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  • Oliver Letwin – 2002 Speech to the Centre for Policy Studies

    Oliver Letwin – 2002 Speech to the Centre for Policy Studies

    The speech made by Oliver Letwin to the Centre for Policy Studies on 19 June 2002.

    1. The neighbourly society versus the destructive society

    Earlier this year in a speech to the Centre for Policy Studies I observed that growing up in Britain sweeps up many children on a conveyor belt of crime without offering any exit routes. This is a conveyor belt that starts with individuals growing up in disruptive homes. They become an inconvenience and a problem in school. They start a life of petty crime and move on to serious crime. They begin their prison sentence, come out and repeat the offence. They are given a longer prison sentence and they become hardened criminals. Institutionalisation is then the only option left.

    This was described recently by the Metropolitan Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, when he said: “The next generation of children could be growing up in an environment where crime is seen as unexceptional in some areas of large cities – just a part of everyday life……….the bullied become bullies, the beaten become aggressors, and cruelty becomes the norm. Victims become robbers and so the cycle of crime escalates.”

    This scenario is allowed to develop because of the absence of the neighbourly society. Children grow up in neighbourhoods where the stability and support provided by networks of friendships, families, schools, neighbourly associations and other sources of identity and self worth is non- existent.

    The dissolution of these networks of support indicates that the role of the police, as custodians of the neighbourhood – as guarantors of authority and order – is ever more important. Their retreat from the neighbourhood frontline, about which I spoke in March, means that yet another layer is stripped away from the neighbourly society as troubled youngsters have no barriers to the conveyer belt to crime.

    In the face of crime and social disorder, a community can only retreat, ceding more ground to the criminal and exposing young people to values wholly opposed to those of the neighbourly society.

    The paradox is that, where the neighbourly society has disappeared, young people still desperately crave the things that sustain it – security, stability and freedom from fear.

    Their response to the absence of the institutions that sustain the neighbourly society is to establish their own institutions that maintain the destructive society. Their answer to an absence of family, neighbourhood and community networks is to create their own network of support – The Criminal Gang.

    For, what does The Criminal Gang provide but a substitute family? What does The Criminal Gang offer, but a route away from malnourishment and impoverishment? What does The Criminal Gang ensure, but a feeling of power and security? What does The Criminal Gang bring, but a sense of purpose and excitement? What does The Criminal Gang guarantee, but a right to belong?

    In short, The Criminal Gang fulfils that most basic human desire of association and belonging. But, just as with the children in the ‘Lord of the Flies’, the substitution of ‘Gang rules’ for moral rules leads to chaos and destruction. The Criminal Gang sweeps up the weaker members of the neighbourhood, intimidates those outside the gang and embarks on an orgy of vandalism, pillaging and virtually unrestrained violence.

    Of course not all gangs are bad – and some will be worse than others. Some gangs will constitute just a few children stealing from sweetshops. But, at their worst, gangs led by hardened thugs, with no consciousness of right or wrong, have a power to destroy any semblance left of community.

    Their efforts can lead to abuse, rape or murder. The tragic cases of Stephen Lawrence and Damilola Taylor bear witness to the destructive power of The Gang and illuminate gang terror in its purest form.

    The extent to which young offenders and gangs are nurturing the destructive society cannot and should not be underestimated.

    Young offenders are now responsible for about a third of all criminal convictions. But the recent Youth Justice Board survey showed that the number of criminal offences committed by young people is probably far higher than the conviction rates suggest. In that survey, 26 per cent of school pupils claim to have participated in some form of crime in the last year – and this alarming statistic is borne out by other surveys.

    Nor does the crisis of youth crime consist just of youths committing crimes. It consists also of young criminals growing up into adult criminals. Until we can find ways of reducing the level of youth crime, we will not succeed in reducing the supply of hardened adult criminals.

    2. Prevention in the place of cure?

    There is little doubt that we could make – and that we must make – much greater and more effective efforts to tackle youth crime by means of crime prevention. As one group of criminologists recently put it to me, we need to raise the hurdles rather than merely attending to the hurdlers.

    One great hurdle that can and should be erected against the young criminal is police presence. If we can get the police visibly back onto the streets, with effective neighbourhood policing, well supported by community watchfulness, and move towards the 2 minute response times, that have worked so well in New York, with the locality controlled by the police rather than by the gangs, then the hurdles that have to be jumped by young people contemplating a crime will be raised substantially.

    A second great hurdle is “designed-in” crime prevention. The evidence from a number of studies, that particular residences or businesses are repeatedly and disproportionately the victims of burglary, suggests that the proper employment of anti-theft designs and anti-crime technology could make these attractive locations less attractive and thereby raise the hurdle-rate for youth crime. The statistics, here, are echoed in the kind of comments I frequently hear from those – often shopkeepers – who have been victims of repeated crime: ‘the youths who hang around were put off once we put in anti theft devices and put up the CCTV’. No doubt also, the design of items such as mobile phones can contribute significantly to making them more difficult to use when stolen – as we hope the new moves to block GSM handsets and the new “designed-in” blocking of GSM phones will do.

    But I do not believe that we can afford to put all our faith in hurdles.

    We must also attend to the young hurdlers. I persist in believing that our society must be capable of addressing – and in a high proportion of cases, altering – the character of young criminals and potential young criminals.

    Some people believe that it is left-wing nonsense to suppose that the behaviour of young criminals or potential young criminals can be addressed or their character altered.

    But I am too acutely conscious of the subtle fabric of affection, reputation and emulation that tenuously and imperfectly sustains the moral characters of those of us who are generally non-violent and generally law-abiding, to believe that there is so vast a gulf as some people imagine between “them” and “us”.

    I take young criminals to be ‘us’, but gone wrong. I cannot see that there is much hope for society, or much hope for humanity, if we give up on the task of preventing them from going wrong. Crime prevention: yes – more of it; but also the prevention – as far as we are able – of criminality itself.

    3. The Youth Justice System does not work

    At present, the youth justice system does very little to sustain my optimism. Indeed it does much to sustain the deepest pessimism.

    The youth justice system in Britain today serves one purpose. It protects the public against some of the most persistent and serious Young Offenders for the periods during which those young criminals are locked up. Such protection of the public is, of course, enormously important.

    But alas, the protection of the public only occurs while the young people in question are in prison – and, all too frequently, a brief spell in a youth offender institution is followed almost immediately by re-offending.

    The re-offending rates in Young Offenders Institutions are roughly 75%. This means that, within two years of emerging from such an institution, 75% of the leavers will have been reconvicted of a crime. When one allows for the very low clear-up rates of crime which are under 10% at present, the presumption must be that an astonishingly high proportion – perhaps close to 100% – of the young people concerned – actually go on committing crimes after being in a YOI.

    So the youth justice system isn’t working as rehabilitation.

    But if a quarter of the pupils in our schools committed a crime last year – as the surveys suggest – then the youth justice system isn’t working as a deterrent either.

    I submit to you that a youth justice system which offers some short-term protection to the public but neither deters nor rehabilitates is, to a very considerable extent, a failure.

    4. The system of local authority ‘care’ does not work

    But the youth justice system is not the only thing which is failing.

    The system of local authority care is also a flop.

    Our care system is at the very least, failing to undo the moral damage already done to many of the children who find their way into it.

    Although many many children in care are very often horribly damaged, it is a tribute to those working in the care homes that many do emerge against the odds and live fulfilled lives. But, alas it is often not so. An appalling number of children in care become young people in prison.

    Figures from the National Prison Survey suggest that 38% of prisoners under the age of 21 have been in local authority care.

    Recently, I was presented with a published book of poems, written by Young Offenders.

    One poem entitled “This Angry Boy” particularly struck me.

