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Category: Speeches

  • Bridget Phillipson – 2025 Speech at the Festival of Childhood

    Bridget Phillipson – 2025 Speech at the Festival of Childhood

    The speech made by Bridget Phillipson, the Secretary of State for Education, in London on 3 April 2025.

    Good morning, everyone. It’s really great to be here!

    Thank you, Tristram, for hosting us today. And Hughie, what a privilege it is to speak alongside you. Thank you so much for everything you said.

    Your bravery and determination, raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, all while going through that treatment yourself – you are such an inspiration.

    I’m so glad to hear about your full recovery too, and everything you’re doing to make children’s voices heard, and it’s great to see you here today continuing to lead and inspire with your journalism.

    I was interviewed back in September by your colleague Scarlett at Sky FYI – and she definitely put me through my paces! One of the toughest interviews I’ve ever had.

    And it was great to see her again at World Book Day last month.

    It’s lovely to look round this room and see so many familiar faces this morning. Rylie and Sofia – it was great to meet you at the Women in Westminster event last year.

    And Sofia – I’ve heard more and more about everything you’ve achieved, about leaving your home in Ukraine and coming to England.

    About joining school in year 11 and passing your GCSEs – despite English being your third language.

    What an amazing achievement!

    There are just so many inspiring young people here today.

    And I’d like to thank Dame Rachel for bringing together all the Youth Ambassadors. And all your amazing work making young voices heard.

    It’s their job, the job of the youth ambassadors, to make sure politicians like me listen to children and young people – and act to make their lives better.

    And that’s exactly right.

    Because as Secretary of State – children and young people are my priority.

    I want to see them, I want to see you, back at the forefront of national life, back at the centre of our national conversation.

    I want all children to have the opportunity to succeed.

    So we are on a mission as a government – to break down the barriers to opportunity for every child.

    And I mean it when I say that it has to be every child.

    Because all children deserve the chance to get on and succeed.

    It’s tempting to think that the path to opportunity begins on the first day of school.

    Nervous little girls and boys, lined up outside the school gates clinging on for dear life to their mums and dads.

    When stories of success are told, that’s often where we start.

    But that’s jumping ahead.

    Like expecting a tree to grow strong and tall without first putting down deep roots that are deep and lasting.

    Because opportunity starts early, it starts much earlier than that.

    I’d just like us to think of two babies, born in the same hospital on the same day.

    Think of all that happens before they reach those school gates a number of years later.

    One baby goes back to an anxious home.

    Her parents work hard – two, maybe even three jobs to make ends meet.

    There’s mould on the wall in their bedroom because the landlord won’t fix it – and now that’s where that baby has to sleep too.

    There’s never enough time in the day, never quite enough food in the fridge, no help from extended family.

    The council baby group her brothers went to now gone; nursery or childminders have been completely out of reach – too few spaces, too far to go, too expensive.

    So she stays at home, simply watching as her family struggle around her.

    Missing out on so much: playing with other children, sharing and taking turns, learning about her emotions, about those of others, about taking the first steps into learning.

    Now think of the other baby from the hospital. Her parents drive her back to a warm and stable home.

    Right from that first night, her needs are all that matter.

    Parents who read to her, talk to her.

    And whose first thought in the baby food aisle, isn’t can we afford it, isn’t where’s the money – it’s about buying her first coat.

    When her parents go back to work, she spends her mornings in a great nursery at the end of the road – the best early years teachers introduce her to letters and numbers, she begins to explore the world around her.

    There are afternoons in the park with grandma, bedtime stories with grandad.

    A whole network of support, with just one goal: giving her the very best start in life.

    Step by step, year by year, she grows and develops, and she leaps forward.

    So, on that first day of school, those two children, born in the same hospital, on the same day, they arrive wearing the same uniform, they might even stand together in the playground, and when the teacher asks that they walk into the classroom in pairs, they hold hands, bouncing inside towards the rest of their lives, with no idea how different their paths are likely to be.

    Because that’s where opportunity can be lost or found, those early forks in the road, where those gaps start to open up.

    And with each year that goes by, those gaps grow and grow. And closing them becomes harder and harder as the years pass.

    That’s why, when I speak to school leaders and university vice chancellors, they urge me to invest in the early years.

    And as we begin to see the generation of children born during the Covid pandemic arriving at school, many already far behind where they would normally be, the importance of early years is more clear-cut than ever.

    I’m in politics because I believe that every child deserves every opportunity to succeed.

    I’m here to make a difference in their lives.

    And because early years is where the biggest difference can be made, and it’s where my biggest priority lies.

    Giving every child the best start in life is my number one goal.

    That’s where I want to be judged, that’s where my legacy will lie.

    It’s not simply my priority.

    Children are central to the Prime Minister’s Plan for Change. It sets the target of a record share of children arriving at primary school ready to learn.

    Because we know that our success as a country begins in the earliest years of children’s lives.

    The Prime Minister gets it, I get it, and the Chancellor gets it too. That’s why, despite the toughest fiscal inheritance in a generation, she chose to invest over £8bn in early years – £2bn more than last year.

    But we’re just getting started.

    This is the beginning of a wave of reform to lift up the life chances of all children, to give parents power and choice and freedom – and to put money back in their pockets too.

    And that means great childcare and early years education.

    There is a rich diversity of early education and childcare of all shapes and sizes right across the country that is already working hard to give children the best start in life.

    And I can’t thank them enough.

    But now is the time to go further.

    So yesterday I announced funding for 300 primary schools to expand their nurseries and set up new ones.

    Up to £150,000 each to convert unused classrooms into new nurseries for our children.

    6,000 new childcare places – most of them ready to go by September.

    It’s 300 steps on the road to 3,000 new and expanded school-based nurseries.

    An important part of how we’re delivering the childcare entitlements parents were promised.

    Giving them the power to choose the jobs and the hours that they want.

    Support for parents is so important too, saving them money as well.

    But, deep down, early education and childcare is all about children’s futures.

    And what an impact high-quality early education can have on their futures. Analysis shows that children who go to a higher-quality pre-school earn about £17,000 more over the course of their lives.

    Across 6,000 high-quality new places, it could mean a boost of over £100m in lifetime earnings.

    Now given the prize on offer, we’re still going further, to make the most of that precious time, when horizons still stretch out ahead.

    Because if those early chances are missed, they won’t come again. The lives of our children march on, so those early brushes with education are just so precious.

    That’s why we’re twinning the childcare rollout with the biggest ever uplift in the early years pupil premium for disadvantaged children.

    Because this is how we can narrow the attainment gap, and give every child, no matter their background, every opportunity to succeed.

    Children are there to learn. And the adults in the room are at heart early educators.

    So we’re fully funding initial teacher training for early years teachers and supporting them to become early years experts too.

    And we’re doubling our Maths Champions programme – to reach 800 early years classrooms.

    A really big step change.

    Helping children to feel comfortable with numbers from their youngest years, building numeracy skills early, so that by the time they reach school, maths is already a familiar friend.

    But I said before that we’re just getting started – and I meant it.

    So later this year, I’ll launch a new strategy to revitalise early years education.

    Rooted in creating positive early childhood experiences for all of our children.

    Our new nurseries in primary schools will create a positive journey of learning for all children.

    Children, beginning in nursery at 2 or 3 years old – then moving along the corridor at 4 or 5 to start primary school.

    The same faces, the same friends, the same buildings.

    Parents can build relationships with teachers, teachers can spot issues early, and when children reach school, they already feel at home in the classroom.

    And so we’re backing parents too – supporting them with joined up family services as they guide their children through those early years.

    That’s where the journey starts, with those positive, supportive early experiences.

    And that must continue through school.

    Because this is a government that puts children first.

    I want all children to love learning.

    But I should say right now exactly what I mean when I say that.

