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  • Alex Salmond – 2004 Scottish National Party Conference Speech

    alexsalmond

    Convener – fellow Scots.

    This is a speech I never expected to be making.

    I never thought to have the privilege of being, once again, the leader of this movement.

    But let’s get one thing absolutely clear

    I didn’t accept this challenge in the hope things might work out.

    Nor did I listen to those of you who were kind enough to ask me to return just for the dubious pleasure of exchanging pleasantries with Mr McConnell.

    I sought the leadership of this party because I share your frustration and the anger of every thinking Scot.

    We campaigned, shoulder to shoulder, for Home Rule because we believe in Scotland.

    We celebrated devolution because it promised to usher in a new era of politics

    But instead, we have seen our Parliament devalued by a government, which doesn’t understand the very concept of public service. Which dulls the expectations of our nation and which seeks to bore the electorate into submission.

    So to anyone who still doubts why I sought leadership once again let me make it plain.

    I’m back to turf out the over promoted Labour machine politicians who demean the Scottish Parliament.

    I’m back to rid Scotland of small-minded, managerial administration and deliver a vision capable of touching the soul of Scotland.

    And I’m back to give the message direct to the Labour Party in Scotland –

    Your time in government is coming to an end.

    Conference

    What I intend to do today is to lay out exactly what we can achieve as a party and as a movement for Scotland over the next few years – and how we intend to go about it. .

    But let me first pay tribute to John Swinney. I happen to think that John was badly treated by the press and poorly served by some in this party.

    He is a better man by far than all of his critics combined.

    Nicola and I – all of us – owe John a democratic debt for the one member, one vote election, which galvanised the SNP over the summer.

    All of us here thank you, John, for everything you have done and in particular for that crucial and essential reform.

    And I would like to thank the party for the huge mandate, that Nicola and I received.

    We intend to harness that mandate to make the changes required to allow the SNP to renew our challenge for political leadership in Scotland.

    But let me make one thing clear.

    Nicola and I campaigned as a team, we will lead as a team and we will win as a team.

    And that team approach extends throughout the party. Every single one of us shares responsibility for the party’s shortcomings and our successes.

    We are all now collectively responsible for whether the SNP – indeed whether Scotland – succeeds or fails.

    We have a substantial task in hand – I know that – you know that and I will need the help of the whole party – all of you – to succeed.

    But I have to say I comfort myself by looking at the state of our opponents.

    Charles Kennedy started the week by lambasting the government over health cuts in Scotland – good thing too –

    The only problem is that he was attacking the Scottish government – his own government – that is the one his party props up

    Charles wants to bring down a Lab/Lib government and replace it with a Lab/Lib government!

    Strikes me that if he wants rid of Malcolm Chisholm or any other hopeless Labour minister then all he has to do is to tell his troops to vote them out of office.

    Nicola said on Wednesday that she will force the matter to the vote in the Scots Parliament so they will soon have their chance.

    Of course, if they are not prepared to do that – if they vote to keep their ministerial Mondeos rather than to save the health service – then people at the coming election can conclude that every liberal vote is not a vote for Charlie’s angels but for Labour’s little helpers.

    Then there is Michael Howard. The only thing that has upset him recently is not being invited to the republican convention in New York.

    Just think of it the leader of the Tory party is the one man on the planet – who is too right wing to be allowed to meet George W Bush!

    Those who the gods seek to destroy, they first render ridiculous.

    No wonder David McLetchie is a part time leader.

    Best to keep his hand in at the law for after the next Scottish elections.

    However, for the art of looking ridiculous none of them hold a candle to Mr McConnell

    Forget the pin stripe kilt – did I actually say that?!

    How can anyone forget the pin stripe kilt?

    Never mind snubbing the D Day veterans – or his cultural minister – that’s right Frank McAveety is his minister of culture – nipping out for pie and beans in the canteen.

    Let’s even excuse him telling the Scottish Opera staff they were sacked in a newspaper leak

    I want to focus on the one incident that proves Mr McConnell is unfit for office – the day he announce to the parliament during question time that he was waffling and sat down.

    Now I have seen many ministers in many parliaments and I’ve seen many ministers waffling but I have never heard of any one – far less a First Minister – actually declare himself to be a waffler.

    Usually you leave that to the opposition

    It is often said that Mr McConnell is no Donald Dewar – Donald Dewar?

    Jack McConnell is no Henry McLeish.

    Now delegates I want to say something about the position in Iraq.

    There will be no jokes from me about the Prime Minister. I believe that Tony Blair’s conduct puts him beyond the normal banter of politics.

    Like everyone else at this conference and throughout the entire country, I hope and pray for the safe return of Kenneth Bigley but like his anguished family, we fear the worst.

    However, I believe that this Prime Minister now operates outside the currency of debate, beyond the pale of decency.

    All Prime Ministers tell fibs – Wilson dissembled about Polaris on the Clyde, Thatcher massaged the unemployment figures every single month. But no leader – no Prime Minister – has lied about the reasons for going to war.

    I don’t just challenge his policies – I challenge his morality.

