Category: Speeches

Nick Clegg – 2012 Speech at the Global Business Summit on Energy

Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Clegg, the then Deputy Prime Minister, at the Global Business Summit on Energy held on 6 August 2012.

It’s a pleasure to welcome you all to today’s Global Business Summit on Energy. One of a series of events, all timed to coincide with the Olympic Games, the biggest international business conference we have ever held.

Our aim today is to look at what more we can do together, to advance clean, smart energy generation, boosting our shared prosperity, as well as building a more resilient economy, better able to withstand future shocks.

The UK is already the sixth largest market in low carbon and environmental goods and services.

We lead the world in offshore wind – our total installed capacity is as much as the rest of the world put together.

With enviable natural resources, we’re one of the biggest players in marine and tidal energy too.

We offer political stability, legal certainty, the English language.

This is one of the best places in the world to do business – that’s according to the World Bank;

With the best regulatory environment in Europe – that’s according to a recent poll of European utility investors;

As well as some of the world’s best universities and research facilities;

Indeed we produce more Nobel Prize Winners than any other country bar the US.

We are creating the most competitive corporate tax regime in the G7.

Add to that the fact the world’s biggest single market is on our doorstep, despite Europe’s continuing difficulties it’s still home to 500 million consumers, and you have the ideal location to invest your money and grow your businesses: A global powerhouse in the industries you represent.

Despite pressures on other parts of the economy, since the 2008 financial crisis our low carbon sector has grown year on year with growth averaging 4.4%. But we want to do more; we want to seize every opportunity. Last year the sector was worth around £3.3 trillion worldwide and the race for green global investment is hotting up. The biggest, savviest economies are crowding in – China, Germany, Korea, Brazil. So the UK is upping our game exploiting our competitive edge making the most of our internationally respected brand in order to stay ahead.

Ed will set out some of detail on how the government is seeking to do that, so I will limit my remarks to our central message to you today. The one thing we want to impress on you above all else: This coalition government is unreservedly committed to helping our low carbon sector thrive – no ifs; no buts. And we want to support the shift by traditional industry to cleaner sources of energy – while of course recognising the pressures they face. When we say that we want green growth, that is not flimsy, political rhetoric: It is a very real aim, driven by very real economic needs.

I think it’s important to put that up in lights. The coalition is sometimes presented, in the press, as if it is riddled with debate and division with regard to greening the economy. That isn’t the case. Yes, there will be internal discussions and debates on the balance and sequencing of different policies – that’s the nature of any government – and energy policies will evolve over time as costs come down. That’s why, for example, we could recently reduce the subsidy for onshore wind. But the entire government is working within the parameters of the carbon budget, which sets the pace for decarbonising our economy. And there is no one in government who wants to depart from that.

We all want an economy rebalanced across industries and regions. We all want to build on our highest growth sectors to create more jobs.

So our challenge is giving you as much certainty as possible – we know that’s what you crave; we know it keeps your costs down. Indeed, it’s the issue raised with me most often by the people in this room. No-one expects an entirely risk-free investment environment, but your companies are embarking on major projects, breaking new ground, building infrastructure intended to last a lifetime, relying on low carbon technologies that involve significant upfront costs. And so, understandably, you place a big premium on predictability. We hear that loud and clear. And there are three overarching ways that we are seeking to provide it.

First – and this applies to all business: We have made macroeconomic stability an absolute priority, because it is an absolute prerequisite for confidence and growth. It is easy to forget that, at the time of the financial crash, the UK had a deficit bigger than Greece. By taking the difficult decisions we pulled our economy back from the brink. We have kept the markets at bay, remaining masters of our own destiny. Interest rates have remained historically low. A quarter of our deficit has now been paid off.

Yes, the road to recovery is long and testing, but make no mistake: if we have to sacrifice short-term political popularity for lasting economic health – so be it. We promised to safeguard economic stability in the national interest. That is what we will continue to do.

Second: consistency from government. So no surprises; no rabbits out of hats. We set out what we’re going to do – then we do it. It sounds obvious, but you all know governments don’t always behave like that.

Clearly our emissions and renewable targets provide an overall policy framework. And look, for example, at how we take decisions on things like our renewable obligations banding. We review it every 4 years, like clockwork. So, every 4 years, we consult with industry on the subsidy levels, we listen to the evidence you provide, and then we set the bands. And because everyone gets a sense of what’s coming, companies can plan and prepare.

That’s why, since announcing the new levels just a few weeks ago, we’ve already seen signs of progress on around £3.5 billion worth of investments. Today, for example, shovels will hit the ground in Tees Valley, where Air Products is building a renewable energy plant that will power 55,000 homes and create 700 construction jobs.

It’s true that sometimes we have to take a bit of time to get the detail right – especially on major items like Electricity Market Reform. But our aim is always predictable processes; transparent and inclusive policy-making; decisions that are based on evidence above all else. And, please, let us know how we can do more of that.

Finally: ambition. A willingness to be bold, because we seek nothing less than a clean, green, low carbon economy and the scale of that task demands imagination.

In order to meet this challenge we need to think big.

That’s why the UK’s fourth carbon budget constitutes the boldest emissions reduction target set, in law, by any government, anywhere in the world.

And we have been at the forefront of attempts to secure a more ambitious target across the EU.

We are creating the world’s first Green Investment Bank: A national bank devoted to leveraging billions of pounds for green infrastructure. The government’s UK Green Investments team has already begun making investments. And I can announce they have just sealed a contract to provide £100 million for investment in small-scale, non-domestic energy efficiency projects.

The Green Deal will start later this year. And which will transform home energy consumption. Creating a whole new market in UK home insulation and energy efficiency.

We’re beginning the biggest shake up of the electricity market in 3 decades. In order to level the playing field between low carbon and conventional energy.

We’ve just announced the largest investment in rail since the Victorian era.

We’re providing one of the best offers in the world for Carbon Capture and Storage, including our new £1 billion competition.
We’re the first country where listed companies will include emissions data in their annual reports. Something I pressed our international partners to adopt at the Rio Sustainability Summit in June.

We’ve dramatically overhauled our planning regulations, slimming over 1,300 pages of planning policy down to 49, easing the path for good, sustainable developments.

Big ticket reforms. World firsts. Policy that looks decades ahead.

So, stability. Consistency. Ambition. The building blocks of our shared prosperity. I hope today reminds you of the value this government places on your businesses and your ambitions.

Together we find ourselves at the vanguard of one of the most dynamic, most innovative, most important industries of our time. An industry that will help us build a more stable, more sustainable, more prosperous world. That’s a vision we can all get behind. This is a journey we are on together. And on that note, let me hand over to Ed.

January 19, 2016
George Osborne – 2012 Speech on Energy Sector Day

Below is the text of the speech made by George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at Lancaster House in London on 7 August 2012.

I am delighted to be here at the Energy Sector Day at Lancaster House when the world is here in London for the Olympics.

The Global Business Summit is a demonstration of how the UK can lead the world in the energy sector: securing investment, creating jobs and building a more prosperous future.

And there is no better example of the significant contribution that this sector makes to our economy than the UK oil and gas industry.

This has long been one of our great industrial success stories, supporting a third of a million jobs, and extracting the equivalent of over 40 billion barrels of oil to date.

We recognise that companies operating in the North Sea work in a truly global market – and that we have to work hard to attract their capital and their jobs.

We are committed to ensuring that these businesses continue to see the UK and the UK Continental Shelf as an attractive location for that investment.

To making the most of our remaining oil and gas reserves.

And to ensuring that the UK economy continues to benefit from the fruits of this remarkable industry.

That is why, at this year’s Budget, I introduced an ambitious package of tax measures to encourage investment and innovation in the North Sea.

I announced that we would end the uncertainty that has hung over the industry for years by introducing a contractual approach to oil and gas decommissioning.

This will stimulate the market in North Sea assets, release billions of pounds of capital for further investment, and give companies the assurance they need to continue investing in mature fields.

I also announced changes to the field allowance regime to encourage investment in commercially marginal fields.

Including a £3 billion allowance for large and deep fields, to open up the West of Shetland, the last area of the basin left to be developed.

And it is great to see the very important Rosebank project pressing ahead as a result.

Building on this success, last month we introduced a further allowance for large shallow-water gas fields. Following this announcement, we have seen confirmation of the £1.4 billion investment in the Cygnus gas field.

This will be the largest gas development in the Southern North Sea in the past 25 years. Once in production, it is estimated that the field will deliver 5% of the UK gas demand and contribute significantly to UK security of supply.

This reinforces our commitment to gas as the biggest source of energy in the UK.

With 80% of the project’s expenditure destined for UK companies, Cygnus is expected to create around 4,000 jobs across the UK.

Just today, the companies involved have awarded contracts to a number of UK suppliers, including yards in Hartlepool and Fife.

These contracts alone will support 1,235 jobs.

I am proud that highly skilled supply companies such as these have developed a global reputation of excellence and expertise.

Proud that the UK is home to businesses that lead the world in cutting edge research and technology.

As we are committed to providing the best possible environment for investment in oil & gas, so we want to the UK continue as an open, competitive location for investment in electricity generation.

We have an independently regulated market that welcomes investment from all over the world.

This helps provide the UK with the expertise and resources available around the world and with a diverse and secure supply of power.

We have a clear and stable investment regime which allows investors to commit funds with confidence.

The carbon price floor provides a clear cost trajectory for gas and coal generators.

The new support rates announced for renewable technologies will ensure that low carbon generation remains affordable for consumers whilst providing certainty for investors.

Last month we made clear that we expect gas to play a key role in meeting electricity demand for the UK throughout the 2020s and beyond.

We will provide more detail in the autumn on steps we will take to make the UK an even more attractive place for gas investors.

Together these polices will enable billions of pounds of investment in the UK economy; creating jobs, and securing the UK’s position as a world leader in energy technology development.

And this Government is committed to ensuring the UK maintains its competitive edge in science, and to putting innovation and research at the very heart of its growth agenda.

That’s why top businesses such as BP are investing in the UK and supporting our world-leading universities in delivering cutting edge research.

It gives me great pleasure today to welcome BP’s announcement to create an International Centre for Advanced Materials.

The fact that Manchester University is the hub for this great project and that two of the three spokes are at Cambridge University and Imperial College clearly demonstrates the UK’s strength in science and innovation.

The centre will play a key role in helping to maintain the world-leading status of the UK in the research of advanced materials and I want to acknowledge the substantial investment by BP in creating 25 new academic posts, 70 post-grad researchers and 50 postdoctoral fellows.

In my capacity as a local MP as well as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I am delighted that this investment will further strengthen Manchester and the North West of England as a world-leading centre of expertise in materials technologies.

It complements the £50m investment to create a Graphene Global Research and Technology Hub based in Manchester that the Government announced last year.

It will also strengthen other centres of materials expertise such as the National Composites Centre in the South West, and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in Sheffield, which are working in partnership with global businesses such as Airbus, GKN and Rolls Royce, and Boeing.

The UK’s research base is second only to the USA for number of citations, and it is the most productive country for research in the G8 in citations and publications per pound.

Our research institutes include world-leading facilities that combine flexibility to pursue innovative research with a unique environment for developing outstanding students and early career researchers.

Throughout the energy sector and beyond, we are committed to creating an environment that allows research and innovation to flourish, ensuring that world-leading businesses, including energy businesses, continue to see the UK as an attractive location for investment.

And we are committed to harnessing their success to drive our economy forward.

Thank you.

January 19, 2016
Danny Alexander – 2012 Speech to the Global Business Summit

Below is the text of the speech made by Danny Alexander, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, to the Global Business Summit held on 8 August 2012.

Good morning, it gives me great pleasure to open this breakfast meeting on UK infrastructure.

To kick off this meeting, I want to say a few general words on how government policy supports investment in infrastructure, and how that investment supports a strong and balanced economic recovery.

I don’t need to remind you of the difficult economic times we face and I know that times are particularly tough for some of the businesses represented here.

The UK is still recovering from the biggest debt and financial crisis of our lifetimes – a recovery that is made no easier by the ongoing challenges in the Euro area and in our banking system.

But in the midst of some sobering facts, we should not lose sight of the positives for the UK – employment up by 181,000 last quarter; 840,000 private sector jobs created since this government came to power; and inflation down to 2.4 per cent in June.

These successes come in a very challenging climate, and though we still have much to do, they support the view that the Government is following the right economic strategy.

Our objective is to return this country to sustainable prosperity and to rebalance our economy.

That means fiscal consolidation, to sort out the public finances and ensure the UK commands the confidence of international markets.

If means supply side reform, ensuring Britain is an excellent place to do Business, and raising our growth potential.

And it means dealing with our long standing weaknesses – for example delivering a more mobile workforce, with the right skills in the right places.

Infrastructure enables us to deliver on the latter two. And through taking tough choices on government spending, we are in fact investing more in transport infrastructure and in broadband access and quality than at the height of the spending boom.

At the same time, the credibility that we have established has given the Bank of England space to keep the base rate low, and provide further monetary support for infrastructure investment, such as quantitative easing and the new Funding for Lending scheme, which came into operation last week.

And it has allowed us to support further investment directly, for example through the ‘UK Guarantees’ scheme that we announced a fortnight ago.

This will help to accelerate major infrastructure investment by offering guarantees of up to £40 billion of major projects, and a temporary lending programme that will allow around £6 billion pounds of public-private partnership projects to proceed without delay.

Already we have had over 30 expressions of interest since the announcement, and we continue to receive more on a daily basis.

The Treasury’s door is open to discussions with any project that meets our criteria – nationally significant, financially credible, good value for the tax-payer, dependent on a guarantee, and ready to start in a year – and we will deal with applications as quickly as possible.

I can tell you this morning that the Green Deal will be an early candidate for the use of these guarantees. The Green deal is the largest ever programme for investing in the energy efficiency of our Housing stock and we are looking at whether and how a guarantee could ensure that the finances are in place to get the programme of to a very strong start.

