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  • Lisa Nandy – 2025 Speech at the Jennie Lee Lecture

    Lisa Nandy – 2025 Speech at the Jennie Lee Lecture

    The speech made by Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport at the Royal Shakespeare Company on 20 February 2025.

    In 2019, as Britain tore itself apart over Brexit, against a backdrop of growing nationalism, anger and despair I sat down with the film director Danny Boyle to talk about the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony.

    That moment was perhaps the only time in my lifetime that most of the nation united around an honest assessment of our history in all its light and dark, a celebration of the messy, complex, diverse nation we’ve become and a hopeful vision of the future.

    Where did that country go? I asked him. He replied: it’s still there, it’s just waiting for someone to give voice to it.

    …

    13 years later and we have waited long enough. In that time our country has found multiple ways to divide ourselves from one another.

    We are a fractured nation where too many people are forced to grind for a living rather than strive for a better life.

    Recent governments have shown violent indifference to the social fabric – the local, regional and national institutions that connect us to one another, from the Oldham Coliseum to Northern Rock, whose foundation sustained the economic and cultural life of the people of the North East for generations.

    But this is not just an economic and social crisis, it is cultural too.

    We have lost the ability to understand one another.

    A crisis of trust and faith in government and each other has destroyed the consensus about what is truthfully and scientifically valid.

    Where is the common ground to be found on which a cohesive future can be forged? How can individuals make themselves heard and find self expression? Where is the connection to a sense of belonging to something larger than ourselves?

    I thought about that conversation with Danny Boyle last summer when we glimpsed one version of our future. As violent thugs set our streets ablaze, a silent majority repelled by the racism and violence still felt a deep sense of unrest. In a country where too many people have been written off and written out of our national story. Where imagination, creation and contribution is not seen or heard and has no outlet, only anger, anxiety and disorder on our streets.

    There is that future.

    Or there is us.

    That is why this country must always resist the temptation to see the arts as a luxury. The visual arts, music, film, theatre, opera, spoken word, poetry, literature and dance – are the building blocks of our cultural life, indispensable to the life of a nation, always, but especially now.

    So much has been taken from us in this dark divisive decade but above all our sense of self-confidence as a nation.

    But we are good at the arts. We export music, film and literature all over the world. We attract investment to every part of the UK from every part of the globe. We are the interpreters and the storytellers, with so many stories to tell that must be heard.

    And despite everything that has been thrown at us, wherever I go in Britain I feel as much ambition for family, community and country as ever before. In the end, for all the fracture, the truth remains that our best hope… is each other.

    This is the country that George Orwell said “lies beneath the surface”.

    And it must be heard. It is our intention that when we turn to face the nation again in four years time it will be one that is more self-confident and hopeful, not just comfortable in our diversity but a country that knows it is enriched by it, where everybody’s contribution is seen and valued and every single person can see themselves reflected in our national story.

    You might wonder, when so much is broken, when nothing is certain, so much is at stake, why I am asking more of you now.

    John F Kennedy once said we choose to go to the moon in this decade not because it is easy but because it is hard.

    That is I think what animated the leaders of the post war period who, in the hardest of circumstances knew they had to forge a new nation from the upheaval of war.

    And they reached for the stars.

    The Festival of Britain – which was literally built out of the devastation of war – on a bombed site on the South Bank, took its message to every town, city and village in the land and prioritised exhibitions that explored the possibilities of space and technology and allowed a devastated nation to gaze at the possibilities of the future.

    So many of our treasured cultural institutions that still endure to this day emerged from the devastation of that war.

    The first Edinburgh Festival took place just a year after the war when – deliberately – a Jewish conductor led the Vienna Philharmonic, a visible symbol of the power of arts to heal and unite.

    From the BBC to the British Film Institute, the arts have always helped us to understand the present and shape the future.

    People balked when John Maynard Keynes demanded that a portion of the funding for the reconstruction of blitzed towns and cities must be spent on theatres and galleries. But he persisted, arguing there could be “no better memorial of a war to save the freedom of spirit of an individual”.

    Yes it took visionary political leaders.

    But it also demanded artists and supporters of the arts who refused to be deterred by the economic woes of the country and funding in scarce supply, and without hesitation cast aside those many voices who believed the arts to be an indulgence.

    This was an extraordinary generation of artists and visionaries who understood their role was not to preserve the arts but to help interpret, shape and light the path to the future.

    Together they powered a truly national renaissance which paved the way for the woman we honour today – Jennie Lee – whose seminal arts white paper, the first Britain had ever had, was published 60 years ago this year.

    It stated unequivocally the Wilson government’s belief in the power of the arts to transform society and to transform lives.

    Perhaps because of her belief in the arts in and of itself, which led to her fierce insistence that arts must be for everyone, everywhere – and her willingness to both champion and challenge the arts – she was – as her biographer Patricia Hollis puts it  – the first, the best known and the most loved of all Britain’s Ministers for the Arts.

    When she was appointed so many people sneered at her insistence on arts for everyone everywhere..

    And yet she held firm.

    That is why we are not only determined – but impassioned – to celebrate her legacy and consider how her insistence that culture was at the centre of a flourishing nation can help us today.

    This is the first in what will be an annual lecture that gives a much needed platform to those voices who are willing to think and do differently and rise to this moment, to forge the future, written – as Benjamin Zephaniah said – in verses of fire.

    Because governments cannot do this alone. It takes a nation.

    And in that spirit, her spirit. I want to talk to you about why we need you now. What you can expect from us. And what we need from you.

    …

    George Bernard Shaw once wrote:

    “Imagination is the beginning of creation.

    “you imagine what you desire,

    “you will what you imagine –

    “and at last you create what you will.”

    That belief that arts matter in and of themselves, central to the chance to live richer, larger lives, has animated every Labour Government in history and animates us still.

    As the Prime Minister said in September last year: “Everyone deserves the chance to be touched by art. Everyone deserves access to moments that light up their lives.

    “And every child deserves the chance to study the creative subjects that widen their horizons, provide skills employers do value, and prepares them for the future, the jobs and the world that they will inherit.”

    This was I think Jennie Lee’s central driving passion, that “all of our children should be given the kind of education that was the monopoly of the privileged few” – to the arts, sport, music and culture which help us grow as people and grow as a nation.

    But who now in Britain can claim that this is the case? Whether it is the running down of arts subjects, the narrowing of the curriculum and the labelling of arts subjects as mickey mouse –  enrichment funding in schools eroded at the stroke of the pen or the closure of much-needed community spaces as council funding has been slashed.

    Culture and creativity has been erased, from our classrooms and our communities.

    Is it any wonder that the number of students taking arts GSCEs has dropped by almost half since 2010?

    This is madness. At a time when the creative industries offer such potential for growth, good jobs and self expression in every part of our country  And a lack of skills acts as the single biggest brake on them…bar none, we have had politicians who use them as a tool in their ongoing, exhausting culture wars.

    Our Cabinet, the first entirely state educated Cabinet in British history, have never accepted the chance to live richer, larger lives belongs only to some of us and I promise you that we never ever will.

    That is why we wasted no time in launching a review of the curriculum, as part of our Plan for Change.

    To put arts, music and creativity back at the heart of the education system.

    Where they belong.

    And today I am delighted to announce the Arts Everywhere fund as a fitting legacy for Jennie Lee’s vision – over £270 million investment that will begin to fix the foundations of our arts venues, museums, libraries and heritage sector in communities across the country.

    We believe in them. And we will back them.

    Because as Abraham Lincoln once said, the dogmas of a quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.

    Jennie Lee lived by this mantra. So will we.

    We are determined to escape the deadening debate about access or excellence which has haunted the arts ever since the formation of the early Arts Council.

    The arts is an ecosystem, which thrives when we support the excellence that exists and use it to level up.

    Like the RSC’s s “First Encounters” programme. Or the incredible Shakespeare North Playhouse in Knowsley where young people are first meeting with spoken word.

    When I watched young people from Knowsley growing in confidence, and dexterity, reimagining Shakespeare for this age and so, so at home in this amazing space it reminded me of my childhood.

    Because in so many ways I grew up in the theatre. My dad was on the board of the National, and as a child my sister and I would travel to London on the weekends we had with our dad to see some of the greatest actors and directors on earth – Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Tom Baker, Trevor Nunn and Sam Mendes. We saw Chekhov, Arthur Miller and Brecht reimagined by the National, the Donmar and the Royal Court.

    It was never, in our house, a zero-sum game. The thriving London scene was what inspired my parents and others to set up what was then the Corner House in Manchester, which is now known as HOME.

    It inspired my sister to go on to work at the Royal Exchange in Manchester where she and I spent some of the happiest years of our lives watching tragedy and farce, comedy and social protest.

    Because of this I love all of it – the sound, smell and feel of a theatre. I love how it makes me think differently about the world. And most of all I love the gift that our parents gave us, that we always believed these are places and spaces for us.

    I want every child in the country to have that feeling. Because Britain’s excellence in film, literature, theatre, TV, art, collections and exhibitions is a gift, it is part of our civic inheritance, that belongs to us all and as its custodians it is up to us to hand it down through the generations.

    Not to remain static, but to create a living breathing bridge between the present, the past and the future.

    …

    My dad, an English literature professor, once told me that the most common mistakes students make – including me – he meant me actually – was to have your eye on the question, not on the text.

    So, with some considerable backchat in hand, I had a second go at an essay on Hamlet – why did Hamlet delay? – and came to the firm conclusion that he didn’t. That this is the wrong question. I say this not to start a debate on Hamlet, especially in this crowd, but to ask us to consider this:

    If the question is – how do we preserve and protect our arts institutions? Then access against excellence could perhaps make sense. I understand the argument, that to disperse excellence is somehow to diffuse it.

    But If the question is – how to give a fractured nation back its self confidence? Then this choice becomes a nonsense. So it is time to turn the exam question on its head and reject this false choice.

    Every person in this country matters. But while talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. This cannot continue. That is why our vision is not access or excellence but access to excellence. We will accept nothing less. This country needs nothing less. And thanks to organisations like the RSC we know it can be achieved.

    …

    I was reflecting while I wrote this speech how at every moment of great upheaval it has been the arts that have helped us to understand the world, and shape the future.

    From fashion, which as Eric Hobsbawm once remarked, was so much better at anticipating the shape of things to come than historians or politicians, to the angry young men and women in the 1950s and 60s – that gave us plays like Look Back in Anger – to the quiet northern working class rebellion of films like Saturday Night Sunday Morning, This Sporting Life and Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.