    18 months ago George Bush declared that the war in Iraq was over. On Sunday, Blair told us that the conflict was ongoing.

    18 months ago Blair told us that we had gone to war to uphold the authority of the United Nations Last week Kofi Annan told us that the conflict was illegal.

    18 months ago Blair told us that the Iraqi survey group would find the weapons of mass destruction. Now the group’s final report concludes that there were none.

    Now this is not a question of this Prime Minister – any Prime Minister – making a judgement call and just being wrong

    It is not a matter, as Blair would have us believe, of someone acting in good faith and making an honest mistake.

    This is a man who buried the intelligence that was inconvenient,

    Manipulated the information to suit his purpose

    And entered into a secret pact with the American president to go to war come what may

    In addition, as we now know from this last weekend, he even concealed the warnings from the very heart of his own government that the conflict after the war would be nasty, brutish and long.

    Blair once said that he would be prepared to pay the blood price for standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States of America

    But he hasn’t paid the blood price

    14,000 Iraqis, more than 1000 Americans, 66 British soldiers, 69 from other countries, hostages – these are the people who have paid and are still paying Blair’s blood price

    Nor has he stood shoulder to shoulder.

    Most of the time he has been on his knees.

    He has cosied up to the American president, thumbs in the gunbelt down at the ranch –

    The sheriff and his sidekick – the Lone Ranger and Tonto.

    But George W. Bush is not America no more than Tony Blair speaks for Scotland.

    And what loyalty does the Prime Minister show to those he sends into his war.

    The Black Watch are currently on their second tour of duty.

    As a regiment, it may be their last ever tour of duty.

    The Scottish regiments the finest infantry soldiers in the world. They fight Blair’s wars and he stabs them in the back while they stand in the line of fire.

    And so let me say this to conference

    This Prime Minister needs to be humbled in an election and next year we will take our case to the country.

    But this Prime Minister deserves to be impeached and we with others will present the case that he should be required to answer.

    What is impeachment – well let us describe it as a weapon of mass democracy- the final democratic deterrent against the abuse and misuse of executive power.

    This Prime Minister should be drummed from office and we will use each and every opportunity to remove him.

    It is a long way from war in Iraq to the Holyrood project.

    Iraq is about people dying while Holyrood is just about money – a building project gone badly wrong.

    However, there is one key connection.

    At the heart of the war in Iraq is the misleading of the Westminster parliament. And thus the people

    The real issue in the Holyrood scandal is the misleading of the Scots Parliament and thus the people.

    When the Parliament was told in June 1999 that the price tag was £109 million they voted for it by a wafer thin majority of just three votes

    The real price at that stage was over £200 million and the project totally out of control or as Fraser said it was “not in a viable and healthy condition“.

    There were three separate Holyrood plots

    Plot one was to conceal the costs to get labour through the 1999 election.

    Plot two was to conceal the costs to get the project through the parliamentary vote.

    Plot three was to conceal the costs to hand it over and then blame the hapless MSPs

    According to Lord Fraser, the key decisions were made under Westminster control by civil servants who are still under Westminster control – which makes Mr McConnell‘s claims that he is about to reform them absurd even by his standards.

    Civil servants may share the blame but it is ministers, politicians who are accountable.

    And the line of accountability should be thus.

    Let those who voted for this nonsense like the labour and liberal parties take the responsibility.

    And those of us who voted against it learn the lessons by making it impossible to ever again mislead our parliament with impunity.

    As for the building itself then it is time to move on.

    Whatever its origins there is now a building which feels like a parliament

    It is now up to all MSPs to act like parliamentarians

    Five years ago the MSPs were cheered into their offices in the mound. Now they must begin the long march back into public esteem.

    There are basically two explanations as to why devolution has been one big let down.

    Either there is something wrong with Scotland or there is something wrong with the leadership that Scotland has been getting.

    To put it simply either Scotland’s rubbish or labour’s rubbish.

    I prefer to think that it is New Labour who are the problem and new leadership is the answer.

    And so if we are to replace the Labour Party as the government of Scotland in 2007 then we have to present principle where there is none and vision where now there is only vacuum.

    Nicola and I have asked shadow cabinet members to develop our policy programmes for the election next year.

    We have to make progress next year to win in 2007, and we have to win in 2007 to move forward to Independence.

    To make progress we will demonstrate that only the SNP can be trusted with Scottish interests

    It is not only that SNP MPs work harder although we do.

    When the Commons Library compile the annual stats for which MP has asked the most questions or made the most speeches the only thing that changes is which of my colleagues comes out first and which of the Labour Party comes out bottom.

    But it is more than work rate. It is that we can always be trusted to represent and defend Scottish interests.

    Foundation hospitals south of the border were bad for Scotland but labour MPs voted them through

    Tuition fees south of the border were bad for Scotland but labour MPs voted them through

    Strip stamps were bad for a great Scottish industry but labour MPs voted them through.

    And the contrast when the SNP is moving forward is clear for all to see.

    Martin Sixsmith blew the whistle at the centre of the labour spin machine but in 1999, he was working for GEC.

    He has now set out the inside story of how it was fear of the SNP, which saved the Govan shipyard from closure in 1999.

