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Category: Speeches

  • David Cameron – 2016 Press Conference with Enda Kenny

    davidcameron

    Below is the text of the press conference between David Cameron, the Prime Minister, and Enda Kenny, the Irish Taoiseach held in Ireland on 25 January 2016.

    Well, good afternoon everyone. I’m pleased to welcome the Taoiseach Enda Kenny, my good friend, here today. But before I talk about the importance of our bilateral relationship I’d like to take a moment to express my deep sadness on learning of the death of Cecil Parkinson. He was the first big political figure that I ever worked for and got to know. He was a man of huge ability. He was passionate that what he was doing, and the team of ministers that he worked with was about transforming Britain in the 1980s by improving industrial relations, by reforming the trade unions, by making sure the business was in the private sector, by encouraging entrepreneurship. He was passionate about those issues and a very effective minister.

    And he was someone I really enjoyed working with and he taught me a great deal. He was part of a great political generation that did really extraordinary things for our country. He’ll be hugely missed by many on all sides of the political divide and my thoughts are with Cecil’s wife, Ann, and their family at this very sad time.

    Turning to today’s meeting our bilateral relationship with Ireland has never been stronger. We’ve spoken about the good progress we continue to make in reforming the UK’s relationship with the EU to address the concern the British people have about our membership. And we’ve also spoken about the migration crisis, and the importance of using our strong bilateral relationship to work together to address it, including through the Syria Donors Conference that I’ll be hosting here in London next month. And I want to say a word about each of these.

    Firstly, our bilateral relationship. UK–Irish relations have never been stronger or more productive than they are today. This year we’ll reach the halfway mark in our decade of joint cooperation which we first announced together in 2012. Our trade relationship is growing with trade between our countries now worth more than €1 billion every week. Ireland is now our fifth biggest market for goods and our sixth biggest for services. And the strength of the Irish economy, in particular its growth in recent years, underlies why Ireland is such an important partner for the United Kingdom.

    Over 3 million Brits visit Ireland each year. In Northern Ireland, the Executive has now delivered its first budget since the Fresh Start agreement, a result that is in no small part down to the hard work of the parties in Northern Ireland, but of course supported by both the British and Irish governments. The UK government remains fully committed to working alongside the Irish government to build a brighter, more secure future for the people of Northern Ireland. We want to help them to deliver the peaceful and prosperous society that they deserve.

    Now we’ve spoken today about the importance of strengthening the external border of the Common Travel Area, something I consider to be vital. And of course 2016 also marks the centenaries of important events in our shared history. We’ll mark them as we should in a spirit of mutual respect, inclusiveness and friendship.

    On EU reform, as I’ve said before, we need to fix the aspects of our EU membership that cause so much frustration in Britain, so we get a better deal for our country and secure our future, but also a good deal for all in Europe too. Throughout we’re driven by one consideration: what is best for Britain’s economic and national security. In the end, the British people will decide whether we’re stronger and better off with our European neighbours as part of the European Union or on our own. That’s because we made a promise – and we kept it – to deliver an in/out referendum.

    Today we’ve discussed the areas I set out where we need to see reform, on economic governance, on sovereignty, on competitiveness and of course on welfare. The UK and Ireland share a strong desire to make the EU more competitive, and to prioritise free trade agreements with the fastest growing markets across the world. We’re making progress in our negotiations and I’m confident that, with the right political will, we can secure the reforms that will address the concerns of the British people.

    We’ve also discussed the terrible humanitarian situation caused by the Syria crisis and what more we can do as an international community to help. Next month I will bring together world leaders in London to talk about just how we do that. We need to agree concrete action that will give hope to so many: jobs, so people can provide for their families; and education for their children. We need to act now to help refugees in the region as well as enabling them to play a leading role in Syria’s reconstruction in the future. This is not just in the interests of Syria and her neighbours; it’s in the interests of the refugees and Europe too. The more we do to enable people to stay in the region, the less likely we are to see them making the perilous journey to Europe.

    So thank you very much, Enda, for the discussions today. Thank you for your support and help, and I very much look forward to working with you in the months and, I hope, years ahead.

    Enda Kenny

    Thanks David. First of all, I want to say that it’s a privilege to be back here again at Downing Street. I really wanted to come over to talk about the issue of Europe and the referendum with the Prime Minister. I have to say that I do that following on the very positive approach and the encouragement that there was at the European Council meeting in December.

    People are aware that President Tusk will table a paper, probably next week in regards to the four issues that the Prime Minister put on the table. I actually believe that all of these are solvable in a really positive sense because you know our position in Ireland, Europe will be much stronger with Britain as a central and fundamental member.

    So it’s a vital issue for Europe, it’s a vital issue for Britain, but it’s also a critical issue for Ireland. And that’s why earlier today I spoke down at McCann FitzGerald, one of the leading legal firms here in London, to make the important point that British business needs to make this point very positively, that we can be a stronger union, a stronger Britain, a stronger Ireland, by making changes that reform Europe in a way that helps everybody.

    So I want Britain to remain a central member of the European Union because from our – Ireland’s point of view, this is a really critical issue. And I say that in the spirit of real positiveness, because I do believe that the four baskets that were put on the table by you at December are all issues that can be concluded successfully and strongly in the interests of everybody throughout the Union.

    We also discussed the question of the – which David referred to – the 1916 centenary commemorations, and we have a very comprehensive, inclusive, sensitive whole series of things this year. I’ve invited the Prime Minister to come over himself at some time during the course of the year if that’s appropriate, and obviously he will consider that in due course.

    We discussed the Fresh Start in Northern Ireland. We agree now that the issues that were decided upon and agreed upon by the parties of Northern Ireland, that we can give impetus to that ourselves to see that these things will happen.

    So, from that point of view, clearly the question of migration is another one on the table. We discussed that, the implications and the difficulties of the challenge that Europe faces here in dealing with unprecedented numbers coming in.

    So I’m much better informed in respects of Europe, and obviously we’ll meet up again before the European Council meeting so that we give a really positive presentation to this, and in so far as we can help the Prime Minister and Britain here to have our European colleagues understand the importance of this, we will.

    Question

    A question for both of you if I can. Taoiseach, you said that you’re confident that negotiations can be concluded successfully and strongly. Do you think they can be concluded in February, and do you see a need for a hurry on this deal and for the referendum to happen as quickly as possible?

    And Prime Minister, the business community has come out today and expressed concerns and fears about the impact of Brexit on trade. It seems on the inside it’s about fears over trade, on the outside fears over migration. Could this whole Brexit referendum discussion descend into a kind of competitive project fear?

    Enda Kenny

    I’ve made the point on many occasion that, in the teeth of the recession, Ireland was the only country that had to vote on a referendum – by referendum on the Fiscal Stability Treaty, and actually it was the voice of Irish business that really convinced people not to take the risk of putting those jobs at risk.

    So, in the same way, British business here will have the opportunity to speak about the importance and the power of 500 million European Union being reformed to work more effectively in the interests of greater trade, of trade agreements, of the opportunity to cut unemployment, the opportunity to create employment, and so on.

    So whether it be finished on – at the European Council meeting on February, I just can’t say. I haven’t see President Tusk’s paper yet, and obviously the Prime Minter has pointed out himself his view on whether it’s absolutely necessary to do it in February or not. My belief is that, of the four issues that were tabled there, there are some complications clearly with one or two of those, but I think these are issues that can be sorted and that can be agreed. And I would hope, personally, that it might be possible to do it in February but then I can’t speak about all of the other countries around the table. But it’s an issue that needs to be dealt with. It’s a critical issue. We regard it as being very important for the relationship between Ireland and Britain but also between their continuing strength and functioning of the European Union with Britain continuing as a central member.

    Prime Minister

    My whole approach to this issue is one that is very positive. I mean, I think we should be focusing on the positive opportunity for Britain. Imagine the scale of the prize if we can remain a member of the single market with 500 million consumers, a quarter of the global economy, with a seat at the table and a say over the rules, and making sure that we do right by our business for jobs and investment and growth in the UK, combined with action to make sure we deal with the things that frustrate people about the EU.

    So that’s what I’m going to focus on in the run up to try to get this agreement and then, hopefully once we have this agreement, to win the argument about why Britain should stay in a reformed Europe. But we need to get that agreement. It is possible for it to happen in February. As I’ve said, if there’s a good deal on the table, I’ll take that deal, I’ll take it to the British people and explain why it’s the best of both worlds.

    But it’s got to be the right deal. If it’s not there, we’ve got plenty of time. We don’t need a referendum until the end of 2017. But I’m always keen to deal with these issues, and I’ve tried to approach this in a very sensible way throughout the last few months, travelling around Europe, explaining what needs to be done, putting very concrete and sensible proposals on the table, and if all of those get a proper and sensible response, we can do this in February. But if it’s not right, I’d rather get it right than do it in a rush.

    Question

    Could I start by asking the Prime Minister, how much of a help do you think that the Irish government will be to you ahead of next month’s summit?

    And also, to the Taoiseach, what contingency plans, if any, is the Irish government looking at, given that there could be a Brexit and potentially a referendum within the coming months?

    Prime Minister

    Well, let me answer the question first. I mean, Enda and the Irish government have been and I believe will continue to be hugely helpful, because Enda is very respected in the European Council. He’s someone with great experience, with great knowledge about how the organisation works. I think he knows that Europe would be better off if Britain stayed in, because of the contribution that we bring. Obviously the very close trading and economic relationships between Britain and Ireland play a part.

    So in terms of trying to get across why the issues that Britain’s put on the table matter so much, I think that we’ve had very strong support from the Irish government, and I think that has helped to get the message across about why these things need to change, and, as I’ve said, the size of the prize if they do change. So we worked very closely together, and the speech you made at the European Council in December when I made my presentation was extremely powerful, and I think a lot of people were very impressed by what he said.

    Enda Kenny

    Thanks. Obviously we’re focused on the positive end of this, as I’ve said, being a member and continuing to be a member of 500 million people. That’s where we need to be, so our focus is on helping Britain, but helping our colleagues in Europe to understand that everybody can benefit from more effective reforms. Prime Minister Cameron wrote many – a few years ago now, in respect of the single market and the digital market and opening up the trade agreements that we could follow through and cutting out red tape and useless administrative conditions, and that’s where we need to be, with a really effective, streamlined, competent and lean Europe. And I think out of this situation comes a brilliant opportunity to actually prove that the European Union can do what it’s supposed to do, and that it’s become a real powerhouse globally in terms of trade and economics and opportunities and jobs and employment, and all of these, being a world leader in setting down conditions and all of these things. So that’s what we’re focused on.

    To be fair about it, the Department of Finance did commission a report from the Economic, Social and Research Institute, which pointed out the possibilities that might happen were Britain to decide to exit. I don’t contemplate that, to be honest with you, but it did point out the impact on trade and on wages and salaries, and for people it should be really serious and not without a risk. So for us, it’s a critical issue, that’s why we’re here to have the best information from the Prime Minister to, in so far as I can, explain to our European colleagues the importance of all working together here at a time of great uncertainty internationally for a variety of reasons. Here is an opportunity, and the European Union founded on the principles arising out of war from peace and opportunity and all of these things, we can make this happen, and every one of the 28 have got to understand, where there’s a problem in any country, help that country to make it better for everybody.

    Question

    Prime Minister, a British court last week ruled that migrants in Calais are entitled to come to this country if they’ve got a family connection, under human rights laws. Have they got that right?

    And to the Taoiseach, are you concerned that a British vote to leave the European Union could jeopardise the peace process in Northern Ireland?

    Prime Minister

    On the issue of migration and Calais, I think it would be a very bad move to make Calais a magnet for even more people to come by saying there was some sort of direct access from Calais into the UK. That is the wrong approach.

    But factually, it is important to understand that, under the existing Dublin rules, if someone claims asylum in another European country – in France or in Italy or in Germany – and they can prove a direct family connection – a mother, or a father, or a sister, or a brother – then they are able, under the Dublin regulations, to come to Britain, which – I think that’s a different matter, and that’s when we talk about children who might be alone in Europe or elsewhere able to make that claim under the Dublin regulations so they can be reunited with their family. That’s a different matter, and something that is in the Dublin regulations that of course we support.

    Enda Kenny

    In respect of the point you made about the peace process in Northern Ireland: well, the guns are silent, and this has taken a great deal of work from so many people over so many years, and we’ve complimented the politicians who lived up to their responsibility in respect of the Fresh Start, which took ten weeks before Christmas to finalise, but I’m glad that that’s now moving and they’re getting on with implementing the mandate and the responsibility that they have.