    It’s building knowledge, growing skills, reaching into a variety of topics.

    High and rising standards, exams that can capture our progress.

    I want to grow a love of learning with deep roots, that is lasting, that shapes lives.

    The type that sustains join, that builds confidence, that fosters resilience, that doesn’t come from doing what feels easy.

    Putting children first isn’t soft. It’s not a sugar-rush, ice-cream-for-dinner approach to schooling.

    It requires exposing children to a wide range of ideas.

    So that they can find what inspires them.

    It requires supporting children to persist with subjects that might feel hard, when they don’t immediately like what is in front of them, to keep going when it’s hard, not to give up at the first sign of struggle.

    So that they can discover for themselves the quiet satisfaction, the happy resilience that comes from the pursuit of learning.

    That’s how we wake children up to their own power. It’s how we plant within them a sense of purpose as they leave school and move into the wider world.

    And it’s how we raise a generation of children who can think critically and act thoughtfully. A generation ready not just for work but ready for the rest of their lives too.

    Confident, creative, kind.

    At home in our country and in the world.

    And that matters more now than ever before.

    At a time when uncertainty is rising, and trust is falling, a time when disinformation can slip quietly into the pockets of our children, and young boys can fall under the spell of toxic role models online, men who preach misogyny, who cook up resentment, who feed on hatred.

    And sadly so much of that flows through smartphones.

    They have no place in the classroom, they’re disruptive, distracting, they’re bad for behaviour.

    So we’re backing schools to rid our classrooms, corridors and playgrounds of phones.

    It’s clear the behaviour of boys, their influences, and the young men they become, is a defining issue of our time.

    That’s why this week the Prime Minister convened a roundtable on rethinking adolescent safety – to listen to the experiences of children today and to prevent young boys being dragged into misogyny and hatred.

    We need to raise a generation of boys with the strength to reject that hatred – curiosity, compassion, kindness, resilience, hope, and respect.

    But hard skills as well as soft skills.

    Because to reject disinformation, children need critical thinking skills, maths too, a proper understanding of science, history, geography, economics.

    To think analytically, children need that foundation in English – to explore different points of view, to weigh up the arguments, to consider the facts, and to come down on the side of reason.

    And above all, to become active, engaged, curious about the world – children need knowledge and skills.

    And through our review of the relationships, sex and health education curriculum we will ensure young people learn about healthy relationships, boundaries and consent right from the start.

    With toxic online influences on the rise, our boys need strong, positive male role models to look up to. At home, of course, but also at school too.

    Schools can’t solve these problems alone, and responsibility does start at home with parents.

    But only one in four of the teachers in our schools are men.

    Just one in seven in nursery and primary school.

    One in 33 in early years.

    And since 2010 the number of teachers in our schools has increased by 28,000 – but just 533 of those are men.

    That is extraordinary – over the last 15 years, for every 50 women who’ve taken up teaching – they’ve been joined at the front of our classrooms by just one man.

    Now I want more male teachers – teaching, guiding, leading the boys in our classrooms.

    But in truth I want more teachers across the board as well.

    Because if today we’re here to talk about positive early childhood experiences, about the role of education in creating and sustaining joy and confidence, about the routes for giving children a sense of purpose, about setting children up for success, then it is all about our teachers.

    Great teachers, inspiring teachers, teachers who believe in the power of their pupils.

    That’s why we’re working to recruit 6,500 more expert teachers across our schools and colleges.

    More teachers in shortage subjects, keeping the great teachers that we already have, restoring teaching as the profession of choice for our very best graduates.

    Now a couple of weeks ago I visited Cardinal Heenan School in Liverpool.

    And the first thing I did was sit down for a chat with an amazing group of students, the same age as many of you here today.

    And they were so excited to tell me all the things they wanted to do when they left school.

    I could see them light up; I could feel their joy.

    That’s the joy of learning.

    Now up on the walls of that school were pictures of all the ex-pupils who had gone on to do amazing things.

    One of them was Steven Gerrard.

    But there was another ex-pupil who wasn’t up on the wall. And I met him outside at the end of the day as he was helping all the students on their way home.

    He was Mr Backhouse, now the school’s assistant headteacher.

    He said he’d been given every opportunity to succeed at that school. So he became a teacher to pass that on to the next generation of kids in his community.

    He understood the power of his job – it’s about unleashing the power in all of our children.

    That’s why my job is the best job in government – because I get to work with and empower you, the young people here today and across the country.

    From those earliest years, those babies leaving hospital, the nurseries, the childcare, through school, and then on into college, university and beyond.

    It’s my job, it’s the job of childminders, teachers, support staff, lecturers and leaders, together with your parents and carers, to shape your journey, to guide you on, to spur you, to give you every opportunity to succeed. That is what you deserve.

    But it’s your job to rise to the challenge, to give it your all and to grab those opportunities with both hands.

    Looking around this room, looking at all of your faces, I have no doubt you’re up to the task.

    I think our future is in very safe hands.

    Thank you.

  • Keir Starmer – 2025 Remarks to UK Business Leaders in Downing Street

    Keir Starmer – 2025 Remarks to UK Business Leaders in Downing Street

    The remarks made by Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, on 3 April 2025.

    Thank you for joining me in Downing Street today.

    Last night, the President of the United States, acted for his country. That is his mandate.

    Today, I will act in Britain’s interests, with mine.

    I understand how important this is for your business as it is for the British people.

    So, we move now to the next phase of our plan.

    Decisions we take in the coming days and weeks, will be guided only by our national interest. In the interest of our economy. In the interests of the businesses around this table.

    In the interests of putting money in the pockets of working people. Nothing else will guide me. That is my focus.

    Clearly, there will be an economic impact from the decisions the US has taken both here and globally.

    But I want to be crystal clear – we are prepared.

    Indeed, one of the great strengths of this nation is our ability to keep a cool head.

    I said that in my first speech as Prime Minister and that is how I govern.

    That is how we have planned and that is exactly what is required today.

    Nobody wins in a trade war. That is not in our national interest.

    And we have a fair and balanced trade relationship with the US.

    Negotiations on an economic prosperity deal, one that strengthens our existing trading relationship – they continue, and we will fight for the best deal for Britain.

    Nonetheless, I do want to be clear I will only strike a deal if it is in the national interest and if it is the right thing to do for the security of working people.

    Protects the pound in their pocket, that they work so hard to earn for their family.

    That is my priority. That is always my priority.

    So – today marks a new stage in our preparations.

    We have a range of levers at our disposal, and we will continue our work with businesses across the country to understand their assessment of these options.

    As I say – our intention remains to secure a deal.

    But nothing is off the table.

    We have to understand that just as with defence and security, so too for the economy and trade we are living in a changing world.

    Entering a new era. We must rise to this challenge.

    That is why I have instructed my team to move further and faster on the changes I believe will make our economy stronger and more resilient.

    Because this government will do everything necessary to defend the UK’s national interest.

    Everything necessary to provide the foundation of security that working people need to get on with their lives.

    That is how we have acted – and how we will continue to act.

    With pragmatism. Cool and calm heads.

    Focused – on the national interest.

  • Harriet Cross – 2025 Speech on Fishing Quota Negotiations

    Harriet Cross – 2025 Speech on Fishing Quota Negotiations

    The speech made by Harriet Cross, the Conservative MP for Gordon and Buchan, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 26 March 2025.

    I thank the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) for securing the debate. I rise to speak on behalf of the fishing communities in both my Gordon and Buchan constituency and wider north-east Scotland, who play such a crucial role in the UK’s fishing sector but are facing unprecedented challenges following, among other things, the most recent quota negotiations.