    And therefore delegates if we can save Govan in 1999 then SNP advance can save the fishing industry and the regiments in 2005.

    We can make Westminster dance to a Scottish tune.

    But progress next year is to a greater purpose.

    When Mr McConnell became first minister of Scotland he said he wanted to do “less better”

    Some have criticised Blair for just wanting power – McConnell just wants office and position in a nation without power – it’s even less forgivable.

    What a rallying call that is to the nation. “Let’s do less better” – well he has managed to fulfil the first part of that boast

    He certainly does less.

    When the SNP brought to the parliament a debate the impending war in Iraq our opponents used their time on the same day to talk about dog fouling!

    When the SNP first forced the issue on Iraq the first minister chose not attend. He sent someone else to tell the people of Scotland that Iraq was a reserved matter.

    When we argue that, we have to save our fishing communities from disaster in the European constitution we are told to that that is a reserved matter.

    And when we join with Scots across the country in our outrage that children have been and can again be imprisoned, at Dungavel we are told again that it is a reserved matter.

    Well First Minister, Dungavel is about values, fishing is about communities and war is about conscience.

    And values, communities and conscience can never be reserved matters.

    They are Scottish matters and we demand a parliament with the power to do something about them.

    We intend to lift the ambition of Scots. – to set our sights on the Scottish horizon.

    We are building a programme to march that ambition

    We will develop an economic policy, which lifts the Scottish growth rate.

    We will restore the people’s faith in Scotland’s public services

    We will introduce the fresh air of democracy into Scottish institutions.

    And we shall restore this ancient land to its rightful place as a free and equal member of the community of nations.

    Now Mr McConnell says that growth is his top priority.

    In fact, he has as much control over the Scottish economic growth as Heather has over the weather.

    To make Scotland work we need a competitive economic environment, we need an infrastructure fit for the 21st century not for the middle of the last century and we need capital markets which allow Scots with ideas to bring their products to the international marketplace

    And the stakes are high.

    If the Scottish economy had hit the UK rate of growth over the last 25 five years we would all be £2000 better off.

    If we had hit the European level, each of us would be £5000 better off

    And if we had grown at the level of independent Ireland, we would all be £20,000 a year better off.

    One key to growth is infrastructure.

    We will establish a Scottish trust for public investment to launch a new age of improvement in Scotland.

    It will provide the financial mechanism to transform Scotland’s infrastructure into one fit for the challenges of today’s economy and tomorrow’s society.

    Provost William Smith used his opening speech to the conference to lobby us on dualling the A9. He is right. This is the capital of the highlands. It has two major road connections to the south and the east. One is a dirt track and the other is a death-trap and both are totally unacceptable.

    The trunk roads in the south west and north east of Scotland are a disgrace while central Scotland still awaits the linking of the motorway network.,

    We don’t even have rail links to our major airports or a bullet train between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

    In 1905 it took 1 hour to travel between Edinburgh and Glasgow. A century later we have improved by 12 minutes.

    The journey time should take 20 minutes.

    A few days back I received a letter from a liberal MSP asking how it could be possible to fund a bullet train between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

    Then her own party transport spokesman said he wanted one between Edinburgh and London.

    The Scottish Liberals really should try and keep up!

    Our country, this nation, found the right financial mechanisms to fund the westward expansion of America.

    Is it really said that we can’t do the same to transform Scotland?

    If McConnell and Wallace had been in charge of Glasgow in the 19th century they would still be waiting for running water in Govan.

    Of course, infrastructure is more than roads, railways and broadband. It is also providing the platform to exploit this country’s natural resources.

    Right now Scottish oil revenues are running at £8,000 million a year.

    That’s right £1,500 this year for every man women and child in the country and its all disappearing into the maw of the treasury, into Gordon Brown’s back pocket.

    And the oil and gas will flow for another 50 years.

    But delegates we have won the energy lottery again- this time in renewables. Scotland has 25 per cent of Europe’s potential wind power, 25 per cent of its tidal power and 10 per cent of its wave capacity.

    The Pentland Firth has been described as the Saudi Arabia of tidal power.

    And this is offshore potential.

    If a community owns an onshore wind farm or there is a perceived community benefit fine. But onshore wind will never meet the energy requirements of Scotland

    Just one offshore project could generate 5 times the electricity of all the onshore wind projects put together.

    So what is stopping this new Klondike – or as one company put it the “biggest single threat to viability” and the billions of investment and thousands of jobs that will go with it.

    What is stopping it is a proposal from Offgem, a government agency, after a period of grace, to charge generators in the north of Scotland £20 a kilowatt to connect to the grid while they propose to subsidise projects in London by £9 a kilowatt.

    That is a proposal from the national grid and Offgem. If you want to build a windfarm offshore in the Moray Firth they will charge you. If you want to build it on top of Big Ben, they will pay you.

    They should remember that offshore Scotland there is lots of wind. Around Big Ben there is only hot air.

    All of which proves there are three great lies in life. Darling I’ll respect you in the morning – the cheques in the post and I’m from the London treasury and I’m here to help Scotland. . The challenge for his party is clear. London government has filched thirty years of oil revenues.

