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Category: Speeches

  • George Osborne – 2008 Speech to the Annual CPS Lecture

    gosborne

    I’d like to thank Jill Kirby and the Centre for Policy Studies for inviting me here today to give this Annual Lecture.

    The CPS helped to lay the intellectual foundations for the arrival of a transforming Conservative Government in 1979.

    I hope that you can do the same for us today.

    After all, many of the immediate problems we face are eerily reminiscent of the late 1970s.

    Rising inflation – which hit an eleven year high today – rising oil prices, and a deteriorating fiscal position, to take just three examples.

    David Cameron this morning set out the Conservative Economic Recovery Plan that we have developed to address the immediate challenges of the economic slowdown and the credit crunch.

    This evening I want to talk about our long term economic goals.

    I want to argue that fixing our broken society is integral to building a strong economy.

    Listen to our Prime Minister and you get the impression that social problems and economic problems are entirely separate.

    One day the Government is talking about knife crime – the next it’s about the banking system.

    One Minister delivers a speech about school discipline – another has an announcement about the housing market.

    We need to bring these different threads together.

    Labour came to power promising to deliver both social justice and economic efficiency.

    After 11 years, the evidence shows that they have fundamentally failed to deliver on either.

    We Conservatives understand that they are really two sides of the same coin.

    Of course we know that you cannot improve social conditions without economic success.

    But the crucial insight for modern Conservatives is that in the new global economy you cannot have economic success without social success.

    The formula for economic success in this new global economy is no mystery.

    Low tax rates and a simple tax system to attract and retain mobile capital and talent – an area where Britain used to be strong but is losing ground fast.

    Light touch regulation to keep down costs and avoid stifling innovation.

    A flexible labour market that allows employers to respond to fast changing market conditions.

    Reliable and cost effective energy and transport infrastructure.

    An efficient system of government support for investment in science and technology.

    And, probably most important of all, a motivated and educated workforce that can adapt to new technologies and working practices.

    But while other countries have used the last decade of global economic growth to improve their competitiveness, our Government failed to use the good times to prepare us for tougher times ahead.

    Where they have cut their tax rates, improved their fiscal positions and reformed their public services, our corporate tax rate has fallen from 4th lowest in the EU to 19th lowest, our budget deficit is the largest of any major economy, and Gordon Brown has blocked the necessary reform of our public services.

    So it will fall to the next Government to restore our competitiveness.

    Some of the necessary reforms can be implemented immediately – and we are doing the hard work now on building a simpler tax system, reducing regulation, reforming our public services and improving our infrastructure in the broadest sense.

    But some of the most important changes will require us to tackle the deep rooted social problems that are holding us back.

    So we know that we have to improve the quality of Britain’s education.

    Because educational failure doesn’t just hold back the potential of millions of our children, it also undermines our country’s ability to compete in the age of the knowledge economy.

    We understand that it’s our job to bring about a revolution in our welfare system.

    Because not only do persistent worklessness and the poverty it brings blight too many people and too many of our communities, they also deprive us of the motivated workforce that our companies need in order to compete. In a global economy that puts a premium on the highly skilled, Britain cannot afford to be held back by the drag anchor of millions of people who lack skills or aspirations.

    And we recognise that we have to mend Britain’s broken society.

    Not just because social breakdown causes misery for millions of families, but because we will never achieve the low tax economy that international competitiveness demands unless we reduce the long term demands on the state.

    We have pledged to share the proceeds of growth, so that government grows more slowly than the trend rate of the economy over the cycle.

    That means that government spending will fall as a proportion of GDP.

    That’s the only way to restore our public finances to health and build the headroom for sustainably lower taxes.

    Of course we can make Whitehall more efficient and streamlined, and we must.

    But to get government to live within its means we have to tackle the real drivers of the growing state at source.

    So those who say that the Conservatives spend too much time talking about society and not enough time talking about the economy don’t understand that this is a false choice.

    Reducing educational failure, tackling worklessness and poverty, mending our broken society – these are all progressive social goals that we have rightly put at the very centre of our agenda.

    And the failures of the last decade to achieve these goals give us the opportunity to demonstrate that they can only be achieved through Conservative means.

    But they are also essential economic goals.

    And so achieving these progressive goals through Conservative means will be at the heart of our long term economic strategy.

    Let me explain how.

    First, the progressive goal of reducing educational failure.

    The last eleven years have been a huge missed opportunity in our schools.

    Despite big increases in spending, this country has one of the highest levels of educational inequality in the Western world.

    The attainment of our lowest achievers has not improved significantly since 1998.

    And educational inequality is getting worse – the proportion of pupils in the most deprived areas gaining five good GCSEs fell from 28% in 2005 to 25% in 2007, while the proportion in the least deprived areas increased from 56% to 68%.

    What’s progressive about that?

    If we are really serious about ending child poverty and reducing inequality we have to end the educational poverty trap that is deeply embedded in some of our poorest areas.

    But educational failure is also holding back our economy.

    All the academic evidence tells us that skills are one of the most important drivers of economic growth in the global economy.

    Of course that means more scientists, more engineers and more world class universities are crucial.

    We are constantly told about the hundreds of thousands of scientists and engineers being trained each year in China and India, even if some of the qualifications they are getting are of questionable quality.

    The numbers sound overwhelming, but as any economist will tell you, it’s not quantities on their own that matter, it’s prices. And in this case that means wages.

    The really important implication of globalisation for our education system is that the returns to education and skills are rising, as is the penalty for educational failure.

    It’s those with a good education and the right skills who are best placed to share in the rewards of the new global economy, while those with low skills face an increasingly uncertain future of falling relative wages and competition from the developing world.

    Yet international comparisons show that where Britain lags furthest behind our competitors is in a long tail of educational underachievement and low skills.

    The proportion of adults in the UK without the equivalent of a basic school-leaving qualification is double that of Germany and almost three times that of the United States.

    Children leaving school without a good grasp of basic literacy and mathematics are increasingly ill-equipped to succeed in the new global economy.

    Our school system is still producing too many of them.

    For all their fine sounding rhetoric, Labour’s top-down approach has failed.

    Increased spending has not produced results and too many parents are still denied a real choice of schools.

    So how will we use conservative means to achieve the progressive goal of reducing educational failure?

    By focusing on standards – with synthetic phonics to eradicate reading failure.

    By getting a grip on school discipline and focusing more on what goes on inside the classroom.

    And crucially, by breaking open the state’s monopoly on the provision of state education to create more good school places.

    The Green Paper published by Michael Gove has set out detailed proposals to create over 220,000 good school places in new Academies run by educational charities, companies, philanthropists, teachers and parents.

    These will be targeted at the poorest pupils, with more money made available for children from the poorest background through a ‘pupil premium’, which will make sure that extra funds follow those pupils to the school that educates them.

    That means schools will be actively incentivised to seek out and accept pupils from more challenging backgrounds.

    This completely turns the current situation on its head.

    Under our system, schools will be competing for the most disadvantaged pupils, not trying to keep them out.

    What’s more, any maintained schools that are deemed to be persistently failing will be taken out of local authority control and handed over to an independent, voluntary or co-operative provider.

    As we’ve seen from Sweden, empowering parents in this way can have a huge impact when it comes to raising standards and tackling inequality.

    This is the perfect example of how to achieve progressive goals by conservative means – not the dead hand of government control, but breaking open state monopolies and allowing innovation to flourish.

    It’s what we mean by the post-bureaucratic age – not top-down but bottom-up.

    The second progressive goal I want to discuss is reducing worklessness.

    We should never forget that getting people off state benefits and into work is a fundamentally progressive goal.

    The evidence is now overwhelming that worklessness and benefit dependency are at the very core of the cycle of poverty that blights so many of our communities.

    No wonder idleness was one of the five evils that William Beveridge spelled out in his defining work on the case for a welfare state.

    And Beveridge himself made it clear that he did not see state handouts as the answer.

    As he put it: “Idleness is not the same as want, but a separate evil, which men do not escape by having an income.”

    These words are just as relevant today as they were sixty years ago.

    Yet Britain has a higher proportion of its children living in workless households than any other EU country.

    One in five grow up in households dependent on out of work benefits

    And as the OECD confirmed last week, youth unemployment is higher than in 1997.

    Let’s just focus on this stunning fact – after all Gordon Brown’s boasts about the New Deal and his pledges on youth unemployment, the unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds in Britain is now above the OECD average, having been well below it in 1997.

    Know that one fact and you know why Labour has failed.

    The same is true for the proportion of the age group who are not in education, employment or training – the NEETs.

    What’s more, as the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has found, the indirect effect of Gordon Brown’s reliance on means-tested benefits to tackle poverty “might be to increase poverty through weakening incentives for parents to work.”

    There’s nothing progressive about that.

    But this social failure is also an economic failure.

    Of course worklessness is a huge burden on the public finances.

    David Freud’s excellent report on welfare reform calculated that every person who moves off benefits and into work saves the exchequer more than £5,000 a year, and that’s even before taking into account the taxes they will pay on their income.

    But worklessness is also a huge waste of economic potential.

    It robs individuals of their chance to participate in the global economy, and it robs employers of the motivated workforce that they need in order to compete.

    It is, frankly, just not good enough that after fifteen years of global economic growth almost five million people are on out-of-work benefits – more than 15% of the labour force.

    That’s why the radical plans for welfare reform that Chris Grayling has set out are both a social and an economic imperative.

    We will mobilise the energies of civil society by paying competing private and voluntary providers according to the results they achieve.

    Instead of relying on the old-fashioned mechanisms of bureaucratic top-down state intervention, we will back the modern mechanisms of civil society: the social entrepreneurs, the community organisations and the responsible businesses that will drive social progress in the post-bureaucratic age.

    We have seen how this radical approach has proven so effective in countries like Australia and the United States.

    Because providers will be paid not only for finding people work, but keeping them in jobs, they will be incentivised to offer proper training to claimants, giving them skills that will not only help them to get a job, but also to stay in that job and progress in the labour market.

    And because we will not prescribe exactly what support the providers must provide, they will have the freedom to offer innovative and individualised services.

    If you look at Australia and the United States, you find providers offering mock interviews, personalised advice and work experience schemes.

    And of course, all this goes hand in hand with a focus on full-time activity for those potentially able to work and much tougher sanctions for those who are not willing to participate in the return to work process.

    Introduced in Britain, these changes would constitute the biggest change to the modern welfare state since its creation.

    They will provide ladders of opportunity to millions of people, and combined with our commitment to use the savings to end the couple penalty in the tax credit system we believe they will directly lift almost half a million children out of poverty.

    At the same time they will start to reduce the burden of worklessness on the public finances and help to provide the workforce that businesses need to compete in the global economy.

