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Category: Speeches

  • Jeremy Corbyn – 2018 Speech to Scottish Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, at the Scottish Labour Party Conference on 9 March 2018.

    Thank You Conference.

    Thank you Ann. What a great comrade Ann has been in our Party and in our movement and so many congratulations to her on becoming only the second female Rector of Edinburgh University.

    It’s great to be here in Dundee, a city whose history of struggle and trade unionism epitomises the best of our movement.

    Indeed, proportionally speaking, more people from this city volunteered for the International Brigades to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War than from any other city in the UK.

    19 Dundonians sacrificed themselves to defend democracy in that bloody war and remain in Spain forever.

    This morning I visited the grave of Caroline Martyn, an absolutely tireless socialist campaigner whose early death before the turn of the century was the direct result of her unfailing campaign for workers’ rights and a more equal society.

    When she died in 1896, the Labour Leader publication published a poem by J. Connell containing the brilliant line:

    “Where strong men faltered with courage gone, our sister comrade marched on and on.”

    Thank you to Dundee Trades Council for erecting that lovely memorial.

    Being here, just a day after International Women’s Day, it’s important for us to remember the leading role, which is often overlooked that women played in the founding of the British labour movement.

    When we think about those women trade unionists working in the Jute industry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries we realise that we really are standing on the shoulders of giants.

    It reminds us of the historic role of our Party – standing up for everybody in the quest for the better society that is possible.

    And this conference really confirms that renewed sense of purpose and optimism which now characterises our Party and the wider movement.

    Conference it has been quite a year.

    This time last year, there were more than a few people in the media who had written the Labour Party off.

    In Scotland, we were told that Labour was dying. We were told by the commentariat and self-appointed experts that Labour could not and would not recover.

    Comrades, I think they got that one wrong.

    The truth is that we very much are alive and kicking.

    Labour in Scotland is back.

    Led by Richard Leonard who has already proven to be an excellent leader of Scottish Labour, making Labour’s voice heard for a radically fairer society.

    And as we all know, we won six new seats for Scottish Labour at the last General Election and we came close to winning around twenty more.

    Thank you to everybody for what you did in the General Election. My campaigning in the election started in the snowy heights of Aviemore and finished in Glasgow on the last day of campaigning.

    And led by Lesley Laird, our new Scottish MPs are all doing an exceptional job of standing up for socialism and standing up for Scotland.

    But it is not just Labour in Scotland that some wrote off.

    When Theresa May went walking last year and had her masterstroke to call an election, again those sages in the traditional media wrote us off.

    We were heading for wipeout, they said.

    But that’s not how it turned out, with our popular and fully costed manifesto we offered the chance of transformation and hope and confounded those so-called experts.

    Of course I know that we didn’t quite win. But conference, we are no longer just an Opposition, we are a party preparing to go into government.

    We are ready to put into practice our common sense policies to end austerity, invest in people’s futures and radically transform our society so that it works for the many, not the few.

    What resonated and enthused people in June was our vision for a country that doesn’t need to be this way. We offered a real alternative and a set of policies that command majority support, but which mainstream politicians have long refused to endorse, to demonstrate the kind of society we want to see:

    A society that builds houses and council houses and ends homelessness

    A society that fairly rewards people for the hard work that they do.

    A society that ends the scam of privateers sucking profit from our public services.

    A society that ends the utter scandal of food banks.

    A society that cares for our public NHS, offering healthcare as a human right to all.

    This is the vision that is attracting people back to our Party. The vision that means Labour can win in Scotland again.

    And it is needed more than ever. There are currently 260,000 children in Scotland living in poverty. There are now 430,000 Scots earning less than the living wage.

    I am confident conference, just as I am sure you are, that under the progressive and principled leadership of Richard Leonard we can and we will build on our progress here and deliver our radical programme for change.

    But we are also living in tumultuous political times.

    The Tories’ Brexit plans are in chaos.

    At one of the most important times for our country in its history we have a divided Government that has no clear idea of what it’s doing what it wants or where it’s going.

    And as Theresa May has now admitted, under her plans for a reckless Tory Brexit the UK risks losing access to European markets. Make no mistake about it, reduced access to European markets means fewer economic opportunities for people in the UK.

    This is why we need a Labour government to take the reins from the free market ideologues who want to use Brexit to sign a race-to-the-bottom trade deal with Trump’s America and turn the UK into a deregulated offshore tax haven.

    And instead take the new common sense into the heart of government and help bring about a society that truly does work for all.

    Labour is the only party focusing on the issues that matter to people in their everyday lives, and the only party committed to putting power back into every community in the UK.

    When it comes to Brexit Labour’s priorities have been clear from the outset. We will fight for a deal that puts jobs and living standards first.

    Because the priority for people in Scotland and across the UK is access to high wage secure employment that will enable them to live the healthy prosperous and well-rounded lives that they deserve.

    That means that we will not accept an off the peg model for our future relationship with the European Union, the Norwegian model may work for Norway, but we need to find our own model that works for everybody in the UK.

    That is why we would seek to negotiate a new customs union with the EU after Brexit to ensure that there are no tariffs with Europe and help avoid any need for a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    But we are also clear that the option of a new UK customs union with the EU would need to ensure the UK has a say in future trade deals.

    Labour would not countenance a deal that left Britain as a passive recipient of rules decided elsewhere by others.

    A comprehensive new customs union would cement our close trading relationship with our European partners.

    That relationship is vital to our interests vital to jobs across Scotland and the UK.

    Take the food and drink sector which is worth around £14 billion in Scotland alone with ambitions to grow to around £30 billion by 2030.

    With complex food supply chains ingredients and products have to cross many borders.

    Adding to that complexity with considerable delays for checks at ports and airports would cause real difficulties and cost for perishable goods such as seafood.

    That is why retaining the benefits of the customs union and the single market is vital to future Labour governments in both Holyrood and Westminster if we are to fully implement our socialist programme for change in our society.

    As democratic socialists we respect the result of the referendum, but Labour has its own common sense approach in stark contrast to the Tories’ extreme and reckless plans for Brexit.

    We would aim to negotiate a new and strong relationship with the single market and a floor under existing rights, standards and protections for workers, consumers and the environment.

    That new relationship would need to ensure we can deliver our ambitious economic plans take the essential steps to intervene, upgrade and transform our economy and build an economy for the 21st century that works for the many, not the few.

    That’s why we would want to negotiate protections or exemptions where necessary from current rules and directives that push privatisation and public service competition or restrict our ability to intervene to support domestic and local industry and business or undermine attempts to protect rights at work.

    We cannot be held back inside or outside the EU from taking the steps we need to develop and invest in cutting edge industries and local business stop the tide of privatisation and outsourcing, or from preventing employers being able to import cheap agency labour to undercut existing pay and conditions in the name of free market orthodoxy.

    It’s striking that Theresa May’s only clear priority when she laid out her new Brexit negotiating position last week seemed to be to tie the UK permanently to EU rules, which are used to drive privatisation and block support for British industry.

    The European Union is set to make changes of its own in the coming period especially in relation to the rules governing Eurozone economies and the rights of temporary migrant workers.

    It would therefore be wrong to sign up to a single market deal without agreement that our final relationship with the EU would be fully compatible with our radical plans to change Britain’s economy.

    We are determined to negotiate a deal that gives us full tariff-free access to the single market.