    We shall not let them sabotage our future in renewables.

    An SNP Scotland will become the renewable capital of Europe.

    We want to see the nation prosper but the Scotland we seek is one, which defends the public interest, the common weal, the sense of community, which protects the vulnerable.

    To restore faith in Scotland’s public services we need to revitalise social democracy in Scotland.

    We pay social democratic levels of taxation, we spend social democratic levels of funding but we do not have social democratic levels of service.

    Take the crisis in the health service. The health service should not be run for the convenience of the health boards, or the consultants or the government.

    It is not the Health Boards’ health service or Malcolm Chisholm’s health service it is the people’s health service

    In order for Scotland’s health service to function, it requires a national strategy but it also needs public confidence and support at local level.

    That is why we will make health boards elected to prevent them being the lickspittles of central government

    But we will go further. People despair that the current consultation process is a sham.

    We say that when a closure is threatened then petitioners should have the ability to call a time out.-

    To stop the process while it is examined properly to make protest count.

    We have to engage real people in a real democracy

    Real democracy doesn’t begin and end with a parliament. It begins and ends with the people.

    In the summer Nicola and I caused a stir when we suggested allowing the public the opportunity to nominate one subject for debate in the parliament each week.

    Vested interests were outraged. How could we possibly trespass on the preserve of parliamentarians and their right to choose to debate dog fouling and hedge rows.

    Well it ain’t the politician’s parliament. It is the people’s parliament and it is time – well past time – to let the people in.

    So we now intend to go further. Not only should there be direct nomination of subjects for debate but the petitions committee will be charged to bring forward, where appropriate, legislative proposals from the best supported petition each year which then can be put to the MSPs for debate and decision.

    A new economic policy for Scotland. Revitalised social services a real citizen’s democracy.

    These are the building blocks for inspiration and success

    But they are set in a context – and that context is this ancient land as a full and equal member of the community of nations.

    Devolution is yesterday’s news. It has not responded to today’s reality never mind the challenges of tomorrow.

    Independence is about equality.

    The same rights – the same responsibilities as other nations.

    The right to choose between war and peace.

    The right to choose between stagnation and economic progress.

    The right to choose to live in a society which protects those who stumble along life’s path.

    The responsibility to ensure that the distinctive contribution of Scotland is not silenced or ignored in the councils of Europe and the world.

    And our responsibility. To defend and have faith in the idea of Scotland.

    In ancient times the city of Sparta had no walls – it didn’t need any The people were the walls of Sparta – its defenders its strength and its faith.

    At this particular moment, you – all of you – the people are the walls of Scotland – its defenders, its strength and its faith.

    Faith that we can build a better future.

    Faith that we can transform this nation.

    Faith that our ambitions of today will become tomorrow‘s reality.

    Equality, responsibility, Independence.

  • Alex Salmond – 1987 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    alexsalmond

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Alex Salmond in the House of Commons on 29th June 1987.

    You have called me to speak at rather an apt time, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have been watching with interest this evening and counting the relative strengths of the Scottish Nationalist party and Plaid Cymru, on the one hand, and the Scottish Conservative contingent, on the other. As the debate has worn on, the relative strengths have to-ed and fro-ed. At the moment, with five hon. Members on our Benches and only two Scottish Conservative Members, we have the most satisfactory result of the evening so far.

    I confess that I have been playing my game of spot the Scottish Tory for some time. Their number has been as low as one and as high as seven during this debate, but for most of the time there have been four Scottish Conservative Members in the Chamber. For some time, I thought that the Secretary of State for Scotland had laid down his particular 40 per cent. rule on his own contingent of hon. Members.

    My first duty is to pay tribute to my predecessor, Mr. Albert McQuarrie, who was known in the House and elsewhere as a robust character. He came to the House late in life, but I know that he played a full part in its debates, and I am sure that all hon. Members will join me in wishing him a long and happy retirement.

    Banff and Buchan, the constituency for which I now have parliamentary responsibility, is a constituency of robust characters, as one would expect from an area that depends for its livelihood on fishing, farming and oil and the industries related to them. My constituency has robust characters who work with their hands and get their faces dirty. They are involved in producing, making and catching things. They are people engaged in the manufacturing and primary sectors who are the real creators of wealth. If Government policy was orientated more to the primary and manufacturing sectors of industry, rather than to the rentier economy produced by the Conservative party, the long-term health and welfare of this country would be better served.

    I shall examine in turn the problems facing the three basic industries of my constituency—farming, fishing and oil. I notice that a good deal of attention was paid in the Gracious Speech to the problems of the inner cities, and I welcome Government initiatives on that serious problem. However, in Scotland we do not have a serious inner city problem. In our major cities we have problems on peripheral housing estates, but we have, too, an enduring and extremely serious problem in our rural communities. I do not think that the Government realise the extent to which the decline in farm income is causing such problems for the rural areas and I hope that they will turn more of their attention to that as the Session progresses.