    Combined with the ideas on reforming our insolvency regime that David Cameron set out this morning, this system will also provide us with a strategy to deal with any increases in unemployment over the coming months and years.

    The third goal I want to discuss is the most ambitious – mending our broken society.

    There’s no doubt that this is a progressive goal.

    Because the link between family breakdown and the risk of poverty is well established, yet Britain has one of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe.

    Because alcohol and drug abuse destroy lives and families, yet alcohol consumption by children has doubled in the last fifteen years, and we have the highest level of problem drug use in Europe.

    And because families in poverty often suffer the most from Labour’s failure to tackle crime, especially violent crime.

    But mending our broken society is also an economic imperative, because we will never achieve the low tax economy that international competitiveness demands unless we reduce the long term demands on the state.

    Of course we can make Whitehall more efficient and streamlined, and we are developing the plans to do exactly that.

    But that won’t be enough – the long term public finance projections published at the last Budget show that on the basis of current policies, government spending is forecast to grow by almost 5% of GDP over the next fifty years.

    That’s £70 billion in current prices, or 14 pence on the basic rate of income tax – when what our economy needs in the face of fierce global competition is lower taxes not higher.

    To get government to live within its means we have to tackle the real drivers of the growing state at source.

    But make no mistake, reducing the long-term demands on the state will not happen overnight.

    There are no shortcuts.

    Our welfare and education reforms will obviously play an integral role.

    By tackling worklessness and giving people the opportunities and skills they need to succeed, they will help us tackle the long-term causes of dependence and poverty.

    Our rehabilitation revolution in prisons will use the same Conservative means to tackle the cycle of re-offending – not top-down control from the centre, but giving private companies and charities the freedom to innovate and paying them by the results they achieve.

    But we won’t make a lasting difference unless we also make Britain more family friendly.

    Iain Duncan Smith’s Social Justice Policy Group estimated that the cost of family breakdown is now well over £20 billion a year.

    In fact, I genuinely don’t think we’ll ever get to the heart of the big problems we face, from crime and anti-social behaviour to welfare dependency and educational failure, from debt and drug addiction to entrenched poverty and stalled social mobility, if we don’t do everything we can to support Britain’s families.

    Of course, every family is different, and every family has different needs and different pressures at different times.

    So we need a sensible, practical range of family centric policies.

    For a start, we need to sweep away Labour’s policies that actually make it pay for families to break up.

    That is why we will end Labour’s couple penalty in the tax credits system, giving 1.8 million couples up to £1,800 more a year.

    This will be delivered as savings are generated through our radical programme of welfare reform.

    And we are committed to introducing a recognition of marriage into the tax system.

    But of course, there’s more to families than money.

    It’s a startling fact that parents are more likely to split up in the first year after their child’s birth than at any other time.

    So we need to provide targeted support to help families cope with the unique stresses and strains of parenthood.

    We’ve already set out our plans to offer all parents flexible working.

    And we’ve announced that we will use savings from existing budgets to provide a universal health visiting service, with the health visitor acting as the trusted gateway to other services that a family might need – including relationship support.

    Supporting families, then, is another Conservative approach that will help us achieve progressive goals where Labour has so clearly failed.

    So this is our strategy for building a strong economy.

    In the short term we must tackle the immediate problems that rising inflation and the credit crunch are causing families and businesses, as David Cameron set out this morning.

    And in the long term we must restore our flagging competitiveness.

    That means a simpler tax system, lower regulation and rebuilding our infrastructure.

    But it also means tackling the deep social problems that are holding us back.

    So, a schools revolution to reduce educational failure and equip our children with the skills they need in the knowledge economy.

    A welfare revolution to reduce persistent worklessness and provide our businesses with the motivated workforce they need to compete.

    And mending our broken society so that we can tackle the drivers of state spending at source.

    In each case using Conservative means to achieve progressive ends.

    And in each case by achieving these progressive ends we will help to create the strong economy on which we all depend.

  • George Osborne – 2001 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

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    Below is the text of the maiden speech made in the House of Commons by George Osborne on 3rd July 2001.

    I congratulate my hon. Friends on their maiden speeches. They have a great advantage over me: they have completed this ordeal, which is still ahead of me.

    I should like to begin by paying tribute to my predecessor, Mr. Martin Bell. He was the first Independent Member elected to the House for 50 years. He tells the story of how, shortly after his election, he was invited to tea by Barbara Castle. Over tea and biscuits in the House of Lords, she summed up her advice, drawn from her 60-year career in politics. She said to him, “Young man”—which, he confesses, completely won him over—”whatever else you do, you must never be afraid to stand alone.” Of all people, this former war reporter probably needed that advice the least.

    Martin Bell had stood alone courageously in the Balkans when he reported the wars in that region in all their brutality. In the House, too, he stood alone. He stood alone when he forced the Government to find time to ratify the Ottawa convention on land mines. He stood alone when he controversially spoke out against the air strikes against Iraq. He also stood alone when he campaigned to overturn 50 years of Whitehall stonewalling on the question of far east prisoners of war.

    Be it Serbia, NATO or the Ministry of Defence, Martin Bell took on powerful opponents and won. However, two opponents in the end defeated him. The first, I am happy to say, was my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) who defeated him in the general election. The second was the Speaker’s Chair, because he campaigned long and hard for the Cross Benches below the Bar of the House to be recognised as part of the Chamber, but he failed miserably. That is a good lesson to all new Members on the power of the Speaker’s Chair in such matters.

    Many people come to the House as idealists and leave it as cynics. I have got to know Martin Bell quite well in the past couple of years, and it strikes me that he came to the House as a cynic and left as an idealist. The man in the white suit will be as missed in the corridors of the Palace of Westminster as he will be by people on the streets of the Tatton constituency, whose interests he represented so well. I am greatly honoured to take his place in the House.

    The very name of the Cheshire constituency that I now represent is a clue to the fact that it is not a single community, but a collection of communities. Tatton is not a town or a village. In fact, no one lives in Tatton—or not any more. Tatton is a building. I believe that I am one of only two Members whose constituency is named after a building. If hon. Members are trying to remember who the other one is, I shall put them out of their misery—it is the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Lepper).

    Unlike the Brighton Pavilion, Tatton Park is the rather austere, imposing ancestral home of the Lords Egerton, who are now deceased. It is now the National Trust’s most visited property, and home to many popular exhibitions and concerts in my constituency. On Tatton Park’s doorstep is the beautiful and historic market town of Knutsford. Once a major stop for travellers on the road to Manchester, it has long been replaced in that function by the less historic and frankly less beautiful M6 Knutsford service station. Thankfully, the coaching inns on King street remain, and more leisurely tourists still visit in large numbers.

    Knutsford got its name from the place where the Danish King, King Canute, forded the River Lily—hence Canute’s ford. I can report to the House that the majority of the residents in Knutsford, like me, take what could be called a Danish view of the Government’s plan to join the single currency. Knutsford may be steeped in history but it has its modern problems, such as the constant pressure of development and traffic and the fear of crime. I shall seek to overturn the recent decision of Home Office Ministers—the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is a former Home Office Minister—to deny us funding for closed circuit television. There is also the noise and pollution from Manchester airport’s second runway. One of my priorities will be to try to change the law to allow airports to fine planes that deviate unnecessarily from agreed flight routes and noise limits.

    Around Knutsford stretches the fertile Cheshire plain, in which lie the beautiful rural villages of Mobberley, Pickmere, Plumley, Allostock, Byley, Whitley, Comberbach and Lower Peover—I have left out half of them. Lower Peover is an idyllic village with a fantastic local pub called “The Bells of Peover”, in which General Eisenhower and General Patton once planned the D-day landings. These days drinkers plan who will buy the next round.

    All those villages have suffered from the collapse of rural services, the deep recession in agriculture and the disaster of foot and mouth disease, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) eloquently referred. Farmers in Crowley, who are now struggling with a recent outbreak, or employees at the Chelford market who have seen their jobs disappear, do not agree with the Prime Minister that we are on the home stretch in tackling the consequences of this disease. I shall do everything that I can to ensure that Cheshire’s rural communities get the support they need.

    On the western edge of the constituency are Barnton, Rudheath and Anderton—three suburbs of the old ICI salt town of Northwich—which have often been neglected in the politics of the constituency. I am determined that that will end. At the other end of the constituency lie the former cotton towns of Wilmslow and Handforth, and the famous village of Alderley Edge, which is known to locals for its infamous traffic problems. Together they make up a wonderful residential area that is also home to many successful companies, including the research laboratories of Astra Zeneca, where world-leading research is carried out into cancer and heart disease.

    Wilmslow is famous across Britain as the home of football players, “Coronation Street” stars and pop singers. However, the town’s most famous celebrity is known simply as Pete. He was an unfortunate man who was found garrotted, beaten and stabbed on Lindow common. Wilmslow is not a violent place, so that discovery came as a bit of a shock. The local police launched a murder investigation. Inquiries were made and suspects were interviewed, but even the excellent detective work of the Cheshire police could not solve this murder, for it turned out that Pete had been dead for 2,000 years, preserved in the peat bog that gave him his name. He now lives in the much safer surroundings of the British museum.

    Another famous Wilmslow resident was the code breaker and computer pioneer, Alan Turing. It is a sad irony that the man who did more than almost anyone else to defeat the Nazi tyranny by breaking the Enigma code was persecuted in Britain for his homosexuality, and committed suicide. It is a welcome sign of a more understanding age that a statue of Turing has just been unveiled in Manchester.

    Although much of the Tatton constituency is prosperous—not for nothing is it the place where Mr. Rolls met Sir Henry Royce—there are pockets of deprivation on the Longridge, Spath Lane and Colshaw Farm housing estates, and in many of the rural areas. I shall do everything that I can to help those communities.

    I am delighted to have been elected to represent such a tine constituency, but it deeply concerns me that so many fewer of my constituents chose to participate in the election. Our turnout, like that of many constituencies, fell by more than 10 per cent. Some people argue that that is nothing to worry about, as it is a sign of a contented population who are happy with the present state of affairs. I believe that that is a dangerous and mistaken understanding of what is happening out there in the country.

    My constituents are not content with the state of the national health service, the education system or the transport system. They are not happy to go on paying ever more taxes, or that their streets are not safe. Far from it—they are deeply angry about all those things, and they feel that we, their politicians, are not listening to them. The people of Cheshire feel remote from what is going on in Westminster. They see our debates and watch Ministers on television, but they do not hear much that relates to their daily lives. They feel even remoter from what is going on in the institutions of the European Union, whose financing we are discussing.

