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Category: Speeches

  • Theresa May – 2016 Speech to Association of Police and Crime Commissioners

    theresamay

    Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, at the Association of Police and Crime Commissioner Meeting on 24 May 2016.

    Thank you. I am delighted to be at this first Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) general meeting since the elections in May.

    As I look about the room, I can see some familiar faces. But some new faces as well. Together you represent policing in towns, cities, villages and rural areas across the country and you represent a broad spectrum of views and a range of parties. So I am delighted to be with you all here today – and I look forward to hearing about your plans for ensuring the police can continue to cut crime and keep communities safe.

    Now first of all, I want to begin by saying congratulations to you all. You put yourselves forward to stand as police and crime commissioners on 5 May and the public went to the polls and placed their votes at the ballot box. They elected you to represent their interests; to reflect their policing and crime priorities; and to hold their police force to account on their behalf.

    And that is an immense privilege and a great responsibility. Whether you are new to the role or have just been returned for a second term, I am sure that you will take that responsibility seriously, and bring new perspectives and new leadership to policing in your area.

    New perspectives and leadership

    Now 2 weeks ago, I attended an event which clearly demonstrated the value of new perspectives and leadership in policing – and that was the graduation ceremony for the first cohort of Direct Entry superintendents.

    Now there are only 8 of them in the first year, but they represent something that is ground-breaking in policing. They are the first senior leaders recruited from outside policing in the modern era, they’re bringing with them skills and experiences from the worlds of finance, the military, the civil service and industry. In the process, they are opening up a career that for too long meant starting as a constable and working your way up, they’re disrupting a culture which too often respects time served over skills gained or results delivered.

    And I think those skills and experiences are breathing new life into police leadership. As one police constable (PC), whose testimony was shared at the event, made clear, their Direct Entry superintendent had inspired them to carry on in the job. After years of having their ideas rejected and being told that “this was just the way things are”, the constable was ready to quit policing. But the Direct Entry superintendent, herself frustrated by the system but committed to changing it, convinced the PC to be part of that solution. As she said, policing needs people like that constable – people with new ideas and the energy to follow them through – if it is going change for the better.

    And the same is true of course of Police Now, which is a flagship scheme to bring the brightest and best university graduates into policing. It was just 2 years ago that I announced some seed funding for Police Now at the 2014 Police Federation conference but last summer, 69 graduates from some of the UK’s top institutions left university and entered the first Police Now summer academy. Within 6 weeks, they were on the beat as dedicated ward officers in neighbourhood teams, and the early results are extremely positive.

    It has proved so popular that this year nearly 2,500 students applied for the 100 places available, with 7 police forces signed up. Of those who are expected to start their training in July, 55% are women and 21% are from a black and ethnic minority (BME) background, compared to 30.9% and 9.3% respectively for regular recruitment schemes. And with the help of Home Office funding, Police Now has now spun out of the Metropolitan Police to become a national social enterprise, available to all police forces in England and Wales.

    It was only when I sat listening to the story of that Direct Entry superintendent, and when I met the outstanding group of individuals graduating Direct Entry, that it truly struck me. The tired, closed culture of policing is being opened up for the first time in its history. Innovative thinking is being injected into police practice and new leadership are being marshalled in the fight against crime, and I think it is benefiting existing police officers as much as the new recruits themselves.

    So I hope each of you will encourage your forces to take up these schemes and accelerate that pace of change. Because, as police and crime commissioners, you also embody new leadership in policing, and you bring with you the new perspectives, skills and expertise that has been lacking for too long.

    The importance of police and crime commissioners

    Six years ago, when I first became Home Secretary and set about the task of introducing police and crime commissioners (PCCs), there were many who denied the need for new leadership. I was met with criticism, scepticism and doubt, and, looking back, it is easy to forget the strength of feeling we faced at the time.

    There were those who claimed that the system of governance back then – police authorities – was working just fine. Others claimed that a single, directly-elected individual would lead to relationships with chief constables that were either too close or too adversarial. And many argued that politics had no place in policing and threatened the sacred principle of operational independence.

    But the system was broken, and it had to change. And police authorities were not only unaccountable and invisible committees who no one knew existed; they were also ineffective. In 2010, only 4 of the 22 police authorities inspected by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) were judged to have performed well in 2 of their primary functions – setting strategic direction and ensuring value for money for taxpayers.

    Chief constables held too much power and were not robustly held to account and I challenge any of you to find a chief constable formally dismissed for poor performance in the two decades prior to 2010. And politics of the worst kind plagued policing – through the system of distorting targets and bureaucratic requirements imposed on local police forces by the Home Office.

    I introduced police and crime commissioners to change that. To properly hold chief constables to account for how well they are cutting crime and keeping communities safe. To ensure that each force’s priorities reflected the concerns of local people, not the whim of Whitehall. And to reinforce the British model of policing by consent through direct, democratic accountability.

    And today when we consider how far we have come, I think we can say that many of the benefits are plain to see. And for me personally, I have to say that today it is tremendous to see how an idea – long in the making and hard fought to deliver – is now flourishing and bearing fruit.

    This May around 9 million people went to the polls to elect you as their police and crime commissioners. Overall turnout was 27.4% across England and Wales, according to provisional analysis of police area returning officer certificates. The Electoral Commission will obviously confirm turnout later this summer, but it indicates a clear increase on the first elections in 2012, when 5.5 million votes were cast, and turnout was 15.1%. Now of course this year your elections were held alongside other local elections, but even in force areas where there were no other elections turnout increased. And I think these figures can – and should – improve in future years.

    The achievements of PCCs so far

    Police and crime commissioners have brought real democratic accountability, leadership and engagement to local policing in a way that never existed before. You’ve presided over a fall in crime of over a quarter since 2010, according to the independent Crime Survey for England and Wales. You have made efficiencies, which have helped us save hundreds of millions of pounds for the taxpayer and put this country’s finances back on a sustainable footing. You have increased the proportion of police officers on the front line, and brought new impetus to police volunteering freeing up police officers for roles only they can do.

    And the achievements of PCCs in their first term demonstrate just what is possible in the second.

    PCCs have engaged the public in ways that police authorities could never have imagined. Collectively your offices will receive upwards of 7,000 pieces of correspondence every month, and your websites are being visited by over 85,000 people, every month. Through webcasts and public accountability meetings, PCCs have involved the public in the practice of holding the chief constable to account. And in Sussex last year, Katy Bourne’s Youth Commission gathered the views of more than 2,000 young people from across the county to inform, support and challenge the priorities set out in her police and crime plan.

    PCCs have relentlessly pursued efficiencies, not just to save money for the taxpayer but also to deliver operational benefits for officers. Some of you have invested in technology, like Martin Surl’s work with BAE Systems to analyse local data to identify ‘at risk’ children and young people; or Graham Bright’s work in Cambridgeshire to give thousands of officers mobile technology and to move to paperless policing to save time, money and improve the officers’ experience.

    Others have driven much closer collaboration with other forces, both through the back office and in front line specialist teams. Warwickshire and West Mercia; Surrey and Sussex; Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire; Durham and Cleveland – a constellation of partnerships has sprung up in the last 4 years which I think we must build on in the future.

    And of course some PCCs have used their mandate to drive change across other local services, despite not having direct oversight or budgetary control. In Staffordshire, Matthew Ellis has created a tri-service neighbourhood centre at the site of the existing fire station, with specific space for each service plus a shared service area. The project will enhance the effectiveness and integrated nature of the local emergency services provision while delivering cash and organisational benefits for each of their service partners, which equates to £1.18 million worth. While in Greater Manchester, Tony Lloyd has worked with the Ministry of Justice to commission probation services to deliver intensive community orders over the next 18 months.

    So these are just some of the examples, the positive examples, of what has been achieved in three and a half years under police and crime commissioners. But policing is not always positive. The issues you will deal with can be tough. The behaviour of officers and staff can be shameful. And the crimes you will have to contend with can be abhorrent. So I have been pleased that PCCs have not shied away from the difficult decisions either.

    None more so than the recent verdict of the Hillsborough inquests. It was a momentous day for the families and campaigners who have fought for too long, in the face of hostility and obfuscation, for justice. As I said in my statement to Parliament, the conclusions of the inquests were clear on the role of South Yorkshire police officers on that day and the force must recognise the truth and be willing to accept it.

    And I therefore welcome Alan Billings’s determination to take action and I am similarly heartened to see that he has been working with other policing leaders to find solutions that work for the people of South Yorkshire. I would like to pay tribute to Julia Mulligan, whose decision to allow chief constable Dave Jones to take temporary command of South Yorkshire Police has ensured that both forces have strong leadership in the interim. I continue to stand ready to support this process, and to help South Yorkshire Police confront the mistakes of the past and regain the confidence of their community.

    Reform in the last Parliament

    So police and crime commissioners have proved themselves. You have proved yourselves. And PCCs have been at the heart of the reforms I have put in place in policing since 2010. Because 6 years after the government was first elected, we now have a framework of institutions and processes to ensure policing is more accountable, more effective, and more professional than ever before.

    The comprehensive annual inspection regime to scrutinise forces’ efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy, run by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate which is truly independent of the police and not afraid to ask difficult questions on your and the public’s behalf.

    The College of Policing, to act as a proper professional body for police officers and staff, and to oversee training, create an evidence base of what works, and set clear professional standards, as I told the federation conference last week.

    A National Crime Agency with the resources, international reach and powers to direct the fight against serious and organised crime, at home and abroad, and work with local forces on strategic threats.

    A reformed National Police Chiefs’ Council, held to account by you – police and crime commissioners – with a much stronger emphasis on operational coordination.

    A modern and independent evidence based process for pay and conditions.

    A strengthened and reformed Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) being resourced so that it can take on all serious and sensitive cases, and, through the Policing and Crime Bill given the powers and structure to deliver it.

    And a Home Office that no longer believes it runs policing and which no longer imposes targets and unnecessary bureaucracy on your forces.

    So in the last Parliament, we rebuilt the institutions of policing and vested in them the powers, the clout and the legitimacy for them to work effectively. In the next 4 years, we will put you – PCCs at the heart of reform once again.

    Putting PCCs at the heart of future reform

    So in the Policing and Crime Bill that is currently going through Parliament, we are already taking steps to give you greater scope to reform policing locally, and drive improvements in the service to the public.

    Over the last three and half years, many of you and your predecessors invested time, energy and resources in making the emergency services work better together locally, with impressive results. So we will help you go further, by legislating to enable PCCs to take on responsibilities for fire and rescue services locally, where a local case is made, and to place a statutory duty on all three emergency services to collaborate.

    As I said yesterday at Reform, speaking largely to fire and rescue service chiefs, these reforms are central to a programme of reform in fire and rescue that I hope will be as urgent and as radical as that in policing since 2010.