    But if we are genuinely going to have a jobs first Brexit that deal must be compatible with our plans to bring the railways and postal service into full public ownership transform energy markets and end the privatisation of our public services.

    And we also need to be clear we could not accept a situation where we were subject to all EU rules and EU law, yet had no say in making those laws That would leave us as mere rule-takers and isn’t a tenable position for a democracy.

    As the party of devolution the Party that oversaw the creation of all three devolved administrations in the UK we have consistently argued that powers being returned from Brussels should go directly to devolved administrations.

    The Tories have played right into the SNP’s hands in hoarding power for themselves in the back corridors of Westminster.

    The fact that the Scottish and UK governments are unable to reach agreement on the 24 areas of dispute that were revealed this morning highlights the utter chaos and mismanagement that is defining this Tory Brexit.

    Added to the prospects of both economic and constitutional crises the government’s dangerous risking of peace in Northern Ireland offering no clear alternative to a hard border on the island as it refuses to consider the option of a customs union shows why a Labour government is needed so badly to steer the negotiations in a sensible direction.

    Because as well as being a democratic socialist Party Labour is also an internationalist Party.

    We realise that the great problems of our age: fighting for people’s rights and living standards against the power of international capital; ending the incessant destruction of our climate and our natural world; clamping down on rich tax dodgers who hide their excessive wealth and refuse to pay their way; and defending international human rights that have been fought for and defended by people on the ground for generations.

    These are problems which individual nations cannot deal with alone.

    We cannot give in to Tory demands to cut Britain off or SNP demands to cut Scotland off from the rest of the world.

    We recognise the need to have a strong voice in combating human rights abuses across the globe and are absolutely committed to retaining the UK’s place in the European Convention on Human Rights.

    Having that strong voice means standing up for what we believe in.

    That’s why we have demanded Theresa May’s government uses the visit this week of Saudi Arabia’s ruler Muhammad bin Salman to halt British arms sales to Saudi Arabia while its devastating bombing of Yemen continues and demand an immediate ceasefire.

    A humanitarian disaster is now taking place in Yemen as a direct result of the Saudi-led bombing and blockade. Millions face starvation and hundreds of thousands of children have cholera while thousands of civilians have been killed.

    UK arms supplies to Saudi Arabia have increased sharply since the war began and British military advisers are directly involved in the prosecution of the Saudi bombing campaign which has repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals.

    It cannot be right, as I told the Prime Minister on Wednesday that her government is colluding in what the UN and others say is evidence of war crimes. Germany has suspended arms supplies to Saudi Arabia, and so must the British government. This outrage must end.

    Nor is it true, as the Prime Minister claimed, that the Saudi-led war in Yemen has been authorised by the United Nations Security Council.

    What’s needed now is both a ceasefire and a concerted international effort to achieve a negotiated political settlement.

    I also want to pay tribute to Richard Leonard for the work he has done preparing a movement to oppose any visit by US President Donald Trump to Scotland.

    While the SNP wooed Trump to build his golf course in Aberdeenshire, and

    Theresa May appeases him as she bets the UK economy on a race-to-the-bottom trade deal with the US.

    Richard has shown Labour is standing up to oppose the racism, misogyny and dangerous belligerence coming from the US administration.

    A Labour government will ensure that our international relations are not dictated by the global dominance of multinational corporations, but are governed by the values of socialism and international solidarity, and shared progress in the interests of working people across the globe both inside and outside of Europe.

    They’re values which are encapsulated in part of a poem by Liz Lochhead the previous Makar.

    She wrote in her poem, Connecting Cultures:

    Remembering how hard fellow feeling is to summon
    When Wealth is what we do not have in Common,
    May every individual
    And all the peoples in each nation
    Work and hope and
    Strive for true communication —
    Only by a shift and sharing is there any chance
    For the Welfare of all our people and Good Governance.

    Such words can sound like flagged-up slogans, true.
    What we merely say says nothing —
    All that matters is what we do.

    I think you’ll agree conference that sums up the central philosophy of what our internationalist outlook should be.

    The outlook that must define our international policy as we work to ensure that our voice in the world is a wholly positive one encouraging peace prosperity.

    Conference, the Labour Party has a vision a vision for a society where everybody cares for everybody else we call it socialism.

    And when we do get into government:

    We will go further than any government has ever gone before.

    We will go further in tackling inequality.

    We will go further in ending poverty.

    We will go further in bringing power closer to people.

    Further in transforming our economy to work for the many and not the few.

    Further in bringing about a common sense revolution that puts public service above private profit.

    And we know the further we go in reflecting people’s priorities the more support we will get.

    That is why we are building a genuine mass movement of people.

    One that is capable of organising in every city, town and village in Scotland, and across this island.

    A movement that can propel Labour into government in both Holyrood and in Westminster, so that we can bring real change and create a society that truly is for the many and not the few.

  • Sam Gyimah – 2018 Speech on UK-Ireland Education Partnership

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sam Gyimah, the Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, on 10 May 2018.

    It’s an honour to be here today with such a distinguished group of researchers, teachers and innovators from our two countries. And a pleasure to speak alongside my esteemed counterpart John Halligan.

    Today is a good opportunity to celebrate the special relationship between our two countries – and also to deepen it, building on our relationships in the fields of research, innovation, and higher education.

    As the Prime Minister said in her Mansion House speech, the UK is committed to establishing a far-reaching science and innovation pact with the EU. It is our aim that Britain remains at the forefront of collective endeavours to better understand, and make better, the world in which we live. The exchange of ideas and of researchers is essential to this.

    UK-Ireland collaboration on research

    The UK and Ireland collaborate through a number of EU multilateral forums, not least Horizon 2020. We are working together on a dizzying range of cutting edge projects. We’re collaborating to find new ways to unlock the energy potential of our oceans through the Marinet project. We are deepening our understanding of serious illnesses, through the Joint Programming Initiative for Neurodegenerative Disease Research. We are working out how best to deploy Ebola vaccine through the EBODAC project. These are just a few of the inspiring examples of joint projects our 2 countries are involved in. Indeed, we are Ireland’s second most frequent collaborator in Horizon 2020 projects.

    We are also proud of our bilateral work together, like the BBSRC’s lead agency agreement with Science Foundation Ireland, which to date has funded 14 applications, totalling nearly £8 million.

    In the last five years, the UK’s Research Council funded 119 projects involving partners based in Ireland, representing a total value of £146 million.

    When it comes to innovation, I believe the UK has much to gain from working with Ireland.

    I’m excited by projects like the new partnership between the cities of Belfast and Dublin to develop new, clean solutions to deliver goods within cities. Cracking the problem of ‘last mile’ distribution could mean cheaper goods, more reliable deliveries, and cleaner air – 3 big prizes.

    Ireland has over the last 30 years built a powerful and dynamic knowledge economy, attracting investment from abroad and encouraging entrepreneurship at home. As the UK pushes ahead with our Industrial Strategy, increasing our investment in R&D and creating the opportunity for high-growth businesses to thrive, we have much to learn from Ireland’s successes.

    Higher education

    Our long history of partnership carries over into the other half of my brief: higher education. Of 15,000 Irish students studying abroad, two-thirds of them are in the UK. And Ireland is the fifth most popular country for UK students studying abroad.