    Without the idea that excellence belongs to us all – this could never have happened. What was once considered working class, ethnic minority or regional – worse, in Jennie Lee’s time, it was called “the provinces” which she banned – thank God. These have become a central part of our national story.

    ….

    I think the arts is a political space. But the idea that politicians should impose a version of culture on the nation is utterly chilling.

    When we took office I said that the era of culture wars were over. It was taken to mean, in some circles, that I could order somehow magically from Whitehall that they would end.

    But I meant something else. I meant an end to the “mind forged manacles” that William Blake raged against and the “mind without fear” that Rabindranath Tagore dreamt of.

    [political content removed]

    Would this include the rich cultural heritage from the American South that the Beatles drew inspiration from, in a city that has been shaped by its role in welcoming visitors and immigrants from across the world? Would it accommodate Northern Soul, which my town in Wigan led the world in?

    We believe the proper role of government is not to impose culture, but to enable artists to hold a mirror up to society and to us. To help us understand the world we’re in and shape and define the nation.

    Who know that is the value that you alone can bring.

    I recently watched an astonishing performance of The Merchant of Venice, set in the East End of London in the 1930s. In it, Shylock has been transformed from villain to  victim at the hands of the Merchant, who has echoes of Oswald Mosely. I don’t want to spoil it – not least because my mum is watching it at the Lowry next week and would not forgive me- but it ends with a powerful depiction of the battle of Cable Street.

    Nobody could see that production and fail to understand the parallels with the modern day. No political speech I have heard in recent times has had the power, that power to challenge, interpret and provoke that sort of response. To remind us of the obligations we owe to one another.

    Other art forms can have – and have had – a similar impact. Just look at the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office. It told a story with far more emotional punch than any number of political speeches or newspaper columns.

    You could say the same of the harrowing paintings by the Scottish artist Peter Howson. His depiction of rape when he was the official war artist during the Bosnian War seared itself into people’s understanding of that conflict. It reminds me of the first time I saw a Caravaggio painting. The insistence that it becomes part of your narrative is one you never ever forget.

    That is why Jennie Lee believed her role was a permissive one. She repeated this mantra many times telling reporters that she wanted simply to make living room for artists to work in. The greatest art, she said, comes from the torment of the human spirit – adding – and you can’t legislate for that.

    I think if she were alive today she would look at the farce that is the moral puritanism which is killing off our arts and culture – for the regions and the artistic talent all over the country where the reach of funding and donors is not long enough – the protests against any or every sponsor of the arts, I believe, would have made her both angered and ashamed.

    In every social protest  – and I have taken part in plenty – you have to ask, who is your target? The idea that boycotting the sponsor of the Hay Festival harms the sponsor, not the festival is for the birds.

    And I have spent enough time at Hay, Glastonbury and elsewhere to know that these are the spaces – the only spaces – where precisely the moral voice and protest comes from. Boycotting sponsors, and killing these events off,  is the equivalent of gagging society. This self defeating virtue signalling is a feature of our times and we will stand against it with everything that we’ve got.

    Because I think we are the only [political context removed] force, right now, that believes that it is not for the government to dictate what should be heard.

    But there is one area where we will never be neutral and that is on who should be heard.

    Too much of our rich inheritance, heritage and culture is not seen. And when it is not, not only is the whole nation poorer but the country suffers.

    It is our firm belief that at the heart of Britain’s current malaise is the fact that too many people have been written off and written out of our national story. And, to borrow a line from my favourite George Eliot novel, Middlemarch, it means we cannot hear that ‘roar that lies on the other side of silence’.  What we need – to completely misquote George Elliot – is a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life.’ We’ve got to be able to hear it.

    And this is personal for me.

    I still remember how groundbreaking it was to watch Bend it Like Beckham – the first time I had seen a family like ours depicted on screen not for being Asian (or in my case mixed race) but because of a young girl’s love of football.

    And I was reminded of this year’s later when Maxine Peake starred in Queens of the Coal Age, her play about the women of the miners’ strike, which she put on at the Royal Exchange in Manchester.

    The trains were not running – as usual – but on one of my council estates the women who had lived and breathed this chapter of our history clubbed together, hired a coach and went off to see it. It was magical to see the reaction when they saw a story that had been so many times about their lives, finally with them in it.

    We are determined that this entire nation must see themselves at the centre of their own and our national story. That’s a challenge for our broadcasters and our film-makers.

    Show us the full panoply of the world we live in, including the many communities far distant from the commissioning room which is still far too often based in London.

    But it’s also a challenge for every branch of the arts, including the theatre, dance, music, painting and sculpture. Let’s show working-class communities too in the work that we do – and not just featuring in murder and gangland series.

    Part of how we discover that new national story is by breathing fresh life into local heritage and reviving culture in places where it is disappearing.

    Which is why we’re freeing up almost £5 million worth of funding for community organisations – groups who know their own area and what it needs far better than Whitehall. Groups determined to bring derelict and neglected old buildings back into good use. These are buildings that stand at the centre of our communities. They are visible symbols of pride, purpose and their contribution and their neglect provokes a strong emotional response to toxicity, decline and decay. We’re determined to put those communities back in charge of their own destiny again.

    And another important part of the construction is the review of the arts council, led by Baroness Margaret Hodge, who is with us today. When Jennie Lee set up regional arts associations the arts council welcomed their creation as good for the promotion of regional cultures and in the hope they would “create a rod for the arts council’s back”.

    They responded to local clamour, not culture imposed from London. Working with communities so they could tell their own story. That is my vision. And it’s the vision behind the Arts Everywhere Fund that we announced this morning.

    The Arts Council Review will be critical to fulfilling that vision and today we’re setting out two important parts of that work – publishing both the Terms of Reference and the members of the Advisory Group who will be working with Baroness Hodge, many of whom have made the effort to join us here today.

    We have found the Jennie Lee’s of our age, who will deliver a review that is shaped around communities and local areas, and will make sure that arts are for everyone, wherever they live and whatever their background. With excellence and access.

    But we need more from you. We need you to step up.

    Across the sporting world from Boxing to Rugby League clubs, they’re throwing their doors open to communities, especially young people, to help grip the challenges facing a nation. Opening up opportunities. Building new audiences. Creating the champions of the future. Lots done, but much more still to do.

    Every child and adult should also have the opportunity to access live theatre, dance and music – to believe that these spaces belong to them and are for them. We need you to throw open your doors. So many of you already deliver this against the odds. But the community spaces needed – whether community centres, theatres, libraries are too often closed to those who need them most.

    Too often we fall short of reflecting the full and varied history of the communities which support us. That’s why we have targeted the funding today to bring hope flickering back to life in community-led culture and arts – supported by us, your government, but driven by you and your communities.

    It’s one of the reasons we are tackling the secondary ticket market, which has priced too many fans out of live music gigs. It’s also why we are pushing for a voluntary levy on arena tickets to fund a sustainable grassroots music sector, including smaller music venues.

    But I also want new audiences to pour in through the doors – and I want theatres across the country to flourish as much as theatres in the West End.

    I also want everyone to be able to see some of our outstanding art, from Lowry and Constable to Anthony Gormley and Tracey Emin.

    Too much of the nation’s art is sitting in basements not out in the country where it belongs. I want all of our national and civic galleries to find new ways of getting that art out into communities.

    There are other challenges. There is too much fighting others to retain a grip on small pots of funding and too little asking “what do we owe to one another” and what can I do. Jennie Lee encouraged writers and actors into schools and poets into pubs.

    She set up subsidies so people, like the women from my council estate in Wigan, could travel to see great art and theatre. She persuaded Henry Moore to go and speak to children in a school in Castleford, in Yorkshire who were astonished when he turned up not with a lecture, but with lumps of clay.

    There are people who are doing this now. The brilliant fashion designer Paul Smith told me about a recent visit to his old primary school in Nottingham where he went armed with the material to design a new school tie with the kids. These are the most fashionable kids on the block.

    I know it’s been a tough decade. Funding for the arts has been slashed. Buildings are crumbling. And the pandemic hit the arts and heritage world hard.

    And I really believe that the Government has a role to play in helping free you up to do what you do best – enriching people’s lives and bringing communities together – so with targeted support like the new £85m Creative Foundations Fund that we’re launching today with the Arts Council we hope that we’ll be able to help you with what you do best.

    SOLT’s own research showed that, without support, 4 in 10 theatres they surveyed were at risk of closing or being too unsafe to use in five years’ time. So today we are answering that call. This fund is going to help theatres, galleries, and arts centres restore buildings in dire need of repairs.

    And on top of that support, we’re also getting behind our critical local, civic museums – places which are often cultural anchors in their village, town or city. They’re facing acute financial pressures and they need our backing. So our new Museum Renewal Fund will invest £20 million in these local assets – preserving them and ensuring they remain part of local identities, to keep benefitting local people of all ages. In my town of Wigan we have the fantastic Museum of Wigan Life and it tells the story of the contribution that the ordinary, extraordinary people in Wigan made to our country, powering us through the last century through dangerous, difficult, dirty work in the coal mines.  That story, that understanding of the contribution that Wigan made, I consider to be a part of the birthright and inheritance of my little boy growing up in that town today and we want every child growing up in a community to understand the history and heritage and contribution that their parents and grandparents made to this country and a belief that that future stretches ahead of them as well. Not to reopen the coal mines, but to make a contribution to this country and to see themselves reflected in our story.

    But for us to succeed we need more from you. This is not a moment for despair. This is our moment to ensure the arts remain central to the life of this nation for decades to come and in turn that this nation flourishes.

    If we get this right we can unlock funding that will allow the arts to flourish in every part of Britain, especially those that have been neglected for far too long, by creating good jobs and growth, and giving children everywhere the chance to get them.

    Our vision is not just to grow the economy, but to make sure it benefits people in our communities. So often where i’ve seen investments in the last decade and good jobs created, I go down the road to a local school and I see children who can see those jobs from the school playground, but could no more dream of getting to the moon than they could of getting those jobs. And we are determined that that’s going to change.

    This is what we’ve been doing with our creative education programmes (like the Museums and Schools Programme, the Heritage Schools Programme, Art & Design National Saturday Clubs and the BFI Film Academy.) These are programmes we are proud to support and ones I’m personally proud that my Department will be funding these programmes next year.

    Be in no doubt, we are determined to back the creative industries in a way no other government has done. I’m delighted that we have committed to the audiovisual, video games, theatre, orchestra and museums and galleries tax reliefs, as well as introducing the new independent film and VFX tax reliefs as well.

    You won’t hear any speeches from us denigrating the creative industries or lectures about ballerinas being forced to retrain.

    Yes, these are proper jobs. And yes, artists should be properly remunerated for their work.