    Let me read it to you:

    “At the age of ten he was classed as a problem child and that he needed special attention and so they packed him off to an approved Boarding School

    He was there for three years getting into fights here and there this angry boy.

    There was a lot of frustration but no one looked into the reason why he was angry and or frustrated.

    So he got kicked out of the Boarding school for assaulting another boy and was charged with GBH at the age of thirteen.

    That was the first of many offences. Then for the next year he was sent from Children’s home to Children’s home to Children’s home never having a place to settle for more than a month.

    Then at the age of fourteen he got into crimes ranging from car theft to armed robbery and he also had a reputation to defend in his area which also caused problems without him getting into fights. He had a criminal record as long as his arm. But why did he do these crimes and where was he going to go?”

    What better critique could there be of our youth justice system in operation?

    Or of the failure of our system of care?

    5. We fail from the age of four

    There is, however, a yet deeper failure. We are failing to tackle this problem at its roots.

    Some months ago, I was sent a book entitled Ghosts from the Nursery .

    Ghosts from the Nursery opens with the true story in the US of a 16-year-old boy, Jeffery, who was charged with the murder of an 84-year-old man in 1993 and sentenced to death. The authors observe that:

    “Jeffrey’s story is one told hundreds of times daily in courtrooms across the nation. It is a story told by events, psychiatric reports, interviews with victims, witnesses, friends, and family….. But the beginning of stories like Jeffrey’s goes untold. One chapter is nearly always missing–the first chapter, encompassing gestation, birth, and infancy. And because it goes unseen and unacknowledged, it repeats itself over and over at a rate now growing in geometric proportions”

    Sad and shocking though this story is, it is not so surprising when we learn that Jeffrey himself was the product of a chaotic and abused home background. His mother was a drug and alcohol addict. As a very young child, he was beaten, abused and neglected.

    The authors go on to examine the effect on children of abuse, neglect, and lack of warmth from their mother and father, their inability to relate to the world around them and their likelihood of some becoming tomorrow’s offenders.

    Academic research on both sides of the Atlantic is growing to support the evidence that the seeds of future offending are sown in infancy.

    Although the UK crime statistics do not provide much evidence of the background of offenders, the results of some long-term studies are beginning to be evaluated.

    In the UK, for example, Dr. Stephen Scott , of the Department of Child Psychiatry at King’s College London, has shown that by the age of 5, 15% of children display early signs of behavioural problems and are rejected by their parents. Nearly half of these will go on to have substantial criminal records. Looking back, of those who become serious repeat offenders, over 90% showed severe anti-social behaviour in childhood.

    In the last 40 years, the breakdown of family structures in the UK is both striking and worrying. A quarter of all children in the UK are being brought up with one parent absent – usually the father – easily outnumbering other EU countries. We also have by far the highest rate of teenage mothers in Europe. Whilst many lone parents do a heroic job against the odds, the evidence suggests that young people are less likely to be tempted onto the conveyer belt to crime if the family unit is at full strength.

    The evidence also shows that the single most important ingredient in a young child’s life is the quality of his or her parenting. Harsh, physically abusive, neglectful and chaotic parenting, devoid of love, makes for anti-social, disruptive, dysfunctional children. The building blocks of a normal childhood are missing. The ladder is kicked from under the children’s feet before they learn to walk.

    On a visit to a Parenting Centre in Hereford recently, I was told of a baby, born to a heroin addict, who was ante-natally addicted. What sort of start in life is that? When a child is traumatised by what he sees and hears in the home, how can he develop normal relationships outside? When there are no boundaries in his life, how can be expected to respect the rights of others?

    But what, apart from taking children into care, are we doing to prevent the first steps onto the conveyer belt to crime? When a child first arrives at school, clearly displaying the “early signs of behavioural problems”, what coherent strategies do we have for addressing these problems?

    The answer at present, is next to none. If the child is physically at risk, action – alas, often involving removal to local authority care – will be taken. But if the problem is moral and spiritual, if the child is ‘merely’ an outsider, even to the point where the teachers notice and worry, there is no sustained, coherent, readily available arrangement for effective intervention. We just wait until the problem becomes a crisis of criminality – and then leave it to the care system and the criminal justice system to fail to address the crisis.

    6. The way forward: two ambitions

    It is not enough for a politician – even for a politician in Opposition – to preach about our current failures. Constructive politics consists not only in identifying the current problems but also in putting forward solutions.

    Accordingly, since my speech on the neighbourly society, we have been working, not only to locate the areas of failure but also to identify the broad lines of possible solutions. We are not yet sufficiently advanced in that work to offer detailed policy prescriptions. But I want to sketch today, two major ambitions which – if fulfilled through effective detailed policy, and if set alongside a reassertion of effective neighbourhood policing and other effective crime prevention and criminal justice reforms – could, I believe, make a significant contribution to the reduction of youth crime, and hence to the reduction of crime in general.

    The first of these ambitions is the establishment of effective programmes to lead the ‘problem child’ away from the conveyer belt to crime, from the age of 4 or 5 onwards.

    The second of my ambitions is the establishment of a new approach to persistent youth offenders – so that those whom the programmes within the first ambition have failed to rescue are nevertheless effectively deterred and rehabilitated at a later stage.

    7. Effective programmes to lead children away from the conveyer belt

    The first of these ambitions – the establishment of effective programmes to lead children away from the conveyer belt to crime – is not new.

    In 1852, a Metropolitan Police Magistrate wrote: “the characters of children brought up in London are so precociously developed that I should find it difficult to mention an age at which they should not be treated as criminals”.

    The Nineteenth Century response to ever rising juvenile delinquency – as portrayed by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist was to set about trying to nurture neighbourly institutions that would both help parents to bring up the children and, to the extent that the parental role was not fulfilled by the parents themselves, to provide a partial replacement.

    Great philanthropists like Lord Shaftesbury, Mary Carpenter and Thomas Barnardo saw it as their duty to take action.

    Aware of the shortfall in educational institutions for the poor, Mary Carpenter established a number of schools, including a reformatory school in Bristol in 1854. In her schools, teachers were responsible for becoming acquainted with the child’s home and family surroundings.

    Mary Carpenter believed that support for children should “‘be left in the hands of volunteers, who were the ‘the best means of supplying to the child the parental relation”.

    The same desire to remove youngsters from the conveyer belt to crime motivated the Boys’ Brigade and the Scouts as well as the Sunday School movement which, by 1880, had some 6 million Sunday scholars.

    Nor should we be so insular as to suppose that the problem of youth criminality – or the need for an effort to reduce it by intervening very early and very persistently – are restricted to the UK.

    The Head Start programme in the US is an example of community based, charitable organisations that have developed innovative programmes to meet local needs, often using volunteers.

    The idea behind Head Start is to tackle rising juvenile crime, child abuse, neglect and poor education results by intervening with children under 5, pregnant mothers and their families. Since 1965, Head Start has served over 15.3 million children and their families and it plays a major role in focusing attention on the importance of early childhood development. It draws together the major components affecting a child’s development under one roof as part of a fully integrated service: education, health, parental involvement and social services.

    Head Start is not a perfect model. It is noticeable that President Bush – in a series of early childhood initiatives – has asked for reform. He is intent on basing the allocation of federal subsidies upon the evaluation of results.

    But the Head Start principle is the right one – it uses both the state and the voluntary sector to try and prevent children in their early years from embarking on the conveyer belt to crime.

    We are beginning to see a movement in this direction here, with primary schools playing a leading role in providing breakfast clubs, after school clubs, holiday clubs and counselling courses for parents. Schools are in touch with families in other ways through the educational welfare officers, health visitors and social workers – and the Sure Start project is in its early stages. These schools are only picking up the pieces – they have an enormous task.

    But many different agencies are involved, they are not fully co-ordinated, they are danger of becoming too bureaucratic and large numbers of children can, and do, fall through the net.