    New directives emerge from the bureaucratic ether, and no one bothers to explain to the people and the companies affected where they came from or why they are needed. Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is spent on hugely wasteful EU projects, such as the aid budget or the common agricultural policy. Everyone throws up their hands and says, “We know it’s a waste of money, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

    The politicians of Europe, including our own British Government, proceed down the path of ever closer European integration, drawing up plans for European armies, European constitutions and European taxes. No one stops to ask the people of Europe whether this is actually the direction in which they want to travel. It is striking that the only two countries that have asked their peoples, in the last year, whether they are happy with the direction that Europe is taking have received a resounding no as an answer. But the reaction of European politicians to the results of the Irish and Danish referendums has been to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that they did not happen.

    This Bill and the Bill that we shall debate tomorrow are supposed to pave the way for the enlargement of the European Union. No one is more passionate about enlargement than I am; no one is more anxious than I am to see the countries of central and eastern Europe brought in from the cold, and welcomed fully into the concert of democratic European nations. Let me declare an interest: I am part-Hungarian. My grandmother’s family fled to Britain from Budapest just after the war because they had lived through the devastation of the Nazi tyranny, and wanted to escape the tyranny of Soviet rule. In 1956, their house in London became a home for refugees from the Hungarian uprising.

    The lessons that I learn from my family’s past are these: one must not impose political systems on peoples who are unwilling to accept them; one should not allow a gap to open up between the governed and the governing; and one cannot afford to stop listening. The situations are of course very different, but the lessons are ones that we in Westminster, and those who are shaping the future of the European Union, would do well to remember.

    I thank the people of Tatton for sending me to this House.

  • Frances O’Grady – 2013 Speech on Blacklisting

    Below is the text of the speech made by Frances O’Grady against blacklisting on 20th November 2013.

    Brothers and sisters,

    I am proud to bring greetings and solidarity from the TUC.

    Proud to be part of this historic Day of Action.

    And proud to demand justice for thousands of blacklisted workers.

    Today we are joining together to speak with one voice.

    And from Westminster to Cardiff to Edinburgh ­we are speaking up for the thousands of ordinary men and women whose lives have been devastated by this disgusting practice.

    Denied the fundamental human right to work, to provide for their families, to enjoy any kind of standard of living.

    Let’s be clear.

    Penalising workers for their union activities or raising health and safety concerns has no place in any democratic or civilised society.

    We need action to stamp out the scourge of blacklisting – and we need it now.

    Brothers and sisters, this terrible practice has disfigured too many of our workplaces.

    And it continues to do so.

    Not just in the construction industry, where we know 40 firms have blacklisted workers.

    But also in rail engineering, in entertainment and in offshore oil and gas, where the letters NRB – not required back – still send a shiver down the spine.

    And there’s a real risk this Tory-led government could make matters worse.

    Because provisions in their rotten Lobbying Bill to make union membership lists open to scrutiny amount to little more than a Blacklisters’ Charter.

    Instead of giving the green light to unscrupulous employers, we need to show them the red card.

    Now is the time for them to own up, clean up and above all pay up.

    It’s a disgrace that none of the companies involved have faced any criminal sanctions.

    It’s an abomination that many continue to use blacklists.

    And it’s an outrage that not a single penny has been paid to the victims.

    So what can we do to put right these fundamental wrongs?

    Well, here’s a few suggestions from me.

    One: let’s have a full public inquiry into the scandal along the lines of the Leveson Inquiry into press behaviour.

    If celebrities and politicians have the right to find out the truth, then so too do ordinary working-class men and women.

    Two: let’s have legislation to stop blacklisting, with full legal protection for workers and proper penalties for employers found guilty of the practice.

    Three: let’s blacklist the blacklisters, encouraging organisations to follow the brilliant example of those 30 councils and public bodies who are preventing contracts being awarded to firms who blacklist workers.

    In plain English, it’s time to beat the bastards at their own game.

    And fourth: let’s ensure the voice of blacklisted workers is heard loud and clear in the corridors of power.

    I’m delighted to be speaking alongside Chuka, and I look forward to a future Labour government eradicating the blacklist once and for all.

    But I’m humbled to share this platform with workers who have lived with the consequences for years.

    And I want to finish by saying this to them.

    The TUC will keep fighting for justice.

    We stand with you in solidarity.

    We will work with you in the weeks and months ahead.

    And will not rest until this battle is won.

    Thanks for listening.

  • Frances O’Grady – 2013 Speech to TUC Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Frances O’Grady on 9th September 2013.

    President, Congress.

    Frances O’Grady, TUC, giving my first speech as General Secretary. And after seeing that film, ever more determined that our movement should help build a stronger, fairer Britain.

    We are now just 18 months away from a General Election. And the choice that the British people make could shape the kind of country we live in for generations.

    If we’ve learned anything since the financial crash, then it’s this: politics is too important to be left to the politicians.

    People don’t need us to tell them how tough life is for them. They want to hear the alternative. They want hope. And they want action.

    It was five years ago this month, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in New York, citing debt of over 600 billion dollars. A price tag on obscene greed and monumental stupidity that sent shock waves around the world.

    But the roots of the crash go deeper still – more than three decades to the election of Margaret Thatcher’s government. When the Right set out to break the post-war consensus.

    Once, it seemed everyone agreed that the State should provide decent public services and social security as a human shield against boom-bust capitalism. Everyone saw the value of a mixed economy that put the brakes on private monopolies and guaranteed a public realm.

    But no longer. What followed became the articles of a new economic faith. A fire-sale of public assets. Deregulation of the City. Weaker worker rights.

    And trade unions, once respected across the political spectrum for our role in fighting fascism and as a pillar of any free and democratic society, now treated with disdain.

    The values of a mythical middle England came to dominate, stretching the United Kingdom to breaking point.

    The City and the new kids on the block – private equity, hedge funds and share traders – increasingly called the shots. And they unleashed an escalation of greed and inequality that ultimately led to the financial crash. Creating a new Anglo-American model that was a kind of capitalism on crack cocaine.

    A legacy we’re living with today.

    But it hasn’t always been like this. Whatever happened to the Conservative Party that, over 100 years ago, backed Winston Churchill’s proposal for tripartite wages councils, so that every worker would be guaranteed a living wage? Whatever happened to the Conservative Party of John Major who at least felt obliged to promise voters a ‘Classless Society’?

    And whatever happened to the Conservative Party of Theresa May who once warned against becoming the Nasty Party. But who, just this summer, sent government funded vans onto the streets of multiracial London brandishing a slogan last used by the National Front?

    This Government seems intent on dividing Britain, Thatcher-style. Between those in work and those out of it. Between the tax top rate payers and everyone else. Between the metropolitan elite, with their country retreats in Chipping Norton, and the so-called desolate North.

    Governments may have had no choice about bailing out the banks. But they have got a political choice about what went wrong, and about where we go next.

    After all, the rest of continental Europe did not deliberately de-industrialise and make a fetish of financial services in the way that 1980s Britain did.

    And today, while workers in many countries have also seen their living standards fall, they have not taken the same hit we have, and trade unionism is not vilified in the same way.

    Even from the European engine room of austerity, the German Chancellor still defends co-determination. And her finance minister has called on business to meet union wage demands as a way to boost consumer demand.

    Here in the UK, more thoughtful Conservatives are nervous that this war on working people will lose votes. They admit that the Conservatives are seen as the party of the privileged.

    They worry that attacks on the unions of ordinary decent working men and women look high handed, cold-hearted and out of touch. To paraphrase Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, why can’t David Cameron be more like Angela Merkel?

    But instead of listening to his moderates, and perhaps against his own better judgement, the Prime Minister is in hock to those who demand an ever more uncompromising stance. ‘Plenty of ugly talk about a crackdown on migrants. But no crackdown on those bosses who use cheap labour to cut costs.

    Tough on welfare fraud for sure. But no sympathy for those unlucky enough to fall on hard times or lose their job.

    Freedom to raise prices for big business. But no pay rise for ordinary working families.

    Decent families up and down the land; facing worries that the Eton educated elite, with their serial holidays, hired help and inherited millions, simply haven’t got a clue about.

    And beyond the rhetoric, what has this government actually done to recover and rebalance Britain’s economy?

    Invest for the future in greening Britain’s infrastructure? No. Leave the banks alone and slash state capital investment by £22bn.

    Back Britain’s advanced manufacturing base? No. Hand out government contracts to the cheapest bidder regardless of the cost to local business and jobs.

    Build affordable housing? No. Launch a lending scheme that risks the very same perfect storm that got us into the mess in the first place. And then slap on a cruel bedroom tax.

    The government is rehearsing the same old arguments, repeating the same old mistakes, rehashing the same old bust model of an economy built on sand.

    I know Conservatives are fond of referring to PR man Lynton Crosby as their very own Wizard of Oz. But what does that make Cameron, Osborne and Clegg? When it comes to any vision for a new economy, they are the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion: No brain, no heart and no courage.

    In many ways it is a testimony to the enduring strength our trade union values of care, compassion and fairness that the Right has chosen to put us in the firing line.

    It explains why this week they are debating a Lobbying Bill that, far from dealing with the real dirt in politics, is designed to deny us a political voice.

    Now, debating the internal arrangements of the Labour Party and the role of its affiliated unions is not the business of Westminster, nor, indeed, of this Congress. And in the hall today we also have unions who are just as proud of their party political independence.

    But one thing is for sure. We are united in defending the basic democratic principle that ordinary people have the right to a political voice. That union money – the few pence freely given every week, by nurses, shop workers and truck drivers – is the cleanest cash in politics today. And that whether unions set up a political fund is a matter for members, not ministers.

    Because for too long, politics has been controlled by those who already have far too much money and far too much power.

    Half of the Conservative Party’s funding comes from the City. One third of their new intake of MPs are drawn from the banking industry alone. And we know what happens when the super-rich get to run the tax system.

    In contrast, unions are Britain’s biggest democratic membership movement of ordinary people. We are already required by law to report our membership records every year.

    We have more than ten times the membership of all of Britain’s political parties put together. It may even be more. The truth is, we simply don’t know. Because political parties don’t have to account for their members, in the way that we have to account for ours. In fact, the Conservative Party refuses point blank to say how many members it has.

    But, I’m pretty sure that David Cameron has fewer members than our very own Sally Hunt or Mike Clancy. And maybe even Bob Crow. So before he starts lecturing unions about transparency, the Prime Minister should take a long hard look in the mirror. We already publish our numbers. I challenge David Cameron to publish his.

    But more than all this. And here is the democratic bottom line.

    If unions were denied a political voice: We wouldn’t have had the 1944 Education Act; we wouldn’t have the NHS; we wouldn’t have equal pay for women; we wouldn’t have a minimum wage. And remember who first exposed the scandal of tax avoidance?

    Who first raised the alarm about falling living standards? And who first blew the whistle on zero-hours? You can see why some people want to shut us up.