    We are keen to maintain our partnership with Ireland as the UK leaves the EU. Indeed, we want it not just to continue, but to get stronger. We welcome Irish students to the UK. And we have no intention to cut or cap international student numbers.

    Students from Ireland bring greater diversity to our campuses, an international dimension to the experience of everyone at our universities. They stimulate demand for courses, and add to the UK’s impressive research capacity.

    In the short term they bring welcome income to UK universities, and to the economies of our towns and cities. In the longer term, they offer something even more valuable: the prospect of ongoing business, political, cultural and research links between our two countries. Long may this continue.

    That is why we have made a commitment to maintaining rights of Irish nationals to access higher and further education courses on equal terms to UK nationals, on a reciprocal basis. This includes rights to qualify for student loans and support under applicable schemes and subject to relevant eligibility conditions.

    We are working towards agreeing the high-level principles with Ireland, and considering the exact details of future eligibility criteria for student loans and support in England following the end of the Implementation Period in December 2020, including ways to ensure that Irish students continue to have access to student finance support.

    The future

    At today’s conference we’ll be discussing a wide range of areas for future collaboration. They range from life science to agri-food to space and satellite technologies, and from pure research to innovation projects taking place within businesses.

    Wider EU relationship

    I would also like to say a few words about the UK’s wider science and research plans as we prepare to leave the European Union. The UK is an active and valued participant in European research and innovation programmes.

    The UK and EU Joint Report, published in December, sets out that UK entities’ right to participate in EU programmes, including Horizon 2020, will be unaffected by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. In the areas of citizens’ rights and the financial settlement, we have translated all of the commitments we made in December, delivering on our promise to reflect the Joint Report in the Withdrawal Agreement.

    The Joint Report envisages that existing projects will continue to receive uninterrupted funding for the lifetime of the project.

    We want to assure the EU of our commitment to ongoing collaboration in Science and Innovation; we want to work together on a mutually beneficial outcome. This potentially includes continuing to take part in those programmes that are greatly to the UK’s and the EU’s joint advantage, such as those that promote science, education and culture.

    To that end, we would like to ensure that the new FP9 remains open to our association. We recognise that such an association would necessarily involve an appropriate financial contribution in line with other associates, and would like to discuss the details. In turn, our priorities are that FP9 remains focused on excellence, EU-added value, and openness to the world, as we outlined in our position paper, and that the programme allows associated countries a suitable degree of influence, in recognition of the benefits they bring to it and in line with their financial contributions. To this end, we intend to engage fully and constructively in the design of FP9.

    We hope that our future participation in FP9 will provide us with a further opportunity to collaborate with Ireland, alongside our bilateral partnerships.

    Conclusion

    Our relationship with Ireland in the fields of research, innovation and higher education is of the utmost importance to us. Together, we can do better research, promote our mutual prosperity, and build on the deep cultural links between our countries.

    I am delighted to share a platform today with John Halligan, and with so many distinguished innovators from our 2 nations, as we seek to deepen our partnership.

  • Nick Gibb – 2018 Speech at Launch of Midland Knowledge Hub

    Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Gibb, the Minister of State for School Standards, on 10 May 2018.

    It is a pleasure to be at the launch of the Midland Knowledge Hub. Today marks another milestone in the movement to ensure that all children benefit from a knowledge-rich curriculum.

    This movement is driven by a desire to ensure all children – wherever they live and whatever their background – receive their entitlement: an education in the best that has been thought and said. In the words of E. D. Hirsch:

    We will be able to achieve a just and prosperous society only when our schools ensure that everyone commands enough shared background knowledge to be able to communicate effectively with everyone else.

    This is why the importance of assumed knowledge is vital.

    Writing for Parents and Teachers for Excellence and ASCL’s ‘The Question of Knowledge’, Leora Cruddas summed up the roots of this movement, and what we hope to achieve:

    The influence of E D Hirsch on educational thinking has been profound. At its heart is the idea that returning to a traditional, academic curriculum built on shared knowledge is the best way to achieve social justice in society. His work has also encouraged schools to focus on the concept of building cultural capital as a way to close the attainment gap.

    Parents and Teachers for Excellence, as we’ve heard, is at the forefront of this movement. It started – in the words of The West Wing’s President Bartlett – by a small group of thoughtful and committed teachers and headteachers, and this movement is changing education in England.

    Teachers from all across the country have been inspired to put knowledge at the heart of their curriculum, which explains the popularity of the Midland Knowledge Hub’s ‘What does a knowledge-rich school look like’ event, taking place this weekend. There are 180 people coming to that inaugural conference.

    Writing in anticipation of the event, Chris Martin, headteacher of St Thomas Aquinas, described how his thinking has changed in recent times. Having grown frustrated with the endless additional sessions for Year 11 pupils before and after school, which added, of course, significantly to teacher workload, he realised that there must be a better approach. Writing in a recent blog, he described how he was influenced by what other schools have achieved. And I quote from his blog:

    After visiting Michaela School, St Martin’s, Mossbourne Academy, Dixons Trinity Academy and sending colleagues to Bedford Free School and others, and attending numerous ResearchED Conferences, I soon began to realise that there was an alternative approach out there.

    He is now working to transform the curriculum at his inner-city Birmingham comprehensive. In conclusion to his blog, Chris Martin reflects that he is increasingly convinced that these changes will transform the life chances of his pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils. To quote again:

    Once you go down the journey of a knowledge-rich school, I have found that you become more and more convinced it will transform the lives of disadvantaged students. Quite simply, they will get better GCSE grades as a result. More importantly, they will stand on the shoulders of giants they wouldn’t have known existed.

    So ensuring that every child – particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds – is endowed with the cultural capital they need for success is at the heart of the movement. A desire for social justice and equality of opportunity is why we want a knowledge-rich curriculum for all pupils. All pupils deserve a broad and balanced curriculum that introduces them to the wonders of physics, the majesty of music and the great works of literature.

    And Clare Sealy, a primary headteacher working in Bethnal Green, made clear the link between the curriculum and children’s cultural entitlement in a blog late last year, writing, and I quote:

    The curriculum is the means by which we ensure that all our children get their fair share of the rich cultural inheritance our world affords.

    And in schools across England, a desire to ensure that all pupils benefit from a knowledge-rich curriculum is driving headteachers to consider how school culture best allows pupils to thrive. Whether in rural Leicestershire or inner-city Birmingham, headteachers must set and help maintain a school culture in which teachers can teach and pupils can learn. And in the words of Clive Wright:

    We are not facilitators at Saint Martin’s, we teach, we are experts whose job it is to convey our expertise to pupils and enable pupils to remember.

    So providing children with an introduction to the canon requires teachers to deliver their expert subject knowledge, without fear that their careful sequencing of the material will be interrupted by low-level disruption.

    Creating and a culture where all pupils can thrive allows teachers to focus on developing their teaching, reading research and refining their curriculum. Reflecting on what had already begun to change in his school, Chris Martin wrote the following:

    Since January, with the improvement in behaviour, our conversations with staff have turned back to what is being taught. If we are serious about raising achievement of our disadvantaged students, we are serious about them studying challenging texts right from their first day in Year 7. We have talked about pedagogy, but in a way I have never talked about before in my teaching career. We are talking about direct instruction and modelling and giving staff permission to teach their subject rather than entertain. We discuss distributed practice and interleaving key content to ensure our kids can recall key knowledge months after they are first taught it. Although very early days, our staff feel affirmed because they have permission to be experts.