    I think it’s important to say that the road out of inequality and the path out of that unfairness is employment and opportunity, and that’s why we have shared trade missions to a number of locations. There’s a great deal of cooperation both in respect of issues of economics and Europe and the agri-sector or trade or whatever else, so these are all shared, which means that the prosperity opportunities for Northern Ireland rise and increase. Chancellor gave the opportunity for the Executive, if they wish, to reduce the level of corporate tax rate in Northern Ireland, to that approaching the Republic. We share that view. Obviously it’s a matter for the Executive to implement in 2018, but that’s going to harmonise the economic opportunity for the island of Ireland.

    We should not put anything like that at risk. And from our perspective, it would create serious difficulties for Northern Ireland were that to happen. So I don’t want to see that happen, and, in so far as we can work, we work on the positive end of this future benefits and potential to come from a strong Britain being part of a strong Europe, and Ireland associated with that, north and south.

    Question

    Taoiseach, over the weekend, you repeatedly refused to rule out doing a deal with Michael Lowry post-selection. Are we going to return to the kind of parish pump deals that Fianna Fáil did with independent TDs if the numbers don’t stack up for Labour and Fine Gael?

    Enda Kenny

    Well, that’s why you want a strong and stable government that has a coherence about it in terms of the progress we have made over the last five years and where we want to be over the next five years. So I would say to people, when they reflect, when the election is actually called and when they start to deal with the issues here, we know where we can be, and obviously our plan is to set out opportunities for further employment, to make work pay, and to keep the recovery moving now, because it’s heading in the right direction. And the first opportunity for people to reflect on that will be when they go to the ballot boxes, and if they want a strong, stable and coherent government, they can vote for the candidates of the Fine Gael party and the Labour party.

    Question

    One follow-up, there, for yourself. Do you have any advice for Mr Kenny on getting a surprise overall majority?

    Prime Minister

    I wouldn’t give advice, but that last answer sounded to me like a long-term economic plan that was working for the people in the Republic. But we work very closely together. The Irish elections are a matter for the Irish electorate. All I know is that we work closely together and we’re looking forward to doing that in the, as I say, months and years to come.

  • Justine Greening – 2012 Speech on HS2

    justinegreening

    Below is the text of the speech made by Justine Greening, the then Secretary of State for Transport, at the Transport Times Conference on 26 January 2012.

    Opening remarks

    Thank you for that kind introduction David… it’s a pleasure to be here today.

    And many thanks to you… and to everybody at Transport Times and the Railway Industry Association… for organising this event.

    I can’t think of too many people or organisations that could have got a conference like this up and running… or brought together an audience as expert and distinguished as this… at such a short notice.

    My congratulations for delivering it on time, presumably on budget.

    Consultation

    The announcement I made a fortnight ago was the culmination of a vast programme of work over the past year.

    The HS2 consultation was one of the largest in the Department for Transport’s history.

    We had five months of intensive engagement. 41 days of roadshow attended by almost 33,000 people. And almost 55,000 consultation responses.

    And systematically going through the evidence and the alternatives, it was clear to me that the argument in favour of HS2 was compelling.

    A modern,fast reliable, railway that will:

    – transform connections between our cities, regions and the Continent

    – truly rebalance our economic geography, with a legacy of jobs, growth and opportunity for generations to come

    – and change the way we travel, just as the first railway did in the 19th century

    But behind the headline statistics, HS2 is also about believing in better.

    Do we believe in just making do. Is that all we have to offer our future generations?

    This government passionately believes they deserve so much more. In the same way that we are not prepared to leave them with a fiscal deficit, neither should we leave them with an infrastructure deficit.

    And the children and students I meet at my local primary and secondary school – what kind of a Britain do we want to create for them? And, how can we make sure our country will be able to match their ambition?

    For too long in this country, we have failed to grasp the nettle on the decisions that will help us achieve our long term aspirations.

    We can’t simply hope for a better, more prosperous future – we will have to build it. We won’t suddenly wake up to a successful Britain, we have to create it.

    If we want to live in a country that can compete and thrive in the global economy, and where our children can realise their full potential, then we have to tackle the problems that are holding us back.

    And that’s what HS2 is all about…

    It’s about understanding that we have a responsibility to make choices today that will improve our economy and people’s quality of life, not just in the next four or five years, but in the next four or five decades.

    Restating the case

    Now there are some people who question the size of our ambitions. Who say that Britain cannot support such a scheme in such austere times.

    Well today I’d like to reassure them that this is the right scheme at the right time.

    But to do that, I think I need to clear up some of the claims about HS2 that I’ve read in recent weeks.

    Some commentators have said we are spending £32 billion building a new line between London and Birmingham.

    Well I have good news for them. £32 billion will buy us a national high speed network, linking London and Birmingham with Leeds, Manchester, South Yorkshire and the East Midlands – and forming the base of what we hope is an even bigger network extending to Scotland in the future.

    Some people have focused purely on HS2’s time savings – claiming the investment is poor value just to shave a few minutes off today’s journeys.

    Well HS2 will certainly reduce journey times. In fact it will slash the trip from Birmingham to Leeds in half, and cut the Manchester to London time from 2hrs 8mins today to just 1hr 8mins.

    These are dramatic time savings that will offer a step change in services.

    Valuable as faster journeys are – and passengers tell us that the time factor is very important to them – more crucial is the substantial capacity boost that HS2 will deliver, reducing the increasingly overwhelming pressure on existing road and rail networks…

    A rail network that will simply end up full in many places. If we don’t take action, people say put more trains on the track, have more carriages on the trains on the track, well that’s what we’ve been doing! There’s no other way we would have lasted on a Victorian railway network otherwise. But common sense tells you that can’t go on forever. And after 110 years we’ve nearly got to the end of forever. On some of our tracks there is simply isn’t going to be any more space.

    … so we need MORE track.

    But high speed rail will provide up to 18 high speed trains per hour, each with up to 1000 seats… more room on the current railway as well… greater reliability; better performance; and more comfortable long distance travel.

    Without investment in new capacity, our main rail arteries will grind to a halt during the 2020s, with disruption, overcrowding, and damage to our economy.

    With demand for long-distance rail doubling over the past 15 years, inter-city trains are already becoming overcrowded, and commuters who may have no practical alternative to train travel are forced to stand on long journeys.

    Unreliable, congested, transport would send out a message to investors that Britain doesn’t really care about its infrastructure… or that we are incapable of delivering major projects.

    For a modern, developed economy, that’s not good enough.

    And to continue to ignore the problem is no more an option that pretending our A-road system would have managed without the motorways.

    Of course, we are doing what we can to modernise our current railway with £18 billion of investment committed in the Spending Review, and pressing ahead with our plans to max out the capacity on the current track.

    But even with that investment, the scope for squeezing out ever-more out of our ageing rail infrastructure is diminishing.

    So it is simply not good enough to criticise schemes like HS2 unless there is a practical alternative.

    And those alternatives that have been proposed have fallen short.

    Upgrading existing major north-south lines would only provide a short term fix, and would consign passengers to years of disruption, delays and misery.

    And high speed offers much better value than a new conventional north-south rail line – delivering £6.2 billion more in benefits for an extra investment of just £1.4 billion.

    So high speed will give an additional return on the investment of more than four to one.

    All the evidence has been considered. And we are clear that the only long term solution to the capacity crunch we face on our railways is high speed rail.

    Some people think the capacity crunch will somehow naturally melt away.

    One commentator claimed that high speed rail would soon be obsolete, because the advance in computers will mean that more people work from home. And rather than speed up, he actually suggested we ought to find ways to slow down.

    Well I don’t share his analysis.

    We’ve seen mobile and Internet connectivity through technology transform in the past 15 years – and people have never travelled by train more.

    And we will not get people back to work and secure economic recovery by putting a brake on progress, and telling passengers they have got to put up with slower journeys.

    We all know that the world is moving ever faster. Technology is always developing. And we have to prepare for a faster future if we want Britain to prosper.

    Who wants slower broadband? Who would choose to have a slow train journey rather than a fast one? And how can businesses hope to compete if they cannot transport goods around the country quickly and efficiently?

    Modern manufacturers and retailers rely on just-in-time distribution to maintain profitability. Slowing down transport would merely act as a further barrier to investment, and as a drain on growth.

    HS2 is about the nuts and bolts of Britain, and making our infrastructure work for us.

    In country after country around the world, high speed rail has proved to be hugely popular with a wide market. Countries that have it invariably build more.

    Today, high speed rail is a success around the world because it has a mass market.

    HS2 will benefit every type of traveller – not just on the new network, but on existing lines too. More space and capacity freed up will help drive competition on the railway, changing the way rail travel is marketed and sold.

    I do though, of course, accept that there is no easy way to build a train line through our country.

    I understand and respect the concerns of people living or working near the line and we have gone to very great lengths to mitigate its impact – including a package of extra alterations announced on January 10th.

    Of the 13 miles through the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, less than 2 miles will be at or above the surface… the rest will be in deep cutting or tunnel.

    These changes will bring significant benefits to communities and the environment; and, in fact, compared to the consultation route there will be a more than 50 per cent increase in tunnel or green tunnel.

    And I welcome the comments of Shaun Spiers, Chief Executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, who said the government had been sensitive to the impact that HS2 would have on communities and the countryside; and that their legitimate concerns about the effects of high speed on the landscape had been heard.

    I will do my level best to work closely with communities as the High Speed project progresses.

    Industry opportunities

    But of course there is another very key benefit of high speed that has not been reflected in much of the coverage over the past two weeks: the opportunities and jobs it will it provide for the rail industry in Britain; the jobs it will create for your companies and organisations.

    For engineering and technology companies; rail operators; suppliers and component manufacturers; for infrastructure specialists; and many, many others.

    All stand to gain as we write a new chapter in the story of rail innovation in Britain.

    It will present this industry with a massive challenge.

    Delivering a major national programme on time and on budget.

    I believe we can meet that challenge and I believe we can develop expertise so British companies can compete successfully for key contracts.

    The government’s National Infrastructure Plan sets out the importance of a predictable and transparent long-term pipeline of infrastructure projects that will help the private sector plan ahead and invest in technology and skills.

    HS2 will form a key element of that long-term pipeline, providing certainty about future contracting opportunities following the completion of Crossrail in 2017.

    To ensure that the UK-based supply chain is in a position to benefit as far as possible from this project, this government will open a dialogue with potential UK-based suppliers to ensure they are well-placed to bid competitively.

    You are already helping us deliver Crossrail, Thameslink, upgrades to major rail hubs like Reading and Birmingham New Street, and a major programme of electrification.

    But I also want to put our best minds to work on high speed rail. To find uniquely British solutions to the challenges we face.

    I want Britain to become a centre of excellence for high speed rail technologies and services, with a world-class R&D capability.

    Sometimes we may collaborate with companies from other countries.

    But from the very start our priority must be to develop the home-grown skills and capabilities that will not only help deliver HS2 – but that can then be used in other markets as high speed rail is increasingly adopted by countries around the world.

    Looking ahead

    Now is the time to reject the short termism of the past, and get our long term future back on track.

    The evidence from around the world is clear: as a fast, sustainable and viable way of long-distance, mass transport, high speed rail has no modern equal.

    It’s the right transport programme for passengers; for freight; and for rebalancing our economy.

    I’ve seen the incredible enthusiasm for HS2 across our great cities. Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, these cities know the transformational value high speed rail will have.

    They rightly believe that the future success of their regions and their communities depends on schemes like this – which will create opportunities on their doorstep. I will work hand-in-hand with them to make sure the jobs and the growth that we all hope for, actually happen.

    I know most of us here today are convinced of the case for high speed.

    But there are many who perfectly understandably will want to continue the debate. I welcome the opportunity to set out our case. Because it is strong and compelling.

    But it is also important those who understand the benefits of HS2 continue to make their voices heard, and continue to highlight the transformational impact it will have on our railway and on our economy. Now more than ever our case needs to be made positively, clearly and fully informed by the facts.

    We will prepare for a hybrid bill by the end of 2013, including a detailed Environmental Impact Assessment to provide the necessary powers to construct and operate the line from London to Birmingham.

    This spring we will consult on the draft directions for safeguarding the proposed route from London to the West Midlands, as well as separately consulting on detailed compensation proposals.

    In March HS2 Ltd will advise me on route and station options to Manchester, Leeds and Heathrow, and later in 2012 we will start informal consultation on a preferred route.

    Conclusion

    To conclude, these plans will set in motion the most important transport project in this country since the coming of the motorways.

    I warmly welcome the political consensus on HS2, on the basis that it will help ensure that the planning and construction of this transformational scheme is carried through to completion.

    This is an incredibly exciting time for everyone who cares about Britain’s railway and preserving its critical role supporting our economy.

    But the benefits of HS2 will be felt well beyond the network and the passengers who use it.

    This is a national scheme in the national interest.

    It’s about raising our sights. Future-proofing Britain’s railway so we don’t wake up in 20 years’ time with a gridlocked railway regretting that we hadn’t been bolder today.