    Above all, we have not yet found in the UK – perhaps because we have become so centralised and so bureaucratic in our attitudes and practices – a suitable means of doing what Head Start does: namely, to mobilise and co-ordinate the resources of the voluntary sector.

    I agree with Rob Allen, the Director of Research at NACRO when he says:

    “There is a need for community based supervision to utilise as wide a range of resources as possible in the task of promoting responsibility…schools, youth clubs, churches, voluntary organisations and employers need to accept a greater measure of responsibility for the life of the community as a whole and for offering opportunities to reintegrate young people excluded from it…”

    But, in the UK today, we do not do it. The state all too often either ignores the problem or takes the child into ‘care’ – and all too infrequently sees itself as the facilitator of voluntary, neighbourhood-based efforts to provide or reinforce the stability and moral education that homes have been unable, or partially unable to provide.

    If we knew how to use the vast powers and riches of the state to release these voluntary, neighbourhood energies without bureaucratising them in the process, we should have the beginnings of an answer to the crisis of the conveyer belt. We know this because we know that despite the present lack of state facilitation there are – around and about – remarkable examples of voluntary neighbourhood activity.

    One of the most remarkable is a charity in Camberwell, Kids Company.

    Kids Company holds out a hand to children who are drowning under a system, that has failed them at every turn.

    Many of the children at Kids Company have witnessed all manner of criminal behaviour which in some cases defies the imagination. The case of one particular child provides an illuminating example. This child’s mother and partner are both drug addicts who in their preoccupation to feed their habit forget her most basic needs and sink to depressing levels of depravity. There is no food in the house, no sheets on the bed; the furniture has long since been smashed up. She has witnessed many frightening scenes due to the fact that drug dealers frequent her home.

    Nine out of ten of the children have no father; many rarely see food in the place they call home. Many will have suffered abuse and been exposed to a life of crime since early childhood. Over the years, usually by about the age of 11, they will have learnt to absent themselves emotionally from feelings.

    These children are already in a prison of their own making and it requires intensive work to bring them to return to feelings. Because they do not have a full capacity for sympathy or remorse and have little regard for their own future, they are not much concerned about the welfare of others, and not much worried by the prospect of compromising their freedom. Deterrence does not work for them because they do not feel they have anything to lose.

    Kids Company provides three hot cooked meals a day, incentive points which can be exchanged for clothes, education, psychiatric counselling, help with housing, drugs and benefits. It is in the business of picking up the pieces of discarded lives and attempting to put them back together.

    Kids Company is a local solution to a local problem meeting a specific need. It has established itself spontaneously and its essence is its autonomy which would be lost if we ever tried to make it fit a bureaucratic straitjacket.

    We need to invoke the spirit of the great Victorian social reformers, but we need to translate the working of that spirit into a modern idiom, the idiom of the Head Start programme and the idiom of the Kids Company. We need through concerted and coordinated action to find the means of harnessing the resources of the public sector and of the voluntary sector, to intervene early, to provide support and reinforcement for parents and their children, so that the ‘outsider child’, does not become the ‘problem child’, the ‘impossible child’ and the ‘young offender’.

    8. A new approach to dealing with young offenders

    We have, however, to accept that – however much we improve upon our current, lamentable approach to ‘problem children’ – there will still be failures. There will still be some, I hope, ultimately very few, who slip through the net and become serious and persistent young offenders.

    At present, our principal response to such offenders is to incarcerate them in Young Offenders Institutions. I have spoken today about the statistics which indicate that the system of YOIs in the UK is failing lamentably, both as a deterrent and as a system of rehabilitation.

    Some other places do better.

    You will recall that, for the UK’s Youth Offending Institutes, the latest figures show that 75% of young offenders reoffend within two years of release – and those figures are only for those juveniles who are caught.

    75%. Now let me contrast that figure for a moment with a Young Offenders Reformatory in Ankara, Turkey – a country not normally associated with a Hampstead liberals or a liberal penal policy!

    At this Reformatory, just 3% of those released had been reconvicted of an offence within four years. Yet the inmates of this Reformatory were convicted for severe crimes.

    The Governor of the Reformatory states:

    “This place is more like a school than a prison because we believe this project will be one that will help the children who have committed crimes return to the community as normal citizens”.

    This Reformatory succeeds because it is embedded in the local community. It is the very opposite of a child jail. The young people leave the prison campus every day to work in local businesses or study in local schools. The Reformatory is partly staffed by local volunteers. Although there is tremendous opportunity to escape, very few children do.

    Why?

    Partly because the conditions of the Reformatory are pleasant and provide replacements for all the things that were notably absent throughout the young person’s upbringing: positive support, education and sustenance.

    However, there is one important threat that hangs over these juvenile offenders: they know that they will be sent to a harsh closed prison – most likely to the end of their sentence – if they run away. They know what this closed prison is like due to the fact that they were detained there before trial proceedings.

    Let me give you another example in Texas – also not an area associated with lenient punishment.

    Over 70% of Juvenile offenders who pass through the Harlingen Camp in Texas do not reoffend (roughly the inverse of the UK figure). Although the Camp is highly disciplined, the offenders are given specialised mentoring and education programmes.

    They are constantly re-modifying their programs to create the highest success rate. For example, most juvenile institutions have at least 200 beds, whereas this camp only has 32. This allows for greater personal contact, or as Mr. Coan, the Prison Captain said, “A smaller unit leads to greater individual counselling and better end results”.

    The camp is not completely “military”. It emphasizes the fact that it is an educational institution, where the children can learn moral and physical courage.

    6 months is the minimum time of stay for the average child; the longest stay was 13 months. Children can be kept longer than 6 months if there are problems finding proper placement for them upon departure (if for example the family is not involved or willing to help).

    The children and counsellors meet with the family every two months to check on progress and try to streamline the network of support from the camp to the individual homes. 26 children have applied for the High School equivalency exam; 20 have passed, thus earning their High School Diploma from the camp. The camp also works to help the young people go to college with a 2-year program they are connected with once the kids leave the camp.

    These examples of Ankara and Texas have a lot to teach us – because the contrast with our own arrangements is so great. This is of not, of course, to deny that there are examples of good practice within some UK institutions.

    Thorn Cross YOI in Warrington has proved that if they can hold on to a young offender for long enough they can make a difference to the life of that young person.

    Thorn Cross operates a High Intensive Training programme known as HIT which recent research shows has a positive impact on re-offending rates.

    Cognitive-behavioural programmes, education, skills training relevant to the person and the location, preparation for a useful life, strict routine, detox programmes, mentoring, career planning and through-care on the outside have helped to reduce re-offending.

    A few weeks ago I visited the Orchard Lodge Secure Training Centre in South London. The staff are dedicated and do everything they can to help the children who are placed there. In many cases they do an excellent job and I witnessed some youngsters taking science GSCEs.

    But there are crucial differences even between these good UK examples and the really successful cases in Ankara and Turkey.

    What both the Boot Camp and the Ankara Reformatory have in common is what happens to juveniles when they leave.

    They offer a really serious rehabilitation and settlement service. The staff frequently calls on and check on the children and their families. They help them with their educational qualifications and the young people are invited back into the institutions on a day-by-day basis for further support.

    What a contrast to Britain. I have lost count of how many projects looking after young people, how many Secure Training Centres, and how many Young Offenders Institutions do not have the ability to offer a decent aftercare service.

    Although Thorn Cross – unusually – does make efforts (heroic under the circumstances) to support the boys after resettlement, they struggle in a policy environment that does not recognise what a pivotal time the weeks and months after a young person is released can be.

    They are often unable to find out what happens to former residents, and they have strictly limited capability for any kind of rehabilitation support. In the case of most Youth Offending Institutions and Secure Accommodation Centres, there is no serious after-care at all.