    A school culture that minimises disruption and reduces unnecessary teacher workload frees teachers to develop and hone their craft. The question is no longer ‘How am I going to teach Year 9 today?’ Instead, by providing teachers with a coherent curriculum programme, teachers can focus on more important questions:

    How should I build on prior knowledge?

    What is the best way to sequence the new material?

    How will I ensure pupils retain what is taught?’

    The search for expertise in teaching lies at the heart of these questions, amongst others. As Clare Sealy puts it when considering just one of these questions:

    If children don’t remember what we have taught them, then even the richest curriculum is pointless. Knowledge can’t empower if it is forgotten. So as well as thinking about what is the richest, best material to put into our curriculum, we also have to structure our curriculum in a way that make remembering almost inevitable.

    So consideration of how pupils learn is at the heart of teacher expertise. When writing ‘What Is Expert Teaching’ for the Institute for Teaching, Peps McCrea looked at what expert teachers know. And amongst the defining characteristics of expert teachers is a knowledge of how children learn and how to use what we know from cognitive and behavioural science.

    Describing his own early experience of the classroom, Nick Rose, who is the Curriculum Director at the Institute for Teaching, reflected on the importance of teachers having an understanding of how memory works, and he wrote:

    I gained great satisfaction from pupils achieving ‘lightbulb’ moments in lessons where they appear to ‘get’ a new idea, but this was often countered by bitter disappointment when I came to assess learning at a later date and often discovered that such breakthroughs were ephemeral.

    Expert teachers draw on their extensive knowledge – from knowledge of their pupils, to an understanding of cognitive science and their subject and curriculum knowledge – to inform the innumerable decisions they make each and every day in the classroom. As with other top professionals, this knowledge is critical to their professional identity. Expertise in these areas distinguishes teachers at the top of their profession.

    Which is why it is crucial that schools set the culture, provide a well-resourced, high-quality curriculum and support teachers to develop their expertise. By providing this framework of support to teachers, schools and – most importantly – pupils will benefit.

    Andrew Percival – head of curriculum in a primary school in the North West – described how his school is embracing a knowledge-rich curriculum in a widely shared blog. Like Chris Martin, he is seeing several benefits from taking a knowledge-rich approach to designing curriculum. In his conclusion he lists some of them:

    We will know exactly what is taught across school in every subject in every year group. There will be clarity in definitions and terminology to reduce variation from year group to year group.

    We will have a much clearer sense of the progression in each subject from Reception to Year 6.

    We will know exactly which resources are needed throughout the year so can ensure these are purchased well in advance.

    We can ensure that threads are woven carefully through the curriculum e.g. the concepts of ‘parliament’ and ‘civilisation’ will exist in multiple History units in different year groups to ensure they are remembered for the long term.

    We can ensure greater consistency in the curriculum across school from one year to the next.

    We can be more confident that our children make good progress in foundation subjects developing robust knowledge and vocabulary.

    Across the country, teachers are adopting a knowledge-rich approach to curriculum. Driven by social justice and a desire to ensure that all children are taught the best that has been thought and said, a grassroots movement of teacher innovation has resulted.

    So thank you to everyone that has been part of this movement. The movement is growing, and it’s growing to the benefit of teachers, pupils and our country.

    Thank you so much for what you are doing.

  • Lord Bishop of Leeds – 2018 Speech on the EU in the House of Lords

    Below is the text of the speech made by the Lord Bishop of Leeds in the House of Lords on 8 May 2018.

    My Lords, I move this amendment for two principal reasons: first, in order to assist the Government in their shaping of their case for the UK’s future relationship with the European Union post Brexit; secondly, because it is consistent with Amendment 49, which was passed earlier on Report.

    Speakers in these debates have repeatedly suggested that anyone who moves an amendment is a hypocritical remoaner intent on sabotaging the Bill and trying to prevent Brexit from ever happening. I regret the referendum result, but I accept that the UK is to leave—even on this 73rd anniversary of VE Day. My concern, along with that of many in your Lordships’ House, is to ask the Government seriously to consider improvements to the Bill in order that the people should be clear about the how as well as the what of ​Brexit, and that the transition to a final arrangement is as good as we can get it. It is my understanding that this is both the role and the responsibility of this House.

    I remain concerned that a deeply divided country is being offered two stark alternatives which, if you will bear with me, I will put in biblical terms—someone has to. Like the people of Israel in the desert, we too easily romanticise the past and yearn to return to Egypt; or, on the other hand, we promise on the other side of the mountain a land flowing with milk and honey, ignoring the challenges that go with it not actually being our land to do with as we will.

    I mean it seriously when I suggest that we should be honest in our discourse on Brexit and acknowledge that we shall be spending some years in the wilderness as we begin to work out the consequences of the decisions we have taken and the implications of the relationships we must now begin to establish. Wilderness time is not necessarily negative time—simply a time of waiting, wishing and hoping or recriminating—but a time for stripping away the clutter, identifying and owning our values and priorities as a nation and actively bringing together a people divided by their varying apprehensions of events that have befallen them. That serious need for a concrete unifying strategy has yet to be addressed seriously in either House of this Parliament: slogans and wishful thinking are not enough.

    With this in mind, then, I come to the substance of the amendment standing in my name, and to which, I am sure, the Prime Minister would give her consent as it rests on commitments already articulated by her. In her Mansion House speech of 2 March 2018, the Prime Minister confirmed for the first time that the UK will seek to maintain a formal relationship with certain EU agencies after Brexit. She further acknowledged that the terms of the future UK-EU relationship may see the UK Parliament take the step of replicating certain provisions of EU law. I hope noble Lords will forgive me for quoting in order to obtain clarity. She said:

    “Our default is that UK law may not necessarily be identical to EU law, but it should achieve the same outcomes. In some cases Parliament might choose to pass an identical law—businesses who export to the EU tell us that it is strongly in their interest to have a single set of regulatory standards that mean they can sell into the UK and EU markets. If the Parliament of the day decided not to achieve the same outcomes as EU law, it would be in the knowledge that there may be consequences for our market access”.

    She went on:

    “And there will need to be an independent mechanism to oversee these arrangements”.

    She also said:

    “We will also want to explore with the EU, the terms on which the UK could remain part of EU agencies such as those that are critical for the chemicals, medicines and aerospace industries”.

    She added:

    “We would, of course, accept that this would mean abiding by the rules of those agencies and making an appropriate financial contribution”.

    The Prime Minister then went on to set out what the mutual benefits of such an approach might be. These include: first, that such membership, however ​described, is the only way to ensure that products need to undergo only one series of approvals in one country; secondly, that such membership would enable the UK to contribute its technical expertise in setting and enforcing appropriate rules; and thirdly, that this might then allow UK firms to resolve certain challenges related to the agencies through UK courts rather than the ECJ.

    That is enough for now to demonstrate the Prime Minister’s case. She concluded with a further statement about the sovereignty of Parliament and the acknowledged costs of rejecting agency rules for membership of the relevant agency and linked market access rights. It is important to remember that these decentralised agencies were originally established following a proposal from the European Commission and agreement by both the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, which, if I am correct, means that the establishment of over 40 bodies was achieved with the support of the UK. Surely it makes sense, then, to be consistent and retain access to them.