The deals my colleagues will be announcing later today show the UK is already in a strong position. And the work we are doing is building on that to strengthen it further still.

Alongside these measures to support investment finance, we are also taking major steps to remove non-financial barriers to investment – reforming our planning regulations, and identifying skills gaps or capability issues.

And to ensure that Britain’s infrastructure is delivering on Britain’s priorities, our National Infrastructure Plan sets out a clear vision for the £250 billion of investment that we expect to 2015 and beyond. Our updated plan brings together a comprehensive cross-sectoral analysis of the UK’s infrastructure networks, and sets out clear, long-term ambitions for improving performance in each sector.

Our newly established Cabinet Committee, which I chair, will ensure that this plan is delivered, focussing on the top 40 growth projects identified in the National Infrastructure Plan.

We have made great progress in removing barriers to investment – working with industry to resolve radar interference issues affecting four gigawatts of wind energy developments, and supporting the establishment of a new Pension Infrastructure Platform, which will make the first wave of its initial £2 billion investment in UK infrastructure by early 2013.

The scale of the challenges we face as a country makes delivering on our hugely ambitious infrastructure agenda all the more essential. We want to work together with you to make that happen by removing barriers to project delivery and creating a supportive environment for long term investment in infrastructure. Today’s conversation is an important staging post in realising those ambitions.

Thank you.

January 19, 2016
Nick Clegg – 2012 Speech at UKTI Manufacturing Conference

Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Clegg, the then Deputy Prime Minister, at the UKTI Manufacturing Conference held on 10 August 2012.

Nick thank you very much and thank you all very, very much for being here this morning for this excellent event.

I was at the Olympic Park yesterday like a lucky number of others watching Nicola Adams win the first gold medal, medal ever for a woman boxer in this new Olympic phenomenon female boxing. And it was such an uplifting celebration of talent and grit and determination and such a wonderful response to all the cynics and naysayers that Nick referred to and travelling here this morning I thought to myself that in many respects that celebration of success and that rejection of cynicism and pessimism is exactly what we should dwell on here this morning when we consider the strengths and potential in Great Britain for our advanced manufacturing and engineering sectors.

Because for far, far too long we’ve laboured under the wrong narrative which has undervalued our successes in this area and undervalued our future potential as well. For far too long there has been almost a sort of hidden, unspoken assumption that inventing, designing and manufacturing, exporting things is part of the sort of past legacy of our manufacturing heritage, but that the future is all about services, that going in to boring subjects like engineering and science is the wrong thing, that what you should do is always aspire to go in to the whizz bang service industries – accountancy, lawyer, the City, City – and so on.

And that is a dramatic misreading of our national strengths as a national economy and I really just want to in a very few minutes make three basic points, highlight our strengths as a global power for manufacturing and engineering. Secondly emphasise how determined we are as a Coalition Government to do more to expand on those strengths and thirdly to underline the importance I attach and we attach to inspire just as young people have been inspired by the Olympics, to inspire the next generation to dream of being the, the new Brunels and Stephensons of the future.

So firstly our, our strengths. It is just worth repeating how important so many of you are in the fabric of our British economy, some of the most successful companies in the world operate – Airbus, (indistinct) Jaguar and Land Rover – all of whom are very, very welcome sponsors of this event and Nissan, Siemens, BAE and so many other dynamic businesses represented here. We have the second largest aerospace industry in the world.

Despite the very disappointing trade statistics that were published overnight last night, we nonetheless saw that in the early months of this year the United Kingdom has, was exporting more cars than we import for the first time since 1976. A quarter of all Ford engines are made here, eight out of twelve Formula One teams are based here for good reason, because of access to skilled engineers and cutting edge technology.

It is a sector advanced, advanced manufacturing, responsible for almost three quarters of business research and development in this country and in so much of that research and development we lead the world in neuroscience, computer science, ecology, energy, material science and so on. And we pride ourselves that we also have strengths, natural strengths, (indistinct) that we are right at the heart of the world’s largest borderless single market right on our doorstep in the European Union, all of those strengths are strengths which we must celebrate because they are very, very phenomenal strengths indeed.

We need however as I said secondly to do more to build on those strengths and I won’t, because it’ll consume too much time and I know that Vince Cable and others will go in to this in greater detail later, enumerate all the measures that the Government has taken, but whether it is the new technology innovation centres, that try and emulate some of the world’s best examples of clustering academic excellence with advanced manufacturing research; whether it’s our very ambitious plans in infrastructure (indistinct) long term productivity of the economy so heavily depend; whether it’s the commitment to a high speed train spine up and down the length of the country, whether it’s the new guarantee scheme that we have recently announced using the strength of the Government’s balance sheet to mobilise private sector infrastructure and investment infrastructure; whether it’s the Green Investment Bank, the first of its kind, (indistinct) using three billion pounds worth of public money to leverage in several times that private sector money in our new renewable energy infrastructures.

Those are all examples of commitment to infrastructure which is so necessary to your work, whether it’s rebalancing the sectorally unbalanced pattern of British, the British economy over, which has built up over the last two or three decades where so much growth is concentrated in the City of London, the South East and not enough is concentrated in what has become regions elsewhere in the country, in the North of the country in particular who’ve become over reliant on public sector subsidy. We’re using instruments like the Regional Growth Fund, two and a half billion pounds worth of direct finance from the Government to companies and particularly to manufacturers elsewhere outside the South East of the country who are committed to diversifying their businesses, creating jobs and creating greater private sector dynamism in other parts of the country.

Those are just some of the examples of what we are doing. We’ve already launched, already implementing in the last two and a half years to build on those successes. But as I said at the outset, the final point I’m going to make to you before taking questions and comments from you is the importance of the, and the Olympics, the slogan is inspire a generation. I think we together, everybody in this room, the politicians and you in industry, we need to work together to inspire a generation so that unlike, I’m forty five, when I was at school I wasn’t the greatest at science and maths, but nonetheless no one suggested to me or to my friends at school at the time that maybe we wanted to dream of being engineers, of being, going in to industry, going in to manufacturing. This was, this was the early Eighties and it was all about making a fast buck in the City of London or going in to the glamorous industries of advertising or the media. There was no positive image visually given to our youngsters of an alternative career path. That has to change and thankfully it is changing.

I’ve got three little sons. I want my sons to dream of doing what their grandfather and their great grandfather did who were in different capacities, scientists and industrialists and, and manufacturers. And we’re committed to do that, whether it is, notwithstanding all the difficult cuts we’ve had to introduce in public spending, protecting public spending on science, whether it’s the reforms that we are introducing in order to ensure and guarantee that our universities remain amongst the very best universities in the world; whether it’s the expansion of apprenticeships on a scale that has not been seen in this country in the post war period, we’re delivering a quarter of a million more apprenticeships during this Parliament than was planned by the previous administration; whether it’s the creation of twenty four new university technical colleges which specialise in subjects like advanced manufacturing, engineering and health technologies; whether it’s the new Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering which was launched, which is an international prize with a million pounds from us in order to celebrate and highlight the best achievements in engineering; whether it’s the network of around twenty eight thousand volunteers we’ve had from academia and industry who are going in to schools to get children enthused about a career in science and technology.

All of those things and more are the kind of things we need to do together to make sure that we don’t regard our manufacturing excellence as something which only belongs to the past and present, but it’s also absolutely crucial to a thriving and prosperous future for the United Kingdom in the years to come as well. Thank you very much for listening to me.

January 19, 2016
David Cameron – 2012 Speech at Hunger Summit

Below is the text of the speech made by David Cameron, the Prime Minister, at the Hunger Summit on 12 August 2012.

Prime Minister

Thank you very much everyone for coming and for giving up your Sundays for something which I think is very, very important. A warm welcome to all of you.

While we’re holding these Olympic Games – and I think they’ve been a huge success – and while the eyes of the world are looking at the United Kingdom, I wanted to make absolutely sure we weren’t just thinking about who was going to win the next gold medal, but also we spent some time thinking about some of the biggest problems that people face in our world. And while lots of us are able to think about the next gold medal, there are millions of people in our world who are thinking about whether they are going to get a meal, whether they will go to bed hungry, whether they can get the proper food and nourishment they need to stay alive and to develop. And that’s what today’s conference is all about.

I’ll say some remarks in a moment, but first of all, I wanted to ask Mo Farah and then Haile Gebrselassie to say some words about how important this issue is to them. Mo, you stunned us all with those two amazing runs, and it’s very good of you to give up this time for something I know you care about deeply as well.

Mo Farah

Thank you for inviting me. It’s a great pleasure to be here. It’s really important as an athlete to get it right, and I got it right at this championship. But mainly, the reason why I am here is I’m lucky to have set up a new life here, and grown up here. I originally came from Somalia as a little boy and didn’t know the situation out there. It’s not great. And there are kids out there who need opportunities in hunger, starving, so we must do something about it, and it’s really important that we give back something to those kids.

As a parent, for me, luckily I’m going to have twins, and they’re going to get the right things and everything they need. But there are kids out there who need our help and hunger, and are not able to get anything. So it’s important that we give back something, and it’s great to be here. And we must do something all of us.

I’ve set up the Mo Farah Foundation, and that’s also going well. And the reason why I set up something is just the hunger and the situation out there. We must do something and to give something back to those kids, particularly. It really touches my heart.

Haile Gebrselassie

First of all, I would like to say thank you to the Prime Minister of the UK and Vice President of Brazil today, and for their leadership to take on under-nutrition around the world. Last month, I delivered a petition on behalf of the ONE campaign to Africa’s leader, signed by over 55,000 African citizens and ONE members calling for action to tackle hunger. So I am delighted to now be here in London at this global event that will also focus on these opportunity issues.

We have all watched a great performance by athletes at this Olympics. Congratulations. What a wonderful Olympics, with the best performance for the UK team: amazing, especially my friend Mo here. Congratulations to you and your people here, to host such a wonderful Olympics. That’s my witness, because I’ve been in all the last five Olympics Games, and saw many good things at this one. It’s amazing, especially the crowd in the stadium.

I understand the pain of malnutrition. In my home country of Ethiopia, I have seen lives blighted through extreme poverty and hunger. We have seen some great performances from Ethiopian athletes in the Olympics. My country has won three golds. Only Mo won two and the UK 28, wonderful; congratulations again for that.

Throughout the year we have seen Ethiopia put out performances and outstanding athletes from all over the world, but at home, half of our children are affected by malnutrition. Just imagine what my country could have achieved on the athletics field if half of our children weren’t suffering chronic malnutrition, if all children escaped the long-term consequence of stunting, and could grow and reach their full potential. So I am pleased today that we are trying, and we are turning the world’s attention to malnutrition, which continues to affect so many around the world.

When I speak to young athletes, I tell them that becoming an Olympic champion takes commitment, discipline and hard work. Without hard work, there is no achievement. I want to say the same to you here today. This is a very important mission, and it will take hard work and commitment to succeed in our goal. I have faith, looking at experts gathered at this conference today, that we can make progress to saving millions of children from stunting. I wish you all the best. Thank you very much.

Prime Minister

It matters a lot that you do this because you are enormous role models to people not just in the United Kingdom, but around the world. And you raising the profile of this issue will mean that more will get done, more lives will be saved, fewer children will grow up to be malnourished. So thank you very much for your contribution.

I can update you on one point. You said we had 28 gold medals; we’ve just won a 29th in the heavyweight boxing, so I just had to get that in. That was today. That was just as we were gathering.

But I know that Mo, you can’t stay because you have many other commitments, but thank you very much for coming. I want to thank everyone again for coming, and particularly Vice President Temer of Brazil, and for all of you for coming today.

When we won the right to host these Games, we promised two things. We said we’d stage the greatest Olympics ever here in London, and I hope it’s not too much boasting to say we think we’ve come close to doing that, if not doing it. And second, we said we’d make sure the Games weren’t just a one-summer, one-off wonder, but we wanted to create something that would last. And that’s what we’re here to talk about today.

Now you’ve heard from Mo Farah. A week ago, and last night, the whole country cheered Mo Farah to gold in the Olympic stadium. But a year ago, the country of his birth, Somalia, was suffering in that terrible famine. Now, I’m proud of the fact that Britain led in the response to the famine in Somalia and the Horn of Africa, with over £129 million of aid from the British government, and an incredible £79 million of individual donations from the British people. And I’m proud too that through the London conference that we held earlier this year, we helped to play a part in the international response that means today, Somalia is a place of some growing hope rather than despair.

But while people around the planet have been enjoying and competing in these Games, there is another world where children don’t have enough to eat and never get the start in life that they deserve. The figures are truly shocking. One in three child deaths are linked to malnutrition, and 171 million children are so malnourished by the age of two that they can never physically recover. That is the terrible thing about this – what we would call a ‘silent crisis’ – that it harms for life. Even if malnourished children are able to fight off the sickness and the infection in their earliest years, their bodies and their minds never fully develop. And it’s a tragedy for them, it’s a tragedy for the societies that they live in, because children who could grow up to become doctors, farmers, engineers, entrepreneurs, or great Olympians, are simply left behind.

The problem repeats itself generation after generation, and it doesn’t stop just when they’re older. Just under one billion people across the world go to bed hungry every single night. Now, we’ve got a responsibility to tackle this, but the hard truth is – and it needs to be said – that while we’ve made great strides in the last decade on things like education, malnutrition rates have actually stagnated. I’m determined that we try and help change this, which is why I wanted at the end of this Olympic fortnight to hold this hunger event, and it’s why between 2011 and 2015, Britain will reach 20 million children under the age of five and pregnant women with nutrition programmes. That is our own contribution to this challenge.

But the ambition I want to set today is for the world to rise together to make a difference, between now and between the start of the Rio Olympics in 2016. And I think that’s appropriate because Brazil is actually making huge progress on this issue.