    Conservatives claim that theirs is the party that reduces business taxation. If that is so, I hope to hear soon that they intend to abandon their plans to levy additional taxation on the fishing industry in the form of light dues—the dues paid for navigational lights. At the moment, the Government propose to remove the traditional exemption from light dues from the fishing industry while retaining that exemption for the owners of yachts and pleasure boats. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) would be very relieved to hear that, but I think too that he would join Opposition Members in arguing strongly that we should not impose an additional tax on working fishermen while those who own pleasure boats and yachts remain exempt. Light dues, which relate to a public service concerned with public safety, should continue properly to be met from the public purse.

    We have heard some interesting remarks from the Secretary of State for Scotland who, since the turn of this year, has ascribed all the problems of the Scottish economy to the decline of the oil industry in Scotland. That is a remarkable feat, given that Scotland has lost 180,000 manufacturing jobs since 1979.

    If the Secretary of State thinks that the impact of the oil downturn has been so serious in Scotland—it has cost us 30,000 jobs—why was it that the Government argued so forcibly for, welcomed and encouraged the decline in oil prices, which has caused these grievous burdens for the Scottish economy? Since 1979, successive Chancellors have received from the Scottish oil industry in revenue terms and in 1987 prices the sum of £70,000 million—approximately £14,000 for every man, woman and child in Scotland. Those Chancellors have been very sure that that should not be Scotland’s oil revenue, but, when it comes to a downturn in the industry, there has been no doubt that Scotland should have the job losses. For these three industries—farming, fishing and oil—I will argue at every opportunity in the Chamber, and I will argue for a stronger defence of their welfare.

    I move on to the political position facing Scotland and the reaction of Scottish Members to the Gracious Speech. Without doubt the Gracious Speech is interesting not for what it contains about Scotland but for what it does not contain. There is no sign that the Government will make any concessions to Scotland following their massive defeat at the polls. That position was encapsulated by the Secretary of State who, in an interview on Scottish television last week, said that the Gracious Speech is the same as that which we would have had if the Conservative party had won 72 Scottish seats instead of 10. That betrays the arrogance and contempt with which the Conservative party now proposes to treat the Scottish electorate. in its view, it does not matter what we in Scotland say or do, how we vote, how we think or how we learn from our experience of the policies under which we suffer. That position is not sustainable in the longer term. How long it is sustainable will depend on the level of opposition from Opposition Members.

    A number of questions have been asked about the importance attached to self government by the Scottish electorate. If the election results do not provide a convincing answer to that question, I have here the results of an opinion poll commissioned during the election campaign. The Conservative party has an interesting and geographically split view of opinion polls. It believes in them in England when they show that it is winning, but it does not believe them in Scotland when they show that it is not winning.

    I remember earlier this month when this opinion poll was released. I was sitting in a television studio with Mr. Michael Hirst, who did not believe the contents of the opinion poll. The results of the poll showed that the majority of Scottish Conservatives were about to lose their seats, although the Secretary of State for Scotland had said that such opinion polls were unreliable, that this could not happen and that the Conservative party in Scotland would increase its representation. In fact the poll has been proved correct in its analysis of how many Scottish Conservatives would lose their seats.

    It also asked people how important they regarded the setting up of a Scottish assembly. No fewer than 62 per cent. thought that it was very important or quite important. Only 25 per cent. argued that it was not very important or not at all important.

    We take opinion polls as we find them, but it is an incredible proposition from a party reduced to such a rump in Scotland, as a result not just of this but of a series of elections, to argue that it has the divine right to interpret the wishes of the Scottish electorate more than any other party, or particularly the party that won the Scottish election—the Labour party.

    Like many new Members I am engaged in moving home, and as I was clearing out some of my files I came across some yellowing pages of newspaper cuttings from the period immediately before and after the general election of 1983 in Scotland. In them, a number of Scottish Members of Parliament were making the case that the rights of Scotland should be respected—a case with which I agree. They were called “Labour’s new dogs of war,” and they included the hon. Members for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton), for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) and for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall). They argued that, by their efforts, they could impose the will of the Scottish people on the House and that they would manage to extract for the Scottish people a measure of Scottish devolution. We are now four years on and the dogs of war not only have not bitten very hard but have lost their bark.

    I scrutinised with some interest the speech made by the hon. Member for Cathcart on Thursday, in which he came up with the incredible proposition that the Conservative party has half a mandate in Scotland. His argument was that the Conservative party has a mandate over such sectors as the economy and United Kingdom matters, but does not have a mandate over specifically Scottish Office issues such as education. It is an incredible argument that the Conservative party has the right to destroy the Scottish economy but does not have the right to destroy the Scottish education system. It is not a case of half a mandate. The Conservative party either has or has not a mandate in Scotland.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon (Mr Wigley) has put the case for the rights of parties coming up from the people. The hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) has argued eloquently why the Conservative party has no mandate in Scotland. For the benefit of Tory Members, I shall repeat it. The Tory party does not have a mandate in Scotland because Scotland is a nation and as such has a right to determine its own political destiny.