    The total allowable catch quota negotiations have been another example of the UK losing when Labour Governments negotiate. Analysis by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs itself shows that, as a result of the most recent negotiations, UK quota fell by 5% for 2025, representing a 38,000 tonne decrease and a £9 million reduction in the value of fishing opportunities. In total, the UK secured approximately 747,000 tonnes of quota, valued at about £950 million—a decrease from 2024 in both tonnage and value.

    Let us not forget that behind every percentage point of the reduction are real people—fishermen and women, their families and our coastal communities—who now face difficult decisions about their future. That is before we even start to consider “paper fish”, or quota allocations that cannot realistically be caught—that is to say, their benefit exists only on paper. That might happen, for example, when a country is allocated quota for species that are not present in sufficient quantities in its water, when quota is allocated for species that the fleet does not have the correct gear or capability to catch, or when the quota exists administratively but does not translate to actual fishing opportunities. The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation and other fisheries organisations have highlighted the distorting effect of paper fish when discussing quota negotiations, because it means that actual usable quota is less than what appears in official statistics. Some quotas look great on paper, but provide no benefit to the fleet.

    DEFRA has published two reports—one on economic outcomes and the second on sustainability—considering the UK’s fishing opportunities for this year. We should remember that sustainability under the Fisheries Act 2020 has three pillars—environmental, social and economic —and that no one pillar takes precedence over the others. In Scotland, about 70% of key commercial stocks are fished sustainably. Yes, there is still room for improvement, but it is important to recognise that progress has been made in the last 30 years. For example, in 1991, the same indicator showed that sustainability levels were only at 35%. The industry has driven that progress alongside fisheries scientists and managers, because no one has a greater vested interest in healthy seas and fish stocks than our fishermen and those who depend on them for their livelihoods.

    There is still much work to do for the UK’s fishing industry to benefit fully following Brexit and our departure from the broken, inequitable common fisheries policy. Under the adjustment period in the trade and co-operation agreement, the EU still has unrestricted access to the UK exclusive economic zone. That benefits the EU far more than the UK and, unsurprisingly, the EU wishes for that position to continue. As other Members have mentioned, we just have to look at how things have developed in recent weeks to get a true understanding of the EU’s approach to fishery negotiations. Some EU member states are now saying that, unless the UK gives way to exactly what the EU wants on fishing, it will be excluded from the EU’s defence fund. It is almost unbelievable that anyone would risk the safety, security and defence of Europe and its allies on such a pretence.

    Fishing and defence—indeed, national and international security—should not be conflated. Our national security is vital, our energy security is vital and our food security, in which fishing plays a major part, is vital, and each should be dealt with in its own right. We cannot allow our fishing communities to be caught up in this EU posturing. The UK Government must state unambiguously that giving up their rights to our waters and natural resources would represent a long-term loss of a national asset critical for food security and production of climate-smart food. I invite the Minister to do so in this debate.

    I urge the Minister to commit to securing a better deal for UK fishing in the revised TCA—one that genuinely rebalances quota towards zonal attachment principles—and protect our fishing grounds. Will the Government ensure that small-scale and coastal fishing operations have proper representation in future negotiations? The Conservative party committed to that in our manifesto, along with seeking additional opportunities for these vital parts of our fishing fleet.

  • Jim Shannon – 2025 Speech on Fishing Quota Negotiations

    Jim Shannon – 2025 Speech on Fishing Quota Negotiations

    The speech made by Jim Shannon, the DUP MP for Strangford, in the House of Commons on 26 March 2025.

    It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I commend the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) for setting the scene so well. Fishing is important to me, as the representative of the village of Portavogie. The hon. Member for South Down (Chris Hazzard) takes his money but does not take his seat in this House, so I also have to speak for the fishing sector in Kilkeel and Ardglass. I am quite happy to do that; I do it regularly to represent the collective viewpoint of the sector and to ensure that we have a voice in this House.

    I liaise with the fishing bodies in Northern Ireland. The feeling, as things stand, is that they are happy with the quota negotiations at the moment, provided that the Government continue to deliver to the sector in Northern Ireland the quota allocations that they have indicated they will deliver, and that they do not take a backward step and grant the EU more than it has currently, at the expense of our fishing industry.

    The message from my fishermen—from the Anglo-North Irish Fish Producers Organisation and the Irish Fish Producers Organisation—is simple. The Minister has met them and he knows that. I hope that he will come over sometime shortly to meet our fishermen, and I look forward to that. I know they have a very high opinion of him; they see him as one who stands firm, and they hope that the Government will stand firm and not—to use a pun—row back on where we are at the moment.

    The Northern Ireland industry’s priority for the negotiations is not necessarily quota; it is access to the Republic of Ireland’s 6 to 12 nautical mile zone, which we lost through Brexit. My questions to the Minister will be along those lines. In the original withdrawal agreement, France was granted access to UK waters—specifically, English waters on the south coast—on the basis of grandfather rights. There is therefore, I believe, a precedent for offering access to limited named vessels in the negotiations. The principle of promoting access for UK vessels to EU waters has mixed receptions from those who want their scallopers—and we have many of them in Northern Ireland—to have access to French waters, and those who would like to see EU vessels, with the exception of EU-owned flagships, out of UK waters.

    It is my belief, as I said, that the top priority for the Northern Ireland fleet in the upcoming negotiations is to have access restored to those parts of their traditional fishing grounds, which they had grandfather rights to, that lie in the 6 to 12 nautical mile zone of Irish waters. Given that precedent was set when the UK granted access to its territorial waters to a limited number of named EU vessels, will the Minister confirm that he will press for Northern Ireland’s vessels to have the same privilege as those granted by the previous Government to the French? That is the first of my three questions.

    My second question comes from the—I will use an Ulster Scots word—shenanigans being played out between the UK and the EU. The UK has banned bottom trawling in some areas of UK waters that are important to the French trawling fleet. I understand the reason for that and I support it. The ban applies to both the UK and all other countries. By way of retaliation—the French are well known for their retaliation; if we give them a kick, they kick us back almost twice as hard—the French have linked fishing rights to the Security Action for Europe initiative. There is always a clause or add-on to anything that the French do—I could make some further comments, but I will not. There are claims that the EU is trying to play politics with the livelihoods of UK fishermen by attempting to link defence contracts to fishing rights, so will the Minister take this opportunity to renew his commitment to treating food security as national security, and will he commit to pushing back against any attempt to use our fishing communities as pawns in wider political games? I know the Minister: he is an honest politician and an honest Minister. His fight will be for our fishermen, and I wish him well in that.

    Our fishing industry relies on the Government to be its mouthpiece and its strength. I know that that is the Minister’s desire and I believe that now is the time to prove to our fishing crews and fish producers that this new Government are on the side of our industry and prepared to push and, if necessary, fight their part. The industry is more than the fishing crew; so many subsidiary businesses rely on it. On behalf of those people—my people—I ask the Minister to send the clear message from our Government and this House that the fishing industry is alive and well and ready to thrive even more.

  • John Cooper – 2025 Speech on Fishing Quota Negotiations

    John Cooper – 2025 Speech on Fishing Quota Negotiations

    The speech made by John Cooper, the Conservative MP for Dumfries and Galloway, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 26 March 2025.

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) on securing this important debate.

    I declare a sort of interest: in a previous life, I was a special adviser with the Scotland Office, and I spent the larger part of 2021 working on exports from Scotland to the EU. I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that the EU, far from being our avuncular friends in this matter, were a protectionist bloc. Many of the difficulties we faced, including the transport of live langoustines—he mentioned vivier transport—were to do with problems on the far side of the short strait. It was bloody-mindedness at best and outright protectionism at worst.

    But let us talk about chips—not the golden-fried essential component of what we Scots call the fish supper, but bargaining chips, for that is yet again what our fishing crews risk becoming. The statistics are superficially simple: the Office for National Statistics says that fishing accounted for just 0.03% of the UK’s economic output in 2021. However, that does not capture the reality that a great many of our fragile coastal communities, not only in Scotland but across the UK, are entirely dependent on jobs in fishing’s at-sea component and its allied onshore processors.