    We will help you reconnect your forces with the public by radically reforming the police complaints system, so that you – PCCs – can take a more active role in handling low-level complaints and appeals. Because as Vera Baird in Northumbria has shown, PCCs are well placed to deal with the public and ensure that the service they receive is more customer focused, responsive and accountable.

    But, because the Home Office no longer believes it runs policing, I am not imposing these changes on you. I am not mandating you take on fire or all new functions regarding police complaints. You are in charge, and you can decide where the opportunities lie for your area and your communities.

    Where you have an appetite for further devolution and greater responsibility, I am committed to working with you to deliver it. As I said in February, I have been working with the Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, on what role PCCs could play in the wider criminal justice system. That’s something that I have long believed in and which a number of PCCs have shown an interest in. There is, after all, a reason why we included the words ‘and crime’ in PCC’s titles all those years ago.

    This work is not yet complete, but I hope that in the coming months we can work with you to shape these proposals. So that PCCs can bring about direct accountability to the criminal justice system in the same way that you have for policing, and to further cut crime and improve rehabilitation in the process.

    The Police Transformation Fund

    So I am doing my bit to give you the powers for you to effect change at a local level, if you want them. But the real challenge is yours. As I told many of you last December, the next stage of reform is not something I will impose on you. It is something you must design and deliver for yourselves, using the fact that overall police spending will increase by up to £900 million in cash terms over the Spending Review period and this will include hundreds of millions of transformation funding.

    And in doing so, you must be willing to act collectively and do so in the interests of what is best for policing as a whole, not just for your own force. Because as I said then, the debate in policing is no longer about structures, it is about which capabilities are needed in policing, where they best sit and how they are best delivered. That is not something I can prescribe; it must come from you – from PCCs – and chief constables, through the Police Reform and Transformation Board.

    And that board is now up and running and I hope you will start proposing areas where funding is needed to deliver new and improved capability, following the decisions to improve police capability in firearms and digital policing which announced at the Spending Review. And I am grateful to Sara Thornton for the momentum that she has injected into this programme of work and for bringing chief constables together around common objectives for the future of policing. It is also absolutely right that the case for operational capability is developed by those with the operational expertise. Chief constables are the professionals, and there is no escaping the essential role they play in establishing what is needed and how it might be delivered.

    But I know there have been some concerns that the process is overly reliant on chief constables and that PCCs have been squeezed out. I understand those concerns, and to some degree I share them. Police transformation and the investment in new capabilities cannot and should not happen without the input of police and crime commissioners. Collectively you are accountable for local policing, and I am clear that you should have a say on how this money is spent. At times you will all also need to look beyond your own force boundaries and your own force interests to work together to deliver it in the best interests of law enforcement as a whole. And I will not accept proposals that do not have the support of PCCs. But you must also take much greater ownership of the Police Reform and Transformation Board (PRTB) yourselves. There is a reason the board has as many PCCs on it as chief constables, and that the chair rotates between the APCC and the NPCC. You are equal partners, and you have an equal opportunity to shape it.

    And to support you do that, I agree to the allocation of a small proportion of transformation funding to help support PCCs on the board. This role would coordinate oversight of the work of the PRTB on behalf of PCCs, link into your offices and provide day-to-day oversight of delivery to time and budget, reporting through the APCC chief executive of the APCC board. But I am only doing that because the APCC has requested this on your behalf. Because it’s your money, not mine. Determining how to use it to deliver transformation in policing is best done by you– policing as a whole – and not by the Home Office.

    Conclusion

    And if I could offer one message, one word of advice, to hold with you over the next 4 years, it would be this.

    Do not seek permission. Don’t look to the Home Office. Do not rely on the words of ministers or the Home Secretary to justify your actions or provide cover for what you want to do. You’ve been elected to represent your constituents, not to represent the Whitehall view. Your police and crime plans should reflect their priorities, not mine.

    Where I can help, I will do so. Where you believe the law needs to be changed, I will listen. When the Home Office or other parts of Whitehall are getting in your way, I will work to clear your path. But I gave up the power to appoint chief constables for good reason. Just as I ended the system of Home Office targets for good reason. Because policing and crime should be properly accountable to the communities they serve.

    Police and crime commissioners are here to stay. You have the potential to safeguard the historic principle of policing by consent and restore the link between the public and the police and I look forward to working with you to do just that.

  • John Morris – 1959 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by John Morris, the Labour MP for Aberavon, in the House of Commons on 3 November 1959.

    It is with considerable trepidation that I rise to intervene in such an important debate. I stand in the same place as other young men have done in the past, and I can only hope that they did not do so with as much trepidation as I do. I hope that the House, in putting me in the balance and weighing me, will not find me unduly wanting.
    Like my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. I. Davies), I should like to mention my predecessor, Mr. W. G. Cove, who, while the political tides ebbed and flowed, for 30 years represented Aberavon in this House, and before that he represented Wellingborough. While the tides ebbed and flowed Aberavon stood firm, even in 1931, when Mr. Cove’s predecessor, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, stood in another light and, of course, for another constituency.

    I should like in the few minutes at my disposal to deal with that part of the Gracious Speech which concerns the development of a sound system of communications throughout the country and the Government’s intention to press forward with their policy of building new highways and improving existing roads. It would be presumptuous of me, as a new, young and inexperienced Member, to try to paint a broad picture of the country’s system of road communications. I shall try to devote myself to a part of the problem with which I have tried to the best of my ability to familiarise myself in the last few years, and that is the transport system of South Wales, and, in particular, of Port Talbot.

    In recent years the problem of who will do something for the Port Talbot by-pass and for the inner relief road scheme for the town has been a burning question in South Wales. This is not a mere constituency matter. It affects the prosperity of the whole of South Wales. Indeed, whenever there is an international match in Cardiff, every sportsman in Wales has his own epithets for describing the Government of the day when he is held up at the Port Talbot bottleneck.

    The Minister of Transport said yesterday that he was appalled at the standard of driving on the new M.1 road from London to Birmingham. My sincere hope is that he is equally appalled at the hourly chaos which exists at the Port Talbot bottleneck. Here is one of the greatest bottlenecks in the country. Hour after hour private vehicles and the great vehicles of industry are held up there, causing a tremendous waste of fuel, time and money. I shudder to think of the annual amount of wastage caused by that single bottleneck. The worst period is between five o’clock and six o’clock in the evening. It has been reported that on a recorded occasion 1,278 vehicles crawled through that bottleneck between those hours.

    The significance of the bottleneck is that while there is traffic from east and west, there is also traffic from north and south, and a railway crossing across that great highway. In the period between five o’clock and six-thirty it has been estimated that on recorded occasions the railway crossing gates have been shut for no less than thirty-five minutes. In any system of road communications I think that is a considerable time for the road between east and west to be closed.

    No doubt the Minister is aware of the controversy which has existed regarding which of two proposed improvement schemes should be carried out, an outer scheme of relief, involving the demolition of 260 to 270 houses, or an inner scheme. It has been stated that the schemes concerning Port Talbot have had a “chequered career,” but it has appeared to me to be more like a game of snakes and ladders, with no one winning. Even though the Minister decided as far back as November, 1957, that the outer scheme should be carried out first, not a single brick has been laid up to now and not a single inch of tarmacadam has been put down.

    Local authorities have done their best to assist the Minister in this matter. I wish to stress that at the inquiry in November, 1957, the Minister did not decide against the local authority’s scheme for inner relief; he merely said that he would not alter his order of priorities and that he intended to carry out the outer scheme first. But the problem of inner relief for the town still remains. On 10th March this year the local authority and the Glamorgan County Council resubmitted a scheme for the inner relief of the town. Even on the most optimistic prophecy the outer scheme will not be completed before 1965, and, even so, it will deal only with 30 per cent. of the traffic which now comes through the bottleneck at Port Talbot.

    Traffic is increasing year by year by 10 per cent. I shudder to think what a tremendous bottleneck will exist in 1965 even with the construction of the outer scheme. It is absolutely vital that the Minister should decide to do something at the earliest possible moment regarding the inner road. In May of this year the local authorities requested a joint meeting with the Minister, but he regretted that the future of the inner relief scheme must remain in abeyance until after the election, as he did not consider that he should take a decision which would commit a future Administration. Now that the joustings at the hustings have been completed, I hope that the Minister of Transport will see his way clear to meet the local authorities in this matter at the earliest possible moment.

    There is also the question of re-housing the people whose homes are involved in the carrying out of the scheme. I said earlier that 260 to 270 houses will be demolished. I am informed that the Ministry has not encountered a demolition problem of this magnitude before, but the problem is one which eventually will affect the whole of the country. There are no houses for sale in this area.

    The majority of my constituents are steel workers and at the moment they are members of the most prosperous community in Britain. Many of these people are old and their houses are worth only £700 or £1,000. Where are they to find equivalent accommodation with which to replace their present homes? Those who are tenants will be re-housed by the council which will get a subsidy in order to do that. But the problem of where owner-occupiers will go still remains. Will the council have to re-house these people? Will it get a subsidy to enable it to rehouse owner-occupiers who cannot find other accommodation?

    This is a basic problem involving people who have worked all their lives and saved up to buy their house. Are they to be compensated with sums of money which will not be sufficient to provide them with another house? There are no such houses available in modern housing developments. The cost of a new house would far exceed any amount of compensation which they might receive. Even were they re-housed in council houses, the £700 or £1,000 compensation which they might receive would soon be whittled away if they had to pay the economic rent of a council house, which amounts to £2 17s. a week. If they came within the differential rent scheme for council houses and the council received a subsidy for re-housing them, they would still have to pay a weekly rent of £1 6s.

    It is no consolation to speak of National Assistance for such cases; indeed it would be tragic, because these people would have to use up the compensation they had received before getting any aid at all. There is a basic principle involved here because the life of a whole community is at stake and if we continue with great plans of road development, in a few years other people will be put in jeopardy in the same way. It will need the wisdom of Solomon to dispense justice in such circumstances.

    How can we compensate people who have spent all their lives in a house of a certain type which cannot be replaced under modern housing conditions? Local authorities are anxious to obtain some indication of the attitude of the Government to these problems. Some of these houses are to be demolished as early as next March. The occupants are under notice, but the local authority has not yet been informed whether it is supposed to re-house those people.

    There is a tremendous backlog of road work to be done in the country. In Great Britain there are 29 motor vehicles for every mile of road. We have the most congested roads in the world, and if the number of vehicles continues to increase at the present rate it is estimated that by 1962 there will be no fewer than 10 million vehicles on our roads. This means that there will be a motor vehicle for every 35 yards of public road or street.

    Compared with twenty-five years ago the yield from motor taxation has gone up nine times, but the expenditure on roads today, even taking into account the present plans, is running at only three-and-a-half times more. The fact that we have three times more traffic on our roads today than we had in 1939 is, in my opinion, convincing evidence of the growing dependence of our social and economic life upon road transport, and it has been estimated that road congestion already costs the country no less than £500 million a year. That amount accrues from delays, wastages, wear and tear and accidents.

