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Tony Blair – 2016 Statement on Chilcot Inquiry

Below is the text of the statement made by Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, on 6 July 2016.

The report should lay to rest allegations of bad faith, lies or deceit. Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein; I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country.

I note that the report finds clearly:

– That there was no falsification or improper use of Intelligence (para 876 vol 4)

– No deception of Cabinet (para 953 vol 5)

– No secret commitment to war whether at Crawford Texas in April 2002 or elsewhere (para 572 onwards vol 1)

The inquiry does not make a finding on the legal basis for military action but finds that the Attorney General had concluded there was such a lawful basis by 13th March 2003 (para 933 vol 5)

However the report does make real and material criticisms of preparation, planning, process and of the relationship with the United States.

These are serious criticisms and they require serious answers.

I will respond in detail to them later this afternoon.

I will take full responsibility for any mistakes without exception or excuse.

I will at the same time say why, nonetheless, I believe that it was better to remove Saddam Hussein and why I do not believe this is the cause of the terrorism we see today whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world.

Above all I will pay tribute to our Armed Forces. I will express my profound regret at the loss of life and the grief it has caused the families, and I will set out the lessons I believe future leaders can learn from my experience.

July 6, 2016
Donald Tusk – 2016 Speech to European Parliament

Below is the text of the speech made by Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, in the European Parliament on 5 July 2016.

First of all I would like to thank you for your contributions to today’s debate. It is fully understandable that events of the past days have produced a lot of negative emotions. But we cannot give in to these emotions. We have to preserve the ability to make sober assessments and rational decisions.

First, I would like to stress that the EU is ready to proceed with an amicable divorce with the UK even today. In this process we will stand firmly on the grounds of the Treaties, which have prepared us for such a situation. And one thing must be clear: the Treaties have left the decision on the initiation of the divorce proceedings to the member state that wishes to leave the EU. In other words we cannot effectively force this decision on the UK.

Secondly, before launching the divorce procedures, we will not undertake any negotiations on the future shape of relations between the EU and the UK. These future relations will be based on a balance of rights and obligations. I would like to reassure you that wherever there may be a conflict of interest, we will act in the interest of the EU, and we will do so effectively.

Thirdly, today we have heard a lot of severe and critical comments aimed at member states. I want to tell you that in our talks with the leaders of member states I always repeat that there is no EU without the EU institutions. In the current situation, attacks on the EU institutions, including the Commission and the Parliament, can only deepen the confusion. The national capitals must undertake an effort to stop accusing the EU and its institutions of weaknesses and failures. The referendum in the UK was lost, also because the political elites have for years been building a negative and often unfair vision of the EU. But there is no EU without the member states either. It is impossible to solve serious problems in the EU against the will of the member states. Taking responsibility for one’s own words applies also to representatives of EU institutions. Today we must combine all our efforts to agree on what is our common interest, as opposed to constantly demonstrating individual importance, in some kind of perpetual vanity fair.

July 5, 2016
Theresa May – 2016 Statement on First Round of Voting in Tory Leadership

Below is the text of the statement issued by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, after the first round of voting in the Conservative Party leadership contest on 5 July 2016.

I am pleased with this result, and very grateful to my colleagues for their support today.

There is a big job before us: to unite our party and the country, to negotiate the best possible deal as we leave the EU, and to make Britain work for everyone.

I am the only candidate capable of delivering these three things as prime minister, and tonight it is clear that I am also the only one capable of drawing support from the whole of the Conservative party.

I look forward to continuing the debate about Britain’s future – in parliament and across the country.

July 5, 2016
Greg Clark – 2016 Speech to LGA Conference

Below is the text of the speech made by Greg Clark, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, at the Bournemouth International Centre on 5 July 2016.

Colleagues,

We meet today in circumstances that a year ago, few of us would have expected.

The United Kingdom resolved to leave the European Union.

The Prime Minister – only recently re-elected – resigned and a contest to replace him underway.

The principal party of Opposition contemplating a second contest within a year for the post of Leader.

In these turbulent times it is more appropriate than ever to be grateful for the stability and confidence that local government brings to our national life.

While some Westminster politicians can give a good impression of losing their heads and blaming it on everyone else, that doesn’t wash in local government.

In fact, when the Local Government Association (LGA) had a spot of political instability after the local elections in May it was resolved amicably within days.

One of the reasons why I’ve always been passionate about getting power out of the hands of central government and into yours is that there is a practicality and a directness in local government.

You focus on the job in hand.

Local government is agile, dependable, hands-on.

As the author Benjamin Barber put it in the American context: “Presidents pontificate, mayors pick up the garbage.” Literally, and metaphorically.

So let me thank you and, through you, all your fellow members and officers. Not just for picking up the garbage. But for educating our children, giving security and respect to our elderly. For making those who would be left out of our society welcomed in. For catching people when they fall into homelessness or debt or despair. For providing refuge for people fleeing violence whether perpetrated in their home or from brutal regimes the other side of the world.

Thank you for helping our cities, towns and villages be better places to live and to work and do business, through your hard work in making them more attractive, making them greener, cleaner, and healthier.

Thank you for running a planning system that brings you no end of brickbats but which has, for the first time in decades, produced planning permissions which match the growing population.

Thank you for keeping our roads running – we’d certainly know if you didn’t – our parks beautiful and our neighbourhoods safe.

And it’s not just the things that have to be done everyday. Local government proves itself time and again as being exceptionally agile at dealing with the unexpected.

In December last year floods struck the North of England. The first to respond – alongside the emergency services – were officers and lead members of local authorities. As I saw first-hand during my time there, they worked round the clock for days on end – Christmas holidays literally washed away – to evacuate people affected, check on those isolated, to get money and help to people and businesses who needed it.

I want to thank everyone who came to the rescue of our communities in their hour of need.

I would like to thank Gary Porter for his leadership of the LGA during the last year, and the Group Leaders David Hodge, Nick Forbes, Gerald Vernon-Jackson and Marianne Overton.

Let me now talk about the matter of Europe.

The first thing to say is that whether we’re in local government or national government, government is about leadership. We have the responsibility to keep a cool head.

The referendum was an instruction to negotiate terms for leaving the EU. Nothing has changed and should not, in my view, until we have a clear view of the change that we want.

We are still members of the single market, we are still members of European Councils with full voting rights. People from other European countries have a perfect right to continue to live and work here.

The second is that I think it is essential that we conduct ourselves with the courtesy and respect which not only is a hallmark of Britain’s reputation but an essential condition for any successful negotiation.

Our European neighbours will continue to be our partners and must be our friends.

Our society and our communities must be open, tolerant and welcoming.

The Polish men who fought the Luftwaffe were welcome here.

The Polish and other European men and women who have come more recently and who contribute to our national life – you too are welcome here.

To those who come to us because they have fled persecution and to whom we have offered sanctuary – you are welcome here.

Just because we have voted to leave the European Union does not mean we should abandon our international outlook, out openness to the world, our strength in being one of the most diverse, welcoming and civilised places on the planet.

I’m proud of the work that my department supports, that many of you lead on, in tackling hate crime. We must redouble those efforts on behalf not just of those members of our society who have been subjected to sickening abuse in recent days, but of the whole of Britain whose repugnance at the behaviour of an unrepresentative few must prevail.

I think that the referendum did not so much create divisions in our country so much as expose ones that were already there.

London voting to remain, most of the rest of England for out.

Some metropolitan cities voting marginally to stay in; smaller industrial towns voting heavily to leave.

There was a critique that was made of the European Union – whether we think it was accurate or not. Too remote. Too unaccountable. Too bureaucratic. Trying to be too uniform. Run by people that don’t know what it’s like for me, where I am.

Travelling around the country, talking to people during the campaign, I sensed that some of those charges were levelled at the way the country is run too.

So among the answers to the challenge that the referendum result poses has to be a much bigger role for the local in our national life.

Local government that is rooted in communities; Is practical and pragmatic not doctrinaire; Understands the communities that comprise an area – and the differences from one place to another.

Local government has local, powerful leadership.

Our great towns and cities over centuries have been led by – and in some cases founded by – people who have had the ability, but also the freedom, to pursue a bold vision for their city, town or county. To be proud of it and to care little for being told what to do.

It was always the case that local leaders put national leaders in their place.