    And remembering that Britain can no more turn its back on the positive potential of high-speed rail than it could have opted out of the steam age.

    We will build high speed two. We will make sure our country and our cities are connected for success.

    And we will have in place the railway capacity that our future generations need for their success.

    They need our plans put into action more than any of us here today and this government will not let them down.

  • George Osborne – 2012 Speech to CBI Leaders at Davos

    gosborne

    Below is the text of the speech made by George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the CBI Leaders Meeting at Davos on 27 January 2012.

    It’s good to see such a strong British presence in Davos.

    Someone said to me yesterday that they’d never seen such a sombre mood here.

    That reflects the very difficult economic outlook, as shown in the UK by the negative fourth quarter GDP data earlier this week.

    But my argument today is that policy makers are not powerless in the face of these economic forces.

    Let me explain that with three propositions.

    First, it is possible to resolve the eurozone crisis, and that would provide the biggest possible boost to the British economy.

    Second, we in Britain can deal with our own problems – including the colossal debts and imbalances that built up during the long boom.

    And third, we can win the argument for open markets and free enterprise as not the source of the problem but the solution.

    Let me begin with the eurozone, the main topic of debate here in Davos.

    And let me start by saying something that is not acknowledged enough in our national debate.

    Eurozone countries have achieved a lot over the last eighteen months.

    Pooling their resources into a central fund, giving up sovereignty in a fiscal compact, fiscal consolidation and structural reforms in many countries.

    These are all difficult and courageous decisions, and they are having an impact.

    But while we should acknowledge these achievements, it would be a disservice to our own citizens to pretend that they are enough.

    As David Cameron argued yesterday, more still needs to be done to reach a convincing and lasting solution.

    The evidence for this can be seen in the continuing scepticism of investors around the world, in volatile financial flows, in continued stress in bank funding markets and in the still elevated interest rates on periphery sovereign debt.

    The problem is simple: how will some countries in Southern Europe be able to make the adjustments required of them and retain the competitiveness they have lost in a way that is politically sustainable in a democracy?

    The argument is not that fiscal consolidation and structural reform are the wrong prescription when budget deficits are unsustainable and economies are uncompetitive – they are absolutely crucial.

    But in the absence of the flexible exchange rate and independent monetary policy that are helping to smooth the process of adjustment and rebalancing in the UK, the resulting cost may be simply too high to be credible.

    That’s why I agree with Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of the IMF, when she said earlier this week that the eurozone “needs some form of fiscal risk-sharing” to complement the fiscal compact and provide more support for countries making painful adjustments.

    That risk sharing could take many forms.

    One solution suggested by the IMF is the creation of Eurobonds to finance at least some proportion of national budgets – something that I first argued last summer was part of the inexorable logic of monetary union.

    Political agreement to the principle of Eurobonds would go a long way to convince financial markets of the euro’s long term future.

    We in the UK should not be anxious about eurozone countries embarking upon deeper fiscal integration without us – we should welcome it as a way of resolving the current crisis on our doorstep.

    Nor should we be paranoid about our influence as a member of the EU.

    In the last week Britain has supported EU action to take sanctions against Iran, and we are very close to agreeing a complex directive on the regulation of derivatives.

    We will remain active members of the EU, pushing for an expansion and deepening of the single market on which so many British jobs depend.

    A large number of EU countries see us as vital allies in than task, which should be the main focus of the EU Council meeting on Monday.

    If fiscal risk sharing is the way to make the euro work in the future, the most urgent requirement to address the current crisis is an increase in the resources of the eurozone’s financial firewall.

    Eurozone countries need to convince financial markets that they can respond to any eventuality.

    The eurozone economy as a whole has sufficient resources to put the credibility of the firewall beyond doubt.

    All that is required is the political agreement to make those resources available on a credible timescale.

    At the same time the global community – through the IMF – should always be ready to support individual countries that get into trouble and need temporary financing while they adjust.

    As I have said many times, the UK is a longstanding supporter of the IMF – indeed we were instrumental in its creation – and we stand ready to play our part in that global effort if certain conditions are met.

    No new vehicles or funds specific to the eurozone.

    Full IMF conditionality.

    The participation of other G20 countries.

    And crucially, IMF resources to support individual countries cannot be a substitute for further credible steps by the eurozone to support their currency.

    In other words, the world needs to see the colour of their money before it contributes any more.

    A resolution of the eurozone crisis would provide the biggest single boost to the British economy in the short term.

    But we will not put our economy back on the path to prosperity unless we confront our domestic problems.

    And the biggest of those is captured by a single word: debt.

    Over the last decade Britain experienced the biggest increase in debt of any major economy.

    The total of household, corporate, financial and public sector debt in the UK reached 500% of GDP.

    As a country we went on a debt-fuelled binge.

    We are now experiencing the reality of deleveraging.

    History tells us that this process is painful, and as Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff have shown recoveries after debt-fuelled financial crises tend to be slower than other recoveries.

    We cannot change what happened in the past, but we can ensure that we manage the process of deleveraging as best we can.

    And that means that we must never lose sight of this crucial point – when the underlying problem is debt, deliberately adding to the stock of debt is exactly the wrong thing to do.

    The initial crisis of banking and private sector debt has now evolved into a sovereign debt crisis.

    When this Coalition Government came to power, the UK was forecast to have the largest budget deficit in the G20.

    Since then, the argument we have made, supported by the CBI, about the absolute necessity of a credible deficit reduction plan has been vindicated by events.

    Growth has been weaker than originally expected due largely to a commodity price shock and the eurozone crisis.

    But the arguments for deficit reduction have become stronger, not weaker, over the last year.

    You only have to look around us to see how a loss of fiscal credibility can lead to higher interest rates.

    In an economy as indebted as the UK, that would make recovery all but impossible.

    And once credibility has been lost, it is a long, hard road to get it back.

    We have taken difficult decisions that others have ducked.

    By confronting our country’s problems we have secured the same low interest rates as Germany and the US, and we have won credibility where once it was being lost.

    None of this is easy for elected politicians to achieve.

    So I welcome the continuing support of British business in making this argument.

    We are winning it for now, but we can never afford to let our guard down against the vested interests that will defend every line item of government spending.

    The other aspect of deleveraging that must be carefully managed is the deleveraging of the financial sector.

    More capital and lower leverage is a crucial part of making our financial system safe for the future.

    Again the process can be painful, and pace of change must not be excessive, but the destination cannot be in doubt.

    The Basel III agreement and the Vickers reforms in the UK provide the right framework, and the transition timetable will give banks enough time to make the necessary changes.

    In the meantime, the Government is doing what it can to ensure small businesses aren’t the innocent victims of a squeeze on credit – so we will be passing on the hard-won low interest rates that the Government can borrow at through our £20bn National Loan Guarantee Scheme.

    I am today publishing the Financial Services Bill that will overhaul the failed system of financial regulation which allowed such dangerous levels of leverage to emerge.

    The failings of that system are now well understood.

    The tripartite structure was incoherent, without clear lines of accountability.

    The tripartite committee didn’t meet for almost a decade.

    Everyone was so focused on ticking off a regulatory check-list that nobody felt it was their responsibility to use their judgement.

    The astonishing result was that RBS was allowed to take over ABN Amro when the credit markets had already frozen up.

    And crucially it was unclear who was in charge in a crisis when taxpayers’ money was at stake.

    We are putting in place clear lines of accountability, and restoring that crucial element of judgment.

    One body will be put back in charge of prudential regulation and systemic stability – the Bank of England.

    A new Financial Policy Committee with independent external members will monitor the evolution of leverage and risk in the economy as a whole.

    And when taxpayers’ money is at risk in a crisis this legislation gives the Chancellor the power to direct the Bank of England to act.

    This power will be a more credible tool than the 1946 power of direction, which has always been regarded as a nuclear option and therefore never used.

    For the first time it will allow the Chancellor to direct specific liquidity interventions to assist individual entities, the Special Resolution Regime for banks, and general interventions to preserve stability as long as the Government is willing to take responsibility for the action and take the resulting risk on its balance sheet.

    Independent central banks should not be put under pressure to do what governments do not have the courage to do on their own account.

    There will be no ambiguity about who is in charge.

    During normal times the independent Bank of England will be responsible for prudential regulation and systemic stability, accountable to Parliament.

    But in a crisis, when taxpayers’ money is at risk, both the responsibility and crucially the power to act will rest with the Chancellor of the day.

    I hope that we will never again see the paralysis and confusion that did so much damage when the latest crisis hit.

    Resolving the eurozone crisis.

    Tackling our problems at home.

    These are necessary requirements to get our economy back on its feet.

    But I believe that we need to do much more if the British economy is to fulfill its potential.

    We need to redouble our commitment to open markets and free enterprise.

    Last year at this lunch I said I needed the support of British business against the forces of stagnation.

    I would argue that we are an unabashedly pro-enterprise Government that is doing almost all of what you have asked of us.

    We are reforming employment law, doubling the period before employees can claim unfair dismissal and introducing fees to deter vexatious tribunal claims.

    We are changing the planning system to include a presumption in favour of sustainable development.

    We are cutting corporation tax from 28% to 23% and reforming the controlled foreign companies rules so that multinationals are coming back to Britain instead of leaving it.

    We have introduced one of the most generous tax regimes for investors in new businesses with improvements to the Enterprise Investment Scheme.

    We are unblocking the barriers to infrastructure investment and taking a more activist approach to coordinating the necessary finance.

    We will continue to push forward on all these fronts and many more.

    In each case we will continue to need your support to confront the vested interests that oppose reform.

    But there is one more thing that we need to fight for.

    The unique British advantage – more I would argue than any country in the world – of open markets and free enterprise.

    We still understand the British insight of 150 years ago that when you open your markets you benefit even if others don’t do the same.

    We welcome foreign investment for the jobs and prosperity it brings.

    This is a source of huge strength for the British economy.

    When I was in Asia earlier this month I was hugely encouraged by the enthusiasm I found for Britain.

    We are in the EU single market without being in the euro.

    We are a liberal Anglo-Saxon economy and even more open to trade and investment than the US.

    The recent investment by the China Investment Corporation in Thames Water and the progress we are making in establishing London as an offshore RMB centre are hugely positive signals.

    With your help we must continue to preserve this openness against those who seek to undermine open markets and free enterprise.

    We must ensure that Britain remains connected to future source of growth.

    And continue to send the signal around the world that Britain is open for business.

  • Caroline Spelman – 2012 Speech at Climate Change Risk Assessment Launch

    carolinespelman

    Below is the text of the speech made by Caroline Spelman, the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, at the Climate Change Risk Assessment Launch on 30 January 2012.

    Yesterday the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum began in Davos.

    The theme this year is transformation; and the need for new conceptual models to understand and respond to the great changes we are witnessing.

    Reshaping our global economy is a vital task. Leaders from government, business and civil society must work together to create – and realise – a vision for a strong, green global economy for the 21st century.

    Action on climate change is integral to a robust and resilient economy.

    And the climate change challenge is two-fold.

    We must decouple economic growth from carbon, reducing our own emissions, and lobbying for international cooperation on this most urgent of issues.

    But, because carbon stays in the atmosphere for decades, we are already locked in to some climate change. So we must also prepare our economy for big changes to our weather patterns.

    We are already experiencing an increase in extreme weather events: and the knock-on economic effects.

    – The 2007 floods cost the UK economy billions.

    – The 2010 drought led to the doubling of global wheat prices. Meanwhile floods in Australia sent the price of coal and steel soaring.

    – Last winter’s freeze-up cost London alone £600 million a day.

    – This year, floods in Thailand led to a worldwide shortage of IT and car components.

    The UK leads the world in climate science, and Government will ensure it continues to do so. Defra is protecting its funding of the Met Office Hadley Centre, because we know exactly how vital this work is.

    No amount of science can predict the future. But what it does allow us to do is map the possibilities, assess the risks and take the actions needed, to ensure our future resilience and well-being.

    Thanks to science, we know about rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, rising sea levels rise and so on – but so far we haven’t worked out what these changes mean for the economy, for society and for nature.

    The Climate Change Risk Assessment takes this next step.

    This analysis is the first of its kind. Its methods are groundbreaking. Again the UK is leading the way with this risk-based approach. I want to congratulate the consortium led by HR Wallingford on this monumental achievement. I also want to thank Lord Krebs and the Adaptation Sub-Committee, Professor Martin Parry and his international review panel, and Professor Sir John Beddington and his Chief Scientific Advisers across Government, and the many peer reviewers who gave their expert advice along the way.

    Sir John and his Foresight team have been working on a parallel international project that is helping us understand how changing weather patterns across the world will affect us here in the UK. Published last July, their report identifies the key threats, from impacts on trade routes and infrastructure to global diseases and international migration. It provides a useful accompaniment to today’s Risk Assessment.