    South Wales, and South-West Wales in particular, has suffered some hard knocks regarding unemployment in recent years. Industrialists—and who can blame them?—shy away when faced with the tremendous transport problems which exist in South Wales.

    After years of talk, of inquiries, of consultations and of conferences, the people of South Wales will hardly believe their eyes when the first part of any scheme for Port Talbot is completed. Good roads are the arteries of our economic existence. The developments at Milford Haven and Swansea and the bringing of new industries to Pontardawe and Llanelly are dependent on the development of a new life link to South Wales. The prosperity of the whole community of South and South-West Wales depends on a good system of communications.

  • John Morris – 2016 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Morris, Baron Morris of Aberavon, in the House of Lords on 25 May 2016.

    My Lords, as a presumptuous new MP, I commented in the Queens’s Speech debate in 1959 on the need for a bypass to serve the area of Port Talbot steel and the south Wales economy generally. I return in tonight’s debate to a greater issue: the whole future of the steel industry in Port Talbot, which is a vital part of the economy in south Wales. I am glad that the Business Secretary has found time to be present in Mumbai today, when fateful decisions may be taken, with whatever support Her Majesty’s Government are able to give. That is in contrast with the role of union leaders and my successor but one as MP, Stephen Kinnock, who were aware of the importance of the last board meeting in Mumbai. They are to be congratulated. They observed the first rule of Welsh politics: be there. The Minister’s advisers seemed not to be aware of the speed of the developments revealed, or the Minister, regrettably, put his own diary and convenience first. I welcome very much the change in his priorities, and the presence of Carwyn Jones, the First Minister.

    As a junior Minister, I supervised the writing of the White Paper to bring steel into public ownership. The main reason for public ownership was the cyclical nature of the market for steel, with years of plenty followed by years of famine, as in the Bible itself. Stability was essential for British steel production.

    The first question for the Government to answer is: do they believe in the need for a British steel industry? Many years ago, believe it or not, this was challenged in the Economist magazine. If we do believe in that need, what should be the basis of decisions to ensure that British steel production continues in its various forms, and who should take them?

    Secondly, how have we come to a position where the whole future of steel-making in Port Talbot is under threat? Is it because of Chinese dumping, the extra costs that British steel has to bear for energy, business rating, or some other reason? Has the Commission in Brussels acted too leisurely to meet the challenge of Chinese dumping which has developed over the years, or has there been lack of direction and rigour on the part of the British Government in making representations? How does the action taken in Brussels and here compare with that of the United States, which, we are told, has increased tariffs by more than 500% and doubled those on cold rolled steel from China? How significant is the EU’s 16% provisional tariff? The Business Secretary is reported as saying that it would not be right for the EU to scrap the lesser duty rule. There it is. How do we compare with the States?

    I wish the proceedings in Mumbai today well. I hope that we get something significant from them. But the problem of dumping will remain. What Port Talbot needs is a level playing field. Is it true that the Government have offered to pump in hundreds of millions by way of a loan and a 25% stake in the industry to avoid Port Talbot closing before referendum day? I marvel at how the approach of the referendum and the Government’s need not to make enemies now is having such wide repercussions, including, mercifully, the emasculation of the Trade Union Bill.

    One question of general significance remains: how do major companies—this is not the only one—amass huge unfunded pension liabilities without inhibition? This particular pension deficit seems to be a stumbling block for buyers. I welcome the reported comments of Community Union that there needs to be swifter and more robust action by the EU. I tried in this House, by way of a Question, to find out when the Government first took action. The replies were unimpressive. I was told:

    “The government makes regular representations to the … Commission”.

    The pleas of high energy users such as the steel and paper industries were not listened to in the past. How far is a balanced view being taken of a fair energy policy for high energy users, coupled with our obligations to prevent climate change? Surely the danger of destroying whole industries should not be ignored.

    Lastly, how far has a business rate for Port Talbot steel militated against its economic survival? I thought the rating for the new harbour, the basis of Port Talbot’s survival, had been fixed years ago. What happened in the intervening years? I hope the Minister will expand on his answers by letter to me, and will place that in the Library.

  • Christine Hardman – 2016 Maiden Speech in the House of Lords

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Christine Hardman, the Lord Bishop of Newcastle, in the House of Lords on 25 May 2016.

    My Lords, the theological understanding of grace is of the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to deserve it. In these early days in your Lordships’ House, it is grace that I have experienced—wonderful kindness and a warmth of welcome from your Lordships, the staff and all who work in this place. It has been entirely undeserved but a truly heart-warming experience. It will be no surprise to your Lordships that one of the loveliest and warmest welcomes came from the late Lord Walton—a fine and godly man, and a distinguished son of the north-east.

    I grew up in the 1950s on a large London overspill council estate. In those large sprawling estates there were precious few community facilities and the school I attended had two classes of 45 children in each year group. The life chances of many growing up on that estate were very limited. Out of the 90 children in my year group, only 10 went to grammar school.

    Two things were key in supporting me through those childhood years. The first was to be fortunate enough to be born into a loving family and the second was to be blessed by some truly inspirational, vocational teachers, who gave so generously of their free time to expand our horizons above and beyond the ordinary. One of those teachers was Mrs. Boyd, who started a debating society at our school. She had a passion for the art of debating and wanted us to catch that passion. Her sister, the late Lady Birk, had just been introduced to the Lords as one of those pioneering early women life Peers. Through Lady Birk’s good offices, Mrs Boyd brought our little debating team to this place to inspire us by witnessing debating at its best. How could I have imagined, as a 16 year-old girl up in that Gallery, that one day I would find myself making a maiden speech in your Lordships’ House?

    I have the privilege of being the 12th Bishop of Newcastle. I would like to pay tribute to my predecessor, Bishop Martin—a fine Bishop and one of the longest-serving Bishops in your Lordships’ House. I will do my best to be a worthy successor, with the important exception that I will probably spend slightly less time in the smoking shed.

    My diocese stretches from the River Tyne in the south to the River Tweed in the north and encompasses the city of Newcastle, North Tyneside and the county of Northumberland, together with a very small area of eastern Cumbria and four parishes in northern County Durham. Newcastle diocese is wonderful, with extraordinary contrasts: from the vibrant regional capital of Newcastle upon Tyne, with two world-class universities and 50,000 students, to the remote hill farms, some still without mains electricity and water; from the Northumberland Church of England Academy with 2,500 students in Ashington, to our smallest Church of England school on Holy Island with just four children. We have the stunning Dark Skies at Kielder and the bright lights of the big city, alongside places of pilgrimage such as Holy Island—or St James’ Park. The beauty of my diocese takes my breath away.

    The gracious Speech emphasised the importance of increasing life chances for the most disadvantaged, supporting economic recovery, creating jobs and apprenticeships, and creating the kind of infrastructure that businesses need to grow. All these issues are absolutely key to economic and human flourishing in the north-east. The issues around the development of the northern powerhouse are also of great significance. I therefore warmly welcome the commitment from the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, earlier in this debate to regional growth in the north and the Midlands.

    The people of the north-east are warm, hospitable, proud and resilient. Our workforce is famed for its loyalty, with a very low staff turnover. The north-east is not a problem to be solved by the rest of the country but an asset to be valued. We are one of the very few parts of the UK with a surplus of both water and energy. Rather than transporting these vital resources to other parts of the country, we should be looking to relocate water-and energy-intensive businesses to the north-east. We are the only region in the UK with a consistent positive balance of trade and we export nearly a third of everything we make and do.

    As I have journeyed around the diocese in my first five months, I have seen more signs of hope than I have time to talk about. Let me give just one example— Port of Blyth. Blyth, on the coast in the south-east corner of Northumberland, is one of the most deprived areas in the whole of England. With the closure of the Alcan Lynemouth aluminium smelter in 2012, the future of the port looked bleak. But with great leadership, a determination to find new trade and a policy of recruiting local young people who stay, Port of Blyth is now facing an increasingly optimistic future. It has just announced record results for 2015, with a doubling of pre-tax profits to £1.2 million.

    Human flourishing in all its forms, including economic flourishing, depends above all on our most precious resource: our people. If these signs of flourishing are to be sustained and grow, we need the commitments in the gracious Speech to be made real in everyday lives. The most important of these commitments is to our children. There are many areas of poverty in the north-east, Blyth among them, where children’s life chances will continue to be curtailed without the determination and ambition to give such children the start in life that they deserve.

    As I experienced so powerfully in my own early life, education can be absolutely transformative. Northumberland is the most sparsely populated county in England, so it is not surprising that our schools are inevitably among the smallest in the country. I therefore warmly welcome the commitment in the education White Paper to provide sparsity funding for every single small rural school, but I hope that this will not be at the expense of schools in urban areas. We need to support schools in all disadvantaged areas if the commitment to life chances is to be realised. That is made very clear in the report on northern schools issued this week by the IPPR North and Teach First, where the gap in secondary education for disadvantaged children is particularly highlighted.

    The northern powerhouse will be anything but unless there is a 100% commitment to adequate funding—funding for education, apprenticeships and the infrastructure that the north-east needs. It would be this kind of vision and commitment that would make a real difference.

  • Hugo Swire – 2016 Speech on the EU and the Commonwealth

    hugoswire

    Below is the text of the speech made by Hugo Swire, the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, at Chatham House on 25 May 2016.

    Introduction

    Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for that kind introduction. I am delighted to be back at Chatham House. Given that Her Majesty the Queen is your Patron and Baroness Scotland is one of your Presidents, it is particularly appropriate that I am speaking to you today about the Commonwealth – and about why being in the EU complements our membership.

    Today I want to debunk a myth. The myth that UK membership of the EU somehow limits our engagement with the Commonwealth. I will argue that it enhances it. Some believe that if we left the EU, UK-Commonwealth trade would increase and migration flows rebalance in favour of Commonwealth countries. I maintain this is wishful thinking. Others suggest that we should choose between the two institutions. I maintain that they are complementary. It is not an either-or choice. The UK needs and can have both.

    Importance of the Commonwealth to the UK

    This Government has made clear that the Commonwealth is of immense importance to the United Kingdom. No matter how you look at the relationship – historic, cultural, or our personal ties – our connection with the Commonwealth is stronger now than ever. The fact that Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK have the right to vote in the forthcoming referendum shows just how close that connection is.

    Our commitment to the Commonwealth is clear. A large part of the UK’s aid budget is spent in Commonwealth countries – £1.88 billion in 2013-14. We remain the largest contributor to the Commonwealth Secretariat. And we are looking forward to hosting the first ever meeting of Commonwealth trade ministers in 2017 and the next CHOGM the year after that.