One of my favourite stories is from my home town of Middlesbrough where the Prince of Wales came, in 1887, to open the new town hall. In his speech, the Prince admitted, with a condescending note, that he expected to see a smoky town.

The Mayor instantly and publicly upbraided the Heir to the Throne:

His Royal Highness owned he had expected to see a smoky town.

It is one, and if there is one thing more than another that Middlesbrough can be said to be proud of, it is the smoke (cheers and laughter).

The smoke is an indication of plenty of work (applause) – an indication of prosperous times (cheers) – an indication that all classes of workpeople are being employed, that there is little necessity for charity (cheers) and that even those in the humblest station are free from want (cheers).

Therefore, we are proud of our smoke (cheers).

In my view, local leaders should be similarly assertive in our day, the response to leaving the European Union has to be a radically expanded role for local government.

That means that local government must be represented at the negotiating table. I argued successfully last week for English local government to be part of the negotiations on the terms of our exit.

In the days ahead I will ask Gary to put together a team representing all parts of local government; all parties and all parts of the country to make sure we make good use of this seat at the table.

When we are transferring powers from the EU to Britain I think it is essential that Whitehall is not the default destination for them.

For years we have been urging subsidiarity – the principle that power is held as close to the people as possible – on the European Union.

We now must apply it at home and ask first whether powers and funds can be transferred to local government. I also think it is essential that we confirm, as soon as possible, that the continued availability of the structural funds which co-fund many important investments in infrastructure and economic development, including in the North, the Midlands and the South West.

The programme runs from 2014 to 2020 and it would be madness to put at risk major job-generating projects when they are already underway and much-needed.

Although you could be forgiven for thinking so, there are many other matters that we need to discuss at this conference apart from our relationship with the EU.

The Communities and Local Government Select Committee used to fret in the past about whether the department’s agenda was prominent enough in government. That is not a question they ask anymore.

During the last 12 months, local government has played a more prominent and influential role in government policy than at any time I can remember.

Ten Devolution Deals for combined authorities have been negotiated covering 30% of the population of England. Local government will retain 100% of business rates from 2019 to 2020 and will be financially independent of central government.

Every part of England is on the point of submitting proposals for the Local Growth Fund which I launched in 2014 and is now driving growth in all parts of the country.

There is much more to do, and I am determined that you should drive the reforms that are needed.

During the last few months I have been working closely with the group leaders and officers in the LGA on how to make sure business rates retention is implemented in a way that is fair and effective to all types of councils an all parts of the country.

I have argued strongly in government that we should get on with the preparations and specifically invite local government to recommend its preferred solution.

So I can announce today that I am publishing the official consultation on business rates retention that will allow us to continue the momentum for reform. The consultation is open enough – rather than narrowly prescriptive – to give ample space for colleagues here to shape the solution that we arrive at.

There is a major opportunity – arising from a major challenge – to transform the way in which the NHS and local councils work together to care for our elderly and vulnerable.

In the Local Government Finance Settlement I negotiated with the Treasury and was able to secure a proposal that had been made to me by local government – the 2% social care precept, which has raised £308 million extra for social care in its first year, and a new fund available to local government to improve social care. But I am well aware that there is further to go.

At its best, local NHS bodies work efficiently with local councils to ensure that hospital patients and elderly residents – who are one and the same people – are helped to get the best care they need in the most appropriate setting.

But too often this is the exception rather than the rule, and the genuine full-hearted collaboration that is necessary has too often been lacking. That that must change – culturally, as much as structurally.

I will redouble efforts to work with the Health Secretary to support any area that brings forward new ways of working that can improve social care. I will help ensure that you are not held back because it hasn’t been done before, or because budgets held by health providers have proved elusive to local government.

I thanked you earlier for the transformation that you have made in providing the planning permissions we need to provide the homes that we need for the next generation. But while more planning permissions were granted, the number of new homes actually built has increased but not at the same pace.

We need to close this gap. There is nothing more frustrating to you – or to me – than seeing a plot that has been granted planning permission taking years to be built out.

So we need, together, to speed up the implementation of planning permissions. One of the ways we can do that is to provide smaller sites – or subdivide bigger sites – so that they are available to the small and medium-sized local and regional builders who literally built the Britain we are familiar with today, but whose balance sheets and access to finance puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to acquiring large sites.

At the Spending Review we secured £20 billion for investment in house building and I am determined to work with you so that we can – in partnership – turn around the 30 year deficit in house building that has caused so much anguish for the millions of young people who want only to do what our generation was able to do with confidence – count on a home of their own.

We have important further work to do on devolution. The devolution deals we have agreed already cover a third of the country by population – but they are very much available to all of the country.

No place is the same and no deal should be the same.

The geography and powers and governance that are right for one place will not be right for another. But in every case I will look for local agreement, not central imposition.

Now I know that in many cases it would seem easier to give a standard blueprint and compel authorities to adopt it.

But if you believe in devolution as I do that is to miss the whole point. I will not compel any council to join any devolution arrangement. It needs to be locally agreed.

But in a Britain in which the question has changed from whether to devolve to how significantly, there is a huge opportunity for leaders who are willing to work together in harmony to take powers and budgets which can be used to magnify the impact on the lives of their residents.

Mr Chairman, Conference. In at least 3 political parties – the Conservative Party, the Green Party and UKIP – there is a leadership contest underway – and if Labour were to join it would make 4.

My advice to local government in these leadership contests is not to take the new found resurgence of interest in local government for granted.

For many years devolution to local government was campaigned for locally, but was thwarted nationally. Some departments of government are recent converts, but in the recent past they were the most implacable opponents.

A year ago I said I wanted to see a nation of muscular communities. Now is the time to exercise that muscle.

July 5, 2016
George Osborne – 2016 Statement on Maintaining Support for Businesses and Households

Below is the text of the statement made by George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and co-signed by leaders of numerous banks on 5 July 2016.

While we are realistic about the economic challenge facing the country after the referendum result; we are reassured that collectively we can rise to it.

The last time Britain faced an economic shock the banks were at the heart of the problem.

Thanks to the hard work of rebuilding the banks, making them stronger and safer, and the arrival of new challenger banks – banks and building societies are now part of the solution.

The government gave the Bank of England new counter-cyclical capital buffer powers to support lending in the financial system in the good times and bad.

The independent FPC of the Bank of England have today used those powers.

Now the UK’s main lenders, meeting with the Chancellor this morning, have agreed to make the extra capital available to support lending to UK businesses and households in this challenging time.

The Chancellor called for a joint national effort to meet the economic challenge. Today we see that effort take place.

Signatories and attendees

Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne
Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Harriett Baldwin
Ms Jayne-Anne Gadhia (CEO, Virgin Money)
Baroness Vadera (Chairman, Santander UK)
Mr Douglas Flint (Chairman, HSBC)
Mr Craig Donaldson (CEO, Metro Bank)
Sir Howard Davies (Chairman, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group)
Mr David Roberts (Chairman, Nationwide Building Society)
Mr John McFarlane (Chairman, Barclays)
Mr Alan Dickinson (Non-Executive Director, Lloyds Banking Group)

July 5, 2016
Andrea Leadsom – 2016 Speech to Utility Week Energy Summit

Andrea Leadsom

Below is the text of the speech made by Andrea Leadsom, the Minister of State at the Department of Energy, on 5 July 2016.

Good afternoon. It’s a pleasure to address such a well-attended meeting of people from all parts of the energy system.

I have been asked to speak about the future of energy in the UK. Now is an exciting time to discuss this subject. In the last few years, we have seen rapid progress in new energy technologies, dramatic reductions in costs, and a multitude of new suppliers entering the electricity market.

And just in the last few months, we have seen periods when the contribution of coal-fired power to the national grid fell to zero, for the first time in more than 130 years. Unquestionably, we have entered a period of transition.

The physicist Niels Bohr famously said that ‘prediction is very difficult, especially about the future’. He could have added, ‘and especially when things are changing very rapidly’. So I am not going to make any predictions.

Instead, I will describe what I see as our direction of travel, and I will set out the principles of energy policy to which this Government is committed.

The EU

As many of you know, I have spent much of the last two months campaigning for change. With the people of Britain now having voted to leave the European Union, a change of great national significance is ahead of us.

But when it comes to our energy policy, I would like to start by emphasising what will stay the same.

