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Category: Speeches

  • Theresa Villiers – 2013 Speech on Keeping Northern Ireland on a Steady Footing

    Theresa Villiers
    Theresa Villiers

    Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Saint Catherine’s College Cambridge on 6 September 2013.

    I am delighted to be able to attend my first British-Irish Association Conference. Ever since its formation in 1972 the BIA has played a valuable role in bringing together key politicians, academics, journalists and others to debate relationships across the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

    You have made a significant contribution to the progress made in Northern Ireland over the past two decades. And today you continue to set the agenda on how we can build on those achievements and move Northern Ireland forward. So I would like to warmly congratulate your outgoing chairman, Paul Bew on his outstanding work and wish his successor, Hugh MacNeill well in his new role.

    It is also great that Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore will be attending the conference. The UK Government very much values the excellent working relationship between London and Dublin and the Tánaiste has played a key role in delivering that.

    The Agreements

    One of the key themes of your conference this weekend is how, 15 years on from the Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland can keep a steady footing. And it’s on that issue that I’d like to reflect in my comments this evening.

    I was born around the same time as the so-called ‘troubles’ erupted in the late 60s. So for the first 30 or so years of my life, like most people I mainly associated Northern Ireland with instability, sectarian strife and terrorist bombs.

    The issues of identity and belonging that gave rise to those troubles seemed completely intractable. So I pay tribute to all those here who played a part in delivering the settlement agreed on Good Friday 1998.

    Along with its successors at St Andrews in 2006 and Hillsborough in 2010, the Belfast Agreement has helped to bring about a degree of peace and political stability not seen for nearly half a century.

    Of course the Agreements are not perfect. They contained elements that many people found difficult to swallow. But there can be no doubt that they have changed life in Northern Ireland for the better in a fundamental way. 15 years on, that is something we should neither undervalue nor take for granted.

    For our part, the coalition government at Westminster will continue to stand faithfully by the agreements and the institutions they have established. We believe that this is a settlement that must work and deliver across the whole community.

    Public disorder

    Yet for all the hard-won stability, there is no doubt that there are key issues that are far from settled in Northern Ireland.

    The controversy over flying the union flag and around parades demonstrates the deep divisions which remain in some parts of society. That said, nothing can excuse lawless behaviour of the kind we saw on the streets of Belfast in July. Rioting is not a recreational activity; it’s a serious crime that can lead to substantial prison sentences.

    Street violence is not a cost free option. It damages Northern Ireland as we seek to compete in the global race for investment and jobs. It places an intolerable burden on the police who demonstrate incredible bravery in upholding the rule of law. And it ruins the life prospects of those who engage in it by landing them with a criminal record.

    And of course rioting is completely counter-productive to any cause that its participants claim to espouse. We stand four-square for the rule of law, whether it is under attack from so-called loyalists or dissident republicans. So I pay tribute once again to the work of the PSNI and An Garda Síochána whose unprecedented level of co-operation is saving lives in Northern Ireland.

    Yet at the same time it is right that both the government and the Executive seek to address the issues that can feed this kind of disorder. That’s why both administrations are determined to make progress on tackling the causes of sectarian division and building a stronger economy. Both are vitally important if we are to keep Northern Ireland on a steady footing.

    Economic recovery

    Taking the economy first, in recent weeks there have been some tentative signs that the Northern Ireland economy is beginning to mend. Unemployment has fallen for 6 months in a row and is now back below the UK average.

    Data published last month by Ulster Bank showed business activity returning to growth for the first time since the financial crash of 2007. There are also indications that the housing market is beginning to stabilise.

    The Government recognises that things are still very tough, and there is a long way to go before we fix the broken economy.

    The economy is still far too dependent on public spending. The property crash has left many businesses with a heavy burden of debt. And the recovery is still slower in Northern Ireland than in any other part of the UK.

    So in June, the Prime Minister and I, along with the First and deputy First Minister launched a substantial package aimed at boosting the private sector and rebalancing the economy.

    The truth is we don’t have as many resources as might have been available in times past, but we rifled through every locker in Whitehall to see what more could be done to help Northern Ireland grow its private sector.

    So we’ve secured an additional £42 million in UK funding for the PEACE IV and a £154 million top-up for EU structural funds.

    The package also includes £100m in additional borrowing powers for the Executive and measures to boost lending to businesses.

    The government’s highly successful start-up loans scheme is now open for business in Northern Ireland as one of the first elements of the economic package to get off the ground.

    A joint £20 million investment plan for research and development projects in Northern Ireland is proposed, with a particular focus on aerospace.

    We’re working on a visa waiver pilot to encourage visitors to the Republic of Ireland to visit Northern Ireland.

    And an agreement has been reached on a mechanism for taking forward the devolution of corporation tax before the 2015 general election, if the government decides to devolve these powers.

    Crucially we have also managed to retain Northern Ireland’s assisted areas status coverage that’s helped the Executive to create over 3,000 jobs in NI in recent months.

    All of this represents a substantial body of work and it will see the Executive and the government cooperating more closely together than ever before on our shared goal of equipping Northern Ireland to compete successfully in the global race for investment and jobs.

    Shared Future

    Moving on to the second means of moving Northern Ireland forward, building a more cohesive society, virtually all the relevant policy responsibilities fall within the remit of the Northern Ireland Executive

    But making progress on this is still a key priority for the government which is why it’s featured in nearly every conversation I’ve had with the First and deputy First Ministers since taking office.

    The publication the Executive’s document Together: Building a United Community met a mixed reaction. Certainly, the real test will come with efforts to see its proposals actually delivered. But the publication of an ambitious programme to tackle division and build a stronger society in itself represents a genuine and welcome step after long months of deadlock, and I congratulate the First and deputy First Minister for finding a way to move things forward.

    I have also warmly welcomed the establishment of the cross party working group on parading, flags and the past that will begin its work later this month under the chairmanship of Richard Haass. While the government is not directly represented on this group we are very supportive of it and are keen to engage constructively with its work. For a number of reasons, we have a direct interest in the outcome of this process.

    The most obvious reason is that we want these talks to be successful because that would improve life for people in Northern Ireland, strengthen the economy and make it easier to combat the threat from dissident republicans. But it’s also worth remembering that parading and some elements of the rules on flags are currently matters for Westminster. So if changes are proposed by the Haass group, they would need the support of the government if they are to be implemented.

    Likewise, while not necessarily requiring legislation, it is likely that any proposals to deal with the past would, at least in part, fall to the government for implementation.

    So it’s the subject of the past that I would like to spend the remainder of my speech this evening.

    The Past

    I am sure that no one here would doubt that the legacy of the troubles has a continuing impact in modern Northern Ireland. I see that when I meet victims of terrorism or those who believe that the security forces operated outside the law. It’s impossible not to be moved by harrowing stories from families who lost loved ones, often in the most brutal of circumstances.

    A range of initiatives are underway regarding the past, a number of which I have had the honour to visit. In addition to a host of local and oral history projects across Northern Ireland, there are outstanding initiatives like the CAIN archive at the University of Ulster, the renowned collection at the Linen Hall Library and the wealth of historical material held by the BBC and UTV. Other projects such as the Warrington Peace Centre and the Wave Trauma Centre also do invaluable work. As a consequence, Northern Ireland’s troubles are one of the most comprehensively recorded and documented periods in history.

    For its part the government is moving from the 30 year rule to a 20 year rule for the release of state papers, though the release of any information into the public domain will always have to be done in a way that is sensitive to the Article 2 rights of all parties.

    We’re also working with the Irish government on the decade of centenaries beginning last year with the Ulster Covenant and continuing next August with the outbreak of the Great War. We believe that these centenaries can provide an opportunity to reflect on events in our shared history which have profoundly different meaning for those from different traditions.

    We also continue to support the valuable work being done in the devolved sphere, for example by the Police Ombudsman, the Historical Enquiries Team and the Victims’ Commissioner.

    And of course the government has been fully prepared to apologise where the state has failed to uphold the highest standards of conduct, as we did in the cases of Bloody Sunday, Claudy and the murder of Patrick Finucane.

    So the allegation that “nothing’s happening on the past” isn’t true. But of course there is no so-called over-arching ‘process’ on the past and little consensus on what that should be. I’ve found that in the range of discussions I’ve had on this subject, as did my predecessor Owen Paterson, as did the last government in the 12 year period during which they grappled with this issue.

    So we should all welcome the opportunity for the Haass working group to bring a fresh perspective. I’ve no intention of pre-empting the Group’s discussions, but I’m mindful of the following. Any mechanisms for dealing with the past needs to be fully consistent with maintaining the integrity of the rule of law. They must have regard to the fiscal position in which the UK government finds itself as a result of the deficit. And as our manifesto set out and the Prime Minister re-iterated in his statement on Bloody Sunday, we will never put those who uphold the law on the same footing as those who seek to destroy it. For us, politically motivated violence from whatever side was never justified and we will not be party to attempts to re-write history by legitimising terrorism.

    I’d also like to mention public inquiries.

    Any request to establish a new inquiry has to be carefully considered on its own merits. But this government has always been very clear on its reservations about the use of public inquiries to deal with the past. It isn’t just about the length and cost of inquiries, though the final sums can be quite staggering. Public inquiries are by no means a guaranteed route in all cases to establishing the truth.

    For example, the Billy Wright Inquiry was unable to establish how the weapons that killed him entered Europe’s most high security prison, the question right at the heart of what the inquiry was all about.

    And of course it would be impossible for every victim of the troubles that claimed over 3,500 lives to have a public inquiry. So they are by their nature selective, and can provoke very divided views in Northern Ireland.

    Conclusion

    But in conclusion, whatever the outcome of the Haass process I hope there will be a thread running through all work on the past which ensures that its underlying purpose is always to play a constructive part in wider efforts to heal social division, build mutual respect and understanding and move Northern Ireland forward towards a better future.

    And it is vital that the Haass work takes place alongside real progress on other crucial issues on reconciliation and social cohesion and on the economy. Richard Haass and his group have an immensely difficult task ahead of them. Whether they will succeed is something we can’t yet know for certain.

    So over the coming weeks and months it is critical that we see progress both on the economic package and the shared society proposals from the First and deputy First Minister. There is much that we can work on even while issues like the past and parading remain to be resolved.

    As ever, the ability of the political leadership of Northern Ireland to work together collaboratively across political boundaries will play a key part in determining whether the changes needed to rebalance the economy and heal social divisions are delivered.

    This summer we have seen some depressing scenes in Northern Ireland. And the government takes them very seriously, as do our partners in the Republic of Ireland and the United States.

    But this summer has also witnessed the best of Northern Ireland. That was evident when the Prime Minister brought the G8 Summit to Lough Erne. Sunny Fermanagh played host to the most peaceful G8 ever and even the protesters commented on the warmth of the welcome they received.

    In addition, Derry-Londonderry’s UK City of Culture programme has been an outstanding success with the all-Ireland Fleadh the biggest event yet.

    And the World Police and Fire Games saw spectators from all community backgrounds cheering on PSNI teams with enthusiasm. Given the history of policing in Northern Ireland, that support is something that would have been very hard to imagine only a few years ago.

    All of these represent the new Northern Ireland – one that’s confident, forward looking, that’s a great place to live, work, visit and do business. That’s the kind of Northern Ireland we’re determined to build. And that’s what will keep Northern Ireland on the right footing.

  • Dominic Grieve – 2013 Speech on the Rule of Law

    dominicgrieve

    Below is the text of the speech made by Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, at the 18th Annual Conference and General Meeting of the International Association of Prosecutors in Moscow on 9 September 2013.

    It gives me great pleasure to speak today at the 18th Annual Conference and General Meeting of the International Association of Prosecutors (IAP).

    The aims of the IAP – to promote the rule of law, fairness, impartiality and respect for human rights and to improve international cooperation to combat crime – demonstrate the powerful and influential role which the prosecutor can play within society.

    A prosecution service which is fearless and protective of its independence and impartiality, which is free of political control and direction, will be a bulwark for freedom and liberty.

    As Attorney General of England and Wales I superintend prosecutions and am answerable to Parliament for their conduct. The primary prosecution services in England and Wales – the Crown Prosecution Service and Serious Fraud Office – are, however, wholly free of political control and direction. They bring prosecutions only when a two stage test has been met:

    Is there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction?

    And if there is; is a prosecution required in the public interest?

    It matters not if a government minister, politician or even the Prime Minister demands a prosecution be started – if those two stages have not been met, then no prosecution will follow.

    Political aims, petty vindictiveness or vendettas have no role to play. This process helps uphold the rule of law.

    Although prosecutions are the responsibility of independent prosecuting authorities, I do not feel a fraud or interloper appearing here before so many distinguished prosecutors. I am proud to call myself a prosecutor.

    As Attorney General I do in fact have a number of prosecutorial functions, for example, in certain criminal cases – terrorism, possession of explosives, offences with an international angle – my consent to prosecution is required.

    I also appear regularly in the Court of Appeal to seek the review of sentences imposed in criminal cases which I believe to be too low.

    When I perform these prosecutorial functions, I act wholly independent of Government. Indeed, one of my predecessors, Lord Simon, said:

    The Attorney General should absolutely decline to receive orders from the Prime Minister or cabinet or anybody else.

    While that may not do much for my political career, that is an important protection for the rule of law in the United Kingdom and one that I will uphold and staunchly defend.

    The UK recognises the importance of developing the rule of law, legal institutions and the capacity of countries to deal with legal matters, as crucial to our mutual national interests. The ‘Golden Thread’ of the rule of law runs through not only the ability to prosecute serious crime and terrorism but increasingly wider agendas such as prosperity, development and growth.

    In 2010, one of the United Kingdom’s most distinguished jurists in the last hundred years, Lord ‘Tom’ Bingham, published the seminal work ‘The Rule of Law’ (I suspect we will hear more about the thoughts of Lord Bingham as the conference progresses!).

    Lord Bingham’s book built upon an academic paper which he had delivered four years earlier in 2006 and in which he had looked at what exactly is meant by the rule of law.

    In his 2010 book Lord Bingham identified the core principle of the rule of law as being:

    “That all persons and authorities within the state, whether public or private, should be bound by and entitled to the benefit of laws publicly and prospectively promulgated and publicly administered in the courts”.

    He went on to outline 8 principles which he saw as being the key ingredients necessary to support that aim. In brief these were:

    The law must be accessible, intelligible, clear and predictable.

    Questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by the exercise of the law and not the exercise of discretion.

    Laws should apply equally to all.

    Ministers and public officials must exercise the powers conferred in good faith, fairly, for the purposes for which they were conferred – reasonably and without exceeding the limits of such powers.

    The law must afford adequate protection of fundamental Human Rights.

    The state must provide a way of resolving disputes which the parties cannot themselves resolve.

    The adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be fair.
    The rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international as well as national laws.

    By observing these 8 principles, and in particular the fifth, affording adequate protection of fundamental human rights, we avoid the dilemma identified by Professor Joseph Raz in his 1979 work ‘The Authority of Law’.

    Professor Raz argued that, seemingly, within the framework of the rule of law, there can exist societies which oppress minorities, condone slavery, and support sexual inequalities – all of which would be abhorrent to liberal democracies. And yet, by adhering to strict legal structures and procedures such societies could still legitimately claim to excel in their conformity to the rule of law.

    Such a legal system will allow discrimination and prejudice but all the time within the legal construct of decrees and legislation. Absent protection for human rights, courts and legal system may deprive fellow citizens of their freedom, property and ultimately their very existence. In such circumstances, the claim that the rule of law is observed is but a mockery of the truth.

    It is troubling to see some countries publicly proclaim adherence to the Rule of Law and Human Rights, whilst at the same time eroding those very same standards behind the cover of legislative processes – providing a thin veneer of respectability and apparent conformity with legal norms.

