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Category: Speeches

  • Claire Perry – 2016 Speech on Women Delivering Crossrail

    claireperry

    Below is the text of the speech made by Claire Perry, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport, at the House of Commons in London on 19 January 2016.

    Introduction

    Thank you, everyone, for coming today.

    I’m really pleased to have this chance to celebrate what Crossrail is doing for women.

    Or, more accurately, what women are doing for Crossrail.

    Often when I tell people that Crossrail is being dug by Sophie, Jessica, Ada, Victoria, Elizabeth, Mary Ellie and Phyllis, they are impressed that we’ve managed to find some female construction workers.

    They are wrong, of course.

    Those are the names of some of Crossrail’s tunnel boring machines (TBM), named after 8 women important to London’s history.

    Yet standing behind those machines, and throughout Crossrail’s 45 construction sites, are thousands of women designing, building and fitting out this great railway.

    In every way, Crossrail is breaking new ground.

    It’s the largest infrastructure project in Europe.

    The most technically challenging.

    The most ambitious.

    In little over 3 years, working through night and day.

    The Crossrail team has dug 26 miles of tunnels under London.

    The wider industry has a problem

    Yet Crossrail is breaking ground in other ways, too.

    As Terry Morgan has always said, Crossrail is more than a transport project.

    It’s a blueprint for how infrastructure should be built in the future.

    For women in particular, Crossrail is opening doors of opportunity.

    Because across the construction industry, only 11% of employees are women, even including those in office-based roles.

    Of engineers, only 6% are women.

    And of those working in manual or operational roles, women make up a mere 2%.

    These figures reflect a world in which women can benefit from new infrastructure, but that they cannot build it.

    Whether it was the ‘closed shop’ policies used by the unions to protect male jobs, or the prejudice that says women don’t have what it takes for demanding work, female talent has been underused.

    Change cannot come too soon.

    Because thanks to massive government investment, the infrastructure industry is set for decades of growth.

    Crossrail is just the beginning.

    We are also renewing our existing railways and many of our most important stations.

    We are investing £15 billion in our roads.

    We are building new power stations, the Thames Tideway Tunnel, new flood defences.

    And next year we start building HS2 — a project that will do for the country what Crossrail is doing for London.

    Together, these projects are creating opportunities for tens of thousands of new infrastructure professionals for decades into the future.

    So if we accept the status quo, we will find ourselves excluded from one of the UK’s most important growth industries, and the industry itself will lack the people we need to get the work done.

    That is why what Crossrail is doing is so important.

    It is leading the way for the whole industry.

    Crossrail must now become the model, not just the exception.

    And for me, 3 things that Crossrail has done differently stand out.

    Changing the face of infrastructure

    First, Crossrail is changing the image of infrastructure.

    As my colleague Nicky Morgan put it in one of her speeches last year.

    For many, a job in construction conjures up an image of a man in a high-vis jacket wearing his trousers slightly lower than is strictly decent.

    If women are seen on site at all, they’re in the calendar on the wall of the foreman’s portakabin.

    But Crossrail is changing things.

    As I’ve seen on my site tours, proper-fitting PPE equipment is provided for men and women — and low-slung jeans aren’t on offer.

    Lewd material is banned.

    And although the last time we built a railway on the scale of Crossrail the tunnels were dug more by brawn than by brain.

    On Crossrail they were dug by Phyllis, Jessica and Sophie and their 5 high-precision, mechanical sisters

    And that’s a vital point.

    Because although not all projects need a TBM.

    Today’s infrastructure construction sites are increasingly-sophisticated places, requiring communication skills, the ability to manage complex projects, team working, and a knack for winning the trust of clients and site neighbours.

    They’re all skills that women tend to have in bucket-loads.

    Through Crossrail, they’re steadily becoming a hallmark of modern construction.

    And when you do get women on board, they can instigate their own changes.

    Sometimes the simplest changes are the most powerful.

    Such as changes to language.

    When I visited the Farringdon site recently, I was escorted by Khouloud El Hakim.

    Khouloud shared with me that since Linda Miller has been working as the project manager on the Farringdon tunnel.

    She has banned terms such as ‘man rider’, previously used to describe the access lift.

    Now it’s just a basket.

    A more appealing term all round.

    These changes are small, but they start to add up.

    They improve how the workplace is perceived…

    And make it more welcoming for women.

    Role models

    After changing infrastructure’s image, the second lesson that Crossrail can teach us is on the importance of role models.

    Crossrail’s support for initiatives such as National Women in Engineering Day helps make links between women working on Crossrail and girls planning their careers.

    In particular, Crossrail used Women in Engineering Day to offer training and speed-networking with women already working in the industry.

    And Crossrail certainly has some great role models.

    I’ve mentioned Linda Miller and Khouloud El Hakim, but there are thousands like them.

    Many of whom echo the words of the inspirational Ground Settlement Engineer who said that:

    This has changed my life”.

    And you don’t have to be famous to be a role model, either.

    Anyone can inspire a friend or relative to consider a new career.

    And prove that infrastructure offers jobs for women just like them.

    Outreach

    The third lesson we can learn from Crossrail is on the importance of outreach — actively seeking to hire and promote women, but also talking to people who have not yet chosen their careers.

    Under the Young Crossrail programme, Ambassadors from Crossrail — of whom over half are women — have visited schools and careers events to promote careers in engineering, construction and railway infrastructure and to influence exam choices leading to careers in these fields.

    Crossrail has also offered work experience, and supported contractors on their own school engagement work.

    In total, 277 schools, colleges and universities and over 36,000 young people, parents and teachers have been directly engaged by Crossrail.

    And in October I visited Farringdon to celebrate a new partnership between Crossrail and Women into Construction.

    Women into Construction is a not-for-profit organisation which aims to recruit women into all areas of construction.

    And over the last 6 months this partnership has meant 18 women — including some who had never considered careers in construction before — have been placed into roles on Crossrail.

    Results

    The results of all these changes are clear.

    Of those who have undertaken work experience on Crossrail, over a fifth are women.

    Of those taking part in Crossrail’s graduate programme, many of whom will go on to be the future leaders of the industry, women make up almost a quarter.

    And in total, of the 10,000 people working on Crossrail, nearly one third are women.

    So through Crossrail, women are forging careers they never thought possible.

    Achieving things that would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago.

    Yet for all the thousands of individual women for whom Crossrail has opened doors, it is also having a much wider effect.

    On attitudes.

    And on society.

    Crossrail is proving that a project can reach out to female talent not despite the challenge of running to time and budget.

    But in order to run to time and budget.

    Conclusion

    So it’s great to be able to celebrate what women are doing on this project.

    Crossrail is set to change London’s transport landscape.

    But it’s already changing lives.

    Tonight, I am looking forward to discussing what more we can do.

    Thank you.

  • Mark Carney – 2016 Speech at Peston Lecture

    Text of speech

    Above is a PDF of the speech made by Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, at the Peston Lecture held at Queen Mary University of London on 19 January 2016. The text of the speech is also below but doesn’t include the charts which are in the PDF version.

    markcarney

    It is a pleasure to be at Queen Mary University of London to give the 2016 Peston Lecture. Fifty years ago Lord Peston was invited to take up a Chair in Economics at Queen Mary and to found the forerunner of today’s School of Economics and Finance.

    Anniversaries provide the opportunity to look back and plan ahead. When doing so, it is sometimes helpful to recall Shimon Peres’ definition of a young person as someone whose future ambitions exceed their past accomplishments. So while Queen Mary can take justified pride in its long-standing commitment to community engagement and widening local participation, what is most striking are your plans for the future, including to push forward translational research in population-scale genomics, with the potential to bring health benefits to people across the UK and beyond.

    Queen Mary is clearly a young institution.

    The turn of the year is also a time for reflection and planning. The beginning of 2016 in the UK is significant in that it marks a turning of a page in banking regulation and a turn in financial conditions. At the same time, in the MPC’s judgment, it did not yet herald a turn in the stance of monetary policy.

    I would like to expand on these developments today, including what they mean for the UK’s economic prospects.

    Since the Bank’s full powers came into force a few years ago, we have pursued a strategy:

    To rebuild the resilience of the banking system;

    To maintain an accommodative stance of monetary policy to achieve the inflation target and support the recovery; and

    To develop and deploy a macroprudential toolkit to prevent the emergence of new vulnerabilities that could derail that recovery over the medium term.

    We’ve made determined progress in all respects. In particular, we’ve reached inflection points in micro and macroprudential policies, and are able to set out the requirements for one in monetary policy. In doing so, we have increased the prospects of a durable expansion.

    But the path of policy is not preordained, and continued progress will require both vigilance and dexterity. That’s because private and public balance sheets remain stretched. The global environment is unforgiving. And the supply side of our economy is still healing.

    Let me expand.

    1. A resilient banking system

    I will begin with the foundation upon which strong, sustainable balanced growth is built: a resilient financial system. The combination of a radical overhaul of the regulatory framework and years of determined effort has significantly strengthened the UK banking system. Consequently, last month the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) was able to send two signals that the system had turned the corner.

    First, it has clarified the overall capital framework for banks, providing much needed certainty to the sector. While there are details still to be finalised and complexities to be reduced, there is no new wave of capital regulation coming. There is no Basel IV. Indeed, last week, central bank Governors and Heads of Supervision agreed that work to address the problem of excessive variability in risk-weighted assets – one of the final parts of the post crisis capital framework – would be completed by the end of 2016 without significantly increasing overall capital requirements.