    I will repeatedly argue for independence for Scotland within the context of the EEC. I recognise that that is not the majority view in Scotland, although opinion poll evidence shows substantially more support for that position than for the position favoured by the Tory, party—the status quo. Scottish people have the right to choose the amount of devolution or self government that they want. Therefore, I am prepared to argue that, because the Labour party won the election in Scotland, it has the right to insist on its plans for the Scottish people being put into effect.

    The basic question is: how will the Conservative party be made to do this? The hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar), in his quick-fire speech, was long on description of the condition of Scotland, but short on what he and his colleagues are going to do about it. The most with which he threatened the Conservative party was a few late nights for the reduced band of Scottish Conservatives. Incidentally, I am told that in Labour party circles at the moment the hon. Member for Garscadden is considered as something of a radical. If he is a radical, I wonder how conservative the rest are. I do not know what he does to Tory Members, but if I were in their position he would not frighten me.

    The same applies to the eloquent address of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway). He cannot convince the Conservative party, Scottish Conservative Members or the Secretary of State for Scotland, by argument or appeal, to change their position. The Scottish Conservatives are a lost cause. They have lost their ability to argue their case before their fellow countrymen and women.

    I find remarks about the largesse of the London Treasury to areas such as Scotland, Wales and the north of England amazing, as Scotland has an annual surplus of revenue over expenditure of £3.5 billion. I cannot, therefore, take seriously the idea that Scotland is subidised by the London Exchequer.

    I hear other remarks about the history and geography of Scotland which make me realise why so much of the Gracious Speech is devoted to the English education system. I suspect, however, that, in looking at the state education system in England, English Conservatives are looking at the wrong sector for additional education on economics, history and geography. I seriously suggest to Conservative Members representing English constituencies that the nations of Scotland and England have a close and long history. Sometimes it has been a troubled history but it has always been a close one. At this juncture in our affairs, when there is a dramatic political divergence between Scotland and England, and indeed between England and Wales, would it really hurt them so much to concede a little justice to the Scottish nation?

  • Peter Luff – 2011 Speech to the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors

    Below is the text of the speech made by the Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology, Peter Luff, made at SS Great Britain in Bristol on Thursday 19th May 2011.

    Introduction

    Thank you Jonathan for that largely kind introduction, and for inviting me tonight to a totally memorable event.

    It is a genuine pleasure to be with you.

    Tonight is a celebration of the vital work of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors.

    I’m acutely conscious that you are the experts and that my job is to provide some colour.

    Or, to paraphrase a former war-time Director of Naval Construction, Sir Stanley Vernon Goodall, in response to rather a dull draft from his assistant: you provide the facts, and I will impart the enthusiasm!

    And I am as enthusiastic about the quality of military and civil service advice.

    And the facts speak for themselves: credible and confident professional engineering leadership has been at the heart of major British naval projects since 1883.

    In large part, that has come from the Corps of civilian staff represented by the RCNC.

    In preparing for tonight, I had my attention drawn to a 1955 debate in the House of Commons on recruitment to the RCNC.

    Hansard records that the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Simon Digby, accepted MPs’ concerns that more could be done to attract people to the Corps, but noted that only one person had resigned since 1951, “and that was to do the same job in Canada”!

    But although smaller in number today, the quality and dedication of RCNC members remains as high as ever.

    And so thank you for all that you do to support the Defence of this country, and the effectiveness and safety of those who fight on its behalf.

    Brunel / SS Great Britain

    Sadly, in the modern age, the truly noble work of the engineer is often confused with the vital craft of the mechanic.

    Now it’s in danger of becoming a cliché, but engineering must re-claim its position as an honoured profession in the eyes of the public.

    An architect may have designed Sydney Opera House, but it took an engineer to build it.

    And just look at the grand surroundings in which we find ourselves in here tonight. And my thanks to everyone involved in organising this event.

    Tonight, we celebrate the RCNC on the SS Great Britain – my thanks to everyone involved in giving us this rare treat. It was the first ocean liner to have an iron hull and a propeller, and it was designed of course by the great Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

    Brunel is my hero, and in my view the finest civil engineer of all time – and the personification of the Franco-British partnership! For those who don’t know, his father was French.

    Now he possessed that rare combination of creativity and innovation, technical brilliance and commercial flair.

    And so he changed the world.

    As Jeremy Clarkson put it when he nominated Brunel as the Greatest Briton: “Brunel put beauty into the beast of the industrial revolution, which made Britain great.”

    His boldness and determination to succeed often led him to actually ignore the risk to his own life.

    As another author put it, Brunel was “in love with the impossible.”

    It is Brunel whose name is forever linked with the Great Western Railway, connecting Bristol with London – a route on which so many in this room spend so much of their working lives.

    And, of course, it was Brunel who built Florence Nightingale’s hospitals and delivered them to the Crimea in record time – the outstanding UOR of the 19th century! And this ship as well served as a troop carrier in that war.

    It was Brunel, too, who invented an iceberg-warning device for his ships.

    And what ships they were.

    Without Brunel – literally and metaphorically – where would we be tonight?

    Equally, for all his many triumphs down the years, Brunel experienced failure too.

    His atmospheric railway was ultimately unsuccessful, and his infinitely superior broad gauge – the 100% solution – was defeated by the inferior narrow gauge – the 20% solution!