    It is all too easy for countries to develop a system of oppression and tyranny camouflaged by what purports to be a legal framework. Lord Bingham’s principles and the call for respect for fundamental human rights, expose the lie of such systems and their flawed claim to act in compliance with the rule of law.

    As prosecutors and lawyers, we should therefore seek to observe and uphold each of Lord Bingham’s principles; but for the purposes of today’s plenary session, I wish to examine in a little more detail one specific principle, the seventh: the adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be fair.

    It is this principle which I believe is of particular relevance to the prosecutor and one whereby the prosecutor who observes it correctly will make a significant difference.

    Absent a fair adjudicator (which includes the prosecutor) the rule of law will be banished, replaced by arbitrary and flawed justice. Without fairness there can be no confidence in the courts and decision makers.

    A trial where the conclusion is pre-determined, dictated by politics, or directed by the government, does not uphold the rule of law. It is vital, therefore, that the prosecutor be a fearless defender of independence, impartiality and fairness – ensuring not just that the guilty are convicted but also the innocent remain free.

    Prosecutors need to be scrupulous in ensuring the fairness of the proceedings with which they are involved. Not just when presenting a prosecution in court but also in the period before, when the prosecutor should carefully assess and analyse the evidence and public interest – that process or adjudication must adhere to the principle of fairness.

    At times, the prosecutor’s compliance with this principle will undoubtedly prove to be challenging but the prosecutor, should always act independently and impartially.

    Independent, in the sense that a prosecutor should determine the merits of a prosecution solely on the basis of the law and available evidence.

    No prosecution should be brought so as to satisfy the political aims of a party or individual. Absent properly acquired, admissible and genuine evidence, no prosecution should ever be started. The law courts are not the forum for settling political rivalries nor should they be used as a convenient means of neutralising an opposition opponent. The selective application of justice can never be justified or appropriate.

    The prosecutor must be impartial and free of political taint. Reviewing a case, the prosecutor must be open minded and unbiased. Prosecutors should never allow their personal prejudices or partisan allegiances to influence their decision.

    The prospect of a promotion; the fear of demotion; the chance of an increased salary; the possibility of a reward for a decision convenient to a political master – the prosecutor should guard against any of these considerations influencing his decision.

    And a state, which truly respects the rule of law, will seek always to shield and protect the prosecutor from ever being subject to such improper pressures or blandishments. Establishing constitutional and legal protections for the prosecutor.

    When prosecuting a case the prosecutor should also consider the necessity to disclose material to a defendant which may be helpful to the defence or which potentially undermines the prosecution case. Save in exceptional circumstances, it can never be fair for the prosecutor in a criminal trial to withhold material which may exonerate or support a defendant. Nor, when deciding whether to bring a prosecution, should the prosecutor ignore such material. Impartiality demands that the prosecutor retains an open mind from start to finish.

    Fairness means fairness to all. Just as the prosecutor should have ample opportunity to present his case before an impartial tribunal, so too should the defendant be able to effectively rebut the prosecution case. To quote a phrase, there must be ‘equality of arms’.

    It simply cannot be right that the prosecution alone be allowed to present evidence. Nor can it ever be right that disputed evidence go unchallenged. Or that the tribunal of fact reaches a conclusion in advance or without having heard the evidence for both sides.

    A defendant must be given sufficient opportunity to prepare his case and to have it heard. Any system that convicts a defendant without allowing him these opportunities will be flawed and outside the rule of law.

    The prosecutor has a vital role in ensuring that from beginning to end the process is fair. No prosecutor should be party to a state orchestrated charade which shames and abuses the rule of law.

    That is the challenge presented by the rule of law.

    In saying these things, I am very mindful that it is easy to sound sanctimonious and critical of the systems of others and the challenges which they face. That is not my purpose in speaking so openly. Unless we as prosecutors are frank and honest with each other, speaking out against errors which we perceive and sharing best practice, what is the purpose of this conference?

    Indeed, it is because the UK has made many mistakes, and doubtless will continue to do so, that I feel confident in speaking frankly to you – and at all times as friends.

    The British system of law and government lays no special claim to infallibility or perfection. Our history is scattered with abuses of executive power and failures within the justice system.

    In the 1960s, Northern Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom where the political and legal systems were perceived as being skewed against the minority catholic population. The vital quality of fairness was missing and this fuelled resentment, anger and hatred.

    Where did this lead? To almost four decades of bloody conflict, instability and violence.

    The government reacted, usually from the best of motives, but all too frequently oppressively and in reality beyond the rule of law. There was, for example, imposed a system of internment – imprisonment without trial. This was a system perceived as biased, unfair and unjust. It further fuelled the anger and hatred and proved to a fertile breeding ground for terrorism and discontent.

    If you undermine or subvert the rule of law in the belief that by so doing you will protect your regime or system of government; you will ultimately prove to be the destroyer of all that you seek to preserve.

    Fortunately, British democracy has the ability to learn, adapt and amend. Condemned in the European courts, the subject of parliamentary and press criticism, slowly, often far too slowly, the inequalities and unfairness in Northern Ireland society were reduced or removed – lawfully and within the rule of law.

    As prosecutors, as lawyers, we need to be vigilant in guarding against the danger of providing a fig leaf of legal respectability to what in reality are oppressive, unfair and unjust systems of law and government. Devoid of the rule of law.

    I said at the start, the prosecutor can play a vital role in safeguarding the liberties and freedoms of his fellow citizen. When the echoes of discussion and analysis of this conference have faded, and you tread your weary way home, remember the real value and contribution which you can make to ensuring the rule of law is upheld.

    As prosecutors we must never lose sight of that truth – that is the challenge which we face.

  • Ed Davey – 2013 Speech on Myths and Realities of Shale Gas Exploration

    eddavey

    Below is the text of the speech made by Ed Davey, the then Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, at the Royal Society in London on 9 September 2013.

    Introduction

    It’s an honour to be here at the Royal Society today.

    For over 350 years, the Society has served the common good.

    Your Charter, updated and approved by the Queen just last year, tasks the Royal Society to ensure that the light of science and learning “shines conspicuously”.

    Not just amongst our own people – but the “length of the whole world”;

    To be a “patron of every kind of truth”.

    It is because of your rich history, your reputation for independence, your dedication to the scientific method, that people turn to the Royal Society for understanding when confronted with new and complex challenges.

    That is why last year, the Government’s former Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir John Beddington, asked the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, to review the scientific and engineering evidence on the advances being made in shale gas extraction.

    Specifically the technology of hydraulic fracturing – popularly known as fracking.

    And he asked you to make recommendations to ensure exploration in the UK could proceed safely and extraction be managed effectively;

    Recommendations based on the scientific evidence to ensure that the way forward is informed by fact and not by myth.

    On behalf of the Government, I accepted the recommendations of your report in full.

    And today I want to talk about the progress we’re making in implementing them.

    But I also want to take this opportunity to address other concerns that have been raised.

    And to set shale gas in the context of Britain’s overall energy strategy.

    The debate on shale gas

    There has been quite a debate on the future of shale gas this summer.

    And if you took at face value some of the claims made about fracking, such has been the exaggeration and misunderstanding, you would be forgiven for thinking that it represents a great evil;

    One of the gravest threats that has ever existed to the environment, to the health of our children and to the future of the planet.

    On the other side of the coin, you could have been led to believe that shale gas is the sole answer to all our energy problems;

    That we can turn our backs on developing renewables and nuclear, safe in the knowledge that shale gas will meet all our energy needs.

    Both of these positions are just plain wrong.

    I understand the concerns people have that shale gas extraction could be taken forward irresponsibly and without proper protections.

    And I stand shoulder to shoulder with those who want to tackle climate change;

    Just as I stand shoulder to shoulder with those who want to keep our homes warm and our businesses powered at a price people can afford.

    But our society is ill served when we allow myths to proliferate or when we allow debates to be hijacked by zealots or vested interests.

    So, today, I want to make the calm, rational, objective case for shale gas exploration in the UK in the light of the three equal and overarching objectives I have as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

    First, powering the country – keeping the lights on – planning properly to meet our future energy needs.

    Second, protecting the planet – cutting carbon emissions and preserving our environment – being responsible guardians of our children’s inheritance.

    And third – making sure the whole of society benefits from the exploitation of energy resources – revenues, growth and jobs – and, of course, affordable bills.

    My message to you today is this:

    UK shale gas can be developed sensibly and safely, protecting the local environment, with the right regulation.

    And we can meet our wider climate change targets at the same time, with the right policies in place.

    Gas, as the cleanest fossil fuel, is part of the answer to climate change, as a bridge in our transition to a green future, especially in our move away from coal.

    Gas will buy us the time we need over the coming decades to get enough low carbon technology up and running so we can power the country and keep cutting emissions.

    We have to face it: North Sea gas production is falling and we are become increasingly reliant on gas imports.

    So UK shale gas could increase our energy security by cutting those imports.

    Home-grown gas, just like home-grown renewables and new nuclear, also provides jobs for our people and tax revenues for our society.

    Taking all this together shale gas could have significant benefits.

    But – let me be equally clear – shale gas is no quick fix and no silver bullet.

    First, we must make sure that the rigorous regulation we are putting in place is followed to the letter, to protect the local environment.

    Second, we must pursue vigorously the development and deployment of mitigation and abatement technologies like carbon capture and storage, to protect the planet.

    And, third, frankly, we are at the very early stages of onshore shale gas exploration in the UK.

    We may have been fracking in Britain’s offshore waters for years.

    The US may have been fracking onshore for years.

    But in Britain, fracking for onshore gas in shale, at any significant scale, is something new.

    Nobody can say, for sure, how much onshore UK shale gas resource exists.

    Or how much of it can be commercially extracted.

    So let’s be cautious about hyperbole on shale.

    For it would likely be the 2020s before we might feel any benefits in full.

    So we can’t bank on shale gas to solve all our energy challenges, today or this decade.

    And in the next decade, shale, by itself, will not come close to solving even our basic energy resource security challenge.

    But the promising news is that UK shale gas could be a key and valuable resource as part of a more diverse energy mix – especially as the production of North Sea gas declines in the future.

    And it will do so alongside conventional gas, wind, wave, biomass, nuclear, carbon capture and storage – and all the other low carbon technologies that must contribute.

    We won’t know any of this for sure until proper exploration takes place.

    So it’s in the national interest to move on from the arguments of zealots and vested interests, and start a debate about how best to proceed safely with shale gas exploration, where we maximise the real positive benefits and minimise the inevitable negative impacts.

    And today I want to start that debate beginning with that first objective I set out, powering the country.

    And to do that, I have to tell the story of gas in Britain.

    We need gas

    Over the last 45 years, the extraction of both oil and gas from the North Sea has contributed around £300 billion in production taxes to the Treasury, with hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country.

    Today, our society annually consumes around 70 billion cubic metres of gas.

    Roughly a quarter of that is used to produce electricity.

    And nearly all of the rest is used for cooking our food and heating our buildings.

    And gas has advantages for those tasks: it is flexible and readily available.

    Gas is much better for the environment than coal when generating electricity, with half the carbon footprint.

    As our comprehensive 40 year Carbon Plan sets out – a plan that meets our ambitious climate change objectives – gas will continue to play a role right through to 2050.

    And over the next two decades or more, gas in the power sector will support our ability to reduce carbon emissions while we develop low carbon alternatives for electricity.

    For by 2030, none of Britain’s electricity must come from unabated coal – a dramatic shift.

    Instead, it must come from some mixture of renewable generation, nuclear and gas.

    In proportions decided in the world’s first low carbon electricity market this Coalition Government is establishing.

    But with gas-fuelled electricity predicted to have a significant market share.

    And if carbon capture and storage technology can be successfully deployed, gas will continue to play a major role in power generation into the 2030s and beyond.

    So Britain will continue to need gas.

    For power.

    For heating.

    And for cooking.

    But North Sea gas reserves are diminishing.

    We expect net North Sea gas production to fall from a peak of 108 billion cubic metres at the turn of the century to perhaps 19 billion cubic metres by 2030.

    We will miss that gas – and the tax revenues it brings.

    And the jobs – given the levels of employment supported today by offshore gas production.

    And less North Sea gas means greater reliance on imports.

    In 2003, we were a net exporter of gas.

    But by 2025 we expect to be importing close to 70% of the gas we consume.

    How we get gas matters.

    Energy security

    There is a big debate at the moment about Britain’s energy security.

    And like the shale gas debate it is characterised by myth and misinformation.

    Over the next 6 months, I intend to make a series of speeches that I hope will counter that – and reassure people that the problems the Coalition inherited on all aspects of energy security are being fully addressed.

    But for today, it’s important to realise that energy security has several aspects – from having sufficient electricity generation capacity to having the networks for delivering gas, electricity and transport fuel reliably across the country.

    The role of gas in the UK’s energy security story is in the energy resource piece.

    Can Britain be sure of our raw fuel supplies?

    And the good news is, our energy resource security is actually very robust.

    There have been no major interruptions to gas supplies in recent history.

    Partly, of course, because we have our own direct supplies currently – from the North Sea.

    But also because we have reliable conventional piped gas supplies from our friends in Norway and the Netherlands.

    And because the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) we import from Qatar and other suppliers has been dependable.

    Indeed, our capacity to import gas has increased five-fold in the past decade.

    So the UK has one of the largest and most liquid gas markets in Europe – giving us confidence about the short and medium term security of gas supply.

    But we cannot afford to be complacent.

    Global energy demand is already twice as high as it was 30 years ago.

    And the International Energy Agency estimates that it is set to grow by a third again by 2035.

    If we see rapid increases in global gas demand to which supply cannot react quickly. Or if we see disruptions in supply to which demand cannot react quickly, we will see price spikes and wider market instability.

    In 2005/6 for instance, the spike in UK gas prices can be partly attributed to a reduction in Russian supplies to Europe.

    Fears that a conflict in the Middle East would close the straits of Hormuz can also set the markets jittering.

    You only have to look at the effect of recent crises in Libya or Syria to understand how global events can impact on the markets.

    So our solutions to energy resource security have to be robust and lasting – looking out to 2050 and beyond – alongside our decarbonisation timescales in fact.

    For key to delivering energy security in the long-term is making sure we have a diverse energy mix, not over-reliant on any one source or fuel.

    And much, much less reliant on fossil fuels and imported fuels.

    That’s one of the many reasons I put such a great emphasis on renewable energy and energy efficiency investments as central to my energy strategy.

    By increasing indigenous, home-grown, energy production through renewables, new nuclear and lower carbon fossil fuels, and by using energy more wisely, we are seeking to cushion the country as far as possible from volatile global fuel prices.

    And onshore UK shale gas could play an important part in that strategy of planning, long term, for more home grown diversity.

    By advancing shale gas production in the UK we will achieve three things:

    First – we will displace a proportion of gas imports – increasing resilience and energy security.

    Second – there will be a benefit in terms of jobs, tax revenues and growth mitigating some of the falling revenues from the North Sea.

    Better those jobs and tax revenues are in the UK, rather than in the countries from which we import.

    And third – we control the production, so we control the carbon emissions created by production.

    Better those emissions are controlled within our rigorous carbon budgets system than in other countries where controls may be more lax.

    So let me turn to those environmental issues.

    Safe for the local environment

    Your Royal Society report published last year with the Royal Academy of Engineering demonstrated, that if regulated properly and with investment in safeguards, hydraulic fracturing can take place quite safely, without hurting the local environment.

    It will not contaminate water supplies.

    It will not cause dangerous earth quakes.

    We have a long, strong tradition of civil engineering and mineral and energy extraction.

    From coal in the 18th and 19th century.

    Oil and gas in the 20th.

    And renewables in the 21st.

    We are skilled, practised, and vastly experienced – with some of the tightest safety and environmental regulations in the world.

    But onshore shale gas exploration and production could genuinely become a significant new industry for the UK.