Now, what is my answer to this challenge? Well, let me start another way. Here are two things I think we shouldn’t do. First of all, we shouldn’t just throw food aid at the problem and hope for the best. And second, we shouldn’t pretend there is one single fix. This is a complex problem; it requires a complex set of solutions.

The challenge of malnutrition isn’t just about food. That is obviously the symptom, but we need to tackle the underlying causes. If you take, for example, the Democratic Republic of Congo, it’s a country that exports food but where millions are still undernourished; or if you take Africa as a whole, which has almost 60% of the world’s uncultivated land, but where malnutrition is chronic.

So the problem is partly a failure of government. Farmers can farm, traders can trade, but without the rule of law, without property rights, without peace, you can’t get your product to market. You can’t sell your crops. And without things like decent sanitation, accessible healthcare, and basic education, malnutrition grows. So Britain’s response is to fund these things, as one of the most generous aid donors in the world. It’s precisely why we’re sticking to our commitment to 0.7% of our income spending on aid, even at a time of economic hardship.

The problem is also, I believe, partly a failure of the private sector. Rising food prices leaves the poor hungry, but if the private sector can help farmers in Africa and Asia to grow more and get their crops to market at a fair price, then there can be opportunity too. So Britain’s response is to work with businesses like those here, like Unilever, GSK, Britannia Foods, to produce and distribute food that contains all the nutrients that young children need.

And there’s another thing Britain can do here as well, and that is, use science to produce nutritionally enriched, resilient crops, and make sure everyone gets access to these seed types, not just farmers in rich countries. So we’re backing agricultural research and innovation to enable around half a million poor households across Africa to grow better crops, benefiting up to three million people.

Finally, and I think this is very important, it’s important that we have meetings like this during Olympic fortnights like this. We’ve got to keep the promises that we make when we have meetings like this. Data on progress needs to be transparent. It needs to be put in the hands of our citizens so they can monitor what governments and businesses say they’re going to do, and then what they actually do.

Now, I’m not claiming to have all the answers. This is a challenge for everyone round the table. I’m looking forward to hearing people’s contributions. But I do believe it’s a challenge the world can meet, and I know it’s one we have a duty to meet. We’ve all signed up to the World Health Organisation target to cut stunting from malnutrition by 40% in 2025, and it’s now time to put that into practice. That would see something like 70 million children have access to proper nutrition. It is doable and deliverable if we make these commitments and meet these commitments.

Now, we’ve just seen in the Olympics what the world can do when it puts its mind to a task. We’ve got political leaders, we’ve got great Olympians here, we’ve got the leading charities and organisations that care deeply about this issue. We shouldn’t turn away from this issue. In my view, we won’t. Now, I’m going to hand over to the Brazilian Vice President to talk about his country’s contribution, and what you plan in the run-up to 2016, before opening up to other contributions.

Michel Temer (Vice-President of Brazil)

I should like to take this opportunity first of all to say that I’m going to be speaking in Portuguese, and secondly, to thank the Prime Minister very much for hosting this event, and also to thank him for taking the leadership jointly with us to pursue this thing that, as he just said a short while ago, was committed to silence; it was something that was not observed. And so I think it is something that is very laudable and it’s something that we need to pursue in earnest. And in Brazil, we do have a great experience in fighting hunger, and this is one of the great pillars of our development.

Therefore, combating hunger in Brazil is not only a government policy but it is a state policy, because it is enshrined in our own constitution that establishes that there is a right to food. It is a social right that we have.

It does not only determine that we should be fighting hunger within our own country domestically, but also to assist and aid those countries that are still struggling with this major challenge.

Brazil has already employed a great and important fight against the scourge of hunger over the past ten years, both domestically and externally, counting on the support – and the very determined support – of the United Kingdom, of and the system of the United Nations that is currently here represented by various agencies.

As a matter of fact, the Brazil conquests are internationally acknowledged in the field of food security with the reduction of extreme poverty over the past five years when, compared to the Millennium Development Goals, the timeframe was 25 years.

And this did happen with the contribution of the civil society in Brazil, a very organised society that engaged with this in a very earnest manner; so much so, that this fight could be pursued very much so that we all know that both in Brazil and all the world, there is no lack of food. So what is lacking? There is lack of access, and over a billion people do not have access to proper food.

In Brazil, at the same time that we sought to redistribute the income, we also prepared a set of public policies that are geared towards food security, food and nutritional security, which has encompassed things such as school meals, gardens, vegetable gardens in schools and community gardens, food banks, local purchase of family agriculture, credit to smallholders, farmers, public depots, agricultural insurance, food banks, and popular restaurants.

In this manner, we succeeded in reducing by 11% the levels of malnutrition in our country, and then we came to become a point of reference for other countries that have similar difficulties, challenges of poverty.

I should like to give you two examples. For example, the Brazilian school meal programme feeds currently 47 million pupils on a daily basis. It is based on the right to food, and does not discriminate even positively. All have the right to school meals.

And what we did as well with the National Congress, we approved the Bill which requires that 30% of the food needs to be bought from family agriculture, family farmers; that is, those smallholders that produce food locally, so that they provide the food for this school programme. And by the same token, this constitutes a very significant social integration programme: people engage with this and they supply it at a local level.

And it is this very experience that we are now sharing with other countries, helping them to organise their own small family farming or smallholders, their crops, and also the manner that they purchase this produce, the crops, for students and other people that are in a situation of food insecurity.

So within this trajectory, we counted on the very generous interest of the United Kingdom, with which we have established a partnership for a project for local purchase of food in five African countries, each one situated in a macro-region of Africa; that is, Mozambique, Malawi, Ethiopia, Niger and Senegal, organising the farmers and the production in the form of partnership with the Food Agriculture Organisation (the FAO), and buying the produce for the programmes, for the school meal programme, and for people that are currently in food insecurity situations through the World Food Programme.

And I would like to also take this opportunity to point out that during the recent Rio+20 conference in Rio de Janeiro, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, and also the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Mr Nick Clegg, did mention our programme, the food purchase programme that we have, as an example of horizontal cooperation.

And within this cooperation, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) has created a number of initiatives. The chairman of EMBRAPA is present here, he is going to take part in these discussions this afternoon. He’s going to describe the various initiatives that EMBRAPA has been pursuing in order to provide this cooperation.

And our very well-known, broadly known strategy, which is called Zero Hunger, is exactly the fruit of this practice of participatory and redistributive democracy, and that, of course, encompasses all the emergency elements. And I am extremely delighted to announce here on behalf of President Dilma Rousseff and myself a new donation that Brazil is making of $120 million in food for the World Food Programme. That was the most important part of my speech, of course.

And this is just to say that not only did Brazil look after its own domestic problems and challenges that we had with hunger, but it also has a major concern to fight hunger all over the world, as well as malnutrition all over the world.

And of course, all of these three aspects that I have just mentioned are based on three pillars of sustainable development, the social pillar, the economic pillar, and the environmental pillar, which are firmly grounded in the inalienable human right to food for all citizens throughout the world – that they have to have the right for good food and nutrition.

And to close, I should like to express my gratitude to Prime Minister Cameron for inviting us to co-host this event here on combating hunger. Thank you very much indeed.

Prime Minister

Well thank you for co-chairing this event, and thank you for that contribution to the World Food Programme. And also, thank you for those good examples, including the school food programme, about how to tackle the shortage of nutrition and food security in some countries. That was very positive, thank you very much.

We’re going to have, if we can now, three-minute contributions from the key speakers, the headline points they want to make about how we best tackle this crisis, before we go into the sub-groups.

Enda Kenny (Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland)

Thank you, Prime Minister. I’m from Ireland. In the 1840s, we lost half our population with the Great Hunger, principally caused by blight on the potato crop, which was the sustainable crop for our people. It instilled in us a sense of real interest in dealing with hunger, and it’s given us an intense interest in foreign aid, in dealing with hunger, malnutrition, and standing by the most vulnerable and the poorest of the world.

The eradication, therefore, of hunger in a world sense is a cornerstone of the foreign policy of our country. We’re not as big and as powerful as many others, but we’ve got a very long tradition of being involved in other countries in these areas.

The figures are enormous, and they are obscene, and they are a testament to failure. One billion suffer from hunger; two billion suffer from malnutrition and under-nourishment, and yet all of the research, all of the capacity, all of the potential, exists to deal with these problems. I’m not here to talk about that particular issue. What I do want to say is this: sometimes the political process doesn’t actually know what to do. That’s why the collective energy and the collective experience and the collective wisdom of all of the agencies, organisations, food producers, and so on, is needed, to understand what the particular problem in any location in the world might be, and how it should be dealt with.

For me, as the Prime Minister of my country, we assume the presidency of the European Union on 1st January next year. This will be our seventh presidency. We intend to make hunger, nutrition and climate justice a particular issue during that presidency. In April of next year there will be a major conference hosted in Ireland on hunger, nutrition and climate justice and we will obviously make an issue of this.

But it is also important to understand the very strong relationship that exists between Ireland and Britain, which has evolved to an unprecedented extent following the visit of Her Majesty to Ireland last year, which means that the Prime Minister, when he assumes the chairmanship of the G8 next year, is also in the position to influence the issue of climate justice, hunger and nutrition in a way that is paralleled by Ireland assuming the presidency of the European Union for the first half of next year. So we pledge ourselves to work together in these interests.

We are one of the few countries that have actually – no more than Britain -stood by our commitment in respect of foreign aid and despite the economic challenges that we face, maintained our fund in that regard and have already exceeded the 20% commitment of that programme in respect of hunger and nutrition, and we commit ourselves to continue to do that.

So for the future, for us, it is a case of continuing to understand that we need to be in a different place if this problem is to be tackled and this challenge is to be met successfully because the old way will not work for the future; growing numbers, different issues in respect of climate change and climate justice which cannot be put off for the next decade or the next two decades or the next three decades. It needs to be tackled and tackled now.

So in that regard, our own contribution – we were not able to give 120 million but we did give 3.5 million to the CGIAR research organisation this year, just this week actually, dealing with hunger and nutrition and we will continue in that regard. So for a country that is committed to this, where we will work with our colleagues in the Commission, our colleagues in the European sense, assuming the presidency next January, work with the G8: it is important that we use our collective wisdoms to understand what it is that has to be done and can be done.

Leaving aside the question of politics in different countries, which is always a challenge and an issue, it is very commendable that Brazil says, ‘We have a programme where small agri-producers can produce and that food is bought, which is an incentive for them to continue to produce, and children can be healthy.’

I commend Mo Farah and Haile Gebrselassie, a wonderful athlete, in your years. These Olympics have been outstanding, David. To you and all those wonderful volunteers, you’ve had a great two weeks for Britain, a great message from London, an example of how the spirit of sport can unify people around the world. Thank you.

Prime Minister

Thank you very much and thank you for that commitment to make this issue so high profile during your presidency of the European Union and it’s very good that we have the European Commission here, represented by Andris Piebalgs, who obviously has a very large budget to distribute in terms of aid and food security. I am going to be calling on you a bit later. But if we could now hear from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, a very warm welcome to you. I know you are a member of the Scaling Up Nutrition movement and have had a lot of success in your own country tackling these issues, so I am very interested to hear from you. Thank you.

Sheikh Hasna (Prime Minister of Bangladesh)

Thank you, thank you very much, Right Honourable Mr David Cameron, Prime Minister of United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon to you all. Today we are here to discuss hunger and malnutrition, a huge challenge facing us. Hunger is a painful experience that destroys the body and demeans the soul. Malnutrition is the largest single contributor to physical and mental underdevelopment and disease.

I want to thank Prime Minister David Cameron for holding this event. I hope it will secure international commitment to meet the challenges.

A billion hungry and undernourished people populate our planet with 98% in developing countries. South Asia has the highest child malnutrition in the world. Bangladesh has 6% of global childhood under-nutrition. Our pragmatic policies and measures to address this issue have succeeded in increasing dietary caloric intake. During our governance, a three and a half years’ period, under-nutrition has been reduced from 42% to 36% and stunting from 43% to 41%. We expect our children to be at 36% in 2015. In two years we are on track to attain the hunger target of MDG1.

In Bangladesh, one third of women are undernourished and a lower proportion of pregnant women are anaemic. Macronutrient deficiencies are also a major concern. We are focusing on the first thousand days of life: that is from conception to 24 months of life. We are also promoting delayed marriage to improve the nutritional status of adults and girls, and lowering incidences of low birth weight babies and subsequent malnutrition.

Our overall multi-sectoral efforts have succeeded in reducing poverty by 10% because we have many programmes for social safety net. And we also distribute free foods to the poorest of the poor people. Our aim is to lift deprived people out of poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

By MDG timeframe of 2015, we have many pragmatic programmes. Our efforts have so far achieved GDP growth rate of 6.5% during our government’s tenure, increase of per capita income, attainment of MDG4 on infant mortality and MDG5 on maternal mortality. This was possible despite external vulnerability and challenges of global warming and sea level rises.

Poverty and hunger are not just national issues. The ensuing global crisis – that is economic, energy, food, fresh water – calls for unified global approaches for solutions. A global consensus is also required to effectively respond to over-speculative transactions and financialisation of commodity markets. There is also a need for balance between government protection and regulation of institutions. All these have direct bearing on the effectiveness of domestic policies and programmes, on hunger and under-nutrition.

Food security is imperative. During out last tenure from 1996 to 2001, we became self-sufficient in food for the first time. In recognition of this, FAO awarded the Ceres Medal to Bangladesh in 1998. Unfortunately, the years following, our government saw Bangladesh again reduced to a food importing country; that time we were not in power, it was the other party.

During our present tenure, our reserves have led to the development of high-yielding nutritious rice varieties, also resistant to salinity, drought and rising water level. Today, we are again self-sufficient in food. We are not only growing food, we also make sure that food should reach the poor people.