    Second, the FPC now judges that the system is already within sight of the amount of capital it needs to have by the end of the decade and has the capacity to continue lending to the real economy even under severe stress.

    The Bank’s most recent stress test underscores these improvements. It focused on an emerging market stress, centred on a sharp slowing of Chinese growth, which prompts reassessments of global economic prospects, falls in asset and commodity prices and increased global deflationary pressures.

    Sound familiar?

    Despite challenging conditions abroad, the UK financial system can continue to take the types of prudent risks needed to grow jobs and incomes here at home.

    In short, the efforts of banks over the past seven years to rebuild their balance sheets and improve risk management are paying off. Mortgage rates are at all-time lows. Corporate credit availability has recovered solidly. Lending to small firms is growing again having fallen sharply in the wake of the crisis (Chart 1).

    2. Financial conditions and macroprudential policy

    The improvement in the price and availability of credit is one sign of the normalisation of the UK financial environment. Another is that, after seven years of deleveraging, aggregate credit to the UK private non-financial sector has begun to grow again (Chart 2).

    This has not been a debt-fuelled recovery. Aggregate private credit growth is modest compared to pre-crisis conditions, and is just now coming into line with nominal GDP growth (Chart 3).

    That said, increased vigilance is merited given the softness in nominal GDP growth, the still-elevated levels of household debt relative to income, the large current account deficit and pockets of more buoyant activity in areas such as Buy-to-Let mortgages, unsecured consumer credit and commercial real estate.

    More fundamentally, it doesn’t take a genius to recognise that a prolonged period of low and relatively predictable interest rates could encourage the build-up of excessive risks. That’s why the Bank is monitoring risks closely and has taken action where appropriate. Targeted measures include:

    limits on high Loan-to-Income mortgages introduced last year, which contributed to the share of households with very high mortgage debt to income ratios falling back to levels last seen in the 1990s (Chart 4);
    requirements for banks to assess whether borrowers could still afford their mortgages at much higher levels of Bank Rate; and
    the current review of underwriting standards for Buy-to-Let being conducted by the Bank’s prudential supervisors.

    In addition, given the financial system has moved out of the post-crisis period of heightened risk aversion, the FPC has made clear its intention to set the Countercyclical Capital Buffer above zero before the level of risk becomes elevated.

    With active macroprudential policy, monetary policy can focus on its primary job of inflation control. It is that to which I will now turn.

    3. Objectives, strategy and outlook for monetary policy

    The obvious question is, if the turn of the year heralded the normalisation of bank regulation and macroprudential policy, why not the start of normalisation of monetary policy? After all, the Federal Reserve raised rates in December. Might the ‘special relationship’ extend to monetary matters?

    Of course there is nothing particularly special about foreign central banks’ policy rates. What is most important is whether the shocks to which others are responding are similar to those with which the MPC must contend. To my mind, there are some important differences in this regard:

    First, cost pressures are stronger in the US. American unit costs have increased by 3% in the past year and are growing above historical averages, while unit costs in the UK are currently rising by around half that rate or at a speed notably below that consistent with the inflation target.
    Second, the UK economy is twice as open as the US and is therefore more exposed to global weakness, dragging on exports.

    Third, this also means that pass-through of weak global inflation, compounded by exchange rate appreciation, is likely to exert a greater and more persistent drag on UK inflation. Partly as a result, after adjusting for one-off factors, core inflation is firmer in the US than the UK.

    Fourth, the stance of fiscal policy differs markedly. The UK is undergoing the largest fiscal consolidation in the OECD, with the structural deficit projected to decline by around 1 percentage point a year on average over the next four years, having fallen only 1/3 percentage point on average over the past three. In contrast, US fiscal policy is expected to loosen notably over next three years.

    Finally, the Bank of England’s control over macroprudential policy reduces the need to use monetary policy to address financial stability considerations.

    Recall that, despite an expansion that started two years before our own, the Fed has only raised rates to our lofty level of ½ %. This last point is not facetious. As my MPC colleague Jan Vlieghe argued in a speech yesterday, a variety of structural factors have likely depressed the so called equilibrium interest rate, or the rate consistent with the economy operating at full employment and inflation at target. Bank staff have estimated many of these drivers. In my long-held view, rate rises, when they come, are likely to proceed at a gradual pace and to a limited degree for some time.

    Most economics is at the margin, and the tightening of monetary policy – once warranted – is likely to be marginal for some time.

    Given all of that, what are the prospects for a rate rise in the UK?

    Last summer I said that the decision as to when to start raising Bank Rate would likely come into sharper relief around the turn of this year.

    Well the year has turned, and, in my view, the decision proved straightforward: now is not yet the time to raise interest rates. This wasn’t a surprise to market participants or the wider public. They observed the renewed collapse in oil prices, the volatility in China, and the moderation in growth and wages here at home since the summer and rightly concluded that not enough cumulative progress had been made to warrant tightening monetary policy.

    The outlook for monetary policy depends on three things: the MPC’s objectives, its strategy, and the UK’s economic prospects.

    Our objective is clear: to return inflation to the target in a way that avoids undue volatility in output and employment.

    The MPC’s strategy for achieving the inflation target varies over time, and it depends on the nature of shocks hitting the economy and the risks facing the economy.

    For conventional demand disturbances, including modest changes to households’ consumption plans, or for one-off shocks to the price level, such as a one-time fall in oil prices, a relatively rapid return of inflation to the target, such as in twelve to eighteen months, would usually be appropriate.

    When there are large trade-offs between returning inflation to target and avoiding undue volatility in output and employment, this horizon can be extended. In February 2011, in response to a series of shocks to VAT, the past fall in sterling, and increases in commodity prices, the MPC decided to seek to return inflation to target in around two to three years. Extending the policy horizon made sense given the substantial slack in the economy, which a faster return to target would only have increased.

    At present, the MPC is seeking to return inflation to the target in around two years and to keep it there in the absence of further shocks. We don’t want an overshoot of inflation.

    This two-year time horizon reflects the need to balance the strength of private domestic demand growth against the sustained headwinds from a weak world economy and ongoing fiscal consolidation. External factors – including a strong exchange rate and subdued global price pressures – can be expected to exert a persistent drag on UK inflation.

    To offset this drag from abroad, domestically-generated inflationary pressures must rise. But this process must be sustainable; that is, it should not come at the expense of future, excessive volatility in employment and output.

    The MPC’s current policy horizon of around two years reflects our judgment of how best to balance these persistent forces while implying a slightly tighter stance of monetary policy, all else equal.

    Since monetary policy operates with a lag, it must be forward looking. As a result, monetary policy will continue to depend on economic prospects not the calendar.

    The UK’s prospects must be assessed in the light of an unusually uncertain supply side of the economy. The financial crisis upended the certainties of the pre-crisis years when productivity progressed predictably and labour supply expanded at a steady pace. Productivity growth fell markedly after the crash and, though recently picking up, now seems to be oscillating around a rate below its historical average. And there have been sharp increases in labour supply caused by peoples’ need to work to help pay down debts and rebuild retirement savings. More recently, net migration has been higher. Most of these shifts are still playing out and haven’t settled into more predictable trends.

    To make forward-looking policy today in light of such uncertainties about tomorrow, tracking a broad range of indicators helps not just to give a picture of how the economy is evolving in real time but also to update, in a ‘Bayesian’ fashion, an assessment of prospects ahead. In this manner, being data driven isn’t akin to driving by looking in the rear-view mirror but more like adjusting your speed to the terrain ahead.

    Although different indicators will merit focus at different times, as I highlighted last summer, three types warrant particular attention at present:

    The prospects for growth momentum in excess of trend consistent with eliminating spare capacity in the economy;

    Evidence of and expectations for a sustainable firming in domestic cost pressures; and

    Developments in core inflation consistent with a reasonable expectation that total CPI inflation will return to the target in around two years’ time.

    Progress in all three, both realised and prospective, will increase confidence that the initiation of limited and gradual rate increases will be consistent with returning inflation sustainably to the target.

    In this light, let me turn to recent developments.

    Momentum and slack

    After gaining momentum in 2013 and peaking around 3% in 2014, output growth has been steady during 2015, at rates close to 2%, a little below pre-crisis norms (Chart 5).

    The average quarterly growth rate for 2015 of around 0.5% has disappointed compared to the MPC’s summer expectations of 0.7%. This shortfall reflects much weaker net trade, the absence of a rebound in housing activity, and less robust consumption growth.

    Nonetheless, private domestic demand is still solid, and household consumption has been resilient. Consumption growth accelerated to 3% in the third quarter of 2015 (Chart 6), underpinned by the strongest real income growth since the crisis and highest consumer confidence in a decade. Excluding the understandable weakness in North Sea oil, business investment grew strongly throughout 2015. Surveys suggest investment intentions remain robust and, consistent with a stronger banking system, accommodative monetary policy, and very supportive credit conditions. Such solid private domestic demand growth can be expected to continue.

    The same cannot be said of the global economy, which has slowed even relative to the MPC’s modest expectations in the summer. There are some positives. The broadening of euro-area growth has offset the effects of a moderation in US growth on UK-weighted demand (Chart 7). In addition, to the extent that renewed sharp declines in oil prices are predominantly supply driven, they should support growth, though sustained spillovers to tightening financial conditions would mean to a lesser degree than usual.

    Since August, downside risks to growth in emerging market economies have begun to crystallise. This has triggered sharp drops in risky asset prices, rises in risk premia, and falls in the expected path for policy rates across advanced economies, including the UK.