    But this evening our subject is ships.

    So I’d like to reflect on some lessons from naval construction history which continue to impact, both the Corps today and my role as a Defence Minister.

    Lessons From Naval Construction History

    Britain has a proud maritime history.

    The seas have been – and continue to be – central to our island nation’s influence, prosperity, and security.

    As Sir Walter Raleigh put it:

    “Whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.”

    Britain’s omnipotence has sadly long since passed.

    And yet as you rightly emphasise Jonathan, our wealth still relies on international trade with over 90% of that trade, by value and volume, being transported by sea.

    The Royal Navy has been at the centre of our national life for centuries. Today it has a unique role in promoting and protecting Britain and its interests – and yes, one of the old and original threat – piracy. The RN is central to our future national security and, to quote the SDSR, to delivering an adaptable posture with flexible forces.

    And this means that the proud maritime legacy of this country, and of which I am strong supporter, has a positive and resilient future under this Government.

    This also means that the Corps must continue to play its vital role.

    Because naval construction – and the seas our vessels sail on or under – test man’s skills as much as ever.

    Now, as some of you, I’m sure, know, the Corps itself was founded in the wake of the catastrophic loss of HMS Captain during its acceptance trials due to design faults.

    It was a time when the great struggle between the ‘wood floats, iron sinks’ traditionalists and the supporters of ironclad warships was at its height.

    It was a time when two hitherto fundamentals of naval warfare – sail power and broadside armament – were being challenged by steam and the turret ship.

    ‘Turn the gun, not the ship’ was the idea that drove a brilliant young, inventor, Captain Cowper Phipps Coles.

    And Coles generated a political, media, and public bandwagon in the face of Admiralty doubts about the Captain being top-heavy.

    In the event, the Captain sank along with 500 men, including Coles.

    The subsequent court-martial was a case of ‘I told you so’, aimed at presumptuous private designers who might in future seek to challenge the Navy’s monopoly in ship design.

    The project had gone ahead despite the advice of the Chief Constructor for the Admiralty, E J Reid, and it had been a failure in almost every respect – save one: Cole’s turrets would feature within 12 months on the newest ironclad – the mastless Devastation – was acknowledged by the Admiralty who paid royalties to Cole’s widow for use of his design.

    It was a time of public concern over safety; the efficiency of government’s acquisition processes; and a time of rapid organisational and technological change within the Royal Navy.

    Plus ça change.

    It’s one of the timeless paradoxes of engineering that success encourages engineers to enhance performance and reduce costs.

    Wanting to create more elegant, optimal designs, the engineer moves away from traditional standards sometimes – sometimes – unintentionally eroding safety margins.

    Not surprisingly, these innovations, exacerbated by overconfidence, can lead to failures.

    Failures in turn lead to increased attention to reliability and safety, pushing the pendulum in the other direction.

    Now, as you said Jonathan, today, our work takes place in the shadow of the tragic Nimrod crash in 2006, and the subsequent damning Haddon-Cave report.

    It’s entirely proper that safety is our overriding concern, but we must also be mindful of that pendulum.

    Our work also takes place in the context of transformation in Defence, including our approach to acquisition.

    Now the people at Abbey Wood have not received the praise and thanks they deserve, but they – including many of you here tonight – can among other things take great satisfaction from the numerous lives that have been saved by their work.

    Everything we do is based on the legitimacy given to us – or rather entrusted to us – by the British people.

    And they’re not listening when we tell them that we deliver the vast majority of our equipment and support projects to performance, time, and cost.

    They’re not listening when we say that over 80% are delivered to time, and nearly 90% to budget.

    They’re simply not buying our story when the commentators understandably focus their often grossly inaccurate reports on extremes and ‘the things that go wrong’.

    So, to win the confidence of the taxpayer, we must be frank about our shortcomings, forthright about our strengths, and fearless about the changes we need to make if we are to support current operations and build the Armed Forces of tomorrow.

    Historical Parallels With Acquisition Today

    That said, we should remember that many of the challenges we face are no different to those faced by our predecessors.

    Long Lead Items

    For example – and I think I’m indebted to Admiral Lister for this – there is nothing more established in naval construction than the principle of buying the long lead items in good time.

    I’m told the oak for HMS Victory was purchased 15 years before construction began.

    Off The Shelf

    Or the question of buying off the shelf or modifying off the shelf.

    It reminds me of the LST (Landing Ship Tank) Maracaibo Class during the Second World War.

    Churchill demanded ships that could land tanks – themselves not yet built – on beaches anywhere in the world.

    This was physically difficult because it would require an ocean-going ship of limited draught.

    And it was psychologically difficult because it was likely to demand writing off the ships after their first assault.

    The solution was the conversion of Maracaibo oilers, because of their shallow draught.

    In turn, this required ingenious new bow disembarking gear, as suggested by the Director of Naval Construction’s department.

    When launched in Sunderland in July 1941, it became the first ever landing ship designed for tanks – the ingenuity of an urgent operational requirement before we ever invented the UOR.