    Annually we invest £30 to £50 billion on infrastructure: road, rail, energy, and water hardware, much of which will be here for many decades. To get the best return from this investment – to minimise the costs of maintenance, refurbishment, and replacement – we need to factor the need for long-term climate resilience into the decisions we’re making now. We’re particularly grateful to the Royal Academy of Engineering for helping us think through the infrastructure issues.

    The CCRA shows us the range of challenges we face.

    – Threats to infrastructure, and to supply chains.

    – Threats to wildlife. Although some species could benefit, many more would struggle.

    – The risk of flooding is likely to become greater.

    – At the same time water could become scarce.

    – The UK’s farmers could be tackling water scarcity while managing the higher risk of animal diseases, as well as new weeds and pests.

    – Warmer winters may reduce cold-related deaths – but hotter summers would increase health risks.

    – Hotter weather would also increase the risk of wildfires.The report also analyses the opportunities presented by climate change itself, and by the need to adapt. Taking up these opportunities is part of the challenge.

    The Risk Assessment sets out the challenges – but not the solutions. It also doesn’t factor in changes in policy, plans, and behaviour – our ability to adapt.

    This is important to remember. The analysis provides a baseline against which to assess the climate resilience of our plans and actions; so we can judge what more needs to be done.

    Work to build climate change resilience is happening across government. My department’s activities include our Natural Environment White Paper and our National Ecosystems Assessment, both published last summer, which look at how climate change will affect species, habitats and eco-systems.

    Our Water White Paper, published in December, sets out our vision for a climate-resilient water industry, for secure water supplies and healthy lakes and rivers throughout the century.

    As the department for food and agriculture we are working to help farmers adapt to climate change. We have also published guidelines on forests and climate change. And we are lobbying internationally for climate change agriculture to be part of the climate change treaty.

    This work is not for government alone. All sectors will be affected. All sectors need to act.

    The Risk Assessment is the start of a conversation: a nationwide, sector-wide conversation about ensuring our climate resilience, our economic stability and our health and well-being, in the short and the long term.

    This conversation is vital to the co-creation of the National Adaptation Programme for 2013. I want you be part of it. Please visit our National Adaptation Programme web pages to collaborate in this crucial work.

    Because, with cross-sector engagement, with foresight, with planning, and with commitment, we can mitigate climate threats, as well as taking advantage of the opportunities – and ensure that our economy is resilient.

    It’s inspiring to see what is already happening.

    Climate resilient infrastructure is vital. We are keeping abreast of what infrastructure companies are doing, through the reports they are providing under the Adaptation Reporting Power.

    But it’s not just about infrastructure. All businesses, from local retailers to big corporations, need to be climate resilient.

    The Climate Resilience Toolkit we have developed with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants is an excellent tool for quickly and simply assessing how your business could be affected by climate change. We’re now working with the Environment Agency to create further ways of helping businesses, local authorities and other organisations adapt in practical ways.

    Businesses should seize the opportunities: how to provide climate resilience to their customers, and how climate change might spark the need for new products and services.

    Forward-thinking companies are already coming up with the solutions both innovative and simple, from Swiss Re’s weather hedge for drought-prone areas in India, to Hallmark Blinds’ design for a window cover that deflects heat while letting the light in.

    Different areas in the UK face different risks. So most adaptation actions need to happen locally. Local government has a vital role to play.

    Many local authorities are meeting this challenge, in partnership with public and private sector organisations.

    Big cities are especially vulnerable to heat waves. The City of London has mapped places across the metropolis where residents and workers could escape the heat.

    In east London, Barking and Dagenham council have reduced flood risk by creating a wetland – at the same time providing habitats for people to enjoy and wildlife to thrive.

    Dorset County Council has worked with the Met Office to assess climate change impacts on the county’s roads and pathways over the next 40 years. The council will now use the assessment to make sure the county’s highways are resilient.

    There are many other initiatives; and we need to spread best practice, helping more local adaptation action.

    The most deprived and vulnerable individuals and communities face the highest risks of hardship from climate change.

    We are currently working with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations to help charities and voluntary groups understand how climate change could affect the people they work with. We also have strong links with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which is researching the social justice implications of climate change.

    Wildlife conservation organisations are working on how to help species adapt to climate change, through land management and conservation work. The National Trust’s work to manage rising sea levels and other climate impacts on its properties is another example of civil society’s role.

    It was Benjamin Franklin who said nothing in this world is certain, but death and taxes. We are used to dealing with uncertainty: and we’re good at it. We are constantly making risk-based decisions, from how we invest money to whether to carry an umbrella.

    The more information we have, the easier and the better our decisions are.

    We are a Government that understands the vital role of science. Science that gives a clear picture of the evidence where it exists, and science that describes the extent of the uncertainty where it doesn’t. This is why we protected the science budget in the spending review, and why we made more science investments in the autumn statement.

    Today’s document is part of that science, and part of that mission. Please use the science, and work with us, to ensure prosperity and well-being, for ourselves and for future generations.

  • Francis Maude – 2012 Speech to the World Bank

    Francis Maude
    Francis Maude

    Below is the text of the speech made by Francis Maude, the then Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, at the World Bank on 30 January 2012.

    Introduction

    Transparency is tricky.

    Governments across the world have long been very reluctant to do it – perhaps with the conviction it was washing dirty linen in public.

    It’s a law of nature that Oppositions are very much in favour of open, transparent governments. And once in office this carries on for at least the first 12 months when new governments are all for exposing their predecessors’ failings.

    After that enthusiasm drains.

    Governments of every time and place have always collected and hoarded vast quantities of information about their land and their people – from weather patterns to the marriage certificates.

    After he had conquered England in 1066, William the First sent men all over the country to find out how much each landholder had in land and livestock and what it was worth. The ‘Domesday Book’ – as this survey became known – was designed to find out what taxes were owed and where money could be raised.

    Information, as they say, is power. Which rulers have never been very keen on sharing with the ruled – even in the most Liberal democracies.

    But in the last twenty years something momentous has occurred; the world has opened up. Today citizens across the globe are demanding their data. And they are getting it.

    For the first time the technology exists to make the demand for greater openness uncontainable, irresistible.

    And in the UK transparency and open government is a defining passion for our government.

    We believe that opening up will expose what is inadequate and drive improvement. We believe opening up will give people choices over public services that they’ve never had before.

    And we believe opening up will drive economic and social growth by putting vast tracts of valuable raw data in the public domain.

    Open Government Partnership

    We are at the beginning of global movement towards transparency. And it’s forcing governments out of their comfort zone. By enabling citizens to hold them to account on a day to day basis not just at election time.

    There is nothing soft or fluffy or cosy about transparency.

    I was in New York last September when the Open Government Partnership was launched by Presidents Obama and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil.

    History may come to see this as a turning point. We now have over 50 members signed up to making a reality of transparency and participation for their citizens.

    And we are seeing transformational examples of what open government can achieve.

    In Mongolia they now publish all their mining contracts that were previously siphoned into the offshore bank accounts of a mafia clique. The result has been increasing investment in education and health.

    Latvia is one of many countries developing new modes of citizen engagement by encouraging citizens to participate online in drafting new legislation.

    Transparency can also transform the effectiveness of overseas aid. In Britain we want our development budget, which has been expanded to meet the UN target of 0.7% to be spent to maximum effect.

    So we have brought the principles of the Open Government Partnership into our aid programme to ensure when deciding whether governments will receive UK budget support, progress against Open Government Partnership will be an important factor.

    Exposing data to the harsh sunlight of transparency isn’t easy. Herbert Agar the American writer once wrote that “the truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which other men prefer not to hear”.

    In Liberia the struggle to publish government contracts with the forestry industry prompted mafia reprisals.

    In some parts of India where internet access is not available officials paint spreadsheets of welfare payments on village walls so local people can judge if the claimants are real or fraudulent.

    Brazil now requires officials to post expenses within 24 hours to reduce corruption and improving public confidence in government. And as a result President Dilma dismissed six ministers in 2011 linked to corruption scandals.

    Governments are finding transparency risky, difficult and uncomfortable. But transparency sticks – it’s irreversible once you start. And I believe transparency will become the defining characteristic of future public policy.

    Transparency in the UK

    The UK takes over the co-chairmanship of the OGP this April and this is an exciting moment for us. I believe we have a lot to offer. And that we can export transparency best practice to all corners of the globe.

    The theme of our leadership will be transparency driving prosperity and combating poverty.

    On one side of the transparency coin there is holding government to account; exposing waste, rooting out corruption and driving efficiency.

    On the other side there is putting out raw data in the public domain for entrepreneurs and businesses to work with. Creating an information marketplace. And this is where I believe the UK is leading the way today.

    Data sharing is underpinning everything we do to improve public services and to drive new waves of growth.

    Firstly by making public sector data increasingly available we are giving citizens choices over services that simply haven’t existed before. Indeed how can you make a choice when you don’t know what the options are?

    A few years ago the heart surgeon Sir Bruce Keogh made history when he persuaded his colleagues to publish comparable data on their individual clinical outcomes – a global first.

    Seven years later dramatic improvements in survival rates are reported – with more than a third of patients living when they might have previously expected to have died in some procedures.

    This bold act of professional transparency simply transformed the results of heart surgery in this country.

    Secondly we are giving a new generation of innovative data entrepreneurs an opportunity to exploit large tracts of valuable data that governments would previously have left under-analysed and under-used.

    And the potential prize here is considerable. A recent report estimated the current total direct and indirect economic value of public sector information at €140 billion per year for the EU27 (Vickery/ EU Commission, 2011). This suggests that similar information in the UK is already worth in the region of £16 billion a year.

    Our open data commitments cover health, education, transport, criminal justice – as well as central government spending. We’ve already publicised 7,800 data sets on data.gov.uk – the largest resource of its kind in the world.

    Last autumn we made world-leading commitments to open up more public sector data that will make travel easier and healthcare better, and create significant growth for industry and jobs in the UK.

    At the heart of what we are doing is building is a two way data relationship between the state and individuals.

    We are releasing public data – where the state is a source of information to citizens. This is generally large routine datasets from real-time transport data to routine hospital activity data.

    And releasing this has the twin effect of driving more efficient public services and boosting the new mass market for smart consumer technology.

    For example there are parts of the UK where the National Health Service has published data on local medical practices – this is stimulating discussion and enhancing choice for thousands of patients.

    Companies large and small are also using the data to create innovative, products and applications.

    Already we’re aware of 47 independent app developers working in the UK giving information to rail passengers through their smartphones – in a market that has for the most part open up in only a few major cities.

    London commuters can now use their phone apps to decide whether to rush for the train or get a cup of coffee thanks to greater transport data.

    To give another example a small UK-based firm started using live data from local councils to help drivers identify free car parking spaces. The firm called Parkopedia have grown to become the world’s leading source of parking information covering more than 20 million spaces in 25 countries.

    The second part of the data relationship is user data – we are releasing information that enables the citizen to be a source of information for the state.

    For example we are set to improve medical knowledge and practice with world-first linked-data services which will enable healthcare impacts to be tracked across the entire Health Service and improve medical practice.

    And we believe this service will put the UK in a prime position for research investment

    There is also a third core public data asset being release – ‘My data’, personal information that will empower each individual.

    Our ambition is to transform high tech consumer information markets through provision of online citizen access to personal data including medical records online.

    In short, open data is not just a grand sounding theory that is, in practise, academic. It is making a difference in all kinds of ways – from saving lives, to improving public services to simply making life more convenient.

    Of course there are challenges. As we open data up we are finding some of it has been in the dark so long it’s not fit the light of day. But again exposing these inadequacies is stimulating improvement.

    Our priority is to design a safe, high quality culture of data sharing which poses no risk to individual confidentiality.

    We are keen to share what we consider to be the building blocks of transparency and open government with the world. I believe a lot of what the UK is doing is exportable.

    And I hope to hear from you about how we might work with the World Bank to take this to other nations and offer our support.

    The Future

    These are the first formative years of this new age of open data. And there are risks and challenges ahead. But the prize is effective personalised 21st century democracy.

    Transparency will create empowered citizens that can expose corruption, get the best value out of their governments and have equal access to valuable raw data.

    So what are our ambitions going forward?

    We need a much better international source book that supports Open Government Partnership members engaging with transparency.

    We should be importing and exporting our transparency techniques, our open data challenges and the lessons we have learnt from our mistakes.

    And finally we are moving from open government to an open society.

    There is increasing pressure on businesses and voluntary groups and charities to be open and transparent. At home we are currently debating whether businesses should publish executive pay.

    But businesses and other organisations have much to gain from releasing their data. Many are already finding that outsourcing data to academics and developers for free will gain them cutting edge techniques and new perspectives.

    I am sure this is true of the World Bank where I know you have made your data and knowledge available to the world online.