    Further downside risks to the global outlook remain, reflecting the ongoing challenges in China, fragilities in other major emerging market economies, and the potential for financial contagion. Chinese trade has been strikingly weak recently, possibly reflecting rebalancing there, as softer investment reduces demand for imported capital goods. This process has hit advanced economy exports to China, particularly those from the UK which dropped by one third in the year to November. Global difficulties are likely to continue to suppress world demand relative to our expectations in August. In addition, possible spillovers to domestic demand via wealth and cost of capital channels bear close monitoring.

    As one consideration in setting monetary policy, the MPC must evaluate how much of the moderation in output growth reflects slower supply growth. Slack ultimately matters for inflationary pressures, though sizing it requires careful judgement, particularly after a supply shock.

    A simple read can be taken from the unemployment rate, which has continued its solid downward trend since the autumn of 2013, falling more rapidly than we had expected in August and its historical relationship with GDP growth would have suggested (Chart 8). Short-term unemployment is now below its pre-crisis average rate, though longer-term unemployment has further to go (Chart 9). In addition, the vacancy to unemployment ratio – a simple measure of labour market tightness – is at its highest observed level since August 2005.

    In the wake of the crisis, one reason that headline unemployment has not been a sufficient summary statistic for slack in the labour market is because of underemployment of those in work. Employees wanted to work more – perhaps to make up for lost income. This gap between actual and desired hours widened significantly (Chart 10). Since the start of 2013, it has been closing and most recently, rather sharply so. As overall employment growth remains strong (Chart 11), this may reflect a normalisation of working patterns, with desired average hours returning to their pre-crisis level, rather than an unwelcome decline in labour demand.

    An additional source of labour supply is net migration, which has recently been running above past averages. This is likely the product of both ‘pull’ and ‘push’ factors: many UK firms report skills shortages which foreign workers can help to fill; while weak wage and employment prospects abroad raises foreign workers’ willingness to migrate to the UK. The implications for inflation are likely to be relatively small as migrants not only supply labour – raising supply – but also spend their incomes – raising demand.

    On balance I read these labour market indicators as pointing to a further normalisation of the labour market and broadly consistent with our expectations last summer for a modest decline in slack.

    What could these developments mean for domestic cost pressures?

    Domestic cost pressures

    As the economy continues to expand and slack diminishes, the resulting pressure on resources would be expected to bid up wages.

    Recently, despite falling unemployment and the MPC’s expectations in the summer, wage growth has moderated from rates around 3¼ % to around 2 ½ % (Chart 12). This could reflect a range of influences, some of which are more relevant to the overall inflation outlook than others. For example, in the past year, there is likely to have been some dampening effect on measured wage growth owing to changes in the composition of the workforce with more younger, less experienced workers entering employment. In addition, when measured on an hourly basis, the moderation in wage growth has been less marked, consistent with the fall back in average hours being a normalisation of working patterns.

    Nonetheless, the slowdown in wage growth gives pause to the inference that the labour market is as tight as would be suggested by the drop in unemployment alone.

    It is possible that the rate of unemployment at which the economy can operate without generating accelerating inflation is lower than previously thought, meaning less pressure on wage growth at any given jobless rate. This could be, for example, because job matching has become easier with new technologies or with greater labour mobility afforded by a recovery in housing market liquidity. Equally, changes to unemployment insurance could have encouraged more intensive job search by those out of work. Set against that, analysis by Bank staff suggests a decline in matching efficiency in the past two decades, suggesting balanced risks to our assessment that merit continued monitoring.

    A final possibility is that the moderation in wage growth reflects the low headline inflation rate. With widespread recognition that there is literally no inflation at present, bargaining over real pay is more straightforward. Indeed, there is some anecdotal evidence from the Bank’s Agents that slower increases in households’ living costs have been a significant driver of lower pay awards. A simple estimated Wage Phillips Curve suggests a similar conclusion.

    If this is occurring, this will slow the build-up of cost pressures. The MPC must remain vigilant for signs that low inflation is having second-round effects in the wage bargain, possibly via inflation expectations. The mechanical return to higher rates of inflation as past falls in energy prices begin to drop from the annual comparison should in time reverse this effect and support wage gains. More fundamentally, falling joblessness and a high ratio of vacancies to unemployment should support wage growth. At a minimum, such dynamics suggest the need to continue to eliminate slack smartly.

    Of course, what matters for inflation is not wage growth in isolation, but pay relative to productivity. Growth in output per worker has been around 1% recently and is likely to have fallen a little further towards the end of 2015. The result is that the levelling off in pay growth has had smaller implications for unit cost growth. In the third quarter of 2015, these grew at around 1½ to 2% on a range of measures, and seem likely to grow at rates a touch below what we expected in August. Stepping back, there is little indication of accelerating unit costs we had expected. And certainly, given the scale of foreign disinflationary pressures, current domestic cost growth is not yet consistent with a firming in underlying inflation.

    This brings me to the final set of factors, core inflation measures.

    Core inflation measures

    Around one third of the inflation basket is accounted for by non-energy imported goods whose prices depend on their world prices and the sterling exchange rate. Measures of core inflation, which strip out the direct impact of volatile CPI items like energy and food prices, help to give a read on how developments in these variables combine with domestic cost pressures to drive underlying inflation trends. They also tend to give a sense of headline inflation once the effects from volatile items drop out of the annual comparison. Put differently, total CPI is more likely to move towards core than the reverse, suggesting, as a rule of thumb, that inflation is likely to pick up but not to overshoot core CPI a year ahead.

    Measures of core inflation have been below 2% since the middle of 2014 (Chart 13), and weaker than projected in August. This mainly reflects weaker goods price inflation, which, in turn, is likely the product of sterling’s past appreciation (Chart 14). Those dynamics will continue to weigh on core inflation for a while, since around two-thirds of the effects of a currency move are estimated to appear in CPI inflation at horizons beyond one year, making them relevant for monetary policy strategy. Of course, the recent weakness in sterling, if it persists, will moderate these effects somewhat.

    Conclusion

    The three factors I have described are guides to monetary policy decisions, but there are no magic thresholds. This journey doesn’t have a set timetable; only an expected direction of travel.

    In my opinion, we need to see cumulative progress in these three areas to have reasonable confidence that inflation is on track to return to the target and that a modest tightening in monetary policy will be necessary to ensure it does so sustainably. This means: sustained momentum relative to trend; domestic cost growth resuming a path consistent with headline inflation at 2%; and core inflation measures moving notably towards the target.

    It is clear to me that, since last summer, progress has been insufficient along these dimensions to warrant a tightening of monetary policy. The world is weaker and UK growth has slowed. Due to the oil price collapse, inflation has fallen further and will likely remain very low for longer. This may mean modestly weaker cost growth through this year, with the likely path for inflation, both headline and core, softer as a result. In short, recent developments suggest that the firming in inflationary pressure we had expected will take longer to materialise.

    It has always been the case that, because the economy is subject to unforeseen disturbances, the precise path for Bank Rate cannot be preordained. But “data driven” means more in the post-crisis world. The economy’s performance will, over time, reduce some of the uncertainty about its supply side and underlying inflation dynamics. Although great uncertainties remain, we are arguably better informed about the dynamics of exchange rate pass through, the prospects for some recovery in productivity growth and the resilience of the UK financial system.

    Risks to the outlook and uncertainties about the economy are occupational hazards of monetary policy making. The MPC’s job is to assess them constantly and set policy accordingly. There will be no pre-commitments beyond an unwavering focus on conducting policy in a manner consistent with our remit.

    That means we’ll do the right thing at the right time on rates.

    Doing the right thing requires taking into account a powerful set of forces, part secular, cyclical, domestic, and global. These forces have kept interest rates depressed throughout the recovery and into the expansion, and include demographic change, slower potential growth, higher credit spreads, lower desired investment and a lower relative price of capital, changes in income distribution, private deleveraging and lower public investment.

    Given the likely persistence of these forces, our expectation is that the path for the real interest rate that balances demand and supply, will recover only gradually and to a limited extent compared to the pre-crisis era.

    The journey to monetary policy normalisation is still young.

  • Harold Wilson – 1965 Memorial Speech to Winston Churchill

    haroldwilson

    Below is the text of the speech made by Harold Wilson, the then Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 25 January 1965.

    I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty humbly to thank Her Majesty for having given directions for the body of the Rt. Hon. Sir Winston Churchill, K.G., to lie in state in Westminster Hall and for the funeral service to be held in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul and assuring Her Majesty of our cordial aid and concurrence in these measures for expressing the affection and admiration in which the memory of this great man is held by this House and all Her Majesty’s faithful subjects. In accepting this Motion, this House, and, by virtue of its representation in this House, the nation, collectively and reverently will be paying its tribute to a great statesman, a great Parliamentarian, a great leader of this country.

    The world today is ringing with tributes to a man who, in those fateful years, bestrode the life of nations—tributes from the Commonwealth, from our wartime allies, from our present partners in Europe and the wider alliance, from all those who value the freedom for which he fought, who still share the desire for the just peace to which all his endeavours were turned. Winston Churchill, and the legend Winston Churchill had become long before his death and which now lives on, are the possession not of England, or Britain, but of the world, not of our time only but of the ages.

    But we, Sir, in this House, have a special reason for the tribute for which Her Majesty has asked in her Gracious Message. For today we honour not a world statesman only, but a great Parliamentarian, one of ourselves.

    The colour and design of his greatest achievements became alive, on the Parliamentary canvas, here in this Chamber. Sir Winston, following the steps of the most honoured of his predecessors, derived his greatness from and through this House and from and through his actions here. And by those actions, and those imperishable phrases which will last as long as the English language is read or spoken, he in turn added his unique contribution to the greatness of our centuries-old Parliamentary institution.