    And the Commonwealth itself is thriving. From eight member countries in 1949, it has grown to 53. It now covers nearly a quarter of the world’s land mass and more than a third of its people. It boasts a combined Gross National Income of $10.7 trillion. The Commonwealth thrives because of its great diversity. Whether large or small, developed or developing, frozen ice or tropical heat – the Commonwealth has it all. But it also thrives because, at heart, we have so much in common. Trade, for instance, is on average 19% cheaper between Commonwealth countries due to similarities in our legal systems and language. Being a core part of it is clearly in our national interest.

    Could Brexit benefit the Commonwealth?

    So, if we value the Commonwealth, and know that it is going from strength to strength, does this mean we should focus on it – to the exclusion of the EU? Let’s examine the arguments.

    Migration

    First, there’s the argument on migration. Some argue that leaving the EU would allow greater migration from the Commonwealth. Frankly, I believe it is naïve to think that the same people campaigning for Brexit would welcome this.

    And what possible basis do they have for making such an assertion? Because – let’s remember – it is up to the UK, not the EU, to decide who is allowed to come to this country from outside the EU. Our membership of the EU does not prevent Commonwealth citizens from coming to the UK. Anyone suggesting that it would be different or easier is just raising false hopes by suggesting we would water down those criteria. It is frankly irresponsible, misleading and unhelpful.

    Nor should we forget that, if we did leave the EU, keeping full and meaningful access to the Single Market would also mean accepting significant trade-offs, including the continued free movement of people. No other country has managed one without the other.

    Trade

    Secondly, there is the creeping narrative promoted by the Brexiteers that somehow the Commonwealth can replace the EU as the UK’s major trading partner. That is a leap of faith with no basis in fact. Access to the Single Market is a cornerstone of the UK’s prosperity. 44% of what we export goes to the European Union, with 3 million jobs in the UK dependent in some way on trade with the Single Market.

    And it ignores what our EU membership does to facilitate trade with the Commonwealth. Access to the Single Market doesn’t just matter to UK businesses and the UK’s economic future. It matters to the Commonwealth too.

    As businesses up and down the country will attest, we are a gateway to trade with the EU, as well as an important market in our own right. It’s the reason why Australia is a disproportionately large investor in the UK for the size of its economy. India too sees this gateway role as vital. Prime Minister Modi during his visit to the UK last November said “As far as India is concerned, if there is an entry point for us to the European Union that is the UK”. And the head of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry agreed, adding that: “we firmly believe that leaving the EU would create considerable uncertainty for Indian businesses engaged with the UK and would possibly have an adverse impact on investment and movement of professionals to the UK.”

    A third argument centres around the idea of a Commonwealth Free Trade Area. It is certainly a fine aspiration. Ultimately, as a Conservative, I believe that free trade is the engine of global growth – and that a rising tide lifts all ships. But it is quite wrong to suggest that Commonwealth trade might be a substitute for the EU Single Market.

    UK Influence within the EU

    Rather than turn back the clock to the days of Imperial Preference, we should remind ourselves why the Commonwealth benefits from our close relationship with the EU. Our seat at the EU table gives the Commonwealth a voice – and it is a voice which brings results. UK membership of the EU is creating jobs and driving growth, in Britain and across the Commonwealth. That’s why our Commonwealth allies want us to stay in the EU.

    But don’t just take my word for it. A host of Commonwealth leaders have come out and said so. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that Britain’s clout is “obviously amplified by its strength as part of the EU”. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has said: “We see Europe as an extremely important continent that needs strong leadership. We think Britain provides that leadership”. Whilst his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull said: “Britain’s involvement in the European Union does provide us – and Australian firms particularly, many of whom are based in the UK – considerable access to that market. From our point of view it is an unalloyed plus for Britain to remain in the EU”.

    Trade

    Let’s look at the reasons why they feel so strongly. Beginning with trade. Today, the EU has, or is negotiating, trade deals with over 80% of Commonwealth countries. The benefits to the Commonwealth of these deals are significant – Canada is expected to benefit to the tune of £5.5 billion a year from CETA – the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the EU.

    The United Kingdom has been at the forefront of efforts to deepen the EU’s trading relationships with Commonwealth countries. We were instrumental in getting the Commission’s agreement to begin negotiations on FTAs with Australia and New Zealand. We continue to push for an ambitious Free Trade Agreement with India. And the UK has consistently advocated a pro-development trade policy, arguing for generous market access to the EU market for developing countries in the Commonwealth and beyond.

    We strongly supported the granting of GSP+ status to Pakistan – which reduces duty on exports in exchange for progress on governance and human rights; Pakistan’s exports to the EU rose by 20% in the first year of this scheme.

    The UK is working with our EU partners to successfully conclude Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations in West Africa and with the East African and South African Development Communities. The EU is Ghana’s 2nd largest trading partner after China. And in South Africa the EU accounts for a quarter of total exports, and is its largest foreign direct investor, with 2,000 EU firms credited with creating 350,000 jobs.

    And 14 Commonwealth Least Developed Countries benefit from the EU’s “Everything but Arms” arrangement, which gives them duty-free and quota-free access to the EU for – as it says on the tin – all exports but arms and ammunition.

    Just think of the overall leveraging effect of all these deals – this isn’t just access to the UK, but to the whole EU, for all 2.1 billion citizens of the Commonwealth.

    Development

    And the benefits of our influence go well beyond trade.

    The EU is the world’s largest aid donor, promoting stability, human rights and good governance. The UK is seen by EU Member States as the expert on development, which gives us significant influence over EU development policy. We have used the powerful voice this gives us to shape EU development programmes and reinforce our own support for our Commonwealth partners. You only have to look at the numbers to see what this means in practice.

    The EU is one of the biggest development partners in Nigeria, with nearly €700 million committed under the last five year development programme, a further half a billion euros under the regional programme, and millions more to support peacekeeping, elections, vaccination programmes and communities affected by Boko Haram violence.

    In Kenya, it spends about €80m a year to support job creation and governance. It is South Africa’s main aid partner, accounting for 70% of development assistance and it complements our own cooperation, tackling climate change and sustainable development.

    In South Asia too, the EU reinforces UK human rights objectives – lobbying in Bangladesh on child marriage and restrictions on the media and civil society, and in Sri Lanka on the death penalty and LGBTI rights.

    In Australia, EU funding has helped UK researchers to collaborate with Australian and South African counterparts on the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope, worth €5 million. The EU recently established dialogues with Australia on Counter Terrorism and peacekeeping.

    Climate Change

    On climate change too the UK has used its influence within the EU to the benefit of the Commonwealth. Adapting to and preventing climate change is, of course, a core development issue. It is also an existential threat to some members of the Commonwealth. You only have to look at some of the Pacific island states like Tuvalu, Kiribati or Vanuatu to see how vulnerable they are to global warming.

    The EU has been at the forefront of action on climate change – and the UK has been at the forefront of the EU, helping to ensure greater momentum on the issue and a better outcome at the Paris conference. We led the way with climate legislation in 2008 and have blazed a path for others to follow – between 2000 and 2014 UK GDP grew by 27%, while carbon dioxide emissions fell by 20%.

    Acting as part of a 500 million-strong EU bloc increases our global influence. This benefits the entire Commonwealth, in particular Commonwealth Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States.

    So it is clear that, right across the Commonwealth, the EU is deploying its significant resources to good effect. And it is just as clear that the UK has played and continues to play a vital role in pivoting the EU towards the Commonwealth. All these examples demonstrate what our Commonwealth partners have to gain from the UK remaining an active member of the EU: defending open markets and pushing for effective action on poverty, climate change and other shared challenges.

    Voter registration

    So the outcome of the referendum will affect the lives and futures not just of British citizens, but of Commonwealth citizens too. Those of them with leave to remain in the UK have the right to vote in the referendum, and a say over that future. So my message to the 200,000 South Africans and Nigerians, the 160,000 Jamaicans and the 126,000 Australians – not to mention the more than 3 million members of our British South Asian communities – my message to you is: this referendum matters to you as well as to us. Your vote will make a difference: unlike in a general election, every vote will have equal weight. Please exercise your right. Please get out and vote.

    Conclusion

    To sum up, the UK is, and has always been, a nation of traders, reaching out to all corners of the world. The Commonwealth is a vibrant, impressive institution, with 2.1 billion people and enormous potential. The EU is a global trading powerhouse, with significant economic muscle. Our Commonwealth allies know that the UK – together with the other Commonwealth members of the EU – Malta and Cyprus – are influential partners within a powerful organisation. This has been reinforced to me throughout my travels across the Commonwealth. We are their voice on the inside.

    I have the words used by the Roman statesman Cicero inscribed on my pen: cui bono – who benefits? And here I readily admit that I leave myself open to accusations of pretentiousness but it is useful to pause and think before signing anything. And so I am here to ask you – would the Commonwealth benefit if we left the EU? The answer, to me, is a clear No. Because far from conflicting, these two great institutions are complementary. Far from solving problems on trade and migration, leaving the EU would create them. Far from having to make a compromise – we should be in both. As I have said many times – there is no need to choose.

    Ladies and Gentlemen, some have suggested that Brexit is a patriotic cause. And to argue for the UK to remain in the EU is somehow unpatriotic. I reject that entirely. I, as Britain’s Minister for the Commonwealth, believe that the patriotic thing to do is what is in our country’s long term interests. And I believe these interests are best served by re-committing to the Commonwealth and to a reformed EU.

    Thank you.

  • Andrea Leadsom – 2016 Speech on Shale Gas

    Andrea Leadsom
    Andrea Leadsom

    Below is the text of the speech made by Andrea Leadsom, the Minister of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, on 18 May 2016.

    Introduction

    Shale is a fantastic opportunity for the UK. It will create a significant number of local jobs meaning financial security for hard working people and their families, boost our economy and strengthen our energy security. But let me be clear, safety is absolutely my priority.

    The UK’s regulations are some of the strongest in the world, and with over 50 years of successful and safe onshore and offshore oil and gas extraction; I am confident that the protections in place for the environment and for people are totally rigorous.

    Shale will only ever be developed in a safe way – for people and the environment – and will only take place in appropriate locations.

    A few months ago, I visited a conventional gas drilling site in the countryside which, while not a fracking site, was very similar to how one would look in the future.

    I talked at length to local residents to find out what they thought about the site. They told me that while they had concerns when the site was proposed, in reality it was “practically invisible” and very quiet. Having visited the site I saw this for myself.

    You could walk along a nearby pathway and have no idea that this site was even there. The drill heads were only six feet high, very quiet and the entire site, which is gravelled, was only about the size of two football pitches.

    This site was welcomed by the local community because it was providing real benefits.

    As well as being a reliable site of home-grown gas for the UK; it was also providing skilled, long term jobs for local individuals – helping to boost economic growth and local investment.

    This gas site, while conventional, clearly illustrated the benefits a shale industry can bring to the UK in the future.