As my friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change said last week, there is no change to the challenges we face. As a Government, we remain fully committed to providing families and businesses with energy that is secure, affordable and clean.

There is no change to our commitment to work with other countries in pursuit of these goals. Our relationships with the United States, China, India, Japan and our European friends will remain central to our efforts to attract investment, to spur innovation, and to counter the threat of climate change.

And there is no change to our commitment to a clear energy policy framework and a strong, investment-friendly economy – making the UK one of the best places in the world to live and do business.

So we have a continuity of aims, and of principles.

As we consider the future of energy in the UK, I’d like to set out how these principles will guide our approach to each part of the energy trilemma.

Security

First, security. Energy security is non-negotiable, and is our top priority.

In the electricity sector, security of supply still requires baseload power. We know that the make-up of this baseload cannot go unchanged. Within the next two decades, virtually all of our existing nuclear fleet is due to retire. And within the next ten years, our goal is to phase out entirely the use of unabated coal.

Put together, that means at least a third of our current electricity generation comes from plants that will need to be replaced.

This Government will not duck the difficult decisions about investment in our energy infrastructure. We have been clear that we expect to bring on power generation from both new nuclear and new gas plants.

That’s why we are commissioning the first new nuclear power station in a generation, and working with developers, who have set out proposals to develop 18GW of new nuclear power stations at six sites across the UK.

At the same time, we have announced plans to use the Capacity Market to buy more capacity and to buy it earlier, to ensure there is adequate incentive for investment in new gas and other forms of generation.

In the long-term, while the security of our electricity supply is likely to remain as essential as it is now, I expect us to achieve it through increasingly diverse means.

The National Grid’s ‘Future Energy Scenarios’, published today, estimates that the maximum potential by 2040 of electricity storage and interconnectors could be 15 GW and 23 GW respectively. I have seen similarly impressive estimates for the potential of demand-side response.

The shift in this direction is already beginning. Electricity storage technology is seeing some dramatic reductions in cost: for example, the cost of lithium-ion technology has fallen by 14% per year between 2007 and 2014.

And on top of the 4GW of interconnectors already operating, we have nearly 8GW of additional capacity in the pipeline for which Ofgem has given regulatory approval.

I know that experts disagree about what is the right energy mix for the future, almost as much as politicians do. As the Government, we cannot simply wait and see, and yet neither can we plan the future in every detail.

Our approach has to be to make some strategic investments, and to put in place a system that will deliver a rational result.

The Capacity Market – our insurance policy for security of electricity supply – is such a system. The auctions we hold under this system will decide how much we rely in future on gas, storage, and demand side response.

I cannot tell you what those proportions will be. But I can tell you, with confidence, that we will be guaranteeing security of supply at the lowest available cost.

Affordability

That brings me to the second objective: affordability.

This Government is committed to keeping bills low for families and businesses – and to acting as a consumer champion. I fully expect that to remain an objective of energy policy in this country for years to come.

What makes this a challenge is that our energy bills depend more than anything on wholesale prices, set in the global markets, which are largely outside any government’s control.

So our priority is to ensure a competitive UK energy market that benefits all consumers. In that respect, we are seeing real progress.

There are now 33 independent suppliers in the domestic retail energy market, up from just 7 in 2010. Independent suppliers now have over 15% of the dual fuel market, up from only 1% in 2010. I hope and expect that this trend will continue.

Working together with Ofgem, we are also making it easier and quicker to switch suppliers. Between January and March this year, 2 million energy accounts were switched, and more than half of those moved to newer suppliers.

With more suppliers in the market, and consumers better able to switch between them, we are starting to see cost reductions in the global markets being more reliably passed on to consumers.

The report of the Competition and Markets Authority, published last week, contains a strong set of recommendations designed to further improve consumer engagement, and to protect those least able to benefit from competition.

The Secretary of State and I are keen to see these measures implemented as quickly as possible, and to work with industry to rebuild trust in an energy market that delivers a fair deal to all consumers.

Decarbonisation

The third corner of the energy trilemma is of course decarbonisation.

And it’s here that I’d like to be especially clear, to correct any misperceptions people may have about the implications of the EU referendum result.

Decarbonising our energy system is not some abstract regulatory requirement; it is an essential responsibility that we hold towards our children and grandchildren, as the only way to effectively counter the threat of climate change.

However we choose to leave the EU, let me be clear: we remain committed to dealing with climate change.

The UK’s Climate Change Act was passed by a majority of 463 votes to three. That is really quite extraordinary. The will of Parliament has rarely been expressed so strongly and unambiguously.

This Government has got on with the job. We have achieved record levels of investment in renewable energy: in 2014, 30% of all Europe’s renewable energy investment took place in the UK.

We have surpassed our own expectations: solar power capacity has now reached over 10GW, with 99% of that having been installed since 2010.

We are on track for 35% of our electricity to come from renewables by 2020, and our overall emissions have fallen by a third since 1990.

This is a fantastic success story, of which industry and government can both be proud.

In this context, I make no apology for the fact that we have had to take some steps to reduce costs. Our responsibility is to manage public spending carefully and sensibly.

When the costs of renewables falls dramatically, it cannot be in our interests to pay generators above the odds, while the public foots the bill. Even with the steps we have taken, we still expect our spending on clean energy to double during the course of this Parliament.

With the announcement last week of our intention to legislate for a 57% reduction in emissions for the Fifth Carbon Budget, our expectations for the future are clear. This is a further step towards our 2050 target of an 80% reduction, which implies the large-scale decarbonisation not only of the power sector, but also of heating and transport.

Just as with security of supply, so also with decarbonisation: we cannot and should not plan every detail.

We see a strategic case for the UK to build more offshore wind power, and so we have committed to support up to 10GW of new projects in the 2020s, provided the costs continue to come down. At the Budget earlier this year, we announced funding of up to £730m a year, for three auctions during the course of this Parliament in which offshore wind projects can compete.

But in the long-term, it is the market that will decide the contributions of the different technologies – first through auctions, and then directly as clean energy begins to deploy without subsidy.

This approach will give us confidence that we are decarbonising at the least cost.

And I believe that it is in all of our interests to reach the point where clean energy can deploy without subsidy, and the government can remove itself from the market, as soon as possible

Jobs and Skills

Before I conclude, I would like to mention one more priority, which complements the other three. That is the creation of high-quality UK jobs, throughout the energy sector.

For many years, oil and gas has been our largest industrial sector, contributing £19bn to the economy and supporting 375,000 jobs. In the last year, we have seen over 8,000 jobs lost from this sector, and we know that more are at risk.

We have responded to the difficult conditions facing the industry by providing tax measures worth £2.3bn, to ensure the UK has one of the most competitive tax regimes for oil and gas in the world, safeguarding jobs and investment.

We have published a new strategy for maximising economic recovery from the UK continental shelf. And we have established the Oil and Gas Authority, which is already helping industry to drive down costs and improve efficiencies.

At the same time, the investments in new energy generation that I have described today will create new opportunities.

The new nuclear supply chain could support 30,000 jobs over the coming years, and the shale gas industry to create more than double that number.

Firms related to low carbon goods and services were estimated to employ over 460,000 people in the UK in 2013, and there are already reports of oil and gas fabricators using their expertise to develop offshore wind projects.

As we navigate the transition of our energy system, we must continue to invest in our skills, so that our workforce can successfully adapt to whatever new conditions arise.

Conclusion

To conclude: As we consider the future of energy in the UK, it is worth sparing a thought for the past.

The UK has a rich history of leadership in energy innovation. The world’s first coal-fired power station was built by Thomas Edison in London, in 1882. The world’s first commercial nuclear power station was opened by the Queen in Cumbria in 1956.

When those plants fired up for the first time, their builders could have little idea of the future scale of the new energy industries they were opening up. But we have benefitted from their pioneering efforts throughout the decades since.

Our job now is not to predict the future, but to create the conditions for innovation.

That will give us the best chance of ensuring that a system of secure, affordable and clean energy is our lasting legacy. Thank you.

July 5, 2016
Sam Gyimah – 2016 Speech on Early Years Workforce

Below is the text of the speech made by Sam Gyimah, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Childcare and Education, in Milton Keynes on 4 July 2016.