For sustainment of this achievement against climate change impacts we need concerted internal and global actions like regional buffer food grains and the imposition of export ban on imports of net food importing countries. It is predicted that climate change will adversely affect food grains in terms of yield, price, consumption, etc. This will reduce calorie intake and increase child malnutrition.

Bangladesh is already feeling impacts of climate change, losing as much as 3% to 4% GDP growth which otherwise would have supported our efforts on health and nutrition.

For nutrition, we also ensure health services for our people, especially for women. We have already established 12,000 community heathcare centres; through that, we are assisting our people.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, today on the backdrop of the London Olympic 2012 Games, athletes are excelling with all vigour and vitality for honours for their nations. Let us for a moment wonder on the position of others of our family, passing their days in hunger and poverty with many hoping that they were part of the Games. It should be enough if we bear compassion in our hearts to make a place today to open all doors, raise all barriers and combine all our resources as one family to eliminate hunger, malnutrition and poverty, and thus leave the world a better place for our future generations.

I thank Prime Minister Cameron again for arranging this meeting and many of you will make some comments on that. We can get some new directions, new methods or new experiences which we can use for our people and our country. Thank you.

Prime Minister

Thank you very much indeed. I now call on the Prime Minister of Kenya, Prime Minister Odinga, to speak to us about his experience and his items for the future. Thank you very much, Prime Minister.

Raila Odinga (Prime Minister of Kenya)

Thank you very much, David. I really want to begin by thanking the Prime Minister for this initiative, for getting all these brains together during the London Olympics; that we don’t just celebrate medals but we also think of those millions who are out there and who have nothing to eat. If it had been during the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette would not have made those remarks and maybe there would never have been a revolution.

We all know how critical it is to be blessed with good health, particularly in childhood, and here we are talking about what they call the one thousand day corridor during the formative period of a child, when the brain needs nutrients to grow. Malnourished children actually face many risks. They will likely grow up to be unemployed and frustrated because they are stunted if they don’t get their requisite nutrients early enough. And that means that basically they will become a source of discontent and social and political instability in the country rather than a demographic dividend for the country.

But as we speak now, the statistics don’t look very good for us in Kenya. An estimated 39% of our children are undernourished. This proportion is much higher, particularly in what we call arid and semi-arid parts of our country. The economic costs are equally large. It is estimated that about $2.8 billion of our GDP is a drag, I mean, goes down as a result of vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

What additional measures should we, the Kenyan government, take? One, we believe that it is critical to enhance the intake of vitamin A, zinc, iron and other essential nutrients by the vulnerable children and pregnant mothers. Two, iron fortification of staple foods and universal salt iodisation is also essential. Then three, we need to urgently scale up the school base warm meal programme to cover all children in the affected areas. We are about to launch this expansion with the support of the Children’s Investment Fund. Four, we should rapidly extend the free distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets. The aim will be to provide bed nets to more than one half of our children who still sleep without the treated bed nets. Five, many girls get married when they are just 12, and they are also undernourished. They then bear children who are also born weak and undernourished. Thus, the vicious cycle continues. All girls must be protected by society to ensure that they reach at least 18 years of age before they get married.

Now we face two additional, major challenges. One is the influx of a very large number of Somali refugees, many of whom are children. Mo already left early, but he would have been happy to hear about this. We are right now hosting the biggest refugee camp in the world. About 600,000 people in one camp alone, but taken together there are nearly one million refugees as a result of political instability in Somalia. These children arrive with their mothers in the refugee camps, and when they come they are weak and malnourished. The other one is the issue of climate change. Droughts, floods and extreme, irregular weather are a common occurrence. The drought of the Horn of Africa in 2010 and 2011 affected thousands of children and mothers. We had the worst drought in over 60 years.

So ladies and gentlemen, the resolution of these challenges requires collective actions by all concerned: that is governments, international agencies, NGOs and the private sector. This is why we endorse this Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement. We particularly appreciate the eminent roles expected of the private sector under the category innovations within the SUN movement. The private public partnership (the PPPs) will be a very key component of our solution. Sales of nutrient-fortified foods and milk products on commercial networks and direct deliveries to the refugee camps are some of the many good possibilities of such PPPs. That is, that food is fortified before it is delivered, whether it is sugar, whether it is salt, whether it is maize, or even rice: it is fortified first so that the children are able to get their requisite nutrients out of those foods when they are distributed. The government of Kenya is ready to play its part. I want to conclude by saying, ‘Let us work together so that the goals for the 2016 Rio Olympics that we will set at this meeting will be fully achieved.’ Thank you very much.

Prime Minister

Thank you very much for that very specific set of measures you’re taking, and also the common theme emerging about the importance of family planning as a good example of how this is not just about nutrition, it’s about things that lead to poor nutrition. And clearly, having children too early can be part of that.

Krishna Tirath (Indian Minister for Women and Children)

Good afternoon to all of you. I congratulate the Right Honourable David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK, for organising this global nutrition event.

Nutrition is being given the highest attention and priority under the leadership of our Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, who has noted the high prevalence of under-nutrition with deep anguish in the country. The PM’s Nutrition Council has taken several key decisions to address the issues, some of which I would like to highlight.

The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme is reaching about 80 million children under six years and 20 million expecting and nursing mothers through a network of 1.3 million centres called Anganwadis. It’s being strengthened and restructured with programmatic, institutional and managerial reforms along with the enhanced financial commitment from an annual average of US$3.5 billion to over US$6.5 billion. The investment will improve the infrastructure, professional management, monitoring, community participation and accountability of the programme. Real-time monitoring and service as well as the knowledge resources of nutrition are also being strengthened through the use of ICT.

Simultaneously, the healthcare component and system, through the National Rural Health Mission, is being extended and strengthened for micronutrient supplementation, the management of childhood illness, immunisation, and protocol for the treatment of severely undernourished, underweight children. Further, a more intensive, coordinated and convergent effort in the Multi-sectoral Nutrition Augmentation Programme in 200 high burden districts is being considered. A National Food Security Bill 2011 is also under the consideration of our parliament. A nationwide awareness campaign is to be launched soon to accelerate the fight against malnutrition.

Special schemes for the empowerment of adolescent girls have been initiated, and especially a maternity benefit scheme for women. A national mission for the empowerment of women has been launched for inter-sectoral convergence of schemes and services towards the social and economic development of women.

All these policies and programmatic measures would reinforce evidence-based interventions. The next five years are going to be extremely challenging for us, and we are determined and committed to achieve the goal to have a healthy generation. We value the support from DFID, UNICEF and other development partners. India applauds the efforts of the UK and the global community for bringing the issue of malnutrition to centre stage to coincide with the exhibition of great human prowess during the Olympics. India stands firmly committed to reducing the burden of under-nutrition and achieving the full potential of our children. Thank you very much.

Prime Minister

Thank you very much for that contribution and for the action you’re taking particularly in the poorest states in India that have the greatest challenges, which is where I’m sure you’re right to focus and where others should help you to focus.

Krishna Tirath

And we are ready to fight for this, all these challenges.

Prime Minister

Thank you.

Chris Cooper-Hohn (Children’s Investment Fund Foundation)

Thank you, Prime Minister Cameron and Andrew Mitchell for convening today’s event and I sincerely applaud their leadership on international development and addressing malnutrition.

Ten years ago, my wife and I co-founded the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) to help address the obscenity of hundreds of millions of children whose lives are permanently blighted by malnutrition in the form of macronutrient deficiency, stunting and wasting.

Today, CIFF is one of the largest foundations in the world with assets of US$3.5 billion but neither we nor other donors have enough resources to solve the problem alone. I have no doubt that climate change, drought and population growth will relentlessly increase food insecurity and food prices, leading to future catastrophic levels of child malnutrition in many countries. Without committed leadership, greater urgency and significant co-funding from the governments of developing countries themselves, we and other donors will never be able to solve the malnutrition scourge. Governments must share the responsibility to care for their own children and end the wilful neglect of child malnutrition. Countries must scale up nutrition programmes and mainstream them within health and social systems. Measuring and tracking the success of these programmes is essential. We must measure and publicise the reality of micronutrient deficiency, stunting and wasting of children, and collectively hold ourselves, including heads of state, accountable for progress each year.

The CIFF foundation is currently granting and working on proposals in four areas. First, stunting, through the support to the World Food Programme in Malawi and Mozambique, and directly with the government of Rwanda. Second, community treatment of severe acute malnutrition at a large scale in Nigeria, in partnership with UNICEF and the national government, as well as in some Indian states. Third, micronutrient supplementation programmes in Bangladesh in partnership with GAIN and the private sector. Fourth, developing new formulations for therapeutic foods, to reduce prices for de-worming programmes in Kenya and diarrhoea programmes in India.

Fundamentally to address root causes of malnutrition, CIFF must fund programmes in family planning and is extremely active in climate change work. Our foundation, CIFF, stands ready to make investments of tens of millions of dollars immediately and annually to address malnutrition in partnership with those countries and donors such as DFID that show a genuine commitment to addressing child malnutrition. Thank you.

Prime Minister

Thank you very much indeed for that.

Paul Polman (Unilever)

Thank you, Prime Minister, and Andrew. Congratulations on a wonderful two weeks, to start with: it’s been enjoyable to live in London, to be honest.

Unilever are one of the biggest food companies. We sell to about two billion people a day, operate in 90-plus countries. So food security and nutrition go to the heart of our business. We could not function if the world didn’t function, obviously, and we’ve always had that as an important part. In fact, we’re spending probably about 300 million a year in reinforcing our products, be it iodine in salt, or be it in our Knorr products in Africa with vitamin A, or be it in our drinks, and the list goes on. For us, it’s just the normal thing to do: working with multilateral agencies like the World Food Programme – which fortunately is present here – or simply working with the 1.5 to 2 million small-hold farmers, providing them training in agricultural techniques.

But it’s also very clear that we don’t reach the bottom of the pyramid; there are too many excluded, and many of you have referred to that already. That’s why there is a different partnership needed. Now, I’m very encouraged coming out of Rio and having participated in the Los Cabos meetings leading the Food Security Task Force, that there is an increasing number of what I call responsible businesses willing to participate at a different level than they’ve done. We simply cannot do it alone. I call it moving from a licence to operate to a licence to lead, and there is no better time in society to do that.

Now, there are some wonderful initiatives. The G8 pledged the L’Aquila fund, about $20 million came out of that with specific projects for Grow Africa. We got what I call responsible business to participate for $3 billion, so we need to capitalise on that and there are 26 projects coming out already. In Los Cabos, with the G20, most of the Food Security Task Force’s recommendations would have nutrition prominently written in it, we’re adopting it in a declaration. We have commitments from major food companies of 10 to 15 billion to participate in that. The New Vision for Agriculture now has 17 projects going, we need to capitalise on that.

And David, my friend, is here on the Scaling Up Nutrition. His goal of 35 countries and I’m glad that Prime Minister Odinga is the new one signing up today. Business is fully behind that and there’s no clearer focus than what David brings to the Scaling Up Nutrition. And then you have the initiatives that we’re doing here with GAIN and many others, the multi-sector and public private partnership initiatives. Obviously, DFID is heavily involved with GAIN as well, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that are present here as well, and many of the companies around the table, projects like Project Laser Beam in Bangladesh, helping your beautiful country, or what we do in other countries, like AIM (the Amsterdam Initiative against Malnutrition), they’re all taking hold. And the reason I mention all these products is that we don’t need to invent too many. We just, as you rightfully said, need to focus on making many of these projects now come alive, as real momentum is building up. I’m also honoured, David, to be part of this high-level panel for the development of the Millennium Development Goals after 2015, and I hope that nutrition and food security will play a prominent part in that as well under your encouragement.

And I was glad we had the meeting at Lancaster House the other day with the food industry, and you were gladly participating on that. Eidon told me, preparing for that meeting, that the UK has 3,000 food companies here; it’s about 10% of the UK economy, and it’s one of the largest industries globally, actually, here. So your rallying cry, which you rightfully did, of how we can challenge the UK food and drinks industry to play a more prominent role behind these initiatives, is obviously spot on.

With DFID, and with GAIN, Unilever organised about two weeks ago in our offices exactly with that purpose, a conference of some of the major businesses. You’ve referred to that already, the Associated British Food, Scargill, DSM, GSK and some others were present, together with, obviously, DFID and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as Save the Children and some others. And it’s very clear coming out of that meeting that there is appetite, not frankly to invent too many new things, but to really build on some of these initiatives and to play a part in some of that very specific food security and nutrition, very specific, clear, well-defined projects, very specifically making the research and development available – that is very rich in the UK, I may add – and very specifically working on some hard output measures. So I’m very encouraged with that.

I would say under your encouragement in the next few months, we should really summon these companies together, hold them accountable a little bit, and put some energy behind these initiatives. As we’re in this building, I found a nice quote of Winston Churchill, who said actually that, ‘The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of delays in coming to a close, is coming to a close. If no action is taken, we risk entering a period of consequences.’ And I think if we don’t take the actions that you rightfully champion, we risk these periods of consequences that we don’t want to face. So I thank you for the initiative.

Prime Minister

Thank you very much, Paul. Finally in this introductory session, I’d like Commissioner Piebalgs to speak, and then I’ll say some very brief remarks to sum up this opening session.

Andris Piebalgs (European Development Commissioner)

Prime Minister, thank you for your invitation and thank you for your leadership. Development cooperation is rather a complicated area, and sometimes seems very patchy. But I would like to congratulate you, particularly for this leadership on nutrition, and for family planning. Because when you address complex issues of development, there are some issues that somehow do not allow us to reach full-scale development cooperation. And family planning and nutrition are exactly the ones that can be overlooked for political difficulties, sometimes, and sometimes because we haven’t had enough courage to address it.