    Need for Gas

    Gas currently accounts for over 60% of household energy use. We use gas in our homes for heating and cooking, and it’s also used in factories up and down the country to produce products like soaps, paints and textiles for clothes, as well as the plastics found everywhere from our mobile phones and computers to sterile medical equipment.

    The choice the UK faces is not whether we want gas or don’t want gas. The choice we face is how much we want to rely on gas from abroad – some of which may or may not be reliable. Or whether we would prefer to extract more from the UK.

    Need for Shale – Energy Security

    Britain used to produce so much gas that we sold it to other countries. But today we are forced to import much of what we need, and that share will continue to rise unless we make the most of our home-grown energy supplies.

    Our energy security is absolutely vital.

    But it is also vital that our energy supply is safe, low cost and low carbon.

    Low Carbon Bridge

    The UK is currently dependent on coal for around 30% of our electricity needs. This is unsustainable if we want to move to a lower carbon world. We are therefore making a significant move away from coal in the coming years, aiming to remove it entirely from the mix by 2025.

    We will have to replace this energy capacity with lower carbon sources.

    Gas is the cleanest fossil fuel and shale gas can provide an effective “low Carbon Bridge” while we move to renewable energy.

    Jobs and Growth

    As a home grown energy source, shale gas will also provide a significant opportunity to create jobs in communities across Britain.

    Ernst & Young has estimated a thriving shale industry could mean 64,500 jobs nationally, with more than 6,000 highly skilled jobs on shale gas pads themselves.

    But we are not just talking about jobs for geologists, drilling specialists and chemical engineers.

    We are talking about jobs for construction workers, truck drivers, water treatment experts, and people working in local retail and service industries.

    Jobs that will make a real difference to local areas and provide new opportunities for communities.

    It is clear to me that the UK’s shale resources have the potential to bolster our energy security, create jobs and provide a bridge to a greener future. But to do this, two things are critical.

    Pre-requisites to a successful industry – Safety

    Firstly – safety. This must always be – and will always be – absolutely paramount.

    The UK has decades of experience in safely regulating oil and gas exploration and we are bringing this experience to bear on shale. We have world-class independent regulators who will not allow any operations which are dangerous to local communities or the environment.

    The Environment Agency will not grant operators a permit if the risks to the environment or groundwater are unacceptable. They will impose strict conditions to make sure there is proper protection of the environment, and to prohibit all activities which pose unacceptable risks.

    The Health and Safety Executive will make sure operations are safe – they will scrutinise well design and monitor its progress to make sure the operators manages risks effectively throughout the whole life cycle of operations.

    And now, through the Infrastructure Act, we are putting in place a range of further measures to provide the public with confidence that this industry is being taken forward in a balanced way, including measures on protected areas, environmental impact assessments and groundwater monitoring.

    Government has taken clear action to protect our most valuable areas.

    We have passed regulations to ensure that hydraulic fracturing cannot take place within 1,200 metres beneath the surface of National Parks, the Broads, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, World Heritage Sites and areas that are most vulnerable to groundwater pollution.

    We are also committed to ensuring that hydraulic fracturing cannot be conducted from wells that are drilled at the surface of our most valuable areas, and have formally consulted with industry on how best to implement this commitment.

    Strong controls are also in place to mitigate seismic risks. Operators must monitor seismic activity – in real time – before, during and after operations. If a tremor of magnitude 0.5 is detected (which is similar to a door slamming) all operations will halt.

    I would like to stress that we have a very strong regulatory regime in place for exploratory activities and we will look to continuously improve it as the industry develops.

    I urge industry, academia, local authorities and NGOs to continue to work with us to develop world class protections that will make sure that shale is developed safely.

    Public Engagement

    But having a world class regulatory regime is not enough.

    We need to challenge the misinformation about the industry which is being spread, and clearly explain that shale exploration will always be conducted safely.

    Therefore the second critical factor in developing a successful UK shale industry is public engagement.

    The public need to receive objective and scientific information which explains how fracking occurs, how it is being regulated, and what it means for them. There is a role for everyone here today in providing this information.

    Government needs to provide scientific and objective information to the general public, which will inform the debate and allow individuals to form evidence-based views on shale. We are working hard to do this, regularly attending public meetings across the country to better understand local issues and where additional information would be helpful.

    Industry needs to engage early and often with local communities, answering questions and providing reassurance. I am therefore very pleased to hear that the industry body, UKOOG, has established a Community Engagement Charter where operators will engage local communities, residents and other stakeholders at each of three stages – exploration, appraisal and production. This is additional to the public consultation which is required through the planning application.

    Regulatory bodies need to continue to clearly explain the strong regulations which have been set up to make sure that the industry is developed in a safe way – for people and for the environment. I am pleased to hear that the major regulatory bodies have been visiting communities where shale applications have been lodged, and have been working with local authorities and industry to better communicate the regulatory regime.

    Local communities are at the heart of the developing shale gas operations which will bring benefits for the whole nation.

    We must all continue to engage with the general public about the actions we are taking to enable shale development, and to challenge the myths and misconceptions about shale.

    What we’ve done

    But this Government isn’t just talking about shale gas. We are taking action to make sure that the industry has the right conditions to succeed.

    Planning

    With the potential for shale gas to support our energy security and to help create jobs and growth, the Government is understandably keen to press ahead and get exploration underway so that we can determine how much shale gas there is and how much we may be to use.

    Doing this requires close partnership working between planning authorities, the industry, regulators and local communities.

    In August 2015 my Department and the Department for Communities and Local Government issued a joint policy statement stating that planning authorities should deal with applications for shale within the statutory time-frame of 16 weeks or risk being identified as underperforming.

    The Communities Secretary will actively consider calling in applications to make a decision if the local council does not do it within the timeframe, and all appeals for shale development will be prioritised and dealt with as quickly as possible.

    We need to tackle the issue of extensive planning delays head on if we are to reap the benefits which shale gas offers to our energy security, jobs and wider economy.

    And firms that want to explore for shale need to be confident that their applications will be processed in a timely way and examined purely on a planning basis.

    The new measures we’ve introduced will help make this happen. We are addressing a problem that causes unnecessary delays and benefits no-one.

    This does not change the processes that a shale application has to go through. There will still need to be strict environmental and health assessments. This is just about speeding up the initial stage.

    All this is on top of measures already in place to make sure that the UK has the most competitive tax regime in Europe for shale gas.

    Operators or potential operators have the regulatory and fiscal environment they need to enable developments.

    Community benefits & Shale Wealth Fund

    But while we make sure the shale industry has the tools it needs, we must also make sure that those that most affected by shale gas activities see benefits too.

    We strongly believe that communities hosting shale gas developments should share in the financial returns they generate.

    The Government welcomes the shale gas companies’ commitment to make set payments to these communities, which could be worth £5-10m for a typical 10-well site, and we want to go further.

    As announced by the Chancellor in the 2014 Autumn Statement, we are determined to make sure that local communities share more of the proceeds and feel more of the benefits, using a proportion of the tax revenues that are recouped from shale gas production.

    We will running a consultation later in the year on how this Shale Wealth Fund will be designed.

    And don’t forget that councils will also be able to retain 100% of the business rates – doubling the 50% rate retention previously allowed – which could be worth up to £1.7m a year for a typical 12 well site. It will be directly funded by central Government.

    Current status

    We know the shale industry is eager to press forward and the Government shares this desire for action.

    A clear demonstration of this enthusiasm can be seen in the results of the 14th Onshore Oil and Gas Licensing Round, where the Oil & Gas Authority announced that 159 onshore blocks, incorporated into 93 licenses were being formally offered to successful applicants.

    Around 75% of those 159 blocks offered relate to unconventional shale oil or gas.

    This is in addition to a number of companies which have existing licences in place and are in the process of seeking permissions to drill exploratory wells.

    Some 7,300 square miles of Great Britain is already under licence, including significant areas likely to contain shale.

    Conclusion

    To conclude, home-grown gas can secure our energy future in a time when our traditional sources are in declince and we are seeking to move away from expensive foreign imports.

    It can provide jobs for our people and tax revenues for our society.

    And it can help the UK to decarbonise while we move away from coal to lower-carbon energy sources.

    Secure energy.

    Economic growth and job creation.

    A bridge to a greener future.

    Unlocking the shale gas deep underground is too big an opportunity to pass up. It must be done safely and securely, but we can’t throw that opportunity away.

    Thank you very much.

  • Matt Hancock – 2016 Speech on Cyber Attacks

    Matt Hancock
    Matt Hancock

    Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, at the Grange Hotel in London on 25 May 2016.

    I’m very grateful to the Telegraph for asking me here to this crucial conference on cyber security.

    As we’re guests of the Telegraph, I want to start with a little story about the telegraph. Not the paper, but the technology.

    A century ago, the First World War was raging in Europe, and the Allies were desperate to bring America into the war on our side.

    Then, in January 1917, the German ambassador to Mexico received an encrypted telegram from Berlin.

    It instructed him to offer the Mexican government money and diplomatic support for an audacious invasion of the United States.

    But this message was subject to one of the first and perhaps most influential cyber security breaches in history.

    It didn’t matter that the idea was half-baked, that the Mexicans had no interest in invading Arizona. When the contents were revealed, American opinion was outraged.

    Shortly after, Congress voted to join the war.

    So why did the German high command entrust such a sensitive message to Western Union, then, as now, a wire transfer company?

    Because they had failed to appreciate an obvious network vulnerability.

    The subsea cable they were using did not travel directly from Europe.

    Instead it went through Britain, stopping off at Land’s End, where the signal was boosted before being transmitted to America.

    This meant it very easy for British Naval Intelligence to listen in on the traffic.

    Once war broke out, any diplomatic telegrams passing through were copied down and dispatched to Room 40, the forerunner of GCHQ.

    I mention this story as a warning against complacency.

    Telegraphy was the email of its day: trusted and widely used, familiar rather than cutting edge.

    People thought it was secure, but it wasn’t.

    A hundred years on, our trusted communications are wireless, instantaneous and virtually cost-free. Data is stored in the Cloud, not in filing cabinets.

    And this has changed the world beyond all recognition, in my view emphatically for the better.

    Vulnerability in cyber security

    From the little to the life-changing, remote robotic surgery to online box-sets. We are freer, more prosperous, more knowledgeable about the world than ever before.

    Yet this brings with it renewed vulnerability.

    Barriers to entry have come crashing down for companies and cyber-criminals alike.

    Unlike in 1917 you don’t need to be a state to inflict a massive data breach.

    When peoples’ cyber security isn’t up to scratch, you just need a laptop and an Internet connection.

    The tech may have got smarter, but the biggest weakness in any system is still the human being.

    In the last year, 2 thirds of large businesses in the UK experienced an cyber attack.

    Almost a quarter suffered a breach at least once a month.

    This matters because we are one of the world’s leading digital nations.

    Twelve and a half per cent of our economy is now online. No other country does more e-commerce.