Thank you for that kind introduction. It’s a pleasure to be here today at the NDNA 2016 conference.

Just over a year ago the government introduced legislation to extend free childcare for working parents and during that time I think we have made clear our commitment to the early years and giving children the best start in life.

In September the early implementers will mean that working parents of 3- and 4-year-olds in some areas of the country will be able to use 30 hours of free childcare, with the national roll-out following a year later in 2017. At the heart of 30 hours – as with the existing entitlements – is high-quality provision, because quality of provision delivers the best outcomes for children – helping to prepare them for school and improving their future life chances.

In terms of quality, the workforce is the sector’s biggest asset. Having the right people with the right skills and being able to deploy them in the best ways makes a big difference to outcomes. As Andreas Schleicher of the OECD has said, “staff qualifications are one of the strongest predictors of the quality of early childhood education and care.”

In November last year I set out my wider vision for the early years workforce. I want young people to consider the early years as a career of choice and a sector in which they can pursue long-term ambitions. I want those already working in the sector to have the opportunity to enhance their skills and to pursue the qualifications that enable them to progress and develop.

Today I want to say more about this workforce strategy and my vision for it. I want the strategy to support development of a well-qualified workforce with the right knowledge and skills to deliver high-quality early education and childcare for all children aged 0 to 5. I also want the strategy to support the supply of a sufficient workforce to deliver free entitlements by removing barriers to attracting, retaining and developing staff. Today I will outline the approach and initial thinking that is informing the strategy’s development, ahead of launching it later this year.

But I’d like to start with a reminder of how much there is to celebrate already among the dedicated early years workforce:

– between 2008 and 2013 the proportion of staff in full day care with at least a level 3 qualification increased from 75 to 87% and we are making incremental steps to increasing the graduate workforce

– the quality of the workforce is a key factor in delivering good-quality provision and so it is unsurprising that as the qualification levels of staff have risen, so too has the quality of provision; statistics released this week show 86% were judged good or outstanding

– and most importantly the benefits of better-quality provision have impacted on children; EYFS profile results showed 66.3% of children achieved a good level of development compared with 60.4% in 2014

This provides us with a solid foundation on which to build and make more progress.

My starting point for developing the workforce strategy has been to make sure that I understand the challenges facing the early years workforce. To inform this I have spent the last few months listening to feedback from stakeholders. And then I have begun to consider what government’s role might be in helping to address those challenges.

As you all know, beyond the minimum requirements set out in the Early years foundation stage framework, employers are free to staff their settings as they wish. Providers rightly adopt a staffing model which suits the needs the children and parents they serve and which fits their business model. Employers are responsible for attracting and recruiting staff, making sure they have the appropriate qualifications to count in ratios, setting rates of pay and supporting staff development.

So what then is the role of government?

I believe government has a role in supporting the development of a well-qualified workforce with the right knowledge and skills to deliver quality early education and care to young children and to support the delivery of the free entitlements – especially because with the 30 hours offer, government will be an even bigger buyer of childcare than before. I have emphasised how important it is for government to set quality standards and I have committed publicly to making sure that the current ratios and qualification requirements for staff will remain.

But government also has a responsibility to make sure that national policy does not present barriers to developing the capacity of the workforce to deliver high-quality childcare – I want the sector to thrive.

I am therefore committed to making sure that the workforce strategy actively removes or reduces barriers to attracting, retaining and promoting staff and to showcasing the sector as a great place to work, with clear progression routes for those considering a career in the early years. As part of this, I believe it is our responsibility to make sure that whatever staffing model providers choose to adopt, they have the confidence that potential employees who have undertaken early years specific training regulated by government have the knowledge and skills they need to do a good job and deliver quality childcare and early education.

I believe that government also has a role, alongside employers, in developing clear progression routes for early years staff and supporting childcare providers to establish the best structures and approaches to sharing learning and accessing good-quality CPD.

As I said earlier, I have been listening. And over the past few months I have heard some clear messages coming from a range of stakeholders, including the NDNA who have been vocal on a number of issues on your behalf.

We all know that people’s career choices can be made early in their lives and many of you have told me that you do not think that careers advice about roles in the early years sector is attracting sufficient or appropriate people into the early years. I want to tackle this and will be setting out a plan of action through the strategy. I also want to consider how we reach out to those who have worked in the sector before to encourage them to return and to those who are considering a career change and want to enter a rewarding role that makes a real difference to society.

The most common issue that people have raised with me in terms of attracting staff has been the recruitment of staff at level 2 and 3 since the introduction of the GCSE requirement for level 3 staff in September 2014. I have heard from employers that they feel the requirement is reducing the pool of new staff coming into the sector. But there are also those who support the requirement and say that other factors such as an improving economy are impacting on recruitment to a greater extent. And others have said that the decision to enable trainees to take GCSE English and maths alongside their EYE training is helping more and more staff to access level 3 whilst also providing valuable transferable knowledge, skills and qualifications for individuals.

I have heard the concerns from significant parts of the sector for swift action to remove the GCSE requirement and I want to ensure you that I will be revisiting the options on how to make sure the sector has both the right number of staff and the right quality of staff to deliver 30 hours alongside the workforce strategy.

As part of that I think it’s important to consider the fundamental principles behind numeracy and literacy qualification requirements for members of staff and how best to make sure staff are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to deliver high-quality early years education and care.

In government we are increasingly taking an employer-led approach to the development of qualifications – across all occupations. The work of apprenticeship trailblazer groups reflects this and the forthcoming publication of the Sainsbury review into technical education will also support this employer-led approach.

The early years educator was the result of extensive sector consultation on the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct a level 3 role and has been welcomed by employers. I want to continue this joint approach and am considering how the workforce strategy can complement the wider government focus on employer led qualifications development.

Part of government’s drive on quality has been to supply the sector with a pool of specialist early years graduates through the EYP and EYT training programmes.

Graduate places are fully funded by government, course fees are paid and there are incentives available for eligible learners through bursary payments. We want to continue to support the sector to access graduates through the early years initial teacher training programme in 2017 to 2018.

Government also offers funding to support employers to release staff undertaking employment-based early years teacher training and I encourage employers here today to consider that scheme.

The schools white paper includes proposals for the reform of QTS and this provides exciting avenues for us to explore and we will do so. But we must also not lose sight of the fact that the majority of early years teachers work in the PVI sector where QTS is not required, but where specialist graduates can support improved quality.

As I said earlier it is not government’s job to tell settings how to manage their workforce and as you know there is no requirement in the EYFS for settings to employ a graduate, but I would like to encourage employers to consider government’s offer to support employment-based initial teacher training.

Employment-based routes provide an opportunity for those already working in the sector to progress. I understand however that the lack of a clear progression route from level 3 to level 6 may be standing in the way of some staff moving on, and this is something we will consider further.

Overall I want the strategy to encourage people to join the sector because it offers the opportunity to improve the life chances of children at the earliest and most important stage of their lives and because there is potential to learn and progress on a professional basis. As I have said before, my vision is that the sector is recognised as a place where people can work their way up to become an early years educator, an early years teacher, a centre manager, a manager of a chain, or perhaps an entrepreneur establishing their own childcare business.

Career progression is not just about qualifications, it is also about having access to professional development that supports staff to improve their practice, acquire specialist knowledge and skills, and become system leaders. I believe that government has a role in facilitating that development by helping to establish the infrastructure and supporting the partnerships through which settings can share good practice and access informal CPD that supports improved quality.

We have provided funding to support partnerships between teaching schools and PVIs to improve children’s readiness for school by improving the skills of the workforce. There have been great results from supporting staff development across special educational needs and disability; literacy, speech and language and communication, and improving the early education of disadvantaged children.

It’s really pleasing to see teaching schools building capacity in the system in this way that will help to create a successful future childcare system. I want us to consider how we can continue to support quality improvement activity through the workforce strategy, and encourage providers to focus on specific issues such as SEND where we know improvements can be made.

I hope that this focus on recruitment, retention and progression gives you a sense of what I see as the scope for the workforce strategy and I look forward to sharing more with you later in the year.

When we think about workforce quality, it’s important to remember that staff have an incredibly important role in supporting learning and development and keeping children safe and well. There’s nothing more important than the safety and security of children – we trust the workforce to look after their well-being.