    So the same scientific rigour, methodical engineering, and stringent safeguards that have been applied elsewhere must be applied to shale.

    We must make sure that the recommendations the Royal Society made in your report are in place and the regulations we have imposed are followed to the letter.

    As you proposed, we have now set up the Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil to co-ordinate the cross-government work on shale gas:

    Planning regulations under the Department of Communities and Local Government;

    Environmental safeguarding carried out by the Environment Agency under DEFRA;

    And of course the licencing and consents procedure carried out by my Department.

    We have introduced the traffic light system you proposed to reduce the risk of seismic tremors.

    Environmental Risk Assessment Guidance will be published this autumn.

    And the Research Councils have agreed in principle to fund a joint responsible innovation study to consider further work.

    These may be early days for onshore shale gas exploration – but I’m determined we have tough regulations in place, from the start.

    The public rightly expect that.

    And then we will still need to continue to develop our systems as the industry evolves.

    The Environment Agency for example is considering the best way to ensure groundwater monitoring for when exploration takes off.

    We are looking at ways to pilot methane emissions monitoring with industry.

    And we are working to ensure there is a formal mechanism for operators to share information about any problems they are encountering and how they can be overcome.

    My Department met with the Royal Society recently to look at progress and we will continue to seek your advice.

    Meeting UK emissions targets

    But there has remained a gap in our knowledge in relation to the impact of UK shale gas extraction on greenhouse gas emissions.

    Today, I have published the report I commissioned in December last year from DECC’s Chief Scientist Professor David MacKay and Dr Timothy Stone into the carbon footprint of UK produced shale gas.

    I want to thank them publicly for that report.

    Their report concludes that with the right safeguards in place the net effect on national emission from UK shale gas production will be relatively small when compared to the use of other sources of gas.

    Indeed emissions from the production and transport of UK shale gas would likely be lower than the imported Liquefied Natural Gas that it would replace.

    The continued use of gas is perfectly consistent with our carbon budgets over the next couple of decades.

    If shale gas production does reach significant levels we will need to make extra efforts in other areas.

    Because by on-shoring production we will be on-shoring the emissions as well.

    And, as this report recommends, we will still need to put in place a range of mitigation and abatement techniques.

    I strongly welcome these very sensible recommendations and we will be responding positively and in detail shortly.

    But the report from Professor MacKay and Dr Stone puts another piece of the puzzle in place.

    It should help reassure environmentalists like myself, that we can safely pursue UK shale gas production and meet our national emissions reductions targets designed to help tackle climate change.

    Global emissions

    Of course, in terms of global emissions, the only way we are going to address the very real danger that rising global energy demand results in ever rising global carbon emissions is through a binding international agreement on how to tackle climate change.

    This has to stand at the centre of any climate change strategy.

    Climate change is the greatest long-term threat that humankind currently faces.

    A threat that is proven, growing and already impacting on the way we live.

    So it is right that we consider how the exploitation of new fossil fuel reserves will impact on this process.

    Would the imported LNG that UK shale gas is likely to replace just create extra emissions elsewhere?

    Or will it displace more damaging coal generation elsewhere?

    One of the unfortunate side effects of US shale gas production has been the dumping of US coal on international markets.

    But I believe that if we can encourage a global move from coal to gas, we will be doing the planet a favour.

    China has overtaken the US as the world’s biggest polluter, mainly because of the massive amounts of coal they burn.

    A Chinese switch from coal to gas – as is happening in the US – will make it easier to cut global emissions in the short and medium term, as the low-carbon revolution picks up pace.

    If shale gas can contribute to weaning the world off more damaging coal; then we should not fear it; from an environmental point of view we should welcome it.

    Let me be clear – here at home we must not and will not allow shale gas production to compromise our focus on boosting renewables, nuclear and other low carbon technologies.

    UK shale gas production must not be at the expense of our wider environmental aims – indeed, if done properly, it will support them.

    I am determined to make that happen.

    With the market reforms enacted by the Energy Bill currently going through Parliament, we can attract the investment we require to develop technologies across the mix we need – from wind to nuclear, shale gas to carbon capture and storage.

    As I have said, the future of gas in the long-term will rely on technology like carbon capture and storage.

    The UK Government is committed to CCS head, heart and wallet.

    We have selected the Peterhead project and the White Rose project chosen as preferred bidders under our £1bn commercialisation competition.

    And the £125m research and development programme is supporting 100 different projects testing knowledge in all areas of the CCS pipeline from technology to transportation to the supply chain.

    So I am excited by the prospect of Britain leading the world on carbon capture and storage, because cracking this technology and making it cost effective will open up a host of new options in tackling climate change.

    That is why we need to plan properly for our future.

    And that includes thinking about how we use the potential proceeds from shale gas.

    When North Sea oil and gas production was at its height, tax revenues were used for current spending and not reinvested.

    In contrast countries like Norway and countries in the Middle East have used oil and gas tax revenues to create sovereign wealth funds which invest for the future.

    If onshore shale gas production takes off; If our country gets another major fossil fuel tax revenue boost; I want us to be a country that invests for the future.

    A low carbon future.

    Using shale gas revenues.

    My party at its conference next Sunday will be discussing how we can best transition to a zero carbon Britain by 2050.

    One policy proposal before our party conference is that a Low Carbon Transition Fund is established from some of the tax revenues from any future shale gas production.

    I think that is absolutely the right thing to do.

    Shale gas production can and must be used to transition to a low carbon future.

    In this way the benefits of future shale gas production can be felt not just by this generation, but by future generations to.

    So let me now turn to the third of my objectives as Secretary of State – making sure the whole of our society benefits from the exploitation of energy resources.

    The future of UK Shale

    Here in the UK we are at the very early stages of shale gas exploration.

    The British Geological Survey is methodically investigating the geology.

    This is beginning to give us some idea of the size of the resource.

    The Bowland shale study suggests a large rock volume, potentially filled with some 37 trillion cubic metres of gas.

    But the geology also makes for challenging extraction.

    In some areas the shale is 10,000 feet thick.

    There is just no way of knowing how much gas can be physically extracted and how it will flow.

    And, crucially, there is no way of knowing how much can be extracted at a commercially viable rate.

    That is why we have put in place the right incentives for exploration to take place and for a domestic industry to develop so that we can make those judgements more clearly.

    But, let’s just look one possible scenario.

    In May, the Institute of Directors produced a report based on available evidence.

    They conclude that on a central estimate Britain’s shale gas production could potentially peak at around 32 billion cubic metres per year.

    The industry could support around 70,000 jobs directly, in the supply chain, and in the wider economy.

    Significant production could have a benign effect on wholesale prices.

    And that production would of course provide a net benefit to the Treasury in terms of revenues.

    It is plain common sense that we pursue the shale possibility if we can realise such benefits, without jeopardising our environment.

    So – is onshore shale gas Britain’s new North Sea?

    Well the 32 billion cubic metres a year of shale gas production estimated by the IOD would be less than a third of peak North Sea gas output.

    In reality it could be much more, I hope so.

    But it could also be much less.

    Regardless it would still be valuable – especially if we can keep the North Sea running longer – perhaps with more offshore fracking.

    Any shale gas tax revenues could offset some of the revenue reduction we are already seeing from our North Sea asset.

    Shale gas could displace some gas imports.

    But even with shale gas in full production, Britain is likely to remain significantly import dependent.

    So there will be a very real and tangible benefit from shale gas – but let us not get carried away.

    The basic fact is we just don’t know exactly what amounts of gas are under our feet and how much of that gas we can commercially and safely extract.

    And this is why we can’t quantify precisely the effect that UK shale gas production will have on UK prices.

    Prices

    It’s far from clear that UK shale gas production could ever replicate the price effects seen in the US.

    The situation is different here.

    We don’t have the wide open landscapes of Texas or Dakota.

    Just one of the areas producing shale gas in the United States – the so-called Marcellus Play – has a productive use of roughly 95,000 square miles.

    That is the same size as the whole of the United Kingdom.

    The Bowland Shale, the largest potential shale gas area in the UK, is just 500 square miles – almost 200 times smaller.

    Of course this is just a two dimensional example, but it gives you a sense of scale.

    And it’s not just the geology, or the population density, or the environmental regulations or the planning laws that are different.

    The US has a closed gas market – massive increases in supply naturally affect prices.

    We are part of the European market.

    We source energy from far and wide.

    And we compete against others for the supply.

    And gas produced in the UK is sold into this market.

    When UK gas production in the North Sea was at its highest earlier this decade, UK and continental gas prices were still closely linked and fairly similar.

    North Sea Gas didn’t significantly move UK prices – so we can’t expect UK shale production alone to have any effect.

    But given there are plenty of demand side upward pressures on gas prices, as we’ve seen so painfully in recent years, shale gas is well worth pursuing simply to have more supplyside downward pressures on prices.

    For if Britain can lead in Europe and can show a lead on how shale can be done safely, and as part of a complete shift away from coal, shale gas production might take off not just in the UK but across Europe.

    This would reduce the dependency of Europe as a whole on gas imports.

    And with huge Europe-wide shale gas production boosting supply, markets might really be impressed.

    Then we might see downward pressures on gas prices strong enough to offset fast rising demand.

    And frankly after wholesale gas price rises of 50% in the last 5 years – the key and overriding reason behind today’s high energy bills in Britain – any downward pressure that can be exerted on prices will be welcomed by consumers and industry alike.

    Conclusion

    So, ladies and gentlemen,

    The reality is shale gas has a role to play in meeting all the objectives I have set out – keeping the lights on, tackling climate change, and helping keep energy affordable and the economy moving.

    On all these fronts – especially energy security – shale represents an exciting prospect.

    Even if the potential benefits are some way off.

    Even if shale gas is not the new North Sea.

    It is a national opportunity.

    An opportunity it would be foolish to turn away from.

    An opportunity for a home-grown energy resource that boosts security.

    An opportunity for investment, jobs and tax revenues.

    The bottom line is we are going to need gas supplies for many decades to come as we move to the zero carbon Britain I’d like to see.

    As a bridge to that future, shale gas can help the UK, and other countries, transition to the low carbon energy system that we need if we are to limit climate change.

    On this crowded island, our communities matter, our environment matters.

    Energy production of all types has to be safe and an accepted part of the landscape.

    Exploration, development and production all need to be handled correctly.

    And that is what we are doing.

    Shale gas will be developed responsibly.

    Britain can lead the way.

    We have the skills and expertise to lead in Europe – showing others how it can be done – protecting the environment not wrecking it.

    And you at the Royal Society have helped to show us the way.

    Here at the Royal Society, in 1988, a seminal speech was made by a seminal British Prime Minister.

    Even though action to tackle carbon emissions may involve up-front costs, she argued:

    “I believe it to be money well and necessarily spent because the health of the economy and the health of our environment are totally dependent upon each other.”

    By embracing the concept of green growth, Margaret Thatcher showed a lead not just to her party, not just to the country, but to the world.

    This Coalition Government agrees.

    And our approach to shale gas will meet these twin responsibilities – to the economy and to the environment.

  • Baroness Verma – 2013 Speech on Empowering Women

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Baroness Verma, the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, in Hyderabad, India on 6 September 2013.

    Good Morning. I would like to thank the VC and faculty members of NALSAR for extending me a very warm welcome. I am, of course, delighted to be here. The UK government is committed to broadening, deepening and strengthening our partnerships on education. That means building stronger and deeper links between the best institutions in India, like this one, and the best institutions in the UK, and encouraging the brightest students to study in the UK. I was pleased to hear from your Vice Chancellor that NALSAR already has several collaborations with UK universities- I am certain that this will only deepen with the presence of the British Deputy High Commission here.

    The UK India Education and Research Initiative has supported over 1,000 partnerships between UK and Indian institutions. Last year we saw over 150 institutions undertaking joint research and programme delivery, including research partnerships, study missions, staff and student exchanges, policy dialogues and networking events. I know that NALSAR has worked closely with UKIERI through the Higher Education Leadership Development Programme and I am certain that we can deepen that collaboration in the future.

    Today I want to take this opportunity to address three key issues:

    – The double challenge of climate change and population growth;

    – The importance of resource efficiency to global competitiveness and economically resilience; and

    – The need to involve women and all parts of society in decision making around economic development and future energy generation

    On the first of these – climate change – this is one of the greatest challenges facing the world today. Earlier this year, carbon dioxide briefly reached 400 parts per million in the atmosphere – 40% higher than before the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century and most likely higher than at any point in the last 3 million years.

    Extreme weather events, such as the devastating floods in Uttarakhand earlier this year, are happening with increasing frequency. Global weather patterns, including the Indian monsoon, are changing in ways we cannot confidently predict.

    The scientific evidence is solid and accepted by pretty much every government on earth. If we are to prevent the most devastating impacts of climate change, if we are to keep global temperature rises to below 2°C, we need to lower emissions of greenhouse gases on a global scale – effectively decarbonising the way our societies function.

    And we need to do this at a time when we are living through an age of global growth and development. The UN estimates that by 2040, the world’s population is likely to be around nine billion people. India, currently home to 1.25 billion people, will soon have the largest population in the world. By 2040, India’s population could be approaching 1.6 billion.

    The good news is that more and more people will enter the middle class. This means that more Indians than ever before will be able to afford air conditioners, televisions, computers, motorbikes and cars. This rise in prosperity is a colossal achievement;lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, improving the welfare and life opportunities of a whole generation,is a wonderful thing and should be celebrated.

    At the same time, it also presents a challenge. How to provide the increased energy required by a growing and prospering India, without gambling with the lives and livelihoods of millions of people by increasing the risks of the most severe impacts of climate change.

    There are those that say you can’t address both: that it is a myth. That it can’t be done. They say that reducing emissions means limiting economic growth. That caring for the environment means leaving millions in poverty. That resource-efficiency means having to limit the aspirations of hundreds of millions of young people. That a green economy is a brake on competitiveness for India as a whole.

    That view is out of date.

    Which brings me to my second issue – the importance of resource efficiency. In the twenty first century resource efficiency is not an optional extra for businesses, but an indispensable part of being globally competitive and economically resilient. Not only can genuinely sustainable development be affordable. If done right, it can actually compete – and win – against the old economy alternative.

    In addition, by becoming more energy efficient, and using more indigenous renewable energy, countries which are net importers of energy, such as the UK and India, can potentially reduce their reliance on imports and volatile global energy markets.

    To give just one example, in the UK we have ambitious plans to roll out smart meters to every household. These communicate electricity use by households to the supplier on a real time basis and will allow households to manage their electricity use more effectively, for example taking advantage of lower electricity prices at different times of day, or even sell power back to the grid. It will spur a whole new market for energy efficient appliances, technologies and business models to take advantage of the new, ‘smart’, grid.

    The Indian government and Indian businesses also understand that efficient low-carbon development can be the foundation of a successful globally-competitive economy. Your government has developed and implemented a host of policies which tackle this challenge head on:

    The National Action Plan on Climate Change, with its missions on solar power and energy efficiency;

    State action plans on climate change, which mandate action at the state level,

    And a host of other policies and initiatives around renewable energy, off-grid clean energy, smart grids and new technologies.
    And Indian businesses have understood this for years. It is the essence of the Indian tradition of ‘frugal development’ which makes some Indian industries amongst the most resource efficient in the world.

    In the UK we have made a commitment to cut carbon emissions by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. And we have made this commitment legally binding through the 2008 Climate Change Act – the first comprehensive economy-wide climate legislation of its kind.

    I want to take this opportunity, given I am standing in front of a room full of people who know a lot about the law, to encourage you to think about the importance of legislation in this whole equation. In the UK, we couldn’t have come so far without the political consensus embodied in the Climate Change Act. It changed the nature of the whole domestic debate: from should we tackle climate change to how and in what sequence we should tackle it. It has given industry and policy-makers the certainty to make medium and long term decisions.