    In government too we’ve begun to upload the state, using technology to build more responsive, user-centric public services.

    I call it the smartphone state.

    And we’re still only in the foothills.

    Smart energy, networked cities, quantum computing: these all have the potential to transform our lives and refashion our economy.

    But to deliver on that promise we have to be able to defend our digital society from those who wish it and us harm.

    A strong cyber defence requires three things.

    First, we – industry and government – together must recognise that this is a shared responsibility, a duty that we owe our fellow citizens.

    Second, that we deliver on that commitment by equipping them with the right skills.

    And third, that we can and must turn our vulnerabilities into a source of economic strength.

    Let me take each in turn.

    Shared responsibility

    First, it’s vital to recognise this is an issue for CEOs as well as spooks.

    The vast majority of the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure is operated by the private sector. Power, water and telecoms are all critical targets.

    Even outside that our digital lives are in your hands, everything from our life savings to our holiday snaps.

    I’m encouraged to see that two thirds of businesses say cyber security is now a priority for senior managers.

    Yet there remains a gap between awareness and action.

    Only half of the businesses we surveyed this year have taken steps to identify cyber risks.

    Make no mistake, the next data breach will happen. It’s your duty to make it’s not your company splashed across the papers when it does.

    But we don’t expect you to do it alone.

    We’ve created the UK’s first systematic National Cyber Security Programme, and we’re almost doubling the funding with £1.9 billion over the next five years.

    We’re setting up a National Cyber Security Centre under GCHQ.

    The centre will provide a single point of contact for businesses in need of advice and support.

    I want it to become a hub of world-class, user-friendly expertise: a global leader under the steady hand of Ciaran Martin, bridging the gap between the worlds of government and industry.

    And today I’m publishing the centre’s prospectus , setting out how it’ll work ahead of its full launch later this year.

    And we want to hear from you what you think and how it can help your business.

    I strongly recommend that you feed back to us, so we can design the National Cyber Security Centre around your needs.

    The right skills

    We already know that your number one need is for skills, and this is the second part of facing down the cyber threat.

    It’s not just that we need more skills. Computer security needs to become a basic life skill, like learning to drive.

    And while we want everyone to pass the test, we also need our elite Formula 1 drivers.

    So we’re growing the talent pool at every stage of the education system.

    Learning coding in schools, competitions to get more girls into cyber, residential courses for students in Years 12 and 13 – sponsorship for the most promising undergrads – all under the Government-backed Cyber First banner.

    We’ve opened new routes into cyber security, like the new Trailblazer apprenticeship.

    And I’m proud to give my support to the new Extended Project Qualification, which the Cyber Security Challenge just created.

    This level 3 qualification, equivalent to an AS Level, teaches the basics of cyber security in three months, and can be studied in schools, colleges or through the Challenge itself.

    But industry has to play its part too.

    We need more businesses to offer training, sponsorship apprenticeships: more breaks for the best minds.

    Because if we commit now, together, the struggle in cyberspace is Britain’s opportunity.

    That’s the third part of securing our cyber defences: not just protecting the digital economy but growing it.

    Turning risk into reward

    We’re already one of the top 5 exporters in the world, and the global market is growing by 20% a year.

    A strong cyber security industry means a safer Britain.

    So we’re funding test labs where cyber start-ups can refine their prototypes:

    – a cyber security fund to scale the established players

    – a cyber security innovation centre in Cheltenham.

    And today I can announce a new cyber security trade champion for the Gulf, to help UK companies win business in the region, while supporting the work of the UK Cyber Ambassador.

    This comes alongside our dedicated cyber specialist in Washington, who’s been supporting our engagement with cyber businesses in the US.

    Our goal is to create a commercial ecosystem where cutting-edge research is backed, start-ups get scaled, and British companies win business around the world.

    Conclusion

    So shared responsibility, the right skills, and boosting the cyber economy: get these 3 right and we can get across this challenge.

    Everyone has their part to play to close the chinks in our armour and the gaps in our capability.

    There is no doubt that cyber attacks are a serious and growing problem.

    But the history of technological advance – and with it of human progress – is the history of solving problems.

    After the First World War the Germans, determined that their codes would never again be cracked, built mechanical encryption machines.

    In turn we built the world’s first digital computers to break them.

    We can’t know what we’ll evolve in response to the current threat.

    But if we are honest about the threat, if we work together we can drive progress, power innovation, build better tech and a safer, more prosperous Britain.

    That is our task and I look forward to working with you to achieve it.

  • Michael Wilshaw – 2016 Speech at TES Leadership Conference

    michaelwilshaw

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Chief Inspector of OFSTED, at Bedales School in Hampshire on 25 May 2016.

    Thank you for inviting me here to this beautiful school, Bedales. I believe the title of your conference is Liberating Leaders: A Leadership Conference with a Difference.

    And today I want to make the case for difference, for maverick teachers and school leaders. Why? Because we desperately need more mavericks in the classroom and in the headteacher’s office.

    A pretty ordinary education system – unfortunately we still have one – needs people who are flamboyant, colourful and yes, downright strange. In other words, we need extraordinary people. We need our awkward squad. The independent sector has always had them – our state system needs more of them.

    It may seem peculiar to argue for more mavericks in education. Schools, after all, are ordered, structured places with clear hierarchies – the teacher and the taught, those who have authority and those who look up to it. Yet in my estimation the best heads and teachers are often mavericks. And when I say ‘maverick’ I mean ‘odd’. I should know; I’m pretty odd myself.

    But I wasn’t born odd. I really had to work at it. I had to learn pretty quickly as a young teacher, that teaching, like it or not, was inevitably bound up with personality and character. Imparting knowledge is never going to be enough, especially when those at the receiving end are disinclined to receive it.

    After experiencing my first week of teaching, I learnt from the experience and resolved to be a teacher and person who could never again be taken at face value. I had to be a chameleon, changing my personality according to the circumstances. It wasn’t a question of giving students what they wanted; it was a question of reading them sufficiently well to give them what they needed. A good teacher, I came to realise, understood how children thought and how their perceptions of the teacher governed how well they learnt.

    Forty years later I saw exactly the same lesson on ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in the hands of a great teacher, Rebecca, who was universally recognised by other staff as a bit bonkers…

    And, as an apprentice headteacher I learnt from some of the best maverick leaders.

    Take Cecil Pocock, the headteacher of the school I attended. He used to arrive in class on a bicycle, gown flowing, moustache bristling. Dismounted he had to say only one word – “Pax” – and any hubbub in the class immediately ceased. There followed some of the best history lessons I have ever heard.

    Take Bridie Burns, headteacher of the first school I taught at in Bermondsey. She was a 4-foot dynamo who moved around the school as if on wheels. Everyone was terrified of her, although she had the warmest of hearts for the poor and the disadvantaged in East London. A raised eyebrow and a curt admonition were enough to silence the school thug or a tyro teacher like me who had the temerity to wear a short-sleeved shirt. You knew where she was in the school because a hush, a cloud of complete calm descended on her immediate vicinity.

    And then there was Paul Docherty, who taught me so much about headship. Paul elevated the art of the unexpected into an Oscar-winning performance. Informed that children were misbehaving on the local buses, he donned a disguise, lurked at the back and, when trouble erupted, leapt out to confront the astonished culprits. Trouble on the buses soon became a thing of the past, because students were never entirely sure if the passenger obscured by a hat or newspaper was demonic Docherty or not.

    All 3 of these teachers were very different people. But they were all as tough as hell. They all exuded authority and they all had a fierce moral conviction that all children, especially the poorest, deserved the best education — and woe betide anyone who got between them and that mission.

    They were also something else: they were accomplished actors. They weren’t odd for the sake of being odd. Out of school they were very normal, ordinary people. But in school it was different. They put on an act. They acted the maverick.

    A hint of menace helped – and so did an outsize personality. Truly great teachers like Cecil Pocock, Bridie Burns and Paul Docherty knew this. They read their students and created personae accordingly. They became towering characters who made incredible impressions in the class, in the corridors and, yes, on the buses.

    They weren’t mavericks because they wanted to be different. They were mavericks because they wanted to make a difference. It was calculated oddity, peculiarity with a purpose. To reach these children they had to get ‘in character’. And although their characters varied they had some traits in common.

    All commanded instant authority; nobody doubted who was in charge. All could be unnerving, though they managed to do the unexpected in a reassuringly familiar way. All were fair; there was nothing whimsical, cruel or capricious about their surprises. And all exuded a sense of optimism, which wasn’t necessarily sunny but left you in no doubt that defeat and disappointment were not on the menu. They were, if you like, part Rocky, part Henry V and part Mrs Doubtfire.

    Of course, at some level, everyone knew it was an act. I’m pretty sure that at home Cecil Pocock did not ride his bike into dinner or attempt to quell any domestic disturbances by uttering the word “Pax”. I can imagine what the result would have been if he had. Acting was reserved for the classroom.

    This, in no way, makes it bogus. School is theatre – everyone has a part to play – students as much as teachers. Children often put on a mask: the class clown, the school geek, the attention-seeker. They instinctively understand that teachers play a role, too. But as in the theatre, roles only work if people believe they are credible.

    The inauthentic performer

    The second invaluable lesson I learnt from my mavericks was this: a persona is essential but it will only work if it is believable. A teacher’s classroom act must connect in some way with who they really are. It’s no use, for instance, acting the authority figure if you can’t say boo to a goose, or if you are essentially anarchic.

    Children will sniff out the fake at 5 paces. To act in the classroom is to exaggerate some traits you actually possess and suppress others for the purpose of engaging children. It is not about fraud or fakery. It is about projection and imaginative editing. Your act must be an extension of yourself not a contradiction of it.

    To take a fantastical example – it’s pointless pretending you’re Superman if children can’t even glimpse a Clark Kent through your Frank Spencer. Actors are typecast for a reason. And there is a reason why John Wayne wasn’t known for his Hamlet.

    Children, the sternest of critics, are particularly unforgiving. They know so much is at stake – their futures are at stake. So they won’t hesitate to dismiss as a fraud any teacher who tries to play a part for which they are not suited.

    Students know that a teacher with only a passing acquaintance with the subject won’t get them through the exam. They suspect that a diffident or hesitant head won’t keep them safe and secure. The wise teacher and head adopts a persona that is tethered in some way to his or her personality – not unlike a good actor.

    The same can be said of teaching styles. A lot of hot air has been generated in recent years about the correct way to teach. When I was coming up through the ranks, progressive pedagogy was all the rage. Latterly, the traditionalists have been in the ascendancy. When it comes to content, I’m a traditionalist. But I have always been and remain an agnostic when it comes to teaching styles.

    What is right is what works for the teacher and the class. Two of the best teachers I ever employed had widely different teaching styles. One was a ‘sage on the stage’ who delivered lessons soberly, but engagingly and with great authority. The other bounded from desk to desk like some female Robin Williams, declaiming as she leapt. The results from both were outstanding.