    That is why we must now stand up for our rights. Not just union rights. Civil rights. People’s rights.

    ‘The government has attacked the union link to Labour. A link that, of course, will evolve and change over time. But their real aim is to discredit all unions.

    And the reason is clear: we stand for popular policies to shift wealth and power from the few to the many.

    So if they can’t win the policy argument, then attack them as ‘trade union demands’. If they don’t like what we say, call us ‘union paymasters’. And if all else fails, then try the old trick of smears.

    The government may be preparing for a humiliating climb down on some of the worst parts of the lobbying bill. But don’t be fooled into thinking the battle for civil liberties has been won. Unions still will be hit by cuts in funding limits. Many charities could still find themselves clobbered. And, shockingly, one thing is sure, this Bill will virtually close down Hope not Hate and Unite Against Fascism in what amounts to a free gift to the BNP. This government should be ashamed of themselves.

    Congress, this is an anti-democratic, dangerous bill, and it must be defeated.

    But delegates I also need to issue a challenge to the cynics within our own ranks too. We’ve all heard those who tell us that the next election does not matter. You don’t have to go far to hear people say there’s no difference between the parties, it doesn’t matter who wins, they’re all in it for themselves.

    I respect their right to an opinion but I must tell you they are wrong. The result of the next election does matter. It matters a lot. To the unemployed teenager, desperate for a decent job. To the young family, hoping for a decent home. And to the elderly, the disabled and their carers, who know there must be a better way.

    For trade unionists to argue that voting is a waste of time is a dangerous game that plays into the hands of our opponents.

    Because ever since the Chartists first lifted their banners, the democratic voice of the people has always been our best weapon against rule by the markets, the rich and the powerful. To deny that would be a betrayal of the millions of our members whose jobs, living standards and pay depends on it.

    I am not arguing that we should button up and keep quiet in the run up to the election. Nor that we should be put up with a vanilla version of austerity. On the contrary.

    But it does mean that we have to roll up our sleeves and help shape the choices on offer. We need to win public opinion to our policies. And we need to prove that they are election winners.

    Remember when we first campaigned for a minimum wage?

    The business lobby said it would wreck the economy and politicians trembled. Now it’s as much part of the mainstream British culture as curry and chips.

    It’s time for us to push the same kind of ambitious policies – to transform our economy, improve working lives and change the country for the better. A popular programme that can inspire voter confidence. A test of both values and valour.

    I’m going to tell you what should go on a pledge card. And, today, I challenge politicians from all parties to say where they stand on it.

    First, decent jobs.

    It’s time to restore that goal of full employment, and give a cast iron jobs guarantee for the young. Full employment is the best way to boost the economy, drive up living standards and generate the tax that we need to pay down the deficit.

    And let’s be clear, the reason why low-paid jobs are growing is because people have no choice but to take them. That is wrong. Employers should compete for staff. Not the other way around.

    Now, George Osborne will say – but how are you going to pay for it? Well, of course the best way to pay for it is by getting economic growth. That’s why we need to invest in an intelligent industrial strategy for the future. But if the Chancellor wants to talk numbers here’s a big one. According to the Rich List, since the crash, the 1,000 richest people in Britain increased their wealth by no less than £190bn. That’s nearly double the entire budget for the NHS.

    So when they ask how we’ll pay for it, let’s tell them. Fair taxes – that’s how.

    One of the best ways to create jobs and apprenticeships would be to build new houses. And that’s pledge number two. One million new council and affordable homes. Our country has a desperate shortage of housing. That means landlords rake it in and the housing benefit bill rockets. It drives up the cost of a buying a home, and puts people in more debt.

    So cut the waiting lists, stop another bubble and let’s build the homes young families need.

    Pledge number three: fair pay – and new wages councils to back it up. Of course the national minimum wage should go up and we need tough enforcement. But take one look at company profits and you’ll see that there are plenty of industries that could, and should, pay more.

    That’s why we need new wages councils, so unions and employers get around the table and negotiate.

    That’s the way to guarantee not just a minimum wage, not just a living wage but a fair wage, and fair shares of the wealth workers help create.

    And pledge number four could be the most popular one of all. Let’s pledge that the NHS will once again be a public service run for people and not for profit.

    Let’s make adult social care a community responsibility by bringing it together with the NHS. That would save money because good social care helps elderly people stay at home when they want to be, instead of in hospital when they don’t. And while we’re about it, let’s have a proper system of care for our children too.

    So instead of shrinking the welfare state, let’s strengthen it. That’s the way to build a stronger economy too.

    And five – fair rights at work. No more union busting. No more blacklisting. And no more zero hours.

    Instead we need decent employment rights; strong unions with the freedom to organise, and a bit more economic democracy. We already work with the best employers, keeping workers healthy and safe, giving them the chance to learn new skills, guaranteeing fair pay and fair treatment.

    Through the worst of the recession, we made thousands of agreements to save jobs and keep plants open.

    And let me say this, I believe there isn’t a boardroom in Britain that wouldn’t benefit from giving ordinary workers a voice.

    Of course these aren’t the only issues on which we campaign. We oppose the creeping privatisation of our education system. We want our railways returned to public ownership. And let’s send a strong message from this Congress – we will fight this latest senseless, sell-off of the family silver – hands off our Royal Mail.

    We’ve got sensible policies. Good policies. Popular policies. And their importance is that, together, they make a promise of a better future. They cut through the pessimism, and give people confidence.

    So I want to end not just by asking Congress to back the General Council statement that I move today.

    But more importantly: To unite. To organise. And to campaign.

    As the late, great poet Seamus Heaney, wrote: ‘Move lips, move minds and let new meanings flare’.

    For the people we saw on that film. For a new economy that puts the interests of working people at its heart. For our values of equality, solidarity and democracy.

    So that, together, we build a Britain of which we can be proud.

  • Frances O’Grady – 2012 Speech to TUC Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Frances O’Grady to the TUC Conference in Brighton on 11th September 2012.

    Well Brothers. You’ve been thinking about this for 144 years. Now….I don’t want to rush you but… Are you really sure?

    And, sisters, will you join me in giving notice to anyone who still thinks that women are the weaker sex – you better think again.

    I want to thank you and your unions for nominating me to become General Secretary of the TUC. There is no greater honour.

    And I also want to give my personal thanks to Brendan. Brendan has always shown me respect. He has always consulted me and encouraged me. And, when times were tough, he has always backed me.

    He has taught me that we work best when we work as a team. And for that I also want to thank our TUC staff, whose talent and commitment is second to none. Brendan – I couldn’t have wished for a better boss or a better friend. Thank you.

    Delegates, we are the voice of millions of working people, men and women, black and white, migrant worker or British-born, including many who are not yet our members. Millions of ordinary families who are under unprecedented pressure but who want hope for the future.

    I will make sure that our voice is heard day in day out. That our concerns can’t be ignored, dismissed or marginalised. I will not let any government, or any party, take us for granted.

    Of course our movement must be open to change. And change we will in the months and years ahead.

    Not just talking to ourselves, about ourselves. But reaching out more. Campaigning more. And, if needs be, fighting back more.

    I will put the TUC, Congress House and our regions at the heart of the values, hopes and campaigns that you – our affiliated unions – all share.

    Change must mean a banking system that serves the real economy, not just itself. Change must mean a green industrial strategy that puts Britain back to work. Change must mean public services, publicly owned – not just our precious NHS but child care, elder care. And our railways too. And change must mean not just a minimum wage, not just a living wage, but a fair wage for the people of this country.

    That means finding new ways to rebuild the scope and coverage of collective bargaining, our bread and butter work. New ways to humanise work, recognising we all have a right to family life. And it means new ways to win more democracy for ordinary people at work.

    Because no one has a greater interest in the future success of the workplace than those whose livelihoods depend on it.

    That collective strength has never been more needed in Britain today. It is our only protection against greed, injustice and the abuse of power.

    There are many ways to tackle the obscenity of inequality. But there is none more effective than strong trade unions.

    Weak unions mean wider inequality. Strong unions are the surest measure of a fairer society.

    On October 20th I will be proud to stand at the head of what must be a truly mass demonstration – the TUC giving expression to the fears and hopes of the British people in a way that no other organisation, no other movement could do.

    We are still the biggest organisation in civil society, our tens of thousands of elected representatives – people like you – are the Big Society.

    Our values represent everything that is best in our society. Decency. Democracy. Fairness. These are my values – our values, trade union values. Together we can win, we will build for a future that works.

  • Frances O’Grady – 2003 Speech to TUC Disability Conference

    Below is the text of a speech made by Frances O’Grady at the TUC Disability Conference which was held in Blackpool on Tuesday 9th December 2003.

    The TUC is delighted once again that the minister for disabled people has joined us for our conference. I know that you have always demonstrated a strong commitment to the same causes that the TUC supports, and that the work you have been doing to advance the rights of disabled people has been very important – even if we may sometimes have disagreements over some aspects. I am very pleased that you have been so interested in hearing our views, and that you recognise that the TUC is a strong and principled voice for equality, and that the people we represent have experiences that are really important, and have opinions based on real life that certainly help us at the TUC to arrive at our conclusions. We are very pleased as well that you have always agreed to stay to take questions from our delegates, because that way you get, directly, a flavour of what these experiences are, and what our members’ views are.

    I know that the whole conference will be looking forward to hearing from you this afternoon, and I imagine that you will be telling us a little bit about the new disability bill that you announced just last week. At this conference last year, delegates were keen to discuss what changes need to be made to existing disability law, and no less keen that, as soon as possible, the Government should deliver on its undertaking to reform the DDA. At the previous year’s conference, so strongly did the conference feel about this, that it voted to select, from all the motions agreed at the conference, a motion calling for a strong new disability bill to submit to the TUC Congress – where as you may know, it was debated and carried unanimously. Last year, we were very disappointed that up to that time, no progress had been secured in this vital question.

    Now, since this has been the European Year of Disabled People, it has been especially appropriate that we will now have a draft bill to consider. We know, of course, that the prejudice and discrimination faced by our disabled citizens cannot be removed just by having good legal rights – although having good legal rights would be a step forward indeed! That is why we will listen very closely to what you have to say about the scope of the new bill, and why I can promise conference that the TUC will consult closely with the unions as we go into the New Year to prepare a submission to help make the bill as strong as possible.

    Conference will know too that as part of the TUC’s commitment to achieving equality for disabled people, we have been campaigning on several fronts during the last year. We have organised training for thousands of workplace representatives to deal with the connection between disability rights and health and safety issues in the workplace. We have continued to advance the arguments for improvements to the benefits system, as part of our approach of making it more possible for those disabled people who are out of work, but who want to work and who can work, to move into work.