    Unfortunately once young people leave Orchard Lodge, for example, there is nothing. The youngsters go back into their neighbourhoods whence they came. With no positive networks of support, before long, many are tempted back into the gangs and rejoin the destructive society.

    The staff of Orchard Lodge are as frustrated by the system as I am. They told me that they pushed for as many children as possible to go to College, as that would be the one network of support that might keep them off the conveyer belt to crime.

    Recently a member of my team met a young man who had been in and out of Juvenile Units and YOI’s since the age of fifteen. Each time he was convicted he was given a short-term sentence from two to five months.

    He behaved well in prison, he welcomed the opportunity to clean up and come down from whichever drugs he had been taking at the time he was convicted. The problem was he was never anywhere for long enough for any good to be done.

    When his sentence was up he was back on the outside, back to the estate he had come from, exposed to the pressures and the gangs and the vulnerable lifestyle that had contributed to his past pattern of offending.

    Whilst he was in prison he had a routine, three cooked meals a day, his life took on an order and although to you and I that order would be abhorrent, to him, someone who had since a child had lived a life in chaos, it was comforting.

    Health care was on tap, he successfully went through detox, and the prison service, which possibly provides the most comprehensive drugs support programme in the UK, successfully built him up with nutrition and exercise.

    However the education he received was minimal, he was given no skills training for a life on the outside, he had received little in the way of mentoring or counselling and nothing which happened on the inside prepared him for a life on the outside. In fact everything on the inside was the opposite of what it would be on the outside. His meals were cooked, his clothes washed, others took the majority of decisions, he didn’t really need to think about anything.

    Someone who came into prison unable to completely think about the consequences of his actions or his future had all decision-making responsibility removed for the time he was inside.

    The irony was that he wanted a better life for himself. In his words he wanted ” a nice house and a job that paid good money”. He had aspirations, which to someone from his background presented a huge leap.

    By the end of his sentence, he was ready to take a step towards a better life, He was off drugs, had pulled himself together. But, just when he was best placed to make the transition from a life of social exclusion and persistent offending, the system throws him out into the community and virtually abandons him.

    The result being that within weeks he relapsed and was back through the revolving doors for another useless short-term spell at the expense of the taxpayer. This is the human reality behind the dismal statistics: the principal reason why the Youth Justice System fails is that it offers only sporadic episodes of improvement (after a long series of cautions and the like), without any coherent, consistent long-term rehabilitative approach.

    How can we improve upon this dismal performance and begin to achieve the kind of results that are being achieved in Ankara and Texas?

    The first imperative is to recognise that short, sporadic sentences with nothing in between will do very little, if anything, to rehabilitate persistent and serious offenders. There is at least some evidence to suggest that a long sentence, coupled with the reforms I am proposing, would lead to a better chance of successful rehabilitation and potentially reduce the total amount of time that young offenders spend inside.

    The second imperative is to recognise that a ‘sentence’ for such a young offender need not be, and in most cases almost certainly should not be, uniform or composed solely of straightforward incarceration: what is needed is for the serious and persistent young offender to be placed in the custodianship of some agency that can use a combination of support and discipline, sticks and carrots, gradually to wean that young person off crime and into a different style of life.

    In the case of Ankara and Texas, the custodial institutions themselves play these roles. For reasons which have to do with the history of our own institutions, I doubt whether that is a model which could generally be applied here. I believe that we need to build, instead on the Youth Offending Teams – whose origins lie in the work done by Michael Howard when he was Home Secretary.

    The Youth Offending Teams have many natural advantages as prospective custodians of persistent offenders under longer term rehabilitative ‘sentences’. They are locally based. They are devoted to dealing with specific problems of individual, persistent offenders rather than a wide range of other issues. They contain representatives of many of the organisations that need to be involved, from the police to the social services. And they have already showed signs of imagination – with, for example restorative justice programmes and ISSP supervision and mentoring programmes.

    But the Youth Offending teams are a foundation, rather than the whole answer.

    If we are to build effectively on that foundation and begin to emulate the low re-offending rates achieved in Ankara and Texas, we will need to look again not only at sentencing and the powers of custodianship (i.e. the use of sticks and carrots) for long term youth rehabilitative sentences, but also at the structures of the Youth Offending Institutions and secure accommodation, the availability of longer term education and training, psychological help, access to safe housing and much else besides.

    9. Fulfilling the ambitions: tough but constructive

    These then, are our ambitions – a truly effective programme, mobilising the public and voluntary agencies to lead ‘problem children’ away from the conveyer belt to crime, alongside a new approach to serious persistent youth offenders involving longer term rehabilitative sentences with a ‘seamless’ support service focused on the reform of character.

    To make a reality of these ambitions, we will need much further policy work. That work is now in train.

    That work will need to develop all parts of the five point plan for fighting crime in Britain that I authorised at the beginning of the year.

    It will need to deliver not only effective action to combat youth crime, by early years intervention and longer term rehabilitative sentences for persistent offenders, but also effective means of putting police back on the streets and turning them into the custodians of our neighbourhoods. It will need to identify effective means of rehabilitating our creaking criminal justice system – so that trials are conducted efficiently and effectively.

    And – as importantly as any of this – it will need to provide real methods of conducting an effective campaign against drug dependency in this country – without which no fight on crime stands any material chance of succeeding.

    Beyond and behind all of this we shall require a much broader programme of decentralisation, to create a remoralised and sustainable welfare society in which neighbours and parents alike take responsibility, in which family structures are supportive rather than torn apart, in which local communities and individuals feel they have power over their own destiny.

    We do not have to choose between soft action and hard action.

    That is a stale argument.

    We can instead, take action that is tough but constructive, action that is based on a real acknowledgement of the crisis and a real belief in individual moral responsibility, but action that derives at the same time from optimism about the capacity of our society to reform moral character and to lead young people away from crime, to the huge benefit of us all, if only we go about it in the right way.

  • Tim Yeo – 2002 Speech to the Social Market Foundation Conference

    Tim Yeo – 2002 Speech to the Social Market Foundation Conference

    The speech made by Tim Yeo to the Social Market Foundation Conference on 19 June 2002.

    1. INTRODUCTION

    I am grateful to David Lipsey and the Social Market Foundation for this opportunity to set out my thoughts about the future of broadcasting and public service broadcasting (PSB) in particular.

    Television and radio touch all our lives. Their influence on social, cultural, commercial and political activity is far reaching. Every man, woman and child is a consumer of television and radio.

    Decisions on how they are regulated, on controls over ownership, on digital switchover, on the BBC Charter, and many other matters don’t just concern every family in the land. They affect how Britain exploits the huge economic opportunity which broadcasting represents.

    I’m on the early stages of a journey of exploration which started last September when I took on the DCMS portfolio within the Shadow Cabinet. Today what I want to do is float ideas, share thoughts, not set out Conservative Party policy. I will do that at a later date, after I’ve attended a few more events like this one.

    I start from the position of being on the side of the consumer. I want more progress to higher quality, better value, more control for viewers and listeners. Delivering these aims will open up greater opportunities for broadcasters.

    In charting a course for broadcasting’s future we mustn’t be prisoners of the past. Harnessing new technology for the benefit of consumers as well as suppliers involves new ideas and concepts.

    Trusting consumers doesn’t always come easily to powerful people in either politics or broadcasting. Viewers and listeners weaned on an out of date model of passive consumption of television and radio deserve to be treated better.

    Now is the time to move towards a market in broadcasting where viewers pay for what they choose to watch and not for much else; time to reduce the distorting effects of the BBC licence fee; and to set the BBC itself free to grow in competition with other suppliers.