    We know these industries are vital to our economic growth. They employ 1 in 14 people in the UK and are worth more than £125 billion a year to our economy.  We want them to grow. That is why they are a central plank of our industrial strategy.

    But I want to be equally clear that these industries only thrive if they are part of a great artistic ecosystem. Matilda, War Horse and Les Miserables are commercial successes, but they sprang from the public investment in theatre.

    James Graham has written outstanding screenplays for television including Sherwood, but his first major play was the outstanding This House at the National and his other National Theatre play Dear England is now set to be a TV series.

    You don’t get a successful commercial film sector without a successful subsidised theatre sector. Or a successful video games sector without artists, designers, creative techies, musicians and voiceover artists.

    So it’s the whole ecosystem that we have to strengthen and enhance. It’s all connected.

    The woman in whose name we’ve launched this lecture series would have relished that challenge. She used to say she had the best job in government

    “All the others deal with people’s sorrows… but I have been called the Minister of the Future.”

    That is why I relish this challenge and why working with those of you who will rise to meet this moment will be the privilege of my life.

    …

    I wanted to leave with you with a moment that has stayed with me.

    A few weeks ago I was with Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, who has become a great friend. We were in his old constituency of Leigh, a town that borders Wigan. And we were talking about the flashes, which in our towns used to be open cast coalmines.

    They were regenerated by the last Labour government and they’ve now become these incredible spaces, with wildlife and green spaces with incredible lakes that are well used by local children.

    We had a lot to talk about and a lot to do. But as we looked out at the transformed landscape wondering how in one generation we had gone from scars on the landscape to this, he said, the lesson I’ve taken from this is that nature recovers more quickly than people.

    While this government, through our Plan for Change, has made it our mission to support a growing economy, so we can have a safe, healthy nation where people have opportunities not currently on offer – the recovery of our nation cannot be all bread and no roses. Our shared future depends critically on every one of us in this room rising to this moment.

    To give voice to the nation we are, and can be.

    To let hope and history rhyme.

    So let no one say it falls to anyone else. It falls to us.

  • John Healey – 2025 Speech on Defence Reform

    John Healey – 2025 Speech on Defence Reform

    The speech made by John Healey, the Secretary of State for Defence, at the Institute for Government in London on 18 February 2025.

    Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here and thank you for hosting us today.

    The Institute for Government, in my book, plays a really important role in Westminster. It helps hold Ministers to account for what we say we’re going to do as part of that bigger mission to securing this country a better government for Britain.

    I must say, when I confirmed this event a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have expected such interest in MOD reform, and I’m really grateful for the level of this attendance and presence, both in the room and online.

    But I guess the pace of the geopolitical change which you were referring to Hannah, and what we’re seeing right now confirms what I would argue is the need for change within defence too.

    As I said on my first day as Secretary of State in the department, when I came through the doors, I’m a Defence Secretary that’s more interested in getting results and global opportunities than headlines, and I guess I’m delivering on that promise, making a speech on defence reform right in the middle of parliamentary recess.

    However, the headlines, the wider headlines, and the decisions that we make right now over the coming weeks will not only define the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine, but the security of our world for a generation to come, and the nature of government means dealing with these challenges.

    In my view, the test of leadership, of political leadership isn’t just about managing the immediate, it’s also about reforming for the future.

    We’re in a new era of threat that demands a new era for defence and in the middle of everything else, last week, the new Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth in the US and I,  made time to discuss the aims we share on defence reform.

    This government, our new Labour government, was elected on a mandating one word: change.

    We govern on an instruction in one word: deliver.

    And as a new government, we’re delivering for defence.

    Over these first seven months, we stepped up and speeded up support for Ukraine. We’ve increased defence spending this year by nearly £3 billion, and we’ll set the path to spending 2.5% of GDP in the Spring.

    We’ve launched a new Defence Industrial Strategy. We secured a deal to buy back 36,000 military homes to improve conditions for personnel and get better value for the taxpayer.

    We’ve given the men and women of our armed forces the biggest pay increase for more than 20 years. We signed the landmark Trinity House agreement with the Germany.

    We’ve already progressed the Armed Forces Commissioner bill through the House of Commons to give a strong independent voice to improve service life.

    We have in the MOD two major change programmes both launched within the first month of government.

    One, the Strategic Defence Review. Two, our Defence Reform program. Each is essential for the other. The Defence Review will reinforce the imperative for Defence Reform. Defence reform is the foundation for being able to implement the Defence Review and for discharging what is our first duty in government.

    Exactly a year ago, actually, in February, I gave a speech at Policy Exchange on defence reform in which I outlined, and I said then the need to create a strong defence centre capable of leading Britain meeting the increasing threats we face.

    And in a little noticed section of the Labour Party manifesto at the July election, we pledged specific reforms and said strengthening our defences requires stronger leadership, clearer accountability, faster delivery, less waste and better value for money.

    By the end of July, I put in place a new team, new leadership, and weekly meeting meetings with me to drive our defence reform programme.

    And today, I wanted to offer an update on where we’ve got to and where we are going in the months ahead.

    One of the really special things about this job, the special things about this special job are the deeply impressive men and women I meet every day, from the submariners coming home from weeks undersea, to apprentices on Derby’s nuclear reaction production lines, to the NATO HQ team with people in the MOD building that last week pulled together the Ukraine led contact group meeting of 46 nations in the room at one week’s notice.

    Extraordinary people doing extraordinary things within a system that very often doesn’t work in the way that we need it to, for an increasingly dangerous world, work in the way that we need it to, to provide our armed forces with what they need to deter, to fight and to win.

    First, underpinning it all is the absence of clear, consistent accountability, central to the effectiveness of any organisation. Yet I have been in too many meetings when I ask who’s leading this? Who’s responsible for getting this done? And no one is able to give me a single, clear answer.

    Second, while everyone agrees that defence spending needs to increase, it’s not just how much you spend, but it’s how well you spend it. And we’re simply not securing the value for money our armed forces, our economy needs for every defence panel.

    We duplicate even the most central tasks. For example, we have eleven separate finance functions, two and a half thousand people doing the same activity in different places, in different ways. And third defence is mired in process and procedure. We’ve added complexity where simplicity is needed.

    Procurement, we’ve got a situation where we employ eleven checkers for every one decision maker. So, no wonder it takes an average six years for a large programme simply to get onto contract.

    So today, I’m here to declare that investment in defence will be matched by reform.

    First, we’re introducing clear points of accountability at every level within UK defence, starting at the top with four new senior leaders, four leaders who report to me as Defence Secretary and my ministerial team at the central point of accountability to the British people and to the British public.

    The Chief of the Defence Staff, who, for the first time since this role was created, now commands the service chiefs and will be the head of newly established Military Strategic Headquarters, responsible for force design and war planning across our integrated force.

    The Permanent Secretary, our principal accounting officer, who will run a leaner, more agile Department of State with more policy muscle to lead arguments across Whitehall and with allies, we’ll revamp senior roles to elevate those into policymakers with broad portfolios and powerful mandates.

    Third, our new Armaments Director, who will fix procurement and drive growth. I’ll come back to the detail of the National Armaments Director in a moment.

    Fourthly, our Chief of Defence Nuclear, who will continue to lead and deliver the national Nuclear Enterprise within the recently established ring fence and freedoms.

    This new quad will lead a defence which is more concentrated on warfighting, readiness and on deterrence.

    They’ll shift the approach as an organisation, which too often has been obsessed with process, to one focus on outcomes, in which information flows quickly, accountabilities are clear, and results are demanding. This new quad will be up and running from the 31st of March.

    On finance will match our new accountabilities, making hardware that manages money better to secure better value for money, for the taxpayer, better outcomes for the armed forces.

    [Political reference removed]

    Instead of the ten current top line budget holders, there will be four new budget holders, one for each of this new quad. We will introduce three new centrally determined financial budgets, each with ministerial oversight, readiness, operations, investment.

    The new readiness budget will hold the chiefs of the services to account for how they run their day-to-day spending. This will be done by the Chief of Defence Staff through our new Military Strategic Headquarters. The Military Strategic Headquarters will be responsible for the new operations budget, unencumbered by the excess bureaucracy and the lack of clarity that characterises the way the defence is organised now, and ministers will direct those priorities.

    And then finally, our new National Armaments Director will run the single new investment budget, bringing together eight separate procurement budgets across the organisation into one.

    This will help cut waste, reduce duplication, it will help ensure that we are buying better what our front-line forces need. In turn, the Armaments Director will acquire owning capabilities which are affordable within the budgets set by Ministers.

    These budgets, as with the quad, will have Initial Operating Capability from the end next month, 31st March.

    Our new National Armaments Director will fundamentally change how defence works partner with industry, how the defence becomes the engine for driving economic growth.

    So sitting alongside the Permanent Secretary, the Chief of Defence Staff, then executing £20 billion-plus budget to build sustain our national arsenal, because at this time, we must rearm Britain, and I see this as a new FTSE 100 company within the MOD tasked, if you like, with getting the very best capabilities needed into the hands of our frontline forces.

    Delivering on our Defence Industrial Strategy to create more defence jobs, more defence apprenticeships in every region and nation across the UK. Tasked with driving British exports up and wider, tasked with receiving responsibility for the entire end to end acquisition system for the MOD.

    They will save the taxpayer at least £10 billion over the next decade, savings that we would reinvest directly into Britain’s defence. Our interim National Armaments Director will be in post by the end of next month, recruitment for a permanent candidate is already underway.

    In conclusion, the world is changing. Defence is changing. Our reform programme represents the biggest shake up of UK defence for over 50 years.

    Let me say this. This is a government whose commitment to defence is unshakeable. It’s the foundation for our Plan for Change, for the delivery of our government’s missions, we will match sustained investment with serious reform.

    It will mean, growing the economy. It will mean a more muscular defence for a more dangerous world. It will mean, Britain, which is secure, at home, and strong abroad.

  • Keir Starmer – 2025 Article in the Telegraph on Ukraine

    Keir Starmer – 2025 Article in the Telegraph on Ukraine

    The article in the Daily Telegraph written by Keir Starmer and released by 10 Downing Street as a press release on 17 February 2025.

    We are facing a once-in-a-generation moment for the collective security of our continent. This is not only a question about the future of Ukraine – it is existential for Europe as a whole.

    Securing a lasting peace in Ukraine that safeguards its sovereignty for the long term is essential if we are to deter Putin from further aggression in the future.

    To achieve it, Europe and the United States must continue to work closely together – and I believe the UK can play a unique role in helping to make this happen, just as we did this past week in stepping in to convene and chair the Ukraine Defence Contact Group.