    But the biggest public thing we have been doing this year has been our petition, and on behalf of the TUC I want to thank every union here that helped us in this campaign for their contribution. Through promoting this petition, we have taken the message to thousands of trade union members, disabled but also non-disabled, that the TUC wants the law changed, that we want it changed as soon as possible, and that we want it changed significantly, so that some of the most serious problems with the DDA are got rid of. And our members have responded powerfully, and we have the petition here with us, and Maria [Eagle MP], in a few moments, it will be my privilege and honour to present it to you on behalf of the British trade union movement.

    But as I have already said, however good we manage to make the law, the challenge we all face is much deeper. We know that at a time when employment rates in Britain are as good as they have ever been, the proportion of disabled people of working age who want to work but are out of work has moved up, but only by a small percentage. We are worried that for every step of progress made in climbing this mountain, where employers come to understand the value and the need to recruit disabled workers, at the other end of the scale other disabled workers are being forced out, made redundant, given early ill health or disability retirement. Many of those who do find work are to be found in low paid and insecure jobs, in so many cases unable to afford to contribute to pension funds. So the cycle of poverty continues into retirement even when people do find employment. There are many other issues, too, that relate to this crucial challenge, and it was a motion on this topic that the conference selected last year to send to the 2003 TUC Congress.

    What are the answers? Well, if ever there was a need for a joined-up approach, this is it. We need at least to promote the benefits of employing more disabled people at the same time as improving legal protection against discrimination on grounds of disability. Easily stated, of course, but as both we and the Government have seen, quite hard to achieve. Because as well as changing the law, we know it requires a big change of attitude. There isn’t a magic wand to wave that will overcome so much commonplace ignorance and prejudice in a flash. So we welcome most sincerely the promise in the new bill to introduce a public duty to promote disability equality. This could be a critical step in helping change attitudes, too.

    But what about private employers? It may be getting a bit tedious to have to keep repeating the same old message, but we have argued for a long time that schemes like Access to Work, where they have been used, have been a fantastic success, but not enough people know about it, and despite the very welcome increases in the budget that the Government has organised, year after year, the potential demand is still vastly greater than the supply, yes, but the potential impact on increasing employment rates for disabled people is greater still.

    Workstep, too, has witnessed increases in its funding, and this is most welcome. But again, potentially, the number of more severely disabled people who could possibly benefit from such a scheme vastly exceeds the few thousand who do, a number too which has not increased. There are other important issues too about the way Workstep now operates that unions have brought to our attention, issues we have raised with Government. But the key message I want to get across here is that these are measures where the Government, directly, can make an impact, can help to tackle the problems disabled people have in getting properly paid, secure employment. Of course they cost money, but in terms of cost benefit, it is a small price to pay.

    We have also made the case that the problem must be tackled from the other side. It isn’t a secret that a lot of disabled people currently on benefit are themselves reluctant to take up work, for the very real fear that if the employment doesn’t work out, they will find themselves facing even greater problems than they faced when on benefit in the first place. The TUC has proposed ways to deal with this, and has welcomed several of the Government’s initiatives to reform the way the benefits system works. Let’s press on with easing the path from unemployment into work with all the powers available to us. But to meet this challenge isn’t cost-free, either, and we need to see significant improvements in the funding for schemes like the New Deal for Disabled People. And while we continue to urge more resources for measures such as these, nor must it be forgotten that there are large numbers of disabled people who have retired, or are very unlikely ever to be able to work, for whom providing the support needed to maintain respect and dignity along with an adequate standard of living are key indicators of a civilised society.

    Of course it’s easy to set out the problems, and to make a list of things we believe should be done, not quite so easy to actually do them. So it would be rather one-sided of me if I didn’t at least acknowledge that trade unions too have a way to go before we can claim to be properly accessible, properly representative of our disabled members and potential members. As you know, the TUC carried out an equality audit earlier this year, that was reported to Congress. Our audit found that while some great progress has been made by trade unions over recent years, there was also much still to be done. And in this hall, too, you will know that at least as far as disability is concerned, time to take the next steps towards proper accessibility is strictly limited – next October, in fact, when the new disability regulations come into force that apply to unions both as employers and as trade associations. I am delighted to tell you that the TUC has looked at this, and has drawn up some advice for unions on how to comply with the new regulations, and on how to build on the law as a minimum standard. We will be looking at this at our Executive next week, then circulating it to trade unions. After all, when we talk to Government about what needs to be done for disability equality, we need to be sure that we are doing all we can, too, to be inclusive. I am confident that with all your help, we can and will meet this particular challenge.

    So conference, I know you will be discussing a wide range of important questions over the next couple of days, and I can confirm that the TUC will pay full heed to your advice. I will close by wishing you all a very successful and enjoyable conference, and I know you are with me as I take this moment to present to you, Maria, on behalf of the TUC and the trade union movement, this petition with its ten thousand signatures that urge the Government to legislate quickly, but also effectively, to secure another vital step towards equality for disabled people in this country.

  • Mike O’Brien – 2009 Speech to the National Association of Primary Care

    Below is the text of a speech made by the then Health Minister, Mike O’Brien, on the 17th November 2009.

    I am very pleased to be here.

    Over 60 years ago, the people of this country made a bold and historic choice. Amidst the ruins of war, they chose to unite under a common cause and rebuild their shattered land. They chose to create a society where the needs of the many were put ahead of the needs of the wealthy elite. A welfare state where the success of a government would be judged against how effectively it battled Beveridge’s five giants of want, idleness, ignorance, squalor and disease. Where someone’s future would depend not on their family’s lineage and wealth but on their own talent and industry.

    This is still very much a work in progress. But one of the greatest achievements in this battle to tackle Beveridge’s giants was the National Health Service – what Donald Berwick, of Harvard Medical School, has called the “bridge between the rhetoric of social justice, and the fact of it.”

    Giving people access to the healthcare they need, free at the point of need, has transformed the quality of countless lives. And it has saved millions more. But this is not a political choice made once and then forgotten. It needs to be constantly renewed. The NHS was forged in the heat of political controversy with massive opposition to it. Again and again political controversy has swirled around it and its values. Like it or not the NHS is a political creation and will continue to be a matter of political debate.

    A service to the public, free at the point of need, funded through taxation is about values. The consequences of a lack of commitment to its values were made clear in the 80s and 90s when a chronic lack of investment brought the NHS into crisis. Crumbling buildings, old equipment, over-worked and under-paid staff and patients waiting in pain and distress for a year, sometimes two, for operations. So the public was faced with a choice. This time between abandonment of NHS values and a move to private health care or renewal. They chose renewal. The result of which has seen massive and sustained investment in the NHS since the turn of the century. Again, amidst controversy. The increase in funding through national insurance rises was bitterly resisted by the Opposition.

    In the last decade, investment that has given the Health Service in England, 40,000 more doctors, 80,000 more nurses, rebuilt or refurbished buildings, and given patients access to the latest NICE approved drugs and treatments guaranteed through the NHS Constitution, pushed through Parliament into law last week.

    Most importantly, it saves tens of thousands more lives every year.

    33,000 fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease, 40% fewer deaths caused by stroke, and almost 9,000 fewer deaths every year from cancer.

    Of course, I suppose you would expect a Government Minister in charge of the NHS to wax lyrical about its achievements. But this is not spin or a case of looking at the world through some kind of rose tinted spectacles. We all know, for example how this morning’s report on Alzheimer’s’ care shows there are still big issues that need to be addressed.

    For proof that the NHS is a truly impressive, world class provider of health care you need look no further than the esteemed Washington based think-tank, the Commonwealth Fund. Each year it compares the healthcare systems of various developed countries. They ask the people who deliver healthcare, the clinicians on the front line, what they think about their own system. It published two weeks ago and this year the focus was on Primary Care. Once again, the NHS has come out rather well. Of the eleven countries – including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, The Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States – the United Kingdom was;

    Top for low waiting times for specialist care,

    Top for the use of multi-disciplinary teams,

    Top for the use of financial incentives to reward patient experience,

    Top for quality of clinical care,

    Top for management of chronic diseases,

    Top for the use of data on patient experience,

    Top for reviewing doctors’ clinical performance, and

    Top for the benchmarking of clinical performance.

    This is the NHS that you are responsible for and as a Health Minister I want to thank you for your hard work in transforming the Health Service and making sure it comes out top in all these categories. This report is a real vindication of the work you have been doing.

    When it comes to primary care, it is hard to find anyone who does it better than the NHS anywhere in the world. It’s also hard to find anyone with more drive and ambition for doing more and getting it better, and for improving quality and improving the patient experience.

    Of course, it’s great to know that we do things better than others. It’s gratifying to watch as Britain moves up the league of nations, vindicating our efforts. But it is not an end in itself. Our mission is to give every single patient the highest possible quality of care and the best experience of the National Health Service that they can possibly get. Why stop at just being better than everyone else?

    It is testament to every person in this room and to the people you all represent and work with back in your communities that we have come so far and achieved so much in the last decade. That when the public chose renewal, they made the right choice.

    But the next 10 years will be different.

    If the last 10 years or so has been about quantity – more money, more doctors, more nurses, more hospitals and more clinics – we know we need to ensure that the next decade has to be about quality. Ara Darzi’s bottom-up review of the NHS, High Quality Care for All, has given us a vision around which we can all unite. A vision of a clinically-led Health Service where quality is always and everywhere the organising principle.

    Staying true to this vision will be increasingly important in the years to come as budgets start to level out. We need to find ever more creative ways for releasing funds to the front line. Now of course working more efficiently and cutting waste is important in the future direction of the NHS. But also working more effectively, continuing to improve the quality of care for patients.

    Clinical leadership 

    We will do this not by Whitehall diktat but through local clinical leadership. In many cases that means your leadership. You are the ones closest to patients, you are the ones who know where the waste and duplication lie. This government has done what it could do best, to push through the reforms needed to lift the NHS from poor to good. But the government cannot achieve quality through central mandate. It is now your turn to do what you can do best. To move the NHS from good to great.

    Practice Based Commissioning

    One of the principal ways of making this happen is Practice Based Commissioning. Practice Based Commissioning is about putting clinicians at the heart of PCT commissioning, giving them greater power both to transform the quality and the efficiency of local services. Where it has been embraced, the results have been impressive. In Bexley, major schemes include a cardiology service where virtually all aspects of the specialty, other than interventions, are carried out in the community.  Practices now receive hard, delegated budgets for prescribing. If practices make savings then they can use them, but they are also responsible for any losses. Through PBC, Bexley has so far saved £4m, money they can now spend in other ways for their patients, on more integrated, community-base care.

    Many other PCTs such as Nottinghamshire County and Hampshire are actively drawing up autonomy and delegation schemes in collaboration with their PBC groups. Enabling practices to take on greater responsibility as their capability grows. But we have to acknowledge that Practice based Commissioning has not taken off everywhere. Even where it has, it is a way off reaching its full potential.