    As the Prime Minister made clear in her speech, there will be consequences of not doing so. For example, and to take just one, there is the European Maritime Safety Agency. Our international reporting and monitoring obligations on maritime safety are currently handled via EMSA and there are shared EU rules on seafarer working conditions. That enables the UK to maintain its status as a “quality flag state” under international law. The complexities involved in replicating this would appear to be immense. Furthermore, establishing a domestic equivalent to the EMSA will inevitably put a huge strain on the Civil Service, taking many years to negotiate, and will be enormously expensive. Could that be yet another uncosted consequence of Brexit? I could equally cite the European Aviation Safety Agency, the European Chemicals Agency, Europol, the European Medicines Agency, and many others.

    Is it not probable that any future UK-EU trading relationship might demand replication of certain EU measures—product safety regulations, for example? As other regulations continue to evolve in Brussels in the years to come, is it not probable, if not inevitable, that the UK might have to keep pace if reciprocal arrangements with the EU 27 are to continue—for example, those covering matrimonial and parental judgments?

    This amendment does not in any way place an additional burden on the Government, nor does it ask the Government to change their stated policy stance. It formalises and reinforces those commitments made by the Prime Minister in her Mansion House speech. Furthermore, with phase 2 of the negotiations now well under way, the addition of this clause would demonstrate Parliament’s wish for the UK to maintain a close relationship with the EU and, in this sense, it is consistent with the role envisaged for Parliament in Amendment 49.

    It is fair to say that, although amendments relating to EU agencies were rejected in the House of Commons, that was possibly because the Government had not at that point announced their policy position. Now that ​their policy position is clear, sending this amendment back to the Commons would simply give an opportunity for further debate on future UK-EU co-operation.

    I hope that I have given a clear rationale for this amendment and its inclusion in the Bill. I hope that the Minister in responding will recognise its constructive nature and its attempt to give some idea as to what sort of milk and honey might lie over the mountain once we have negotiated the wilderness journey. It does no one any favours to pretend we are where we are not; it does everybody a favour to attend to a detail that at least has the virtue of acknowledging the uncertainties ahead and the size and potential costs of the journey on which we have now embarked and gives one element of shape to what to many looks, to quote another biblical line, somewhat “formless and void”. I commend the amendment for debate and beg to move.

  • Alan Duncan – 2018 Speech on Arctic Policy Framework

    Below is the text of the speech made by Alan Duncan, the Minister of State for Europe and the Americas at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, on 9 May 2018.

    Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us for the launch of the new iteration of UK policy towards the Arctic.

    I’m sure it will be an absolute best seller.

    This country’s long history of exploration and endeavour in the Polar Regions is the stuff of legends.

    With any luck that means you will not mind if I say a few words about ‘Beyond the Ice’.

    All of us understand that the Arctic region is of fundamental importance, not only to the people who live and work there but also to the health of the planet.

    It is now 20 years since the UK became one of four original observers to the newly formed Arctic Council.

    We remain as committed as ever to the Arctic States and the indigenous peoples of the Arctic and to securing a sustainable future for them that benefits us all.

    That is what this new Policy Framework is all about.

    It is five years since the last one, and as we are all too well aware, a great deal has changed in the Arctic region in that time – most significantly, the unprecedented decline in sea-ice cover and thickness, and the steady rise in average temperatures.

    These rapid changes have drawn greater attention to the Arctic – in ways that can present both opportunities and challenges.

    The UK takes seriously our responsibility to ensure the security and stability of the region and to work collaboratively to address them.

    In ‘Beyond the Ice’, we set out the UK’s three main commitments to the region.

    The first is to bring our world-class science to bear in helping to understand the changing Arctic and to find solutions to the challenges that presents to us.

    That means supporting our top scientists and their international collaboration on the Arctic – particularly as the new Agreement on Enhancing Scientific Cooperation in the Arctic is implemented.

    Already, nearly two-thirds of the UK Arctic research papers have international co-authors. We think this is the right approach, and want to encourage more of it.

    The UK Government is investing both manpower and finance in pioneering Arctic research.

    Man and woman power in the form of our Science and Innovation Officers in our eight Arctic State Embassies and the Arctic Science Office.

    Finance in the shape of £16 million in the 5-year Changing Arctic Ocean Programme and a further £2.3 million for UK-based scientists to take part in MOSAiC, which many of you will know, is a truly international study of the Arctic climate.

    The second commitment we make in ‘Beyond the Ice’ is to help protect the fragile environment of the Arctic for the people who live and visit there.

    The UK is already a global leader on addressing global climate change and tackling the accumulation of pollutants in the world’s oceans.

    Our commitment to the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals is underpinned by our Clean Growth Strategy and we have consistently been at the forefront of international regulatory changes to reduce global greenhouse emissions on land and at sea.

    We are also taking great strides to reduce the accumulation of plastic waste in the world’s oceans, including through our 25-year Environmental Plan, which commits us to achieve zero avoidable plastic waste by the end of 2042.

    Given that the nearly all of the litter found in the Arctic comes from elsewhere, it is essential that we all take action to stop it.

    We will gain further insights into the impacts of climate and environmental change on the Arctic when the report ‘Polar Oceans: status and change’ – which was jointly commissioned by the UK and Norway – is published later this year.

    Our third commitment in ‘Beyond the Ice’ is to support responsible and sustainable development of the region, and ensure that its people are the first to benefit from the increase in prosperity that a changing Arctic may bring.

    Changes in the Arctic also present economic opportunities for the UK. Shrinking summer sea-ice could cut the travel time between Asia and Europe by 10 days, bringing benefits in terms of reduced costs, lower fuel consumption and less pollution.

    However these potential benefits do not give us – or anyone else – the right to run roughshod over the needs of the region and its people.

    That is why our priority will be to encourage development that is both sustainable and responsible.

    To sum up, the UK remains a global leader in supporting environmental protection, international cooperation and the rules-based system. We are home to world-leading research scientists and cutting edge business investment. ‘Beyond the Ice’ demonstrates our continued determination to harness and share these assets and to work together to understand, protect and improve the Arctic, for the benefit of all, for generations to come.

  • Boris Johnson – 2018 Statement on the Iran Nuclear Deal

    Below is the text of the speech made by Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, in the House of Commons on 9 May 2018.

    The government regrets the decision of the US Administration to withdraw from the deal and to re-impose American sanctions on Iran.

    We did our utmost to prevent this outcome; from the moment that President Trump’s Administration took office, we made the case for keeping the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) at every level.

    Last Sunday I travelled to Washington and repeated this country’s support for the nuclear agreement in meetings with Secretary Pompeo, Vice-President Pence, National Security Adviser Bolton and others and my Right Honourable Friend the Prime Minister spoke to President Trump last Saturday.

    The US decision makes no difference to the British assessment that the constraints imposed on Iran’s nuclear ambitions by the JCPoA remain vital for our national security and the stability of the Middle East.

    Under the agreement, Iran has relinquished 95% of its low-enriched uranium, placed 2 thirds of its centrifuges in storage, removed the core of its heavy water reactor – thus closing off the plutonium route to a bomb, and allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to mount the most intrusive and rigorous inspection regime ever devised, an obligation on Iran that lasts until 2040.

    The House should not underestimate the impact of these measures.