    If fishing were a trifling little homespun affair, why is the EU so interested in it? With the Business and Trade Committee, I travelled to Brussels to discuss this Government’s reset of relations. What Labour expects from this reset is opaque at best, but the EU—good protectionist that it is—has already drawn up an invoice, and top of its list is fishing. Amid warm words about security and co-operation between Britain and the EU, the French are keen to lock us out of the new £150 billion Euro defence fund, only to then show a bit of ankle on negotiations involving—quelle surprise!—fishing.

    Just as Labour’s Employment Rights Bill, with its heavy pro-union bias, takes us back to 1979 and the winter of discontent, so fishing is drifting back to 1973. Then, our prized and pristine waters were the quid pro quo for access to what was then the European Economic Community. Today, the dice are loaded in favour of the EU fleet. According to the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation—I note that the hon. Member for St Ives is not a huge fan of it, but I certainly am—the EU catches around seven times more fish by value in UK waters than we land from EU waters. Britain’s status as an independent coastal state was hard won, and we must not allow our fleet to be dragged back into the ambit of the hated common fisheries policy. We cannot allow a linkage between fisheries and access to markets to be established.

    British fishing is already under a series of threats. Let us be as clear as the blue ocean about the conservation issue: fishermen are to the fore in this area, for they know that if they clear the seas of fish today, there is no tomorrow for them. Things such as spatial squeeze are real. Our seas are vast but not limitless. Boats cannot fish between floating wind turbines or trawl near those turbines’ subsea infrastructure. To say that boats can simply up nets and go elsewhere is to demonstrate a terrifying lack of knowledge about the sea. Fish and seafood are not evenly suffused; they are in some places and not in others.

    Fishing is food security, as we have heard. It is a livelihood for many—not just for those who literally risk life and limb on the storm-tossed seas, but for those onshore. Fish and chips are as emblematic of this country as the bright fishing boats at quaysides from Kirkcudbright to Kirkwall and more. They must not be frittered away at the behest of an avaricious EU.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2025 Speech at the Organised Immigration Crime Summit

    Yvette Cooper – 2025 Speech at the Organised Immigration Crime Summit

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, on 31 March 2025.

    Thank you very much. Thank you Prime Minister, thank you to the Italian Prime Minister and good morning everyone.

    Can I thank everyone for travelling here from all over the world. Interior ministers, senior law enforcement, delegations from over 40 countries and organisations, we are so pleased to welcome you to London and here to Lancaster House for this, the first summit of its kind on organised immigration crime and border security, and to have so many people come from across the world, shows the seriousness with which all our countries are taking these issues, but also, bluntly, how much more together we need to do.

    Of course, we are not the first generation to grapple with international migration, the societal, economic security consequences that flow through the centuries.

    Of course, people have travelled across borders to work, to study, join family, to flee war or persecution, to escape poverty, to seek a better life for a different future, to chase new resources, or to forge new nations.

    But in recent years, we have seen new and serious patterns and scales of irregular and illegal migration causing major challenges for border security, for national security, for the rule of law, for countries and the economy across so many of our countries, in source, in transit and in destination, countries alike.

    And 2 facts have accelerated and changed some of the challenges our countries face.

    Firstly, technology. The physical distances between nations and continents may not have changed, but technology has made the world feel a lot smaller.

    Organising journeys can be faster and easier than ever, and the details of a different future is suddenly right there on a smartphone in the palm of your hand.

    And the second factor is the emergence of a vast and ruthless criminal industry that stretches across borders and across continents worth billions of pounds.

    The criminal smuggler and trafficking gangs who profit from undermining our border security, our national security and the rule of law and from putting lives at risk, have grown and stretched across the globe.

    And every country here will have different stories to tell and insights to share, but across all of our countries, we’ve seen that organised immigration crime posing a significant and growing global threat with far reaching consequences for us all – breaking our laws, undermining our security and our cohesion.

    From the source countries where gangs prey on the vulnerable, to transit countries where people and equipment pass through towns and borders unchecked, to destination countries managing the financial, the social and the criminal fallout, no part of the journey is untouched.

    And those gangs profiting from what is a vile trade in human beings are exploiting more people than ever before.

    You have heard from our Prime Minister what that means for us here in the UK, and in just 6 years, we’ve seen a criminal industry organising the small boat crossings take hold along our borders.

    Three hundred people crossed the channel on flimsy, dangerous small boats 6, 7 years ago, but 4 years later, that rose to over 30,000, an increase, a 100 fold increase, powered by smuggler and trafficking gangs.

    The gangs who advertise on social media false promise of illegal jobs, gangs who organise the logistics, the fake papers, the illegal finance networks to take everyone’s money, have thousands of pounds, the supply chains, the flimsy rubber boats, the engines.

    And perhaps for us, one of the most disturbing things of all, for us and for France, for the Calais Group, to see some of the fake life jackets, including fake life jackets for children that would not keep anyone afloat in the cold sea.

    And then the organisation along the beaches of France, the violence, the increasing and outrageous violence, against law enforcement.

    And to give you the example of how they run some of those organisations, we’ve seen the small boats, the flimsy rubber boats, take off as taxi boats and make people wait in the freezing water, in the freezing sea, so they then wait to be picked up, to climb onto the boats and then they overcrowd the boats with women and children put in the centre of the boat, the boat can then fold in. There’s the women and children who get crushed and then if the fuel in flimsy containers then leaks and mixes with salt water that can cause terrible, terrible burns.

    And then we’ve seen children crushed to death, and yet the boat carries on and that shameful, disgraceful crime where people, criminal gangs have profited from those lives being lost.

    And that’s why we cannot let that carry on.

    All of your countries will have the different stories of the way in which the gangs are exploiting people into sexual exploitation, into slave labour, into crime.

    The way in which the gangs are using new technology, not just the phones, the social media to organise, but even the drones to spot where the border patrols are, the operations along the land borders, across continents.

    But it is governments, not gangs, who should be deciding who enters our country, and those gangs are operating and profiting across borders.

    So we and our law enforcement need to co-operate across borders now to take them down.

    That’s why, as you heard from our Prime Minister, we are strengthening our laws here in the UK, bringing in new counter-terror powers so we can seize phones, investigate preparatory acts, so we can crack down on the illegal working of modern slavery and establishing our new Border Security Command.

    But we know that strengthening our border security means working with all the countries on the other sides of our borders, not just standing on our shoreline, shouting at the sea.

    We know too that no country can do this alone, and that is why the partnerships and everyone gathering here is so important.

    So today we will talk about what to do to tackle this vile trade in human beings.

    How we choke off the supply chains, the false papers, how we go after the money, how we take down the advertising.

    And how we disrupt, how we pursue, how we prosecute, how we pursue this global battle against a trade in people.

    It is our determination to do this together, the alliances that we build across our borders can be stronger than the criminal gangs who seek to undermine us.

    Thank you all for joining with us in this event today, this first summit. We have so much work to do during the course of the day, so many conversations to have, but thank you so much for being part of it, and I look forward to hearing everyone’s views during the conference today.

    Thank you very much.

  • Keir Starmer – 2025 Comments at the Organised Immigration Summit in Central London

    Keir Starmer – 2025 Comments at the Organised Immigration Summit in Central London

    The comments made by Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, on 31 March 2025.

    It’s great to welcome you all to Lancaster House. It was right here, earlier this month that the UK convened leaders from across Europe together with President Zelenskyy to support a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

    Because we know that Ukraine’s security is our security. And we can only deliver it by taking bold action at home, with the biggest increase in defence spending since the Cold War.

    And also, by working together with our international partners.