    He was in a very real sense a child of this House and a product of it, and equally, in every sense, its father. He took from it and he gave to it.

    The span of 64 years from his first entry as its youngest Member to the sad occasion of his departure last year covers the lives and memories of all but the oldest of us. In a Parliamentary sense, as in a national sense, his passing from our midst is the end of an era.

    He entered this House at 25—already a national and controversial figure. He had fought in war, and he had written of war, he had charged at Omdurman, he had been among one of the first to enter Ladysmith, an eye-witness of the thickest fighting in Cuba, a prisoner of a Boer commando—though not for as long as his captors intended.

    And he brought his own tempestuous qualities to the conduct of our Parliamentary life. Where the fighting was hottest he was in it, sparing none—nor asking for quarter. The creature and possession of no one party, he has probably been the target of more concentrated Parliamentary invective from, in turn, each of the three major parties than any other Member of any Parliamentary age, and against each in turn he turned the full force of his own oratory. If we on this side of the House will quote as a classic words he uttered over half a century ago, about the party he later came to lead, hon. Members opposite have an equally rich treasure-house for quotations about us, to say nothing of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway.

    When more than 40 years after his first entry as a young M.P. he was called on to move the appointment of a Select Committee about the rebuilding of this Chamber, he proclaimed and gloried in the effect of our Parliamentary architecture on the clarity and decisiveness of party conflict; he recalled, with that impish quality which never deserted him, the memories of battles long past, of his own actions in crossing the Floor of this House, not once in fact but twice.

    For those who think that bitter party controversy is a recent invention and one to be deplored, he could have had nothing but pitying contempt. And as he sat there, in the seat which I think by general wish of the House should be left vacant this afternoon, in those last years of the last Parliament, silently surveying battles which may have seemed lively to us, could we not sense the old man’s mind going back to the great conflicts of a great career and thinking perhaps how tame and puny our efforts have become?

    A great Parliamentarian, but never a tame one—they misjudge him who could even begin to think of him as a party operator, or a manipulator, or a trimmer, or a party hack. He was a warrior, and party debate was war; it mattered, and he brought to that war the conquering weapon of words fashioned for their purpose; to wound, never to kill; to influence, never to destroy.

    As Parliament succeeded Parliament he stood at this Box, at one time or another holding almost every one of the great Offices of State. He stood at the Box opposite thundering his denunciation of Government after Government. He sat on the bench opposite below the Gangway, disregarded, seemingly impotent, finished. His first Cabinet post—the Board of Trade—made him one of the architects of the revolution in humane administration of this country. He piloted through the labour exchanges; he led the first faltering steps in social insurance.

    The Home Office and then the more congenial tenure of the Admiralty—Ministerial triumph and Ministerial disaster in the first War. Colonies, War, the Treasury: the pinnacle of power, and then years in the wilderness. The urgent years, warning the nation and the world, as the shadow of the jackboot spread across an unheeding Europe. And then came his finest hour. Truly the history of Parliament over a tempestuous half-century could be written around the triumphs and frustrations of Winston Churchill.

    But, Sir, it will be for those war years that his name will be remembered for as long as history is written and history is read. A man who could make the past live in “Marlborough”, in his dutiful biography of Lord Randolph, who could bring new colour to the oft-told tale of the history of the English-speaking peoples, for five of the most fateful years in world history, was himself called on to make history. And he made history because he could see the events he was shaping through the eye of history. He has told us of his deep emotions when, from the disaster of the Battle of France, he was called on to lead this nation. I felt he said, as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial. Ten years in the political wilderness had freed me from ordinary party antagonisms. My warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed, and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me. I could not be reproached either for making the war or with want of preparation for it. I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail. Therefore, although impatient for the morning, I slept soundly and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams. His record of leadership in those five years speaks for itself beyond the power of any words of any of us to enhance or even to assess. This was his finest hour, Britain’s finest hour. He had the united and unswerving support of the leaders of all parties, of the fighting services, of the men and women in munitions and in the nation’s industries, without regard to faction or self-interest. In whatever ôle, men and women felt themselves inspired to assert qualities they themselves did not know they possessed. Everyone became just those inches taller, every back just that much broader, as his own was.

    To this task he brought the inspiration of his superlative courage, at the hour of greatest peril; personal courage such as he had always shown, and indeed which needed a direct order from his Sovereign to cause him to desist from landing on the Normandy beaches on D-Day; moral courage, the courage he had shown in warning the nation when he stood alone, now inspired the nation when Britain and the Commonwealth stood alone. There was his eloquence and inspiration, his passionate desire for freedom and his ability to inspire others with that same desire. There was his humanity. There was his humour. But above all, he brought that power which, whenever Britain has faced supreme mortal danger, has been asserted to awaken a nation which others were prepared to write off as decadent and impotent, and to make every man, every woman, a part of that national purpose.

    To achieve that purpose, he drew on all that was greatest in our national heritage. He turned to Byron—”blood, tears and sweat.” The words which he immortalised from Tennyson’s “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington” might well be a nation’s epitaph on Sir Winston himself. Not once or twice in our rough island-story, The path of duty was the way to glory; He that walks it, only thirsting For the right, and learns to deaden Love of Self, before his journey closes, He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting Into glossy purples, which outredden all voluptuous garden-roses. The greatest biographer of Abraham Lincoln said in one of his concluding chapters: A tree is best measured when it is down. So it will prove of Winston Churchill, and there can be no doubt of the massive, oaken stature that history will accord to him. But this is not the time.

    We meet today in this moment of tribute, of spontaneous sympathy this House feels for Lady Churchill and all the members of his family. We are concious only that the tempestuous years are over; the years of appraisal are yet to come. It is a moment for the heartfelt tribute that this House, of all places, desires to pay in an atmosphere of quiet.

    For now the noise of hooves thundering across the veldt; the clamour of the hustings in a score of contests; the shots in Sidney Street, the angry guns of Gallipoli, Flanders, Coronel and the Falkland Islands; the sullen feet of marching men in Tonypandy; the urgent warnings of the Nazi threat; the whine of the sirens and the dawn bombardment of the Normandy beaches—all these now are silent. There is a stillness. And in that stillness, echoes and memories. To each whose life has been touched by Winston Churchill, to each his memory. And as those memories are told and retold, as the world pours in its tributes, as world leaders announce their intention, in this jet age, of coming to join in this vast assembly to pay honour and respect to his memory, we in this House treasure one thought, and it was a thought some of us felt it right to express in the Parliamentary tributes on his retirement. Each one of us recalls some little incident—many of us, as in my own case, a kind action, graced with the courtesy of a past generation and going far beyond the normal calls of Parliamentary comradeship. Each of us has his own memory, for in the tumultuous diapason of a world’s tributes, all of us here at least know the epitaph he would have chosen for himself: “He was a good House of Commons man.”

  • Clement Attlee – 1965 Memorial Speech to Winston Churchill

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Clement Attlee in the House of Lords (he was then the Earl Attlee) on 15 January 1965.

    My Lords, as an old opponent and a colleague, but always a friend, of Sir Winston Churchill, I should like to say a few words in addition to what has already been so eloquently said. My mind goes back to many years ago. I recall Sir Winston as a rising hope of the Conservative Party at the end of the 19th century. I looked upon him and Lord Hugh Cecil as the two rising hopes of the Conservative Party. Then, with courage, he crossed the House—not easy for any man. You might say of Sir Winston that to whatever Party he belonged he did not really change his ideas: he was always Winston.

    The first time I saw him was at the siege of Sidney Street, when he took over command of the troops there, and I happened to be a local resident. I did not meet him again until he came into the House of Commons in 1924. The extraordinary thing, when one thinks of it, is that by that time he had done more than the average Member of Parliament, and more than the average Minister, in the way of a Parliamentary career. We thought at that time that he was finished. Not a bit of it! He started again another career, and then, after some years, it seemed again that he had faded. He became a lone wolf, outside any Party; and, yet, somehow or other, the time was coming which would be for him his supreme moment, and for the country its supreme moment. It seems as if everything led up to that time in 1940, when he became Prime Minister of this country at the time of its greatest peril.

    Throughout all that period he might make opponents, he might make friends; but no one could ever disregard him. Here was a man of genius, a man of action, a man who could also speak superbly and write superbly. I recall through all those years many occasions when his characteristics stood out most forcibly. I do not think everybody always recognised how tender-hearted he was. I can recall him with the tears rolling down his cheeks, talking of the horrible things perpetrated by the Nazis in Germany. I can recall, too, during the war his emotion on seeing a simple little English home wrecked by a bomb. Yes, my Lords, sympathy—and more than that: he went back, and immediately devised the War Damage Act. How characteristic! Sympathy did not stop with emotion; it turned into action.

    Then I recall the long days through the war—the long days and long nights—in which his spirit never failed; and how often he lightened our labours by that vivid humour, those wonderful remarks he would make which absolutely dissolved us all in laughter, however tired we were. I recall his eternal friendship for France and for America; and I recall, too, as the most reverend Primate has said already, that when once the enemy were beaten he had full sympathy for them. He showed that after the Boer War, and he showed it again after the First World War. He had sympathy, an incredibly wide sympathy, for ordinary people all over the world.

    I think of him also as supremely conscious of history. His mind went back not only to his great ancestor Marlborough but through the years of English history. He saw himself and he saw our nation at that time playing a part not unworthy of our ancestors, not unworthy of the men who defeated the Armada and not unworthy of the men who defeated Napoleon. He saw himself there as an instrument. As an instrument for what? For freedom, for human life against tyranny. None of us can ever forget how, through all those long years, he now and again spoke exactly the phrase that crystallised the feelings of the nation.

