills; six different Home Secretaries and yet, in the course of a decade, just 114 prosecutions for employing illegal immigrants.

And Labour were completely caught off guard by the impact of their decision to lift transitional controls on new EU member states when other EU countries did not. By the time they finally woke up to the mess they’d created, to the real strain immigration was placing on some communities, it was already too late.

Is it any wonder that there has been a crisis of public confidence in our immigration system? People’s anxieties are not, generally-speaking, driven by prejudice or racism. We are, by nature, a tolerant people. But, for too long, British people’s legitimate concerns have been downplayed. For too long their worries were met with words but not action.

There’s a common allegation that, among the political elite there’s been a conspiracy of silence on immigration. But over the years there’s been lots of talk, lots of posturing, lots of promises. Plenty’s been said. The problem is: not enough’s been done.

Where there is resentment towards the immigration system, we must now confront it. For a diverse society like ours to function successfully, for different groups to integrate and co-exist, British citizens must believe that the rules by which migrants come and settle here are reasonable, just, and properly enforced. The immigration system must command public confidence.

Since we came into government, net migration has fallen by a third. We’ve limited immigration from outside Europe. And within the EU, we have kept the transitional limits on Romania and Bulgaria, until the point where every member state has to remove them.

But it’s not just about the overall numbers. People need three basic assurances:

One: that we are getting a grip on who’s coming in and who’s going out.

Two: that we can deal with people staying here illegally.

Three: that the system as a whole benefits the UK and doesn’t put too much pressure on our state – particularly in these straitened times.

Give British citizens those assurances, and you will see this nation’s most welcoming side.

The Coalition is creating a system people can be confident in. A system that contributes to both a stronger economy and a fairer society – we need to deliver both. Tolerant Britain, zero-tolerant of abuse.

Assurance number one: that we’re getting on top of who’s here. The Coalition is building a much clearer picture of who’s coming in and going out. We’re building up Britain’s entry checks, increasing the information we get in advance of people travelling. And we are reintroducing exit checks.

Exit checks tell us whether the people who should have left actually have. Britain used to have them, but they were dismantled by previous governments. The process began under the Major government and was carried on by the Blair administration and the Liberal Democrats have been campaigning to bring them back since 2004.

To us it always seemed obvious that exit checks are an essential feature of an efficient and competent immigration system. And so we ensured that this Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment was written into the Coalition agreement. Bit by bit we are filling in the gaping holes Labour left.

Assurance number two: that we can prevent people from staying here illegally.  Before I come onto what we are doing in Government, let me say a word on Liberal Democrat party policy.

My party will always advocate immigration policies that respect the rights and dignity of individuals – particularly the vulnerable. It’s because of us that children are no longer detained for immigration purposes. It’s because of us that the UK no longer deports people to countries where we know they’ll be persecuted for their sexuality. Both straight from our manifesto and two of my proudest achievements in government.

But, at the last election we suggested that any illegal immigrant who had been here for 10 years should be able to earn their citizenship. We called it an earned route to citizenship. Our opponents dubbed it an ‘amnesty’.

We felt it was an honest and pragmatic solution given the chaos in the Home Office and the obvious failure by Labour to identify where thousands of illegal immigrants were. Better surely, we asked, to get them to pay their taxes and make a proper contribution to our society, than to continue to live in the shadows?

But, despite the policy’s aims, it was seen by many people as a reward for those who have broken the law. And so it risked undermining public confidence in the immigration system.

The very public confidence that is essential to a tolerant and open Britain. That is why I am no longer convinced this specific policy should be retained in our manifesto for the next General Election.

So I have asked Andrew Stunell, the former Integration Minister, to lead a review of this and our other immigration policies in the run up to 2015.

In Coalition, the Liberal Democrats are seeking to restore people’s faith in the system, confronting illegal activity with a vigour never seen from Labour, and in 2015 people will know that a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote for an immigration system they can believe in. A vote for a tolerant Britain that is zero-tolerant towards abuse.

We’re clamping down on the most exploited routes into the country: tightening up what’s known as the ‘tier one route’, for example. It was supposedly for highly skilled visa applicants, but was routinely exploited by people who did not have those skills.

The student route was riddled with holes. So we’re cracking down on bogus colleges. UKBA officers visited a college which had requested permission to bring in over 200 students. How many did they find studying that day? Two. Since 2010, almost 600 colleges have been removed from the list of registered visa sponsors.

While we have to be realistic about UKBA’s enforcement budget in the current climate, we’re making sure money is better spent. For instance, reducing the opportunity for long, vexatious and costly appeals by those who have been refused the right to remain in Britain, while still safeguarding the right to a fair hearing.

We’re cracking down on the profiteers. I can confirm today that the Coalition will increase the cash penalties for unscrupulous employers who hire illegal immigrants because they’re cheaper. Currently, the maximum fine is £10,000 per illegal worker. I’ve asked the Home Secretary to look into the right amount but personally I’d like to see it double.

Employers need to get the message: they have an inescapable duty to employ people who are working here legally, not to turn a blind eye to those working illegally.

And I’m determined that our police can come down on the criminal gangs who smuggle and traffic people into the country. We’re currently reviewing policing cooperation with our European partners. But I’m clear that we must not jeopardise any arrangements that help us tackle this kind of cross-border crime. Criminals go across borders; so must we.