Since this European Union has moved on nutrition for the last five and seven years, we have taken important decisions like one under EU Millennium Development Goals initiatives. The Commission has allocated €225 million to projects targeting food security and nutrition in the most vulnerable countries.

Also, for biofortification of crops, we will invest €3 million to support harvests during this year, and most importantly, of the development strategies that are now adopted in the European Union, nutrition and food security are our top priorities.

It is important to take goals, and usually we come up with very many inputs and fewer outputs. But also, I think from logic, we should put our targets and pledges on the goal sheet, what we would like to achieve; I would say that our European Union takes the pledge to at least 10% of the target of reducing the number of stunted children by 70 million by 2025, so that it can be done by our programme. So it means we would take a pledge to decrease the number of stunted children by 70 million through EU programmes, and partially also working with all other colleagues, doing everything to make the number of stunted children decrease. Because decreasing 70 million, if there are some places that increase, could not be too helpful. So we are taking this pledge. Thank you very much.

Prime Minister

Thank you very much. I think it’s been a very good opening session. Just three concluding points from me, from listening to people’s contributions. The first is about the priority we give this issue and the commitment that we make. I think everyone has been clear: this is the right issue to prioritise. The figures are horrific in terms of the number of malnourished children, and it is not improving at the moment. So we need to make real changes.

In terms of the commitment we make, a number of dates and things have been mentioned, which I think are important to put into context. I think we all need to reassert the WHO target of 2025 for a 40% reduction of malnourished children: that would mean 70 million children. I think we should re-emphasise that. I think we should use between now and 2016, the Rio Olympic Games, as a sort of waypoint where you can measure how far we’ve got and how we are doing. We can use the Irish presidency of the EU for the European Union to play its part. We can certainly use the British presidency of the G8, just as the US did last year, to emphasise the importance of food security and nutrition. And I think, as Paul has said, where there are a number of us serving on the high-level panel Ban Ki-moon has set up, to make sure we emphasise this issue through those processes. So that’s the first point, the priority we give, the commitment we give, and the priority that we add to it.

The second point I would make from listening to everyone’s contributions: of course, this is a multi-faceted problem. It’s very complex, because lots of things contribute to malnutrition. But I think it would be worth trying to pick some of the things people mentioned the most, and focus on those.

A number of people talked about the first 1,000 days of life, pregnancy and post-birth. I think it’s absolutely vital to focus on that. I think the issue of family planning is absolutely linked to the issues of nutrition. I think what was said by the Minister from India about focusing efforts on the poorest people in the poorest areas, those where we can make the biggest difference.

Third point is that this is, as Chris said, a shared responsibility. We won’t solve this by just the private sector improving crops and improving markets, we won’t do it just through government programmes; it is both these things and others beside. It is a shared responsibility, and I was particularly struck by what Commissioner Piebalgs said about making sure we are transparent about the aid that we give, the measures that we take, what government does, what the private sector does, and how we challenge private-sector companies. So it is a shared responsibility, but one where we should be transparent in our aims and goals.

I’d like to thank everyone again for coming, and wish you well in the next set of sessions that will be chaired by my Secretary of State for International Development. But once again, very many thanks for your contributions, and thank you for coming today.

January 19, 2016
Jeremy Hunt – 2012 Speech on Tourism

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Hunt, the then Secretary of State for Culture, at Tate Modern in London on 14 August 2012.

It’s a pleasure to welcome you to Tate Modern. In just 12 years this has become the world’s busiest and most famous contemporary art gallery – perhaps the best single example of our restless determination to develop and improve what our nation offers both in culture and tourism.

And after this year there’s every reason to think this great attraction will be even busier in years to come.

An Olympics triumph which showed the country welcoming the world with professionalism, warmth and even sunshine…

A Jubilee and an Olympics that showed us at ease with a glorious history and a vibrant present – witnessed by a global audience of millions, with the Opening Ceremony alone watched by almost a billion.

A Torch Relay and London 2012 Festival that showcased cultural and tourist treasures in every corner of the country…

Extraordinary shows and exhibitions like Freud, Leonardo, Frankenstein, Richard III and Matilda…

New places to visit from the Turner Contemporary to the Hepworth to the Harry Potter studios…

And old favourites restored like the Cutty Sark…

Whatever the doomsters may say about the economy, we should be proud that our cultural and tourism sectors are investing in the future with optimism, confidence and panache.

When I became Culture Secretary I was very conscious of the criticism that successive governments have undervalued tourism. So, in my first month as a Minister, I gave a speech at the new Olympic sailing venue in Weymouth saying I would address this.

Let’s look at what has been achieved.

GREAT

First of all we have seen the launch of the first ever cross-government campaign to market the UK overseas. Bringing together the Foreign Office, the British Council, UKTI and Visit Britain, the GREAT campaign is our biggest ever investment in marketing the UK, a campaign that has turned heads and really taken the fight for tourist dollars into our key tourist markets.

– We’ve stopped traffic at the Shibuya crossing in Tokyo with a GREAT double decker bus;
– We’ve draped New Delhi taxis in red, white and blue;
– We’ve taken British film to the red carpet of LA during the Oscars;
– We’ve lit up Shanghai with GREAT projections on the Aurora building overlooking the mighty Huangpu river;
– In the US, millions saw Victoria Beckham championing British fashion on a GREAT Britain-branded subway at Grand Central Station, New York;
– On Sugarloaf mountain in Rio, thousands of journalists wrote, spoke, blogged or tweeted about David Beckham and Prince Harry as they promoted Britain;
– And, my favourite, six out of ten Parisians discovered that unlike the Louvre, the British Museum is free thanks to a “Culture is GREAT Britain” poster mounted just outside the Louvre main entrance.

Indeed the highest praise of all came from the country that can often be our sternest critic when the French newspaper La Tribune said that GREAT is the most effective global marketing campaign since the Big Apple campaign for New York.

Back then in Weymouth I pledged £1bn publicity for the UK on the back of the Olympics. Thanks to the GREAT campaign, I am delighted to say we have delivered more than three times that amount of positive PR for Britain in key target markets.

I also said in Weymouth we would back our domestic tourism industry. We all love holidaying abroad – and there’s nothing wrong with that. Indeed the falling cost of overseas holidays has been one of the great social advances of the last half century. But we should not neglect our domestic tourism industry, whether for day trips, weekend breaks or family holidays.

So for the first time ever we have had a £6 million national TV and cinema advertising campaign promoting holidays at home. The ad, featuring Rupert Grint, Julie Walters, Stephen Fry and Michelle Dockery has reached more than 7 out of 10 holiday makers and generated 300,000 extra hotel nights in its first three months alone.

The worm has turned, and no longer will domestic tourism be the poor relation when it comes to big marketing campaigns for the domestic tourism pound. And rightly so – because to suggest we need to choose between either a strong domestic offer or a strong international offer is a false dichotomy. The bigger the domestic market, the more investment we will stimulate in quality accommodation and attractions – and the more international visitors we will attract.

Answering the critics of the Games

So we are taking the fight to our rivals in key markets abroad and determined to win the battle for tourism spend at home.

In doing so, we’re tackling head-on two big myths.

The first is that hosting an Olympic Games is bad for business. In the run up to this year, critics said we’d see huge displacement, with people staying away from the UK in droves because of the crowds and the cost.

The truth is that we’ve seen record-breaking figures for spend and holiday visits from overseas in 2012, even taking into account the blip we’ve seen in the June figures. Visa says that London spend in restaurants is up nearly 20% on a year ago, nightclub spending is up 24%, and spending on theatre and other tickets has doubled.

Far from seeing a bloodbath, Andrew Lloyd Webber has seen sales for his shows increase by 25%. He has generously said that he “has been proved wrong” and “couldn’t be more delighted.”

Quite simply, stories of “ghost town” London are not borne out by the facts:

Retailers in Bond Street, Oxford and Regent Street all reported a surge in sales and footfall during the Super Saturday weekend;
Tube traffic has been at record levels with over four and a half million journeys on some days last week – the highest number for one day in London Underground’s history;

And hotels have been extremely busy – Richard Solomons has talked of 90 per cent occupancy across Intercontinental properties. Many other London hoteliers report they were at least 80% full, and up on the same days last year.

Now I’m pleased to say that hoteliers are looking at new and creative ways to extend the party. Premier Inn, for example, will be celebrating TeamGB’s gold medal haul of 29 by offering 29,000 London rooms at £49 for bookings made until 22nd August.

Of course, we were always going to see changes in visitor patterns during such a big year and there are inevitably some businesses that suffer short term consequences.

But we should never underestimate the long term impact of securing London’s place in as one of the most buzzy and exciting cities on the planet – and the massive upside that offers to all businesses based here.

Nor should we underestimate the power of the Olympic Park to become a new tourist attraction – with the superb landscaping, facilities, transport and views that it offers.

A long term commitment to tourism

Which takes me to the second myth.

Ufi Ibrahim of the BHA said in June that when it comes to tourism the Government is “all talk, no action,” and that we don’t take tourism seriously.

Let me gently remind Ufi that when I arrived in office there was no fully-developed tourism strategy for the Olympics. Getting that right always needed to be the first priority. How could anyone who cares about tourism waste a billion pound opportunity to put ourselves on the map?

And critics are plain wrong to say that this is only about the short term.

Let’s look at the changes that have been made with long term impact that have nothing whatsoever to do with the Olympics.

Firstly, John Penrose and I promised to cut the red tape that was choking tourism.

So in the last two years we’ve curbed regulations on food labelling, on no smoking signs and on arcade entertainment;

– We’ve changed the VAT rules on holiday lets;

– We’re consulting to change live entertainment licensing to help the entertainment industry; and

– We’re giving industry and consumers control of star rating quality schemes.

– We also said we’d improve support for tourism organisations at a local level.

And notwithstanding the difficult financial environment, we’ve now seen a steady expansion of destination management organisations, bringing tourism back to its local roots.

We’re also working with sector skills bodies to increase apprenticeships and training, to create the pipeline of trained staff necessary for future success.

On top of which planning reforms in the localism bill will make it much easier for tourism attractions to invest and expand.

And looking further ahead, transport developments such as HS2 will tackle one of the biggest challenges we face, namely how to get the 50% of international visitors who come to London but never move beyond the capital to discover everything the rest of the country has to offer.

But as a government we can only create a climate that helps investment and expansion. And that means the support of the entire industry. I hope this year has shown what a strong partnership can achieve.

The future

But if we are to truly exploit our potential as the sixth most visited tourism destination, there is much more to do.

Today, the whole country is riding high on a wave of global, Olympic excitement. In Shakespeare’s words: “On such a full sea are we now afloat… We must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures”.

In such a landmark year, with so much in our favour, isn’t now the time to go further, to make this Olympic year a real turning point for UK tourism? To step up, if you like, from being a creditable finalist to winning the gold medal.

So today I want to invite the tourism industry to embrace some ambitious goals:

To commit as a government and an industry to increasing the number of overseas visitors to the UK from just over 30 million today to 40 million by 2020;

– To make 2012 the turning point for our domestic tourism industry – and make sure the UK is always promoted as actively to its home market as overseas destinations promote theirs in the UK;

– To exploit the extraordinary role that sport has as a magnet for tourism by exploiting the opportunities presented by hosting world cups in rugby league, rugby union and cricket, not to mention the Ryder Cup and the Champions League final, the Commonwealth Games in 2014 and the World Athletics Championships in the Olympic stadium in 2017;

– To build on the incredible success of the London Festival 2012 by binding the cultural and tourism industries much more closely together as we develop Britain’s reputation as the global capital of culture.

– To support this, I am today announcing new initiatives on both the domestic and international tourism front.

Domestic tourism

On the domestic front, I will today commit that the domestic tourism advertising campaign we saw earlier this year will not be our last.

That’s why we will invest a further £2 million in a follow up campaign next year, to be increased further with match-funding, in order to build on the success of the 20.12 per cent ‘Holiday at Home’ campaign.

The Olympic Torch Relay has really helped to ignite domestic interest in UK holidays. In fact, about one in ten expect to visit a destination off the back of seeing the Olympic flame there. But it is still too difficult to book domestic holiday packages on the web.

So Visit England has committed to double the number of domestic package breaks being booked in the years ahead by bringing together website retailers, car rental groups, train companies, airlines and hotel groups.

Cultural tourism

Following this extraordinary year, I also want us to capitalise on the successes we have achieved in developing cultural tourism. Tony Hall and Ruth Mackenzie deserve enormous credit for putting together the London 2012 Festival, which has already been enjoyed by around 10 million people across the country, with more opportunities still to come – surely the biggest and best Cultural Olympiad ever.

How can we build on this? One promising idea is to have a London Biennale – a bi-annual London or UK-wide arts festival to celebrate the best of what we have to offer culturally. I have therefore asked Tony and Ruth to do a report for me on the feasibility of such a festival, how much it would cost and how it should be delivered.

2013- A Focus on China

Finally, how can we keep up the tremendous momentum we have achieved in marketing the UK internationally?

Today I am announcing a continuation of the GREAT campaign next year with an £8 million focus on one of the world’s fastest growing economies, China.

Only around 150,000 Chinese tourists visited our shores last year, a figure that is way down on that of our major competitors such as Germany and France. The numbers are rising, but it is still estimated that France attracts between 25 and 50% more Chinese visitors than the UK.

We simply cannot afford such a comparatively small share of such an important market.

Nobody should underestimate the opportunity China and its cities represent:

By 2025, Shanghai is expected to be the third richest city in the world;

Five other Chinese cities – Shenzhen, Tianjin, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Chengdu – are expected to be among the top 20 globally for GDP growth;

And by 2030, China should have around 1.4 billion middle class consumers – creating a potential market four times bigger than America.

We must get on the front foot. Through this new campaign, I want us to treble the number of Chinese visitors we attract, getting to 500,000 by 2015. This alone will generate more than £0.5 billion additional visitor spend a year and create 14,000 more jobs.