    Let me, at the outset, salute the industry’s considerable achievements. The BBC has a distinguished history. It set high standards which were rightly and widely admired. ITV opened up new horizons, Channel Four provided an innovative model of a publicly owned television channel and Sky TV enormously enhanced viewer choice. The newcomer, Channel Five, has its own angle on news and arts coverage. As it happens all these success stories have been facilitated by applying Conservative philosophy to a rapidly changing industry.

    2. BACKGROUND

    Broadcasting is and will remain one of the most important industries in the twenty-first century. Fortunately it’s an industry where Britain enjoys advantages – a large pool of entrepreneurial and creative talent, a fine record of public service and other broadcasting, the English language and a country in which people from all over the world like to live and work. British influence on the development of the media industry should be considerable.

    Now viewers and listeners enjoy wider choice decisions about ownership of media companies should be left to the competition authorities. The market will protect consumer interests provided there is competition between suppliers. If unfair, monopolistic or anti-competitive practices creep in the authorities have backstop powers to intervene.

    On matters of taste and decency regulators should concentrate on the prevention of harm rather than offence. This may sometimes involve taking a stronger line than now, for example, over material which may encourage aggressive or violent behaviour.

    The present structure of broadcasting in Britain is a historical accident. Radio, and television, developed as state-owned monopolies funded by the licence fee, a television tax which is highly regressive. Gradually this monopoly evolved into a comfortable duopoly and eventually into today’s multi-channel environment.

    But payment methods haven’t expanded to match the range of channels. Broadcasting companies and programme makers exercise great power over consumers. There’s been an assumption that schedulers know best, that the consumer is a passive creature, content to flop down in front of the screen and accept a diet someone else has chosen.

    Today some viewers are starting to consume television when it suits them, choosing from a bigger menu and exercising more control, maybe accessing one item in a news bulletin and pursuing it in more depth. In future more people will do this and it’s time to throw overboard outdated assumptions about how television should be paid for.

    3. THE FUTURE

    The future is digital. The Government must drive the switchover from analogue to digital more effectively than they have done so far. Without real leadership their target date for switchover won’t be achieved. As a Sky subscriber and a former customer of ITV Digital I know how unreliable the reception of the terrestrial service was, a failing for which Ministers cannot entirely escape responsibility.

    The extra quality, choice and potential for interactivity on digital justifies moving ahead quickly, regardless of any residual value in the analogue spectrum. Britain’s leadership of the digital television revolution must not be thrown away.

    Switchover requires a thriving terrestrial platform, alongside satellite and cable. Without that the exclusion of many homes from cable by geography would mean that satellite exercised a monopoly over much of Britain.

    Ideally all three platforms will offer viewers free to air and pay TV channels, even if in the short term the survival of digital terrestrial television involves a limited period of only free to air. However viewers shouldn’t be encouraged to buy equipment which denies them the chance to upgrade to pay channels at a later date.

    An all digital Britain will widen the range of payment options, for the benefit of both viewers and suppliers. It’ll end licence fee evasion, saving £140 million a year, more than 5 per cent of the BBC’s total income.

    Radio is a very important part of PSB and I’ll speak in more detail about it on another occasion. For today let me just say that Britain enjoys high quality radio. Wider choice and higher standards will be possible as digital radio becomes the norm.

    As far as possible the future of broadcasting should be determined by consumers not politicians. The market is the best guarantor of efficient delivery.

    If the market is to work properly changes are needed. The distorting effect of the television tax must be reduced. Consumers must increasingly pay for what they watch, not for what suppliers choose to sell them.

    4. PAYING FOR BROADCASTING

    No other industry prices its products in the way broadcasting does. All viewers pay the television tax even if they never watch the channels it pays for. Severing the financial relationship between consumers of a product and its suppliers is seldom helpful.

    Buyers of books aren’t forced to pay an entry fee to get into a bookshop before they know what books are on sale. Lovers of music don’t pay a lump sum covering the cost of dozens of compact discs even though they know they will only want to listen to a handful. Theatre tickets aren’t sold in a block which gives entry to certain plays selected by someone else before the theatregoer has been told which they are.

    The structure of the publishing, music and theatre industries isn’t the same as television but there are enough similarities to question why television is sold this way.

    The answer lies in history. To get broadcasting going the television tax (originally a radio tax) was introduced. It may have been right in the early days that this tax funded all broadcasting. Today the situation has changed.

    The television tax affects the behaviour not just of the BBC but other broadcasters too. It limits the power of consumers to determine what they are offered. It’s a crude and undiscriminating way to charge for television. It wouldn’t survive if consumers were used to paying for what they want and nothing else.

    The television tax provides a smokescreen behind which other broadcasters price their products in a similar way. Sky has revolutionised viewer choice, winning a large market share on the back of a bold and well judged strategic gamble. It’s been able to bundle its product, like that of the cable companies, in a way which does not suit all consumers, partly because the market has been conditioned by the television tax.

    Let’s take this a stage further. If the consumer, having paid the television tax, equivalent to the price of entry into the bookshop, is a sports lover, he or she is then asked by pay television suppliers for a further entry fee to get inside the section containing sports books. There is no opportunity to state a preference for, say, tennis and rugby over golf and cricket.

    Pay television subscribers, unlike television taxpayers, do at least buy their product voluntarily. For many people a single comprehensive subscription may be convenient. But now digital makes pay per view (PPV) easy, subscription to a pre-packaged bundle of channels shouldn’t be the only option.

    PPV should be widely available so consumers can access programmes individually. Subscribers to one sports channel, for example, should be allowed to buy individual sports programmes on other channels on PPV in the same way subscribers to The Economist who receive a discount by buying a year’s issues at a time can buy a single issue of the Spectator at the full cover price when they want to.

    The present system restricts choice and insults the viewer’s intelligence. It could be replaced by one which gives viewers and listeners the power that cinema and theatregoers, that readers of books, magazines and newspapers take for granted. PPV isn’t a burdensome addition to charges already levied but an alternative which enhances viewer choice and control out of all recognition with past practice.

    It’s time for boldness and imagination. Why shouldn’t quality programmes be made in a freer market? The free market in book publishing doesn’t mean only trashy books get published. Trashy books do get published but quality books emerge as well.

    At present the sole recipient of the television tax is constantly accused of dumbing down. It’s hardly surprising the BBC is tempted to compete for audience but it cannot be said too often that ratings are a lousy guide to whether the BBC is carrying out its PSB role.

    The success of Hello Magazine hasn’t put The Economist out of business. Suppose, however, both were published by one tax funded organisation and supplied free to all readers. It is a sure bet The Economist would be the one threatened with the chop when a commercially orientated chief executive took charge.

    Promoting a television market where consumers are king requires a fresh approach to the television tax and a rethink of the role of PSB.

    5. PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING

    PSB is a public good on which public money can properly be spent. There’s a debate to be had whether that money should come from a hypothecated television tax or from general taxation, which is how the excellent BBC World Service is funded. However, the constant struggle of the World Service for proper funding isn’t an encouraging precedent for the general taxation option.

    A twenty first century model of PSB may still involve, at its core, an organisation whose main purpose is the delivery of certain specified obligations. But other channels apart from the BBC have an important PSB role and I applaud how they discharge their responsibilities. The public interest in the new century will only be properly served if there continues to be the widest possible choice for consumers, catering for all manner of individual tastes. However this morning I want to focus on the BBC.

    Many attempts have been made to define PSB and it’s often easier to say what it is not rather than what it is. I certainly don’t regard all the BBC’s output as constituting PSB. Plainly many viewers and even some BBC management don’t think so. Gavyn Davies didn’t claim it was in his 1999 Report on Future Funding.

    An important function of PSB is to remedy market failure. Taxpayer’s money can justifiably be used to fund broadcasting to ensure the supply of programmes which serve a public interest but which would not get made if the free market alone determined supply.

    Annex B of the Government’s own document – rather grandly entitled “The Policy” – refers to the General Public service broadcasting Remit whose first provision is “disseminating information, education and entertainment”.