    GLOBE – the UK-based international NGO which works on climate change legislation – publishes a study every year, setting out different legislation across their member countries. This year it looks at 33 countries – India and the UK included. I will share a copy with Professor (Dr) Faizan Mustafa, Vice Chancellor.

    I know that the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly is also taking a real interest in this issue. The Deputy High Commission team is working closely with the Speaker of the Assembly and the Assembly’s environmental committee to share our own experience. So I would urge you here at state and national level to give real thought to how you can use such legislation to back up your own actions to tackle climate change.

    Now, back to the UK’s own legislation.To achieve the 80% target we have committed to internationally, we have been taking action on three fronts: saving energy; reforming our electricity market; and encouraging new solutions.

    We plan to cut our energy use by between a third and half by 2050 – much of which will be achieved through improved building efficiency. Later today I am visiting the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Green Business Centre, which is housed in a green building, which, in 2003 was first building outside the US and only the third in the world, to receive the prestigious Platinum Rating for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Quite possibly some of the design innovations and technologies I will see could be used to help improve energy efficiency in buildings in the UK.

    The UK’s Energy Bill, which is currently going through parliament, will also provide a competitive energy market where low-carbon technologies participate on a level playing field.

    And finally, we are investing in research and development both in the UK, and in research partnerships with countries like India. UK-India research collaboration has grown from £1 million in 2008 to over £100 million now. Much of this research is in the energy field, in sectors like sustainable bioenergy, solar and nuclear power and smart grids and energy storage. Because, quite simply, the UK won’t meet its low carbon targets with current technologies at current costs.

    All well and good, but, to my third issue,what has the global challenge of climate change got to do with empowering women?

    For a start, both are amongst the top priorities of the UK Government.

    Indeed, British Prime Minister David Cameron not only committed to making his administration the “greenest government ever” but has also committed to building a fair and equal society.

    The well-being of women and children has been placed at the centre of the UK Government’s international aid policy.

    In 2010 we published the first ever UK Equality Strategy which gives a commitment to building a strong economy and a fairer society.We have established the Women’s Business Council to ensure that the government gets the best advice on how to ensure that women can fulfill their full potential and also achieve economic growth.

    But more needs to be done, in the UK, and in India. Not only is it morally right to give women the same opportunities as men in order to fulfill their potential – but it is also economically smart. As Prime Minster David Cameron, has said, “where the potential and perspective of women are locked out of the decisions that shape a society, that society remains stunted and underachieving”.

    Decisions about how our economies develop and how we generate the energy to support them are among the decisions that shape our society. And the fact is that all too often women are locked out of those decisions.

    Worldwide the energy sector workforce is overwhelmingly male dominated. In the UK, the proportion of women in the energy sector workforce is approximately 23%, compared to 50% across the workforce as a whole. The gender divide is even more pronounced in the upstream oil and gas sector.

    I spoke to a range of impressive senior women working in the energy and climate change space in Delhi on Thursday evening. They confirmed that they too face many of these issues here in India.

    We have some shining examples of female leaders in the energy sector in the UK, such as Juliet Davenport the CEO of Good Energy, a renewable electricity supplier, Ann Robinson Director of USwitch, a consumer group, and Sarah Butler-Sloss, Founder Director of the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, a charity encouraging increased local sustainable energy. But unfortunately they are still the exception.

    Why does this matter?

    It matters because if we are to successfully tackle the challenges I have outlined above, we need to ensure we use all tools at our disposal. Encouraging more women into the energy sector will bring fresh perspectives, talent, better decisions and broader experience.

    But it’s not just about bringing more women into energy sector workplaces. It is also about how changes in the energy sector can actually help empower women.

    3 billion people around the world have no access to modern cooking fuels. They depend mostly on direct burning of solid biomass such as wood and animal dung for cooking and heating. The smoke from these rudimentary stoves cause about 4 million deaths annually, destroy millions of tonnes of crops and also lead to global warming and large scale regional climate change.

    Women and children, particularly girls, are disproportionately affected by the indoor air pollution caused by the stoves. They also bear the burden of drudgery collecting fuel, a task which can often take 4-5 hours a day – time which could otherwise be spent on educational, economic and other opportunities.

    The Indian government is taking action. The National Biomass Cookstoves Initiative (NBCI) was launched by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in December 2009 to provide improved cookstoves which directly address health concerns and welfare concerns of the weakest and most vulnerable sections of society.

    The UK’s Department for International Development is working with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

    The aim of the TERI project is to have improved cookstoves delivered and being used by 100,000 households, and to have created Technology Resource Centres serving an estimated 400,000 households adopting solar lighting systems in India. As a result, a total of 500,000 poor women will benefit from lower health risks from indoor air pollution and reduced drudgery, and 2.5 million people will benefit from new or sustained access to modern, clean energy either for cooking or lighting needs. In addition, TERI plans to contribute new research and evidence to national or state-level policies in the area of sustainable development.

    As part of the project TERI works closely with women both in their capacity as direct beneficiaries and, by developing new, sustainable business models, as economic actors in the supply chain. TERI has incubated women’s organisations as Energy Enterprises which provide after sales services for the cookstoves. It is also helping women to start up sustainable businesses by providing support to them to open bank accounts and providing training in social marketing and technical servicing.

    Similarly, women candidates are given priority for selection as village level entrepreneurs under TERI’s Lighting a Billion Lives programme – which supports the establishment of micro solar enterprises to provide high-quality and cost effective solar lamps in un-electrified or poorly electrified villages.

    This is not about hand outs. It is about supporting the development of sustainable business models that empower women and provide clean energy and lighting.

    And it works. In Uttar Pradesh, more than 175 solar charging stations are now being operated by women entrepreneurs. 100 are operated and maintained by women self-help groups, while 75 are operated by further marginalized sections of the society such as handicapped women, widows and dalits. In Bihar, TERI has created energy enterprises to extend after sales service to more than 1,000 women self-help groups.

    Earlier this week I visited some of those villages in UP where TERI has been working. I was able to see some remarkable women entrepreneurs who have transformed their lives by developing successful and sustainable business models in the energy sector.

    I was struck by the enormous the impact such simple yet innovative technologies and business models can have on the lives of the women using them, and their families. But there is still scope for even more innovation here – particularly around how to develop the financial products and legal frameworks to help women access very small scale financing needed to adopt these products.

    So it’s not all just about the engineering. You lawyers have a role to play here too.

    We know that when a woman generates her own income she re-invests 90% of it in her family and community. And we know that in India, the states with more women in work have seen faster economic growth and the largest reductions in poverty. So empowering women economically makes sense for both local communities and national economies.

    It is also essential if we are going to tackle the challenge of powering the economies of the future in a sustainable way. We simply can’t afford to overlook half the population as we search for solutions. We need more women in the energy business. In order to achieve this we need to provide them with access to finance, technology, and quality education and training.

    So, in conclusion, I have talked about the twin challenges of climate change and population growth. I have also discussed why resource efficiency is not only key to tackling these challenges, but is also central to global competitiveness and economically resilience.

    Finally, I highlighted the need to involve women in the decision making process. Because if we fail to, not only will be perpetuating a system that is inherently unfair and wrong, we will also be missing out on the new ideas, fresh perspectives and entrepreneurial talents of half of society. By doing so, we would make tackling the climate change and energy challenge a lot harder.

    I will conclude with one question to you- once you have left this room, what is the one thing that you will do to address these issues that I have outlined to you- what is the one thing that will do to make this world a better place for your future generations?

    Thank you.

  • George Osborne – 2013 Keynote Speech on the Economy

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    Below is the text of the speech made by George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 9 September 2013.

    Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

    Today I want to talk to you about this government’s plan for economic recovery.

    Now, you’re probably thinking that a construction site is a strange place to make a speech.

    But I’ve invited you here for a reason.

    This development – 1 Commercial Street – began in 2007.

    The plan was to turn this building into 21 floors of office space, private apartments and affordable housing.

    Construction began; and continued at a pace.

    Until in 2008 the work simply stopped.

    Investors pulled out.

    Jobs were lost.

    And the site lay silent for three years.

    But last year, something exciting happened.

    Construction began again.

    Today, 230 people are working here at 1 Commercial Street to complete the development – and it will open its doors next year.

    I’ve brought you here because this building is a physical reminder of what our economy has been through in the last six years.

    The message from here to the British people is this.

    The economic collapse was even worse than we thought.

    Repairing it will take even longer than we hoped.

    But we held our nerve when many told us to abandon our plan.

    And as a result, thanks to the efforts and sacrifices of the British people, Britain is turning a corner.

    Many risks remain. These are still the early stages of recovery.

    But we mustn’t go back to square one.

    We mustn’t lose what the British people have achieved.

    This is a hard, difficult road we have been following.

    But it is the only way to deliver a sustained, lasting improvement in the living standards of the families of this country.

    For I’m going to make another argument today: you don’t solve the pressure on cost of living with simply a shopping list of interventions and government regulation.

    Of course, there are important improvements we can make to the scale of energy and water bills, the cost of housing, the fees paid for everyday financial services, the expense of rail and road travel.

    These are a burden on families – and we are doing everything we can do to reduce their cost – with more to come this autumn.

    We know every penny counts for hardworking people.

    But by themselves these changes don’t amount to an economic policy.

    And to focus exclusively on these things alone, important as they are, is to miss the wood for the trees.

    I know that times are tough and that family budgets are squeezed.

    But fundamentally, Britain is poorer than it was not because government didn’t intervene enough, or rail regulation wasn’t tough enough, or rental policies weren’t fair enough.

    Britain is poorer because of a massive failure of economic policy in the last decade.

    Jobs were lost. Unaffordable public spending had to be reined back. A flawed model of growth had to be reformed. Unregulated banks had to be rescued. That is why living standards fell.

    The best way to improve living standards is to tackle these deep economic problems head on and build an economy where those who aspire to work hard and do the right thing are rewarded.

    More good jobs. Tax free childcare. Low mortgage rates. More of your income tax free.

    Our plan for the economy is a plan for living standards.

    The alternative plan still being presented is a return to higher borrowing, more debt, more instability, lost jobs, rising interest rates and higher taxes.

    These will all add hugely to the cost of living.

    And that we know from bitter experience will make our nation poorer not richer.

    Today I want to look at the economic evidence behind all these arguments.

    First, let’s look at what the latest data tells us about the scale of what happened to the British economy in 2008, and the macro-economic imbalances and underlying structural weaknesses that left Britain so vulnerable.

    Second, the plan we have robustly pursued since 2010 is designed to address those imbalances and deeper problems in order to move from rescue to recovery. So let’s assess the growing body of evidence that shows it is working.

    Third, I will show you how our economic plan will help avoid the mistakes of the past in this new recovery phase.

    We must reject the old quick fixes that lie behind so many of our problems and hold to the course we have set.

    That is the only sustainable path to prosperity, rising living standards and a recovery that works for all.

    First, the past.

    It is not for nothing that the new Governor of the Bank of England and many other economists now describe the period of economic contraction in 2008-9 as the Great Recession.

    The same recent revisions to GDP data that showed there was in fact no ‘double dip’ also revealed that the impact of that Great Recession was greater even than we thought three years ago.

    GDP fell by 7.2% from peak to trough.

    That is almost twice as deep as the recession experienced by the United States; three times as deep as that experienced by Britain in the early 1990s.

    The immediate impact of the crisis is now a familiar story: the banking system almost collapsed, unemployment rose; and the budget deficit soared.

    The currency depreciated dramatically, leading to a sharp rise in the cost of imports and putting downwards pressure on household incomes that is still being felt today.

    What happened in Britain was the product of a pattern of economic development that had been fundamentally unbalanced and unsustainable for many years.

    The bailout of RBS was the biggest in the world because British banks had been allowed to become among the most leveraged and unstable in the world.

    The banks reflected an economy that had become, on some estimates, the most indebted in the world – with total private sector debt reaching 470% of GDP by the beginning of 2010.

    And the soaring budget deficit had its roots in an unsustainable increase in public spending in the eight years before the crisis – the second most rapid increase in spending as a share of GDP of all OECD countries.

    As a result the government ran rising deficits even at the peak of the boom and entered the crisis with a structural deficit that the IMF estimates was more than 5% of GDP, the highest in the G7.

    At the time most economists took a narrow view of sustainable growth: if inflation was low, and unemployment was close to its so-called ‘natural’ rate, then that was deemed to be enough.

    Clearly that was a huge mistake.

    We now know that truly sustainable growth also depends on sound public finances, well capitalized banks, healthy balance sheets, and a system of financial regulation that is alert to broader risks to the economy like asset bubbles and excessive debt.

    The pre-crisis British economy was also unbalanced in other important ways.

    Deep-rooted and long standing structural problems in our economy that had been masked by the great tide of debt were harshly exposed when the tide receded.

    Growth had been too concentrated in one corner of the country while many other parts of Britain fell behind and became increasingly dependent on unsustainable levels of public spending.

    Too many people remained trapped in dependency by an unreformed welfare and education system.

    There is a focus today on the issue of household income growth.

    What is less recognized is that household income growth had started to slow sharply from the early 2000s.

    Annual growth in household disposable income more than halved from 3.6% on average over the five years before 2003, to an average of 1.7% in the five years after that.

    The proceeds of unprecedented global prosperity and rising trade were not finding their ways into the pockets of British families.

    Government borrowing to fund ever rising welfare transfers like tax credits – accompanied by the increase in household indebtedness – obscured this simple fact: Britain was not earning its way in the world.

    As Raghuram Rajan – now the new Governor of the Reserve Bank of India – has compellingly written, stagnant incomes and declining productivity growth helped to fuel the bubble, as both households and the government used ever increasing levels of debt to maintain even more unsustainable levels of spending.

    So these underlying structural weaknesses and our huge macroeconomic imbalances were intimately linked.

    That is why the solution to the economic crisis the new British government faced in 2010 needed to confront both.

    That brings me to my second argument: our economic plan is the right response to Britain’s macroeconomic imbalances and the evidence shows that it is working.

    As I have argued for more than five years now, the correct macroeconomic response to the perilous economic situation in which the UK found itself in 2010 is a combination of fiscal responsibility and monetary activism.

    Fiscal responsibility to deal with a record budget deficit over a period of several years; monetary activism to manage the process of deleveraging and support demand.

    Some still question whether the government’s macroeconomic response was correct – whether we were right to hold to our economic plan.

    The headline facts are not in dispute.

    We know that recoveries after a financial crisis have historically been slower than other recoveries. But growth has been weaker than originally forecast.

    Since the end of the recession the UK has grown by 4.3%, less than the US but more than the eurozone.

    At the same time the labour market has performed much better than expected.

    Employment has grown extremely strongly – more so than even the most optimistic forecasts, with over 1.3 million net new jobs created in the last three years.

    Indeed, employment is now above its pre-recession peak in the UK.

    That is not the case in the United States.

    The difference is not simply down to growth in the labour force: our employment rate is above the US and has grown more quickly.

    Particularly striking in comparing the UK and US experience is the different trends in working age inactivity – historically an Achilles Heel for the UK after previous recessions.

    Since the crisis the working age inactivity rate in the UK has actually fallen by almost a percentage point to 23.5%, while in the US it has risen by over two percentage points to 27%.

    Our unemployment rate would now be almost half what it is today if participation in the labour force had shrunk to the same degree as in America.

    These are the facts.

    The controversy has been why GDP growth has been weaker than originally forecast.

    Broadly there have been two competing analyses.

    The first is a simple – some would say simplistic – story that lays the blame mainly or sometimes entirely on fiscal consolidation.

    Let’s call this the ‘fiscalist’ story of the last three years – and it was advanced by advocates of a so-called Plan B.

    This argument claims that with interest rates at their lower bound, the fiscal multipliers – the impact of spending cuts and tax rises on output – have been much higher than anticipated, and the resulting impact of the consolidation on GDP growth far greater than forecast.