    My Lords, we have lost the greatest Englishman of our time—I think the greatest citizen of the world of our time. In the course of a long, long life, he has played many parts. We may all be proud to have lived with him and, above all, to have worked with him; and we shall all send to his widow and family our sympathy in their great loss.

  • Anthony Eden – 1965 Memorial Speech to Winston Churchill

    Below is the text of the speech made by Anthony Eden in the House of Lords (he was then the Earl of Avon) on 15 January 1965.

    My Lords, this is a day not only of national mourning but of mourning throughout the Free World. For Sir Winston’s service was to mankind, and for this his place will always be among the few immortals. Many of your Lordships knew Sir Winston well, and worked with him closely at one or other period of his career. But this afternoon, as has been apparent from almost every speech, our minds go back more especially to that period of the Second World War which he himself called our “finest hour”, and which was certainly his.

    It seems to me in every sense appropriate that this sad occasion should be so exceptionally signalised as in this Royal Message—and not only because of Sir Winston’s qualities of true greatness in leadership above all. These in themselves would be cause enough for the Message which we have received. But there is also another reason: that Churchill epitomised, at the same time as he led, the nation, at a time of brave and (why should it not be said?) splendid resistance against odds which might have seemed overwhelming. So, my Lords, as we mourn and honour Sir Winston, we reverence also all those who fell to bring victory to a cause for which he had dedicated himself and us. They are now together.

    My Lords, what follows is a suggestion to which I expect, of course, No immediate reply or comment, and which I make with some temerity, but from messages I have received I believe that it is not only my thought. It seems to me that the nation would feel glad if there could be a “Churchill Day”. This could be most appropriately connected, perhaps, with some date in that summer of 1940, when both Churchill’s leadership and this country’s will to resist, whatever the cost, expressed themselves so gloriously. They could then be enshrined together for as long as our calendar endures.

    I should like also to associate myself with the messages to Lady Churchill. No tribute, however penned or phrased, could out-measure what is deserved.

    My Lords, courage is never easy to define. Sometimes it is shown in the heat of battle; and that we all respect. But there is that rarer courage which can sustain repeated disappointment, unexpected failure, and even shattering defeat. Churchill had that, too; and he had need of it, as the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, will remember, not only for days but sometimes for weeks and for months. Looking back now at the war, victory may seem to have been certain. But it was not always certain; and when news is bad, it is very lonely at the top.

    Like one or two of those who are with us in this House this afternoon, I saw much of Sir Winston then—often many times a day, not only at official meetings but in such periods of comparative relaxation as there were, at meals and, as was his wont, late into the night. I grew to respect and love him, even though the argument might sometimes be sharp.

    My Lords, there is the granite type which feels little. Sir Winston was nothing of that at all. He felt deeply every blow of fortune and every gleam of hope. Alert, eager and questing as his temper was, he could hold on through all tides and tempests; and he had that gift, rare and difficult to discharge in statesmanship, of knowing when to reject “No” as an answer, recognising that the arguments against any positive action could always be trusted to marshal themselves. During those war years his mind was always projected to the next move, and in this he was aided by an energy which was something much more than zest for life. With that constitution, Sir Winston would have survived any strain in any age, but he loved best the present one in which he lived. I have heard it said in criticism that his opinions were of his own generation. Certainly they were. And that was his strength, because he was at the same time open-minded and comprehending as are very few men in this century. He saw clearly and further than most, and he spoke fearlessly and without favour of what he saw. He sensed the danger for his country with the instinct of the artist and the knowledge of the historian.

    As we cast our minds back this afternoon and pay tribute to his memory, there is, of course, nothing for which we in this Assembly shall remember him more than as a Parliamentarian. He called himself a “child of the House of Commons”. But he was, of course, much more than that. He had been brought up in a great Parliamentary age. I remember how he used to tell me how in those days speeches, even of Under-Secretaries, were fully reported in the Press. With awe, almost, he spoke of those days. And the great figures that dominated that period gave him an intimate sense of the power of Parliament which he never lost, just as he never forgot that Parliament put him where he was in 1940. It was a memory with him always.

    So, my Lords, as we say farewell to him now, we thank this, the greatest of all Parliamentarians whom we shall know; and we can best enshrine his work by devoting ourselves to the same thing, to those cherished thoughts, traditions and beliefs to which he held, through life, till death.

  • Joe Ashton – 1968 Maiden Speech to the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Joe Ashton to the House of Commons on 7 November 1968.

    Mr. Speaker, I request the indulgence of the House to introduce myself. I am the new Member for Bassetlaw, and I am very honoured to be here. I am grateful for this opportunity to make my maiden speech.

    Bassetlaw was represented by the Right Hon. Frederick Bellenger for about 33 years. In that time, he became very well known and liked in the constituency. Eventually, his popularity was acknowledged just before his death, when he was made a Freeman of the Borough of Worksop.

    In Bassetlaw, a very varied constituency, the main industries are mining and agriculture. Currently, about 6,000 miners are employed there, and many more retired miners live there. Obviously, the subject that we are debating is one of great concern to them.

    Fortunately, it is a mining area which is developing. The most modern mine in the country, Bevercotes, is in the constituency, and, although there are geological problems there, we expect a very long life for it. One mine, at Firbeck, is closing at Christmas, though I am glad to say that it is not due to a shortage of coal or to economic reasons, but merely because of the presence of gas in the seam.

    The modern mines in my constituency give rise to an interest in tips and their safety because they will be producing material for tips for many years to come. At Manton, extensive experiments have been conducted to grow vegetation on tips and so improve their visual appearance. This is very important from the point of view of attracting new industry, because, in a mining and agricultural area, where more and more mechanisation is taking place and there are fewer opportunities for school leavers, new industry must be attracted. In that connection, we await eagerly the Report of the Hunt Committee, but that does not mean that nothing has happened in that direction in the past.

    If we hope to attract new industry to an area, potential industrialists must be convinced that there is no danger from tips and that something can be done to make them less of an eyesore than they have been for many years. We have a flat terrain in Bassetlaw. There are no slopes, as there are in Wales, and there have been no problems of tip safety. At Harworth Colliery, an overhead conveyor has been constructed, and wastage is carried in large buckets to the tip. It has been found necessary to develop an industrial site in the area and, though it is unsightly to carry slag across it by cable, if we can convince potential industrialists that there is no danger they will be reassured. In time, we hope to be able to make the site more attractive to industrialists and find some other way of disposing of the slag.

    The problems of mine and tip safety and of clearing derelict sites are very important to Bassetlaw, and I am pleased to have been able to make my first speech in this House on the subject.

    Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you, my right hon. and hon. Friends and right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite for being patient with me not only during this speech, but during the past three days in the House. I have received a great deal of help from everyone.

  • Nicky Morgan – 2016 Speech on Extremism

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Nicky Morgan, the Secretary of State for Education, at Bethnal Green Academy in London on 19 January 2016.

    It really is a pleasure to speak here at Bethnal Green Academy

    A school that as we’ve just heard, knows all too well the devastating impact that extremist ideology can have on young people, schools and whole communities.

    I know that this has been an immensely difficult time for everyone involved here, but I want to commend Mark [Keary – Principal of Bethnal Green Academy and CEO of Green Spring Education Trust] and his staff for the leadership that they’ve shown in the face of this tragedy.

    I spoke to Mark shortly after the girls fled and was impressed then by his determination to ensure that other students’ education was not interrupted.

    And for the whole school’s commitment, as he outlined to me at the time, to ensure that pupils here continue to thrive in a safe, tolerant environment where the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance are enshrined in everything you do. Thank you to Mark, and all of your staff and leadership team.

    If you’d been drawing up the job description for Secretary of State for Education, just 5 years ago, I’d doubt that tackling extremism would have featured at all. How different things are today.

    In fact, my first task as Education Secretary was to respond in Parliament to Peter Clarke’s report on the Trojan Horse affair in Birmingham.

    Since then I have led a department which has found itself at the forefront of the fight to protect and safeguard young people from the threat of extreme and fundamentalist ideologies.

    And that threat is like no enemy we have faced before – an enemy not defined by physical geography, but by a shared set of warped beliefs.

    An enemy that thanks to new technology has a potential channel from camps in Syria to homes right here in the United Kingdom – an enemy determined to take away our future by focusing their efforts to target the next generation.

    Defeating such an enemy requires a co-ordinated response. Not just from the police, intelligence and security services, but from civil society – from schools and from parents.

    Because left unchecked those that seek to destroy our way of life start to do so, by, as the Prime Minister said at the Conservative Party Conference last year, putting poison in the minds and hatred in the hearts of impressionable young people.

    It’s hard to comprehend that promising, bright girls from this school took the decision to leave their homes, families and country to join a brutal terrorist group.

    But I do know this, they didn’t take that decision alone – instead they were systematically targeted and groomed.

    Daesh has developed sophisticated social media strategies to allow them to spread their lies and propaganda on an unprecedented scale.

    They prey on and exploit young people’s vulnerabilities – claiming to offer them an identity and a sense of belonging, which is nothing more than a fiction built on lies and manipulation.

    That’s why, just as we so proactively take steps to safeguard children from sexual exploitation, the threat of gangs, drugs or FGM [female genital mutilation], we must all of us here today stand together as government, parents, teachers, heads, charities and civil society groups.

    All of us must work to protect children from the threat that Daesh poses.