That’s why I’m pleased to announce today that the Department for Education has awarded our host this morning, NDNA, the contract to deliver a voluntary quality mark for nursery providers that have trained all of their staff in paediatric first aid.

The mark will be known as Millie’s Mark, to commemorate Millie Thompson who tragically passed away at her nursery in 2012 following a choking incident. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Millie’s parents, Joanne and Dan, who have campaigned tirelessly in their daughter’s memory to reduce the chances of such tragic accidents happening in future. I know that Joanne is looking forward to talking to you more about this later today.

Nurseries will be able to apply for the mark later on this summer and the mark will help to provide parents with the assurance that their child is being cared for by safe and knowledgeable staff. It is hoped that, over time, this initiative will help ensure that as many staff members as possible are trained in these important, life-saving skills.

I am very much looking forward to continuing to work with NDNA and Dan and Joanne, and to seeing the nurseries that go over and above the existing statutory requirements recognised for their efforts to ensure that their staff have the right skills and to keep children safe.

And I am pleased that today I can go further than this as we publish our response to the consultation on paediatric first aid.

Our proposals received a warm welcome from the sector. And, from this September, all newly qualified level 2 and level 3 staff must also have first aid training to count in the ratios. This will mean an extra 15,000 staff a year coming into the sector with first aid training, providing vital reassurance to parents that their children will be well cared for.

The government is prioritising the early years because we know how important they are for children’s development and future life chances. I look forward to continuing to work together with all of you in the sector as we develop our workforce strategy and meet the wider aim of giving children the best start in life.

July 5, 2016
Matt Wrack – 2015 Speech to LGA Fire Conference

Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Wrack, the General Secretary of the FBU, to the Local Government Fire Conference held on 12 March 2015.

Thank you for the invitation to address your conference.

You will not be surprised to hear that the Fire Brigades Union is critical of this review. We see it as a party political initiative.

It has been prompted by the government’s anger at the long running pension dispute and it is timed to attack firefighters and their union in the run up to the general election.

The FBU is critical of the nature, rationale, methods and timing of the Thomas review.

1. First, the review is not independent.

The terms of reference were set by DCLG alone. It was staffed DCLG.

The chair was selected by DCLG.

2. Second, the rationale for the review is incoherent.

It hinges on vague comments in Ken Knight’s Facing the Future report which we also believe was not an evidence based report.

Our fear is that the review is an attack on national bargaining arrangements and a prelude to further attacks on pay and other conditions of service.

It is a response to the FBU’s campaign to defend pensions, as is clear from the terms of reference.

3. Third, the methods of the review are also highly questionable.

The surveys were drawn up without any discussion with anyone within the fire and rescue service – either employers or employees.

The surveys were not conducted by an independent survey body.

A review conducted in this amount of time, with so few resources and without significant input from stakeholders, risks degenerating into a hatchet job.

FBU participation

The FBU does not endorse the process.

However our national officials have met Adrian Thomas and offered our wisest counsel on how he might make some use of the opportunity presented by the review.

We made a submission in good faith – so that the review at least avoids denigrating firefighters in the name of ‘efficiency’ and ‘reform’.

We also carried out our own investigation of conditions of service, including from a recent YouGovsurvey commissioned by the FBU, undertaken in December 2014.

With almost ten thousand (9,936) responses from across the UK, this is by far the most representative survey of firefighters’ conditions undertaken in recent memory.

At least one in five firefighters in every region of England responded to the survey.

We believe that its findings are robust – not least because they have been subjected to YouGov’s scrutiny.

I will therefore comment on the key issues and explain the FBU’s interpretation on behalf of firefighters.

National arrangements

I think the central threat in this review is to firefighters’ nationally agreed pay and conditions.

The FBU believe the NJC continues to play a valuable role as do others:

The NJC’s current independent chair, Professor Linda Dickens, wrote in her most recent annual report:

‘The Joint Secretariat has a very good record of assisting the parties to either reach agreement at the time of conciliation or to develop the basis of an agreement which leads to a resolution following further discussion shortly afterwards at local level’.

The record of the NJC in recent years in progressing vital industrial relations matters has been impressive.

Over the last year the NJC considered issues such as:

– the 2014 pay award process

– ongoing work on terms and conditions

– a fitness agreement

– implementing the part-time workers settlement agreement

– amending the Grey Book on maternity, childcare and dependency

– the Grey Book sections relevant to health, safety and welfare.

National bargaining provides stability, is cost-effective, strategic and efficient, providing both the necessary competence and capacity that cannot be reproduced locally, particularly with small services.

The YouGov survey also showed that firefighters value the national arrangements for negotiating their pay and conditions.

Five out of six (87%) said they were in favour of a national pay structure.

There is no appetite within the fire and rescue service for cumbersome, duplicative and bureaucratic local or regional systems of pay.

The NJC has also been working on five significant workstreams:

– Environmental challenges

– Emergency medical response

– Multi agency emergency response

– Youth and other social engagement work

– Inspections and enforcement

This is a positive, engaging schedule to transform and bring genuine improvement to the fire and rescue service.

This is a ‘win-win’ programme of change, underlining the virtues of a national system of employment relations.

The NJC’s record for dispute resolution is highly impressive.

Over the last year, nine fire and rescue services have referred a total of nineteen issues to the Joint Secretariat for formal conciliation. In addition, there are numerous and unrecorded informal interventions. These help to avoid or resolve local disagreement, conflict and help to prevent local disputes.

However in the last year, neither RAP nor TAP were required to meet.

The NJC meets on average three times a year.

Over that decade around 100 issues have been resolved by the NJC, with six cases sent to RAP and 9 to TAP.

The NJC has introduced a joint protocol for good industrial relations.

The contents of Grey Book have been reviewed and amended on a number of occasions since the publication of the sixth edition in 2004.

The FBU is committed to the progressive amendment of the Grey Book.

Staffing and workforce management practices

The other central issue in this review, which I suspect will be ignored, is the context of austerity cuts.

Overall trends show a decline in staff employed by the fire and rescue service over the last decade – down by around 5,000 people and representing around 1 in 10 of those previously employed.

The greatest reduction has been in wholetime firefighters – accounting for around 5,000 fewer jobs over the decade.

Control staff have also faced an absolute fall in numbers over the decade.

The number of retained firefighters has now fallen below 2005 levels, having risen for a number of years.

The only increase has been the ballooning of non-uniformed roles.

Most of the staffing reduction in the fire and rescue service has taken place in the last five years.

This has been devastating – and will continue unless everyone in the fire and rescue service stands up and opposes it.

It will worsen the conditions firefighters work in and ultimately increase the risk to the communities we serve.

Workforce management practices

The FBU is not opposed to improvements in workforce practices, providing they make the service better for the public and are not to the detriment of firefighters’ safety and welfare.

The central problem with many workforce management practices imported into the fire and rescue service is that they increase the risk to the public and worsen the conditions of firefighters.

They are often cost-cutting fads dressed up as ‘reforms’.

Firefighters are clear that getting the job done safely, effectively and professionally involves collective action, cooperation and solidarity.

In the YouGov survey, 96% of respondents said the watch system is crucial to teamwork, while 93% said the watch system is crucial to safety.

Working alongside colleagues, training together and going through the same experiences has built the fire and rescue service into a formidable emergency response organisation.

This is not something to be tampered with lightly.

Bullying and harassment

The FBU is aware that the fire minister has raised concerns about bullying and harassment in the service.

I have to say she has no idea about the real issues, but wants to use it to bash the FBU.

The YouGov survey has revealed some of the real issues:

Two-thirds (66%) of firefighters said that principal managers in their brigade were not committed to good industrial relations.

More worryingly, two-in-five (40%) said they had been bullied at work in recent years.

Of those who had been bullied, the majority (60%) attributed the bullying to senior managers, while a third blamed corporate management policy and similar numbers said it was their immediate line managers.

The vast amount of bullying recording by this survey is management bullying of employees lower down the hierarchy.

Another contrast was the view of various agencies for tackling bullying in the service.

Three-quarters (76%) of respondents said that the FBU had been helpful in tackling the bullying they had faced.

However, three-quarters (74%) also said that fire and rescue service managers had not been helpful.

Conclusions

This review appears to have been established for one reason alone: to worsen firefighters’ conditions, to make us work longer and harder – with lower levels of safety – and for less money.