    Now – the same is clearly true for the security of our borders.

    Illegal migration is a massive driver of global insecurity. It undermines our ability to control who comes here. And that makes people angry.

    It makes me angry, frankly because it is unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price, from the cost of hotels to our public services struggling under the strain.

    And it’s unfair on the illegal migrants themselves. Because these are vulnerable people being ruthlessly exploited by vile gangs.

    So look, we must each take decisive action in our own countries to deal with this. Nobody can doubt that the people we serve want this issue sorted.

    But the truth is – we can only smash these gangs, once and for all if we work together.

    Because this evil trade, it exploits the cracks between our institutions. Pits nations against one another. Profits from our inability at the political level to come together.

    And that’s why from the moment I took office we said the UK would convene this Summit.

    And I’m delighted today to be joined by all of you. Representatives from more than 40 countries across the world, building a truly international effort to defeat organised immigration crime.

    And let me tell you why. Let me take you back to a visit I made as a relatively new Member of Parliament in 2016 to the camp on the outskirts of Calais.

    I can still picture it now. The muddy ground, sodden with rain and human waste.

    Children as young as five and seven, the same age as my children were then huddling together in freezing temperatures with almost nothing to keep them warm.

    Now, of course, that infamous camp has long since gone. But the evil of the people smuggling businesses that put people there, that remains.

    The gangs remain. That exploitation of desperation, misery and false hope – that all remains.

    There’s nothing progressive or compassionate about turning a blind eye to this. Nothing progressive or compassionate about continuing that false hope which attracts people to make those journeys.

    No – we have got to get to grips with it once and for all. That’s why when I spoke at the INTERPOL meeting in Glasgow last year I said we need to treat people-smuggling as a global security threat similar if you like to terrorism.

    We’ve got to bring to bear all the powers we have at our disposal in much the same way we do against terrorism.

    Before I was a politician, I was the Director of Public Prosecutions in England and Wales. We worked across borders throughout Europe and beyond to foil numerous plots.

    Saving thousands of lives in the process. We prevented planes from being blown up over the Atlantic. And we brought the perpetrators to justice.

    So I believe we should treat organised immigration crime in the exactly same way. I simply don’t believe organised immigration crime cannot be tackled.

    So – we’ve got to combine resources. Share intelligence and tactics. Tackle the problem upstream at every step of the people smuggling journey, from North Africa and the Middle East to the high streets of our biggest cities.

    And look, to that end, we’ve already got to work. Begun to make progress since I came into office. The UK has re-set its entire approach to international collaboration.

    I’ve put smashing the gangs on the agenda of international summits. Showing that the UK now means business. Working together with our allies. We’ve struck new agreements and plans with so many of the countries represented in the room here today.

    Take our work with France as a good example. Now previously – their maritime doctrine prevented French law enforcement from responding to small boats in shallow waters.

    But now we’re working with them to change that, to make sure we get new border patrols and specialist units on the French coast using state-of-the-art surveillance technology.

    With Germany another example, if you can believe it, it wasn’t technically illegal to facilitate people-smuggling to a country outside the EU, like the United Kingdom. But now it will be.

    And with our new bilateral agreement Germany will be able to prosecute the criminal networks facilitating this vile trade.

    Just a few examples of the international collaboration that is so important to taking this challenge on. And it’s beginning to bear fruit.

    At the end of last year, a major operation by French, German and British law enforcement smashed an Iraqi smuggling network with multiple arrests and the seizure seizing hundreds of boats and engines.

    In Amsterdam, a man was arrested on suspicion of supplying hundreds of small boat parts to people smugglers.

    That was a joint operation with our National Crime Agency together with Dutch and Belgian police.

    We’re also working upstream to address factors that drive people towards small boats in the first place.

    Working with the authorities in Albania and Vietnam on campaigns to deter those who are thinking about making that perilous journey.

    Because there is also nothing progressive about allowing working age people to come here illegally instead of supporting them to build their own economies, secure a better future for their own countries, and build a safer, more prosperous world.

    But look – as we work together more closely I think than ever before we’ve also got to take the tough measures at home in our own countries.

    That doesn’t mean gimmicks. You may be familiar with the gimmicks of the last 14 years here in Britain. It means understanding the problem.

    And coming up with pragmatic solutions that work. Actually, fixing what’s wrong.

    Few things show this more clearly, than our approach to border security. We inherited this total fragmentation between our policing, our Border Force and our intelligence agencies.

    A fragmentation that made it crystal clear, when I looked at it, that there were gaps in our defence. An open invitation at our borders for the people smugglers to crack on.

    To be honest it should have been fixed years ago. But we’re doing it now with our new Border Security Command. Led by Martin Hewitt – who many of you I think will know.

    We’re recruiting hundreds of specialist investigators from across our police, our Border Force and intelligence agencies. Creating an elite Border Force. Working with our international partners. Ending the fragmentation.

    £150 million invested over the next two years and new powers and criminal offences to get the job done. So the police will be able to seize the phones and devices of migrants arriving on our shores and gather intelligence about the smugglers.

    The police will be able to act when they have reason to believe preparations are being made for criminal activity instead of waiting for a crime to happen before they can act.

    And it will be an offence to endanger lives at sea to prevent more tragic deaths in the Channel.

    We are also redeploying resources away from the Tory’s wasteful Rwanda scheme. A scheme that spent over 700 million pounds of taxpayer money to remove just four volunteers.

    You know, even if that scheme had gone well, they were claiming they might remove – 300 people a year.

    Since coming to office – I can announce today we have returned more than 24,000 people who have no right to be here.

    That would have taken the Rwanda scheme 80 years to achieve. This is what I mean about not giving in to gimmicks. Just focusing our efforts and resources on the nuts and bolts of removing people. Getting the asylum system working properly. That’s how we’ve delivered the highest returns rate for eight years and the four biggest return flights ever.

    We’re also ramping up the deportation of Foreign National Offenders with a new team of specialist frontline staff going into our prisons, speeding up the removal of prisoners who have no right to be in this country.

    Now, all of this is providing a real disincentive to people thinking about coming to Britain illegally. But if we’re talking about incentives – we need to talk about the people smugglers as well.

    Because they don’t care about borders. They don’t care about the people they traffic. And they don’t care about our country and our people.

    They only care about one thing: money. They make huge profits out of ruining people’s lives. I mean – a few months ago, I went to see some of the boats that had been seized at the NCA headquarters.

    Now we call them small boats, but honestly they’re not worthy of the name boat. I don’t know what you would call them. To me they look like death traps.

    Flimsy. Rubber. No firm structure. You would not let your children climb aboard, even for a second in shallow waters.

    Seriously – if they were a car, they’d be off the road in minutes. The police would intervene.

    And don’t tell me they’ve got any purpose other than people smuggling. So I see no reason why we can’t go after them. And so we are.

    We have seized hundreds of boats and engines, driving up the costs for the smugglers.

    We have taken down 18,000 social media accounts. That’s 10,000 more than last year, disrupting the way smugglers promote their services.

    And more than that, we have announced a new sanctions regime. Treating people smugglers like terrorists. Freezing their assets, banning their travel.

    Putting them behind bars – where they belong. But just as important – putting their entire model, out of business, securing our borders on behalf of working people.

    Because as I said at the start – this is about fairness. And there is little that strikes working people as more unfair than watching illegal migration drive down their wages, their terms and their conditions through illegal work in their community.

    We have to be honest here. For too long, the UK has been a soft touch on this. While the last government were busy with their Rwanda gimmick, they left the door wide open for illegal working.

    Especially in short-term or zero-hours roles like in construction, beauty salons and courier services.

    And while of course most companies do the responsible thing and carry out right to work checks.

    Too many dodgy firms have been exploiting a loophole to skip this process: hiring illegal workers, undercutting honest businesses, driving down the wages of ordinary working people.