    Doing that isn’t easy.

    Far from it. I absolutely understand the concerns of teachers and school staff who’ve said to me, this isn’t our role, this isn’t why I came into the profession, it’s not what schooling should be about.

    But to those teachers and staff I say this – the most powerful thing that you can do to keep young people safe, are the things that you do every single day:

    engaging, broadening horizons and challenging young minds
    ensuring young people leave school as well-rounded young people – ready to be active citizens, able to participate in society, with an understanding of the responsibility that brings
    That is why our work to tackle extremism – and specifically the Prevent duty are absolutely not about shutting down debate in schools – in fact they’re about reinvigorating it.

    Because what defines every extremist organisation throughout history is that more than anything else their mission is to close and narrow young minds – to indoctrinate, instruct and inspire hatred.

    That’s what we saw in the Birmingham schools at the heart of the Trojan Horse Affair: a concerted attempt to limit young people’s world view and spread poisonous views which had no place in our education system.

    That’s why we are taking action to remove those responsible from our classrooms and have put robust measures in place to prevent anyone else from being able to do the same again.

    But that action alone will not be enough to keep young people safe. Alongside tackling extremists directly, we must also ensure that young people understand British values – that they have the tools and arguments they need to challenge extremism and to deconstruct the false claims of groups like Daesh.

    It means that schools and universities need to be able to recognise the difference between a debate involving an academic controversialists like Germaine Greer and some of the events hosted by groups like CAGE, which have no place on our campuses and certainly not in our schools.

    That isn’t easy, there’s no hard and fast rule, age appropriateness matters, as do the motivations of the speakers.

    It requires judgement – but just as we must be absolutely clear that we should never give those who peddle extremist ideologies entry in to our schools or colleges, so too we must guard against inadvertently hiding young people from views which we simply think are wrong and disagree with.

    We will not do young people any favours by wrapping them in cotton wool or subscribing to a definition of safe spaces that makes young people more fragile, and that seeks to protect young people from offence rather than from extremism.

    The difference matters.

    I hold no truck with the move on some campuses to limit debate and ban those with offensive rather than extremist views.

    Far better, I think, to tackle Germaine Greer’s wrong-headed views about gender identity in open debate.

    Because it’s the resilience that young people develop through that challenge and debate which will be their best defence should they ever then find themselves confronted by the truly hateful views of extremist groups.

    I hope that all of you as educators will agree with me that our approach to protecting young people must be twofold.

    We must continue to root out those who peddle extremism in our schools, but at the same time we must equip young people with the mental agility, arguments and insight to see through and overcome the propaganda of extremist groups, be it the Islamist extremism of Daesh or the fundamentalism of the far right.

    As a government we are determined, and I am determined, to provide schools with the support they need to do this.

    That is why I am delighted to be launching the Educate Against Hate website today alongside the Minister for Security [John Hayes MP].

    The site brings together the best advice, support and resources available for parents, teachers and school leaders who want to learn how to protect young people from extremism and radicalisation, and that really is the result of successful collaboration between the Department for Education, the Home Office, the NSPCC, Internet Matters, Childnet, ParentZone, UK Internet Safety Centre, and the many other organisations who have contributed resources.

    What’s so important about this resource is that it doesn’t just offer information for teachers and schools – but parents as well.

    While schools may be able to spot the signs of radicalisation, the truth is much of it takes place beyond the school gates, in families or friendship groups, in communities and increasingly online.

    That means parents must be equipped to help protect their children from extremism.

    They need to understand the threat that extremist organisations pose, how radicalisation happens, what the warning signs look like and who to turn to for support if they are ever worried.

    The information and advice available on Educate Against Hate will be an invaluable resource in helping them to do that and I encourage all parents to visit the site and familiarise themselves with the information it provides.

    But as I said, schools also play a key role in spotting the signs of radicalisation – just as they do when young people experience other threats or difficulties, such as CSE [child sexual exploitation], eating disorders, mental health problems or drugs.

    Schools can pick up those behavioural changes which may signal that a student is being radicalised before their peers or even their parents have spotted those signs.

    That is why it is so important that schools see protecting children from radicalisation as part of their safeguarding duties. I know that the vast majority of staff in schools do this already and want to play their part.

    And I want Educate Against Hate to become a tool that helps them do that.

    It provides up-to-date, practical advice that will help heads and governors understand the procedures their school should have in place to robustly tackle the threat, and will help teachers facing these issues in the classroom to understand radicalisation, its warning signs, and crucially where they can get further support.

    Further resources, particularly those that help teachers to build children’s critical thinking skills, will be added over the coming months.

    And as the threat evolves, as we know it will, the site will be updated so that it continues to be a live and relevant source of support.

    Alongside this, I want to make sure that wherever children are being educated they are safe. I have said before, and I reiterate today, I fundamentally support the right of parents to decide where and how to educate their children.

    Our duty as the government is to make sure that those children are safe from harm. So when children are taken out of school and taken off the register, we must know where they end up to ensure they are safe not just from radicalisation, but also from female genital mutilation, forced marriage and child sexual exploitation.

    That is why, today I am also launching a consultation on improving communication and co-ordination between schools and local authorities to help them quickly and effectively identify children who are missing from education.

    By strengthening regulations and allowing local authorities to obtain the information they need, we will ensure that they don’t waste time filling information gaps, but instead focus efforts and resources on children who are at risk.

    Finally, alongside protecting children who are missing in education, we will take action to tackle those institutions where children are being educated in illegally operating unregistered schools.

    And let me be clear what I mean by an unregistered school, I mean an institution that is operating and educating young people full time and therefore should be subject to the same requirements as any other school.

    These unregistered schools often fail to meet even basic safety and educational requirements – putting young people at risk, and in some cases evidence suggests subjecting them to extreme and intolerant views.

    For too long these illegal schools have been operating under the radar. No more.

    Let me be clear if you operate an unregistered school, you are committing a criminal offence and will face the consequences.

    We have been working closely with Ofsted and local authorities to identify and tackle these schools, and the Chief Inspector has powers to make unannounced visits to any institution that he suspects is operating unlawfully as an independent school.

    Indeed, these powers have already allowed Ofsted to work with the local authority to secure the closure of several unregistered schools operating in Birmingham.

    But we must do more to take tough action against those who disregard the law in this area, and so I have agreed to give Ofsted additional resources so that they can go out on the ground to locate and investigate unregistered schools.

    I have also instructed Ofsted to start preparing prosecutions against the proprietors of these schools.

    Britain’s classrooms have for centuries shaped great minds, who in turn have gone on to shape the course of history.

    That is why it is so important that we do everything we can to ensure they remain places of enquiry and engagement, not breeding grounds for intolerance and indoctrination.

    There will be no single knockout blow against those who seek to corrupt young people, but the action we are taking, to protect children inform parents and support teachers will put us firmly on the front foot.

    It demonstrates our total commitment towards ensuring that we prevail in the battle against hateful extremist ideologies.

    Because we want to ensure that every single child is where they should be – receiving a great education that will help them to build a bright future.

    Thank you.

  • Robert Goodwill – 2016 Speech at Intertek

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Robert Goodwill, the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, at Intertek in Milton Keynes on 14 January 2016.

    It’s a real honour to open Intertek’s new testing facility today.

    And I am really pleased that Intertek will be using its expertise in a new field.

    The UK automotive industry is a genuine economic success story.

    Last year Britain built 1.5 million cars.

    One and a quarter million of which we exported to over a hundred different countries.

    Almost 800,000 people are employed in an industry that in 2013 turned over £64 billion.

    In 2014, a single plant – Nissan in Sunderland – made more cars than the whole of Italy.

    That makes you feel proud.

    And it means Britain’s transport manufacturing sector has passed its pre-recession peak and continues to grow.

    But that success is dependent on British-made cars being not just reliable, safe, clean and efficient, but verifiably so.

    The effect that cars have on our air quality has been in the news a lot recently.

    That focus won’t go away.

    Poor air is a real health danger in many towns and cities and CO2 standards for new cars are continually being tightened.

    Meanwhile, car manufacturers are facing global competition, unpredictable commodity prices and exchange rates, and ever-increasing consumer expectations.

    I have no doubt that the UK’s automotive sector will rise to these challenges, but only if research and development keep pace.

    And that’s where Intertek’s fantastic new facility comes in.

    It’s a vital addition to the UK’s testing capability, and it means we can test more of our cars here, in the UK, rather than sending them abroad.

    That’s convenient for manufacturers, and it keeps the commercial advantage here, too.

    We need to develop our expertise in testing electric vehicles, because by 2050 we want virtually every car on the road to be an ultra low emission vehicle.

    To help us achieve our target, the government is spending over £600 million to support the ultra low emission vehicle market.

    We have funded more than 50,000 Plug-in Car and Van Grants to help motorists buy ultra low emission vehicles.

    We have invested in refuelling infrastructure, including charging points for electric, hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

    We are running the Go Ultra Low communications campaign, supporting cleaner buses and taxis and working with Innovate UK and the Advanced Propulsion Centre to develop new technology.

    This investment will ensure that the low emission vehicles of the future are designed, developed and tested here in the UK.

    So Intertek’s investment makes perfect sense.

    You are helping us on the way to low emission vehicles being increasingly commonplace on our roads, offering drivers all the convenience of internal combustion engine vehicles, but with cheaper running costs and cleaner, quieter engines.

    It means that we have come a long way in 120 years. On the 7th and 8th of May we will celebrate the 120th anniversary of the first horseless carriage exhibition, with a recreation of the event at Imperial College.