The agenda is simply about short term cost cutting – at the expense of those who regularly place themselves in danger on behalf of society.

A genuine review of our service would survey the changing risks facing our communities at local and national level and assess how the fire and rescue service might plan and prepare for these risks.

Significantly, such a strategic debate has not commenced through DCLG. It has not come from the government at all. The minister has played no role in and shown no interest in these discussions.

Rather the discussion started on the National Joint Council – where those who employ firefighters on behalf of local communities meet and discuss with those representing firefighters.

National bargaining arrangements through the NJC provide a mechanism for addressing terms and conditions issues for sound organisational and operational reasons.

They reduce costs and by avoiding the unnecessary duplication and they ensure that firefighters facing the same risks at incidents enjoy broadly the same conditions of service.

The Fire Brigades Union has always been interested in genuine discussion about the future direction of our service and our profession, as even the slightest familiarity with our history demonstrates.

We seek such a genuine debate today, based on a serious assessment of changing risk and the need to properly plan for these changing circumstances.

July 3, 2016
Theresa May – 2014 Speech to Reform

Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May to Reform on 3 September 2014.

Thank you, Andrew. This is a busy time for the Home Office and for those working on national security. It’s a pleasure to be here again with this country’s leading think tank on public service reform.

When I hear people say there isn’t much difference between the political parties these days, I always think about an announcement made by David Blunkett when he was Home Secretary. In March 2002, he created five “policing priority areas”. These places were as small and specific as Camberwell Green in Southwark, the Grange estate in Stoke, Little Horton and Canterbury in Bradford, the West Ward in Rhyl and Stapleton Road in Bristol. The police in these places, Labour decided, couldn’t cope with high levels of crime and anti-social behaviour. So the solution was obvious. If the police couldn’t do the job, the Home Office would. If you lived on Stapleton Road in Bristol, you could stop worrying because help was at hand. A civil servant sitting in Queen Anne’s Gate in London was ready to take charge.

The “policing priority areas” were not an aberration. The 2002 Police Reform Act required the Home Secretary, at the beginning of each financial year, to prepare a “National Policing Plan”. The Act said the National Policing Plan must set out “the strategic policing priorities generally for the … police areas in England and Wales for the period of three years beginning with that year”. You heard me correctly. The Home Secretary and officials weren’t just expected to know how to fight crime on Stapleton Road in Bristol, they were expected to know precisely what local needs would be for every other community in the country, and – more than that – they needed to know what those needs would be three years into the future.

That was, of course, complete nonsense, and it couldn’t be further removed from the approach we have taken to police reform in the Home Office since May 2010. So today I want to talk to you about my programme of police reform. I want to use it to show that it is possible to deliver more with less. And I want to use it to talk about how we meet an even tougher challenge – the challenge of how we can reduce demand for public services through smarter policy.

Police reform proves you can do more with less.

I just told the story about the policing priority areas and the National Policing Plan, but I want to say a little more about what we inherited in policing back in May 2010.

The institutions of policing were hopelessly inadequate. In theory, unelected police authorities were supposed to hold local forces to account on behalf of the public. In practice, only seven per cent of people even knew they existed. The Serious and Organised Crime Agency – which according to rumour Tony Blair wanted to call MI7 – failed to get to grips with organised crime because it lacked the powers and clout to do so. Police training and standards were in the hands of a £400 million-per-year quango called the National Policing Improvement Agency. The Chief Inspector of Constabulary was as a matter of course always a former chief constable, which meant the Inspectorate was too close to the police to do its job properly.

There was an unaccountable, centralised, corporatist system of governance, known as the tripartite, in which policing across the whole country was run by the Home Office, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities.

Police productivity was held down by the targets, performance indicators, reporting requirements, regulations and red tape made necessary by a system of bureaucratic accountability as the Home Office tried to keep tabs on everything forces were doing.

Police procurement was a pitiful joke. 43 police forces buying different sets of uniforms and running separate and uncoordinated procurement policies. £1 billion per year spent on inadequate ICT, with 4,000 staff working on 2,000 separate systems across 100 data centres. Each police force in the country trying to run its own air service, or at best collaborating with just a couple of others.

There was a pay structure worth £11 billion – three quarters of total police spending – that was designed more than thirty years before. In those three decades, policing changed dramatically while the pay system failed to keep up. But every attempt to change terms and conditions were resisted bitterly by the Federation and successive Home Secretaries were forced to back down.

So that was policing as we inherited it just a little more than four years ago. And yet, when I first launched our programme of police reform, the response from ACPO, the Police Federation and the Labour Party was to deny the need for change. Likewise, when we announced that we would cut central government police funding by twenty per cent in real terms over four years, the same people were united – the frontline service would be ruined and crime would go shooting up. Labour called it “the perfect storm”. The Federation predicted that the cuts and our reforms would destroy policing as we know it. But no such thing happened. According to both recorded crime statistics and the independent crime survey, crime is down by more than ten per cent since the election. Police reform is working and crime is falling.In addition to our work to improve ethical standards in policing, which I spoke about at the Police Federation conference and will not repeat today, police reform amounts to a sustained assault on each of the five problems we identified upon arrival at the Home Office. Inadequate institutions and structures. An unaccountable system of governance. Poor productivity undermined by bureaucracy and centralisation. Wasteful procurement. And a hopelessly out-of-date system of pay.

So we have systematically reformed the institutions of policing. Invisible police authorities have been abolished, and police forces have been made accountable – through beat meetings, crime maps and elected police and crime commissioners – to their local communities. The Serious and Organised Crime Agency is gone, and replaced by a National Crime Agency which has the power to task and command other law enforcement assets and a capability that reaches from local to international crime networks. The NPIA has been scrapped, and the College of Policing has been established to develop an evidence base, set standards and deliver training. HMIC, the Inspectorate of Constabulary, has remained – but it’s now led by the first ever chief inspector not to have served as a chief constable.

The tripartite system of police governance has been consigned to history. The Home Office no longer believes it runs policing. The Association of Police Authorities is no more, while the membership of the Association of Chief Police Officers has just voted overwhelmingly in support of its closure whilst many of its responsibilities have passed to the College. Meanwhile, the Police Federation, for years the roadblock to police reform, has also voted to reform itself.

Police productivity has improved and the frontline service has been reconfigured in different ways in different forces across the country. We’ve scrapped all government targets and much of the bureaucracy created by the Home Office. In doing so, we have saved up to 4.5 million police hours – the equivalent of 2,100 full-time officers.

We’ve got on with the gritty and unglamorous work of sorting out police procurement. We’ve still got a long way to go – the price forces are paying for items like boots and handcuffs still varies enormously and police ICT is going to take a long time to fix – but we are at least on the way.

And this Government has succeeded where others have failed before in successfully reforming terms and conditions. We didn’t get everything through the Police Arbitration Tribunal – which itself is a relic from the past that we are scrapping – but at last, we will have a system of police pay that encourages and rewards skills and frontline service, not just time served. Police forces will soon be able to recruit talented outsiders to senior ranks. And PCCs will be able to recruit chief constables from other common law jurisdictions.

There is still a long way to go but our reforms are already bearing fruit. Chief constables have responded to the freedom we have given them by reshaping their forces and maintaining the frontline service. Police and crime commissioners have shown their reforming power by sharing core services with other forces, other emergency services and other parts of the public sector.

The police leadership is becoming more accountable to the public. The National Crime Agency has made a good start going after organised criminal groups. The College is building a proper evidence base. HMIC has shone a light on the abuse of stop and search powers, the poor response to domestic violence and the under- recording of crime. Police productivity has improved and the proportion of officers in frontline roles is up to 91 per cent. Police procurement is gradually getting smarter and more collaborative. Direct entry and schemes like Police Now are opening up policing to new people and new ideas. And the new system of police pay will give chief constables more flexibility to lead their forces into the future.

What’s striking is that we have been able to make many of these changes not despite spending cuts but because of them. This is important, because the need to go on reforming will not end with this parliament. With a still-large deficit and a record stock of debt, there will need to be further spending cuts, as even Labour acknowledge. So in policing in the future, I believe we will need to work towards the integration of the three emergency services. We should use schemes like the Police Innovation Fund to promote capital investment that produces efficiency savings. We should go further with direct entry. We should use technology – like body-worn video, smart phone apps and other mobile devices – to save time and improve outcomes, and it remains our aim to make all forces fully digital by 2016.