    And all of this, of course fuelling that poisonous narrative of the gangs who promise the dream of a better life to vulnerable people yet deliver a nightmare of squalid conditions and appalling exploitation.

    Well, today we are changing that because this government is introducing a tough new law to force all companies to carry out these checks on right to work.

    They take just minutes to complete – so they are not burdensome for business. And they can be done free of charge – so there will be no excuses.

    And no ability to claim they didn’t know they had illegal workers. And failure to comply will result in fines of up to £60,000. Prison terms of up to 5 years and the potential closure of their business.

    Now, none of these strategies on their own are a silver bullet. I know that.

    But each of them is another tool. An arsenal we are building up to smash the gangs once and for all.

    We must pull every lever available. And that is what this Labour government is doing.

    No short cuts, no gimmicks. Just the hard graft of sleeves-rolled-up, practical government.

    Securing our borders. Getting a grip on illegal migration. Delivering our Plan for Change.

    We want to work with you and with everyone who is as determined as we are to end the misery and evil of people-smuggling.

    Because together we will save lives.

    We will secure our borders.

    We will smash the gangs that undermine our security…

    And deliver fairness for the working people we serve.

    Thank you.

  • Steve Reed – 2025 Speech at the Dock Shed on the Circular Economy

    Steve Reed – 2025 Speech at the Dock Shed on the Circular Economy

    The speech made by Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, at the Dock Shed in London on 27 March 2025.

    Thanks to British Land and Mace for hosting us at the Dock Shed today.

    The views up here are absolutely spectacular.

    I don’t think any of us can ever tire of looking at that iconic London skyline. No matter how many times you’ve seen it before.

    Or seeing the city shift and grow as buildings go up and down, as spaces are developed. As communities are created.

    When I was Lambeth Council Leader, I was co-chair of the Vauxhall Nine Elms Redevelopment – that’s the biggest regeneration project in Europe.

    But what people don’t always see is the waste that kind of development can produce.

    62% of all waste generated in the United Kingdom comes from construction.

    That’s resources lost from our economy.

    Lost economic value.

    As we meet our commitment as a Government to build 1.5 million homes, the infrastructure for clean green energy and a reliable and clean water supply, the datacentres to make the UK an AI superpower, we can and we must get better use out of our materials and eradicate waste.

    Mace and British Land – and many others in the room – are already rising to the challenge.

    In this building alone, thousands of tonnes of carbon were saved by smarter material choices, meaning every structure has a smaller carbon footprint.

    The stone floor beneath your feet is completely recycled.

    And in new buildings across the development, British Land and Mace are using material passports to digitally track all components so they can be adapted and reused in the future.

    Later this morning I’m looking forward to visiting the Paper Garden, just a few minutes from here, transformed from an old printworks into an education centre and a garden, where 60% of materials have been retained or reclaimed, including railway sleepers and the logs of fallen trees from Epping Forest.

    The principles of a Circular Economy are embedded in these designs.

    That’s what I want to talk about today.

    Not just in construction but across all sectors.

    We have an opportunity to end the throwaway society and move to a futureproofed economy.

    Where things are built to last.

    Where products are designed to be reused and repaired. And materials given new life again and again.

    This isn’t about merely modifying the way we currently manage waste.

    I want to work with all of you to fundamentally transform our economy so we get more value from it.

    When I was in opposition, this is what business leaders told me they wanted a Labour Government to do.

    So when I became Secretary of State for Defra, I made creating a Circular Economy one of my five core priorities for that department.

    British businesses want to make this change.

    So now it’s part of the Government’s national Plan for Change.

    But it needs long-term direction on how regulation will develop.

    So you can plan with certainty, so we can build the infrastructure we need, and financial institutions and businesses can invest with confidence.

    Today I want to set that direction so, together, we can make the Circular Economy a reality.

    Turn back the years and the things Britain made were built to last.

    Washing machines would be fixed, clothes mended, broken pieces of furniture repaired.

    But in recent times we’ve become trapped in a throwaway culture.

    It’s easier and quicker to replace something on Amazon than get it fixed.

    Our lives follow a ‘take, use and throw’ model that is economically unsustainable, creates mountains of waste that we have to bury or burn, and leaves our supply chains vulnerable and exposed.

    Yet we know the British public support change.

    Carrier bags sold by the main supermarkets have reduced by over 98% since 2014.

    We’ve cleaned up streets, rivers and beaches by banning single-use plastic items like cutlery and polystyrene cups.

    Both policies had huge public support.

    But we are falling behind the rest of the world.

    This Government is changing that.

    Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility will begin later this year, incentivising businesses to remove unnecessary packaging and make their products more recyclable and refillable.

    Simpler Recycling for the workplace starts next week.

    And a standardised, national approach to household recycling – paper, card, plastic, glass, metals and food waste – will be introduced next year so everyone understands more clearly what they can recycle and how they recycle it.

    This will end postcode confusion about bin collections and make sure households, workplaces and businesses never have to deal with the madness of 7 separate bin collections which the previous Conservative Government legislated to inflict on us.

    And this April, we will appoint the business-led organisation that will launch the UK’s first Deposit Management Scheme for drinks containers starting in 2027.

    Less than 60% of waste electricals are collected for reuse or recycling.

    4 in 5 of our plastic products are still made from virgin materials.

    Our household recycling rates haven’t improved in 15 years.

    UK landfill sites absolutely astonishingly cover an area almost as big as Greater London.

    We burn 12 million tonnes of waste collected by councils every year.

    We throw away £22 billion in edible food annually. Four and a half billion in clothes. 2 and a half billion in usable furniture.

    This is bad for the environment, bad for society and it’s bad for the economy.

    We are literally shovelling money down the drain.

    Under Michael Topham’s leadership at the Environmental Services Association, our biggest recycling companies are stepping up to the challenge.

    Our reforms are giving them the confidence to invest £10 billion pounds in the UK’s recycling infrastructure over the next decade, creating over 21 thousand jobs right across the country.

    I know parts of the industry have concerns around the impacts of some of these reforms.

    We are listening. And we’ll keep listening to make sure the changes work for businesses.

    Based on businesses’ feedback, we’ll appoint a producer-led organisation to lead our packaging reforms, building on the successful business-led board that steered them to this stage.

    We’ve published estimated base fees for year one of the scheme, rather than ranges, to give businesses more certainty.

    And we have stopped mandatory labelling requirements to avoid any trade friction or increased costs within the UK and with the EU.

    We’ve also worked with the Food Standards Agency to confirm they will take up the role of competent authority, carrying out the checks to verify the suitability of recycling processes producing food-grade recycled plastics for trade, so we can uphold the value of high-quality UK recycled plastics on export markets.

    Beyond our packaging changes, our ban on disposable plastic vapes comes into force in June.

    We are changing the law so online marketplaces and vape producers pay their fair share to recycle the electricals that they put on the market – encouraging them to consider other options like reuse.

    We’ve set aside £15 million to reduce food waste from farms and ensure it reaches families in need.

    And we’ve set strict conditions for new energy-from-waste plants so they work better for local communities and maximise the value of resources that can’t be re-used or recycled.

    I’m proud of where we’ve got to so far. But I know these reforms are still not enough.

    We need a bigger shift to an economic system that encourages repair, reuse and innovation, where resources are used again and again, and waste is designed out of the system right from the start.

    I worked in business for 16 years, with responsibility for driving up profit and driving down cost.

    To make this bigger shift, I know we must help you unlock innovation and technologies that will open new revenue streams.

    Work with local government to ensure the right infrastructure is in place.

    And show the public that the circular economy is not some abstract concept, but something that will bring real benefits to them, their families, small businesses and communities right across the UK.

    A Circular Economy makes sense.