We will be increasing our marketing in China’s major cities, not just in Shanghai and Beijing, but also some of the other major cities where we know there are big gains to be had.

We’ll also be looking at improvements to the visa system and work with airlines and aviation authorities to improve the number of flight connections to China.

Conclusion

2012 already has far too many firsts to be able to list:

– The greatest 45 minutes in our sporting history, thanks to Jess Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah;

– A breathtaking London 2012 Festival, our biggest ever summer of culture;

– The creativity and fun of Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony, which amazed and delighted 900 million people around the world;

– Our historic sites – Hampton Court, The Mall, Horseguards – and the new venues on the Olympic Park: all looking their best and projecting the best image of Britain, both heritage and contemporary.

– And then our volunteers – the Games Makers and London Ambassadors and UK-wide Ambassadors – showing the world a friendliness that has never perhaps been associated with Britain before.

But the biggest opportunity is yet to come.

The Olympics should be for Britain what Usain Bolt is for athletics – something that grabs the attention of the whole world and refuses to let it go.

We must use this extraordinary year to turbo-charge our tourism industry. To create jobs and prosperity on the back of a globally-enhanced reputation. And to show that when we talk about Olympic legacy, tourism is an opportunity we seized and ran with all the way to the finishing line.

January 19, 2016
Norman Baker – 2012 Speech to Investing in Future Transport Conference

Below is the text of the speech made by Norman Baker to the Investing in Future Transport Conference on 16 August 2012.

I am sorry not to be able to be present at your conference today – but delighted to have the opportunity to say a few words to open this afternoon’s session – focused as it is on the challenge of transport in an urban environment.

For me, the theme chimes in very closely with the work that I have been pushing forward while I have been in Government.

In a nutshell – developing a transport system that creates growth – and cuts emissions. Especially carbon emissions.

Clearly how we get around in the future – whether in cities or elsewhere – will have a huge impact on how we achieve these aims.

Around a quarter of UK domestic carbon emissions are from transport – and over 90 per cent of those are from road traffic.M

It’s worth pointing out, as did last month’s UK Climate Change Committee report, the good progress being made in reducing emissions from new cars.

A 4.2% reduction between 2010 and 2011, and on track to meet the indicator target for 2020 – 95 grammes of CO2 per kilometre. That is good news. But of course we want to go further.

The UK Government has been determined to create the right conditions for the development of the early market for ultra low emission vehicles – ULEVs [youlevs] as they are known. We have made a £400 million commitment.

Last year we put in place the Plug-In Car Grant and extended it to vans this year. This has helped generate a step change in the uptake of ULEVs.

Total claims in the first half of this year are more than we saw in the whole of 2011.

And with new models coming to the market, I expect to see this trend sustained and growing, in line with our expectations.

Of course it is the case that people are hardly likely to buy a ULEV if they don’t see the infrastructure needed to use them already in place.

So, the Coalition Government has taken a lead on this with the Plugged In Places programme. And I’m delighted that, as we anticipated, the private sector has now seen the commercial opportunity this presents and come in with really significant investment.

Further evidence, if any more were needed, that creating growth and cutting carbon are 2 sides of the same coin.

The combined number of private and public sector charge-points now stands at around six thousand.

Of course hydrogen is also one of the options to decarbonise transport.

With industry we have set up the UK H2 Mobility project.

It’s looking at the potential for “hydrogen fuel cell” electric vehicles – and what investment would be required to commercialise the technology, including refuelling infrastructure, from 2015.

It is good news that London, where there is already a significant level of hydrogen activity, is pitching for a leading role in this field.

As well as having ULEV responsibilities, my portfolio also covers what’s known as “smarter choices”. Changing the way we travel isn’t just about changing the car we drive or how we deliver goods.

It’s about thinking differently – even as far as thinking whether on each occasion we need to travel at all, now we are in the age of video-conferencing and other ground-shifting technology.

These Olympics have been like a test bed, stimulating people to try fresh approaches and allowing individuals and organisations to re-engineer how they go about their business. I hope and expect that these changes won’t be a one-off.

For many of you here today the focus of interest will be London.

And London has certainly been rich with innovation on the transport front.

But countrywide, funding made available by the government, like the £560 million Local Sustainable Transport Fund, now increased to £600 million, the Green Bus Fund, and funding for the low carbon truck demonstration trial, is helping to spark real innovation.

Let’s remember, it is the short-distance local trip where the biggest opportunity exists for people to make sustainable transport choices.

Around two out of every three trips we make are less than 5 miles in length. Many of them could be easily walked or undertaken by public transport, with cycling an increasingly popular option.

I have been determined to help deliver funding to create an environment where people can feel confident about cycling.

There are some really good projects going on around the country.

Now I am not complacent in the least about any of this. There are huge challenges in transport, not least in terms of air quality where there is still much to do.

January 19, 2016
Jeremy Hunt – 2012 Speech on Broadband Investment

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Hunt, the then Secretary of State for Culture, on 23 August 2012.

The world’s first truly digital Olympics

The last few weeks have been dominated by the Olympics. Team GB have certainly been faster, higher and stronger. But perhaps less noticed has been the technology behind the Games which has also been faster, higher and stronger. Indeed given the timing of digital switchover, this was for many consumers the first “digital” Games:

– 700 gigabytes per second were delivered from the BBC website when Bradley Wiggins won his gold;

– On the peak day, 2.8 petabytes of data were delivered – equivalent to700,000 DVDs;

– Nearly a million people watched Andy Murray win gold – not on TV but online and over 9 million followed BBC Olympic coverage on their mobiles;

– And over twenty billion views of the official London2012.com website.

Our success in digital broadcasting is fitting given both the global pre-eminence of the BBC and also our aspiration to be Europe’s technology hub. So today I want to take stock of the progress we have.

Economic impact on the UK

The impact of the internet on modern economies is now well-documented by a number of studies. Last year, for example, McKinsey said that whilst the internet only accounted for an average of 3.4% of the GDP of the 13 largest economies it accounted for 21% of GDP growth.

Ericsson and Arthur D. Little say that GDP increases by 1% for every 10% increase in broadband penetration.

And according to Boston Consulting Group the impact on the UK economy is even greater. They say it could increase from being 7% of the UK economy to 13% by 2015 and describe Britain as the e-commerce capital of the world.

Getting the plumbing right for our digital economy is not just an advantage to consumers – it is also essential for our digital and creative industries, all of whom need reliable high speed networks to develop and export their products as they move large digital files around the world.

Think of the industries who now describe themselves as producing digital content: the BBC and the world’s largest independent television production sector; our music industry, globally the second largest exporter; and our animation and video games industries, some of the biggest in Europe.

Get this wrong and we will compromise all of their futures. Get it right and we can be Europe’s technology hub, bringing together the best of Hollywood and Silicon Valley in one country with huge competitive advantage in both content and technology.

Where we started

Because of the scale of this opportunity, I have always prioritised this part of my agenda at DCMS. In my very first speech as a Minister I said that I wanted us to have the “best” superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015. In defining “best” you include factors like price and coverage as well as speed. But over the past two years it has become clear, as Usain Bolt wouldn’t hesitate to say, to be the best you need to be the fastest.

So I am today announcing an ambition to be not just the best, but specifically the fastest broadband of any major European country by 2015. Indeed we may already be there.

Before I elaborate let me explain where we have come from. Just before I came to office:

– we had one of the slowest broadband networks in Europe, coming 21st out of 30 OECD countries;

– we had a target for universal 2 Mbps access – but only half the money necessary to deliver it;

– and we had no objectives for delivering superfast broadband in this parliament, and no money to pay for it.

Progress to date

To me this combination of slow speed and low ambition felt like the technology equivalent of British Rail. So whether rashly or boldly, I decided to commit to not only to universal 2 Mbps access, but also something much more ambitious: to put plans in place for superfast broadband to reach at least 90% of the population by 2015.

Through a rapid settlement of the new BBC licence fee – for which I owe great thanks to Mark Thompson – I was able to secure £600m of additional investment, half of which is available during this spending round. Combined with digital switchover underspend and match-funding from local government the total amount available is now more than £1 billion.

When combined with the additional £150m we are investing in giving our cities some of the fastest speeds in the world, we have been able to make some dramatic progress:

44 out of 46 local authority areas now have broadband plans approved for delivering 90% or greater superfast access. Some have gone even further, with my own county, Surrey, looking to deliver one of the most ambitious programmes of all with near-universal superfast coverage. Procurement for virtually all areas is well under way, with around one moving into formal procurement every week from October. I expect procurement to be completed across the whole country by next July.

In our cities we want even faster speeds. Our £150m urban broadband fund will mean that around 15% of the UK population will have access to speeds of 80-120 Mbps along with universal high speed wi-fi.

Additionally Ofcom has announced that for the 4G auctions one of the licences will require indoor coverage for 98% of the UK population, guaranteeing a wireless high speed alternative to fixed line broadband.

For some time we have had amongst the highest penetration and the lowest prices of anywhere in Europe. But even before this new procurement has taken place we have already started to make made good progress on speed:

– Average speed in the UK has increased by about 50% since May 2010.

– In the last year alone average speed increased from 7.6 Mbps to 9 Mbps, overtaking France and Germany so we now have the fastest broadband of any large European Country.

– Two thirds of the population are now on packages of more than 10 Mbps, higher than anywhere in Europe except Portugal and perhaps surprisingly Bulgaria.

The need for speed

Probably the best characterisation of my broadband policy has been a relentless focus on speed. Let me explain why.

My nightmare is that when it comes to broadband we could make the same mistake as we made with high speed rail. When our high speed rail network opens from London to Birmingham in 2026 it will be 45 years after the French opened theirs, and 62 years after the Japanese opened theirs. Just think how much our economy has been held back by lower productivity for over half a century. We must not make the same short-sighted mistake.

But when it came to sewers, we got it right. In the 1860’s Sir Joseph Bazalgette ignored all the critics when putting in London’s sewers and insisted on making the pipes six times bigger than anticipated demand.

He could never have predicted the advent of high rise buildings – lifts had not been invented then – but he had the humility to plan for the things he could not predict as well as the ones he could.

You don’t need Bazalgette foresight to see that in the modern world, things are speeding up exponentially. Every 60 seconds there are:

– 98,000 tweets
– 370,000 Skype calls
– there are 695,000 Google searches and 695,000 Facebook status updates;
– and 168 million emails sent.

And that’s just today. To download a 4K video, currently used in digital cinemas, would take an average home user two or three days. They don’t need or want to do that today – but will they in the future? Who here would bet against it? The message has to be don’t bet against the internet, yes, but also don’t bet against the need for speed.

Which is why when the Lords Committee criticised me this summer for being preoccupied with speed, I plead guilty. And so should we all. Because we simply will not have a competitive broadband network unless we recognise the massive growth in demand for higher and higher speeds. But where their Lordships are wrong is to say my focus is on any particular speed: today’s superfast is tomorrow’s superslow. Just as the last government was wrong to hang its hat on 2 Mbps speeds, we must never fall into the trap of saying any speed is “enough.”

That is why, although we have loosely defined superfast as greater than 24 Mbps, I have also introduced a programme for ultrafast broadband in our cities that will offer speeds of 80-100 Mbps and more. And we will continue to develop policy to ensure that the highest speeds technology can deliver are available to the largest number of people here in the UK.

Our plans do not stop here either. We are currently considering how to allocate the £300m available for broadband investment from the later years of the license fee. In particular we will look at whether we can tap into to this to allow those able to access superfast broadband to be even greater than our current 90% aspiration.

FTTC vs FTTH

Whilst I am talking about the House of Lords report, let me address a further misunderstanding. They suggest that fibre to the cabinet is the sum of the government’s ambitions. They are wrong. Where fibre to the cabinet is the chosen solution it is most likely to be a temporary stepping stone to fibre to the home – indeed by 2016 fibre to the home will be available on demand to over two thirds of the population.

But the reason we are backing fibre to the cabinet as a potential medium-term solution is simple: the increase in speeds that it allows – 80 Mbps certainly but in certain cases up to 1 gigabit – will comfortably create Europe’s biggest and most profitable high speed broadband market. And in doing so we will create the conditions whereby if fibre to the home is still the best way to get the very highest speeds, private sector companies will invest to provide it.

Let’s look at the alternative: if the state were to build a fibre to the home network now, it would potentially cost more than £25 bn. It would also take the best part of a decade to achieve. We will get there far more cheaply – and far more quickly – by harnessing the entrepreneurialism of private sector broadband providers than by destroying their businesses from a mistaken belief that the state can do better.

Must be mobile

There is one further principle that needs to underline our thinking. Mobile data use is tripling every year and is expected to be 18 times its current levels by 2016. In that time the number of mobile connected devices globally will reach 10 billion – more than the entire population of the world. One survey rather scarily said that 40% of people with smartphones log on before getting out of bed in the morning. I won’t ask for a show of hands but it may not be the best thing for a marriage.

Our working assumption must therefore be that the preferred method of going online will be a mobile device – whether linked to high speed wireless in buildings or networks outside them. But that in order to cope with capacity, we will need to get that mobile signal onto a fibre backbone as soon as possible. So no false choice between mobile or fixed line, between fibre or high speed wireless: all technologies – including satellite – are likely to have a part to play, and our approach must be flexible enough to harness them all.

Next steps

So what next? Clearly the BDUK procurement process is central to our plans. After a frustrating delay, we are confident of getting state aid approval this autumn, after which the procurements will be able to roll out. But to achieve this timetable projects will need to be ready on time and they will need to be able to progress through the procurement process without delay. So I hope all the Local Authority representatives who are here today will be able to respond to that challenge so we are still able to complete the majority of projects by 2015.