    Why should I have attempted to force them to conform to teaching in a particular way? As a head, it was far better that I left them to stick to what they were, rather than tried to make them something they were not.

    Ofsted is not interested in prescribing a particular teaching style. If we were ever guilty of that – then I apologise now.

    The self-obsessed performer

    Worse than delusion, for me, is outright indulgence. Students must not only believe in you as a teacher and leader but also that you are performing on their behalf for the right reasons. To play the maverick for personal reasons rather than professional ones, or to be unorthodox just for the sake of it won’t work.

    Maverick teachers and heads aren’t cool or ‘down with the kids’. They aren’t non-conformist because it amuses their Twitter followers or does wonders for their public profile. They don’t get excited by the thousands of devotees they have on social media if their students can’t pass their GCSEs. They tend to the audience that matters – not the one that strokes their egos.

    The mavericks that had such a big influence on my education and career weren’t indulgent or self-obsessed. They cannily adapted a persona to suit a particular student or a school need, not because they wanted to express an inner yearning that demanded a public audience.

    If a head insists on wackiness for the hell of it, for instance, and without the proper culture and structures in place, the result will be chaos. If a head demands a course of action not because it is in the best interests of the children but because he or she is eager to please the council, the union, the government, and, yes, even Ofsted, then they are not doing their job.

    Maverick teachers or heads deploy the unconventional in the service of their students. They don’t adopt it for their own ambition or to indulge their own weaknesses. They use it to ignite curiosity, to excite the indifferent, to inspire the neglected, to confound vested interests and to keep the vulnerable safe.

    Never make the mistake that children won’t see through you. If you haven’t got their best interests first and foremost in your mind as a head, it will be as apparent to them as a receding hairline or visible roots. If you’re not there principally for them, they will know it.

    The adaptable performer

    The final lesson my trio of mavericks taught me was adaptability. At the start of my tenure as HMCI, I think I may have recommended Clint Eastwood as a role model that heads should follow. I recalled that scene in Pale Rider when the baddies are shooting up the town, the mists dissipate and Clint is there, the lone warrior fighting for righteousness.

    I also remember that the notion wasn’t universally welcomed. But I stand by Clint. If a head finds him or herself in the educational badlands, facing impossible odds and a hesitant posse – then Clint is what is needed. And for those of you who prefer Oklahoma to True Grit or Pale Rider when it comes to westerns, can I remind you that the song’s title is Annie Get Your Gun, not Annie Get in the Conciliation Service.

    Tough situations call for a tough act. But what I neglected to say at the time was that Clint is not suitable for every eventuality. What my mavericks taught me was that great teachers and heads weigh up their students and schools very quickly and adapt their teaching and leadership style to suit.

    Clint can be very useful in a special measures school, for instance, where you know that ‘steady as she goes’ won’t cut it. Where what is needed is decisive, highly visible and perhaps unconventional action. But he is less appropriate in a coasting school, where what is required is a bit of subterfuge and cajoling. In that situation what’s needed is a Machiavelli or a Frank Underwood, minus the body count of course.

    A maverick leader adapts. They refine their act. They appreciate, for instance, that what may work with unresponsive children won’t cut the mustard with implacable staff. The unconventional can be very effective. But even Clint, when the occasion demanded, swapped a rifle for a guitar.

    Conclusion

    Now you may be thinking, and what of Chief Inspectors? Has being a maverick served me well?

    Well I can tell you now that it hasn’t made me popular. What is interesting is that the catcalls have come from different parts of the audience as time has gone on.

    Initially, I was a government stooge and patsy. I wasn’t Wilshaw but Sure Will, eager to do ministers’ bidding. I haven’t heard that one for a while, mind.

    But however I’m perceived, my mission as far as I’m concerned has remained the same. I am still a maverick with a purpose. As important as the reorganisation of Ofsted was, being Chief Inspector was not and has never been a purely bureaucratic position. We are charged with holding schools to account and improving the lives of our youngest citizens, especially the poorest. And to do that, to get things done, it is sometimes necessary to challenge, to take a risk, to be awkward – to be a maverick.

    Do we need more mavericks in education? Yes we do – all the way to the top.

    Thank you.

  • Andrew Jones – 2016 Speech on Driverless Cars

    andrewjones

    Below is the text of the speech made by Andrew Jones, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport, in Milton Keynes on 25 May 2016.

    Thank you for the chance to speak today.

    I must begin by complimenting the organisers’ impeccable sense of location and timing – in inviting me to make my first big speech on driverless cars, in Milton Keynes, home to a major driverless cars trial, and just a week after the world’s first driverless car insurance legislation was announced in the Queen’s Speech.

    My message this morning will be a clear one.

    Driverless cars are coming, and they are sooner than many people expect.

    They will be a great step forward in automotive history, and potentially add significantly to quality of life and human freedom.

    The UK is in a great position to lead their development.

    And our new insurance legislation, which this morning I will set out in more detail than the government has done before, will create space for insurers to innovate and meet the needs of a radically different market.

    Driverless cars not science fiction

    So let me talk about connected, autonomous vehicles, driverless cars, first.

    In recent times we’ve grown used to living with transport technologies that we consider to be basically mature.

    The chief characteristics of the modern car haven’t changed much since.

    From the Model T Ford to Aston Martin’s new DB11, being a four-wheeled, rubber-tyred vehicle navigated by a human driver, have remained constant for well over a century.

    Of course as things improve, the technology has been refined and improved over time.

    Yet it now seems clear that human-navigated cars have been just a stepping stone to the car’s ultimate form.

    It won’t happen overnight, but we will steadily hand more and more of the driving process over to the vehicle itself.

    Eventually, there will be virtually nothing left for the motorist to do.

    Those who can’t currently drive will gain the chance to take to the open road. that could transform the lives of many older people.

    Those of us who are already motorists will gain free time on our journeys to do other things; to work, read, watch television or socialise with our fellow passengers.

    After dropping us at our destination, our cars may well be able to return home on their own, to charge themselves, or perhaps make themselves available for other users.

    And all this should make travelling far safer.

    More than 9 in 10 of today’s road fatalities have an element of human error.

    The great hope for driverless cars is that they can eliminate those deaths, transform road safety in our country.

    These advances might sound like science fiction, but the early models are already in testing.

    Here, in Milton Keynes, pathfinder self-driving pods are now being trialled in pedestrianised areas.

    The government is spending £100 million to support trials such as these, including in Greenwich, Bristol and Coventry.

    But even that sum is dwarfed by what the big manufacturers are spending in the race to be first to make the technology commercially available.

    Volvo, working with Thatcham – the insurance research body – recently announced that it will start testing its driverless technologies in and around London next year, with a rollout of up to 100 cars in 2018.

    And the government believes that within 4 years it will be possible to buy cars that, under supervision, park on their own and pilot themselves on motorways.

    UK at forefront

    This is all good news for the UK.

    Because we have a regulatory environment that is more open to automated and driverless cars than any other country in Europe.

    This is a key government objective – to make the best place to do research and development.

    Our car industry is more productive than ever before, and we are already building cutting-edge cars – such as the all-electric Nissan LEAF. I went up recently to the Sunderland Nissan battery plant. That plant built more cars than all of Italy.

    So we have a great opportunity for the UK to become a pioneer in the design, manufacturer and use of driverless vehicle technologies.

    Insurance changes

    One other area where the UK has a lot of strength is the financial services industry.

    And we want the motor insurance industry to be part of that world-leading change

    So last week, in the Queen’s Speech, we became the first country in the world to announce our intention to legislate on insurance requirements for driverless cars.

    Now, there’s been a lot of speculation about what the advent of the driverless car means for the insurance industry.

    Some of the more excitable commentators have said that driverless cars will make motor insurance unnecessary.

    I believe that is a lot of pie in the sky.

    At least for the moment.

    You will know better than anyone the range of things that can lead to insurance claims, many of which will be unaffected by the coming of the driverless car.

    But what does seem certain is that insurance will need to change.

    Firstly, much of the data on which insurance is priced and sold will steadily become obsolete.

    Secondly, vast quantities of new kinds of data will become available, assessing not individual driver risk but vehicle behaviour and other factors.

    And thirdly, in the event of a serious collision when in driverless mode, it would be the vehicle at fault, instead of the human driver.

    In the legislation we will propose, we want to create space for the industry to lead these changes.

    And we will amend the Road Traffic Act 1988 motor insurance provisions.

    Compulsory motor insurance will be retained, but it will be extended to cover product liability, so that when a motorist has handed control to their vehicle, they can be reassured that their insurance will be there if anything goes wrong.

    Where the vehicle is at fault then the insurer will be able to seek reimbursement from the manufacturer.

    The vital point is that, for affected individuals, the insurance process will feel much the same.

    Motorists and victims of collisions won’t be forced to go to court to obtain compensation.

    They will have the benefit of fast and fair insurance compensation – just as they do today.

    We will consult on these changes over the summer.

    And we expect them to become law in time for applicable vehicles to come onto the market.

    So there’s a pretty rare window of opportunity. That opportunity’s for insurers to innovate, to develop new products, partnerships and approaches.

    Conclusion

    And in the meantime, the government is keen to work with you.

    We want to hear from the industry.

    How can we support you in supporting your customers through these changes?

    And above all, we want your views on the proposed legislation.

    Have we got it right?

    What more could we do?

    Please look out for our consultation this summer.

    We want to make sure that the benefits of automated cars by electric or hydrogen motors will be felt here. We want to be first in the world to grab opportunities. We can’t do this without industry who looks to the future. And we have a rare chance to shape the legislation of the future.

    Because we are moving into this unseen territory together.

    It’s an uncertain time.

    But also an exciting time.

    Thank you.

  • Lord Falconer – 2016 Speech on the Loyal Address

    charliefalconer

    Below is the text of the speech made by Lord Falconer in the House of Lords on 24 May 2016.

    My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, for his exposition of what was in the gracious Speech. He is a fine advocate on a sticky wicket. Looking at his profile on the Ministry of Justice’s website, I noticed that he used to work for the literary agents Curtis Brown. I am glad to say that my very good friend Ed Balls has chosen Curtis Brown as the agents to promote his new book, Speaking Out: Lessons in Life and Politics—available in all good bookshops from 16 September. I would be happy to arrange for the noble Lord a signed copy and the opportunity to learn whatever lessons are going. In exchange, I wonder whether he could get me a copy of another book currently being promoted by Curtis Brown—The Churchill Factor, by Boris Johnson.

    Moving on from works of fantasy, I turn to the gracious Speech. It seems a long time ago that it was delivered. Hardly was the ink dry on the vellum than the Government were willing to regret the contents of their own gracious Speech by agreeing the TTIP amendment. Historically, as noble Lords will know, the last time that a gracious Speech was amended was in 1924 and the then Tory Government, led by Baldwin, fell.