And while we should continue to bear down on bureaucracy we should come up with more transformative solutions – like drastically reducing the unnecessary use of stop and search, reforming the wider criminal justice system and improving how we care for people with mental health problems – to save police time.

The drivers of crime

As I told the story of police reform you might have noticed that I omitted to mention the role of the Home Office. If responsibility for operational policing now lies squarely with chief constables, unimpeded by the Home Office, if responsibility for providing accountability now lies with police and crime commissioners, unimpeded by the Home Office, if HMIC scrutinises police performance and the College of Policing provides training, sets standards and develops an evidence base, what is the role of the Home Office? The answer is emphatically not to duplicate, cut across or undermine chief constables, PCCs, HMIC or the College. The answer, I believe, lies in three parts.

First, when it comes to the fight against serious and organised crime, the Home Office needs to build a relationship with the National Crime Agency similar to its relationship with the Security Service in the fight against terrorism. That means the department needs to provide a combination of policy work, operational support such as the provision of legal warrants, and oversight of the NCA. The Government’s Serious and Organised Crime Strategy – which is the first of its kind and is modelled on our Counter Terrorism Strategy, CONTEST – is evidence of this kind of approach.

Second, the Home Office has an important duty to make sure national systems like the Police National Computer work effectively, and an equally important role in coordinating things like police procurement.

But it’s the third responsibility for the Home Office to which I want to turn now. And that is the responsibility to develop genuine knowledge and harness existing expertise on matters of crime and policing. Home Office officials need to know in detail about specific crime trends, about policing methods and about what I call the drivers – not causes, as somebody once called them – of crime.

Overall, crime is down and it continues to fall. The Crime Survey for England and Wales – regarded by most academics as an international gold standard in measuring crime trends – shows that crime has fallen by sixty-two per cent since it peaked in 1995. And I note that the debate in the media has now mainly shifted from whether the crime figures are true to the reasons why crime is falling.

Some crime types – including sexual offences, shoplifting and fraud – have shown increases in the most recent recorded crime statistics. The truth is that the experts can come up with partially informed explanations as to why these crime types might be increasing – the increase in recorded sexual offences is likely to be driven by historical allegations coming to light while the increase in recorded fraud is likely to be caused by better recording – but we do not know enough about why crime overall is falling, why certain crime types are rising or why there might be different crime trends in different parts of the country. And if we can understand those things better, then we can come up with smarter crime prevention policies.

That is why I have set up a team called the Crime and Policing Knowledge Hub inside the Home Office. Understanding that overall crime levels are only the net result of millions of individual decisions in millions of different contexts, officials have been working to identify and understand the six main drivers of crime in this country. We believe they are alcohol, drugs, opportunity, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, character and profit.

If we can understand each of these drivers better, if we can understand how they relate to one another, we should be able to devise better policy to prevent crime occurring in the first place.

In the light of police reform, I believe that this is now the most important responsibility for the Home Office on matters of crime and policing.

We already know that alcohol-related crime is believed to cost around £11 billion per year in England and Wales, while in half of all incidents of violence the victim believed the perpetrator was drunk. Labour liberalised licensing laws and promised us a café culture, but all they did was unleash booze-fuelled violence. So we have radically reformed Labour’s Licensing Act, empowered local communities to tackle problem drinking and banned the below-cost sale of alcohol. We did not proceed with the introduction of a minimum unit price for alcohol or banning multi-buy discounts because we were not satisfied that it would reduce alcohol-related violence without penalising sensible drinkers and responsible businesses. But a better and deeper understanding of how drinking and crime relate to one another will enable us to take targeted action to prevent alcohol-related crime.

Drugs are also a significant driver of crime. For example, the number of opiate and crack cocaine users is believed to have risen by a magnitude of ten between 1982 and 1992. New Home Office research, published in July, suggests that these people had a much greater impact on the increase in acquisitive crime up until 1995, and the fall since, than we had realised and we still believe that opiate and crack cocaine users are responsible for as much as 45 per cent of acquisitive crime in England and Wales. There remains a long term downward trend in drug use, but understanding in greater detail the effects that drugs can have on crime rates is vital as we develop our drugs strategy, as the debate about legalising and regulating drugs continues, and – when 95 per cent of the heroin on our streets is from Afghanistan – as our military is in the process of withdrawing from that country. This is, incidentally, a very good example of why the National Crime Agency needs a powerful international reach – because more than ever crime is a cross-border phenomenon.

I called the third driver of crime ‘opportunity’. This does not mean that given the opportunity anyone would commit a crime. Rather it means that those who do lead a life of crime are likely commit a greater number of offences when there are more opportunities to offend.

I’m talking about things from product design to town planning and architecture, but the most obvious and pressing example is the criminal opportunities provided by new technology. I want to emphasis again that the role of the Home Office in fighting cyber crime is not to cut across what law enforcement does, or try to do the job of the College by setting standards or targets. The Home Office must develop an understanding of cyber crime in its entirety and develop a policy response. For example, working with the Metropolitan Police we have discovered that more than a third of vehicles stolen in London do not involve taking the owner’s keys. Instead, car thieves might break into a car and programme a new electronic key. They might use sophisticated devices to ‘grab’ the security coding when the owner uses their key so they can use it themselves. And there have been reports that they could even use ‘malware’ to commandeer vehicle systems via satellites and issue remote demands to unlock doors, disable alarms and start car engines. Because we have this understanding, we can now work with industry to improve electronic resilience, include this kind of resilience in the vehicle’s overall security ratings, and work out the extent to which the same threat applies to other physical assets such as building security systems.

Then there is the role of the police and criminal justice system. And here, if we think of Operations Yewtree, Pallial, Bullfinch and others, it is clear that there have been systemic failures over the years to protect vulnerable young people from sexual exploitation. My colleagues in the Home Office, Mike Penning and Norman Baker, are leading work with ministers from other departments to improve the response not just of the police but the wider public sector. The solutions will be a mixture of legislation – we have already supported in Parliament Nicola Blackwood’s campaign to protect vulnerable children– and operational improvements – for example we need to make sure we have Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hubs across the whole country – but the solutions will all be based on a detailed grasp of the facts.

The fifth driver of crime I mentioned was character. I should be absolutely clear here that there is nothing inevitable about criminality and most people who grow up in circumstances exposed to what criminologists call ‘risk factors’ do not go on to commit crime. But – remembering in the end the only cause of a crime is a criminal – there are still common factors that make it more likely that somebody might become a criminal. Of course there are many ways of looking at this, and Government policies including school reform, welfare reform and the troubled families programme are all relevant. So too is our work to prevent domestic violence. It is well known that children who are brought up in violent households are more likely to become violent themselves later in life, so domestic violence – as well as being a serious crime in its own right – is also a significant driver of crime. But unfortunately, we know from the HMIC inspection I commissioned last year that the police response to domestic violence is not good enough. So I have written to every chief constable making it clear they must have a domestic violence action plan in place this month, and I am chairing a national oversight group to make sure HMIC’s recommendations are implemented quickly.

The last – but perhaps most important – driver of crime is profit. The more we understand the nature of organised crime and organised criminal gangs, the more it is apparent that the majority are motivated by money, they act rationally and they seek and exploit commercial opportunities.

Police forces tell us that recent rises in theft from the person, for example, were in part driven by the theft of smart phones by organised criminal gangs. These gangs targeted specific venues, like concerts and festivals, to steal smart phones on a massive scale. The phones were then often sent overseas where they are reactivated and sold. There is of course an operational response to this kind of criminal activity, which should be left to the police, but the Home Office has also been working with industry to find new ways to stop the reactivation of phones overseas, thereby killing the criminals’ export market.

And we can go further. More than 15 years ago, the Car Theft Index contributed to a fall in vehicle theft by allowing consumers to make informed choices about which models of car to buy based on their likelihood of being stolen. Today I want to announce my intention to do the same with mobile phone theft.