    The second analysis is put forward by many independent economists, including those who support our economic plan, the so-called Plan A.

    This analysis is that fiscal consolidation has not had any greater impact than originally allowed for in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s June 2010 forecasts.

    Instead, the composition and timing of the slowdown in GDP growth relative to forecast is better explained by external inflation shocks, the eurozone crisis and the ongoing impact of the financial crisis on financial conditions.

    This analysis – let’s call it the ‘financial conditions’ story of the last three years – has been set out in its most detailed form by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility in their Forecast Evaluation Reports.

    As they put it, they are “still not persuaded” that the multipliers in the UK have been bigger than their original estimates.

    In my view the last few months have decisively ended this controversy in favour of this ‘financial conditions/ story of the last three years.

    Those in favour of a Plan B have lost the argument.

    The reason is simple: proponents of the ‘fiscalist’ story cannot explain why the UK recovery has strengthened rapidly over the last six months.

    The pace of fiscal consolidation has not changed, government spending cuts have continued as planned, and yet growth has accelerated and many of the leading economic indicators show activity rising faster than at any time since the 1990s.

    If the fiscal multipliers were much higher than the OBR estimates, as the fiscalist story requires, this should not be possible.

    Indeed, proponents of the fiscalist analysis predicted that stronger growth would only return if the government changed course and reduced the structural pace of consolidation.

    In contrast, an analysis of the last three years that attributes weaker growth to the inflation shocks, the eurozone crisis and the resulting impact on financial conditions finds the latest better economic data straightforward to explain.

    The initial impact of the commodity price shock at the end of 2010 has worked its way through the economy.

    The eurozone crisis that began in 2010 and intensified in the summer of 2011 has finally abated following the ECB’s decisive intervention last summer.

    That has removed the enormous tail risks that have been holding back investment and dampening consumption.

    And the government’s continued fiscal credibility has allowed the UK authorities to pursue a strategy of monetary activism with schemes such as Funding for Lending that have supported a dramatic improvement in financial conditions.

    Should we be surprised that the evidence does not support a story of the last few years based on higher fiscal multipliers in the UK?

    No – economic theory and academic evidence both suggest that multipliers are likely to be relatively low in an open economy with a floating exchange rate and independent monetary policy like the UK.

    Recent empirical studies – including several by IMF economists – that allow for multipliers to vary across countries have overwhelming found exactly this result.

    The truth is that the UK’s pace of fiscal consolidation, at around 1% of GDP per annum, is line with the G7 and G20 average and the IMF’s guidance for developed economies.

    What does set the UK apart from many countries is that we set out a clear plan early on.

    It was a detailed, multi-year plan. We legislated for it and we’ve stuck to it.

    The bulk of the consolidation has come from permanent reductions in spending on items like welfare entitlements.

    And the whole credibility of the plan has been buttressed by the creation of an independent Office for Budget Responsibility.

    The resolution of this debate is not simply an intellectual battle over recent history – it matters hugely for the future of the UK economy.

    At times over the last three years the political pressure to change course has been intense – despite solid support from the business world and many in the economics profession.

    Plan B would have risked higher interest rates as the UK became sucked into the eurozone sovereign debt crisis on our doorstep – and would have left us much more vulnerable had the euro crisis got even worse.

    It would have undermined our ability to pursue an activist monetary policy.

    Our recovery from the Great Recession would have been undermined, not strengthened.

    The impact on living standards would have been much harsher.

    So the evidence increasingly suggests that our macroeconomic plan was the right one and is working.

    Amazingly, even with the evidence we now have, there are still those calling for the government to abandon its economic plan in order to spend and borrow more.

    But to do so would be disastrous.

    The risks from unsustainable debt in our world may have abated, but they have not disappeared.

    For the UK now to set out to deliberately increase it’s budget deficit would be a signal to investors that we had abandoned discipline, at the very moment when we are turning a corner.

    We would be back to square one.

    I say this again because it is the biggest threat today to the British economy.

    Those still calling for more borrowing and more debt in spite of all the evidence want to put low mortgage rates and jobs at risk.

    The impact on living standards would be severe.

    Just as our economy recovers and the British people’s efforts start to pay off – now is not the time to put all that at risk.

    And I will not do that to this country.

    This building illustrates the story of our economy.

    The structure is built. The walls have gone up.

    So too with our economic plan. We have laid the foundations. We have built on top of them. But we cannot stop now.

    We have got to finish the job.

    And we will.

    For my third argument today is this: our economic plan will help avoid the mistakes of the past in this new recovery phase, and it will build a stronger economy for the future.

    The only sustainable path to prosperity is to reject the old quick fixes and stick to the course we have set.

    The main external risks we face today are these: the slowdown in emerging markets; the possibility of further turbulence in the Eurozone; and the risk that instability in the Middle East will push up oil prices.

    We remain vigilant on all fronts, and our economic plan gives us the resilience and stability we would need if any of these risks were to materialise.

    But we must be just as vigilant for any home-grown risks that could undermine a sustainable recovery.

    For macroeconomic policy this means three things: avoiding an unintentional and premature tightening of financial conditions; using the Financial Policy Committee and our new system of financial regulation to avoid the mistakes of the past; and staying the course with our deficit reduction plan.

    For microeconomic policy, not repeating the mistakes of the past means following through with our far-reaching economic reforms in order to raise living standards in a sustainable way.

    Let me briefly cover each in turn.

    I said at the Mansion House speech in June that “a steady rise in bond yields across the largest developed countries will be a sign of confidence returning” and so it has been.

    But I also warned of the dangers of market instability and said that forward guidance under our new MPC remit could be a useful tool to manage expectations as the economy recovered.

    Some have interpreted more recent increases in gilt yields as a sign that forward guidance has somehow failed, but that is, I believe, a misunderstanding.

    I’d argue that market movements since the August Inflation Report vindicate the need for forward guidance: the counterfactual would have been even bigger increases in yields in response to positive economic data.

    And the evidence suggests that forward guidance is succeeding in changing expectations in the real economy: the Bank of England’s Inflation Attitudes Survey shows a marked fall in the proportion of people expecting interest rates to rise over the next year.

    Of course, just as an inadvertent and early tightening of monetary policy would be a mistake, so would leaving it too late to take away the punchbowl further down the track.

    Our new regulatory system is designed to avoid precisely that age old error.

    We’ve put the Bank of England back in charge of bank supervision, and created a new Financial Policy Committee to spot economy-wide risks to financial stability and act before they crystallise. Much current debate is focused on whether the UK is returning to the bad old ways of debt fuelled, consumption-led growth.

    Many of those who previously claimed growth would not return have switched their argument in the face of the inconvenient economic data.

    They now argue that we are seeing the “wrong sort of growth.”

    But a close look at the data doesn’t support this argument.

    Consider the facts.

    Business surveys suggest growth is balanced across all sectors of the economy, including manufacturing as well as services and construction.

    Consumer spending accounted for less than half the rise in GDP over the first half of this year.

    Net exports contributed more than twice as much as that. And investment is picking up.

    The government’s economic plan supports this through a combination of aggressive export promotion and a highly competitive business tax regime.

    We will go on supporting both through this next phase.

    Nor are we seeing a return to unsustainable levels of indebtedness and household borrowing, as some claim.

    Total private sector debt has fallen by almost 40% of GDP since its peak in the first quarter of 2010.

    The ratio of household debt to incomes has fallen too, unwinding all of the increase seen during the credit boom of 2004 to 2008.

    And as Mark Carney said at the August Inflation Report, forecast consumption growth is “broadly in line with income growth”, not driven by rising debt.

    Some have questioned whether new risks are emerging in the housing market.

    This debate would benefit from a little less assertion and a little more examination of the evidence.

    House prices are down a quarter from their peak in real terms, and relative to earnings they are back at 2003 levels.

    Mortgage approvals are running at only a little more than half, and transactions a little more than two-thirds, of pre-crisis levels.

    That is why the government’s Help to Buy scheme is a sensible, time-limited and necessary financial intervention to fix a specific financial problem: the dramatic reduction in the availability of high loan-to-value mortgages.

    The median LTV for first time buyers has fallen from a long term average of 90% to just 80% now.

    This change is not something we should welcome, it is both a market failure and a social problem – imagine if you’d had to find twice as big a deposit for your first home.

    90% and 95% LTV mortgages are not exotic weapons of financial mass destruction – they are a regular part of a healthy mortgage market and an aspirational society.

    And, importantly, Help to Buy mortgages will all be repayment mortgages, not interest only mortgages, so borrowers will rapidly build up a larger equity buffer within just a few years even in the absence of any house price growth.

    Some claim that Help to Buy will boost demand but not supply, but again the evidence suggests otherwise.

    Not only are the government’s planning reforms already increasing the flow of new planning permissions, but the lack of mortgage availability at higher loan to value ratios has itself been one of the biggest factors holding back the supply of new housing.

    That’s why a report last week by former MPC member Charles Goodhart, now at Morgan Stanley, estimated that Help to Buy could increase housing starts by more than 30% between 2012 and 2015.

    So the evidence suggests tentative signs of a balanced, broad based and sustainable recovery, but we cannot take this for granted.

    The Financial Policy Committee and the Bank of England have made clear that they have the will and the means to act if necessary, with new macro-prudential tools that can target specific areas of the economy where imbalances are emerging.

    If that happens they will need resolve and determination to take the right decisions, and it is only when those tools are required that will we see quite what an important innovation this new framework is.

    For the government’s part, the same resolve and determination will apply to our deficit reduction plan.

    With the successful conclusion of the Spending Round we have now set out detailed plans that started in 2010 and extend to April 2016.

    Even if the improving economic news eventually leads to an improvement in the fiscal outlook, the job will not be done.

    More tough choices will be required after the next election to find many billions of further savings and anyone who thinks those decisions can be ducked is not fit for government.

    So whether it’s avoiding an inadvertent tightening of monetary policy, not repeating the debt-fuelled mistakes of the past, or sticking to the necessary fiscal consolidation, our macroeconomic plan will support the emerging recovery.

    For microeconomic policy, the priority must be following through with our far-reaching economic reforms in order to raise living standards in a sustainable way.

    As the evidence builds in favour of the government’s economic plan, many of our opponents are now shifting the focus of their criticism to the ongoing pressure on the cost of living.

    Families have had a difficult time making ends meet thanks to what happened to our economy.

    But this is not some separate issue – it is inextricably linked to the core arguments about the economy and the governments economic plan.

    Our economic plan is the only sustainable way to raise living standards.

    For a start, the most powerful tools that we have to protect living standards as our economy recovers are low mortgage rates and low taxes, and we’re delivering both.

    The falls in mortgage rates that our plan has delivered are worth £2,000 a year to a family taking out a standard fixed-rate mortgage of £100,000.

    Our record increases in the personal allowance have already saved a basic rate taxpayer £600 a year, rising to £700 a year by next year.

    We’ve used billions of pounds to help with fuel costs by freezing fuel duty for over two years.

    Low mortgage rates. A £10,000 Personal Allowance. Fuel duty frozen. And soon tax free childcare.

    These make huge, positive impacts on the cost of living.

    And none of this would be possible if we had abandoned our tough spending plans.

    But as I said right at the start, in the long term, the only sustainable way to raise living standards is to raise productivity by tackling the underlying structural weaknesses in our economy that were exposed by the crisis.

    Our economic plan constitutes the most ambitious programme of structural reform for a generation.

    Our school reforms are raising standards and introducing more choice and diversity into our school system.

    Our welfare reforms are helping more people into work, with the lowest number of workless households since 1996 and the lowest level of inequality since 1986.

    Our universities are flourishing as their finances have been secured through tuition fees, while choice and flexibility drive up standards.

    Our skills system is being transformed with a record number of apprenticeships, new University Technical Colleges and a greater role for employers.

    The re-launch of TSB onto our high street today is another sign of progress in the biggest ever overhaul of our banking system.

    We are delivering the biggest programme of investment in our railways since Victorian times, the biggest programme of road building since the 1970s, and -according to a recent global survey – our regulatory reforms have made the UK the best place in the world to invest in infrastructure.

    And HS2 will transform the economic geography of our country and help spread rising prosperity to the Midlands and the North of England, which is why I am passionately in favour of it.

    Our corporate tax system is now amongst the most competitive in the world, with companies that left the UK now bringing investment back home.

    A new industrial strategy is finally providing the long term stability and leadership that is needed in so many sectors such as aerospace, automotive, agri-tech and bio-science.

    And British science is scaling new heights with its budget protected for the future and rising capital investment in new facilities.

    We have already achieved a lot, but there is still more than we can do in all these areas.

    One thing is very clear.

    Tinkering around the edges while ignoring the tough decisions required will not rise to the scale of the challenge.

    We will not make that mistake.

    We will learn the lessons of the last decade so that we are not tempted by the quick fixes that lie behind so many of our problems.

    We will constantly examine what is happening in the present so that we can avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

    And we will keep our sights firmly fixed on the future so that we do not shrink from the changes required to build lasting prosperity.

    Our economic plan does all these things.

    Just like this building, with office space, private flats and affordable housing, the job is not finished, but everyone will benefit.

    This is how we will build an economy that works for everyone.

  • Theresa Villiers – 2013 Speech on Peace and Prosperity in Northern Ireland

    Theresa Villiers
    Theresa Villiers

    Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in the Senate Chamber in Stormont, Northern Ireland on 9 September 2013.

    Mr Chairman, it’s a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship and to move the motion before the Grand Committee.

    I am delighted that the Committee is meeting in this historic Senate Chamber in Parliament Buildings.

    The Grand Committee is an important forum for MPs from across the House to discuss Northern Ireland affairs and specific reference is made to its scrutiny role in the Belfast Agreement. It serves as a reminder that while many matters are now rightly devolved to the Assembly, Parliament continues to take very seriously its responsibilities for Northern Ireland.

    One of the criticisms levelled at successive governments during the years of the old Stormont Parliament was that they turned their backs on Northern Ireland. That is not a precedent that should ever be followed and the meeting of the Grand Committee here today (9 September) provides an opportunity to reaffirm the importance the House of Commons places on Northern Ireland matters.

    The motion before the Committee deals with peace and progress in Northern Ireland and the next steps in building a prosperous and united community. It is right that we reflect on the progress that’s been made under successive governments since the early 1990s.

    As a result of the political settlement, Northern Ireland has levels of peace and stability not seen here for nearly half a century. For the overwhelming majority of people, life has changed for the better. The ending of the main paramilitary campaigns mean that we no longer live in the daily shadow of terrorism and the large scale security apparatus that was necessary to counter it.

    The Assembly itself is now approaching in the middle of its second term since devolution was restored in 2007, something that hasn’t happened with devolved institutions since the 1960s. Decisions over all the key public services are now taken by locally elected and accountable politicians rather than direct rule ministers. And for most people in Northern Ireland the debate has now moved on, away from how we deliver devolution to how devolution itself delivers on the issues that really matter to them.

    For our part, the government remains firmly committed to supporting the political settlement and the institutions that have been established under it. And we’re determined to work with the Northern Ireland Executive in order to build on the foundations provided by relative peace and stability, to achieve a more prosperous and united community.

    In doing this we need to make substantial progress in two key areas – the economy and creating a more cohesive, shared society – and I shall take each of these in turn.

    Economy

    The government inherited the worst deficit in the United Kingdom’s peacetime history and the largest of any country in the G20. There was no alternative to the course the government set out in 2010 and as a result of the difficult decisions we have taken, the economy is now beginning to mend. The deficit is now down by a third. The UK economy is growing. And we have more people in work than ever before.

    Here in Northern Ireland there are at last some tentative signs that the economy is recovering. Unemployment is falling and is now back below the UK average. Across a number of sectors, business activity has returned to growth for the first time since 2007. And house prices are up, with an increase in property sales of 10% over the year.