    The interval needed for Iran to make enough weapons-grade uranium for 1 nuclear bomb is known as the “breakout” time.

    Under the deal, Iran’s “breakout” time has trebled or even quadrupled from a few months to at least a year,and the plutonium pathway to a weapon has been blocked completely.

    For as long as Iran abides by the agreement – and the IAEA has publicly reported its compliance, Iran’s compliance, 9 times so far – then Britain will remain a party to the JCPoA.

    I remind the House that the JCPoA is an international agreement, painstakingly negotiated over 13 years – under both Republican and Democratic Administrations – and enshrined in UN Resolution 2231.

    Britain has no intention of walking away; instead we will cooperate with the other parties to ensure that while Iran continues to restrict its nuclear programme, then its people will benefit from sanctions relief in accordance with the central bargain of the deal.

    I cannot yet go into detail on the steps we propose to take, but I hope to make them available as soon as possible and I spoke yesterday to my French and German counterparts.

    In his statement on January 12, President Trump highlighted important limitations of the JCPoA, including the fact that some constraints on Iran’s nuclear capacity expire in 2025.

    Britain worked alongside France and Germany to find a way forward that would have addressed the President’s concerns and allowed the US to stay in the JCPoA, but without reopening the terms of the agreement.

    I still believe that would have been the better course and now that our efforts on this side of the Atlantic have not succeeded, it falls to the US Administration to spell out their view of the way ahead.

    In the meantime, I urge the US to avoid taking any action that would hinder other parties from continuing to make the agreement work in the interests of our collective national security.

    I urge Iran to respond to the US decision with restraint and continue to observe its commitments under the JCPoA.

    We have always been at one with the United States in our profound concern over Iran’s missile tests and Iran’s disruptive role in the Middle East, particularly in Yemen and Syria.

    The UK has acted to counter Iran’s destabilising behaviour in the region – and we will continue to do so.

    We remain adamant that a nuclear-armed Iran would never be acceptable to the United Kingdom; indeed Iran’s obligation not to “seek, develop or acquire” nuclear weapons appears – without any time limit – on the first page of the preamble to the JCPoA.

    Yesterday President Trump promised to “work with our allies to find a real, comprehensive and lasting solution to the Iranian nuclear threat”.

    I have no difficulty whatever with that goal: the question is how the US proposes to achieve it?

    Now that the Trump Administration has left the JCPoA, the responsibility falls on them to describe how they in Washington will build a new negotiated solution to our shared concerns, a settlement that must necessarily include Iran, China and Russia as well as countries in the region.

    Britain stands ready to support that task, but in the meantime, we will strive to preserve the gains made by the JCPoA.

    And I commend this statement to the House.

  • Theresa May – 2018 Speech at Creative Industries Reception

    Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Prime Minister, at Downing Street in London on 8 May 2018.

    Good evening everyone. It is a pleasure to welcome some of Britain’s great creative minds to Downing Street today, and I hope you have had the chance to admire some of the great British art we have here at Number 10. From Henry Moore to Stanley Spencer, who was brought up in my constituency, to Tracey Emin are represented here.

    It’s a real who’s who of British art but our artists, modern and contemporary, are not the only world-leaders in our creative industries. I think what is great here this evening is that we have people from so many different aspects of our creative industries.

    So while our films captivate audiences the world over, our fashion designers surprise and delight, our architects are shaping skylines and cityscapes on every continent.

    In publishing, in music, in advertising and more, the UK consistently punches well above its weight. And every day our creative industries fly the flag for Britain on the global stage. Every year our creative industries contribute £92 billion to the economy, providing work for more than two million people right across the country.

    I am not just talking about the big names, the stars of stage and screen who we all recognise, the sector provides highly skilled jobs right across the board. Technicians, producers, researchers, designers, coders, set builders, make-up artists…. The unsung heroes, the people without whom our creative industries would not be the worldwide success that they are.

    But of course, the value of culture and creativity lies not only in its economic strength. Just as important is the less tangible contribution that it makes to our national life. The work you do brings joy to millions. It fosters unity, gives us a common currency. It helps to define and build our sense of national character.

    “Without culture […] society is but a jungle”. Your work is a vital part of our national life and our national economy, and I am absolutely committed to supporting it.

    And of course since 2015, Arts Council England has invested over £1 billion in arts and culture, with grants being made right across the country.

    Our ambitious sector deal for the creative industries, announced just before Easter, will see a further £150 million invested by government and industry, spreading success and making the sector fit to face the future.

    And today, I’m delighted to announce a £3 million fund that will provide a new source of finance for creative and cultural organisations across the North of England. Offering a mix of grants and loans, the social investment fund will be open to non-profit, community-based organisations that deliver a positive social impact.

    And it will form part of the legacy for this summer’s Great Exhibition of the North: a game-changing moment for the region that showcases the very best of the North’s culture and creativity.

    But our support goes beyond the financial. As we leave the European Union, we will continue to work with our European friends to protect cultural heritage and promote cultural diversity.

    And, in Matt Hancock you’ve got a Secretary of State who really gets what the sector is all about, and is enthusiastic about it, and I know he is already doing great work with many of you who are here tonight.

    Our creative industries really are at the heart of what makes Britain great. As I say, from the big screen to the local gallery, your sector has consistently led the world for many, many years – and I look forward to that success continuing for many more years to come.

    Thank you for all that you do. Thank you for all that those who work with you do. And long may it continue.

  • Leo Abse – 1959 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Leo Abse, the then Labour MP for Pontypool, on 22 January 1959.

    I would ask for the indulgence of the House for this, my maiden speech. I must ask particularly for your indulgence, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for I am aware of the esteem in which my distinguished and noble predecessor was held in this House. If I attempted to follow the remarks made by the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Partridge), my speech might not be of non-partisan character, so I feel that I should turn in another direction.

    I would draw attention to the tardy approach of the White Paper to the acute-problems that arise in primary schools. I should have thought that ere now the danger would have been well understood of under-estimating the importance of the primary schools. They perform the vital function of fostering the potentialities of children when their imaginations are fertile, their minds are nimble and receptive, and, as all of us who are parents know, their curiosities are strong. It is obvious that attention should be given to children at that stage of their life.

    I find with much dismay that in the White Paper the real problems of the primary schools are apparently to be postponed until at least 1965. That is particularly distressing. The curricula in the primary schools should be free from the didactic approach. The new techniques which are available for teaching young children involve the use of originative activity. All the techniques of mime, drama, dance, and so on, require proper physical conditions.

    I am sure that in the constituencies of other hon. Members, as in my constituency, there is ample evidence that these physical conditions do not exist. I know that in Blaenavon, in my constituency, in one primary school there are two classes of upwards of fifty children in one room. In such physical conditions, how is it possible for the techniques which are available to be applied? How is it possible for any dynamic approach to be given to any elementary education? It is not possible while we have primary schools, as I have in Pontypool, which are more than 100 years old and the teachers have to cope with not only elementary education but the elements, because their classrooms have open fires and, certainly in recent weather conditions, conditions are created when anything is possible except a real, dynamic approach to education.

    I am not encouraged by what the Minister has said about the minor works programme to believe that any of these worst evils will be remedied within any measurable period of time. I am aware that the White Paper gives more discretion to local authorities and that it will now be possible for local authorities to put forward schemes twice as large as before, up to £20,000. However, as is apparent from the Minister’s remarks, it does not mean that the volume will be doubled.