    So you may well ask, if it hasn’t yet then why will this happen now, in the future?   Why will it be different this time?   My answer is it will be different because it needs to be. Because this is the only way to deliver High Quality Care for All. And, most dramatically, because the financial context has changed. This level of clinical leadership, of local leadership, will be the single most powerful way of driving up quality whilst releasing funds for further services. There is nothing to stop PCTs and Practice Based Commissioners from working together and devolving hard budgets to GPs. Nothing to stop every PCT in the country being bolder and more imaginative in how they work with GP Practices. Nothing to stop Practice Based Commissioning from transforming community-based care.

    This isn’t just about holding hard budgets, it’s about giving practices real responsibility for the design of local services and then holding them accountable, so the hard budgets can be there. It is about more than that however. It is about requiring organisations to work together. There is nothing to stop us, but ourselves.

    I would like to thank James Kingsland [President of the NAPC] for his work, independent of the NAPC, in leading the National PBC Clinical Network, doing what can be done to encourage the expansion of PBC. PBC is right for many surgeries. But it should be a matter of choice. Some GPs want it and their practices can cope with the administration it brings. Some GPs don’t want it. Particularly some small practices may want to focus on patient care not budgets. They may benefit from coming together with other practices. But some small practices could be broken if budgets are forced upon them. Lets leave the choice with GPs – rather than forcing GP budgets on all of them as some would do.

    The NAPC manifesto for the election, which was published just an hour or so ago I believe, has a core proposal for Community Health Collaborations, which is a really interesting idea. Aimed at raising the quality of primary care. Bringing GPs together with some going on to become Foundation Practices with greater independence for leading high quality practices. I welcome these ideas. I promise to look at them.

    Primary and Secondary

    And our changes are not just in primary care. Increasingly, acute trusts are devolving budgets directly to specialist clinical leaders. Enabling them to spend money in a similar way to Practice Based Commissioners. The next step is to join these two up. And to allow us to devolve acute budgets to primary care. I am not saying you must do this, it is not a new target. But I am saying that surely it is the logical next step. For clinicians in primary and secondary care to work ever more closely together to create a truly integrated patient care pathway. Imagine the impact of this sort of partnership.

    We talked for several years about moving care into the community, but the funding practices have not always encouraged this. We need to find better ways of doing this, with for example COPD to prevent repeated admissions when people take a turn for the worse but instead allow them to be cared for at home.

    This is done in large parts of the country but not in others. We need to find ways of spreading good practices more quickly across the NHS. We must ensure collaboration between the acute and primary sectors, then we can get better outcomes for patients, which are more effective and cost less. The work to reduce C Diff and MRSA has saved  £240m in the NHS. Quality saves money.  But it needs true clinical leadership providing a better service for patients and better value for the taxpayer.

    Innovation

    I am certain that this sort of cooperation will lead to all sorts of new and innovative practices. Strategic Health Authorities now have a legal duty to innovate. Here in the West Midlands, GP practices are working with the Met Office to ensure over 6,000 people with respiratory diseases are given warning of bad weather and helped to take simple steps to take care of themselves and to avoid a hospital admission. In Halton and St Helens PCT, GP practices are working together to deliver an award winning rapid access home visit service.   I understand that with their Health and Social Care Award safely displayed in their trophy cabinet, they’re up for another award at this conference too. Recognition that is richly deserved. A detailed analysis of their Acute Visiting Scheme revealed a 30% drop in hospital admissions and a saving of about £1 million in its first 6 months.

    Patients have better access to primary care,  the option to receive their care at home,  and are less exposed to the risk of infection in hospital.

    Patients as a result report a 90% satisfaction rate and one GP said it was, “the best thing to happen in my 37 years of General Practice.” Best of all, it’s ripe for adoption and spreading across other PCTs.

    We’ve been good at identifying best practice, but bad at spreading it further, and we must do better to spread innovation. In April, to encourage innovation across the whole of the Health Service and at every level, we announced the new £220 million Innovation Fund. The first round of awards have now been issued to SHAs. In Yorkshire and the Humber, they’re accelerating the uptake of telehealth technology to improve care for people with long term conditions. East of England SHA is encouraging practical solutions around long-term conditions, patient safety and keeping children active. And South Central SHA is funding a joint project between Milton Keynes PCT, Razorfish and Microsoft to support diabetic self-care. All providing a better service for patients and better value for the taxpayer.

    Rights and entitlements

    Last week, we announced the introduction of a new set of patient rights as part of the NHS Constitution. We propose that from April next year patients will have the legal right to start their treatment with a consultant within 18 weeks of GP referral, and to be seen by a cancer specialist within 2. If the NHS can’t deliver, then it will have to find an alternative provider that can. This means that patients will receive the same high standards of care wherever they live.  And, more controversially, working with the profession, we are looking at how we can give patients greater choice when it comes to registering with a GP practice. Perhaps one that is more convenient for them to get to, one with higher quality care or one with longer opening hours. It depends on what the patient wants.

    As the NHS has been given more money, people are expecting more to be done and greater choice. The information is there for all to see on NHS Choices, and the choice will be theirs for the making. Improving the patient experience and driving up quality through competition is important.

    In the next decade, the NHS must move towards being a preventative, people centred service.  So from April 2012 we want to give people over 40 the right to a 5-yearly NHS Health Check to assess their risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease.  By identifying the risks early and provide a better service for patients and better value for the taxpayer. We’ll also soon consult on a legal right for a person to choose where they want to die and on personal health budgets, giving people power over their own care. These proposals, building on the NHS Constitution, are part of decisive shift guaranteeing standards for patients and putting power in their hands.

    Targets in the NHS remain controversial. In 1997 the NHS budget was £35bn. It is now £103bn having almost tripled. Targets are a way of ensuring people get tangible returns for their money.  There is a choice here. The Opposition would end those targets. Some people would say ‘good’. But cancer patients would say otherwise. The right for suspected cancer patients to see a specialist within 2 weeks and get diagnostic tests in a week – gone. A maximum 18 weeks for an operation – gone. All A+E patients to be seen in 4 hours – gone. By contrast we would convert targets into patients’ rights. It’s a choice.  They would end extended hours access to GPs. Some GPs would say ‘good’. But patients wouldn’t. There are some difficult choices here. We would extend it. We support the GP-led health centres. They don’t.

    We need to ask – where is the patient in all this? Where are they getting better care? Where are the real values of the NHS? The NHS faces tighter budgets than in the last decade. But more than ever we need to choose the kind of NHS we want.

    Conclusion

    Patient rights, patient choices, innovation and joined-up local clinical leadership need to become as deeply ingrained in the psyche of the NHS as being funded by the tax payer and being free at the point of delivery.

    For this is about values. And if we are to maintain the values of the NHS, if we are to maintain the public’s confidence in the system for another 60 years, if the public are to continue to choose renewal, then we must always and everywhere be looking to make the Health Service better, more efficient and higher quality.

    The investment is there. The mechanisms are there. The opportunities are there. It will never be a done deal. There will always be a need to improve. We have already gone from poor to good. Now, with your leadership, the NHS moves from being good to great.

  • Mike O’Brien – 2004 Speech on the UK and China

    Below is the text of the speech made by Mike O’Brien, the then Foreign Office Minister, at the Dorchester Hotel in London on 19th January 2004.

    Thank you for inviting me to speak here this evening.

    I should start by wishing you all GONG SHEE FAR CHAI (long life and prosperity) in this, the year of the Monkey.

    TRADE

    Britain is one of the most open and one of the most successful trading nations in the world. Millions of jobs depend on our ability to export around the rest of the world.

    UK exports to China from January to September 2003 stood at £1.4 billion showing a rise of nearly a quarter on the figure for the same period in 2002.

    Countries who complain that they are losing out on investment or on jobs because of China’s success, fail to see the benefits that China’s success is bringing to global markets. Yes, China’s exports were up last year by 32%, but imports were up more – by 41%. Of course, there is still some way to go – Intellectual Property Rights need to be enforced more rigorously, and some trade barriers are still too high. But huge progress has been made.

    The reality is that as developing countries become richer, they contribute more to the global market – they buy more, they have more to invest.

    China’s new open approach to the global economy and its membership of the WTO are important steps along the way.

    I’m sure the British businesses amongst us here tonight agree, and I am looking forward to presenting the award for exporter of the year later in the evening.

    I was in Beijing and Shanghai last summer and saw for myself the level of involvement that Britain has in China’s awesome development as potentially the world’s major economic force.

    Just last year P&O signed an $800 million contract with COSCO and Maersk to create China’s biggest container port at Qingdao and British Architect Lord Foster and Arup are part of the successful consortium developing the new terminal at Beijing airport.

    For the Beijing 2008 Olympics Arup, British consulting engineers, are working on the National Stadium and the new aquatics centre; HSBC, Allen & Overy, PWC and PMP – all great British firms – are working alongside the Chinese in this ambitious project.

    These are just some of the impressive, large scale projects that shout China’s presence on the world stage. I know that more are in the pipeline and I hope that UK firms continue to be valuable partners for China.

    Just before closing, a quick mention for the China Britain Business Council’s 50th anniversary coming up in June. The CBBC has assisted thousands of British companies in China. As an organisation they are continually adapting their services to meet market demand.

    CLOSING REMARKS

    China is no longer the ‘sleeping tiger’ it once was – it is now a vibrant open and dynamic economy playing an important role in the global family of trading nations. And the UK looks forward to enhancing our trading relationship with China even further over the coming years.

  • Mike O’Brien – 2003 Speech on the Future of NATO

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Foreign Office Minister, Mike O’Brien, at Salter’s Hall in London on 24th January 2003. The speech was made at a conference debating the future of NATO.

    I am grateful for this invitation to talk to such an impressive audience about one of the most interesting and topical issues in the European security field today. Lord Robertson’s remarks set the context for the day’s discussions. Before I begin, may I pay tribute to him for his leadership of the Alliance through the remarkable changes of the last three and a half years.

    The NATO peace-keeping mission in Kosovo; the rapidly developing relationship with Russia; the transformation of the Alliance’s command structures; and the historic enlargement agreed at the Prague Summit. Any of these would constitute a significant achievement. All of them together represent a genuinely exceptional record. I would like to wish Lord Robertson well for the remainder of his time as Secretary General and for his future beyond NATO.

    Today I should like to focus on the European dimension of strengthening the Alliance, in particular on the UK vision of the strategic relationship we are building between the EU and NATO.

    UNDERPINNING EUROPEAN DEFENCE

    The decisions at the Copenhagen European Council and in the North Atlantic Council just before Christmas represented the culmination of two years’ work to secure the agreements between the EU and NATO to underpin European Defence. These will allow the EU to start conducting military operations with support from NATO and will lead to a strengthening of European capabilities, which will reinforce NATO.