    Back in the days of the BBC monopoly –as it happens anxieties over concentration of ownership weren’t so widely aired then, those concerns have grown louder as ownership has become more, not less diverse – back in those far off days, entertainment deserved inclusion within this definition of PSB.

    Today, however, the duty of a public service broadcaster to entertain is dramatically less now so much entertainment is available on other free to air channels. Market failure no longer applies.

    Information and education have stronger claims for inclusion within PSB, as does news and current affairs. Although Sky News has emerged as a valuable additional news provider alongside BBC and ITN, the regional news coverage of both BBC and ITV fulfils an important PSB function and might not be supplied by the market.

    The same is true of serious current affairs programmes. On The Record may not reach those elusive younger viewers who increasingly don’t vote but does contribute to political discussion. Regular viewing of Channel Four News and Newsnight not only allows time for dinner but also keeps viewers in touch with what’s happening at home and abroad. Neither would necessarily survive without a PSB obligation.

    In assessing where market failure applies there is a distinction between what the market supplies free to air and what it supplies on pay TV. This is more difficult territory. If croquet is covered on a pay channel does a free to air channel need to do so? Is croquet PSB? If it isn’t what difference is there between croquet and cricket, or golf, or rugby, or tennis? Or even, dare I say it, football?

    It’s doubtful if much sport can still be defined as PSB. And one model for the BBC I’ll float in a minute would allow viewers to enjoy the same sports coverage as now without paying more.

    Harder to judge is the extent to which drama, music and the visual and performing arts are PSB. Maintaining a significant British production capacity in these areas is desirable and reliance on the market may not achieve this goal. How these important elements are defined within a PSB remit requires further consideration.

    There is also the question of how the PSB package should be delivered. Should it be divided up into a series of individual components and bids invited from broadcasters able to deliver them? Or should PSB be bundled as a single package and put out to tender?

    This might appeal to free market theorists but it wouldn’t recognise reality. The BBC, despite faults which its detractors are quick to highlight, would deservedly have a head start in bidding to perform the PSB roles. A tender process would be cumbersome and expensive.

    The aim must be to deliver PSB as efficiently as possible. A new approach to BBC funding, overhauling the television tax, can encourage this.

    6. THE FUTURE OF THE TELEVISION TAX

    Much discussion over BBC Charter renewal will concern funding.

    I want the BBC enjoy the potential for a greater increase in its income than the television tax could ever provide. It is, after all, an internationally recognised brand, capable of considerable growth.

    Unlocking this potential depends on reforming the television tax. I hope the Secretary of State’s mind isn’t as closed as her recent FT interview suggested when she was quoted as saying that a significant change to the funding of the BBC lies “somewhere between the improbable and the impossible”.

    The BBC receives approximately £2.1 billion direct from television tax payers and another £390 million paid by the Treasury on behalf of households exempt from the tax, giving a total income of around £2.5 billion.

    Various options exist after the present Charter expires. At one extreme the BBC could be funded from advertising. But advertising revenue, as recent events have shown, is not infinitely expandable. This option would be unpopular with existing advertising funded channels and would not promote consumer choice. I do not support it.

    An alternative would be for the BBC to rely entirely on subscription or PPV. This would reduce its audience and unless those viewers who remained paid a higher subscription than the present television tax, money for programmes would be reduced.

    At the other extreme the television tax could continue, maybe growing in real terms as it has done recently. This alternative enjoys some support but is hard to justify unless everything the BBC does constitutes public service broadcasting.

    Changes to the present funding arrangements are therefore likely and I want to explore another option – shall I call it the Middle Way – because unlike the Secretary of State I want the BBC released from the shackles of the television tax.

    There’s nothing magical about an income figure of £2.5 billion. Could a high quality PSB function be provided for £2 billion? Or £1.5 billion? Perhaps PSB only needs one national television channel, not two?

    Now is the time to examine just how much television taxpayers should have to pay for the BBC’s PSB functions. I suspect that most television taxpayers believe it’s significantly less than £2.5 billion.

    Once a figure is decided the BBC would sign a public service agreement committing them to providing the core public service programmes. Its finances would be subject both to external audit and scrutiny by Parliament through the Public Accounts Committee and the Select Committee.

    But as I said a moment ago, I want the BBC to have more income, not less, so in addition to receiving this slimmed down television tax, it would be given new freedom to offer consumers additional television and radio channels on subscription or PPV.

    Under the Middle Way there’d be no ceiling on the BBC’s income. Its substantial reputation and assets could be exploited at home and overseas, creating new opportunities for programme makers and management. The BBC could grow without artificial constraints, develop new markets and improve services to consumers.

    A whole range of specialist new television channels and radio stations could emerge. All viewers would have more to spend as a result of the lower television tax. The market for pay television is growing. Would consumers not gain from competition, for example, between a subscription funded BBC Sport channel and other sports channels?

    No doubt it will be claimed that EU rules make it hard for the BBC to operate a dual structure of this sort. As Commissioner Reding pointed out recently to the Joint Scrutiny Committee examining the draft Communications Bill, total transparency is needed if a state controlled taxpayer funded body starts to compete in the market place. I hope that regulatory structures will not impede the evolution of the BBC.

    How far the BBC would grow under this model would depend on how successful it was at making programmes which consumers were willing to pay for. If its output is as good as its champions say, it has much to gain from greater exposure to the market. Timing the introduction of this new model would depend in part on the progress towards digital switchover and the start of the new Charter period is probably too soon for such radical changes. In any case they could be introduced gradually. But the time to debate whether they are desirable is now.

    7. CONCLUSION

    In considering the future of broadcasting generally and the renewal of the BBC Charter in particular our aims should be:

    1) to enhance viewer choice and control

    2) to help the BBC exploit its unique assets and reputation at the same time as preserving a properly funded PSB role

    3) to ensure that other broadcasters are free to develop as they wish

    4) to encourage a diversity of payment methods so that viewers increasingly watch what they pay for

    5) to help Britain maintain a leading role in broadcasting.

    Tessa Jowell’s rejection of changes to BBC funding must not be the last word on this important issue. Viewers and listeners deserve better. The ideas floated above are just that – ideas.

    I hope they will stimulate debate, enhance consumer power, widen the influence of the BBC and ensure that British broadcasters are leaders in this century as they were in the last.

  • PRESS RELEASE : Give us more weapons – Andriy Yermak

    PRESS RELEASE : Give us more weapons – Andriy Yermak

    The press release issued by the President of Ukraine on 31 March 2022.

    Ukraine calls on Canada and other partners to supply weapons. This was announced by Head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermak during an online conversation with journalists of the Canadian Global News.

    “We need more weapons. Small arms, demining systems, drones, counter-battery radars, howitzers, body armor… Everything! But first of all, we need to close the sky to protect our cities from missiles,” Andriy Yermak explained.

    The situation in the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, he noted, is as normal as possible in the current conditions. At the same time, there is no reason to talk about a full-fledged withdrawal of Russian troops from the Kyiv direction.

    “Our people are calm, they are full of dignity and energy. Kyiv is reviving, shops are working, all services are working, public transport is working. Air alarms have already become a certain element of the current life of people in the city,” said the Head of the Office of the President.

    He referred to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who said in his address that the Ukrainian side has not yet seen the Russians withdraw all their forces from the Kyiv direction. There are some movements, but it is more like a change of position or regrouping.

    Andriy Yermak noted that according to one of the probable scenarios, the Russians will concentrate their forces around Donbas.

    He reminded that the blockade of Mariupol continues and the situation in this city is catastrophic. Ukraine continues negotiations with many foreign leaders to unblock Mariupol as soon as possible.