    In Monmouthshire last year the local education authority put forward a plan costing a little more than £100,000 for minor works. At first it received half the grant. After a considerable amount of effort on the part of the local education authority, the amount was raised, but the total received was still more than 30 per cent. less than was originally intended. The Minister said the increase in volume will be 40 per cent. Opinion in Wales is that that is an exaggeration. Most local authorities there regard themselves as particularly fortunate if they obtain increases in the range of 10 to 15 per cent. Although one may be talking in terms of a five-year programme, it means that it is nothing of the sort. In the case of minor as well as major works, at least the first two years will be spent in trying to catch up the backlog of projects turned down by the Ministry in past years.

    An unfortunate aspect of the lack of priority being given to primary schools is that it is bound to be difficult to attract teachers of the proper quality to them. In schools of this character we need people of graduate or equivalent status. It is understandable why few are prepared to go to them. Reference has been made to mathematics. How can one look without some dismay at the teacher training programme when one realises that only 4 per cent. of the women teachers going through the colleges take mathematics? It means that the overwhelming proportion of the women teachers going back into the primary schools are going back to teach without having looked at mathematics since they were fifteen years old. We are bound to wonder how many potential scientists are being extinguished within our primary schools today. I should certainly have hoped that within the White Paper there would have been sufficient understanding of the need to have properly equipped teachers who have had the opportunity of taking real courses with a view to raising the standard, particularly of mathematics, within the primary schools.

    The difficulties within the primary schools are not confined to physical conditions and the quality of the teachers. It is now clear that the difficulties will be perpetuated because of the limpet-like attachment of the Minister to the 11-plus examination. Everyone who has any acquaintance with primary schools knows that the curriculum, as a result of the 11-plus examination, becomes appallingly distorted and the teaching becomes bent away from what its true character should be. It becomes perverted so that the child is being prepared for some alleged future educational requirement instead of being given what everybody knows is the most important thing, its immediate needs. I wonder why there is this extraordinary attachment to segregation at eleven. It is clear from the White Paper that there is every intention within the grammar schools to give advanced technical courses and there is every intention to try to have more and more children in the secondary modern schools taking the G.C.E. examination.

    What is happening is that the Government are stumbling and staggering into comprehensive education and not looking at the matter rationally. They are evading having a logical programme. They are trying to meet instead of control the pressure of outside events. I hope it will not be considered presumptuous for me to say it, but when one sees that there is a logical approach, one must wonder why it is not adopted. I believe it must come about. There are definite prejudices in existence which look with distaste at the idea that people from all groups should be mixed up together when they are young. Clearly, the more that people of different talents and capacities and from different groups within the community are mixed together, the more possible it is that we should have what we really need, a more homogeneous and more egalitarian form of society in the future.

    I trust that I shall not be regarded as having been too intemperate, but I have children of my own who will shortly be entering a primary school. However inadequately I may have expressed my views, I believe I am expressing not only my anxiety but the anxiety of many hundreds of parents in my constituency.

  • Lord Adonis – 2017 Speech on High Speed Rail

    Below is the text of the speech made by Lord Adonis in the House of Lords on 31 January 2017.

    My Lords, this is a huge investment and the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, need not apologise for putting down his amendment or opening this debate. Given the views that he holds, I think he is absolutely right to require the House to come to a decision after a debate and without simply proceeding straight to a vote before such an investment is made involving an important strategic departure from our transport policy.

    The noble Lord and my noble friend Lady Mallalieu made two claims: first, that this project is somehow undemocratic because it has not properly been considered by Parliament and the people; and, secondly, that I and those who followed me were somehow bewitched by trains doing what they seem to do in most of the rest of the world—that is, running at 200 miles per hour and linking up the principal cities of countries with economic geographies similar to our own. Perhaps I may deal with those two points in turn.

    I was responsible for publishing the Command Paper that began the process for HS2 in March 2010. I can tell the House frankly that there was a debate inside the Government at the time as to whether we should publish the Command Paper before or after the election. I can also tell the House frankly that a key factor in that discussion was whether the route should be published before the election or after it. The route had been prepared in detail by High Speed 2 (HS2) Ltd and indeed, following all the scrutiny since 2010, it has survived with hardly any variation, except for the addition of a considerable number of tunnels.​

    I was very firmly of the view—and the Prime Minister at the time, Gordon Brown, came to the same view—that it would be profoundly undemocratic to announce an intention to build such a major infrastructure project as HS2 knowing what the route would be but hiding it until after the election from the people and, in particular, from those who lived in the constituencies affected. So we published the route before the election.

    All three major parties had a commitment to HS2 in their manifestos for the 2010 election. Because of the public meetings that I conducted in the 2010 election, I know that it was—how can I put it?—a very live issue in that election. I remember addressing one meeting where I said that I thought that HS2 would be on my tombstone and somebody from the back shouted out, “Not soon enough”. So there is no way that this scheme was disguised from the people in the 2010 election, and an overwhelming majority was returned supporting HS2.

    That then led to exhaustive consideration by the House of Commons and a Select Committee of the House of Commons. There were thousands of petitions against the scheme and the Select Committee considered the Bill in detail for the best part of two years. When the House of Commons had considered the report of that committee, it voted by 399 votes to 42 in favour of the passage of the high-speed 2 Bill. After another general election, HS2 was in the manifestos of the major parties, and all the detail relating to it, including the detailed parliamentary consideration, could be considered by voters

    It is hard to see how the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, can sustain a charge of a lack of democracy in this process. It has been almost a model of democratic engagement: there have been two general elections; two parliamentary committees; thousands of petitions, which were considered patiently by Members of a Select Committee in both Houses; and two votes in the House of Commons—on Second Reading and Third Reading—in which the Bill passed 10 to one, with very large numbers voting.

    We now come to my bewitchment. To clear up one factual error, it has been stated that at the beginning HS2 was about trains running very fast and that it became about capacity when that argument fell apart. That is completely untrue. The opening words of the 2010 Command Paper which launched HS2 are:

    “the Government’s assessment is: … That over the next 20 to 30 years the UK will require a step-change in transport capacity between its largest and most productive conurbations”,

    that is, London, West Midlands, the north-west, and Yorkshire. It continues that alongside such additional capacity—let me repeat those words—

    “alongside such additional capacity there are real benefits for the economy and for passengers from improving journey times and hence the connectivity of the UK”.

    The argument could not have been clearer. Capacity was the first and overriding consideration. But because a new railway was being built it was clearly sensible and right that Parliament authorised it to be built with 21st-century technology not 19th-century technology, the cost difference between the two not being great in any event.​

    The noble Lord and my noble friend spoke as if there might be a free lunch—if we do not build HS2 we will save large sums of money. I freely confess that constructions costs are high. If someone could wave a magic wand and reduce them I would be glad to hear from them and I think the House and Parliament would be well served. The two key points in relation to the costs are these. First, if HS2 is not built then other, very expensive interventions, which will probably end up costing about the same amount of money, will be needed to systematically upgrade the west coast main line to meet the requirements of the next generation. Those upgrades will not produce anything like the capacity that could be produced by building a new railway to 21st-century specifications.