    In the Netherlands, financial organisations like InvestNL and innovations such as the Denim Deal for textiles are stimulating innovation in every corner of their economy.

    I want the UK to match this. And then go further.

    Moving from our current throwaway society is vital to grow the economy and deliver our Plan for Change, so we can give working people economic security, and give our country national security.

    Towns and cities in every region will benefit from new investment that keeps materials in use for longer, whether in manufacturing and product design, processing or recycling facilities, or in the rental, repair and resale sectors.

    This will provide thousands of high quality, skilled jobs right across the country, getting more people into work, wages into pockets, and driving the regional economic growth this Government was elected to deliver.

    If you want to put a figure on it, external analysis suggests circular economy policies have the potential to boost the economy by £18 billion a year, every year.

    A Circular Economy is also a more resilient economy.

    Recent disruptions to global supply chains from the Covid 19 pandemic to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine make it clear we can no longer rely on importing 80% of our raw materials from abroad.

    These include the materials and components essential to our phones, computers, electric vehicles, hospital equipment and clean energy infrastructure. And that’s to name just a few.

    To ensure our national security in an increasingly unstable world, we have no choice.

    We must embrace circular, local supply chains to reduce our exposure to global shocks and prevent us running out of critical resources.

    As the Chancellor has said, we need to remove barriers for British businesses, investors and entrepreneurs and grow the supply-side of our economy.

    It’s not just the economy though.

    Extracting resources and processing them is responsible for over half of global greenhouse gas emissions.

    Moving away from the linear make, use and throw model is vital to meeting our Net Zero and Environment Targets.

    It will mean less rubbish ending up in landfill. Fewer plastics under our feet and choking the seas, taking hundreds of years to break down.

    We can make better use of that land, whether for agriculture, housing, nature or green energy infrastructure.

    It will mean burning less waste. Less litter on our streets. Less fly tipping on the side of our roads.

    It will mean people can feel more pride in their communities.

    British businesses are already showing us what’s possible.

    From innovative tech startups turning waste into valuable materials, to social enterprises giving used goods a second life.

    Like SUEZ working with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to give hundreds of tonnes of pre-loved items like furniture, bikes and toys a brand new lease of life.

    Reselling them to the local community at affordable prices or donating them to local charities.

    Too Good to Go, established in Copenhagen and spanning multiple global cities including here in London, which has over 100 million users and saved over 400 million meals.

    Low Carbon Materials in Durham, using alternative construction materials to decarbonise roads across the country.

    Or Ecobat Solutions’ in Darlaston recovering valuable materials from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries through their innovative recycling plant.

    I want to support businesses like these to succeed.

    By facilitating the transition you told me this sector wants to make.

    That’s why I set up the Circular Economy taskforce, bringing together experts from government, industry, academia and civil society to work with businesses on what they want to see so we create the best possible conditions for investment.

    I’m delighted to have so many members of the taskforce here with us in the room this morning.

    Under the leadership of Andrew Morlet and Professor Paul Ekins, the taskforce will work with businesses to develop the first ever Circular Economy Strategy for England.

    We will publish the Strategy in the coming Autumn.

    It will include the long-term regulatory roadmaps that businesses asked for, showing the journey to circularity, sector by sector, so you have the certainty and direction to invest in the future.

    We will start with five sectors that have the greatest potential to grow the economy: chemicals and plastics; construction; textiles; transport; and agrifood.

    This includes exploring how we can protect our battery supply so we can electrify the UK’s vehicle fleet, working with the Chancellor to make sure levers including the Plastics Packaging Tax help support the stability and growth of our plastics reprocessing sector, or how we harness new technologies to stop burning materials like the plastic films on packs of strawberries or mushrooms, but instead give them a new life.

    We’re already seeing innovation in plastic films by the company Quantafuel based in Denmark, and Viridor who are here today, alongside others, want to develop chemical recycling plants following that model here in the UK.

    It includes how we build on the industry led coalition ‘Textiles 2030’ to transform our world-leading fashion and textiles industry, tackle food waste to improve food security and bring benefits for consumers, businesses and the environment, and lower construction costs and emissions as we build 1.5 million homes during the lifetime of the current Parliament.

    In these roadmaps, we’ll learn from international best practice, including from the European Union.

    Until now, countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany have led the way on circularity.

    Our Strategy will give British businesses the support they need so we can put the UK back in the race.

    It will provide the freedom for businesses to harness the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation that Britain has long been known for.

    Those of you here today are the champions for this change.

    You were the first off the start line. You’ve battled to do what’s right for the environment, the economy, and the future of our country.

    I want to thank you for that.

    Businesses will lead the transition to a Circular Economy.

    It’s up to us to work together to bring the wider business community and society with us.

    We need to show the country that the Circular Economy is not just a diagram on a page.

    It’s cleaner streets, greener parks, and less fly-tipping in communities we’re proud to call home.

    It’s new income for businesses, thousands of skilled jobs, and economic growth in every region of the country.

    It’s resilience in the face of global supply chain shocks, and it’s essential for our national security.

    The Circular Economy is our chance to improve lives up and down the country. To grow our economy.

    And protect our beautiful environment for generations to come.

    I’m genuinely excited about what we can achieve together.

    My ask from you is simple.

    Please tell the taskforce, and tell me, what you need from us.

    Then work with us so we can make it happen.

    Thank you.

  • Feryal Clark – 2025 Speech at Alan Turing Institute’s Conference AI UK

    Feryal Clark – 2025 Speech at Alan Turing Institute’s Conference AI UK

    The speech made by Feryal Clark, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for AI and Digital Government, at the Alan Turing Institute in London on 17 March 2025.

    In 2001, I learnt to code.

    I was studying for my Master’s in Bioinformatics at Exeter.

    That meant analysing massive datasets, and picking up coding languages.

    And using that analysis to help us sequence genomes, create medicines tailored to your DNA, or predict the effects of new drugs.

    This was 24 years ago, and tech looked a bit different back then.

    I was rocking the Nokia 6310.

    Apple introduced the iPod, promising “10,000 songs in your pocket”. (If you were anything like me, you were using it to listen to U2 or Faithless.)

    Steven Spielberg released “A.I., Artificial Intelligence”, a futuristic fantasy about a humanoid robot trying to be a real boy.

    And in a computer lab in Devon, for this stressed-out Master’s student, the reality of coding was a nightmare.

    Any time something went wrong, you’d have to scour line upon line of code to try to find your mistake.

    The misplaced curly bracket in the binary haystack.

    One error could set your research back by days.

    I don’t need to tell you how different a picture we have before us now:

    • When my phone is my personal assistant, my concierge, my navigator.
    • When 90% of the world’s data was created in the last two years.
    • When AI is no longer the stuff of film directors’ dreams, but a practical tool changing our lives day to day – scanning for diseases in hospitals, or helping teachers plan lessons.
    • And when governments are seizing the opportunity to change how we operate, too.

    Last month, I went to see the Government Digital Service in Whitechapel.

    They’re using AI and other emerging tech to make interacting with the state as easy as banking on the go, or online shopping.

    A lot of that work is powered by AI.

    When I watched the team at work, I saw how every time there was a tiny mistake in the code, it would flash up in colour on their screens.

    Instant detection. Instant fix.

    No more hours hunting for that curly bracket, or days of research lost.

    Globally, change is inevitable.

    But what’s not inevitable is the UK’s place in all of that.

    Do we stand and watch change happen?

    Or do we take a leading role?

    I know that, for all of us in this room, there’s only one choice here.

    The UK’s legacy is one of leadership:

    • The 3rd biggest market for AI in the world.
    • Driven by research from 4 of the world’s 10 best universities.
    • And we’re home to some of the brightest luminaries in Artificial Intelligence – with two British Nobel prize winners for AI just last year.