    First, Europe must step up further to meet the demands of its own security. So I am heading to Paris with a very clear message for our European friends. We have got to show we are truly serious about our own defence and bearing our own burden. We have talked about it for too long – and president Trump is right to demand that we get on with it.

    As European nations, we must increase our defence spending and take on a greater role in Nato. Non-US Nato nations have already increased defence spending by 20 per cent in the past year, but we must go further.

    Russia is still waging war and Ukraine is still fighting for its freedom, which is why we must not relent in our efforts to get the kit Ukrainians need for their fighters on the front line. While the fighting continues, we must put Ukraine in the strongest possible position ahead of any talks.

    The UK is ready to play a leading role in accelerating work on security guarantees for Ukraine. This includes further support for Ukraine’s military, where the UK has already committed £3 billion a year until at least 2030. But it also means being ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary.

    I do not say that lightly. I feel very deeply the responsibility that comes with potentially putting British servicemen and women in harm’s way. But any role in helping to guarantee Ukraine’s security is helping to guarantee the security of our continent, and the security of this country.

    The end of this war, when it comes, cannot merely become a temporary pause before Putin attacks again.

    But second, while European nations must step up in this moment – and we will – US support will remain critical and a US security guarantee is essential for a lasting peace, because only the US can deter Putin from attacking again. So I will be meeting president Trump in the coming days and working with him and all our G7 partners to help secure the strong deal we need.

    We must be clear that peace cannot come at any cost. Ukraine must be at the table in these negotiations, because anything less would accept Putin’s position that Ukraine is not a real nation.

    President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people have shown the most extraordinary resilience and made such great sacrifices in the defence of their nation. We cannot have another situation like Afghanistan, where the US negotiated directly with the Taliban and cut out the Afghan government. I feel sure that president Trump will want to avoid this too.

    While Nato membership may take time, we should continue to support Ukraine’s irreversible path to joining the alliance.

    We should also show greater strength in applying economic pressure. Putin’s economy is feeling the strain – he is worried about his energy revenues and his financial sector.

    Working together, the US, Europe and all our G7 allies should seek to go further on the oil price cap, the Shadow Fleet, the sanctioning of oil giants, and going after those banks that are enabling the evasion of sanctions.

    These crucial days ahead will determine the future security of our continent. As I will say in Paris, peace comes through strength. But the reverse is also true. Weakness leads to war.

    This is the moment for us all to step up, and the UK will do so because it is the right thing to do for the values and freedoms we hold dear, and because it is fundamental to our own national security.

  • David Lammy – 2025 Speech at the G20 in South Africa

    David Lammy – 2025 Speech at the G20 in South Africa

    The speech made by David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, at the G20 Foreign Ministerial Meeting in South Africa on 20 February 2025.

    Thank you very much Ronald [Ronald Lamola, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa] and let me say, my dear brother, what a joy is to see the G20 in Africa at long last. And we thank Brazil for its stewardship last year.

    The challenges that we face are truly global. We will not begin to tackle them unless we harness the potential of this continent, bursting with growth and opportunities and with so many young people, talented young people at its heart.

    The starkest challenge we face is escalating conflict, both between and within nations, driving vicious cycles of grievance, displacement and low growth.

    Your presidency, Ronald, calls for solidarity, and solidarity starts by recognising and naming the victims of war and injustice:

    • innocent Ukrainians enduring bombardment night after night from Odessa to Zaphorizhya
    • the hostages still cruelly held underground by Hamas, 16 months on from the trauma of October the 7th
    • the Palestinian civilians driven from their homes in Gaza and the West Bank
    • the Sudanese refugees flee their burning villages to escape across the border to Chad, the overwhelming majority of them, women and children having endured the most unimaginable and indiscriminate violence

    As I said when I visited Chad, there can be no geopolitical stability, whilst there remains a hierarchy of conflicts, with those on this continent finding themselves at the bottom of the global pile.

    And that’s why, since starting this job, I’ve made a reset with the so called Global South, a central plank of the UK foreign policy, and it’s why I doubled British aid for Sudan, and I prepared a conference in London to push for a political process which will end the fighting and protect civilians.

    And that’s why I’ve called out the Rwandan Defence Force operations in the eastern DRC as a blatant breach of the UN Charter which risks spiralling into a regional conflict, and that’s why I will again make clear to President Kagame, that further breaches of DRC’s sovereignty will have consequences.

    Because at the heart of my government’s approach to foreign policy lies the belief that regional and geopolitical stability can only be delivered through respect for international law and the principles of the UN Charter.

    And as my Canadian, Australian, Japanese colleagues have said, respect for international law must underwrite a free and open Indo Pacific, just as it must underwrite the Euro Atlantic, with the security of those 2 regions ever more closely linked.

    And as we turn to the Middle East, the ceasefire in Gaza is painfully fragile, I’m grateful that so many of us here today are working together to ensure that it holds we must continue to work together tirelessly to secure the release of the remaining hostages, to bolster the Palestinian Authority, and to boost aid into Gaza and to develop a long term plan for governance and security on the strip so that we can advance towards, a two-state solution, which remains the only long-term viable pathway to peace.

    And finally, in Ukraine, the only just and lasting peace will be a peace that is consistent with the UN Charter, and we want that as soon as possible.

    You know, mature countries learn from their colonial failures and their wars, and Europeans have had much to learn over the generations and the centuries.

    But I’m afraid to say that Russia has learned nothing. I listened carefully to Minister Lavrov intervention just now – he’s, of course, left his seat -hoping to hear some readiness to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty.

    I was hoping to hear some sympathy for the innocent victims of the aggression. I was hoping to hear some readiness to seek a durable peace.

    What I heard was the logic of imperialism dressed up as a realpolitik, and I say to you all, we should not be surprised, but neither should we be fooled.

    We are at a crucial juncture in this conflict, and Russia faces a test. If Putin is serious about a lasting peace, it means finding a way forward which respects Ukraine’s sovereignty and the UN Charter which provides credible security guarantees, and which rejects Tsarist imperialism, and Britain is ready to listen.

    But we expect to hear more than the Russian gentleman’s tired fabrications.

  • Peter Kyle – 2025 Speech at the Munich Security Conference

    Peter Kyle – 2025 Speech at the Munich Security Conference

    The speech made by Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, in Munich on 14 February 2025.

    Innovation is defined by its ability to surprise.

    Only a few years ago, GPT-2 meant nothing to the public.

    For many of us, AI felt like a distant possibility at best.

    Something that would never – could never – live up to the hype.

    And yet, overnight, ChatGPT became a household name.

    It unleashed an unprecedented wave of technological change.

    And the pace of progress shows no signs of slowing down.

    With DeepSeek, we’ve just seen once again just how sudden, how unpredictable, innovation can be.

    The AI revolution is happening.

    Ignoring it is simply not an option.

    In the UK, we reject the doomsayers and the pessimists.

    Because we are optimistic about the extraordinary potential of this technology.

    And hopeful for the radical, far-reaching change it will bring.

    We launched the AI Opportunities Action Plan to put us on the front foot.

    Working in collaboration with our international partners, we’re going to create one of the biggest clusters of AI innovation in the world and deliver a new era of prosperity and wealth creation for our country.

    This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

    If we can seize it, we will close the door on a decade of slow growth and stagnant productivity.

    Of taxes that are just too high.

    We will deliver new jobs that put more money in working people’s pockets.

    And we will drive forward a digital revolution inside government to make our state smaller, smarter, and more efficient.

    But none of that is possible unless we can mitigate its risks that AI presents.

    After all, businesses will only use these technologies if they can trust them.

    Security and innovation go hand in hand.

    AI is a powerful tool and powerful tools can be misused.

    State-sponsored hackers are using AI to write malicious code and identify system vulnerabilities, increasing the sophistication and efficiency of their attacks.

    Criminals are using AI deepfakes to assist in fraud, breaching security by impersonating officials.

    Last year, attackers used live deepfake technology during a video call to mimic bank officials.

    They stole $25 million.

    And now we are seeing instances of people using AI to assist them in planning violent and harmful acts.

    These aren’t distant possibilities.

    They are real, tangible harms, happening right now.

    The implications for our people could be pervasive and profound.

    In the UK, we have built the largest team in a government dedicated to understanding AI capabilities and risks in the world.

    That work is rooted in the strength of our partnerships with the companies who are right at the frontier of AI.

    Working with those companies, the government can conduct scientifically informed tests to understand new AI capabilities and the risks they pose.

    Make no mistake, I’m talking about risks to our people, their way of life, and the sovereignty and stability which underpins it.

    That is why today, I am renaming our AI Safety Institute as the AI Security Institute.

    This change brings us into line with what most people would expect an Institute like this to be doing.

    They are not looking into freedom of speech.

    They are not deciding what counts as bias or discrimination.

    They are not politicians – nor should they be.

    They are scientists – scientists who are squarely focused on rigorous research into the most serious emerging risks.

    They are researching AI’s potential to assist with the development of chemical and biological weapons.

    They are building on the expertise of our National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to understand how this technology could be used to help malicious actors commit cyber-attacks.

    They want to understand how AI could undermine human control.

    Our research shows that those risks are clear:

    There has been a clear upward trend in AI system capabilities most relevant to national security in the past 18 months.

    • For the first time last year, AI models demonstrated PhD-level performance on chemistry and biology question sets.
    • The safeguards designed to prevent these models doing harm are not currently sufficient.
    • Every model tested by the Institute is vulnerable to safeguard evasion attacks.
    • And it is almost certain that these capabilities will continue to improve, while novel risks will emerge from systems acting as autonomous agents to complete tasks with only limited human instruction.

    The more we understand these risks, the better we can work with companies to address them.

    And the faster we can keep our nation safe, the faster our people can embrace the potential of AI to create wealth and improve their lives.

    There are certain security risks which require immediate action.

    That is why the Security Institute will collaborate with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the Ministry of Defence’s science and technology organisation, to assess the dual-use scientific capabilities of frontier AI.

    Today, we are also launching a criminal misuse team in the Security Institute, who will partner directly with the Home Office to conduct research on a range of crime and security issues which threaten to harm our citizens.

    Earlier this month, the UK set out plans to make it illegal to own AI tools optimised to make images of child sexual abuse.

    Reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse material found online by the Internet Watch Foundation have quadrupled in a single year.

    The Security Institute will work with the Home Office to explore what more we can do to prevent abusers using AI to commit their sickening crimes.

    A security risk is a security risk, no matter where it comes from.

    US companies have shown the lead in taking security risks seriously.

    But we need to scrutinise all models regardless of their jurisdiction of origin.

    So I’ve instructed the Security Institute to take a leading role in testing AI models wherever they come from, open or closed.