    I hope to see some of you there.

    But I would like to end my remarks by saying thank you.

    Thank you for your vote of confidence in the UK’s car manufacturing sector.

    And thank you for your commitment to the future of motoring.

    Your work here helps make the UK a global leader in the design, production and testing of cutting-edge vehicles, and will do nothing less than revolutionise personal transport.

    Thank you.

  • Nick Gibb – 2016 Speech on Enterprise and Entrepreneurship

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Gibb at the Education World Forum at Westminster Hall, in London, on 19 January 2016.

    Can I start by saying thank you for inviting me to be part of this panel. Since coming to office in 2010, entrepreneurship and enterprise have been cornerstones of this government’s long term plan for the economy.

    We have saved businesses £10 billion in red tape, and have extended the doubling of small business rate relief until April 2017. Over 34,000 start-up loans worth £187 million have been provided to people starting their own business. Compared with 2010, there are now 900,000 more small businesses, and employment in small businesses has increased by 1.6 million. Today, business in Britain is flourishing and growing.

    Such measures have created a fertile garden for new enterprises to grow, but the extent of such growth is ultimately determined by the number of knowledgeable, skilled and ambitious young people leaving our schools. Highly qualified school leavers are an irreplaceable component of a strong economy.

    But what actually constitutes being ‘highly qualified?’ Since 2010, the government has focused on increasing the challenge, and the academic ambition, of our national examinations and qualifications. We have overturned a culture of low expectations that discouraged generations of capable pupils, predominantly from disadvantaged backgrounds, from studying the core academic subjects that would open doors to their future.

    It is our belief that all schools should introduce their pupils, up to the age of 16, with an understanding of the world around them. To be given the best chance of success in later life, all pupils should know the rules of mathematics and the natural sciences, great historical events, geographical landmarks, a language other than their own, and enduring works of art and literature. In short, they should be given the gift of knowledge.

    Such a message is, perhaps, at odds with the message often delivered at international education forums such as this. There is a common view amongst some educationists that the internet, and the advent of google in particular, makes the teaching of knowledge redundant.

    One educationist who is well known on the international stage recently wrote a book promoting ‘new pedagogies’. Chief amongst them was ‘learning to learn.’ He wrote of today’s education, ‘the goal is not to master content knowledge; it is to master the learning process.’

    Indeed, the Director of Education at a leading global think tank wrote in a 2010 report: ‘Educational success is no longer about reproducing content knowledge… Education today is much more about ways of thinking which involve creative and critical approaches to problem-solving and decision-making.’

    Though such a view may seem forward-thinking and persuasive, I believe it to be profoundly misguided. Those who are most adept at problem solving and decision making, and most easily master ‘the learning process’, are those with a well of background knowledge to draw upon.

    An educationist who has shaped my thinking on this more than any other is Daniel Willingham, professor of cognitive science at the University of Virginia. With reference to robust scientific evidence, he explains how the ‘thinking skills’ most prized by schools and employers are dependent upon background knowledge.

    In mathematics, pupils can only solve complex problems once they have achieved fluency in the use of algorithms, and memorised their number bonds and multiplication tables. Communication in a foreign language is impossible without having mastered its grammar, and learnt an extensive vocabulary. In studying a historical period, a knowledge of the events is vital before attempting to analyse evidence or explain causes.

    One memorable example Daniel Willingham cites is an experiment where good readers with a low knowledge of baseball, and poor readers with a high knowledge of baseball, were both asked to read a text about baseball, and tested for understanding. In this instance, the ability to read was not enough: poor readers with high knowledge performed much better than good readers with low knowledge.

    Does this mean that schools should aim to teach all information that pupils are likely to encounter in the working world? No, such an aim is impossible. Schools can equip pupils, however, with a framework of knowledge which enables them to learn more in the future. This framework is what an academic curriculum provides.

    It is the consensus of most cognitive psychologists that an individual can only hold 5 to 7 new pieces of information in their working memory at any one time. All other information must reside in long term memory for new knowledge to be understood – or else ‘cognitive overload’ is experienced. This is why, for someone with no background knowledge, browsing the internet is such a barren and fruitless means of learning.

    Say, for example, a young tech entrepreneur wants to find out about the advantages of cloud computing. The first paragraph on the Wikipedia page suggests that sharing resources achieves ‘economies of scale’, an unfamiliar term. So the young entrepreneur looks it up, but the definition for ‘economies of scale’ uses another unfamiliar term: ‘variable cost’. The definition of which in turn contains the terms ‘fixed’ and ‘marginal costs’, and so on and so forth in an infinite series of google searches which take the young entrepreneur further and further away from the original term ‘cloud computing’.

    The internet is a wonderful tool for those who already possess considerable knowledge. As a means of initial instruction it is not so useful.

    In 2013, we reformed the national curriculum in England to put in much of the subject knowledge that previous governments – under the influence of the 21st century skills movement – had taken out. Our mathematics and science curriculum content was based in part on the curriculums of far eastern education systems such as Shanghai and Singapore, where schools still place great value on the mastery of academic subject knowledge. It is no coincidence, to my mind, that their pupils top international league tables such as PISA and TIMSS.

    Of course, many argue that whilst pupils in the Far East do well in tests, their formal style of education limits creativity and independent-mindedness. One look at the skyline of Shanghai, or the commercial district of Singapore, should put such arguments to rest. According to the World Intellectual Property Organisations, China, Japan and Korea provided 3 of the 4 top patent offices for the number of patent applications in 2014. Remarkably, China contributed 89% of the worldwide growth in patents filed in 2014, compared with 2013. So much for a formal, academic education limiting a country’s potential to innovate.

    And it is this formal, academic education which best equips pupils for work in the modern world. The 2012 PISA survey of financial literacy in 13 OECD countries contained a very interesting finding. Pupils completed financial literacy tasks, on areas such as variable interest rates and inflation. There was a strong correlation between pupils’ performance in numeracy and literacy tests, and pupils’ financial literacy. However, there was no clear relationship between states which offer lessons in personal finance, and pupils’ financial literacy. For pupils from Shanghai, which topped the financial literacy table by quite some margin, mastering mathematics appeared to be the best means of becoming financially literate.

    In opposition to the idea that a formal education is the best means of fostering enterprising and entrepreneurial citizens, the individual cases of well-known school or university drop outs are often cited. ‘Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg both dropped out of Harvard,’ it is claimed. ‘Richard Branson never completed school,’ they add. Less often is it mentioned that prior to university, each of them received an academic education at an elite private school.

    Indeed, 2 Swedish academics recently took on the myth of the untutored business genius in their Centre for Policy Studies paper ‘SuperEntrepreneurs …and how your country can get them’. They analysed the educational background of around 1000 self-made men and women who have earned at least $1 billion. Only 16% of such ‘superenterpreneurs’ from the USA lacked a college degree, compared to 54% of salaried workers.

    In addition, superenterpreneurs in the USA were 5 times more likely to hold a PhD degree as the general population. One third of American superentrepreneurs have degrees from one of the top 14 American universities, compared to 1% of the general population. The exceptional stories of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and the Rausing brothers are well known precisely for that reason: they are exceptions. When it comes to producing a new generation of entrepreneurs, an investment in an academic curriculum will always pay dividends.

    This brings me to my second point. Any discussion of enterprise and entrepreneurship must consider the great advances in technology that are transforming the world. Schools must respond positively to these advances, but they should do so in a thoughtful and judicious fashion.

    As part of our national curriculum reforms, our government has introduced a new computing curriculum into schools, which moves away from everyday computer use – ICT, and focuses instead on understanding how computers work. The curriculum has been developed by teachers and sector experts, led by the British Computer Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, with input from industry leaders like Microsoft, Google and leaders in the computer games industry.

    From primary school until the age of 14, pupils will be taught programming languages, computational thinking, and Boolean logic – making this country, I believe, the first in the G20 to teach such a curriculum.

    Secondly, instead of proclaiming that educational technology will ‘disrupt’ traditional schooling, we should focus instead on how technology can supplement what teachers already do well. For example, educational technology has the potential to bring enormous efficiencies to the important but time-consuming process of marking pupils’ work.

    In this country, the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring at Durham University and the company GL Assessment offer well-honed computerised assessments. These allow a teacher, with minimal effort in terms of marking, to assess a pupils’ understanding with great accuracy, and diagnose areas for further work.

    One of the 3 British teachers nominated for the Varkey Foundation’s Global Teacher Prize is Colin Hegarty, who left his accountancy job in the city to teach mathematics at a London secondary school. I met him last week, and he demonstrated the website he has been developing, which combines instructional videos in mathematics with sophisticated computerised assessment, based on a bank of 400,000 carefully designed questions. Such programmes have the potential to improve radically the way in which teachers assess the strengths and weaknesses of their pupils.

    Similarly, computer apps provide excellent tools for quizzing pupils about key facts and information. As cognitive scientists such as Robert Bjork have demonstrated, frequent quizzing reinforces the place of knowledge in our long-term memory. No longer do pupils revising for examinations have to use flashcards: they can use computer apps such as Quizlet or Memrise on their smartphone instead.

    One highly successful UK educational technology export is Show My Homework, a cloud-based homework software, which allows teachers to post homework assignments online so that children (and perhaps more importantly parents!) can check what work they should be doing. It is now used in over 1000 schools, and has 2.5 million users worldwide.

    In the cases of computerised assessment, quizzing apps, and useful teacher tools, educational technology is used to supplement what teachers already do. This does not mean, however, that computers can replace the work of teachers. Teaching is an unavoidably human activity. A computer may supplement the work of a teacher, but it will never supplant it.