    That talent stands on the shoulders of Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage and the man whose extraordinary contribution brings us all here today.

    But we are not content to let this legacy remain just that – a legacy.

    A history that we look back on fondly while, in the present day, other countries outpace us. And British people miss out on the benefits that AI can bring to their day to day lives.

    To reap the rewards, academia, industry and the public sector must continue to work together in forums like this to solve our most pressing challenges.

    And the government must give you the tools to make change possible.

    That’s why, in January, the Prime Minister launched the AI Opportunities Action Plan.

    It sets out how we’ll unlock the economic growth that AI promises – up to 47 billion pounds every year for the next decade.

    We’ll give firms and researchers access to the power and information you need to get your ideas off the ground – with 20 times more computing power by 2030.

    Early access to the AI Research Resource for academics and SMEs is now live, as we open up our supercomputers Dawn and Isambard.

    We’ll unlock the public datasets you need to make new discoveries.

    And we’ll also plug the skills gap – by building up skills at school, and nurturing research talent both homegrown and attracted from overseas.

    As part of this, we’re expanding the brilliant Turing AI Fellowships, to give leading academics from multiple disciplines the tools they need to use AI in their work.

    And we’ll keep supporting collaboration between academia, public sector and industry – working with the Alan Turing Institute and UKRI to drive progress at the cutting edge.

    I started by looking back, to a time when texts had character limits, and coding mistakes caused me sleepless nights.

    It feels right to end by looking forward.

    If we get this right – if academia and public and private sectors all play the roles we do best – what could the future look like?

    Here’s what we could say about this country:

    • Like most new technologies before it, AI has created a raft of new, exciting jobs – adding more jobs than it replaces. Our children’s children are doing jobs we don’t have names for yet.
    • No longer weighed down by admin, businesses are infinitely more productive. People can focus on the parts of their jobs that impact the bottom line, but also genuinely bring them joy.
    • The strain on our health service has eased, as AI saves us months on each new drug discovery; and earlier diagnosis gives patients back years with their families.
    • And with access to the world’s knowledge at ordinary people’s fingertips, life in the UK becomes more equal.

    We know this future doesn’t just happen if we press ‘play’ and let time pass.

    It needs a supply of power and talent. Careful handling on safety and ethics. And a deliberate effort to make AI work for all in this country, not just the lucky few.

    Progress is only possible with partnership.

    So thank you for having me today.

    I hope the UK’s AI community continues to tell the government what you need, and to work with us to make our AI future as storied as our past.

    This is a chapter we can only write together.

  • Chris Bryant – 2025 Speech at the Connected Futures Festival

    Chris Bryant – 2025 Speech at the Connected Futures Festival

    The speech made by Chris Bryant, the Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms, on 26 March 2025.

    Hello. My name is Chris Bryant and I’m the telecoms minister. I’m really sorry I can’t be with you. Well, I’m here with you virtually, which I suppose is particularly important for the kind of connectivity that we’re talking about. But I’m afraid that, as you’re meeting, I will be in Parliament for the spring statement, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be talking about economic growth and how we get the economy to really springboard into the future.

    I suppose that’s the key part of what I want to say today, which is that connectivity is a vital part of making sure that the UK economy grows, that everybody gets a chance to participate in our economic future, and that we embrace the technological changes that can make so many differences to people’s lives, whether in the delivery of public services or in the delivery of all the services that we rely on, whether it’s ordering a pizza, parking your car, or engaging with our local GP and seeing our latest test results.

    I know that the geopolitical picture looks uncertain at the moment, and many parts of our lives, of course, are uncertain. Sometimes, trying to predict the future is difficult. That’s one of the reasons that, whereas we’ve always talked about “future telecoms” in the past, we’re changing the terminology to something which I think suits much better the situation that we face today. And that’s why instead of referring to “future telecoms”, we’re now going to be referring to “advanced connectivity technologies”, because advanced optics and satellite communications aren’t the ghosts of telecoms futures anymore, but actually telecoms present – let’s face it! Last year, Aston University transmitted data 4.5 million times faster than the average home broadband connection. We have started to send data through visible light. And Vodafone made the first video call via space last year. I’m an MP for a constituency in South Wales in The Valleys, and so I was very happy to see that that call took place from a remote Welsh mountain. The death of “notspots” may just about be in sight for us all!

    The breakthroughs we are seeing mean that the UK could once again be a leader in connectivity over the next ten years, and I’m absolutely determined that we take forward those opportunities.

    But before I take you into the future, let’s just pause briefly in the present. As we shape the next generation of connectivity, we must remember that some people in this country haven’t yet got this generation of technological connectivity. There’s 1.6 million people in the UK who live largely offline. We have to factor them into our future, and our ambition is to have gigabit-capable broadband in every home and in every business, and higher quality 5G to all populated areas by 2030. Through the Digital Inclusion Action Plan, which we’ve recently launched, we’ll make sure people also have the devices and skills to be part of a digital future. We want to tackle digital exclusion so that we can take the whole of our country with us. So, deploying the best technology we have today and taking a leading role in shaping the technologies of tomorrow is vital to our economic success.

    We will shape them, obviously, with global allies – but we will be guided by three central ideas. First of all, do they bring connectivity to everyone, everywhere, whatever your circumstances? Secondly, do they have security and resilience built in from the start? And thirdly, are they built sustainably, so that better connectivity gets us closer to net zero and not further away? These are all equally important, fundamental principles and ideas behind what we’re trying to achieve in this area.

    The UK has the potential to be at the forefront as we develop these technologies. For a start, we build on research from some of the best universities in the world, and the JOINER research and innovation platform gives them a unique test network to prepare for 6G. British firms are getting connectivity to places it hasn’t gone before, like trains, offshore wind farms and space. BT, who nearly two centuries ago set up the world’s first nationwide communications network, are now leading the way with Toshiba in trials of quantum secure comms. And global companies like Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung have all chosen to do R&D work here in this country, in the United Kingdom.

    We will shape them, obviously, with global allies – but we will be guided by three central ideas. First of all, do they bring connectivity to everyone, everywhere, whatever your circumstances? Secondly, do they have security and resilience built in from the start? And thirdly, are they built sustainably, so better connectivity gets us closer to net zero and not further away? These are all equally important, fundamental principles and ideas behind what we’re trying to achieve in this area.

    The UK has the potential to be at the forefront as we develop these technologies. For a start, we build on research from some of the best universities in the world, and the JOINER research and innovation platform gives them a unique test network to prepare for 6G. British firms are getting connectivity to places it hasn’t gone before, like trains, offshore wind farms and space. BT, who nearly two centuries ago set up the world’s first nationwide communications network, are now leading the way with Toshiba in trials of quantum secure comms. And global companies like Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung have all chosen to do R&D work here in this country, in the United Kingdom.

    We can and should go further, though, making the UK a global leader in advanced connectivity. And that’s where the government and industry really must work hand-in-hand. We will strengthen our supply chains – that’s really important. Today we will publish the government’s response to the report from the Telecoms Supply Chain Diversification Advisory Council, outlining how we will support a thriving ecosystem of suppliers for our networks. I’m immensely grateful to all those who took part in the Council’s work.

    We will back your growth in this sector. Advanced connectivity will be one of the growth markets in our Industrial Strategy within the digital and technology sector. That means the backing across Whitehall to help you succeed. As a sign of that commitment, today I can announce that we will invest nearly £60 million over the next year, 2025 to 2026, to support UK leadership in R&D so that more of the technology providing the world’s critical connectivity is developed here in the UK.

    If we get this right, then ten years down the line we will be able to say that this technology has made people’s daily lives better, put more money in people’s pockets and helps to keep the UK and our allies safe in a turbulent world. That’s a connected future we can only build together.

    Thank you and I hope you have a good conference today.