    The age of data silo is passing. As McKinsey in their big data study made clear, there is a big advantage to integrating a range of data sources and gaining new knowledge you might not have expected.

    One of the co-directors of London’s new Open Data Institute for supporting businesses to use public data is Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web.

    Sir Tim has pointed out that: “One of the reasons the Web worked was because people re-used each other’s content in ways never imagined by those who created it. The same will be true of open data.”

    In the future as we face challenges including climate change, energy use, security, aging populations and migration we need our critical infrastructure and services to be more aware, more interactive and more efficient. Open data will be crucial in making this happen.

    And I have no doubt as we become increasingly data rich we will all look back and wonder how we ever tolerated such collective ignorance in the past. There is no turning back on transparency – the future is open.

  • Theresa May – 2012 Speech on Police Reform

    theresamay

    Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, on 30 January 2012.

    The police do one of the most important jobs in this country.

    They do their work with great courage, great skill and great commitment.

    In fact, I believe Britain has the finest police officers in the world.

    But we can help them do their job even more effectively.

    Today I want to talk about the government’s radical programme of police reform, about how those reforms are starting to take shape, how the police are already responding and about how they will leave us with a police force that is answerable to the public and transformed in its ability to fight crime.

    When people talk about public service reform it’s often through the prism of cuts. With the deficit we have, that’s understandable, but it’s just not what our police reforms are about.

    Of course, the need to make savings makes reform more urgent than ever. But the aim of our police reforms is not just to save money, it’s to equip the police to face the future and make them more effective at fighting crime.

    The Winsor Report

    Last year, I said at another reform event that we would need to take difficult decisions to save police jobs and fight crime. We would need to reform police pay and conditions, not just to make savings, but also to reinvest some of those savings in the frontline, and reward skills, performance and crime-fighting.

    When the police spend around £11 billion per year on pay – three quarters of total police spending – we have to get it right. That’s why I commissioned Tom Winsor to carry out a full independent review of police pay and conditions.

    The existing police pay system was designed over 30 years ago. Since then, the way the police work has changed a great deal. But the way they are paid has not. In the late 1970s, for example, the vast majority of officers regularly worked unsocial hours. Now only around 60 per cent do.

    Since the 1970s, pay systems in the private and the wider public sector have changed to recognise and reward specialist skills. The most productive employees are paid more. Incentives are used to improve performance.

    But in the police that doesn’t happen enough. Skills, performance and successful crime fighting aren’t rewarded. Time served still determines how well most police officers are paid. And I don’t think that’s right.

    So I asked Tom Winsor to design a system that is fair to the taxpayer and fair to police officers and staff. I asked him to help maximise deployment to frontline roles. And I asked him to allow chief constables to deploy modern management practices that give them the flexibility they need to cut crime.

    After a thorough and considered review, Winsor provided us with the outline of what a modern police pay structure could look like. He produced a package that is fair to the police and that is fair to the taxpaying public. A package that can produce savings and improve incentives, that recognises and rewards specialist skills and frontline service, not just time served.

    The Winsor Report has been considered by the independent police arbitration tribunal, and I can announce today that I am accepting all of the tribunal’s recommendations in full.

    I know that some police officers will be disappointed by this outcome. But I want to stress that there will be no reduction in basic pay. Extra payments will be targeted at frontline staff and those doing the most demanding work. And the total savings will represent less than two per cent of the total police pay bill. Policing will remain a well-paid job.

    And the fact remains that if we hadn’t taken this tough decision, we would have had to cut police budgets more deeply and there would have had to be more police job cuts. That is something that neither the police nor the public wants.

    Once the PAT’s recommendations have been fully implemented they will save around £150 million per year.

    Already police forces like Surrey and Cambridgeshire have begun recruiting again. ACPO believe more will start in the next financial year.

    The Second Winsor Report

    In response to the first Winsor report, there were a few areas on which the police arbitration tribunal explicitly made no decision.

    The most important was Winsor’s proposed expertise and professional accreditation allowance.

    This payment was intended to link the pay that officers receive to the skills they have acquired and use. The link between pay and skills is a vitally important principle. In every walk of life, people are paid according to their skills. The same should be true for the police. That is why this principle will be considered again when we look at the second part of Tom Winsor’s review.

    This second report will look into police pay and conditions in the longer-term, including basic pay, career length and pension age and the pay negotiating machinery. In particular, it will consider the introduction of direct entry into the police. I have been clear that I want to see a widening of the pool of talent from which police leaders are drawn.

    So I look forward to Tom Winsor’s Part 2 recommendations.

    Helping the Police to Make Savings

    We’re leaving no stone unturned in our work to make the police more efficient.

    Police forces spend over £1 billion per year on information and communications technology. There are 5000 police ICT staff, working on 2000 separate systems, across 100 different data centres. The scope for savings is clear.

    That’s why last year I announced the creation of a police information and communications technology company to help police forces improve their systems and save money.

    ICT is crucial to policing, but the company will allow IT professionals to do the IT and the crime fighters to do the crime fighting. And by harnessing the combined purchasing power of police forces, the company will be able to drive down costs, drive up value and save the public money.

    We’re also helping police forces to come together and use their collective buying power to procure goods and services from uniforms to patrol cars. It makes no sense for the police to buy things in 43 different ways, but this is what happens. One supplier has over 1,500 individual contracts with the 43 forces. No wonder prices are so high.

    By putting in place framework contracts for standard things like body armour we can cut out this needless waste.

    Our police procurement programme has already realised savings of £34 million – a total projected to rise to around £70 million by the end of this financial year and to approximately £200 million per year by the end of the spending review period.

    Most forces recognise the huge financial benefits that this standardised and collective purchasing can bring. But in exceptional cases, where a small minority are creating a barrier to the rest making savings, then we’re prepared to mandate joint action. That’s why Nick Herbert, the policing minister, announced last week that we intend to require all forces to collaborate in the creation of the national police air service.

    This will ultimately save £15 million per year and result in a better co-ordinated and more consistently available air service for forces across the country.

    These are all savings that are being made because of action we’re taking, from the home office, to help the police.

    But police forces are also doing a great deal to help themselves to rise to the challenge – and I want to praise them for the way they have responded to both the need to reform and the need to save money.

    Greater Manchester police have saved £62 million per year from their support functions and have released 348 police officers from these roles so they can get back to frontline roles.

    Surrey Police have carried out a significant restructuring which has allowed them to commit to increasing constable numbers by up to 200 over the next four years.

    In my own constituency force, Thames Valley, they have slashed support costs, such as HR, saving over £15 million this year and allowing them to redeploy 35 officers to frontline roles in neighbourhoods or on patrol. And they have ambitions to redeploy a further 100 officers to the frontline over the next two years.

    Reducing Bureaucracy

    But good policing is not just about numbers and our police reforms are about more than just money. We are also freeing the police to get on with fighting crime.

    Police officers join the force because they want to catch criminals and keep their communities safe. And yet for too long those officers have been hamstrung by red tape and form filling. Well we’re changing all that.

    That’s why I’ve announced a package of measures that will cut police bureaucracy and save up to 3.3 million police hours per year. That’s the equivalent of putting over 1,500 police officers back on the streets.

    I know that senior officers and chief constables don’t want their officers stuck in the station – they want them on the frontline.

    And the evidence is already mounting that they’re succeeding in protecting that frontline.

    Last week’s figures show we will have a smaller police workforce overall. But Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary have found that police forces across England and Wales were planning to increase the proportion of police officers working on the frontline from 68% in 2010 to 70% by March of this year and with that trend predicted to continue.

    I want to see that proportion continue to go up because it’s what’s effective in fighting crime and it’s what the public want.

    So our reforms are protecting thousands of police officer jobs, saving millions of police man hours, and making the police more visible and available to the public than ever before.

    Empowering the Public

    Empowering the public is the theme than runs through our whole police reform programme. The police are a public service: they should serve and respond to local people. That is why we are introducing directly elected police and crime commissioners.

    From November this year, they will bring democratic accountability to the police. They will have the local knowledge and understanding to set their force’s policing priorities. They will have the democratic mandate to set the police budget and the council tax precept. And they will have the power to hold chief constables to account for the performance of their force.

    Earlier this month, the mayor of London became the police and crime commissioner for the metropolitan police force area. This important milestone means that London can now benefit from direct local accountability over its police force, with the elected mayor, not the metropolitan police authority, setting policing priorities for London.

    But police and crime commissioners are only one way in which we are strengthening the link between the police and the public.

    Earlier this month we launched a single non-emergency number to contact the police – 101 – to replace the various 0845 numbers used by forces around the country.

    101 gives an easy-to-remember number for the public to use when they need to contact the police when it’s not an emergency, for example to report a crime that has already happened, to get advice or to raise local policing issues.

    And there have already been nearly 3 million calls to the 101 number.

    If people want to speak to the police in person, rather than over the phone, we’ve made that much easier too, by mandating the police to hold neighbourhood beat meetings.

    And as well as making it easier to contact the police, we’re also giving the public more information than ever before about crime and policing in their area through street-level crime maps.

    Last year, our crime mapping website – police.uk – received more hits than any other government website.

    Since October the public have been able to use the police.uk website to see how their force performs in a range of areas like crime rates, quality of service and victim satisfaction.

    Tomorrow we’ll launch the next stage of crime mapping, in which we’ll start to map crimes to or near a range of public places like railway stations, nightclubs, parks and shopping areas.

    By May, crime maps will show the public what happens after a crime has occurred – what action the police took and what the criminal justice outcome was. You’ll be able to see if the criminal was arrested, charged and sent to prison.

    Armed with the information from those crime maps, people can attend their local neighbourhood beat meeting and hold their local police to account for their performance.

    That will help drive up local policing standards and help drive down local crime.

    Local crime includes, of course, anti-social behaviour.

    But we know in the past the authorities have not always heard cries for help from vulnerable victims.

    So we have been working with eight police forces and their local partners to test new ways of handling calls from the public about anti-social behaviour. The aim was to quickly identify the vulnerable and those who reported incidents repeatedly, and to prioritise their cases.

    The eight forces have reported encouraging initial results from the trials – including better working relationships with other agencies, an improved service to the victim and the start of a shift in culture, with call handlers responding to the needs of the victim, rather than just ticking boxes.

    Most importantly, forces have been able to identify high-risk individuals – often people experiencing the most horrendous abuse – who might otherwise have slipped through the net. And they have taken action to make that abuse stop.

    So we will now work with police forces nationwide to share the lessons of the trials so that every community can benefit.

    It’s too easy to overlook the harm that persistent anti-social behaviour causes. Many police forces, councils and housing providers are working hard, but I still hear horror stories of victims reporting the same problem over and over again, and getting no response.

    Just last week I met a woman who had been telling the police about anti-social behaviour in her area for over two years – and it’s still going on.

    These long-running problems – and the sense of helplessness that goes with them – can destroy a victim’s quality of life and shatter a community’s trust in the police.

    That’s why we proposed a ‘community trigger’ as part of our reforms to anti-social behaviour laws. The trigger will give victims and communities the right to demand that agencies who had ignored a problem must take action.

    So we are now working with a number of local authorities to test the community trigger on the ground and pilots will begin by the summer.

    NCA

    But I don’t just want crime to be better tackled locally. I also want us to get a much better grip on crime nationally.

    The growth of international travel and the revolution in communications technology, that has benefited us all, has also been exploited by criminals.

    Their networks and activities have changed and evolved, but our response has not kept pace. Law enforcement officers currently believe organised crime costs the UK between £20 and £40 billion per year and involves over 39,000 individuals, operating as part of over 7,000 gangs – though the true numbers may be even higher.

    The drug dealing on street corners; the muggings by addicts; the gang violence that is used to protect a drugs market. All these crimes happening in local communities are fundamentally driven by organised crime.

    And as well as growing, the threat from organised crime is also changing.

    Increasingly, the biggest criminal losses do not come from the burglar who breaks into houses to steal TVs or DVD players, but from the cyber criminal who raids bank accounts directly.

    A child can now be at greater risk sat in their bedroom on their computer than they are outside the school gates.

    And given the nature of the criminal threat, it is now no longer possible to keep communities safe through good local policing alone. Highly visible neighbourhood policing is vital, but it won’t deal with cyber crime. Arresting drug dealers is important, but it won’t stop the flow of drugs from overseas.

    That’s why we need a powerful new crime fighting force that works across different police forces and agencies, defending our borders, coordinating action on economic crime, protecting children and vulnerable people, and active in cyber space.

    That body will be the national crime agency

    With Keith Bristow – who is here today – at its head, the NCA will have the remit to work across geographical and organisational boundaries.