    But I’m the first to acknowledge that there’s a long way to go.Times are still very tough for many families. That’s why the government has delivered a £700 tax cut for over 615,000 people in Northern Ireland, taken 30,000 of the lowest paid out of tax altogether and halved the income tax bills of those on the minimum wage

    It’s why we’re determined to create the conditions that will enable businesses to grow, by:

    – cutting corporation tax to 20p by the end of this Parliament

    – taking £2,000 off the employer national insurance bill of every company and charity in the country

    – tackling the deficit to keep interest rates at record lows.

    At the same time we recognise Northern Ireland’s particular circumstances and are continuing to provide high levels of financial support to the Executive by:

    – delivering an additional £900 million since the 2010 spending review

    – keeping on track with the commitment to deliver £18billion for capital investment in the period up to 2017

    – maintaining public spending in Northern Ireland at 20 per cent per head higher than the UK average.

    Northern Ireland has some truly world class businesses. It’s a great place to do business. And the Executive does excellent work to encourage inward investment. Yet the fact remains that the recovery is still slower in Northern Ireland than in any other part of the UK. The property crash has left businesses with a heavy burden of debt. And the economy remains far too dependent on public spending.

    So the government has been working with the Executive to look at additional ways to boost the private sector and rebalance the economy. And in June the Prime Minister and I, along with the First and deputy First Ministers, launched our economic package.

    We don’t have as many resources at our disposal as might have been available in the past, so we’ve had to look at more imaginative ways of helping other than just spending ever more public money. But despite the budgetary constraints we are under, we’ve managed to secure an additional £42 million in UK funding for PEACE IV and a £154 million top-up for EU structural funds. We’ve also managed to retain Northern Ireland’s assisted area status, which is such an important weapon in the Executive’s armoury for attracting jobs.

    There’s £100 million in additional borrowing powers for the Executive, and measures to boost lending to business.

    There’s new work on enterprise zones and as well as a joint £20 million investment plan for R&D projects, with a particular focus on aerospace.

    Our highly successful start-up loans scheme is now open for business in Northern Ireland – one of the first elements of the package to be up and running.

    We are working on a visa waiver pilot to encourage visitors to the Republic of Ireland to extend their holidays and come north of the border.

    And we have an agreement on a mechanism to take forward the devolution of corporation tax before the next election, if the government decides to devolve these powers.

    As acknowledged in the Assembly, this represents a substantial package and it has been widely welcomed across the political spectrum and by the main business organisations. It will see the government and the Executive working more closely than ever before on our shared goal of equipping Northern Ireland to compete in the global race for investment and jobs.

    And we hope to be in a position to make further announcements shortly on the G8 themed investment conference in October, which the Prime Minister is attending.

    Shared Future

    The other area where we need to make substantial progress is in building a more united community. Regrettably, this year we have seen clear evidence of the deep divisions that remain in some parts of society.

    Let me be clear, there can be no justification for the violence we saw during the flag protests and on the streets of Belfast in July. Rioting and attacking the police is serious criminal behaviour. So we give our full support to the PSNI in their efforts to bring the perpetrators before the courts. And where people are convicted they can expect to serve time behind bars.

    We also deplore attempts to commemorate and legitimise acts of terrorism. Everyone in Northern Ireland has a clear responsibility to examine the impact their actions could have on all parts of the community. At the same time it is right that the government and the Executive seek to address the issues that help to feed and sustain divisions in society.

    While most of the relevant policy responsibilities fall to the Executive, the need to make progress has been a consistent theme of the Prime Minister, my predecessor and me since this government took office.

    Put simply, unless these divisions are addressed, Northern Ireland is never going to reach its full economic potential. So in May, the Executive published its strategy, ‘Together: Building a United Community’. It contains some ambitious goals and the real test will come with efforts to see its proposals actually delivered.

    But publication in itself represents progress and I welcome the efforts of the First and deputy First Minister to bring it about. The government will continue to support them in taking the difficult decisions which may be needed to move things forward.

    We very much welcome the establishment of the All-Party Working Group under the chairmanship of Richard Haass to look at flags, emblems, parading and elements of the past. The government isn’t formally part of the Haass process but we are fully engaged with it and support its important work. And we do have a clear and direct interest in the outcome.

    The most obvious reason for our close interest in the outcome of the Haass work is because a successful resolution of these contentious matters would improve life for people across Northern Ireland, assist our efforts to strengthen the economy and reduce the tensions that can help feed support for terrorism.

    But it’s also the case that parading and elements of the rules on flags are currently matters for which Westminster has responsibility. So any changes proposed by the Haass group would need the support of Parliament if they are to be implemented. Nobody should underestimate how difficult the task is that Dr Haass and the All-Party Group have ahead of them.

    The ability of the Northern Ireland’s political leaders to work together across political boundaries will be crucial here, as it has been in delivering the major break-throughs in the past. I very much hope we’ll see the same determination and willingness to compromise that delivered the series of historic agreements that have done so much to change life in Northern Ireland for the better over the past two decades.

    But important as the Haass process undoubtedly is there is a range of other important work that needs to be done to ensure Northern Ireland continues to make progress. This must not be put on hold awaiting the outcome of the Haass Group’s deliberations. In particular, there should be no let up on delivering the proposals in the economic package and shared future programme published by the First and deputy First Minister.

    Security

    Before concluding I would like to say a few words about security. As we all know, despite the very great progress that’s been made in Northern Ireland there remains a small number of people who still seek to pursue their ambitions by violence.

    So far this year there have been 12 national security attacks by so-called dissident republicans and the overall threat level remains Severe. These terrorist groups continue to carry out attack planning and targeting and they have lethal intent. Many of devices they deploy are relatively crude and simplistic but even a simple pipe bomb can have horrific and fatal consequences. I also condemn the shocking threats to catholic primary schools in north Belfast.

    Once again I pay the highest tribute to the men and women of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Security Service who do so much to protect the whole community from these terrorists.

    And I would also like to put on record my sincere thanks to An Garda Síochána for the vital role that they play in combating the dissidents. Relations between the British and Irish Governments have probably never been better. The same can be said of the relationship between the PSNI, the Garda and the Department of Justice.

    Cross border police co-operation has undoubtedly saved lives. In recognition of the severity of the continuing threat from terrorism in Northern Ireland, the June spending round confirmed £31 million of funding to help tackle the ongoing terrorist threat. This money is in addition to the PSNI’s core funding provided by the Executive.

    It extends the £200 million of support that we provided in 2011.

    We will consider carefully the assessment recently carried out by the PSNI on resilience and I am happy to cooperate with the Department of Justice, the Department of Finance and Personnel and the Policing Board on how we respond to the issues raised.

    Conclusion

    Mr Chairman, this debate takes place against the backdrop of some difficult weeks, when Northern Ireland was back in the headlines for the wrong reasons. Yet this year has also seen an outstandingly successful G8 Summit in Co Fermanagh, something that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.

    The World Police and Fire Games enabled competitors and spectators from all over the world to enjoy Northern Ireland’s legendary hospitality. And we’ve seen some dazzling events in Derry-Londonderry as the first ever UK City of Culture. All of these have shown the best of Northern Ireland.

    Great progress has been made, yet we acknowledge that there is still much to do if we are to build on the peace and stability and achieve a more prosperous and united community. That is why the Government has rolled up its sleeves to to get on with the job and I commend the motion to the Committee.

  • David Cameron – 2013 Speech on the G20 Summit

    davidcameron

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Cameron, the Prime Minister, in the House of Commons, London on 9 September 2013.

    With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the G20 Summit in St Petersburg.

    The meeting focused on 2 vital issues:

    – the crisis in Syria

    – the core business of the G20, which is the future of the global economy

    Let me take Syria first.

    Syria

    The G20 was never going to reach unanimity on what action is needed on Syria.

    But the case made by those countries who believe in a strong international response to the use of chemical weapons was I believe extremely powerful.

    Britain supported a statement, sponsored by the US and signed by 12 members of the G20:

    – which condemns the horrific chemical weapons attack

    – points to the clear evidence of the Assad regime’s responsibility for that attack

    – and calls for a strong international response to this grave violation of the world’s rules

    This statement from St Petersburg was reinforced on Saturday when the 28 EU Foreign Ministers unanimously condemned the chemical weapons war crime and called for strong response that demonstrates there will be no impunity for such crimes.

    I am clear that it was right to advocate a strong response to the indiscriminate gassing of men, women and children in Syria, and to make that case in this Chamber.

    At the same time I understand and respect what this House has said.

    So Britain will not be part of any military action.

    We will continue to press for the strongest possible response, including at the UN.

    We will continue to shape more urgent, effective and large-scale humanitarian efforts.

    And we will work for the peaceful, political settlement that is the only solution to the Syrian conflict.

    Let me just say a word about each of these 3.

    Chemical weapons

    On chemical weapons, we will continue to gather evidence of what happened and make it available so that those responsible can be brought to account.

    Along with 11 other G20 countries, we have called for the UN fact finding mission to present its results as soon as possible.

    We support efforts by the United States and others to reinforce the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons.

    And we will continue to challenge the UN Security Council to overcome the paralysis of the last 2 and a half years and fulfil its responsibilities to lead the international response.

    Humanitarian aid

    In terms of the humanitarian response, Britain is leading the world.

    This is the refugee crisis of our time.

    A Syrian becomes a refugee every 15 seconds – that’s 240 fleeing during the hour of this Statement alone.

    Inside Syria, 6.8 million are in need of humanitarian assistance.

    At the same time aid convoys simply can’t get through to areas under siege because of the fighting and most major routes between large populations are too insecure to use.

    So in St Petersburg, I organised a special meeting with the UN Secretary General, the EU, Japan, Turkey, Canada, France, Australia, Italy, Saudi Arabia and America.

    We agreed to work together through the UN to secure unfettered humanitarian access inside Syria.

    We agreed to increase the focus of that humanitarian assistance on dealing with the dreadful impact of chemical weapons – including medicines and decontamination tents.

    And we challenged the world to make up the financial shortfall for humanitarian aid by the time the United Nations General Assembly meets later this month.

    Britain, Canada, Italy and Qatar have made a start with contributions totalling £164 million.

    Working for a peaceful, political settlement

    Syria still needs a political solution – and that requires the Syrian opposition to stand up for the millions who want democracy, pluralism and freedom from terror and oppression.

    So we will continue to assist the moderate Syrian opposition with political support, non-lethal equipment and technical advice and training.

    The Foreign Secretary convened a meeting with Syrian opposition leaders in London last week to continue this work – and he has discussed all of these issues with the US Secretary of State today.

    As I discussed with several G20 leaders – including President Putin – Britain will also lead efforts to get both sides to the table to shape a political transition, building on last year’s agreement in Geneva.

    Because a political settlement is the only way to a stable, inclusive and democratic Syria.

    Global economy

    Mr Speaker, let me turn to the global economy.

    When I went to my first G20 Summit in Canada 3 years ago:

    – Britain had the most indebted economy

    – the most indebted households

    – and the most damaged banking system of any country around the table

    We’d also fallen out of the top 10 places in the world for the ease of starting a business.

    I vowed then that this government would take the tough action necessary to deal with our debts, repair our broken banking system and most importantly to deliver a private sector led recovery.

    3 years on that is exactly what we have done.

    We’ve cut the deficit by a third and cut the structural deficit by more than any other G7 country.

    We’ve reformed our banks so that they serve the economy not the other way round.

    And we’ve delivered that private sector led recovery with the OECD forecasting that Britain will be the fastest growing G7 economy in the fourth quarter of this year, and the IMF predicting we will have the strongest growth of any major European economy in 2014.

    Mr Speaker, this G20 Summit recognised our progress and explicitly singled out Britain’s return to growth in the Communiqué.

    More importantly, the whole G20 has endorsed our priorities for economic recovery.

    All 20 have signed up to the St Petersburg Action Plan which contains all the features of the plan we have been following in Britain since the coalition government came into office.

    In particular, it emphasises the importance of dealing with our debts the role of monetary policy to support the recovery and the need for long-term reforms to boost growth and trade and cut the red tape that too often holds back business investment and job creation.

    Mr Speaker, the Summit also took forward the agenda that I set at the G8 in Lough Erne – on what I call the “3 Ts” of tax, transparency and trade.

    On tax, the whole G20 adopted the Lough Erne vision of automatic sharing of tax information – with a single global standard to be finalised by February next year.

    On transparency, the whole G20 is now taking forwards international standards on company ownership.

    This means companies will know who really owns them and tax collectors and law enforcers will be able to obtain this information easily so people can’t avoid taxes by using complicated and fake structures.

    Britain has led this initiative and let me welcome, Mr Speaker, the progress made by our crown dependencies and overseas territories – each of which now has now published an action plan.

    On the third of the 3 Ts – trade – we also made significant progress not just maintaining the commitment to resist protectionist measures, but extending it by a further 2 years, to the end of 2016.

    This is a vital and hard-fought achievement which opens the way to more British exports, more orders for British companies and ultimately more British jobs.

    Finally, strong global growth also depends on helping the poorest countries to lift themselves out of poverty.

    And the G20 welcomed the vision for eliminating world poverty set out in the report from the UN High Level Panel that I co-chaired together with the Presidents of Indonesia and Liberia.

    Mr Speaker, from humanitarian aid in Syria to the plans for growth right across the G20 from tax, transparency and trade to the fight against global poverty Britain – now an economy turning the corner – made a leading contribution to this Summit.

    We may be a small island, but we are a great nation.

    And I commend this statement to the House.

  • Danny Alexander – 2013 Speech to Lloyds Business Summit

    dalexander

    Below is the text of the speech made by Danny Alexander, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, to the Lloyds Business Summit on 11 November 2013.

    Recovery

    Good morning.

    I’m very glad to be with you today…

    At a time when our economy does appear to be on the mend.

    Not fully recovered…

    But showing encouraging signs.

    Last month, the IMF revised UK growth up by more than any other G7 economy.

    Two weeks ago the latest GDP figures bought further welcome news…

    But no one should think that because we’re starting to see the signs of recovery…

    That we’ll forget the difficulties we’ve left behind, or abandon the path that has brought us to this point. There is a long way to go to get back to the sort of growth we need.

    Over the last three and half years…

    The government has worked hard …

    Not just to take tough decisions…

    But to take the right decisions.

    And one of our main priorities, has had to be to create the right conditions for more sustainable and balanced growth.

    The 2008 catastrophe and its fall out have been so profound, we know that we have to protect against another catastrophe on this scale.

    There’s a realisation that we have to re-embed two ancient disciplines back into our our public life.

    First, we have to live within our means.

    Second, that further prosperity depends on our ability to build more sustainable, balanced economic growth.

    Of course, while we can create those conditions…

    It’s the private sector that makes growth happen…

    And the recovery we’re starting to see is a result of the determination…

    And the innovation…

    And the sheer hard work of UK based businesses.

    Thank you.

    Right kind of recovery

    For me, the most encouraging feature of the recovery we’re witnessing…

    Is that it has the hallmarks of being a balanced recovery.

    For too long we seemed to only look towards one city – and one industry – for economic growth.

    But growth is happening now across sectors.

    For the first time in 15 years, all four output sectors…

    Industrial production, services, construction and agriculture…

    Have grown in successive quarters.

    And growth is happening across the country.

    We need to work hard to continue this trend.

    So, that should one sector – or one region – experience a sudden decline or shock…

    As happened in the financial crisis…

    Our economy will be in a much stronger position to absorb it.

    Pace of recovery

    Inevitably though, some commentators have criticised the pace of the recovery.

    But they miss the point – previous recessions have simply not been as deep as the one from which we are recovering.

    The severity of the recession also explains why we haven’t seen earnings growth pick up as quickly.

    But let’s look at job creation.

    Our critics said that we would never compensate for the shedding of jobs in the public sector.