    While we can’t discuss these results publicly, we will share them with our allies.

    We are alive to the security risks of today.

    But we need to focus on tomorrow, too, and the day after that.

    We are now seeing the glimmers of AI agents that can act autonomously, of their own accord.

    The 2025 International AI Safety Report, led by Yoshua Bengio, warns us that – without the checks and balances of people directing them – we must consider the possibility that risks won’t just come from malicious actors misusing AI models, but from the models themselves.

    We don’t yet know the full extent of these risks.

    However, as we deploy AI across our economy, our society, and the critical infrastructure that keeps our nation secure, we cannot afford to ignore them.

    Because losing oversight and control of advanced AI systems, particularly Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), would be catastrophic.

    It must be avoided at all costs.

    I want to be clear exactly what this testing is, and what it’s not.

    It’s not a barrier to market access. Not a blocker to innovation.

    It is urgent scientific work to understand serious risks to our country.

    Governments are not passive bystanders in the AI revolution.

    We have agency in how AI shapes our society.

    And we have a responsibility to use that agency to defend our democratic way of life.

    Only countries with a deep and knowing understanding of this technology will be able to build the capacity they need to deliver for their citizens in the twenty-first century.

    But success is not a given.

    It depends on the democratic world rallying together to maintain our leadership in AI.

    Together, we can protect our fundamental values – freedom, openness, and opportunity.

    If we do that, we won’t just keep our people safe.

    We will ensure that they are first to benefit from the new era of wealth and prosperity which AI will bring.

  • Jonathan Reynolds – 2025 Speech at Samsung KX

    Jonathan Reynolds – 2025 Speech at Samsung KX

    The speech made by Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, in London on 13 February 2025.

    Good morning, and thank you very much for that warm introduction, Aleyne, and my sincere thanks to the whole team here at Samsung for so generously hosting us, today.

    It’s actually quite emotional to be honest, it would have been someone like my grandfather who dug out that coal, sent it down here, and a few generations later I get to be on this stage doing this.

    But Samsung is a company synonymous with the best in cutting-edge design and innovation;  and much of it is on full display here within these four walls.

    It is a fitting venue to discuss this government’s ambition to go further and faster in our growth mission…ensuring that your investments that you outlined here in the UK pay dividends.

    Three years ago, I gave my first speech as the then Shadow Business Secretary – and I promised we would be both a pro-business and a pro-worker party…

    …A party rooted not just in the experience of working people, but which recognises, above all else, that you cannot rebuild an economy without a flourishing private sector; backed by an unapologetically pro-business government.

    I committed to partnering with you in making our offer to the country one you could get behind.

    And you gave us the ideas, energy and, in some cases, explicit support that was needed to win a strong majority and an even stronger mandate from the British people. A mandate to deliver our Plan for Change.

    Today, I want to reflect on the progress that we have made as a government. I want to talk candidly about what I believe we need to do;

    …And I want to provide a clear direction, some reassurance and – I hope – some excitement and optimism about the future.

    Now I am extremely proud of the work that my department has done in the first seven months of this Government.

    That includes our record-breaking International Investment Summit…where we secured £63bn of inward investment commitments for the UK…

    …that was where we published our Industrial Strategy Green Paper…

    …and where we launched our Industrial Strategy Council expertly led by Clare Barclay. I’m so glad Clare could join us ahead of the council’s meeting later today.

    Building on from the investment summit, at Davos last month, the Chancellor and I sent a clear message to the international community: that the UK is a great place to invest and do business. We have the lowest corporation tax in the G7, uncapped R&D tax credits, and 100% full expensing on capital allowances.

    And ahead of our Trade Strategy’s publication, we are leveraging our relationships with Europe, China, India and the Gulf and beyond so businesses can make the UK their base to connect with global markets.

    And this is important, because in response to the announcements made by the US this week, I want to reiterate that under this government, the UK will always champion free, fair and open trade. That is what is in our national interest.

    And where we have seen the opportunity for an active government to bring business and workers together, my department has always been on the pitch…

    …Whether that’s securing a better deal for the workforce at Port Talbot

    …engaging on the takeover of Royal Mail…

    …Or the renegotiated deal that saw Navantia acquiring Harland and Wolff and protect 1,000 jobs at shipyards across the UK. I will always roll up my sleeves and get involved.

    But – being candid – none of this work in itself is sufficient, if it does not lead across the board to improved business confidence, to greater investment, and to higher household income, in every part of the country.

    And on that I, and the whole government, recognise the challenge, and we accept it.

    In the Budget the government had a responsibility to fix the foundations and restore economic stability.

    And while I recognise that the Budget capped corporation tax, extended capital allowances, and raised the employment allowance threshold from this April, I know it asked a great deal of business. I don’t underestimate that for a second.

    We will never take that contribution – your contribution – for granted.

    You are playing your part in fixing this country, in stabilising the public finances, in investing in our people and helping us rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

    And we know it is imperative that therefore we clear the path for the private sector to thrive… that we deliver the right conditions for growth.

    It’s why, on top of the £100 billion of investment unveiled at the Budget, this Government has thrown its full support behind a third runway at Heathrow.

    It’s why we’re making the Oxford Cambridge growth corridor a success with the right transport and public services to foster growth.

    It’s why through our expanded Office for Investment and the National Wealth Fund we will be supporting transformative investments throughout the country from West Yorkshire to the West Midlands, and Glasgow and Greater Manchester.

    The challenges we face as government make all the things we promised to do even more critical.

    And I relish that.

    And I don’t believe there are easy answers to complex problems.

    But I do believe that good policy, good strategies, and good government working hand-in-hand with the private sector, can make a difference.

    And I want my constituents to feel, and to be, better off.

    And only a pragmatic, business-orientated government can deliver that.

    And that to me is what being pro-worker, and pro-business means.

    And I believe this national UK Government is able to deliver on this mission because, fundamentally, we can offer what no-one else can:

    First of all, political stability – sadly, a rare commodity in many countries these days.

    Secondly, openness to the rest of the world – at a time where that is clearly coming under pressure.

    And most importantly of all, we are offering a willingness to use our mandate in Parliament to transform the business and investor environment.

    And we are using our Industrial Strategy to ensure that our policies are made with business, for business.

    As you know, in October last year, we consulted on our Industrial Strategy Green Paper; our blueprint to channel investment and support into our country’s high-growth sectors and high potential places.

    In that green paper, we posed a series of questions, and you answered in great detail. You told us that you need access to a high-skilled workforce.

    And that is why we have launched Skills England, bringing in flexibilities for the Growth and Skills levy, allowing for shorter apprenticeships and giving employers more control over training.

    Meanwhile our Great Britain Working White Paper has already set out detailed plans to support people back into work.

    And for key sectors such as AI and life sciences, we’ve committed to looking at visa routes for the most highly skilled, ensuring those routes continue to work for the UK. The upcoming Immigration White Paper will set out plans to make our immigration, skills, and visa systems work better and more coherently.

    You told us that planning has become a by-word for inefficiency.

    So, we’re making it quicker and simpler for developers to build on brownfield land.

    We’re making it much easier to build laboratories, gigafactories, data centres, and digital network grid connections.

    And we’re preventing campaigners from repeatedly launching hopeless legal challenges against planning decisions.

    You have also told us that access to capital needs drastic improvement.

    Here again we’re listening and we’re responding. That is why the Government is creating pension megafunds, unlocking billions of pounds of investment. At the same time, we’re delivering on Lord Hill’s Listing Review to allow the FCA to rewrite the UK’s Prospectus Regime for faster fund-raising.

    And, finally, you told us that we need a ‘regulation reset’ in this country.

    Day in, day out I hear from business leaders who say to me that regulation and regulators are too cumbersome.

    They’re too slow.

    They’re too focused on theoretical issues, with little understanding of how businesses and markets actually operate.

    And I’ve heard that message loud and clear.

    One of our foremost regulators, the Competition and Markets Authority, has recently made great strides in addressing some of these issues.

    And today, my department is publishing a consultation on a new Strategic Steer for the CMA to accelerate this work.

    This isn’t about meaningless platitudes – about the ‘cutting of red tape.’

    It’s about effective consumer protection, competition law and digital market powers so that we create a level-playing field for businesses to compete on. We need to address genuine harm done by those who are not playing by the rules.

    Our Strategic Steer asks the CMA to minimise uncertainty for business – by being proactive, transparent, timely, predictable and responsive in its engagement.

    And I know, under Sarah Cardell and the new Interim Chair, Doug Gurr, the CMA has already taken significant steps in adopting this approach…in always having growth and investment in mind.

    Its extensive work around the merger of Vodafone and Three is a fantastic example of that…as is the CMA’s launch of a Growth and Investment Council to identify opportunities for greater competition.

    And there is more to come.

    I know Sarah and the CMA have set out their plans to deliver real, meaningful reforms to the merger control processes already today. Its eyes are trained firmly on more direct engagement with businesses. On speeding up its decision-making to deliver more certainty for investors. On adopting a faster, more agile approach to protecting competition.

    I fully endorse these measures because this Government believes in effective, independent institutions. In promoting competition and protecting competition – that is fundamental to our growth mission. And with the current CMA team in place, we want to support them every step of the way in the changes they’re making.

    I want to see that same level of ambition from our other regulators because right now, I don’t think our regulatory environment is doing enough to drive investor confidence and support growth.

    So, I’m taking this first step today but watch this space.

    I’m serious about delivering our wider regulatory reform over the coming weeks and months…

    …I’m also serious about building the pro-innovation, pro-worker, pro wealth creation economy that we promised at the general election. I know you in the room share that commitment, too.

    I’m proud of the reforms that we’ve set out in the Employment Rights Bill – of the opportunities they will afford working class families and working-class communities like the one I grew up in.

    I want everyone to benefit from the stronger economy I know we can have.

    But I always said, however, that we would work with – and not against – business to deliver these generational reforms.

    I said that we would never introduce changes that would make it harder for firms to hire with confidence.

    And this is precisely why my department is consulting on many of the key aspects of our Make Work Pay reforms – not least on probationary periods.

    I want a statutory probation period that lets businesses get a good sense of how new employees are performing.

    And it’s common sense to ensure that there are lighter touch standards for dismissal during those initial months of people starting a job.

    I know how important this is for employers. And I get it.

    It’s why my department will continue to engage face-to-face with business to develop a sensible, balanced proposal before we go out for formal consultation.

    And we will also consult on the length of the statutory probation period, with our preference being 9 months.

    We have also made clear that the changes we make to unfair dismissal will come into effect no sooner than the autumn of next year.