    I see the NCA as having three important characteristics:

    It must have a positive effect on the safety of local communities by joining up the law enforcement response from the local to the national and the international. People will be safer and feel safer.
    It must act as the controlling hand, by owning the coordinated intelligence picture; working with law enforcement to decide on the highest priority criminal targets; agreeing the action necessary to tackle them; and having the power to ensure that action is taken.
    It must bring its own contribution to the fight against serious, organised and complex crime – that means having its own intelligence gathering and investigative capacity; sophisticated technical skills; and a presence internationally, at the border and in cyber space.

    So the NCA will make all neighbourhoods safer, it will be at the heart of a joined up law enforcement response, and it will lead the fight against the most dangerous criminals and their gangs.

    That is how the NCA will help cut crime and help lock up serious criminals – and that is a real prize.

    Becoming fully operational from 2013, the benefits of the NCA are already being felt. The economic crime coordination board, which brings together agencies to build the economic crime command in the NCA, is already up and running. Last week saw a multi agency operation targeting money mule accounts – front bank accounts used for money laundering. It involved 9 agencies and saw 13 arrests, with prevention and disruption activity now underway.

    As it ramps up the NCA will continue to help cut crime.

    And that will help every local community in the country.

    Developing Police Professionalism

    As well as developing police structures we also need to develop police professionals.

    That means helping the police at all levels – from the constables who form the bedrock of British policing through to their senior leaders – helping them to be the best they can be.

    Over the past 30 years, police officers and staff have increasingly come to see themselves as part of a profession – a specialist and expert group of crime fighters. And so it’s only right that they should have their own professional body to help further increase that professionalism.

    So we are working with the police service to establish a police professional body, which will be up and running by the end of the year.

    The professional body will represent all ranks, staff and officers.

    It will set standards; safeguard police ethics and integrity; design, accredit and deliver police training; develop police leadership; and advise on recruitment, career progression and professional development.

    Crucially, the police professional body must not be an organisation that serves only senior officers and it must not only listen to the top brass.

    I want to see the professional body drawing on the views, skills and expertise of all officers and staff, and in particular those working on the frontline.

    By acting in the interests of the entire police service, by setting standards, improving training and talking for the service, the police professional body can help equip the police with the skills they need to tackle the future.

    Conclusion

    From the graffiti and litter that blights a local area; to the binge drinking and drug dealing that makes people frightened to step outside; right up to the criminal gangs who flaunt their illegal wealth and cheat the exchequer out of millions – our police reforms will help fight them all.

    We’ll ensure the police tackle local priorities, by giving power to elected police and crime commissioners.

    We’ll help lock up the drug lords by creating a national crime agency.

    We’ll let police officers get back on the frontline by freeing them from paperwork.

    We’ll give officers incentives to acquire specialist skills and serve the public.

    And we’ll improve the way they’re led.

    Our reforms are ambitious, comprehensive and they are happening right now.

    They will transform the police service so it is fit to face the future and fit to fight crime.

    Thank you.

  • Charles Hendry – 2012 Speech at Chatham House

    charleshendry

    Below is the text of the speech made by Charles Hendry, the then Minister of State for Energy, on 30 January 2012.

    Introduction

    I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak to you today. No discussion of energy policy is complete without talking about North Africa and the Middle East. As El Badri has said, this region has, and will continue to play, a critical role in our energy future.

    Last year was a tumultuous one for the region. A year that brought the opportunity for essential political and economic reform, but also had a major impact on the short term investment outlook in these countries. With this in mind, the focus of this conference is very timely indeed.

    As our previous speaker Al-Naimi has said – with change however comes opportunity – the opportunity to create a global energy framework that delivers secure, affordable sustainable energy for decades to come. But to do this, both producers and consumers need to work together to achieve three shared objectives.

    One – let us be clear – oil and gas will remain essential to the global economy for the coming decades . But high and volatile oil prices are in no one’s interest, and we therefore need to ensure the markets function better through good governance, greater transparency and a better understanding of the implications of global events. The work of institutions such as OPEC and the IEF, and initiatives such as the Joint Organisations Data Initiative are crucial in this context.

    Two – we must invest in our natural resources and new sources of technology to promote cleaner, more efficient, sources of energy, allowing a more diverse and sustainable approach to power our future economies. And to hear a Saudi oil minister devote much of his speech to the role of renewables and energy efficiency is clear evidence of this fact.

    Three – we must recognise that we are all in this together. The commitments made in Durban acknowledged that only a global framework can achieve our shared climate change objectives. It is vital that both energy producers and consumers work together to ensure their energy priorities are met through a transparent global market and stable energy prices.

    Events like this will help achieve these objectives.

    Challenges

    Events in the last year have reinforced the susceptibility of the oil market to external shocks, be they political, like the so-called Arab Spring, or natural, like the tragic events in Fukshima, Japan. If unmonitored, these events can lead to disruptions to the market and high and volatile prices – leading to slower growth in consumer countries, and uncertain outlook and revenues for producers.

    Our vulnerabilities to external shocks are particularly relevant for the Middle East and North Africa, a region which is predicted to contribute over 90% of the growth in oil production and nearly 30% of the required growth in gas to 2035. If market disruptions were to cause a shortfall in the required oil and gas investment in the region, the oil price is predicted by the IEA to increase from a predicted peak of $110 in 2016 to as much as $150/bl.

    Uncertainty and risk of disruption to Iranian supply is a salient reminder of the challenges we face. But we can point to Saudi Arabia’s recent efforts to counter the loss of Libyan oil exports, and last year’s emergency oil release by the IEA to safeguard the global recovery, as a good example of how producers and consumers can work together to address these challenges to ensure security of supply.

    We must also look to the future, by intensifying our efforts to bring new energy partners into the future energy framework. Iraq, for example, has vast gas reserves and the greatest potential for increasing conventional oil production of any oil-producing country. Maximising this potential will be vital to achieving its ambitious development targets, and will also influence global oil markets over the next decade. To this end, the UK supports projects such as the Southern Corridor pipeline that will transport gas from the Caspian region into Europe, potentially boosting Iraq’s ability to become a major gas producer and exporter in the longer term.

    UK / MENA relationships

    In addition to oil and gas use, we must also work towards a more ambitious solution – creating additional ways in which to provide our citizens with secure and affordable energy by using our own natural resources and capital to drive investment in energy efficient and low carbon technologies as part of our future energy mix.

    This is because we live in a time of steadily increasing energy demand and prices. This is driven by both the emerging economies and energy producers, with both facing the challenge of rapidly rising domestic energy consumption with budgetary pressures to generate economic growth.

    To meet this demand will require huge investment in the hydrocarbons industry and energy infrastructure. Indeed, the IEA estimates we need $38 trillion of investment in energy infrastructure by 2035. That’s over twice the GDP of the EU, and an increase of over $5 trillion on the IEA’s previous estimate made a year ago.

    It is therefore in everyone’s interest to accelerate the deployment of new and innovative technologies to ensure our energy needs can be met through a diverse and sustainable range of energy sources. We only need to look at the success of the US. After the development of its shale gas reserves, the US is looking at potentially becoming a net gas exporter within the next five years. Through this, they are achieving both their energy security objectives and greenhouse gas emission reductions.

    In this context, we welcome the renewable energy ambitions of a number of MENA countries, and stress the importance of tackling energy demand. With rising domestic energy consumption across the Gulf, the commercial development of efficient renewable energy such as solar will extend the life of hydrocarbon exports and ensure the long term prosperity of the region.

    Saudi Arabia’s decision to build the largest solar-powered water desalination plant in the world in the city of Al-Khafji, and Algeria’s decision to become a partner in the Desertec Initiative, to develop large scale solar power in the Sahara, are prime examples of these ambitions. And the UK is continuing to work with the UAE on renewable and alternative energy through cooperation on nuclear energy, Masdar and their investment in the London Array offshore wind project – the largest offshore wind farm currently in operation.

    The adoption of these technologies and others, such as CCS, are also critical to continuing the progress made in Durban, to limit the risk of climate change. In this respect, I welcome the work the UK is doing with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands and Norway through the ‘Four Kingdom’s’ dialogue, and the continued efforts of Qatar Petroleum, Shell and Imperial College London at Qatar’s Science and Technology Park to seek ways to make CCS a reality. I hope the success of Durban will be matched when the Conference of the Parties moves to Doha later this year.

    The potential of CCS is further demonstrated by BP’s work in Algeria with Sonatrach and Statoil on the In Salah CCS project – a $2 billion facility. The site has been identified by the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum as one of three worldwide industrial-scale CO2 monitoring and verification demonstration sites and the results of the project could lead to important advances in our understanding of the best use for this technology in the future. That is why in the UK we are working so hard to demonstrate CCS at commercial scale and encouraging CCS deployment internationally.

    Domestic situation

    The UK has experience in all these areas. Our energy objectives are: to ensure that our energy supplies are secure, affordable and sustainable. These three objectives are closely interlinked and we need to succeed on all of them.

    As with the wider world, it is clear that oil and natural gas is a critical part of the UK energy mix today and will continue to have a crucial role through to 2030 and beyond. For gas in particular, the UK is well-placed as an entry point for gas imports for onward distribution into the EU, as our gas market is one of the most liquid and well developed in the world, and we have developed a large scale and diverse gas supply infrastructure.

    And our role as a gas corridor to Europe, with access to a wide variety of gas sources and routes – including production from the UK Continental Shelf, imports from Norway and from the Continent, LNG from global markets and gas storage, will likely become even more important as demand for gas increases across the EU.

    But with our indigenous production in decline, the UK will also become increasingly dependent on imports in the future and we must take steps to meet our domestic energy challenge.

    Through our Electricity Market Reform, we are improving our electricity and gas markets to attract appropriate investment in electricity generation and networks, and gas import, storage and transmission infrastructure is a key part of this process. We are also working hard to increase the role of renewable energy and civil nuclear in our energy mix.

    From the UK’s perspective, we believe the answer is clear: investment and diversification are essential. Innovation is the key and we strongly welcome international efforts to improve energy efficiency and decarbonisation. We believe this can have huge benefits, including in oil and gas rich regions such as the Middle East, and we welcome the opportunity to press home this message when we host the third Clean Energy Ministerial later this year.

    Conclusion

    And perhaps that is fitting place to conclude my remarks.

    As we look towards a more connected, a more secure and a more diverse energy future, the relationship with our partners in the Middle East and North Africa will remain of the utmost importance as testified by the regular Ministerial visits and engagement that takes place.

    That the Middle East and North Africa has a key role to play in the achievement of our common goals is beyond question. The world will continue to rely on traditional hydrocarbons for the foreseeable future – but how that role evolves will define the fortunes of the region. Now is the time to be addressing these questions.

    Thank you very much.

  • Tim Loughton – 2012 Speech at National Youth Agency

    timloughton

    Below is the text of the speech made by Tim Loughton, the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families, at the National Youth Agency on 27 January 2012.

    Thank you for that kind introduction. I’m delighted to be here today.
    As you all know, youth and children’s services have been right at the top of our agenda over the last year – and I’d like to start by thanking you all for your help and support.

    There’s been a huge amount of positive engagement from the sector in our work around children in care and adoption, in particular. Thanks to the thoughtful and expert contributions of professionals like you, we’ve managed to create and implement real reforms that are beginning to achieve real results.

    As we start 2012, one area right at the top of our agenda – mine, my Department’s and, hopefully, yours – is policy around young people.

    For too long young people in this country have had a raw deal. The media seems to jump at any opportunity to trot out negative stereotypes and insulting cliches. According to research by ‘Children and Young People Now’, over three quarters of press coverage of young people is negative (2009).

    But the overwhelming majority of young people are responsible, hard-working and energetic. They are determined to make a better future for themselves and for others, and they are working hard to make it happen. And I’m not exaggerating – it’s a highly creditable statistic that more young people volunteer for charities and good causes than any other group in society.

    Even in the disturbances last August, the vast majority of young people refused to join in with lawlessness and looting. Some went further.

    In Sheffield, for example, Sheffield Futures – the city’s main provider of youth services and youth engagement groups – established a panel of young people representing all the local participation groups including Young Advisors, Sheffield Youth Council, and the UK Youth Parliament to help prevent the disturbances spreading to their city.

    These young people couldn’t understand why anyone would want to wreck their own hometown – so they came up with a slogan to show their pride in Sheffield, ‘Steel City NOT Steal City’ . They used social media networks to contact other young people and passed on any useful information to the police, enabling officers to target potential hotspots in a low key way. They put together a leaflet explaining young people’s rights and responsibilities, which was distributed widely throughout Sheffield; and were interviewed on local radio and in local newspapers to show that young people were leading the way in opposing the riots.

    Young people are taking action like this – positive, responsible, community-spirited action – every day. And we need to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to support them.

    That’s why I’m proud to say that, last month, the Government published our new vision for young people and youth services – Positive for Youth.