    They were wrong.

    You, in the private sector, have created jobs on a significant scale – a remarkable 1.4 million since the election.

    Not only have you compensated for the loss of public sector jobs – you’ve achieved a spectacular job creation ratio of 3:1.

    There is another reality to face – a recovery without fairness would be hardly a recovery at all.

    Not having a job in these times would be the harshest unfairness of all.

    Unemployment is still too high, and there’s clearly a lot more to do to continue the downward trend in unemployment, particularly for youth unemployment.

    Our work on creating over a million modern apprentices is key.

    But I am proud that we are navigating our way back to economic normality without soaring unemployment levels and the social damage that such a situation would wreak.

    Of course, by keeping unemployment much lower than in previous recessions

    We have seen the UK’s output per worker – which is a key measure of our country’s productivity – fall to a fairly low level too.

    I’m of the belief that low productivity is an acceptable outcome – for a temporary period – if it is in part, the result of high employment.

    But in the long run, an increase in our productivity has to drive growth.

    Strong economic growth with rising productivity is the only sustainable way to permanently increase the living standards of our population.

    Short-term populist ideas that damage long-term investment make it harder to increase living standards.

    Instead, we have been building a more stable, competitive environment in which businesses can invest, grow, and create jobs, and share the fruits of that growth fairly.

    And so for our economy to become more productive, we need your help.

    We need you to invest.

    Business investment

    To get the recovery fully entrenched,

    To get it into top gear,

    There’s one thing needed now above all else.

    Investment.

    As a government, we’re playing our part.

    As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, investment is my brief.

    We’re building roads, power stations, flood defences, data networks.

    Only a few months ago, I announced the largest and most comprehensive plan of infrastructure investment for decades – a £100 billion plan to upgrade our roads, railways, broadband by the end of the decade.

    Your country needs you to invest too.

    I know that the deep uncertainty of the last few years has held back business investment.

    In fact, we know that companies are continuing to strengthen their balance sheets out of the credit crisis…

    Total cash deposits held by non-financial private companies has risen by £104 billion since pre crisis levels…

    And now sit at over £500 billion.

    But if businesses start to invest that money, it would make a huge difference to our economy.

    Just to illustrate that, had business investment risen by an additional 10% last year…

    Then the level of GDP would be £12bn higher.

    That’s almost a whole percentage point on GDP growth.

    I know that uncertainty is the enemy of investment.

    I know that companies have felt the need to consolidate balance sheets.

    The fog of uncertainty is clearing.

    The economic outlook and forecasts are improving.

    In government, we doing all we can to increase certainty.

    We have a strong clear fiscal strategy.

    We have a Bank of England with a clear policy expressed through ‘forward guidance’ and we have introduced a set of measures to make that investment easier.

    We are:

    – providing generous NIC allowances

    – reducing corporation tax

    – reforming rules on Controlled Foreign Companies

    To rebuild Britain, we need you to join this recovery by investing now.

    There has never been a better time to invest in Britain.

    With your help, we can entrench a sustainable recovery and increase the living standards of our people.

    Conclusions

    What we won’t do is put short term political gain…

    Ahead of the long term future of this country.

    And we know that – if we want to continue to move our economy from rescue into recovery…

    Then increasing productivity is absolutely essential.

    To raise living standards…

    To raise long term growth potential…

    And the people in this room today have the power to help this country to move into the next phase of our economic recovery.

    We will stick to our plan.

    Making Britain a country that pays it way again.

    Making Britain a great place to do business again.

    Investing in our nation’s infrastructure and the skills of our young people.

    Working together, that is the only way we will build a stronger economy in a fairer society in which everyone can get on in life.

  • Nick Gibb – 2012 Speech on School Improvement

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Gibb, the then Schools Minister, at the North of England Education Conference on 6 January 2012.

    Thank you Mick for that kind introduction, I’m pleased to be here to talk about “Passion, Potential, Performance: Thinking differently”.

    I’m pleased to be back in Leeds where I spent the majority of my secondary school education – at Roundhay High School. My mother also spent a good proportion of her teaching career at Talbot Row Primary School, Roundhay and I’m looking forward to visiting Abbey Grange Church of England Academy later on today.

    A few months ago I came up to Batley to celebrate the conversion of the independent Batley Grammar School into one of the first 24 free schools.

    The NEEC has a long and distinguished history as a forum for education discussion for well over a century.

    The case for comprehensive schools, the first plans for the National Curriculum and the drive towards grant-maintained status are just some of the educational milestones announced at an NEEC.

    At last year’s conference, I promised that we would protect school budgets in cash terms at least and devolve as much autonomy as possible to schools and teachers. And, over the last year, that’s what we’ve done.

    All our actions have been guided by three overarching goals:

    – to close the attainment gap between those from poorer and wealthier backgrounds

    – to ensure our education system can compete with the best in the world

    – and to trust the professionalism of teachers and raise the quality of teaching.

    So that schools can take the lead in continuing professional development and leadership training, around 100 outstanding schools have been selected as Teaching Schools. These centres of excellence in teaching practice will give new and experienced teachers an opportunity to learn and develop their professional skills throughout their careers.

    We’re giving schools a stronger influence over the content of initial teacher training and the recruitment of trainees, and we’re continuing to ensure that ITT provision focuses on the quality of school placements. We’re prioritising the training of more primary specialist teachers and encouraging ITT providers to offer specialist courses.

    In light of research showing that nearly half of serious allegations against school teachers are unsubstantiated, malicious or unfounded, we’ve given teachers a legal right to anonymity from allegations made by pupils, until the point they are charged with a criminal offence. We have also revised guidance to local authorities and schools to speed up the investigation process when a teacher or a member of staff is accused of an offence by a pupil.

    And the Education Act, passed in November, further strengthened teachers’ powers to enforce school rules, removing the 24 hours’ notice rule for detentions and allowing Pupil Referral Units the same autonomy and freedoms as schools.

    One of the most visible signs that we’ve increased autonomy and put greater trust in the professionalism of teachers is our removal of excessive bureaucracy.

    In just one year, under the last Government, the Department produced over 6000 pages of guidance. In one year of this Government, we cut over 6000 pages of guidance.

    We’re continuing to shorten guidance in a wide range of areas: for example, slimming down guidance on tackling poor pupil behaviour from over 600 pages to just 50. In total, departmental guidance is being more than halved.

    We’ve also revised school admissions and appeals codes to 61 pages rather than 138. Retaining just half of the previous 650 mandatory requirements on admissions authorities, the new codes are fairer and simpler for schools and parents alike.

    We have ended the requirement for schools to set statutory performance targets, removed the expectation that every school will complete a self evaluation form, streamlined the inspection framework and clarified that neither the Department nor Ofsted expects to see written lesson plans for every lesson.

    And our National Curriculum review is slimming down the curriculum to concentrate on essential knowledge and skills. New programmes of study are being drafted for full public consultation and I hope that many here will participate in that consultation in due course.

    In all these areas and more, we are working to free schools and teachers from the burden of excessive and unnecessary bureaucracy.

    Over and over again, international research has shown that increased autonomy at school level is reflected in higher standards. As the OECD says: “in countries where schools have greater autonomy over what is taught and how students are assessed, students tend to perform better.”

    Of course, one of the most powerful examples of increased freedom for schools is the expansion of the academies programme.

    As we start 2012, there are 1529 academies. Over 1300 of these have opened since May 2010. More than a third of all secondary schools are now open or in the process of opening as academies, teaching over one and a quarter million children.

    September 2011 also saw the opening of 24 new Free Schools, 4 studio schools, and a University Technical College. 100 new schools are set to open in 2012 or 2013, and early indications show that they will be overwhelmingly located in areas of deprivation or where there is a desperate shortage of school places.

    We are delighted that so many schools are taking advantage of the freedoms of academy status; providing opportunities for more children to enjoy an excellent education.

    Last summer, an independent assessment of the academies programme by the London School of Economics confirmed that “academy conversion generates… a significant improvement in pupil performance”. Statistics show that academies in some of the most challenging areas of the country are improving their results at twice the speed of non-academy schools.

    And according to the LSE assessment, improvements in pupil performance were observed in academies and in their neighbouring schools. The academies programme doesn’t just bring improvements to an individual school, but to schools throughout the system.

    We’re currently working hard behind the scenes to tackle policy blockages at local level which are preventing some schools from converting to academy status.

    We’re creating an “Academies Work” area on the DfE website, gathering all the online resources on academies and conversion to make it easier for schools to find the information they need.

    And as the programme continues to expand, we want to focus even more closely on driving up standards in low-performing schools.

    We’ve already set out clear plans to turn round under-performing primary schools. We’re setting tougher floor standards, rising each year, to ensure that all schools continue to improve. The 200 weakest primaries will be converted into Academies, and robust action plans are being prepared in 500 more. If schools aren’t making the right progress, and local authorities don’t have a grip on the issue, we will be able to intervene to secure the best possible result for the children in those schools.

    So by expanding the Academies programme, increasing autonomy at school level and improving teacher training, we want to drive up standards in schools right across the country.

    We also want to make it clear that we are not prepared to give up on any child.

    Children in alternative provision are among the most vulnerable in our education system. Yet despite hard work by dedicated professionals, statistics published for the first time last year show that only 1.4% of children in alternative provision in 2009/10 achieved five or more GCSEs at A*-C including English and Maths, compared to 53.4% in all schools in England.

    To drive up standards in alternative provision, we need to increase autonomy, accountability and diversity. From September 2012, outstanding Pupil Referral Units will be able to convert to Academies; and we will invite new providers to establish alternative provision Free Schools, bringing voluntary or private sector expertise to help these vulnerable children.

    And we are piloting an approach to exclusions in which the school itself will commission alternative provision for the excluded child and be held to account for the achievement of that pupil. And Charlie Taylor, the Government’s Expert Adviser on Behaviour, is looking urgently into how we can improve alternative provision – and how we can ensure that another generation is not allowed to fail.

    I’d like to take this opportunity to mention two particular priorities for the coming year.

    First, reading. One of my greatest pleasures when visiting a good school is listening to children talk with real passion about their favourite books – the characters they love and the stories they tell.

    And we’re lucky that some of the most magical and exciting children’s books ever written have been written in the English language – the works of Roald Dahl, Michael Morpurgo and Jacqueline Wilson; Harry Potter and Narnia; the Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh.

    By the end of primary school, all children should be able to read and enjoy books like Harry Potter. But too many children can’t enjoy these brilliant books because they haven’t learnt to read properly.

    One in six 11-year-olds is still struggling with reading when they leave primary school. One in ten 11-year-old boys has a reading age of seven or below. Secondary schools are forced to provide extra help and catch-up sessions when they should be introducing children to the breadth and depth of the secondary curriculum.

    And children who cannot read are more likely to become disengaged and disruptive. A recent report by the Centre for Social Justice showed that between half and three-quarters of children permanently excluded from school display significant literacy problems . As the author said, “many display challenging behaviour to hide the fact that they cannot read.”

    Over the last nine years, England has fallen in international reading league tables from seventh to 25th. English 15-year-olds are more than a year behind their peers in Shanghai, Korea and Finland in reading, and at least six months behind Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.

    This Government is determined to help all children to read widely and well, and develop a lifelong love of reading.

    If children haven’t mastered the basic mechanics of reading they can’t develop their comprehension and understanding, or begin exploring and enjoying all sorts of books and poems.

    But with the life-changing skill of turning words on the page into images, information and ideas, we hope that all children can become fluent and enthusiastic readers.

    High quality research shows that systematic phonics is the most successful way to teach early reading. Synthetic phonics is equally effective for children of all abilities, from all backgrounds, and for boys and girls alike.

    Last summer, we piloted the phonics check for 6-year-olds in around 300 schools around the country. The level they were expected to reach was set by two groups of teachers from the pilot, who independently agreed it was appropriate and challenging.

    Only 32% reached the required level, which means that we all need to face up to an uncomfortable fact. Despite the hard work of teachers all over the country, too few children are able to read to a high enough standard.

    The levels we currently expect children to reach at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 must not be the limits of our ambition – they should be considered the minimum. Rather than scraping a Level 2 at the end of Key Stage 1, more children can achieve a high Level 2 or even a Level 3.

    26 per cent of children already reached level 3 in reading in 2011 – including some schools in the most challenging areas. We want these high expectations to become the norm.

    From June, the Year 1 check will help all teachers to ensure that children grasp the basic mechanics of reading. The check will also identify any children who need extra help – and almost half of schools in the pilot said the check identified pupils with reading difficulties of which they were not previously aware.

    To support teachers in developing their phonics teaching and ensuring all pupils learn the basics of reading, we are offering match-funding of up to £3000 to help schools buy high quality systematic synthetic phonics resources and training.

    From September, a thorough understanding of the teaching of systematic synthetic phonics will be prioritised in teacher training and required for all teachers of early reading.

    And phonics and reading are becoming a key part of the new Ofsted inspection framework. For the first time, Ofsted inspectors will focus on the teaching of reading in primary schools and listen to pupils reading aloud, with a particular focus on weaker readers.

    But, of course, mastering the mechanics of reading is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a confident reader. We need to do more to encourage children to read for pleasure and to develop a life-long love of reading.

    I remember a few years ago coming back from Finland. In the departure lounge at Helsinki airport it was noticeable how many children and young people were passing the time glued to novels – something not so prevalent at Heathrow and Gatwick.

    And a 2009 PISA study shows that almost 40 per cent of pupils in England never read for pleasure – yet the difference in reading ability between these pupils and those who read for just half an hour a day is equivalent to a year’s schooling at age 15. A recent survey by the National Literacy Trust showed that a third of British children do not even own a book.

    We are currently developing a national competition to encourage 9-12 year-olds to read voraciously at school and for pleasure at home. Instilling the habit of regular reading at an early age I believe is key to developing a life-long love of reading for pleasure, and we’ll have more to say about that later this year.

    2012 is also, of course, the year of the London Olympic and Paralympic Games. I know that this conference has been considering the role of sport in education over the last few days – and the Government is also working hard to make the most of this opportunity.

    The advantages of competitive sport are well-known – particularly the benefits for pupils’ health and fitness, social skills and personal development.

    Sport teaches young people commitment, dedication, how to work well in a team and how to perform as an individual. Young sportsmen and women quickly learn the importance of fair play – to be magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat.

    Yet only two in five young people currently play regular competitive sport within their own school. Only one in five plays regularly against other schools.

    As a result of close collaboration between the Departments for Education, Health and Culture, Media and Sport, and Sport England, the Youth Sport Trust and ParalympicsGB, this year will introduce a new national sporting competition – the School Games.

    Building on the excitement and enthusiasm around London 2012, we hope that the School Games will inspire a whole generation of young people to get involved in competitive sport.

    There will be opportunities for more competition within and between schools, and at county and district level.

    The School Games will culminate in national finals between the country’s best young athletes, and the first of these will take place in May at the Olympic Park. So far, almost 11,000 schools have signed up to take part in this competition.

    So by increasing autonomy and reducing bureaucracy at school level, allowing more schools to take advantage of academy freedoms and focusing particularly on reading and school sport, we hope to drive up standards for all children, from all backgrounds.

    A PISA study found that England has one of the largest gaps in the world between high and low performing pupils, and a strong relationship between social background and performance. 13.9 per cent of the variance in pupil performance in England can be explained by social background, compared to just 8.3 per cent in Finland and 8.2 per cent in Canada. Yet in countries like Finland, Canada, Japan and Korea, average standards are higher than ours, and achievement gaps are smaller.

    A recent report from the OECD also showed that deprived pupils in this country perform significantly less well than deprived pupils in most OECD countries – putting us 39th out of 65 countries. According to PISA, just a quarter of pupils from poor backgrounds are “resilient” in the UK, compared to three-quarters in Shanghai-China and Hong Kong.