We are also committed to helping private sector investors in our digital network by removing barriers to deployment wherever we can. These include:

– plans to relax the rules on overhead lines;
– guidance issued to local councils on streetworks and microtrenching;
– the development of specifications for broadband in new building and an independent review by the Law Commission of the Electronic Communications Code.

In September we will confirm the funding for the Tier 1 cities that have applied for the Urban Broadband Fund and we will announce the successful Tier 2 cities later in the autumn.

In December Ofcom hopes to start the 4G auctions, with deployment taking place as soon as the final digital spectrum becomes available.

One of the biggest successes of this programme has been to work closely with colleagues in local government. This really matters because planning issues remain very critical to the delivery of this programme, and local authorities are also planning authorities. Most have been extremely supportive – but we still have some frustrating examples of inflexible approaches to planning – not least Kensington and Chelsea, who have deprived their residents of superfast broadband investment as a result. But overall the cooperation from local authorities has been terrific and I want to thank those of you present for your tremendous enthusiasm for this programme.

Conclusion

Let me finish by saying this. Two years ago I promised the best superfast broadband in Europe. After two years, we have the lowest cost, most comprehensive and fastest broadband of any major European country. More importantly when it comes to next generation broadband we also have the most ambitious investment plans too.

Can we do it? I am convinced we can. Of course there remain plenty of hurdles: state aid clearance, planning foresight, contract management and delivery, challenges in our more remote areas. But as Shakespeare said “it is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” In other words, it’s up to us.

Let’s also not forget some people also said that we could not host a great Olympics either. They were wrong. We’ve just hosted the greatest Games ever. Time and again our winning athletes told us “never let anybody tell you it can’t be done”. So let’s be inspired by that, let’s aim high and make sure that broadband plays the definitive role in our economic recovery that we know it can.

January 19, 2016
Justine Greening – 2015 Speech on Disabilities and Foreign Aid

Below is the text of the speech made by Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary, on 3 December 2015.

It’s an absolute pleasure to be able to be part of this event today. It is a big celebration and this room I think is a real fitting place to hold this event.

As Lord Low has just said DFID has been on a journey. And I think the development community has been on a journey, over the last couple of years in particular, as we talked about what we wanted the successors to the Millennium Development Goals to be.

There were lots of things missing from those original goals. They were an incredible step forward but there were things missing. And one of those was the lack of really any recognition of how development fitted with disability. And that was something that we were very keen to fix. The select committee was quite right in flagging up this also as an issue.

And I wanted to start by paying tribute to Lynne Featherstone, who this time last year was the Parliamentary under-Secretary of State. Lynne did a fantastic job of really taking that starting point and starting to get us on the track where we ended up on another step today. So a big thank you to Lynne.

I would like to pay tribute also to the work of Baroness Verma and all of the work our DFID staff have done to shape what I think is this really big step forward for us in the department.

The concept of ‘Leaving no on behind’ underpins, I think, what the Sustainable Development Goals are really all about. And disability is a massive part of that. I wanted to recognise today the huge efforts of the International Disability Alliance and indeed the disability community as a whole… and not only the for the advocacy that you have done…you have done more than that – you’ve actually changed things on the ground to help get us to where we are.

But in the end this work is just starting. We’re really at the beginning of the journey. We’ve taken a decision that we need to start that journey but we’re at the beginning of it and I think we should acknowledge that.

I know for many people in this audience you are the ones that understand, perhaps more than anyone else in the development community, why this issue matters and why it is something that we should be putting at centre stage of our development work.

And we know how many people it affects, something like 80% of people with disabilities live in developing countries. And the barriers that people face aren’t just physical ones, although we know that there are many and that they are immense. But they end up being cultural ones and social barriers too.

So this is a complex set of challenges that we have to address and the consequences of not doing it means that we will have this status quo, that we have currently got, where we know that people with disabilities are more likely to be unemployed, they are less likely to get to school, in some cases they literally won’t be able to participate in life. So it is vital that we make more progress on this.

So what have we been doing? I’ll spend a little bit of time talking about what we have done over the last year. So this time last year we published this Disability Framework which set out the architecture of how we were going to look at disability and how we were going to start thinking about it within our own policy work. One year on I think we have seen some real progress and we have already started making changes. Some of them are not big changes, but they make a huge difference.

Not a particularly big change for us was to say that if we are involved in building schools then they should be able to be accessible for everyone. When you look at how much that might put up the cost it’s literally half of one percent. But it makes a transformational difference. We’re already making those changes.

In fact we’ve been working with Leonard Cheshire Disability that does fantastic work both here in the UK…and I am privileged to have some of that happen in the London Borough that I represent a part of…but also in places like Kenya and Zimbabwe where they have worked on the education agenda.

In Ghana, DFID are now working on putting in extra physicians who are particularly able to provide support to people with mental health and psychosocial impairments.

Through UK Aid Match we have been working with Sightsavers which is enabling us to do very simple operations but ones that make a transformational difference in people lives, and their broader community.

So I think we have come a long way but there is a much, much longer way to go.

So the key for us has been around not just to have disability being part of what we do – but fundamentally mainstreaming it through all of our work. So whatever project we are looking at we look at it through the lens of how can we make progress on development and disability through this particular programme. So that means coming back to looking at some of the physical, practical barriers. It also means looking at some of those broad social barriers.

We need a research agenda on this – which we are now putting in place. We need to properly understand the evidence around how we can make sure that when we’re investing we get the biggest bang for the buck and the most change. Investing in research with people like Leonard Cheshire Disability and University College London. Making sure that on a really simple basis that we are disaggregating data, not just in terms of gender, but also in terms of disability. Then we will understand how our work affects people with disabilities and how broader development work affects people with disabilities.

So we are going to be continuing to challenging ourselves to do more on this. There is a very long way to go I think. Today we are launching our new updated Disability Framework. It sets out that we will drive progress in three core areas:

One is economic empowerment. We have made big progress in DFID on jobs and livelihoods – but we really want to make sure that that has this leave no one behind element of it, and particularly in relation to people with disabilities.

On mental health, which I think just generally is something that the UK itself has been trying to get our own house in order on.

But also critically on this issue of stigma and discrimination. It is such an important area to focus on but it is complex, it’s difficult. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t challenge ourselves to try and tackle some of the underlying reasons why, in spite of all the work that we might do on physical things and practical things that can help, in the end there’s a society piece of this too. So more work there – that’s the third challenge we have really set ourselves.

I want to finish by saying again thank you for contribution to the work that’s being done in the department. So many people here have contributed to where we have got to today.

But really to give you our clear assurance from a DFID perspective that we see this as a fundamental part of how we need to be looking at our development work. It is not a bolt on. It is something that we are mainstreaming throughout everything that we do. We are learning as we do that we need your help to help us go further faster over the coming years. But we’ve made a good start and I hope that is something that we can build on in the future. Thank you very much for inviting me here today.

January 19, 2016
Michael Wilshaw – 2016 Speech on Ambitions for Education

Below is the text of the speech made by Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Chief Inspector of Ofsted, at CentreForum on 18 January 2016.

Thank you for inviting me to talk to you today.

There will be many who think your ambitions for the future of English education are too bold and too unrealistic. I am not one of them. We simply have to aim high. Unless we can compete with the best jurisdictions in the world, all our hopes for a fair, cohesive and prosperous society will come to very little.

High expectations are essential to those ambitions. As a teacher and later head in some of the toughest parts of London, I had high expectations for each and every child in every classroom.

As I look back, I am proud to say that many of them lived up to those expectations. Most of my former pupils went on to lead successful lives, even though many came from poor backgrounds with limited experience of success. I was as proud of the student from a troubled family who started his own plumbing business as I was of the former pupil who ended up as the first black president of the Oxford Union.

The youngsters in schools that I led did well because we exploited their different talents and provided them with different pathways to success. A great all-ability school ensures that those with potential can be surgeons as well as nurses, architects as well as joiners, technocrats as well as technicians.

The great comprehensive school headteacher knows that a ‘one size fits all’ model of secondary education will never deliver the range of success that their youngsters need.

Some of our international competitors understand this probably better than we do.

Their education systems are more flexible than ours and are much more geared to aligning the potential of the student with the needs of their economies. As a result, countries with excellent academic and technical routes have far lower youth unemployment than we do. Despite 6 years of economic recovery and falling unemployment, youth unemployment in the UK still stands at 12%. In Germany it is 7% and in Switzerland 3.7%.

If our neighbours understand this, why don’t we? Surely we have got to understand that rebalancing our economy means rebalancing our education system as well – a point I’ll elaborate on later.

As Chief Inspector I have high ambitions for every child and every classroom in the country. Every child – not just those who are easy to teach – and every classroom – not just those in prosperous or urban communities.

All improvement is incremental. We know that. And the targets that CentreForum has set will take time to achieve. But setting the course and being clear about the destination are essential if standards are to improve.

You are right to emphasise the importance of a good early years education and mastery of English and maths at primary. If 85% of pupils manage to achieve at least a 4b at Key Stage 2 by 2025, then your expectations for three quarters of our young people to achieve good outcomes at 16 by 2030 should be perfectly feasible.

But what of the quarter to a third of youngsters who cannot achieve those challenging targets? What is to become of them? Even when I was head at Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, which had a great academic reputation, 20% of youngsters failed to reach our targets. Most of them went to a local FE [further education] college, usually a large, impersonal and amorphous institution, and did badly.

As somebody who was motivated by moral purpose, I always felt that I was letting down a significant number of good children who deserved better. Talk to any good secondary head and they would say much the same.

Yes, our ambitions should be bold. But they should be inclusive too. Our responsibilities as educators do not end when students fail to attain our targets. On the contrary, the written off and the ‘failed’ need our help most and we should never forget it.

Our ambition has to be broad if we are to ensure a step change in educational achievement. And it has to be deep. Vaulting ambition cannot succeed if its foundations are shallow. But I’m afraid our foundations in some areas are very shallow indeed. We do not have enough good leaders. We do not have enough good governors. And struggling schools in many areas of the country are finding it extremely difficult to get the good teachers they need.

Reform requires reformers and in many places we simply lack the talented people necessary to make progress happen. We are facing real capacity issues that need to be addressed urgently if we are to maintain our current performance, let alone the accelerated improvement demanded by CentreForum.

Improvements

The start of a new year, however, is a time for optimism. And even though the challenges before us are great, we have much to be optimistic about. We have a far better education system than we did when I first became a head 30 years ago.

People forget how bad things were in the miserable decades of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. They forget how many children were failed by political neglect, misguided ideologies, weak accountability and low expectations. They forget how local authorities failed to challenge and support headteachers. They forget how much they conceded to vested interests and how infrequently they championed the rights of children to a decent education.

Before we steel ourselves for the challenges ahead, we should remember how far we have come. Before critics disparage our schools, they should recall our recent history. Ambition has to be sustained by hope. And it’s a lot easier to hope if we remember that standards have improved, and can improve further.

Across the country as a whole, nearly a million and a half more children are in good or better schools than were 5 years ago. The proportion of newly qualified teachers with good degrees has never been higher, while the proportion of the poorest pupils going to university has increased from an eighth to a fifth in a decade.

The most dramatic turnaround, as your report notes, has been in our primary schools. Primary schools are getting the basics right. Literacy and numeracy are much improved. There has been a steady rise in performance at Key Stage 2 – the results last year are the highest on record. And although much work needs to be done, primary schools have succeeded in narrowing the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their better-off peers. So I have every confidence, on the basis of what we know about primary schools, that your targets of 85% of children achieving a level 4B in reading, writing and mathematics will, again, be entirely feasible by 2025.

Ofsted’s greater challenge to the system has helped to bring about some of these improvements. The abolition of the satisfactory judgement and its replacement with ‘requires improvement’ signalled that the inspectorate would no longer accept mediocrity. I also believe that our new proportionate inspections of good schools, the end of inspections by third-party contractors and the recruitment of thousands of serving school leaders as inspectors have helped to refine and improve Ofsted’s oversight.

But for all these improvements, we would be deluding ourselves if we thought the battle to raise standards had been won. There is still much more to do. There can be no let up on educational reform because our international competitors are improving at a faster rate than we are.

There are many challenges facing our education system but 3 are acute:

– the gains made by children in primary schools are often lost in secondaries

– a disproportionate amount of that underperformance is in the North and the Midlands

– educational provision, for the many children who do not succeed at 16 or who would prefer an alternative to higher education, is inadequate at best and non-existent at worst

Stalling secondary schools

As I said earlier, the improvements in primary education have been significant and widespread. Sadly, they are not sustained in many secondary schools. Things often go badly wrong at the very start of Key Stage 3.

Poor transition, poor literacy and numeracy, a lack of monitoring and poor teaching, particularly in foundation subjects, fail to prepare children for exams at Key Stage 4. Widespread, low-level disruption adds to the problem. It means that in many secondaries almost an hour of learning is lost each day because of poor behaviour. Quite frankly the culture of too many of our secondary schools is just not good enough. Instead of fostering a climate of scholarship and deep learning, inspectors see too many secondary schools with noisy corridors, lippy children and sullen classrooms. This, perhaps, explains why the caricatures of comprehensive secondary education are still well embedded in our media and popular culture.

It is no surprise then that 45% of our youngsters fail to achieve the benchmark GCSE grades, and just under 1 in 4 succeeds at EBacc. Yes, more disadvantaged and state school pupils now go to university than ever before. But disproportionately few of them go to our top universities.

According to the Office for Fair Access, teenagers from the richest 20% of families are 6 times more likely to go to the most selective universities than youngsters from the most disadvantaged 40% of families.

The fate of the most able pupils in non-selective schools is particularly depressing. Some 60,000 youngsters who achieved the top levels at Key Stage 2 did not achieve an A or A* in English and maths 5 years later. Indeed, only a quarter achieved a B grade.