In addition to these crackdowns, I can also confirm we’re looking at a powerful new tool to help deal with the problem of people overstaying on their visas.

Visa overstayers make up a major part of UKBA’s enforcement caseload – clogging up the system. As early as 2006 we had reports from Select Committees, arguing that visa overstaying would be one of the biggest challenges for our immigration system in the 21st century. As people travel more – for work, for holidays – you have more people coming into the country for temporary periods and so you need to find ways to make sure they leave.

The challenge isn’t just stopping people coming into Britain illegally, it’s about dealing with individuals who come over legitimately but then become illegal once they’re already here.

One idea, which appeals to me, is a system of security bonds. And so I’ve asked the Home Office to do some work on it with a view to running a pilot before the end of the year.

The basic premise is simple: in certain cases, when a visa applicant is coming from a high risk country, in addition to satisfying the normal criteria, UKBA would be able to request a deposit – a kind of cash guarantee. Once the visitor leaves Britain, the bond will be repaid. Clearly, we need to look into the detail and seek a wide range of views, including from the Home Affairs Select Committee.

The bonds would need to be well-targeted – so that they don’t unfairly discriminate against particular groups. The amounts would need to be proportionate – we mustn’t penalise legitimate visa applicants who will struggle to get hold of the money. Visiting Britain to celebrate a family birth, or a relative’s graduation, or wedding should not become entirely dependant on your ability to pay the security bond.

And I would want a system that is welcomed by legitimate visitors rather than place a great burden on them. Done right, this would speed up the application process, giving UKBA greater confidence about people’s intentions, allowing them to make better, faster decisions.

In today’s world, illegal immigration happens in different ways – and we need to think innovatively to keep up.

Finally, assurance number three: that immigration as a whole benefits Britain and British citizens.

Migration contributes to the public purse – we mustn’t forget that. But it is important, with budgets under strain that as many people as possible contribute to the economy and support themselves. We’re asking that of British citizens – it is right that we ask the same of visitors to Britain.

So the Coalition has reformed work visas so that every worker coming here has a proper job offer and a minimum salary. And we’ve changed family visas to introduce a minimum income for anyone bringing over a partner or spouse.

While it’s right that, if businesses can’t find the skills they need they can bring people in from outside the UK.

As we tackle unemployment and rebuild our economy, we also need to be asking why that’s the case at all. Why aren’t our young men and women equipped to do these jobs? So the Coalition is creating record numbers of apprenticeships – over one million since the election. And I want to make sure we have the right plans in place for so-called ‘shortage occupations’ – the specific professions where we lack skills.

There are 34 currently on the list. Paediatricians, maths teachers, chemical and mechanical engineers, to name a few. And we are now asking employers and their representative bodies, including Sector Skills Councils, to work with the Government on our plans to build up Britain’s homegrown skills for each profession: making sure we’re on track.

I believe people will have more faith in our immigration system if they see that we are doing everything we can to help young British men and women into work. To that end, the Coalition has also capped unskilled migration from outside the EU. The Government is also looking at the access migrants have to services and benefits. Fairness isn’t just about what people put into the system: it’s what also about what they take out.

This work is extremely complex. Labour left us a huge, unwieldy welfare state, full of contradiction. In some place the arrangements are already quite strict, in others they are much more loose and opaque. So now we are systematically working through to see where reform is necessary.

No decisions have been taken yet and the PM will be saying more about his views on Monday. But I want to make clear that this is very much a Coalition agenda, with both sides working together. For the Liberal Democrats, it is entirely right that we close loopholes and ensure that the welfare system is not open to abuse.

For social cohesion, as much as anything else. One area where I’ve asked for further work, for instance is on the translation services available to individuals accessing public services. The Government currently spends tens of millions of pounds on translation services and materials. And, of course, people should get help, if they need it to understand what their doctor is saying, or how to sign their children up for school, or what’s going on at a court hearing.

But there’s a missed opportunity here to improve people’s English so that, in the long term, they don’t need those translators and the taxpayer spends less.

We’ve already raised the level of English required from a number of different groups: skilled workers, the husbands and wives of migrants coming to the UK. But we need to do more to help people who are already here.

In 2011 we introduced powers for Jobcentre advisers to mandate people on job-related benefits to learn English if their level of language skills is stopping them from finding work.

I’ve asked Iain Duncan Smith to report back to me on how this is being implemented. I want to make sure it’s being rolled out effectively across the country.

And where people need a translator to interact with services, I’ve asked Mark Harper, the Immigration Minister, to look at whether we could refer them onto an English language course. And, if people refuse to stick with those courses, we should consider making them pay for their translation services instead. To a lot of people, that’s just common sense.

We’ll be saying more about this, and the other areas under review, over the coming weeks and months.

So in conclusion, we are grappling with the difficult challenges in our immigration system.

Brick by brick, we are rebuilding it. Day by day we are making sure, quite simply, that it works. All the British people ask is for a system they can have confidence in. We hear that, and we are delivering it.

I’m determined we lay the foundations for an immigration system that embodies this nation’s instincts and its values: our openness and tolerance on one hand; our sense of fair play, on the other.

The Liberal Democrats are at the forefront of that. We want to stay a tolerant Britain, and to that end we will be zero-tolerant of abuse.