    For the first time, it brings together in one place everything the Government is doing to support young people between the ages of 13 and 19; actively supporting their success, and helping them to achieve their potential.

    This single vision is the result of months of work with a wide range of partners – local authorities, private companies, voluntary sector organisations, at least 9 different Government departments and Ministers, and of course, the real experts: young people themselves.

    I’d like to take this opportunity straight away to thank the Local Government Association, National Youth Agency, Association of Directors of Children’s Services and Confederation of Heads of Young People’s Services. They have all been incredibly helpful in developing Positive for Youth – and I know that we will depend on them over the coming months and years as we turn this vision into a reality.

    Positive for Youth isn’t about creating something completely new; we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. It’s about highlighting and celebrating excellent practice across the country. We’ve stuffed the paper full of examples from high-performing areas and I hope that these case studies will help all youth services to reach the level of the very best.

    I’m delighted that expert organisations like the British Youth Council, the UK Youth Parliament, NYA, and 4Children, among others, are supporting our work and are ready and willing to play their part. They are also more than ready and willing to hold us to account if we don’t deliver on our ambitions – and I’m sure that many in this room would volunteer to do the same.

    I know that many people are concerned that youth services have faced disproportionate cuts as councils look to tighten their belts in the current economic climate. And, I’ll be honest, I’m concerned too. But that’s why I want Positive for Youth to be a turning point in how we treat young people, and how we think about youth services.

    It makes clear that there is no excuse to neglect youth services, or to treat them as an easy area to make savings. Prioritising youth services and young people is the right thing to do.

    One area which has been proven to be crucial for young people’s success in life is educational attainment, and this Government has already announced – and made a start on – a significant programme of educational reforms, laid out in our White Paper, ‘The Importance of Teaching’. Just last week, we also set out a new strategy to increase young people’s participation in learning and work: ‘Building Engagement, Building Futures’.

    We are raising the participation age for education or training to 17 in 2013 and 18 in 2015, and we will be depending on the support of Local Authorities in monitoring participation levels among 16 and 17 year olds, and working with the YPLA and providers to identify and fill gaps in provision.

    As the participation age is raised, young people will need extra support – and the Youth Contract, in particular, worth over £1 billion, will support more 16 and 17 year olds to participate in education or training, expand opportunities for young apprenticeships, and help more young people find work.

    But education isn’t the end of it. Young people don’t grow up in a vacuum – and their experiences outside school or college are just as crucial to their overall wellbeing.

    Our goal is for all young people to have:

    – supportive relationships;

    – strong ambitions;

    – and good opportunities.

    If young people are already getting those things from their families, communities and schools: great. If not – Local Authorities and services can step in.

    That’s why we are retaining the statutory duty on local authorities to provide sufficient services for young people.

    This duty is about improving young people’s wellbeing, not just providing leisure activities. We’re keeping this legislation because it reflects the fact that a wide range of services for young people outside of school and college can have a significant impact on their life chances. We will be consulting soon on shorter, more concise statutory guidance that will make our expectations much more explicit.

    It’s important to stress that we will not be defining a minimum standard or expectation for the offer to young people in each local area. Local areas are best placed to decide on what services they need, not central Government.

    And when it comes to deciding what those services should be, there’s an obvious way to find out. After all, anyone who tried to buy Christmas presents for their teenagers will know that they have very definite views about what they want and what they don’t.
    Our vision is for councils and young people to work together much more closely. Young people must be at the heart of planning local services – driving, shaping and reviewing everything they do.
    Many councils are already doing this brilliantly. In Sheffield, for example, young inspectors use ‘mystery shoppers’ to review services for young people, from sports facilities to youth clubs and social venues and give them a star rating.

    We want this to become the norm rather than the exception. And as well as improving services, this approach brings huge benefits for the young people themselves. One young inspector from Central Bedfordshire, quoted in our paper, said

    I am gaining confidence as I can do things that I usually wouldn’t feel able to do. It is also beneficial because, being a young person, I benefit from improved services as a result of the inspections.

    From now on, we want Local Authorities to commission an annual audit from young people – whether through a youth council or young inspectors or whatever works in that area.

    And as well as the views of young people, Lead Members can use any available local and national data to keep track of their progress, benchmarking results against other areas like participation in education and training.

    I would like all councils to publish the results of these audits. That way I’ll be able to recognise and celebrate the best examples – and ensure that those which are falling behind have the support they need to improve.

    And I’d like to assure you that we are also giving young people the metaphorical keys to our kingdom.

    As part of £850,000 funding to the British Youth Council in 2011-2012, a new national scrutiny group and youth select committee will monitor and advise on government policy, giving young people the chance to ‘youth proof’ government policy.

    To help in demonstrating the impact of services for young people, we’re funding the Centre for the Analysis of Youth Transitions to develop standards for evidence. Catalyst is also going to develop an outcomes framework.

    And centrally, we will publish annual data on measures for young people. At the end of this year we’ll publish a ‘one year on’ progress update to see how far we’ve come.

    Because Positive for Youth is a positive paper, we won’t just be looking at problems averted, although that’s obviously vital. We also want to monitor the good things that have been achieved, the improvements that have been made and the opportunities that have been created.

    In a tough economic climate, bringing in charities and businesses to help develop and provide youth services is an approach with huge potential.

    There are already some superb projects going on all over the country, building links between local and national businesses, young people and their local communities. To give just a few examples:

    O2 is running O2 Think Big – a social action programme that provides funding, training and support for young people who are running projects across the UK to improve their local communities.

    Starbucks is giving funding and training to young people in 12 cities across the country through their Starbucks Youth Action Programme.

    The Co-Operative’s Truth about Youth programme has brought over 36,000 adults and young people together from seven UK cities over the last two years, to tackle widespread negative perceptions of youth.

    This work is reinforced by the Co-Operative’s Apprenticeship Academy and Inspiring Young People campaign. I was fortunate enough to visit a Truth about Youth project at Oval House in South London last month and it was inspiring stuff – so I have seen the sort of impact these schemes can achieve.

    These are just a few examples of the sort of innovative projects which are springing up all over the country; and we are investing in brokering many more.

    But the people who will play a pivotal role in turning Positive for Youth into reality – the real agents of this Government’s ambition to improve the lives of every single young person in the country – are Local Authorities.

    We will depend on Local Authorities to use Positive for Youth to transform local services. To make that process a bit easier, as requested, we have clearly explained what Positive for Youth means for Local Authorities – and published it under the imaginative name, ‘Positive for Youth: What it means for local authorities’.

    As this document sets out, our expectations for Local Authorities are very clear. And our approach promotes local leadership and encourages local cross-sector partnerships- particularly important as local authorities take on new public health responsibilities. We expect Local Authorities to give young people a voice in decisions that affect their lives. There are many ways to do this, and Local Authorities are best placed to decide on their chosen method. But we are funding the British Youth Council to promote the youth voice at a national and local level, to sustain the UK Youth Parliament and to provide information and advice to councils. And each local authority area will soon have an organisation called Local HealthWatch to ensure that young people have a voice in shaping local health services.

    We expect Local Authorities to work with young people in commissioning; and for local leaders to decide about local services in response to local priorities and needs. We’re not going to ring-fence funding, nor tell councils which services they should commission and how they should be delivered.

    Non ring-fenced funding of £2.365 billion in 2012-13 will help Local Authorities to provide Early Intervention services for vulnerable children, young people and families. And for the particular needs of young people and their families, Local Authorities can also draw on the Revenue Support Grant and, from 2013, the Public Health Grant.

    We’re also providing £320,000 to Business in the Community to build links between businesses and young people in their local areas, working in partnership with National Children’s Bureau and UK Youth; and we’re providing capital investment to complete 63 myplace centres by April 2013, developing a national approach to exploit their potential to be led by communities and businesses.
    If any Local Authority already has a myplace centre in its area, I hope that Positive for Youth will inspire you to ensure that the centre is at the heart of transforming local youth services, exploiting every ounce of their potential.

    In Bradford city centre, for example, an old cotton mill has been transformed into an incredible myplace centre called ‘Culture Fusion’. Over 5 floors, it offers young people a wide range of activities including a climbing wall, gym, recording centre, dance studio, hostel accommodation, IT suite, and cafe. Existing services are working together much more effectively, providing all the services that young people need under one roof. A steering group of young people has been involved every step of the way, from drawing up the very first plans through to day-to-day activities and planning for the future. The project also enjoys the support of members of the local business community, offering pro bono legal advice and a range of volunteering opportunities.

    One of our major individual proposals in Positive for Youth is the expansion of the National Citizen Service. It will offer 30,000 places to young people in 2012, 60,000 in 2013, and 90,000 in 2014 – by that point, we expect it to be one of the largest personal and social development programmes for young people in the world.

    As it grows, we want more local authorities to get involved: by working with providers to ensure their local young people benefit from the scheme; and by embedding NCS in their local area. This is particularly important in ensuring that looked after children can participate, so we are offering extra support to ensure that vulnerable young people and children in care can take part.
    We’re also exploring opportunities to expand Cadet Forces, particularly in maintained schools; and encouraging volunteering for all age groups, including young people.

    Beyond giving young people a voice, improving commissioning and supporting NCS, we expect that Local Authorities will adopt a sector-led approach to improving services for children, young people, and families.

    The Local Government Association will play a huge role here, and funding of £780,000 in 2011-13 will support local authority commissioners. This work is led by the Children’s Improvement Board – a partnership between SOLACE, ADCS, LGA and DfE – and the funding comes on top of the £900,000 p.a. funding that the Local Government Association provides from a top slice of the Revenue Support Grant to the National Youth Agency.

    Four new Youth Innovation Zones will develop and share new, creative approaches to youth service right across the country. The first four areas, Devon, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, and Knowsley will each get £40,000 to set up the zones – and I look forward to seeing how they get on.

    Beyond these zones, there are a huge range of support services offered by the National Youth Agency, and we are giving much greater priority to identifying and disseminating good practice between local areas through the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes.

    Community Budgets will be made available in all local authorities over the next two years to remove the financial and legal restrictions affecting how services intervene early to avoid poor and high-cost outcomes for vulnerable families and young people;
    A new Troubled Families Team will work alongside local areas to ensure that these families are supported; and an Ending Gang and Youth Violence Team will provide practical advice and support to up to 30 local areas with a gang or serious youth violence problem.

    We’re funding 18 innovative voluntary organisations with £31.4 million over the two years 2011-13 to pioneer and evaluate innovative approaches to early help. And we’re promoting work to prevent and tackle youth homelessness, including strengthening the Homelessness Safety Net so that it will include young people under the age of 21 who are vulnerable as a result of leaving care, and 16 and 17 year olds who find themselves homeless.

    So that’s a quick canter through some of the highlights of Positive for Youth. There’s lots more in the document – and I commend it to anyone here who has already finished the books they were given for Christmas.

    As we consider the future needs and ambitions of our young people and the role that councils can play, I hope that Positive for Youth provides a clear signpost showing the direction that this Government is heading.

    And I hope you’ll agree with me that we’re heading the right way.
    We are positive that youth services can be improved. We are positive that young people deserve a voice in society. And we are positive that, with your help, we can build a society which gives all young people the opportunity and support they need to flourish. Thank you.

  • Baroness Verma – 2016 Speech at the International Conference on Family Planning

    baronessverma

    Below is the text of the speech made by Baroness Verma, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for International Development, in Bali on 25 January 2016.

    I would like to thank our hosts for inviting me, my fellow honourable Ministers and all conference participants for listening to my words today.

    The UK has put girls and women at the front and centre of our international development work.

    We believe it’s a matter of basic human rights.

    Giving girls and women a choice

    Girls’ and women’s right to have control over their own bodies…to have a voice in their community and country…to live a life free of violence and the fear of violence…to choose who to marry and when…their right to be in education … to determine whether and when to have children and how many to have and their right to work, earn money and build the future they want.

    But gender equality is also also critical to wider development goals…no country can truly develop if it leaves half its population behind.

    We know that when girls stay in school for just one extra year of primary school they can boost their eventual wages by up to twenty per cent.

    And when women get extra earnings, we know they then reinvest that back into their families and back into their communities.

    McKinsey estimate that if women in every country played an identical role in markets to men…as much as twenty eight trillion dollars would be added to the global economy by 2025.

    The same research finds that if every nation only matched the progress of its fastest-improving neighbour, it would add twelve trillion dollars to the global economy.

    Investing in girls and women is the right thing to do…it’s also one of the very best investments we can make.

    Sexual and reproductive health and rights are absolutely fundamental to this. When women have multiple, unintended pregnancies and births – when they face a high risk of dying in childbirth and when they are unable to decide for themselves whether, when and how many children to have, they are also unable to participate fully in education and employment.

    We know rights-based family planning enables a girl to avoid a life trajectory of early, frequent and risky pregnancies, and instead complete her education and take up better economic opportunities.