Working with industry and the Behavioural Insights Team at the Cabinet Office, the Home Office is developing proposals to further prevent mobile phone theft. These include steps that consumers can take to improve personal security, industry innovation to develop new security features – such as the new iOS7 operating system introduced by Apple – and the publication of a new Mobile Phone Theft Ratio to inform the public about the handsets which have been most at risk of being targeted by thieves. We will publish further details of this work imminently, but I am encouraged that the security improvements that industry has already introduced have contributed to recorded theft from the person falling by 10% in the last year, according to the most recent crime statistics.

The examples I have just given are very specific and there are of course many other ways in which the Home Office, having developed this expertise, can work to prevent crime. This work is in its infancy and I expect it to become much more sophisticated over time. But the point is clear – it must surely be better to prevent crime occurring in the first place than responding to it afterwards. But if we are to do that, we need a deep understanding of what the drivers of crime are. And that is precisely what we are doing in the Home Office.

What is true in the Home Office is true in other departments too. Chris Grayling’s reforms in the Ministry of Justice are about breaking the cycle of reoffending and therefore reducing demand in the criminal justice system. Andrew Lansley and Jeremy Hunt have been clear that the role of the Department of Health is not to run the NHS but to develop better public health policy. Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms are all about helping people out of benefits and into a life of work, which in the end is the only sustainable way to reduce poverty. And we must think in creative terms about how we take this approach not just within individual departments but across government as a whole.

In the last four years, we have achieved something no modern government has achieved before. We have proved that, through reform, it is possible to do more with less. We will need to go on doing more with less for many years into the future. But, looking ahead to the next Parliament, the next great challenge will be the need to reform to reduce the huge demand for public services in the first place. And I look forward to Reform leading that debate.

Thank you.

July 3, 2016
Michael Gove – 2016 Statement on the EU Referendum

Below is the text of the statement made by Michael Gove on 22 February 2016.

For weeks now I have been wrestling with the most difficult decision of my political life. But taking difficult decisions is what politicians are paid to do. No-one is forced to stand for Parliament, no-one is compelled to become a minister. If you take on those roles, which are great privileges, you also take on big responsibilities.

I was encouraged to stand for Parliament by David Cameron and he has given me the opportunity to serve in what I believe is a great, reforming Government. I think he is an outstanding Prime Minister. There is, as far as I can see, only one significant issue on which we have differed.

And that is the future of the UK in the European Union.

It pains me to have to disagree with the Prime Minister on any issue. My instinct is to support him through good times and bad.

But I cannot duck the choice which the Prime Minister has given every one of us. In a few months time we will all have the opportunity to decide whether Britain should stay in the European Union or leave. I believe our country would be freer, fairer and better off outside the EU. And if, at this moment of decision, I didn’t say what I believe I would not be true to my convictions or my country.

I don’t want to take anything away from the Prime Minister’s dedicated efforts to get a better deal for Britain. He has negotiated with courage and tenacity. But I think Britain would be stronger outside the EU.

My starting point is simple. I believe that the decisions which govern all our lives, the laws we must all obey and the taxes we must all pay should be decided by people we choose and who we can throw out if we want change. If power is to be used wisely, if we are to avoid corruption and complacency in high office, then the public must have the right to change laws and Governments at election time.

But our membership of the European Union prevents us being able to change huge swathes of law and stops us being able to choose who makes critical decisions which affect all our lives. Laws which govern citizens in this country are decided by politicians from other nations who we never elected and can’t throw out. We can take out our anger on elected representatives in Westminster but whoever is in Government in London cannot remove or reduce VAT, cannot support a steel plant through troubled times, cannot build the houses we need where they’re needed and cannot deport all the individuals who shouldn’t be in this country. I believe that needs to change. And I believe that both the lessons of our past and the shape of the future make the case for change compelling.

The ability to choose who governs us, and the freedom to change laws we do not like, were secured for us in the past by radicals and liberals who took power from unaccountable elites and placed it in the hands of the people. As a result of their efforts we developed, and exported to nations like the US, India, Canada and Australia a system of democratic self-government which has brought prosperity and peace to millions.

Our democracy stood the test of time. We showed the world what a free people could achieve if they were allowed to govern themselves.

In Britain we established trial by jury in the modern world, we set up the first free parliament, we ensured no-one could be arbitrarily detained at the behest of the Government, we forced our rulers to recognise they ruled by consent not by right, we led the world in abolishing slavery, we established free education for all, national insurance, the National Health Service and a national broadcaster respected across the world.

By way of contrast, the European Union, despite the undoubted idealism of its founders and the good intentions of so many leaders, has proved a failure on so many fronts. The euro has created economic misery for Europe’s poorest people. European Union regulation has entrenched mass unemployment. EU immigration policies have encouraged people traffickers and brought desperate refugee camps to our borders.

Far from providing security in an uncertain world, the EU’s policies have become a source of instability and insecurity. Razor wire once more criss-crosses the continent, historic tensions between nations such as Greece and Germany have resurfaced in ugly ways and the EU is proving incapable of dealing with the current crises in Libya and Syria. The former head of Interpol says the EU’s internal borders policy is “like hanging a sign welcoming terrorists to Europe” and Scandinavian nations which once prided themselves on their openness are now turning in on themselves. All of these factors, combined with popular anger at the lack of political accountability, has encouraged extremism, to the extent that far-right parties are stronger across the continent than at any time since the 1930s.

The EU is an institution rooted in the past and is proving incapable of reforming to meet the big technological, demographic and economic challenges of our time. It was developed in the 1950s and 1960s and like other institutions which seemed modern then, from tower blocks to telexes, it is now hopelessly out of date. The EU tries to standardise and regulate rather than encourage diversity and innovation. It is an analogue union in a digital age.

The EU is built to keep power and control with the elites rather than the people. Even though we are outside the euro we are still subject to an unelected EU commission which is generating new laws every day and an unaccountable European Court in Luxembourg which is extending its reach every week, increasingly using the Charter of Fundamental Rights which in many ways gives the EU more power and reach than ever before. This growing EU bureaucracy holds us back in every area. EU rules dictate everything from the maximum size of containers in which olive oil may be sold (five litres) to the distance houses have to be from heathland to prevent cats chasing birds (five kilometres).

Individually these rules may be comical. Collectively, and there are tens of thousands of them, they are inimical to creativity, growth and progress. Rules like the EU clinical trials directive have slowed down the creation of new drugs to cure terrible diseases and ECJ judgements on data protection issues hobble the growth of internet companies. As a minister I’ve seen hundreds of new EU rules cross my desk, none of which were requested by the UK Parliament, none of which I or any other British politician could alter in any way and none of which made us freer, richer or fairer.

It is hard to overstate the degree to which the EU is a constraint on ministers’ ability to do the things they were elected to do, or to use their judgment about the right course of action for the people of this country. I have long had concerns about our membership of the EU but the experience of Government has only deepened my conviction that we need change. Every single day, every single minister is told: ‘Yes Minister, I understand, but I’m afraid that’s against EU rules’. I know it. My colleagues in government know it. And the British people ought to know it too: your government is not, ultimately, in control in hundreds of areas that matter.

But by leaving the EU we can take control. Indeed we can show the rest of Europe the way to flourish. Instead of grumbling and complaining about the things we can’t change and growing resentful and bitter, we can shape an optimistic, forward-looking and genuinely internationalist alternative to the path the EU is going down. We can show leadership. Like the Americans who declared their independence and never looked back, we can become an exemplar of what an inclusive, open and innovative democracy can achieve.

We can take back the billions we give to the EU, the money which is squandered on grand parliamentary buildings and bureaucratic follies, and invest it in science and technology, schools and apprenticeships. We can get rid of the regulations which big business uses to crush competition and instead support new start-up businesses and creative talent. We can forge trade deals and partnerships with nations across the globe, helping developing countries to grow and benefiting from faster and better access to new markets.

We are the world’s fifth largest economy, with the best armed forces of any nation, more Nobel Prizes than any European country and more world-leading universities than any European country. Our economy is more dynamic than the Eurozone, we have the most attractive capital city on the globe, the greatest “soft power” and global influence of any state and a leadership role in NATO and the UN. Are we really too small, too weak and too powerless to make a success of self-rule? On the contrary, the reason the EU’s bureaucrats oppose us leaving is they fear that our success outside will only underline the scale of their failure.

This chance may never come again in our lifetimes, which is why I will be true to my principles and take the opportunity this referendum provides to leave an EU mired in the past and embrace a better future.

July 2, 2016