    I want there to be a buffer – a proper, business readiness period – so employers fully understand the details of our reforms, and can prepare long before they enter into force.

    That is the right thing to do – for both employers and employees.

    So, let there be no doubt – we are still the party of business.

    And we are willing to do the difficult things.

    Be that a third runway at Heathrow, a step change at the CMA, or stopping endless court challenges over the job-creating projects this country needs.

    We can share our ideas and ambition with each other.

    Take the big bets.

    Take some risks.

    Be the disruptors.

    My desire to be your champion in government has never wavered.

    And it is as resolute now as ever.

    We have to go further and faster in driving growth.

    And, friends, together, I know that we will.

    Thank you very much.

  • Stephanie Peacock – 2025 Speech at the Beacon Philanthropy and Impact Forum

    Stephanie Peacock – 2025 Speech at the Beacon Philanthropy and Impact Forum

    The speech made by Stephanie Peacock, the Minister for Civil Society and Youth, at the Guildhall in London on 12 February 2025.

    Good morning everyone, thank you Neil for that really kind introduction and thoughtful speech – the challenge you outlined is an important one.

    It’s great to be here with you at the Beacon Philanthropy and Impact Forum today.

    I want to start by thanking The Beacon Collaborative for organising this event, and the Charities Aid Foundation for sponsoring it and the City of London for hosting at this beautiful building.

    You’re here today, and are part of organisations like Beacon Collaborative, and Charities Aid Foundation, because you believe in the power of organisations and people using their resources to deliver social impact.
    And it’s a belief this Government shares.

    The UK has a vibrant culture of service and generosity, and philanthropy is so often the outlet for that culture.

    Every week hundreds of thousands of people – in our villages, towns and cities – come together and do what they can to support others. They devote their time, their money or both, to improve the lives of people less fortunate than themselves.

    That is something we should never take for granted.

    Philanthropy sustains over 170,000 charities in the UK and thousands of others who are so small they’re not actually registered.

    And it does things Governments can’t do – reaching into communities, and applying local knowledge and insight.

    I see it all the time in my own area of Barnsley.

    I can tell you so many examples, organisations such as Barnsley Youth Choir, Barnsley Hospices and BIADS, a local dementia charity I am patron of, all rely on charitable donations and giving from the local community to sustain their vital work. As Neil said, they all have their own stories, as I know you all will.

    But you recognise, as I do, that more is possible.

    And forums like this are a vital opportunity for the sector to come together and look at how we take philanthropy in the UK to the next level.

    The instinct people have to help is always there.

    It’s the job of the Government, working with organisations like the ones you represent, to find new, creative ways to make it not only easier to give, but more rewarding.

    That is part of why we started a new chapter in the relationship between Government and civil society through a Civil Society Covenant.

    We launched the Covenant at No10 Downing Street with the Prime Minister in October, in order to reset the relationship between Government and Civil Society. To make it a partnership that is built on a foundation of trust and respect.

    And it reflects our view that our charities, social enterprises and community groups have a huge and vital role to play in helping us deliver on this Government’s missions.

    Civil society groups can help make our streets safer, they can create opportunities for our young people, and they can reduce the burden on the NHS by supporting people to live healthier lives.

    And philanthropists, social investors and impact investors will have an important role to play in the Covenant, when it’s fully established in the coming months.

    This Government also recognises the enormous contribution social investors, philanthropists and businesses can provide in the delivery of our Plan for Change.

    Our impact investment market, worth £76 billion, leads the way in Europe and really sets the standard, and it reflects the fact that people want to see a connection between their investment and real social impact on the ground.

    As the Minister responsible for the impact economy, encompassing both philanthropy and impact investment, I see not only the incredible work happening in this space, but the huge potential for growing the money invested in public good.

    That is why I’m proud we are building on the UK’s strong industry leadership in social impact investing and working in partnership with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to establish the Government’s Social Impact Investment Advisory Group. And I was really pleased to speak to Darren Jones about this last night.

    We are committed to backing private investment that delivers positive social impact right across the country, and this newly announced Advisory Group will help achieve this.

    Philanthropy is a vital part of the impact economy.

    So I’d like to be clear with everyone here today on our three priorities for philanthropy.

    Firstly, the Government wants to help to connect philanthropic investment with the places that need it most.

    Secondly, we want to unlock extra philanthropic investment.

    Thirdly, we want to partner with civil society, communities, donors and businesses to celebrate a culture of giving.

    On our first priority, this Government has been clear since our first day in office that we are committed to putting local people, communities and places first.

    Supporting philanthropic growth across the country is a really important route to generating more private capital that can deliver public good.

    That’s why the Secretary of State has committed to setting out a place-based philanthropy strategy so we can create an environment where the benefits of philanthropy are felt in communities everywhere.

    I know this is an area that many of you are invested in or connected to.

    Made-in-Stoke, which I was really pleased to visit a few months ago, Blackpool Pride of Place and Islington Gives are brilliant examples of what can be achieved with a place-based approach. I know many representatives of these networks are here with us today.

    By creating a community of philanthropists who are invested in the future of a city or town and who want to contribute to its success, they are blazing a trail for others to follow. And Neil, you rightly referenced the impact of place in your remarks.

    In areas that need it most, these networks are delivering programmes supporting young people’s skills development, from sports activities to dance and ballet classes for children.

    We can learn a great deal from these models of giving – by people motivated by the idea of helping give back to the community that helped to shape them.

    My officials and I will continue to explore how this Government can best support the growth of these innovative initiatives.

    When it comes to the second priority of unlocking additional philanthropic investment, there are already some excellent examples of what philanthropy can deliver.

    Family Foundations such as the Reece’s Foundation in the North East are working to address some of the most complex problems in the region, supporting innovations like the National Geothermal Energy Centre whilst providing new opportunities for local people.

    But, as I said earlier, we need the right structures in place to make it as easy as possible for philanthropists to give more and would-be philanthropists to give for the first time.

    Gift Aid is a vital part of the already existing system, and it gives charities and donors important tax relief.

    And for businesses, payroll giving provides companies an easy way for employees to give in a tax-efficient way to the causes they care about.

    We want to raise awareness of just how straightforward that scheme is, and there couldn’t be a better time as February is Payroll Giving month, as I’m sure you all know.

    The final part of the equation is changing how we talk about and celebrate philanthropy.

    In 2023 we collectively gave £13.9 billion to charity. It’s a phenomenal amount of money and it’s testament to the generosity that exists across our country.

    But if you look deeper, you find that the number of donors is actually decreasing.

    Clearly there’s no one single reason why that would be the case, but I think it’s all of our responsibility to do our bit in championing and celebrating those who do donate.

    Last year I had the privilege of attending the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, seeing first hand some of our most exceptional athletes perform on the biggest stage of all.

    Over the last decades, philanthropists like Barrie Wells have supported the training success of athletes including Jessica Ennis-Hill, who started her career in Sheffield, just down the road from my constituency of Barnsley.

    After winning Gold at the 2012 Olympics in London, she went on to engage and inspire the next generation of young people through philanthropy funded workshops in the Athletes4Schools programme.

    Similarly, businesses continue to contribute to society, like Barclays, who support young people and create opportunities for all, through their community grass roots football grants.

    5,500 community groups have been supported across the UK with the aim of helping to reduce inequalities in football.

    If you look at a sector like the arts, that is one that’s always relied on a variety of funding sources.

    And that’s why, for over 20 years, DCMS has partnered with the Wolfson Foundation to deliver the DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund.

    But these are just some of the examples of what can be done when we work together to build things that deliver long term benefits.

    You share in our ambition to raise the amount donated and the number of people donating it, and I urge you all to talk loudly and proudly about some of the great work going on in the regions across the country.

    That just leaves me to thank you all, once again, for inviting me to join you all today.

    By working together we can fulfil the huge untapped potential that exists in the impact economy, in our civil society, and across our philanthropic landscape.

    There are no simple answers to how we do it but, by focussing on the areas I’ve set out today, I am certain we can meet the challenge head on.

    Together we can grasp the opportunity to improve people’s lives and give back to communities we all care deeply about.

  • Shabana Mahmood – 2025 Speech on the Probation Service

    Shabana Mahmood – 2025 Speech on the Probation Service

    The speech made by Shabana Mahmood, the Lord Chancellor, at Southwark in London on 12 February 2025.

    Today, we are in Southwark, the home of London’s probation service, one of the busiest in the country.

    Here in London, the Service supervises more than 36,000 offenders.

    And, every day, in this building, there are a thousand untold stories of how our probation service protects the public and makes our streets safer.

    I want to talk about the future of our probation service today.

    But to look to that future, I think we must first look to the past.

    Because it was here, in Southwark, that the probation service first took root.

    Over 150 years ago, the Church of England’s temperance movement posted a man called George Nelson to Southwark’s police court.

    Nelson was the first of a band of missionaries, driven by their faith and strict teetotalism, who gave up their time to help offenders give up the drink.

    Addiction then, as addiction now, drove much criminal behaviour…

    And the approach worked.

    In fact, it worked so well that the courts came to rely on missionaries like Nelson.

    A system soon developed where offenders would be released on the condition that they kept in touch with these volunteers.

    Because what began as a moral cause proved to have a practical purpose:

    These missionaries led to less crime and fewer victims.

    As this Government might say: they made our streets safer.

    By the early twentieth century, this voluntary service was so greatly valued that it was placed on a statutory footing.

    The 1907 Probation of Offenders Act established the first formal structure for probation…

    And the volunteers became professionals.

    In the years that followed, the service grew:

    The 1925 Criminal Justice Act paid probation officers a regular wage.

    By the 1950s, probation’s work expanded to offenders on parole.

    And by the 1980s, the service was focused increasingly on prison releases.

    Over time, the role developed.

    Where the early missionaries were focused on crimes driven by addiction…

    In time, they took responsibility for the management of ever more, and ever more complex, offenders.

    Too often overlooked, with our focus invariably falling on the police or on prisons…

    Probation became an indispensable part of a criminal justice system that keeps us safe.

    It remains so today, now a service that is more than 20,000 strong…

    And probation officers supervise almost a quarter of a million offenders – around three times the number currently serving time in our prisons.

    Each year, they oversee more than 4 million hours of community payback.

    They monitor around 9,000 offenders on a tag at any given moment.

    They provide sentencing advice to hundreds of courts every single day.

    And they also provide a vital link to tens of thousands of victims, through the Victim Contact and the Victim Notification schemes.

    But while there have been bright moments in the service’s past, we must acknowledge the dark days too.

    In 2014 the service was split:

    Part remained in the public sector, managing the highest-risk offenders.