    That doomed gracious Speech has echoes of the speech that we debate today and included the following line:

    “You will be asked to develop the … system of dealing with offenders”.—[Official Report, 15/1/1924; col. 8.]

    The gracious Speech had a more direct tone in those days. That gracious Speech lasted just six days before being defeated on 21 January 1924. Three weeks later, Ramsay MacDonald, having deposed JR Clynes as the party leader after the general election, then became Prime Minister. I hope that this does not give political plotters on either side any ideas.

    I know that noble Lords in this House are sure that the Conservatives are currently entirely focused on the national interest and not on badmouthing each other. One should completely discount the Minister, quoted in today’s Sun, who said:

    “How the f*** are they going to put the party back together after all this?”,

    or the reports in today’s Daily Mail of a senior Back-Bencher who said:

    “People want a date when they know that he”—

    I believe that to be a reference to the Prime Minister—

    “will be gone. There is real anger”.

    I am sure that the Daily Mail has got it completely wrong this morning with its headline: “Knives out for Cameron”. It may well be that we are the only part of the political system that is taking the trouble to analyse this gracious Speech in any detail. I very much look forward to the winding-up speech from the noble Lord, Lord Bridges of Headley. I note from his website that he was the assistant political secretary to Mr John Major from 1994 to 1997, so he is a bit of an expert on blue-tinged civil war. He will know that his then boss between 1994 and 1997, the noble Lord, Lord Hill, the former Leader of this House, chose to leave the country in anticipation of what is happening.

    My final point in introduction is that it is so encouraging that the current Lord Chancellor, Mr Michael Gove, has remained above the fray. Take, for example, his claims that the European Court of Justice is undermining the security of the United Kingdom. Those were described by the former Conservative Attorney-General, Mr Dominic Grieve—who turns 60 today, so we wish him a happy birthday—as “unfounded and untenable”, “simply wrong”, and that the Lord Chancellor was,

    “labouring under a very serious misunderstanding”,

    of the way the European Union worked. Or take the Lord Chancellor’s claim that up to 5 million new immigrants would arrive in the European Union from Turkey and four other alleged new joiners by 2030. This was based upon the proposition that Turkey would have joined the European Union by 2020—a view to which nobody, apart from the Lord Chancellor and other committed Brexiteers, appears to subscribe.

    I turn to the gracious Speech.

    Noble Lords

    Oh!

    Lord Falconer of Thoroton

    I knew that noble Lords would be pleased.

    First, there was the reference to a British Bill of Rights, which has now featured in the gracious Speech for two years in a row, and in almost identical terms. The Human Rights Act 1998 has effected a fundamental change in the relationship between the overmighty state and its citizens. The effect of the incorporation of the convention into our domestic law has been to force Governments and state organisations to think about the citizen in a different way. Examples of this are legion. The second Hillsborough inquests would not have taken place without the Human Rights Act; the Government’s attempts to introduce oppressive security laws after 9/11 were struck down in the Belmarsh cases because of the Human Rights Act; and the decision of a local authority that tried to separate a couple who had been married for 60 years into separate care homes was struck down as contrary to their basic human rights.

    There can be no going back on the rebalancing of the relationship between citizen and state. The Tories have run a campaign against the Human Rights Act since it was introduced. They have found powerful allies in elements of the media who are happy for there to be human rights—but only for those people they like. If as a nation we are serious about human rights, there must be human rights for all, not just for those that the Executive wish to bestow them on or for those of whom the Daily Mail approves.

    The Tories came out of the general election in 2015 suggesting that they could leave the European Convention on Human Rights if that is what it took to reform the Human Rights Act. The Prime Minister appears to have retreated from that position, as evidenced by the briefing around this gracious Speech. Not so the Home Secretary, who gave a speech very recently saying that we should withdraw from the convention for the express purpose of reducing some people’s human rights.

    As for the Lord Chancellor, who knows? The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, was careful to give no insight into his thinking. The Lord Chancellor’s evidence to the European Union Justice Sub-Committee of this House led it to say:

    “The proposals the Secretary of State outlined did not appear to depart significantly from the Human Rights Act—we note in particular that all the rights contained within the ECHR are likely to be affirmed in any British Bill of Rights. His evidence left us unsure why a British Bill of Rights was really necessary”.

    So I invite the noble Lord, Lord Bridges of Headley, to give this House some clue—not in detail and not breaking any confidences—about what is proposed.

    It is a very strange concept: a British Bill of Rights that would be likely to be refused legislative consent by the Scottish Parliament, to be opposed by the Welsh Assembly and would frustrate and complicate the Good Friday agreement. It may be that those rights would remain unchanged; I do not know and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, has not told us. It may be that the Government will say that the United Kingdom courts should be supreme in determining what the convention means in UK law. Of course, that is what the Human Rights Act already says. It may be that the so-called British Bill of Rights will declare the supremacy of the UK Parliament—but of course that is already the position under the Human Rights Act, as the prisoner voting rights issue demonstrates.

    We so damage ourselves as a country by the inability of our Government to accept human rights in a constitutional settlement that works. It goes without saying that the Lord Chancellor should be the champion of human rights within the Government. A commitment to the rule of law carries with it a commitment to defend people’s basic rights. It is a fundamental weakness in the Government that the champion of the law will not be straight in his defence of its most basic rights. My plea is that the Lord Chancellor and the Government make it clear that they accept that the rights that Winston Churchill insisted be agreed by Europe after the Second World War are now beyond argument both in their terms and in the fact that they will be enforced by our courts in this country. We on this side of the House stand by the Human Rights Act 1998 and we implore the Government to do the same.

    The prison and courts reform Bill contains many measures that we welcome. We welcome proposals to give prison governors more autonomy and to increase the focus on rehabilitation and prisoner education. I congratulate Dame Sally Coates for the impressive work she has done as part of her review into prisoner education and I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s commitment last week to review the plight of prisoners serving IPP sentences. But the prison reforms, billed as the centrepiece of the gracious Speech, have no prospect of success unless the fundamental crisis in the prison system is addressed.

    First, there is chronic understaffing in our prisons. Secondly, there is chronic overcrowding. Thirdly, there is a chronic rise in violence and self-harm, with 7,000 fewer officers and a prison population which has risen by nearly 3,000 since 2010. There have been six murders and 100 suicides in prisons across England and Wales in the past 12 months—the highest levels seen for at least 25 years. Assaults on staff are up by 36% from the previous year, and overcrowding in prisons is forcing inmates to double or even treble up in cells. I worry, as do many informed observers, that we are on a road which led 30 years ago to the Strangeways riots. I look forward to the speech later of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, who issued a seminal report after those riots.

    The Prime Minister lost his nerve the last time a Justice Secretary tried to reform our prisons and we ended up with Chris Grayling as a result. Until we tackle those issues and see a reduction in the prison population, these reforms are tinkering while Rome burns. I welcome the announcement today of an extra £10 million to spend on safety in prisons. The extra £10 million is to be made available,

    “to prison governors for extra prison staff; more training, including on suicide awareness; additional equipment, including body cameras and CCTV; and on additional drug testing, including for legal highs”.

    The announcement was no doubt timed to coincide with today’s debates in your Lordships’ House and the other place on prison reform. In the face of the scale of the prison crisis, the £10 million looks risibly small.

    If the Lord Chancellor is serious about prison reform, the first step he must take is to reduce the prison population—dealing with IPP prisoners as a matter of urgency. He can take two further steps: first, reduce the number of prisoners who are remanded in custody and then do not get custodial sentences; and, secondly, reduce the length of sentences for non-violent and non-sexual offenders. Not taking these steps makes me worried that prison reform—the centrepiece of the gracious Speech—is not serious but rather an eye-catching initiative designed to distract attention from the troubles of this Government.

    The Lord Chancellor speaks of his personal commitment to the issue of prison reform. He gave a detailed interview to the House magazine on 13 May of this year, which stretched over five pages—I have to say that one page was a very large photograph of the Lord Chancellor—but he did not mention the question of prison reform once.

    I turn now to court reform, and welcome the commitment to it. We should not underestimate the crisis in our courts. Lord Thomas, the Lord Chief Justice, wrote in January this year:

    “Our system of justice has become unaffordable to most”.

    He is right. What is more, this Government and the coalition Government before them presided over the decimation of our justice system. In 2009-10 more than 470,000 people received advice or assistance on social welfare issues. By 2013-14, the year after the Government’s reforms to legal aid came into force, that number had fallen to fewer than 53,000—a drop of nearly 90%.

    The Briggs report on the civil justice system puts it as follows:

    “The single, most pervasive and intractable weakness of our civil courts is that they simply do not provide reasonable access to justice for any but the most wealthy individuals, for that tiny minority still in receipt of Legal Aid … In short, most ordinary people and small businesses struggle to benefit from the strengths of our civil justice system … The civil courts are, by their procedure, their culture and the complexity of the law … places designed by lawyers for use by lawyers”.

    This is the crisis with which we need to deal. Access to justice depends on a level playing field. The cost of going to court needs to be reduced and the availability of legal aid needs to be increased. It must be wrong that abandoned spouses, whatever their means, cannot get legal aid to sort out their financial position or continued relationships with children unless they can meet stringent tests to prove that they are victims of domestic violence. The whole issue of legal aid needs to be properly reviewed. That is why my noble friend Lord Bach and his legal aid commission are asking hard questions about how to address these problems, including how technological change can be seen as a benefit to be grasped rather than something to be afraid of.

    I am surprised by the reappearance of an extremism Bill in the gracious Speech. The key issue there will be the definition of extremism. The Government must be very careful. We welcome the criminal finances Bill—better late than never. The Wales Bill is important. We need carefully to scrutinise the detail to determine whether it does propose the long-lasting settlement that we all want to see. Labour, as the party which established the Welsh Assembly, welcomes the devolution of further powers. That is why we opposed the disastrous draft Bill that was before us last year. The First Minister—I am glad to see him back in that role—was right to say that that process had been, “an avoidable mess” and that the Government,

    “need to get into the habit of treating Wales and the National Assembly for Wales with proper respect”.

    The Strathclyde proposals have all the hallmarks of the Government’s approach to human rights: “We say we like them but if they cause any difficulty we then try to take them away”.

    This is a gracious Speech overwhelmed by the sound of blue-on-blue gunfire, with the Lord Chancellor right in the thick of it. At a time when our prisons and our courts are in crisis and there is real suffering as a result, he is on a front line fighting a different war. I will give him, as will all on this side, full support for genuine and properly thought through proposals to reform our prisons and our courts. My goodness, we really need such proposals. Unfortunately, the proposals in the gracious Speech do not meet the hurdles either of genuineness or of being properly thought through. We do not know whether the Lord Chancellor will ever return from his current war—but if he does, I urge him to lay off human rights and devote his very considerable energies to the progressive reform that is so desperately needed.