    One well-known educationist shot to fame a few years ago with a popular TED talk, extolling the ability of pupils to learn from the internet independently. He asked in his talk: ‘if there’s stuff on Google, why would you need to stuff it into your head?’, and added ‘I decided that groups of children can navigate the internet to achieve educational objectives on their own.’

    There is considerable empirical evidence from classroom studies, however, that web-based learning does not improve pupil outcomes. Professor John Hattie from the University of Melbourne published ‘Visible Learning’ in 2009. This seminal book brings together 800 meta-analyses of academic research in order to judge the impact of 138 different teaching methods and school interventions.

    Amongst all 138 interventions, web-based learning was in the bottom quintile of effect sizes, ranking well below Professor Hattie’s threshold for an effective intervention. By contrast, teacher-led interventions, such as Mastery Learning or Direct Instruction scored very highly. Teachers will always remain the pre-eminent means of ensuring that a pupil succeeds: a teacher not only brings knowledge to the classroom: she brings motivation, personality, and ongoing support.

    Last year’s OECD report into school computer use appeared to confirm that, whilst an extremely important aspect of modern schooling, computers are not the magic bullet of education reform. The 5 countries where pupils spend the least time using the internet in school – Poland, Japan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and South Korea – are all amongst the world’s highest achieving jurisdictions.

    No education minister should fill schools with the latest technologies and expect that they, on their own, will spark an education revolution. Such practices will not provide a country with a new generation of entrepreneurs. In fact, by allowing educational technology to crowd out the timeless benefits of a knowledge-based curriculum and high-quality teacher instruction, it may well mitigate against such an aim.

    The optimal mixture of knowledge, attitudes and character traits which will produce an enterprising and entrepreneurial population will always be a subject of debate. As school ministers, however, we underestimate the importance of knowledge at our peril.

    We must draw the entrepreneurs and business leaders of tomorrow from all quarters of society, irrespective of birth or background. And that is why all children should be taught the core academic curriculum which will enable them to carry on learning for the rest of their lives.

  • Nicky Morgan – 2016 Speech to the Education World Forum

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Nicky Morgan, the Secretary of State for Education, to the Education World Forum at Westminster Hall, in London, on 19 January 2016.

    What a pleasure it is to be here at the Education World Forum again.

    It has become a unique meeting of education ministers from around the world and I am personally very proud to be here.

    It’s so good to see so many of you, not only willing, but eager to share with us what is happening in education in your countries.

    I know that ministers in my department have hugely enjoyed recent meetings with ministers from France, Pakistan, the Netherlands, Uruguay, Brazil, Turkey, Canada and others.

    To discuss and witness first-hand, areas as diverse as early years, the curriculum, attendance, teacher recruitment and vocational education. Last month I met with the Japanese education minister, Hiroshie Hase, to discuss values and citizenship. This sharing of ideas and knowledge makes so much sense because of the globalised world in which we live.

    Our neighbours may be our competitors, and I make no secret of wanting England to be a world leader in education, but they are also our partners. The truth is that educational performance isn’t a zero-sum game.

    I hope that as a result of this forum each of us will feel that what we have learned will strengthen and improve our approach to education policy, which ultimately enables all of us to better extend opportunity for the next generation.

    I know there is so much for us to share here and that particular strides forward are being made worldwide on school inspections, curriculums, assessments and performance tables.

    PISA

    The truth is that nobody has perfected every aspect of education policy. And international benchmarking tells us much about what we need to improve.

    For instance here in England we know – from the OECD’s library of PISA data alongside their comprehensive ‘Education at a Glance’ and other studies that the gap between our highest and our lowest-performing pupils is substantial compared to other countries.

    We know that pupils approaching the end of secondary education do not perform as well as their peers from a number of countries worldwide and that, as a result, they are not as well prepared for the next phase of their life as their international colleagues.

    From the same sources we know that other countries achieve incredible levels of performance in different areas and I want us to learn from those jurisdictions: Shanghai and Singapore have quite literally ‘mastered’ the teaching of maths, and we are beginning to unpick how through our successful exchange programmes in the last year.

    In Germany only 2.9% of 15- to 19-year-olds are neither in education, employment or training (NEET). In Macao, Hong Kong and Estonia, pupil performance is much less strongly associated with pupil backgrounds than is the case in other countries, including England.

    But there are also many exciting things happening here in England and I would like to share some key themes from what is happening here, framed within our conference theme: a new start for learning and skills through the prism of the sustainable development goals.

    Sustainable development goals

    How appropriate that the sustainable development goals should be our theme this year considering education not only forms one of the 17 goals but informs the targets on many others.

    Unlike the millennium development goals that preceded them, the sustainable development goals are outward-focusing; they are not confined either in letter or in spirit to developing nations but – quite rightly – are goals to which all nations should aspire.

    And I am so very pleased and proud the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, was so involved in shaping this agenda.

    Education as a sustainable development goal

    The millennium development goals did much for education – for example, a near 50% decrease in the number of children not in school – but the focus needed to be widened beyond access to education in general. I think sustainable development goal 4 does exactly that.

    It calls for us to:

    “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning for all.”

    There are 10 targets attached to it and the first of these is about ensuring all children complete free, quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.

    I think this is crucial for 2 reasons. The first key component is quality. That is to say it isn’t enough simply to have access to education but the provision must be excellent too.

    Here in England we have made it our mission to spread educational excellence everywhere.

    As I said last year at this forum, all children deserve excellent teachers. Countries like Korea and Japan have demonstrated that this is possible.

    Here in England we are introducing a national teaching service to deploy our best teachers and best school leaders to areas that have struggled to recruit and have the most need of new teachers. Our Prime Minister, David Cameron, said just last week that we should give all young people the opportunity to dream big.

    To do that our young people need an excellent grounding in education and so we have sought to raise standards at every tier of education and every level of ability.

    This time last year we declared our determination to tackle illiteracy and innumeracy for primary school students.

    Additionally, in our manifesto last year we committed to matching the standards of reading of the best readers in Europe.

    It is a high bar but we want the very best for our young people. Because we know that maths and English are non-negotiable for future success.

    And let me say something about knowledge. There are those who say that a knowledge based education system is outdated. They claim that our young people need only creativity, imagination and critical thinking skills to get on in life.

    Don’t get me wrong – they do need those. But my view is that these skills cannot be acquired without an excellent knowledge base.

    Renowned cognitive psychologists like Daniel T. Willingham have produced compelling research to suggest that knowledge is crucial to educational success.

    We have therefore focussed on a rigorous, quality curriculum that accepts knowledge as a necessity in the pursuit of skills.

    The second key component is the call for education to lead to relevant and effective learning outcomes. For me this means that the education we are offering to young people should prepare them for their future.

    One of the ministers in my department visited an innovative project in Norway recently. The Jåttå School offers 6 vocational routes which are the basis for around 100 individual occupations.

    The minister was impressed by the school’s approach to building partnerships with other vocational schools, community leaders and employers – noting that its focus on achieving excellent career outcomes for its pupils. Its success is marked by the fact that it is highly oversubscribed.

    Here in England we have stripped away outdated vocational training courses that failed to give young people any advantage in the jobs market and have overseen the opening of university technical colleges.

    These are specialist colleges for 14- to 19-year-olds, sponsored by universities; they teach the national curriculum alongside high-quality vocational courses.

    They are designed to give their students the skills employers really want.

    They are focused on knowledge as well as outcomes.

    We have done more than any government before us to bring business leaders – both big business and small and medium-size enterprises – into the process of education as well as its governance.

    We now have business sponsoring schools, acting as non-executive directors, shaping school mission statements, informing curriculums and driving careers advice.

    This is because we take the view that business knows what business needs and with their expertise, complementing the work of excellent schools, we can truly deliver a truly excellent education system. One that ensures our school leavers are workforce ready.

    Character and resilience

    We believe there is another component that is vital if our young people are to succeed in life and that is character.

    I’m talking about the grit, resilience and determination: the ability to work with others, to be humble in the face of success, to bounce back from life’s disappointments.

    We are convinced that where character education can complement excellent academic study our students can become the well-rounded citizens we really want them to be.

    We are looking at innovative ways of bringing character education into schools which includes input from our sports people, first-aiders, social enterprises – with trials happening up and down the country.

    Just this week I am meeting a former England Rugby Captain and World Cup winner to discuss character education. He knows what it’s like to be under pressure, win or lose.

    The mentality of an elite sports team is built around the idea of pursuing success collectively – working together, complementing each other’s skills and having clear measures of what success should look like.

    This is the mentality any company, whether it’s a small business or a large corporation, expects from its workforce.

    We want to give our young people as much opportunity as possible to build their character and we have directed funding towards this important educational tool.

    Over the coming years we are confident that we can become a world leader in character education.

    Conclusion

    As ever, it is a real pleasure to come to this forum and I look forward to seeing many of you at the BETT fair on Wednesday too.

    I think the sustainable development goals give us an excellent opportunity to refocus education policy and truly have a new start for learning and skills.

    We need to ensure that it isn’t just access to education we offer but access to quality education. That our education systems are designed to lead to the outcomes our students and our economies need and want.

    And that our school leavers are workforce ready through the character and resilience building they need to get on in life.

    Education can be truly life transforming and is the most powerful tool we have to respond to this challenging world. And our challenges are many – economic change, climate change, inequality and extremism to name but a few.

    Let’s resolve to continue to work together, to share knowledge of what works and what doesn’t, and to pursue the sustainable development goals for the good of our global community.

    Thank you.