    The first function I performed as Minister of State for Transport was opening the refurbished west coast main line. That line is often described as Victorian. It is in fact pre-Victorian; it was opened for the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838. Only four miles of the line—between London and the extension north from Birmingham, built after the coronation—are straight, because it had to be built around the estates of Members of your Lordships’ House. I can assure the House that in earlier hybrid Bill Committees, noble Lords were extremely good at getting compensation for the building of the line—much greater in real terms than is available to those affected now, which is of course part of the reason that the project is controversial. They were also good at making the line take detours.

    Upgrading a pre-Victorian railway is a very difficult task. It has been described to me as like performing open-heart surgery on a moving patient. It is also very expensive and complex. The completion of the last upgrade of the west coast main line, which produced only a fraction of the additional capacity that HS2 will produce, cost, in pre-2010 prices, £10 billion—in post-2010 prices that figure would be significantly higher. Of that £10 billion, £1 billion alone was for paying the railway company not to operate services at all in compensation for the disruption. For HS2, with the scale of the work that would be required, the proportionate figure would be larger still.

    If an alternative scenario to HS2 were to be carried out—upgrading the existing railway—the estimate that was made for me by officials in 2010, and which has been done again since, is that you would have to spend half as much as on HS2 for a quarter of the capacity, and of course the sum is a moving target because of construction costs and inflation. The idea that this is good value for money is for the birds. It is good value for money only if the limit of our horizons for the modernisation of this country and of the transport links between our major conurbations stops in 10 or 15 years’ time. If we are doing what I regard as our job as parliamentarians—looking to the longer term—then it is very poor value for money.

    I should add that the alternative scheme involved the complete rebuilding of Euston station, which will need to be done anyway. The great monstrosity that is Euston station was built for half its current capacity in the 1960s. I am glad to say, for those with a sense of history, that the Euston arch will come back when the station is rebuilt. The scheme also required hugely ​difficult and expensive work that would involve weeks on end of closures to realign tracks and signalling, extend platforms at all the main stations going north from Euston and so on. Those of your Lordships who used the west coast main line when the last work was being conducted will know that the disruption was chronic for the best part of a decade. We would be looking at something significantly worse than that if we were to seek to modernise the west coast main line on the scale required for the additional capacity.

    It is not just the west coast main line that would be affected. In order to provide that 25% extra capacity, the Chiltern line would need to be substantially four-tracked throughout. I am not the most popular person when I appear in the Chilterns to explain the benefits of HS2. However, I can tell your Lordships that if you were to go the Chilterns to suggest that the existing railway be four-tracked, all of which goes above ground and which would have a significantly worse impact on the environment than HS2, I wish you luck in conducting those public meetings.

    The choice that we faced was between building a new line between the major conurbations of the country to provide three times the existing capacity and the essential economic backbone for interchange between those great conurbations for the next generation, or conducting yet another patch and mend of a pre-Victorian railway at huge expense and offering a fraction of the capacity. I believe the decision that we took, which the coalition Government and now the existing Government have stood by, was exactly the right one, looking to the long term. The big mistake that has been made was the failure over the previous 40 years to adequately modernise the railways and, instead, to make do with patch-and-mend solutions that were hugely expensive and did not meet the exigencies of the case.

    Let me make one final comment. My noble friend said that there were other pressing investment requirements for the railways, and she is correct. The London to Brighton mainline, which was mentioned earlier, is one among many lines that have huge capacity constraints, and I am entirely supportive—as is the National Infrastructure Commission, which I chair—of what has been called the east-west Crossrail of the north; that is, the upgrading of the lines between Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Hull. But these are not choices. We can actually manage, as a country, to conduct more than one big infrastructure project at a time—most other developed countries have been managing it for the past 50 years. The idea that it should be an ambition beyond the reach of this great country that is now looking to forge a path in the world on its own as a great economy is, of course, nonsense. It is perfectly possible for us to carry through and pay for HS2 over the next 15 years, the completion of Crossrail, the next Crossrail scheme, the Crossrail of the north and other essential modernisations. What we need is proper planning, the right level of ambition and to stand by our duty to the country to see that we do not have to put up with, in the next generation, second-rate infrastructure that holds back the economy in the way that we did for too much of the post-war period. That is the issue that faces us, as a House and as Parliament. I hope that your Lordships will rise to the challenge.​

  • Lord Adonis – 2010 Speech on the Academies Bill

    Below is the text of the speech made by Lord Adonis in the House of Lords on 21 June 2010.

    I begin by paying tribute to the Church of England for the outstanding work that it does in promoting academies. As the right reverend Prelate said, the Church of England is the largest single sponsor of academies. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool and I worked closely on the ​development of academies in Liverpool and the area around, and they are making marvellous progress, extending opportunity in an area that has not had it in the past.

    This is my first opportunity in the House to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hill, on his appointment, which I do very warmly indeed. I should also say how glad I am that my noble friends Lady Royall and Lady Morgan are leading on this Bill for the Opposition. They bring a wealth of talent and experience to the task.

    My noble friend Lady Morgan raised a number of policy issues about the extension of academies, which I shall leave the Minister to respond to. However, on the specific issue about the legal name that should be given to a certain category of school, I find myself in surprising agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. She and I are survivors from the interminable debates on the Education Act 2005, on which our views did not coincide all the time, particularly on the issue of academies. But she is right that, in terms of legal category, the schools to which the Bill proposes to accord that status have all the essential characteristics of existing academies.

    I know that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet but, for two reasons, I do not support this amendment on the name that it gives to a legal category of schools. First, the schools which we are talking about in this Bill are academies in all their essential legal characteristics. They are managed independently of the local authority, on a contract with the Secretary of State that regulates a whole host of their policies and funding and which will be similar to that of existing academies. My noble friend says that academies are schools largely in deprived or challenging circumstances, and she is correct, although I need to point out to the House that that is not the exclusive preserve of academies. A number of entirely new schools have been set up as academies in very mixed social areas and a number of successful schools, including successful independent schools, have come into the state system by using the legal category of academies.

    The legal status is clearly set out in Section 65 of the Education Act 2002, which is cast in similar terms to Clause 1. I emphasise the fact that the 2002 Act, which was passed by the last Government, does not specify that academies, in legal terms, can only be schools that pass a threshold either of deprivation or of low achievement. On the contrary, I invite Members of the Committee to look at Section 65, which says:

    “The Secretary of State may enter into an agreement with any person under which … that person undertakes to establish and maintain, and to carry on or provide for the carrying on of, an independent school in England with the characteristics mentioned in subsection (2)”.

    Those characteristics are that the school,

    “has a curriculum satisfying the requirements of section 78 of the Education Act 2002”,

    and that it,

    “provides education for pupils of different abilities who are wholly or mainly drawn from the area in which the school is situated”.

    Those provisions are almost identical to those in the Bill.​ If there is no legal distinction between the schools that we are talking about in this Bill and those referred to under the Education Act 2002, is there another public policy reason for us to give a different label to certain schools within a similar legal category? I urge your Lordships not to do so. We already have an alphabet soup of different names for schools within the state system: community schools, foundation schools with a foundation, foundation schools without a foundation, voluntary aided schools, voluntary controlled schools, trust schools, city technology colleges, grammar schools, maintained special schools and non-maintained special schools. If the schools that we are talking about are academies, as they are in their essential legal characteristics, the right thing to do is to call them academies and not to add to the alphabet soup.