According to the Sutton Trust, 7,000 children a year who were in the top 10% nationally at age 11 were not in the top 25% at GCSE 5 years later. These youngsters are drawn disproportionately from the white working class.

One stark fact probably sums up our under-performance at secondary more than any other: the gap in attainment between free school meal students and their peers has barely shifted in a decade.

Unless we raise the performance of disadvantaged pupils in general, and the white working class in particular, we won’t achieve the targets that you’ve set out in your paper.

The North and the Midlands

As I pointed out in my last Annual Report, a disproportionate amount of secondary schools that are less than good are in the North and the Midlands. One in three secondaries in these regions is not good enough. Of the 16 local authorities with the poorest performing secondary schools, 13 are in the North and the Midlands.

It is no coincidence that these regions also account for the largest proportion of schools with behaviour and leadership problems. Three quarters of secondary schools judged inadequate for behaviour and for leadership were in the North and the Midlands.

Let me give you a sense of the scale of the challenge facing us. In 2015, in some of our biggest towns and cities in the North and the Midlands, less than half of our young people achieved 5 good GCSEs.

In Liverpool it was 48%. In Manchester it was 46%, in Bradford 45%, in Blackpool 42%. And in Knowsley, a local authority area without a single good secondary school, only 37% of young people achieved 5 A* to C grades in English and maths.

CentreForum has set ambitious targets for English schools to meet at Key Stage 4. It is going to be a challenge for the average performing school’s students to reach the new minimum acceptable grade 5, assessed between the present C and B grade. How much harder will it be for children in struggling schools, disproportionately concentrated in the North and the Midlands, to reach them from such a low base?

Left behind at 16

No area of the country, however, can really claim to succeed when it comes to provision for those youngsters who do not do well at 16. Nor can we say that we are really delivering high-quality vocational education to youngsters of all abilities who would prefer to take this route.

The statistics show that those who fail to achieve the required grades in maths and English at 16 make little or no progress in FE colleges 2 years later. The 16-19 Study Programme is yet to make an impact on these success rates.

Preparation for employment remains poor and careers guidance in both schools and colleges is uniformly weak.

But my goodness, the country needs these youngsters. Fifty years ago John Newsom warned that by failing them we beggared ourselves. “Half our future”, he pointed out, is in these young people’s hands. We cannot continue to fail half our future. Yet in the intervening half century, what has changed?

Nine out of 10 employers, according to the British Chambers of Commerce, say school leavers are not ready for employment. Six out of 10 firms say the skills gap is getting worse. Leading industrialists like Sir James Dyson complain that they cannot find the skilled workers their businesses need to grow.

Our system is adept at guiding students into higher education. But it still struggles, despite the recent focus on apprenticeships, to inform them about alternatives to university. We simply have to improve the quality of our technical provision and present it as a valid educational path if we are to equip youngsters with the skills they need and employers want.

I can almost sense eyes glazing over when I say this. For over 50 years, I’ve heard so many people bemoan the fact that vocational education is not good enough. So at the risk of switching you off, I’m going to say it again. It is a moral imperative as well as an economic one that we do something now to change direction. We must all make sure that the ambitious programme for apprenticeships does not prove to be another false dawn. And, even more importantly, that the school system prepares youngsters for these apprenticeship places.

This does not mean diluting a strong core curriculum. There should be no trade-off between the quality of academic studies and the pursuit of specialist vocational provision and training.

So I applaud CentreForum’s bold aims for English education. There is no good reason why the vast majority of pupils shouldn’t have mastered basic maths and English at primary and a Grade 5 at GCSE.

However, we should never forget the minority who will never do so, nor the larger number who may pass but who do not wish to pursue a wholly academic path. They too deserve an education worthy of the name. The country cannot continue to fail half its future.

What is to be done?

Yes – the challenges facing our secondary schools and colleges in particular are immense. But these challenges can be met. CentreForum has highlighted how a number of schools are bucking the trend and are succeeding. They show what is possible with great leadership and great teaching.

Yet individual success stories also show how daunting the task is. They stand out because they are so atypical. The question is, how can we scale up improvement? How can individual success be replicated across the board?

Even if we have an answer to that, there is another pressing issue. How can we ensure that we have capacity in the system to bring about essential improvements? Because without the right people to make it happen, our dreams will remain just that.

We need to improve 3 things:

– accountability and oversight

– the way schools of all types work together

– leadership, and the leadership of teaching in particular

Accountability and oversight

For a start, we will struggle to embed reform if oversight remains confused and inconsistent. I have long argued for a middle tier to oversee school performance and intervene where necessary. So the government’s decision to introduce Regional Schools Commissioners to oversee academies is one I support. Unfortunately, their roles and how they fit with other accountability bodies isn’t always clear.

Ofsted is charged with inspecting all schools and colleges. The Education Funding Agency not only funds schools but also intervenes when decline occurs. Individual multi-academy trusts have their own oversight arrangements and then there are local authorities. The latter complain they lack any influence over academies, even though they are still responsible for ensuring all children in their area are safe and receive a suitable standard of education. It is a patchwork of accountability rather than the seamless cover we need.

At the moment, we have a confusing and ill-defined system of oversight and intervention. Problems, inevitably, are shuffled between various agencies. This isn’t fair on parents and it certainly isn’t fair on schools. A symptom of that confusion has been a more than doubling of complaints to Ofsted about schools in the last 3 years. The danger is that only those able to navigate this accountability maze will have their concerns addressed.

Governance, too, is an issue. Three years ago I argued that school governing bodies needed to be far more professional. In that time, not a lot has changed. We need governors chosen for the skills they bring to a school, not because they represent a certain faction. We need governors who will hold schools properly to account, not who are largely concerned with furthering vested interests. And if that means paying for expertise, then we should consider paying them.

As we all know, the key to school improvement is early intervention. But can we realistically expect commissioners, with their current resources, to gather the necessary intelligence on the increasing number of schools under their control? Will they be able to step in when it matters most?

Now, I am not going to argue for the return of all schools to local authority control, far from it. The rot set in in large parts of our education system because local authorities allowed too many schools to decay over many years. But it would greatly simplify matters if all schools were held to account in the same way.

I have no doubt that commissioners will grow into their roles and my regional directors will continue to work alongside them. But, I think we are going to need something more if we are to bring about the kind of improvement we have seen in London.

We need powerful political figures who feel responsible to local people for the performance of local schools. Mayors like Robin Wales and Jules Pipe in London, who see it as their personal responsibility to improve underperforming schools in east London, with impressive results.

Obviously, it is a matter for government whether the recent drive to devolve powers locally should include education. But, even without more formal powers, shouldn’t local politicians take more responsibility for education and expect more of their schools?

Improvement across such a complex system needs strong leadership that is aware of local weaknesses and isn’t afraid to confront vested interests. In such a complex system, parents need clarity about who will stand up for them and their children. In such a complex system, someone with local knowledge needs to ensure that there are good schools for all, not just for those lucky enough to live in the right postcodes.

It can be done. Improvements in London are beginning to radiate across the capital and into surrounding areas as schools and politicians set higher and higher expectations. London has become a nursery for success. I know of outstanding headteachers who have chosen to leave the capital and work further afield.

If it can happen in London, it can happen elsewhere. But it won’t happen by accident or committee. Local politicians in Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool and Leeds now need to provide the leadership and drive regardless of the powers bequeathed by Whitehall.

A truly comprehensive system

The second issue we have to address is the lingering damage caused by the botched reform of our schools in the ’60s and ’70s. Let me say straightaway that I am not going to argue for selection or a return to grammar schools. But the ideologues who drove the comprehensive agenda confused equality with equity. They took it to mean that one size should fit all.

As a consequence, there was a wholesale dumbing down of standards. It meant aggressive anti-elitism. It meant glittering prizes for all, whether merited or not. It meant scorning attempts to celebrate excellence. It meant paying scant regard to literacy, numeracy and good behaviour. It meant the erosion of headteacher authority by militant unionism.

For those who can’t remember those times, look up the history of Highbury Grove, or Holland Park or Hackney Downs to see what can go badly wrong in schools more interested in ideological conformity than educational excellence. Look up the initiatives that encrusted schools like useless barnacles, such as the SMILE maths programme, which encouraged children to amble up to the filing cabinet, pick out their worksheet and learn at their own speed.

I’m pleased to say that much of that nonsense has gone. There is now a growing awareness of the needs of different pupils. However, as I said at the beginning, the one-size-fits-all approach still lets down far too many, particularly at both ends of the ability spectrum. The most able are not being stretched. The options for those who struggle are limited. And too few children have access to a curriculum that prepares them for the workplace.

There is another, unremarked disadvantage to many comprehensive schools. They expect teachers to do too many things. Some teachers are good at teaching able students; others are better with youngsters with special educational needs. Teachers, like everyone else, are rarely good at everything. Yet many comprehensives treat them as if they are. In smaller secondaries, with limited numbers of staff, they have no choice but to do this.

Teachers may be required to teach a high-flying sixth form group in one lesson and a low-ability Year 7 group in the next. On top of this, they are expected to be pastoral tutors, behaviour experts, playground patrollers and outreach workers. It’s no wonder they become exhausted. It isn’t good for them, the students or the school.

We have a real opportunity to put this right. The raising of the participation age to 18, the increased freedoms offered to school leaders, the incentives for schools to collaborate within academy trusts provide us with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a smarter comprehensive system, without the need for more legislation or further structural change.

Let me explain what I mean. If I were running a group of schools, I would include both primaries and secondaries. I would make sure the primary schools were either working closely with local nurseries or taking children from the age of 2 into on-site early years provision. I would work with local health visitors to make sure disadvantaged 2 year olds were taking available places.

I would make sure the secondary schools learnt from what is working well at primary. I would make sure the different phases worked together to understand and track pupil progress. And I would appoint a heavy-hitting senior leader to track free school meal pupils from one phase to the next.

I would include in my federation a 14-19 university technical college that would admit youngsters across the ability range to focus on apprenticeships at levels 4, 3 and 2. It would not be a dumping ground for the disaffected and cater just for the lower-ability youngsters.

Careers advice across the federation would be a priority, with a real focus on Year 9 to ensure that each student, at the end of Key Stage 3, had a clear sense of the different pathways in front of them.

In my ideal federation, English, maths and science teachers would be contracted to work in the partnership and would be obliged to move across the different schools in the consortium. I would encourage extensive business and school links and introduce salary incentives to attract the best leaders to work in the more complex and challenging institutions.

Working in this joined-up way across phases and school types would have 3 powerful effects. First, youngsters would be able to transfer across institutions in the cluster and access high-level academic and technical study.

Second, teachers would have better opportunities for increased specialisation and professional development.

Third, if done transparently and effectively, such federations would allow improvements to cascade through the system because they would be implemented across the organisation and not left to individual schools.

Let me be clear – what I would want to offer is not selection at 14 but maximum opportunity at 14. Above all, I would want all routes through the federation to have equal prestige in the eyes of pupils, teachers and parents.

School leadership

As I said earlier, creating a federation like that would not require legislation or massive structural change. But it would require leadership, imagination and courage. Leadership is the third aspect of the system that I believe is crucial for wide-ranging school improvement. So we have to ask ourselves – do we have enough people with the right skills? And if we don’t – what are we going to do about it?

This isn’t just a question of raw numbers. It is also about the need to identify talented individuals and incentivize them to move to the schools that need them most. As we move to a much more autonomous system, with so much depending on appointing people who know how to use the freedoms given to them, it is vital that we do more to nurture leadership.

All our evidence shows that it is good leadership that makes the biggest difference to school standards. Yet, many areas of the country, especially those with a disproportionate amount of poorly performing schools, simply do not have access to the calibre of leadership required. What’s worse, there is no reliable regional data to highlight what the local situation really is.

Our inspections of the weakest academy chains show that they have the same problems as weak local authorities – poor governance, confusing lines of responsibility, insufficient monitoring and inadequate intervention.

More and more responsibility now rests with chief executives of academy trusts. Yet how many programmes are there to train them in best practice? How are we making sure we identify potential leaders at an early stage of their careers? How are we incentivising them? What programmes are in place to support them? Far too few, I fear.

No organisation in the private sector would have such a haphazard approach to leadership training. Indeed, it’s hard to believe any other service in the public sector has such a laissez-faire attitude to career development. Can you imagine a trainee medic not being aware of the ladder they have to climb if they wish to progress and the training necessary for it? But that is the state of affairs confronting our young teachers.

You highlight in your paper a number of schools that are already achieving your targets. I know many of the headteachers of these schools well. The reason they are good is because they learnt their craft working with successful heads elsewhere. This model needs to be developed nationally. Leaving it to the market will not do. We can’t leave it, for example, to a mediocre academy chain with a paucity of good leaders to model excellent practice from which others can learn. It needs a national programme, bought into by everyone and which harnesses the support of the best heads in the land.

There are, of course, admirable leadership programmes set up by charities such as Future Leaders. But they are too small and piecemeal to address the entire problem. If we are to meet the targets you have set for 2030, we have to expand the best practice you have identified in a few schools across the whole country. If we are to improve our secondary schools we must beef up our leadership programmes. That requires joined-up thinking. It requires a far more strategic approach to leadership training.

Conclusion

I hope it is clear that I am not offering a counsel of despair but a call to arms. I share your ambitions for a step change in the quality of English education. But this will only happen if we address the confusion around school accountability, if we encourage schools of all types to work together in tight partnerships and federations. Most of all, we must stop paying lip service to improving vocational education and get on and do it.

It means we need national politicians to step up to the plate and we need local politicians to take more responsibility for education standards in their area. It means we need joined-up accountability and school partnerships that cater for the needs of all pupils. And it means identifying and developing the next generation of school leaders so that they can create the conditions in which teachers can thrive.

We are right to be ambitious. The conditions are there. We need to act now and we need to act together, because history will not forgive us if we let this moment pass.

Thank you.

January 19, 2016