    The rest was hived off, to be run by the private sector, who would supervise those of low and medium risk.

    Community Rehabilitation Companies would bring the ingenuity of the private sector to solve the problem of reoffending.

    The rhetoric was of a revolution in how we manage offenders.

    The reality was far different.

    Workloads increased, as new offenders were brought under supervision for the first time…

    The number of people on probation increased between December 2014 and December 2016, with almost 50,000 offenders newly under its remit.

    Scarce resources were stretched further than ever…

    Morale plummeted.

    And worrying numbers voted with their feet, leaving the service altogether…

    With the Inspector of Probation declaring a “national shortage” of probation professionals in 2019.

    The new companies woefully underperformed.

    Between 2017 and 2018, just 5 of 37 audits carried out by HMPPS demonstrated that expected standards were being met.

    In 2019, 8 out of 10 companies inspected received the lowest possible rating – “inadequate” – for supervising offenders.

    The Chief Inspector called them “irredeemably flawed”.

    And the service was labelled ‘inadequate’.

    In 2021, it was finally, rightly, re-unified and re-nationalised.

    Now, make no mistake…

    Every day, across the country, probation staff make this country safer.

    This was clearly evident in the service’s response to the prison capacity crisis.

    With prisons just days from collapse, this Government was forced to introduce an emergency release programme, which saw some offenders leave prison a few weeks or months early.

    The alternative, as I said at the time, did not bear thinking about:

    We would have been forced to shut the front door of our prisons…

    An act that would have sent dominoes tumbling through our justice system:

    Courts unable to hold trials…

    Police forced to halt arrests…

    And the eventual path to a total breakdown of law and order.

    In making that decision, I knew the probation service would have to carry an even heavier load.

    They would have to put in place plans for the safe release of prisoners in just a few weeks.

    I tried to give them as much time as I possibly could to prepare:

    An eight-week implementation period.

    It wasn’t long to prepare, but the probation service used it with great skill.

    But now is also a moment to be honest about the challenges the service faces.

    And the simple fact is this:

    The service was burdened with a workload that was, quite simply, impossible.

    When we took office, we discovered that orders handed out by courts were not taking place.

    In the 3 years to March 2024 around 13,000 Accredited Programmes, a type of rehabilitative course, did not happen.

    This wasn’t because an offender had failed to do what was expected of them…

    But instead because the Probation Service had been unable to deliver these courses.

    As I have shown already in this job, I believe in confronting problems, not pretending they are not there.

    And so, we will ensure only those offenders who pose a higher risk, and who need to receive these courses, will do so.

    This isn’t a decision I take lightly.

    But it is a decision to confront the reality of the challenges facing the probation service.

    I should be clear:

    For those who will not complete an accredited programme, they remain under the supervision of a probation officer…

    And all the other requirements placed upon them will remain in place.

    Any breach of a community sentence could see them hauled back into court.

    Any breach of a licence condition could see them back behind bars.

    Addressing individual issues like these, however, is no long-term solution to the challenges the probation service faces.

    Today, across the country, probation officers are spread too thin – responsible for caseloads and workloads that exceed what they should be expected to handle.

    Probation officers are drawn to the profession not because it is just another job.

    This job is a vocation, even a calling…

    They are, after all, the inheritors of those missionaries of 150 years ago.

    They are experts in their discipline…

    Who want to know that their work is protecting the public…

    And keeping offenders on the straight and narrow.

    Over-stretched, they can’t work with offenders in the way they need to.

    And the burden placed on probation officers’ shoulders grow heavier and heavier.

    It has driven people away from the job…

    It has made the public less safe…

    And it has to change.

    It is clear we need to bring more people into the probation service.

    In July, I committed to bringing on 1,000 trainee probation officers by March of this year.

    But we must go further.

    Today, I can announce that, next year, we will bring on at least 1,300 new, trainee probation officers.

    New probation officers are the lifeblood of the service, and they will guarantee its future.

    But they are not enough alone.

    It is also clear we must remove the administrative burden that weighs probation officers down…

    And makes them less effective in their roles.

    Today, too many hours of probation officer time are wasted each day.

    They are drowning in paperwork.

    And I don’t mean metaphorical paperwork.

    I mean literal pen and paperwork.

    This takes up valuable time, that would be better spent working with offenders…

    And it also introduces the risk of error – the failure to identify the critical piece of information that might shape a professional’s judgement of the risk that an offender poses.

    Where digital processes do exist in the probation service, they can be difficult to navigate.

    Information is stored in multiple different systems that do not speak to each other.

    And probation officers are forced, laboriously, to type the same information time and again.

    We will soon pilot a digital tool that will put all the information a probation officer needs to know into one place.

    Over time, this will include information from other agencies, like the police as we need to make sure data is more readily shared, so that probation can make better decisions.

    We’re also trialling a new system for risk assessing offenders, to make it more straightforward for probation officers to make robust decisions.

    A group of officers in Brighton started using this in December last year…

    And we estimate it will cut up to 20 percent of the time it takes to do this crucial activity.

    It might sound simple, but the impact could be considerable.

    Every minute saved is more time probation officers can spend working with offenders.

    Less simple, but even more transformational, there’s the potential of artificial intelligence.

    We are currently looking into voice transcription.

    This would automatically record and transcribe supervision conversations by taking notes in real time…

    Allowing probation officers to focus on building relationships, while also removing the need for them to enter handwritten notes into a computer afterwards.

    In time, we believe that AI could play a more active role in supporting staff to supervise offenders – for example, drawing on the data we have on an offender to suggest a supervision plan tailored to them.

    This new technology will ensure probation officers provide what only they can:

    The human factor.

    The ability to work with an offender, one-to-one, to understand the risk they pose…

    To develop a plan for how to manage it…

    Ultimately, to turn them away from a life of crime – and so protect the public.

    That is what remains true about the probation officer’s job now, just as it was 150 years ago.

    The courts didn’t turn to the temperance movement’s missionaries because they were great at paperwork.

    They did so because of how they worked with offenders.

    They knew – in the words of the Government Minister who brought in the 1907 Probation Act – how “to guide and admonish” an offender to make the public safer.

    But while new staff and better technology are necessary to the future of our probation service…

    They are not sufficient.

    With a caseload of nearly a quarter of a million offenders…

    We must also look at the work that probation officers are doing…

    And we must ask:

    Where should their time be spent…

    And, more specifically, who should their time be spent with to have the greatest impact?

    In this, it is clear there are two types of offender.

    On the one hand, we have those who pose a higher risk to society.

    In this group, we have those who are dangerous – posing a real risk of harm to the public.

    We also have those whose offending is prolific – the one in every ten offenders who is guilty of nearly half of all sentenced crime.

    On the other hand, we have offenders who pose a lower risk.

    They are not serial offenders, with a high risk of reoffending.

    Their crimes are instead often fuelled by addiction, homelessness, and joblessness.

    These crimes are not excusable.

    All crimes must be punished.

    But these two groups – the higher and lower risk – are different.

    If we want to reduce reoffending, cut crime and have safer streets, we have to treat them differently.

    And too often today, we don’t.

    We have a one size fits all approach.

    That must change.

    For higher-risk offenders, a probation officer’s time and focus is essential.

    It is no exaggeration to say that effective supervision of this cohort can be the difference between life and death.

    We all know the tragedies:

    I think of Terri Harris, her children John Paul and Lacey Bennett and Lacey’s friend Connie Gent, savagely murdered by Damien Bendall in 2021, when Bendall was serving a community sentence.

    And I think of Zara Aleena, murdered by Jordan McSweeney in 2022, just nine days after he had left prison on licence.

    We will never be able to stop every tragedy.

    But we have to stop more.

    There are improvements that we can and must make to the processes probation officers follow, and the technology they use.

    We have introduced new training, to better identify risk…

    New digital tools, as I have mentioned already, will draw together the critical pieces of information from partner organisations, like the police.

    But the vital ingredient is time:

    The time of a professional probation officer…

    Devoted to identifying the risk an offender poses…

    Creating a plan to manage it…

    And supervising, closely, that offender to ensure they do not deviate from it.

    That is the human factor that only a probation officer can provide.

    If probation officers are to have this valuable time with these offenders, we must be more efficient with the time they devote to lower-risk offenders.

    At the very end of their time in office, my predecessor introduced a policy called Probation Reset.

    This saw supervision of lower-risk offenders end after two-thirds of their licence period.

    This was a step in the right direction.

    The interventions that work best with lower risk offenders are not necessarily those provided by probation officers.

    So that is where we must now direct the attention of their supervision.

    We need to get these offenders off drugs and booze – reoffending rates are 19 points lower when an offender completes a drug treatment programme.

    We need to ensure they have a roof over their heads – reoffending rates double for those released homeless.

    And finally, we need to get them working – reoffending rates are up to 9 points lower when an offender is employed.

    The probation service has a role to play here…

    But their unique value is in referring offenders to the intervention that is required to address the cause of their offending.

    And so today, I can announce that we will build on the work of Reset.

    This Government will focus the probation service on the interventions that have the greater impact.

    For lower risk offenders, we will task probation officers with providing a swifter intervention.

    They will spend more time with an offender immediately after their release:

    First, assessing the root causes of an offender’s crime…

    Then referring them to the services that will address that behaviour:

    Which could be education, training, drug treatment or accommodation…

    Delivered by the probation service, our partners across Government, and through the brilliant work done by the voluntary sector.

    Once offenders are following that direction, as long as the offender stays on the straight and narrow, we must then focus probation officer’s time more effectively:

    That means more time spent with the offenders who pose the greater risk…

    More time with offenders who pose a risk of a serious and violent further offence…

    And more time with offenders whose prolific offending causes so much social and economic damage to local communities.

    That is how we will reduce reoffending…

    That is how we will cut crime…

    And that is how we will make our streets safer.

    These measures are necessary today, but they will be even more important in the months and years to come.

    David Gauke’s independent review of sentencing will report soon.

    He has been asked to ensure we never run out of prison places again.

    There is no doubt that this will increase pressure on probation.

    As I made clear when I announced the review, I have asked David to consider how we make more use of punishment outside of prison.

    In my view, technology is likely to play a key role – taking advantage of advances in the tech that is being used here and in other jurisdictions:

    Like sobriety tags, which can measure the alcohol levels in offenders’ sweat every 30 minutes, and have a 97 percent compliance rate…

    And GPS tags, which can put in place exclusion zones to alert authorities if offenders enter areas we have banned them from.

    There are also likely to be more sentences served in the community…

    And more drug, alcohol and mental health treatment requirements placed on offenders.