    European Defence is, of course, NATO’s core business. NATO was created to defend Europe. It was – and remains – the basis for the American political and military commitment to the security of Europe.

    Despite the end of the cold war which removed the threat of conflict between east and western Europe, this transatlantic link remains central to NATO’s purpose and thus every bit as central to European Security in the 21st century as it was in the second half of the 20th. But neither NATO nor European security can afford to remain frozen in time. The threats we face, sadly, have not remained static. Europeans are no longer confronting each other in a cold war on the Central European Plain but we do face fragmentation in the Balkans, terrorism and threats emanating from other countries.

    MODERNISING NATO

    NATO has modernised itself continuously and impressively over the past decade and a half since the fall of the Berlin Wall. That process will continue, as Lord Robertson has told us. NATO has enlarged and is continuing to grow. It has shown its value as an active military alliance, peace making and peacekeeping in the Balkans. As the Prague Summit demonstrated, it is transforming its structures to cope with the new tasks and challenges it faces, particularly the threats from terrorism and WMD. But NATO, though necessary, is not sufficient for all aspects of European security.

    It is neither fair nor reasonable for Europeans to expect the Americans and Canadians always to contribute military forces to problems involving our security interests. Nothing would be more certain to place a strain on the health of the Alliance than continuing European dependence on American support at every turn. We must be prepared to bear our fair share of the burden. Also, the European Union has a Common Foreign and Security Policy, which should be underpinned by the ability for EU nations to conduct military operations.

    It was because of this understanding of the need for Europeans to do more for their own security and because we wanted this to happen through the EU as well as through NATO, that the Prime Minister proposed the development of a European Security and Defence Policy. Today, I should like to set out the UK’s vision for European Defence in NATO and in the EU.

    UK OBJECTIVES FOR ESDP

    The UK conceived and has developed ESDP to meet three main objectives:

    – to strengthen the European contribution to NATO by enabling European forces to take a fairer share of the European Security burden in circumstances where NATO as an Alliance was not involved;

    – to set a target for European nations to make their military forces more rapidly deployable, effective and sustainable – this will also be highly relevant to the modernisation of NATO’s force structures agreed at Prague;

    – to enable the European Union to play its full role on the international stage, recognising its uniquely wide range of external policy tools, from political dialogue, trade and aid to JHA co-operation and now civilian and military crisis management operations.

    DISPELLING MYTHS

    EU initiatives in this country tend to get a distorted reception from the Eurosceptic sections of the media and the political debate. ESDP has been no exception. It has been portrayed as everything from a Euro-Pentagon to a Euro-Army and a dagger at the heart of NATO. It is of course nothing of the sort.

    Too often the debate about the EU/NATO relationship treats the two organisations as if they were institutional monoliths – or two boxers circling in the ring, the experienced one warily eyeing up the new kid on the block, fearing his next shot.

    In reality we are talking about 23 nations, 11 of whom belong to both organisations. After enlargement it will be 32 nations of whom 19 belong to both.

    Deployment of military forces – for EU, NATO, UN or any other operation – will remain a matter for national governments. Javier Solana, let alone Romano Prodi, will not be ordering troops into Euro-battle on the basis of EU directives.

    The command, control and planning of ESDP operations can be done by NATO for the EU under the so-called Berlin Plus agreements now being finalised. Berlin Plus means that the EU has guaranteed access whenever it wants it to the resources of NATO’s operational and strategic planning capabilities.

    The EU also has the strong presumption that when it asks for it, NATO will supply the EU with command structures and capabilities to support an EU-led crisis management operation. This does not mean the EU can act militarily only when it has support from NATO. The EU will act either in operations using NATO’s assets and resources, which will be planned for by NATO, or in operations, which do not require NATO assets and resources, which will be planned for by the national headquarters of an EU nation. In all cases the EU will act on the basis of consultation and coordination with NATO to determine the most appropriate form of response to a crisis.

    THE FUTURE

    What then is the future for ESDP and what does it mean for NATO?

    The UK has a positive, ambitious and wide-ranging agenda for moving ESDP from the institutional to the operational phase. Much of the gestation of ESDP has been about institutional structures and bureaucratic rules-writing. This is necessary but it is not sufficient. ESDP also requires the development of military and civilian capabilities and the political readiness to put these into action.

    OPERATIONS

    The first opportunity is likely to come in a few months’ time, when an EU-led military operation replaces NATO’s Task Force Fox in Macedonia. This will be an EU operation based on planning done by NATO and with an operational commander provided by NATO. Given the crucial role that NATO and the European Union, in particular Lord Robertson and Javier Solana, played in preventing conflict in Macedonia, it is right that a NATO force should be replaced by an EU mission in that country.

    It is also right in terms of the wider EU engagement in the future of Macedonia, which was the first of the former Yugoslav states to have a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU. These agreements open the perspective of eventual membership of the EU for the countries of former Yugoslavia and Albania. The Agreements will help prepare the way by encouraging reform and modernisation across the board, including in the security sector.

    A bigger task for ESDP, but one which this Government thinks the EU should be ready to take on, will be replacing the NATO-led Stabilisation Force in Bosnia. The European Council at Copenhagen in December declared the EU’s willingness to take over from NATO in due course in Bosnia.

    We would anticipate that force also being an EU operation planned, commanded and conducted with recourse to NATO planning, assets and capabilities. This would not mean the end of a NATO presence in Bosnia. NATO should continue the Partnership for Peace activities, which are so important to developing European standards in that country and in its former Yugoslav neighbours. These states should develop their relationship with NATO in parallel with the European Union.

    As I just said, the scale and complexity of the operation in Bosnia would be more significant than that in Macedonia and the EU would want to be well prepared militarily and strategically to take on the task. But it would be consistent in our view with the strategy of Lord Paddy Ashdown, as the international community’s High Representative and as the Special Representative of the European Union, to help move that country in a European direction.

    The Macedonia operation from this Spring, in testing out the EU structures and the links to NATO, will be useful preparation for a potential operation in Bosnia. Also, towards the end of this year, the EU and NATO will conduct an exercise premised on an EU operation with recourse to NATO assets and capabilities. Coming after the operation in Macedonia and before that in Bosnia, this will be a useful opportunity to test and refine the links between the two organisations and their internal structures at top level.

    CAPABILITIES

    The crucial underpinning for ESDP and for the European pillar at NATO has to be continuing improvements in European national capabilities.

    At the heart of the ESDP process, the UK and France proposed and the EU adopted the so called ‘Headline Goal’. This is that European Nations should, by the end of this year, be able to deploy at 60 days notice a force of up to 60,000 and sustain such a force in operations for at least a year. This was a deliberately challenging target.

    The signs are that EU nations will be able to match the simple quantitative requirement, but aspects of the qualitative element, especially in terms of readiness, logistic support and sustainability may not be reached at full by the end of 2003. So work to improve our military capabilities will need to continue across Europe.

    NATO, under Lord Robertson’s leadership, has stressed the importance of investment by all Allies in modern defence capabilities. At Prague, NATO leaders agreed to the Prague Capabilities Commitment – specific undertakings to improve the ability of our armed forces to deal with new threats. The UK has pioneered work in the European Union and NATO to provide a mechanism to link the capability development processes of both organisations to ensure that, in particular for countries like us who are members of both, the efforts we make nationally to develop military capabilities will inform, and be informed by, EU and NATO requirements.

    RAPID REACTION

    The other element of the equation is, of course, ensuring that appropriate and capable force packages can be put together, if necessary at short notice, to conduct EU or NATO operations in the field.

    To this end, NATO, at Prague, agreed on an ambitious transformation towards rapidly deployable and flexible forces, able to deploy wherever needed, to deal with the security challenges of the 21st century. At the heart of this concept is the NATO Response Force. This will enable NATO to field a highly effective force of up to 20,000 troops, able to move very quickly to wherever it is needed.

    The UK strongly welcomes the NATO Response Force. It plays to our national strengths and it underlines the requirements in particular of rapid deployability that we think are crucial for NATO and ESDP. It complements work going on in the EU to place more emphasis on the rapid reaction elements of the Headline Goal.

    THE DEMISE OF NATO?

    Some commentators during the Prague Summit chose, paradoxically, at this moment of great success for NATO, to question the Alliance’s relevance to the post-11 September world. NATO has a role.

    Of course there will be occasions where the UK and other nations will act in coalitions of the willing. This was the case of the Gulf in 1991 and in Afghanistan in 2001. But five years after the 1991 Gulf conflict, NATO deployed to implement the Dayton peace settlement in Bosnia and three years after that, NATO ended Serb repression in Kosovo and deployed a peacekeeping force to that province.

    For each crisis that arises it is the responsibility of the governments whose interests are concerned to decide which is the most appropriate form of response. This may be a UN operation as in East Timor, a NATO operation as in Kosovo, an ESDP operation now that the EU/NATO links are in place, a national operation, as the UK conducted in Sierra Leone or a coalition of the willing as in Afghanistan. It is right that this range of options should be at the disposal of the governments concerned. This has always been the case and will continue to be the case.

    In no way does it change the fundamental relevance of NATO to European security. Nor does it change the argument, in which the UK believes strongly, that a European Union Common Security and Defence Policy can lead to fairer burden sharing between NATO and the EU and can simultaneously strengthen both organisations by enabling the countries involved to strengthen and modernise their round forces and their ability to operate together.

  • Mark Oaten – 2005 Speech to Liberal Democrat Conference

    Below is the text of the then Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesman, Mark Oaten, at the 2005 Liberal Democrat Conference in Blackpool on 21st September 2005.

    On the 8th of July, a journalist came up to me and asked if it was difficult time to be a liberal.

    I had no hesitation in saying no. Why? Because it’s never been more important to be a liberal than today.

    Never more important to speak up for freedom.

    Never more important to speak up for justice.

    Never more important to make sure the terrorists don’t change our way of life.

    I am proud to be a liberal in these difficult times because I know our values are the values that can defeat terrorists.

    But conference as a party we must recognise the ways in which these events in July have changed our country.

    We face an evil enemy.

    An enemy where 4 young men are so dedicated to their appalling cause that they are prepared to kill themselves and others.

    So we must take steps to stop these terrorists and in doing so protect our freedom – the freedom to live our lives without fear of bombs and attacks.

    That is why I want to speak to you today about the new anti-terror laws and  about our vision for stronger communities

    Charles Kennedy and I, in the weeks after July, felt that if possible the political parties should seek consensus.  We agreed to support three measures that have been put forward by the Home Secretary:

    Making it an offence to train terrorists; to prepare for a terrorist attack; and to incite terrorist activity.