    Andriy Yermak stressed that the world community should continue to increase pressure on Russia. In particular, a group of Ukrainian and international experts has been set up at the President’s Office, which has already begun analyzing the real impact of sanctions against Russia and developing proposals for new effective measures.

    The Head of the Office of the President also stressed the importance of increasing military assistance to Ukraine, in particular from Canada.

    “Every hour of the war takes the lives of Ukrainians and causes great damage to our country,” he concluded.

  • PRESS RELEASE : Volodymyr Zelenskyy had an hour-long phone conversation with Joseph Biden

    PRESS RELEASE : Volodymyr Zelenskyy had an hour-long phone conversation with Joseph Biden

    The press release issued by the President of Ukraine on 30 March 2022.

    President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy had an hour-long phone conversation with US President Joseph Biden.

    Volodymyr Zelenskyy shared his assessment of the situation on the battlefield and the forecast of developments. He spoke about the crimes of the occupiers against the civilian population and the heroic efforts of Ukrainians aimed to protect the independence and territorial integrity of their country.

    The Presidents discussed concrete support that will further strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities at sea, on land and in the air.

    “We need peace, and it will be achieved only when we have a strong position on the battlefield. Our morale is firm, there is enough determination, but we need your immediate support,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

    The leaders discussed preparations for the next package of painful sanctions against Russia, as well as the negotiation process and security guarantees for Ukraine.

    Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the United States for another $ 1 billion humanitarian aid package and additional $ 500 million in direct budget support.

  • PRESS RELEASE : Mykhailo Podolyak – International multilateral treaty on security guarantees will give Ukraine reliable protection against possible new aggression

    PRESS RELEASE : Mykhailo Podolyak – International multilateral treaty on security guarantees will give Ukraine reliable protection against possible new aggression

    The press release issued by the President of Ukraine on 30 March 2022.

    Ukraine wants to sign an international treaty on security guarantees, which will give it reliable allies and real protection from any new aggression in the future. Adviser to the Head of the President’s Office and member of the Ukrainian negotiating team Mykhailo Podolyak emphasized this during an online briefing at the Ukrainian Media Center.

    Mykhailo Podolyak noted that he had quite optimistic impressions of the face-to-face round of the Ukrainian-Russian talks on ending the war, which took place on March 29 in Istanbul (Turkey).

    “We have reached a very important construction for Ukraine when it will no longer be a fantasy, but a specific treaty on security guarantees, which will be legally fixed. Guarantor countries that undertake international legal obligations will be fixed there,” he said.

    The Adviser to the Head of the President’s Office noted that Ukraine has been fighting one-on-one with the powerful army of the Russian Federation for more than a month. That is why our state wants to have such allies who will stand by when help is needed here and now.

    According to him, in case of signing an international multilateral treaty on security guarantees, our state will finally have not only its own army, which is fighting very hard today, but also an additional security contour due to powerful allies that will stand by Ukraine.

    Mykhailo Podolyak said that a group of international lawyers moderated by Head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermak is consulting with Ukraine’s future security guarantors.

    “He holds preliminary negotiations with the guarantor countries at the level of political advisers, explains our positions, explains the fundamental principles of the treaty on security guarantees. After that, consultations take place at the level of legal groups,” he said.

    Mykhailo Podolyak reminded that Ukraine would like to see the permanent members of the UN Security Council as the main guarantors of its security, as well as Turkey, Germany, Poland and several other countries. In particular, Italy has already expressed interest in participating in such a treaty. The treaty will be open for any country to accede to.

    According to the Adviser to the Head of the President’s Office, many countries during and after this war will realize that the old formats of European or even global security do not work, and will understand that the future will be based on such agreements as Ukraine has proposed.

    Mykhailo Podolyak is convinced that the available developments indicate that preparations for the meeting of the Presidents of Ukraine and Russia can already begin. However, the Russian side has yet to consider Ukraine’s proposals and give a preliminary answer to them. Currently, online working groups are constantly working to ensure the continuity of the negotiation process.

    According to the Adviser to the Head of the President’s Office, intermediate proposals were recorded at the meeting in Istanbul, which the parties have already worked out and discussed. There is a possibility that in a few days it will be possible to agree on the next round of talks.

    At the same time, he stressed that all issues related to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine are inviolable for Ukrainian negotiators, which is constantly emphasized by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

  • PRESS RELEASE : The Office of the President of Ukraine supported the initiative to establish the Ukrainian Global University

    PRESS RELEASE : The Office of the President of Ukraine supported the initiative to establish the Ukrainian Global University

    The press release issued by the President of Ukraine on 30 March 2022.

    With the support of the Office of the President of Ukraine, the government, educational institutions and non-governmental organizations are creating the Ukrainian Global University (UGU), a network that brings together the world’s best educational institutions to provide Ukrainian students, scholarship holders, researchers and lecturers with access to educational institutions around the world, as well as new scholarships and postdoctoral programs.

    Participants of the UGU initiative will have not only support, but also access to quality education and the opportunity to conduct research abroad, and then will be able to apply the acquired knowledge and skills in their home country.

    In the future, the UGU team plans to launch internships and programs in Ukraine that will allow their participants to quickly reintegrate and contribute to the reconstruction of the country upon their return.

    The initiative stipulates that displaced students, researchers and scholarship holders will not be abandoned.

    The main goal of UGU is to overcome the devastating consequences of Russian aggression in Ukraine and to attract leading world experience to build a new Ukraine as a worthy member of the world community of free and democratic nations.

    “Ukraine’s integration into the world educational space has been and remains one of the key priorities of our state. Now Ukrainian schoolchildren, students, teachers, scientists who have suffered devastating losses as a result of the military aggression of the Russian Federation, need support! Investing in educational potential, we, together with leading universities in the world and Ukraine, are investing in the future. The establishment of the Ukrainian Global University is a call to the entire educational world community to support Ukrainian schoolchildren, students and scientists in obtaining quality education. These people will return to Ukraine to rebuild it after the war with world-class knowledge,” said Olha Budnyk, adviser – commissioner of the President of Ukraine for the Fund of the President of Ukraine for Support of Education, Science and Sports.

    Currently, the UGU team is focused on establishing personal and institutional partnerships with schools, universities and research centers around the world, which will be ready to consider applications for medium- and long-term programs from Ukrainians and sponsor a number of students, scientists and researchers. Details and conditions are agreed with each partner institution separately, but all partners must sign an open memorandum with UGU, which defines common values and principles.

    Partnership applications can be submitted at https://uglobal.university/

    Stanford, Harvard and dozens of other leading universities in the world have already supported the initiative.

    “Stanford realized the importance of creating new educational programs for Ukrainians six years ago when we launched the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program. Graduates of this program have already made significant changes to improve Ukraine. I support UGU and call on all other universities in the world to support Ukrainian students and scholars,” said Michael McFaul, a professor of political science at Stanford University and director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

    “The University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne has a long tradition of solidarity with scholars and students in exile. It is especially important for us that UGU was founded by Ukrainian scientists who are now fighting not only for the sovereignty of their country, but also for our common European values. We will continue to provide our support after the end of the war, when Ukrainians return to rebuild their country,” said Christine Neau-Leduc, President of the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne.

    To maximize efforts, the initiative team forms a network of volunteers, which can be joined by graduates and representatives of educational institutions from around the world. They will help attract more institutions to the network, UGU is convinced, as they will be its ambassadors in their schools, colleges and universities. Volunteers can also contact the administrations of any institution around the world to initiate the process of establishing their partnership with UGU.

    If Ukrainian students or scholars want to become members of UGU, they can use the simplified application process on the website. They will then have to go through the full or simplified application process at any educational institution listed on the platform to increase their chances of admission. A prerequisite for participation in the program for all students is return home after graduation or research completion to help rebuild Ukraine after the war.

    UGU is also working with DuoLingo, an online language learning program, to allow Ukrainians to take English language tests for free and receive certificates wherever they are.