    These are the tools that must be at the judiciary’s disposal to deal with criminals…

    And judges must have trust and confidence that the probation service can deliver them.

    The changes I have announced today are about support for the probation service:

    1,300 new trainee probation officers…

    New technology to lighten the administrative burden…

    And a new focus of their time on where it has the greatest impact.

    Today, I have set out what I think the future direction of the probation service must be.

    And I think we must, finally, consider the alternative.

    What would happen if we allowed probation to carry on as it is?

    What would happen if we allowed the service to be stretched so thin, trying to do too much with too many offenders…

    Too much time spent doing the wrong things, and not enough time doing what is right and what works.

    We know what the consequences would be.

    We’ve seen it in the stories of far too many victims…

    And the pain their friends and families have experienced – and continue to experience – every single day.

    When the probation service isn’t able to properly assess the risk of offenders or supervise them…

    Innocent people pay a terrible price.

    The first job of the state is to keep its people safe.

    We are willing to take the difficult decisions, where they must be taken.

    I will support probation officers, both the new recruits we will bring in and the professionals of whom we have asked so much in recent years.

    While they are professionals these days, and experts in their field…

    They are drawn to the profession by the same desire that called to those missionaries a hundred and fifty years ago:

    To encourage offenders to turn their backs on crime…

    And to make our streets and the public safer.

    To fulfil that purpose now, we must do things differently.

    And that begins today.

    Thank you.

  • Keir Starmer – 2025 Statement on the Release of Eli Sharabi

    Keir Starmer – 2025 Statement on the Release of Eli Sharabi

    The statement made by Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, on 8 February 2025.

    I shared the relief of so many at Eli Sharabi’s release earlier today but was dismayed to see his frail condition and the circumstances of his release. Having met his relatives I appreciate the deep pain they have endured and my thoughts are with them.

    We must continue to see all the hostages freed – these people were ripped away from their lives in the most brutal circumstances and held in appalling conditions. The ceasefire must hold and all efforts need to focus on full implementation of the remaining phases. This includes the return of further hostages, the continued increase of aid into Gaza and securing lasting peace in the Middle East.

  • Chris Bryant – 2025 Speech at LEAD Advertising Conference

    Chris Bryant – 2025 Speech at LEAD Advertising Conference

    The speech made by Chris Bryant, the Creative Industries Minister, in London on 6 February 2025.

    My name is Chris Bryant. I’m the Minister for lots of things. And Peter Mandelson, when I was first elected back in 2001 as the Member of Parliament for the Rhondda, I asked him for some advice. And he said he had lots of pieces of advice, but one of them was: “Never go to the same event two years in a row.” Because it means if you don’t go to the third year, everybody will condemn you for being a complete lazy so and so. But this is my second year in a row at this event. So I’ve broken Peter Mandelson’s advice.

    And the second piece of advice he gave me was: “The one word you can never use in advertising and in politics is the word trust.” Because the moment you start talking about trust in politics, people start thinking: “Oh, can I trust you?” And they nearly always come to the conclusion that they can’t.

    But in the end, advertising, I suppose, is fundamentally about trust. It’s about trying to persuade the public that you can trust a particular product or that you can trust a particular brand that is promoting a particular product, or that you can trust the person who is promoting the brand that is promoting the product, or that you can trust the space in which you’re watching or seeing this particular piece of advertising.

    Of course, to enable trust in all and to create great advertising, that requires all sorts of different things. First of all, imagination. And I think sometimes when I speak to some other parts of the creative industries, they think of advertising as the kind of workhorses of the creative industries. But I actually think that in many regards, you’re more imaginative than nearly all the other parts of creative industries put together. And sometimes, of course, you have to bring them all together.

    But the original idea for how to launch a product, or how to sell a product, how to promote it, how to keep it in the public mind, or how to completely change a view of a product or a brand, that’s a phenomenally imaginative process.

    I always think to myself: “How do you come up with a television or a cinema advert for perfume?” How on earth can you give the impression that this is a perfume that somebody would want to wear when you cannot smell it? Which is fundamentally what perfume is all about. And of course, you do that in advertising with so many different products. Sometimes you’re trying to encourage people to try products that they would never have touched before, either because they’re brand new products, or because they’re something that has never come into their way of life before or because their life has changed.

    That requires phenomenal imagination, but it also requires craft, serious craft, whether that’s using statistics and market analysis to be able to determine what is really going to work, how big a particular market is, or it’s that whole ecosystem of the whole of the creative industries, through from writers, actors and technicians, location scouts and everybody else that’s part of making a really good advert.

    That combination of imagination, craft and that whole ecosystem is what I think is so special in the United Kingdom. We’re at the moment working with Shriti Vadera and Peter Bazalgette on putting together our Industrial Strategy for the creative industries. We decided as a government that the creative industries are one of the eight key sectors in the UK that are potential growth sectors we want to build on.

    And putting that together, one of the key elements that we keep on arguing with the Treasury and the Department for Business and Trade and everybody else in government is that this is an ecosystem. You don’t get great British films without great British marketing of films. You don’t get great British films without actors who probably performed on the stage as well as in television and in movies. You don’t get great British actors without a commercial theatre that’s successful in the UK and also without a subsidised theatre in the UK.

    All of these things hang together, and it’s really important that we promote the whole of that sector. And that’s, of course, why we are the second largest exporter of advertising in the world. I remember when I first came across this statistic, I thought: “That can’t be right. It must just be the second largest in Europe.” But we are the second largest in the world and I think we could do a great deal more boasting about that.

    I don’t know whether there’s anybody in advertising who could promote the idea of advertising being a very significant part of our economy, worth £21 billion of GVA in 2023 and on track this year for £43 billion of spending. So in the words of Yazz: the only way is up.

    We are very keen on this being a cooperation between industry and government. So first of all, the single most important thing we know that we can do to enable this industry to grow in the UK is to provide political, fiscal and economic stability in the country, so that people can make long-term investments and know where they’re going.

    [political content redacted]

    And secondly, as I just said, we’re working on our Industrial Strategy for the creative industries. If there’s stuff that you still feel that you have you haven’t heard from us in this world, then please do get in touch.

    Thirdly, obviously, there’s a really important issue around skills. For me, this is a matter of passionate belief that you don’t get a good education unless you also get a good creative education. I want to praise Eton and Winchester and everybody else, because they’ll have a pottery class, they’ll have an art room, they’ll have a well equipped theatre, they’ll have a dance studio, they’ll have musical instruments. I just want that for every single child in this country, and that’s why I think it’s so important that we turn the corner on the curriculum in the UK.

    That’s what Bridget Phillipson as the Secretary of State for Education is very intent on doing. Trying to bring a creative education right back into the heart, so that it’s not just STEM, which is very important, but STEAM, including arts and creative education, is part of it.

    Secondly, we need to reform the Apprenticeship Levy. I know lots of people in the industry have said to me: “It just doesn’t work for us at the moment.” And that’s what we’re very focused on doing.

    The first thing we’ve already done is we’ve announced that from August this year, you won’t have to do a 12-month apprenticeship. You’ll be able to do six months and that’s so important for people who are working on a project base, and we need to provide a greater sense of portability between different employers as well, to be able to make that Apprenticeship Levy work across the creative sector.

    Indeed, there’s a perfectly good argument for saying, because of the ecosystem that I’ve been talking about, that the Apprenticeship Levy should enable you to go from different parts of the ecosystem to be able to perfect your craft.

    Now just a few specific things on the Online Advertising Taskforce. Online has provided new challenges and new opportunities. I’m really glad that the influencer working group has come up with its fourth version of a code of conduct, the first in the world. If anybody knows any influencers who could persuade more influencers to take up the influencers’ code of conduct, I’ll be really grateful.

    But that is a really important campaign, because it goes to this issue of trust. If it becomes a whole world when you simply can’t trust what you’re seeing in front of you as promoting a product, then that undermines the whole of the industry. So I think the more we can do in that field, the better.

    I’m really grateful for the work that’s being done on an AI working group. At the moment we’re engaged in a consultation on this and precisely how it works out in relation to copyright. I am absolutely clear that we as a country sell IP. It’s one of the key things that we sell. So making sure that we have a strong copyright system in the UK, that we maintain that, and maintain the ability of people to be remunerated and to control their rights, is a vital part of anything we do in this field.

    But of course, many of you will use AI in all sorts of different ways already, and my guess is in two or three years’ time, every single person will have an AI assistant of some kind on their laptop or on their phone. We need to make sure that we think that there’s a possibility for a win-win in this. If you haven’t looked at the consultation yet, please do. It closes on February 25.

    On less healthy food, some of you might be interested in this subject. Obviously the previous government legislated in relation to less healthy foods and advertising, and we did too in the statutory instrument that was brought forward just before Christmas. I’ve already had several meetings with the ASA. We are very keen on coming to a sensible solution. I think a bit of common sense in this space would be really, really useful. We discussed the matter. I’m saying to you what I said to the ASA the other day. Our priority is proportionate regulation and clear guidance for businesses operating in the sector. And as you would expect from us, we want to reduce the NHS backlog, and we want to support people to lead healthier lives. We want there to be incentives for brands to offer more healthy products. That only happens if we have a clear set of guidance that is proportionate and sensible. I can’t go any further than that, because I’ve got another meeting with all the organisations concerned next week.

    I want to end with my key point, which is that we are very serious about growing the creative industries in the UK. I heard somebody say: “Well, aren’t the arts and the creative industries a bit frou-frou?” I don’t know what that means, really, but I get the point, I suppose.

    But actually, if the UK had no creative industries, we would be a poorer, weaker, less happy, less stable society than we are. And I think that the creative industries not only have an economic role to play – a vastly significant one, one in 14 people in the UK works in the creative industries today and I guess it will be one in 10 in a few years’ time – but if we’re going to build that, we need you to tell us what are the barriers to growth in your sector.

    We need to make sure that there’s a steady stream of people through into these industries. I asked this question last year, and I’m going to ask it again, and I’m going to keep on asking every single year that I come here, which is: If you came to my constituency and asked a 13 year old: “What are you going to do when you grow up, or what careers are you thinking about?” They would probably know what it is to be a doctor and how they would start trying to be a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher, but they wouldn’t have the faintest idea how they would start the process of going into advertising or any of the other creative industries.

    So in four years’ time, I would like us to be in a place where every single child in the country has the creative industries, including advertising, as one of the possible future careers for them, and that they know how to approach that, so that your seats are taken in 10, 15, 20 years’ time by young people who might just as well come from Wigan, Gateshead, Newcastle, London, the Rhondda, Shetland. People with completely varied backgrounds and different experiences, so that they can bring their imagination and their storytelling to the great industry that is yours.