    These are the essential elements of the demographic transition, the shift from high fertility and mortality to far fewer births and deaths, the shift that ensures investments in gender equality, in education and in training and jobs can be converted into the demographic dividend of higher economic growth and prosperity for all. We’ve seen these policies and process in action in countries across East Asia particularly. We’re ready to support countries in Africa who choose this path.

    Getting back on track

    A lot of progress has been made. But we are not yet on-track to reach the FP2020 goal we all committed to in 2012 at the London Summit. We are failing to reach adolescent girls and young women who want to use family planning. We are failing to reach the poorest. We are failing to meet the reproductive health needs of women and girls in conflict.

    We are failing to change social norms about family planning so that women’s and girls’ rights and their ability to control their own fertility become an ordinary part of life for communities everywhere. These are the changes that will be truly transformational.

    We have come together here in Bali because we are all committed to change. There is much more we all need to do to deliver on the commitments in 2012. If we act now, we can still reach this goal and be on course for universal access by 2030.

    That means truly prioritising family planning . It means budgeting for it, finding the funds for the contraceptives and tackling head-on the discrimination that prevents young people, especially unmarried women and girls, from getting the services they need. It means changing attitudes and social norms so that it is the uncut girl who finishes her education before marriage is valued. It means demonstrating our support publically, encouraging others to do the same and making sure that access to safe and affordable contraception becomes a normal part of life for everyone.

    The UK’s role

    The UK will play our part. Our Government is fully committed to the goal of family planning for all who want it. We will deliver on the ambitious commitment of our Prime Minister. By 2020 this will result in 24 million additional women and girls using modern voluntary contraception. The numbers are important – this is an ambitious agenda. But we also need to ensure that no-one is left behind – and here we explicitly mean adolescents and women and girls living through humanitarian crises.

    That’s why DFID is challenging itself to find innovative ways to meet the family planning needs of young people, including adolescents. And why, in humanitarian crises, DFID’s calls for proposals will now require the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls to be considered. The UK commitment to the renewed Every Woman Every Child Strategy, launched at the UN in September, puts these issues at the heart of our vision for the sector to 2030. We remain committed to supporting progress across the continuum of care, prioritising maternal and newborn health, and addressing HIV, particularly for key populations.

    The UK is very clear – access to voluntary modern contraception is a crucial part of wider sexual and reproductive health and rights – as agreed by the world in Cairo in 1994 and its subsequent reviews. I am therefore proud that the UK government is also a strong voice on the more difficult issues. Access to safe abortion, for example, reduces recourse to unsafe abortion and saves maternal lives. We need the courage to do what the evidence tells us women and girls still need.

    Increasing access to affordable, quality female and male condoms to young people is also critical in order to provide dual protection against unwanted pregnancy as well as HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

    I am proud that the UK has led the way in supporting the Africa-led movement to end FGM. Ending FGM and ending child marriage are fundamental to girls and women being able to control what happens to their own bodies –and their own lives. The Girl Summit in 2014 in London was a watershed moment which broke the silence on these sensitive and taboo issues. No girl should live with the fear of being cut, the fear of being married too young, the fear of carrying a child too young, the fear of giving birth when her body is not ready, the fear of the potential risks of this – of haemorrhage, of being left with a leaky bladder thanks to obstetric fistula, the real risk of dying.

    We need to act now

    We have a big job ahead of us, but if we step up our collective efforts we can succeed. There are 225 million women and girls who want to use modern contraception and can’t get it. This is a staggering number – yet we know what needs to be done. We need clarity of purpose, everyone needs to focus and get on with it. This is fundamental. We must not fail these millions and millions of women and girls. We cannot fail them. A block on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls is a block on economic development across the board.

    But we do need to act now. We have a narrow window to get back on track with FP2020 goals. We also have a tremendous opportunity with the new SDGs, whose implementation will be secured or lost in the next few years. The family planning community needs to be at the heart of those discussions. These means a fresh commitment from all of us. And it means talking to other sectors to put the comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights for every girl, adolescent, women everywhere, at the centre of absolutely everything to do. Thank you.

  • Cecil Parkinson – 1986 Speech on the Manufacturing Industry

    Below is the text of the speech made by Cecil Parkinson in the House of Commons on 7 July 1986.

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. Carlisle) on his choice of subject. It is good that Parliament should debate such an important subject in the unacrimonious atmosphere of a private Members’ day. Whichever party is in power, the manufacturing sector will remain vital. I do not regard today as a chance to score points. Rather, it is a chance to discuss a vital subject.

    I am pleased to join the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) in saying that what is sometimes presented as a choice, but is not, between Britain being a manufacturing or a service country is utterly spurious. We must succeed in both.

    I should like to pick up a point that the right hon. Gentleman made. He talked about our exchange rate policy in 1980–81. I was the Minister for Trade at the time and saw many industrialists who said that if the exchange rate was at $2 to the pound we could sweep the world. During that period the Government never charged the rate of interest that matched the rate of inflation. We never had a real rate of interest paid to savers. The Government did not offer a real rate of interest — they offered one substantially below the rate of inflation.

    The Government had recently been elected on a sound money platform, following a Government who, until they were stopped by the International Monetary Fund, had followed a very unsound money policy. The world’s money markets put a substantial value on sterling. The Government were committed to trying to protect sterling’s value, and they were prepared to charge the borrower a higher rate of interest than had been charged before, but never a real rate. People who argue about our exchange rate policy in 1980–81 are saying that the Government should have perpetrated an even bigger cheat on the saver by having a rate of interest which was even further below the rate of inflation.

    People such as the right hon. Member for Hillhead are arguing that we should have continued to rob the saver so that we could support the borrower. Put in those terms, it is clear that such a view is not nearly as noble as saying in a rather sweeping way that the Government got their exchange rate policy wrong. I do not think that they did get it wrong. They were seen by the the financial markets as prepared to follow sensible policies and to charge a rate of interest which began to approach, but never got very near to, the rate of inflation. I do not accept the rather dismissive argument that everything can be traced back to the Government’s exchange rate policy.

    Nor do I accept the statements that are now made so often that they are almost accepted as true that Britain’s manufacturing industry is in terminal decline. The facts do not support that thesis. Industrial production last year was clearly recovering dramatically from the low point of 1981. I know that Opposition Members say that 1981 was an all-time low, but if manufacturing was still in decline, the figures would continue to fall. We have reversed that trend. Manufacturing production is growing substantially. To the dismay of our opponents, it should achieve all-time record levels next year.

    There is nothing to be complacent about, but the statement that our industry is still in decline is not borne out by any test which any fair-minded person would care to apply. Production has bounced back substantially and is continuing to rise. For the first time, exports of manufactured goods reached a value of £52 billion last year — £1 billion a week. Industry invested nearly £7 billion last year and nearly 6 million people were employed in manufacturing. If we constantly talk about our industry having no prospects, and if we write it off, we will help to produce just what we complain of. Who buys his car or anything else from a business which is about to close down and has no future? For us to dismiss the efforts of the 6 million-plus workers in our manufacturing sector as people who are somehow misguidedly dedicating their lives to trying to breathe life into a corpse is not only to mislead the world and the British public, but to cause damage where we need help and support.

    Mr. Dykes I am sure that we would all agree with that. However, does my right hon. Friend agree that the £7 billion figure that he gave is less than 2.5 per cent. of gross domestic product, the lowest figure of any advanced Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development investing country?

    Mr. Parkinson That may be the case. However, my point is that to dismiss our manufacturing sector as something that people are not interested in and has no future is to mislead the country and the House. The market was prepared to invest £7 billion in its future in 1985. Perhaps we should be investing more, but £7 billion is a substantial sum of money, and it is put up by people who believe that they are investing in something that has a real future, and so do I.
    Let us take the anecdotal evidence. For instance, a constituent came to see me on Saturday who is a director of MFI. He told me that in 1976 MFI imported 60 per cent. of everything it sold. That figure is now down to below 25 per cent. MFI is in fact using more and more British goods because they are excellent value.

    Goodness knows, as Minister for Trade I took part in many debates about the textile industry. Last year textile production was near to an all-time record high and textile exports were at an all-time record high. This year the British engineering industry will invest £850 million in computers and software, and a recent survey suggests that outside Japan the British engineering industry makes more use of high technology and engineering computers than any other engineering industry in the world. British industry was in decline for a time, but the decline has been arrested and the climb back has begun in real earnest. There is a very good prospect for Britain in an area which, far too often, we talk about dismissively.

    If we apply the wrong tests to the statistics that emerge, we can turn success into failure and failure into success. For example, I heard the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) making an interesting speech about the steel industry. He said that we should look at the good old days when steel employed 250,000 people and it now employs only 100,000. To him that was proof that our steel industry was in a state of decline. However, when the steel industry employed 250,000 people it was losing nearly £3 million a day. We had a steel capacity which we simply could not use and which nobody wanted. Therefore, we had 250,000 insecure jobs. We have moved from that position to having the best and most efficient steel industry in Europe producing as much steel with 100,000 people as it used to produce with 250,000. With 250.000 employees losing £3 million a day it is a national asset by the test of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield; with 100,000 employees producing steel at a very competitive price it is a national problem. That is absolutely wrong.

    Dr. Jeremy Bray (Motherwell, South) The right hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point about steel. Is he aware that an even more competitive steel industry in Japan, faced with a similar fall in orders and intense competition from Korea and other new producers, is maintaining its employment and diversifying in order to maintain a policy of lifelong employment? Does he not think that that kind of policy is more relevant in this country today?

    Mr. Parkinson It depends where one starts from. I shall give an example from a different industry in Japan, the motor industry. In 1978 the motor industry in Japan was producing 65 vehicles per employee on average, and we were producing in our worst company, five and a half. At that level of productivity one can start to think in terms of lifelong employment, because one starts at a high level of productivity. However, if one has an industry which is losing substantial sums of money and is unproductive, it is unrealistic to talk of ensuring lifelong employment. The hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray), who studies these things carefully, must realise that.

    First, I am saying that it is wrong to talk as though British industry is still in decline. It is starting to recover. It is wrong to draw the wrong conclusions from the available statistics. Industry does not exist to create jobs; it exists to create products. The industries which are efficient at creating viable products produce the best insurance of long-term employment.

    Secondly, we continually draw attention to the fact that we have a huge and growing deficit on manufactures. That is true, but the conclusion we draw from that is the wrong one. We say that we need more Government demand injected into our economy. The bigger the level of our imports, the more evidence there is that there are customers here who want to buy. The argument that a deficit on manufactures is somehow evidence of a need for further demand to be injected into the economy by the Government again seems to be drawing totally the wrong conclusion from the facts that stare us in the face.

    It was interesting to read in The Times today that a survey of British management said that the first priority for a better industrial performance was to improve the product. I thought immediately of Jaguar. Jaguar is now a highly profitable company selling the same range of motor cars as it was selling six or seven years ago. It has moved from being a disaster to a success because it has improved the quality of its performance. The product is the same, the range has not changed, but the prospects for those in the company and for this country, as the country in which Jaguar is based, have changed. The reason is that the quality of the product has improved out of all recognition.

    Far too often in the House, especially in our economic debates, we have arguments about whether an extra £1 billion or £2 billion of Government-injected demand would turn the economy round. If it was as simple as that I might he tempted to join the argument for reflation. However, I hasten to tell the House that I will not, because I think that it is distracting us from the fundamental problem, which is how does this country compete for the business which is there? At home there is a great demand for the whole range of manufactured goods. World trade in manufactures is expanding. The customers are there overseas as well, and the real question which the House, the Government and British industry have to address is how we get a bigger share of the business which is there rather than how we generate artificial demand.

    I do not underestimate the difficulties of trade union leaders at a time of high unemployment having to persuade their members that the way forward may be to reduce employment in industries because with new technology and a whole host of advances we can produce more with less people. I recognise the enormous difficulties that that presents for trade union leaders. I believe that we should pay tribute to the many trade union leaders and members who have co-operated with management in improving productivity in British industry.

    I end as I began. I believe that if we continue to talk down our prospects as a manufacturing country, and if we continue to talk about our decline as if it were terminal, we must not be surprised if people start to believe us and if we produce the results that we do not want. This country has bright prospects. Way into the foreseeable future, we shall have a very important manufacturing sector. We have a strong service sector. We are prolific earners of invisible earnings. We have substantial overseas investments. Although we talk about it as if it is a problem, we still have energy self-sufficiency.

    This country has a very bright future to add to its glittering past, but we shall need, as a country, and especially within industry, to produce that cohesion, that co-operative attitude that is the source of the success of all our major rivals. The question for Britain is: how do we compete? One of the answers—such an obvious one—is: working better together. Britain’s future as a manufacturer stretches ahead of her. She has a fine past, but a very promising and exciting future.