    Now we know the measures on indirect incitement will be hard to draft – they must be robust enough to work in court, but not so wide that they are open to abuse.

    But – last week the Home Secretary went further and in doing so has tested the growing consensus and created two new measures we can’t support.

    We can’t support a wide and vague offence that allows glorification of terror to become a crime. What on earth does that mean. One person’s terrorist is another freedom fighter. This is a dangerous proposal, hard to define in theory, unworkable in practice, and putting freedom of speech at risk.

    And we can’t support plans to hold people for three months without charge. The case is simply not made.

    Let me be clear Liberal Democrats will not support what amounts to a new policy of internment.

    Labour tells us we must give up our hard-fought civil liberties in exchange for more security.

    But, conference, if we abandon traditions and values like the right to a fair trial, we are abandoning our identity.

    If we give up the fundamental principles of justice, we are giving in to the terrorists.

    And if we sacrifice our liberal society we will be weaker, not stronger.

    So conference,  measures on terrorism will have our support.

    But here are our conditions.

    First, measures must be effective and necessary and not just showpiece.

    Second, they should not encroach on our values and principles of justice.

    Third, they should be subject to full Parliamentary scrutiny – because we know that rushed laws are bad laws.

    So conference, today we send a message to the Home Secretary:

    Yes, we will work with you.

    But we will also defend the rights and liberties of the country.

    There will be no blank cheque from the Liberal Democrats.

    I also want to say a word about the victims of that outrage in July.

    Hardly talked about these days.

    Victims who may have to wait 15 months for compensation.

    Many face expensive bills as they can no longer work.  Many require specialist treatment for the loss of limbs and need money to adapt their homes to cope with their new disability.

    This literally adds insult to inquiry.

    So today I call on the government to speed this up and may quick and fair payments.

    It is the very least we can do.

    But we don’t solve terrorism with new laws alone.

    You bury your head in the sand if you do not ask uncomfortable questions.

    So much of Labour’s response to the events of 7th July has focused on deportation that you would be forgiven for thinking the bombers were foreign.

    They weren’t.  They were British – born and bred.  Britain created them.  And they turned on us.

    But why?

    Britain is home to and enriched by the contributions of a hundred different cultures. In the aftermath of the bombings the vast majority of Britons refused to be divided.

    And that is a great tribute to the British tradition of tolerance.

    But we cannot ignore the upsurge in racially and religiously motivated violence that British Muslims have suffered in recent weeks.

    These communities are our communities.  We must stand united against those who seek to attack them.

    Neither can we ignore the deep anger that is felt across the Muslim community about the war in Iraq.

    Let me be clear. We should not be ashamed to point to that link. By doing so we  begin to understand the causes.  And if Mr Blair wants to understand terrorism and work with the Muslim community, he needs to acknowledge that link too.

    But there are other ways in which we can combat the long-term causes of division in our country.

    It often seems that, in this country, rather than creating a melting pot, we have created a mosaic society.  From a distance, it looks healthy enough.  Get up close, and you start to see the gaps.

    A society in which communities co-exist, yet lead parallel lives – a community of communities, too often unaware to the concerns and realities of their fellow Britons.

    Just because several communities live within one of our cities, it doesn’t mean that the city is multicultural.  Not if they live separate lives, in separate parts of the city, never meeting or mixing.

    Terrorism plays on these gaps in our society.

    On our ignorance of each other’s way of life.

    On our lack of confidence as a society about who we are and what we stand for.

    If we want to create a safer society then it is our job to address these problems.

    We must work to address the genuine concerns, which exist throughout our country, about the state of multiculturalism.

    We must make New Britons feel that this is their society. That it is a society in which they and their families will be able to fulfil their potential.  And we must in particular address the appalling deprivation experienced by second, third and fourth generation Muslims.

    We must, as a political party, do more to encourage greater participation in the political process.

    Following the July bombings I remember waking up and watching Breakfast TV. Three young Muslim men were being interviewed – they were passionate, articulate and enthusiastic. These people would make great champions of their communities.  As a party we must do more to get them involved – standing for councils, standing for Parliament and representing our country.

    So whilst we seek to try and unite our parties on terrorism, there is much that separates us from New Labour, and in particular Charles Clarke.

    In a recent interview, he said: “I don’t like liberals. I am not soft. I am neither woolly or liberal or a woolly liberal. I have never been liberal in my life. I don’t like liberal with a capital L or a small l” !!!

    Well Mr Clarke, I’ve got a message for you from conference. Here, we’ve always been liberals, we are liberals, and we always will be liberals. Big L, small, L medium sized L?

    And we’re proud to be liberal.

    But you know, I think perhaps he protests just a little too much. There’s a liberal in him somewhere, just fighting to get out.

    After all, he’s the one with the beard, not me.

    And as far as “soft liberal” goes. No way. I’m not having that.

    There is nothing soft about our liberalism, last year I argued that our liberalism was tough, tough Liberalism. Tough because our solutions are not quick fix solutions. Tough because are solutions can take longer, tough because they are harder on the individual it is aimed at but, and here’s the point – its more effective in the long run.

    And I get annoyed when the media ask if this left or right- when they ask about our future direction.  Our new policies for the future should come from one set of values alone- liberal values.

    We are 21st century liberals with ideas for the future and today I want to set out some new ideas on tackling crime in this country.  Ideas on Prison, Police and Respect.

    I believe now is the time for the most radical reform of prisons this country has ever seen. Prisons in this country are an national disgrace.

    Crumbling Victorian buildings.

    Cramped over crowded prison cells.

    The highest prison population in Europe.

    Already in this year alone 60 prisoners have committed suicide.

    Drugs are freely available.

    8,000 prisoners have serious mental health problems.

    And within 2 years of release, 59% of prisoners are back in court with another addition to their criminal record.

    The consequences of which mean more crimes and victims and more people whose lives should have been turned round by prison end up turning straight back into prison.

    So here’s a different way forward, a tough way forward and a liberal way forward. Getting prisoners out of the cells and into the classroom. Teaching them skills to read and write. Investing in training and proper backup and support on release.

    But I’d like to go further than just reforming the prisons themselves. A negative culture is built into the very bricks of our older jails.  Charles Clarke wants to re name them as community prisons- but you don’t get change with just a new name.

    Now is the time for these crumbling prisons to be knocked down and for new modern secure units to be built. So the next generation of young criminals experience a tough regime in these centres which will prevent them from committing crimes in the future and end the revolving door of re-offending.

    Education – rehabiliation- a liberal solution

    I believe these reforms could drastically cut crime in this country. But we also need a strong, well-resourced police force to tackle that as well. I believe we have one of the best police forces in the world. But lets as a party have an ambition to make it the very best in the world. Properly resourced, properly accountable and with the tools to tackle the problems from international terrorism and street vandalism at the same time.

    At the last election we talked about a technological revolution. Techno cop not paperclip cop – was all about giving police 21st century equipment to tackle 21st century crime.

    But I want to go further today and suggest that police become more accountable to local communities and become more open to the outside in meeting their difficult challenges.

    Two weeks ago I visited the NYPD – I’ll admit not natural ground for liberal thinking, but I was taken with the way the police in NY had been revitalised by bringing in officers with non-police backgrounds. Why is it that people that have run large hospitals, companies and charities, people who are experts in intelligence and investigation, are excluded from senior positions in the force?

    We need to move away from the position where all our senior police officers started as bobbies on the beat.

    We must encourage fresh ideas but let’s not restructure just for the sake of it. On Monday the Home Secretary announced plans to merge and abolish some of our police forces.

    We should be making them more local, not more distant. People want to have the confidence that police know the area, that Chief Constables will visit and know every town and village in their area.

    So we say keep the forces as they are but provide a national resources unit with senior officers and experts to provide back up in complex cases.

    So Home Office – hands of our local forces- lets keep them as they are.  We don’t want Clarke police, we want community police.  And that’s a liberal solution.

    Let’s go out and campaign to keep our local forces.

    But prison and police are about when its gone wrong.

    What about stopping crime in the first place?

    Labour’s solution is always the nanny solution. A new law here, a regulation there. A ban today and a dispersal order tomorrow. It’s an alphabet of mismanagement.

    A is for ASBO

    B is for banning

    C is for curfew

    D is for dispersal order

    But it’s all about E

    E for elections.

    The problems of anti social behaviour-  the respect agenda – are not going to be solved by focusing simply on the symptoms and not the causes.

    That’s why our support for ASBOS is limited as they are quick fix solutions.  Our policy of ASBOS plus- which links punishment with measures to tackle the problems is more effective

    And as for respect- well you don’t create respect by banning hoodies in town centres.

    That is Labour’s answer, not ours.

    Conference, we must do better.  We know that society has changed.  Longer working hours, more time spent commuting and sitting in front of the TV, less time with the kids, more families splitting up.

    We’re less likely to chat to the neighbours over the garden fence.  We’re more likely to put up a taller fence so we don’t have to talk to them in the first place.

    Conference, we didn’t come into politics to watch British society become a society of strangers.

    We need new ways of knitting communities together.  New ways of building bridges between individuals and between the generations.  And new ways of inspiring our young people and showing them that there is so much more to life.

    As Liberal Democrats have been good at talking about freedom from oppression, regulation and conformity.

    But we have not been good at articulating a vision of our ambitions for individuals and communities.

    Liberal Democrats have always understood that strong families and strong communities matter. This is our natural terroritory.  We should reclaim it.

    Charles Kennedy has asked Ed Davey, our education spokesman, to join with me in putting forward measures to link education and community to help tackle this. We will be reporting to the spring conference.

    But it strikes me there is a golden opportunity to re think the end of the academic year. At 16 all the focus and money we spend is aimed at passing exams.

    Imagine this. A scheme which allowed all 16 year olds the opportunity to spend a month away from home, in different communities, volunteering for one of hundreds of different projects. To take a 16 year old, perhaps for the first time, away from his estate or troublesome peer group could create enormous opportunities.

    Because we should remember that not every child has the opportunity of  a gap year

    And we should use sport to achieve much more. Our Olympic bid success can be used to help a generation. Imagine every child with access to a sports academy place learning team spirit and healthy activity.

    So conference, in the months ahead we have much to do. As the Conservatives tie themselves up in yet another attempt to find a new leader, it will be left to us to make the case for police reform to keep local forces working with the community at the heart of tackling crime.

    It will be us who will continue to demand a prison service fit for the 21st century, that goes beyond punishment and actually rehabilitates offenders.

    It will be us who will develop the long term solutions for tackling today’s problems with anti social behaviour – giving as well as expecting respect from the younger generation.

    And above all, as terrorism legislation begins its passage through parliament, it will be left to us to defend the values of justice and freedom – the values of our party – the values that make us proud to be Liberal Democrats.