    To put it another way, research published by the Department for Education last year showed that, if English children performed as well as their peers in Shanghai, 77 per cent would get five GCSEs at A*-C including English and Maths, rather than the 55 per cent that we achieve now. That’s a difference of a fifth of the whole cohort – 100,000 children failing to achieve the qualifications that most employers see as the bare minimum.

    And the gap in achievement between children from the wealthiest and poorest backgrounds is still too wide in English schools. As I just said, in 2010, 55 per cent of children achieved five GCSEs at A*-C including English and Maths – but only 31 per cent of pupils on free school meals managed to do the same. And that gap between children from privileged and disadvantaged backgrounds remains stubbornly wide.

    International evidence shows us that it is possible for many more young people to achieve more highly than they do now. It is possible to narrow the achievement gap between the richest and the poorest. And this is not an either/or: it is possible to achieve both at once.

    By learning from international and domestic evidence, helping the best schools to share excellent practice and supporting schools which are struggling, we want to give every child, from any background, the opportunity to make the most of their talents. Thank you.

  • Alistair Burt – 2012 Speech on the UK and Israel

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Alistair Burt, the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, at Bar Ilan University in Israel on 10 January 2012.

    As Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East and North Africa my duty requires me to see Israel in rounder terms, not solely for itself, but where it stands in the world and the region.

    I want to tell you that the UK believes that Israel has a vital role to play in its region and its world, and that Israel’s well-being matters deeply to us.

    We need Israel’s acumen and intelligence; its ability to work at the highest intellectual and technological level to help the world solve its problems, from the economy to climate and environmental change – and its readiness to use its gifts in higher education and intellectual property to help the world progress. Everyone knows that Israeli R&D is world-beating. Israeli inventions are helping to drive the global economy.

    Israel’s strength is a regional bulwark for good opposing the threats to itself and its neighbours. Iran does not just threaten Israel. It threatens those who would be Israel’s allies in the Gulf, and in the Arab world who need Israel as part of a common cause against a regime dangerously loose. So we need to be clear – Israel’s strength is not a regional threat, but an anchor of regional stability.

    And the world needs Israel’s values, of tolerance and justice, those values clear and strong and rejecting all challenges to them, and those who would corrode them. Because it is more than anything the strength of these values that is the best guarantee of Israel’s place in the world. And any corrosion of these values that would weaken Israel’s place in the world. Do not doubt that the flame and the values of Israel’s foundation lit up hearts and minds many thousands of miles away. It is essential that this land, these gifts, these contributions are used to full effect in the world.

    So be in no doubt, as we enter the turbulent waters of 2012 that your values are our values, your strength is our strength, your well-being is our well-being.

    And let me also say this Israel has lived with uncertainty and instability since the very beginning and suffered too much from terrorism. We’re dedicating this speech to the memory of the former Israeli ambassador to Britain, Shlomo Argov, who was victim to a heinous terrorist attack right in the heart of London.

    As Jonathan has mentioned, Argov has been described as ‘the perfect diplomat’ with an amazing ability to get on even with those who disagreed with him, always armed with a good sense of humour.

    Just a few hours ago, I met with the parents of Daniel Viflic, the Israeli-British teenager who died following a missile attack on a schoolbus in southern Israel in April.

    I am in no doubt what insecurity means to the people of Israel.

    We’re just 10 days into 2012. The big question on many of our minds is ‘what will this year bring, following the turmoil of 2011?’ An essential aspect of this must be the search for peace with the Palestinians. As Chaim Weizmann once said, miracles sometimes occur, but one has to work terribly hard for them.

    The talks that took place in Jordan last week finally ended a protracted impasse. By continuing the process that these talks started, Israel has the opportunity to show political leadership, courage and determination to make real progress towards a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians.

    Both sides need to look ahead and identify how we can best bring about the formation of a stable and viable Palestinian state, alongside a safe and secure Israel with internationally-recognised borders. As the Foreign Secretary has said, Israel’s security and the realisation of the Palestinians’ right to statehood are not opposing goals. On the contrary, Israel will be safer when a viable Palestinian state has been achieved. We continue to call for both sides to negotiate an agreement on borders, based on June 4, 1967 lines, with equivalent land swaps. This must include security arrangements that respect Palestinian sovereignty but protect Israeli security and prevent the resurgence of terrorism. There must be a just and fair solution for refugees; and agreement on Jerusalem as the future capital of both states. As a friend of Israel, we will continue to urge a return to meaningful negotiations on this basis.

    We know it will not be easy. But it is not just Israel that will pay the price if we do not make progress towards peace. The occupation has a daily human cost for the Palestinians of the West Bank. The continuing restrictions have a daily toll on the people of Gaza.

    In the West Bank, yesterday, I visited the Qalandiya checkpoint first thing in the morning to see the processes that Palestinians have to go through in order to cross into Israel for work, travel or medical care.

    I also made a return trip to Nabi Saleh where the effects of the barrier and the nearby settlement construction are having a detrimental effect on the lives of the villagers.

    It must be clear to the leaders on both sides that the current situation is unsustainable – that the status quo cannot continue, or else it will leave an indelible mark two great peoples with enormous potential.

    I know that some of you may think that Britain no longer has a right to get involved in this region, after all, the Mandate ended almost 64 years ago.

    But Israel-Palestine matters to us. It is the topic that consistently prompts the most heated debates in Parliament. My office is inundated on a daily basis with letters from concerned British citizens who criticise our policy for being too pro-Palestinian, and from just as many who think we’re far too pro-Israeli.

    Well, we’re neither. Yes, our interest in this region is partly linked to a sense of historic responsibility. But the reason why we watch everything that happens here so closely is because it matters so much. We care about Israel and Israel’s future too much not to take an interest.

    Jerusalem is at the heart of three great religions, and everything that goes on there, no matter how small, has the potential of making an enormous impact. We understand Israel’s bond with Jerusalem as its capital, it is the home of the holiest and most important structures in the Jewish religion.

    If a peaceful solution to this conflict that has gone on for too long and already claimed too many lives is to endure, an understanding on Jerusalem will have to be part of the solution.

    It is because of these sensitivities that we urge the sides not to take steps that could upset the status quo, and make agreeing a peace even harder. This is why we believe that building beyond the Green Line is not just illegal but counter-productive.

    The more settlements that would have to be moved if there was a peace deal, the more families that would have to be uprooted, the harder it becomes to agree that deal.

    And the harder it becomes even conduct negotiations with the other side in good faith, because building more and more houses across the Green Line does not show that Israel is absolutely committed to finding a just and lasting solution. It risks sending exactly the opposite signal.

    I have to tell you that the absence of progress towards peace, together with the almost weekly announcements of this tender or that planning permission for new building, has a real effect on how the world sees Israel.

    There’s a lot of talk of delegitimisation in Britain and elsewhere. And it’s true that there are some people who are implacably opposed to Israel – to Israel’s very existence. There have been since the first days of Zionism, and since Israel’s creation in 1948, and I fear there always will be. There are some of my Parliamentary colleagues who will stand up condemn Israel at any opportunity. But these are not the ones you need to worry about.

    The ones you need to worry about are the ones in the mainstream, the centre ground. The ones who used to stand up and support Israel, but now stay silent. Or the ones who used to be silent, but are now critical.

    Because opinion is shifting – among my colleagues in Parliament, among the British public, and more widely. It’s not yet catastrophic, and it’s not quick. But it is happening, and you should care, just as I care as someone who has for decades counted himself as an ardent friend of Israel.

    We can argue for hours about who is to blame for the failure to make peace. It won’t get us very far, and if you go back far enough some of you might say it’s the fault of the British anyway.

    But stepping aside from the blame game, some 25 years in the British Parliament have made me realise that for as long as there is no progress towards peace, and for as long as Israel continues to build across the Green Line, Israel risks losing friends.

    There are some areas of disagreement between Britain and Israel. There are also many of major agreement, and close cooperation. A major issue at the top of our shared agenda is of course Iran.

    In 2012, we will step up our efforts to stop the Iranian attempt to acquire nuclear weapons. The UK is a leading force in the international campaign to stop the Iranian regime acquiring a nuclear weapon – and arresting a progress which is clearly not intended for purely peaceful purposes. We work closely with Israel on this issue, and it is an extremely important aspect of our bilateral relationship.

    No option is being taken off the table, as we pursue our dual-track approach of increasingly tough economic sanctions while remaining open to dialogue with Tehran.

    A few weeks ago the British government imposed tough new financial restrictions against Iran. These new sanctions make it illegal for any financial institution in the UK to have any dealings with any institution in Iran, including the Central Bank of Iran. They are the toughest of their kind. And we will build on them, getting others to follow suit. We are working with the EU on sanctions against Iranian oil.

    These sanctions are having an impact. The Iranian economy is heavily dependent on oil income; yet production is going down. And Iran is having difficulty refining crude oil and is not getting technology it needs to maintain and develop production. As the pressure continues to rise, the Iranian regime will face the prospect of a choice between its nuclear programme and maintaining its oil income.

    There are no guarantees, and I can give no cast iron assurance of success. But I believe sanctions can work, and I know they are for now the best tool we have to achieve our shared goal.

    We share Israel’s determination to prevent Iranian proliferation. Israel is not facing the threat of a nuclear Iran alone, and so its efforts must support those of the international community. We will work together to ensure that 2012 is not the year in which Iran realises its nuclear ambitions.

    More so than anywhere else in the world in 2011, this region has seen sweeping changes and upheaval on an unprecedented level. Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria. The demand to be heard, the demand for democratic rights and proper representation left the region reeling.

    The process that began a year ago in Tunisia, is far from over. It brings risk as well as great opportunity and hope for many people of the countries involved. Though few expected the path to democracy to be smooth, the ongoing struggle for democratic rights in Syria has been harsh and bloody. The demands of the Syrian people for democracy and freedom have been met by brutal reprisals and violent repression by the Assad regime.

    This ruthless aggression continued last week even when Arab League observers arrived in the country in an attempt to report independently on the situation. Peaceful and courageous demonstrators are being mowed down by a cruel and brutal regime that refuses to accept the legitimate aspirations of its own people.

    Bashar Assad long ago lost whatever remaining legitimacy he may have had. He should step down immediately in the best interest of Syria and the unity of its people.

    I know that people here are concerned about what all these changes mean for Israel, for this country’s place among neighbours all of whom have several times been at war with Israel, and tried to destroy Israel even from its earliest days.

    I know that as the world has praised the wave of change sweeping across the region, Israel has wondered if the world has succumbed to optimism.

    I know that Israelis have watched the Tunisian and Egyptian elections and been concerned that the old regimes would be replaced not by liberal democrats interested in peace, but by hard-line regimes interested in Israel’s destruction.

    Israelis have told me that they are asking themselves difficult questions. What will all this mean for borders that have been quiet for so many years? Were they better off having peace deals with leaders who did not represent their own peoples? Is peace even possible now that the new leaders of Israel’s neighbours must reflect the views of their people? Israel is right to ask itself these questions.

    Many will argue that because of these regional events, now is not the time to make bold gestures when it comes to making peace with the Palestinians. It is a natural reaction at times of change, particularly change that may be threatening, to take the minimum risks.

    But I believe that response would be the wrong one for Israel. If the new political order settles around it at a time of minimum hope in the peace process, then it may well lead to the political leadership of those countries being maximally hostile to Israel.

    My advice would be: if you want stability, if you want security, if you want peace with your neighbours, and the best relations with the rest of the world, then making a peace deal with the Palestinians is urgent.

    I want to turn now to the broader relationship between the UK and Israel. Last year was a key year for our bilateral relationship.

    Legislation was passed that ended the anomaly that allowed people to abuse our court system to get politically-motivated arrest warrants against Israeli officials and military officers for alleged war crimes. The amendment, which was signed into law by the Queen in September, ensures that people cannot be detained when there is no realistic chance of prosecution, while ensuring that we continue to honour our international obligations.

    We remain committed to ensuring that those guilty of war crimes are brought to justice. The Director of Public Prosecutions must now consent to the issuing of an arrest warrant for crimes of universal jurisdiction, putting an end to requests for warrants where there is no realistic chance of prosecution. This cloud that hung heavily over our bilateral relationship for too long has finally been lifted.

    2011 was also a key year for trade and business between our two countries. When the final figures for trade and services for the year come in, we expect them to show a 25% increase on last year, and should reach 7 billion US dollars. We’re breaking records every year, and I am sure that this will continue.

    One key development in 2011 was the start of a partnership between Britain and Israel in tech. We believe it is a partnership that could help both sides – the amazing quality of Israeli R&D can help British growth; the strengths of the British economy can help Israeli innovation go global, building using our skills in business development, capital, global reach, scientific prowess, and market access.

    Both governments are committed to this partnership, and we have established in the British Embassy a new Tech Hub, a dedicated team tasked with creating lasting partnerships between UK and Israel in areas such as cleantech, biomed and digital technologies.

    We have already had a stream of my Ministerial colleagues here leading delegations and demonstrating our support for this partnership. In 2012 there will be many more.

    As students, you may well have come across negative reports about the UK’s attitude towards Israel, where universities are portrayed as hotbeds for delegitimisation and boycotts and sanctions against Israel. I know there is an image out there of British universities being hostile to Israel.

    One of the reasons I wanted to come here today to talk to you, is to reassure you that this simply isn’t the case. There may be a small, marginal and yes very noisy group who attract a lot of attention every time they suggest boycotting Israeli academics, but in fact, there isn’t a single university in the UK with a policy of boycotting Israel.

    When we look behind the sensational headlines and take a look at what is actually going on between our academics – there are groundbreaking projects and collaborations between UK and Israeli researchers, and real warmth and friendship between our universities.

    This was evident in November when 60 British academics and researchers from over 20 universities came to Israel for the first UK-Israel conference on regenerative medicine. The conference brought together 250 leading lights from the UK and Israel to discuss this innovative area of medicine in which our countries are at the very cutting-edge of research, and to build connections for future collaborations.

    Under the BIRAX Regenerative Medicine Initiative, £10 million will be awarded over the next five years to joint research projects bringing together British and Israeli scientists. The scheme gives generous support to joint high quality and ground-breaking UK-Israel research projects, which will have a significant impact on global health, enhance joint research between British and Israeli academic institutions and invest in early stage collaboration between researchers.

    But yes, there are a handful of campuses where you have to be confident if you’re going to stand up and defend Israel – but this happens at a small fraction of our institutes of higher learning. The reality is that the vast majority of Jewish and Israeli students who study in the UK have an amazing time.

    And so my message to you today is that if you’re thinking of continuing your studies overseas, think UK. Get in touch with the British Council here in Ramat Gan who will help you find the right university, the right course and explain what funding options are open to you.

    I can guarantee you that you will have a fantastic experience. We have four of the top ten universities in the world and research facilities that have helped us win more than 80 Nobel prizes for science and technology alone. The UK, like Israel, has a disproportionate number of Nobel prize winners.

    We want to see a significant increase in the number of Israeli students studying in the UK over the next year.

    Now, before you have the chance to ask me some questions, I want to ask you some. How many of you have been to the UK before? How many of you would like to visit? Well, 2012 is the year to come to the UK. This year marks the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II – 60 years of extraordinary service. There will be celebrations throughout the UK this summer to celebrate the Queen’s reign, and the sense of strength and stability that she symbolises, particularly given all the changes that we have seen in this time.

    And of course, we’re getting ready to host the greatest show on earth as London becomes home to the Olympic Games for the third time. With just under 200 days to go, the stadiums are ready, the tickets are sold and we’re getting ready to welcome the world.

    We look forward to welcoming the Israeli teams to the London Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer and hope that they manage to at least match – but hopefully even improve – on their performance at the Beijing games four years ago.

    Whatever else, 2012 is guaranteed to be an historic year for us. Come and discover the many things that have made the UK a great place to live, work, study and visit.