    Leading domestic educational institutions and organizations, including the Kyiv School of Economics, Ukraine Global Scholars, the Ukrainian Catholic University, the Emerging Leaders Program at Stanford University, the Professional Government Association, the SET University and the Kyiv Academic University, joined the establishment of the Ukrainian Global University (UGU). The initiative was also approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the Embassy of Ukraine in the United States.

  • PRESS RELEASE : Iryna Vereshchuk announced the approval of three humanitarian corridors in the Zaporizhzhia region

    PRESS RELEASE : Iryna Vereshchuk announced the approval of three humanitarian corridors in the Zaporizhzhia region

    The press release issued by the President of Ukraine on 30 March 2022.

    In Ukraine, as of March 30, three humanitarian corridors have been agreed in the Zaporizhzhia region for the evacuation of Mariupol residents to Berdyansk and for the evacuation of residents of Melitopol and Enerhodar. This was announced by Deputy Prime Minister – Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk.

    “Three humanitarian corridors have been agreed: for evacuation of Mariupol residents and delivery of humanitarian aid to Berdyansk, delivery of humanitarian aid and evacuation of people from Melitopol, as well as for a convoy of people on their own transport from Enerhodar to Zaporizhzhia,” she said.

    According to Iryna Vereshchuk, the formed convoys of buses and trucks with humanitarian aid have already left the city of Zaporizhzhia.

    The Deputy Prime Minister stressed that the Ukrainian side demands that the occupying forces abide by their commitments and allow humanitarian columns through checkpoints.

    She noted that on the way back to the city of Zaporizhzhia, citizens from Berdyansk and Melitopol will be able to join the humanitarian columns using their own vehicles.

    “Yesterday, during the talks, the Russian delegation received proposals to organize humanitarian corridors to the 97 most affected settlements in the Kharkiv, Kyiv, Kherson, Chernihiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Mykolaiv regions. Today we will continue to work to get answers to these proposals,” said the Deputy Prime Minister.

    She reminded that on March 29 a detonation of ammunition took place at the warehouse of the Russian Armed Forces in Belgorod, Russia. According to Iryna Vereshchuk, this is an example of the typical Russian neglect of safety and mass use of dangerous ammunition produced during World War II.

    “Only yesterday, the Ukrainian General Staff warned of the threat of self-detonation of ammunition, a huge number of which Russia has piled up near the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Russia must immediately withdraw its troops from the Chornobyl zone,” said the Deputy Prime Minister.

    According to her, in the context of nuclear security, the irresponsible and unprofessional actions of the Russian military pose a very serious threat not only to Ukraine, but also to hundreds of millions of Europeans.

    “Therefore, we demand that the UN Security Council take immediate measures to demilitarize the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone and establish a special UN mission there to eliminate the risk of a repeat of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster as a result of actions of the Russian occupation forces,” Iryna Vereshchuk said.

  • PRESS RELEASE : President – In “Diia” citizens can already apply for compensation for housing lost as a result of hostilities

    PRESS RELEASE : President – In “Diia” citizens can already apply for compensation for housing lost as a result of hostilities

    The press release issued by the President of Ukraine on 30 March 2022.

    As of today, one can apply for compensation for the loss of housing due to the Russian invasion in the application of public services “Diia”. This was announced by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his address.

    “As I promised, the state will compensate for the loss of a house or apartment as a result of hostilities. Every citizen of ours can already submit an application in “Diia”. Applications are already available in the mobile application. You need to update the app to see this new service,” the President noted.

    In a week it will be available to submit an application offline – in the centers of administrative services. All the necessary details will soon be clarified by the government.

    “The main thing is that the state will compensate for every meter of lost real estate,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized.

    In addition, according to the President, the government has expanded the program of assistance to those institutions that support displaced persons from the areas of hostilities.

  • PRESS RELEASE : Andriy Yermak met with a group of experts who will analyze the impact of sanctions against Russia

    PRESS RELEASE : Andriy Yermak met with a group of experts who will analyze the impact of sanctions against Russia

    The press release issued by the President of Ukraine on 29 March 2022.

    Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak held an inaugural online meeting with a group of Ukrainian and international experts who will analyze the real impact of sanctions against Russia.

    “Today, sanctions are issued by our partners almost every week. They are different. Some of them have already started working and are very sensitive to Russia. And some seem to sound like sanctions, but they don’t work at all. As for some Russians, they have already found ways to bypass them. The sanctions mechanism itself is very powerful, and our goal is for the sanctions to work effectively,” he said at the beginning of the meeting.

    Andriy Yermak believes that it is necessary to reach the pace of the weekly increase of sanctions pressure against Russia. According to him, Ukraine’s partners are currently working on the introduction of a new sanctions package against Russia. Critical import chains will be targeted, including export controls and sanctions aimed at suppliers cooperating with the Russian military-industrial complex.

    The Head of the President’s Office also noted that there can be no question of lifting, stopping or changing the sanctions against the aggressor, until the war is stopped, troops are withdrawn from Ukraine, our state receives reparations and compensation for the damage to the Ukrainian state and its citizens.

    Former US Ambassador to Russia and former US National Security Adviser Michael McFaul said it was necessary to review what had been done and ensure that new sanctions were imposed on Russia every week to increase pressure on Russia.

    Daniel Fried, former State Department’s Coordinator for Sanctions Policy, said there was a need to halt Russian oil and gas exports as much as possible and reduce relevant profits. He is also convinced that the dynamics and speed of decision-making are important in the issue of sanctions pressure.

    For his part, Deputy Head of the Office of the President Rostyslav Shurma noted that the issue of oil exports is the most important and sensitive when it comes to effective pressure on Russia, and it is on it that we should focus the most.

    He also stressed the need to recognize Russia as a state sponsoring terrorism.

    “This will automatically lead to bans on many corporations. Not only those related to oil and gas,” said Rostyslav Shurma.

    He also considers sanctions against the entire Russian political elite or people involved in politics important.

    In addition, in his opinion, a halt in the supply of certain chemicals, spare parts and important components for the mechanical engineering, defense and oil refining industries will be critical for Russia.

  • PRESS RELEASE : The new multilateral treaty should make any aggression against Ukraine impossible – Andriy Yermak

    PRESS RELEASE : The new multilateral treaty should make any aggression against Ukraine impossible – Andriy Yermak

    The press release issued by the President of Ukraine on 29 March 2022.

    The new multilateral treaty should make any aggression against Ukraine impossible and become a key element of the new international security system. This was stated by Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak commenting on the face-to-face round of Ukrainian-Russian talks, which took place on March 29 in Istanbul.

    “We all and I personally liaise around the clock with our international partners to elaborate a quality and effective multilateral security treaty,” he said.

    According to the Head of the Office of the President, today the relevant work is underway together with the United States, Great Britain, China, Canada, France, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Israel. The leaders of these states have appointed specific political and security advisers. They are working with the Ukrainian party on a future document on security guarantees.

    “Ukraine needs clearly and qualitatively formulated legally effective and binding international security guarantees. The horrors that the Russians have brought to the Ukrainian people must never be repeated,” Andriy Yermak said.

    He stressed that “Ukraine is primarily concerned about ending the war, withdrawal of Russian troops from our territory and, of course, building a new security structure.”

    The Head of the President’s Office noted that today it is important for Russia to stop the shelling immediately and for the full-fledged humanitarian corridors to all cities where a humanitarian catastrophe already exists or is approaching to be opened as soon as possible. First of all, we are talking about Mariupol, other cities of Donbas and Chernihiv.

    Andriy Yermak thanked the members of the Ukrainian delegation for their important and difficult work.

    “I’m sure everyone understands how difficult it is to negotiate with representatives of Russia today,” said the Head of the President’s Office.