    The chief sacrifice was speed – only 10 knots against the 17 knots which specially designed later ships could sustain.

    But the value of an adapted off the shelf purchase was clear.

    Modular Construction

    And their modular construction, which Bob and I were discussing over dinner.

    Still in World War II, the first motor launches – “A” Type MLs – were built after the Fairmile organisation approached the Admiralty. They proposed pre-fabrication by saw-mills and furniture makers in London, and then sending the units to selected yacht builders for assembly.

    The scheme was so successful that the subsequent “B” Types were constructed in the same way – and we have learnt the lessons today with the carriers.

    80% Solutions – Nothing New

    And those B types show that the utility of an 80% solution over a perfect one is nothing new as a classic capability trade was made.

    The re-designed boat needed higher speed and was first designed with three engines.

    But a shortage of supply from America prompted a reduction to two engines and lower speeds.

    However it also meant a 50% increase in the number of boats built.

    Innovation

    And innovation has been a permanent feature of naval construction.

    Writing in 1966, in the introduction to the splendid “British Battleships 1860 to 1950” by Oscar Parkes, Earl Mountbatten of Burma said,

    “We are now in an interim age in which the aircraft carrier has already replaced the capital ship and the task force the line of battle. With the advent of the atomic age the guided missile launcher will replace the gun turret and the nuclear reactor the boiler furnace. Ships of the future will thus be different in shape as well as function; and the revolution thus represented will be just as fundamental as the change from sail driven wooden walls to steam driven iron-clads.”

    The Value Of Sailors

    Now, Mountbatten’s prophecy has not yet been entirely fulfilled, I’m sure he would have agreed that above all, there’s one lesson from history that we forget at our peril – the value of sailors.

    Parkes himself captures it well:

    “But when the wars were over and we came to size up the eternal value of things, it was not the ships but the men who had won.”

    Conclusion

    How true.

    But it’s not just those who do the fighting who should be counted among the men who had won.

    Without the high levels of professional, technical, and managerial competence of Corps members down the ages, the very survival of this country – and its prosperity – would almost certainly been put at too great a risk.

    It continues to this day as we build the Royal Navy of the 21st century.

    Yet I know that work of the Corps has all too often gone unheralded.

    So here, in this great monument to British maritime engineering and architecture, I’m proud to say thank you for all you do on behalf of the nation, and for the men and women of our Armed Forces.

    The toast is: “the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors”!

  • Caroline Lucas – 2013 Speech to Green Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Caroline Lucas to the Green Party conference on 14th September 2013.

    I’m really delighted to have my own chance to welcome you all to Brighton and Hove.

    I think I’m pretty safe in saying that it’s the first time where we have the chance to be hosted by the local Member of Parliament and by the Leader of the City Council.

    I can’t tell you what pride and pleasure that gives me.

    And I’m sure some of you are already looking forward to doing the same in your own towns and cities.

    And that it won’t be too many more years before we meet in London or Norwich, Lancaster or Bristol, and as well as hearing from Councillors about what they have achieved, we also have the local MP to talk about how they are fighting for the Green cause in Parliament.

    And perhaps today is also the first time that Conference has been addressed by a suspected criminal.

    For I am here, of course, on police bail.

    There may even be a delegation from the police here in the hall today, to make sure we all behave.

    But if they are, I think we should be pleased.

    If the police believe that Greens pose a threat to the established order of things – where big business can ignore local democracy and trash our natural environment at will – then we must be doing something right.

    And they are welcome to take down this message in their notebooks.

    We will continue to use every peaceful avenue we have to ensure that fracking is no longer able to pose a profound threat to our climate.

    And we will continue to work alongside the hundreds of communities across the country, in their struggle against it too.

    It is always such a pleasure to have the chance to address Conference.

    There is no more thoughtful, or challenging, or supportive audience anywhere in politics.

    We are democratic. Our members are in charge. You make the policies. You set the priorities. And you are the guardians of our values.

    It is this, above all else, that sets us apart from the other political parties.

    When I am asked about the Green Party by other politicians – and as our membership and our influence increases, there is more and more interest in who were are and what we do – then this is often the point they can’t get.

    Surely, they say, you can over-ride what the members want. Surely you can prevent discussion on topics you don’t like. Surely you can put the frighteners on people, or use a block vote to push them out of the way.

    No. We aren’t like that.

    We alone trust our members. Ourselves.

    And that is the principle we take out to the people.

    We don’t spin you a line.

    We don’t pretend you can party on forever, and the earth will keep providing.

    We don’t claim that the poor are better off, if you take their benefits away.

    We tell the truth.

    Perhaps that is why, when political engagement is on the wane, we are growing.

    There are now more girl guides than there are members of all the political parties put together.

    Greenpeace is larger than the Conservative Party. The Women’s Institute has more members than the Labour Party. Yet the Greens are continuing to grow in membership each and every year.

    And in talking about our success, I can’t help but mention our leader, Natalie Bennett.

    I’ve seen her grow into the role, and make it her own. A style that is winning praise.   And substance, too, in her campaigning work and her energy in driving forward the party locally and nationally.

    Now, as leader, it fell to Natalie earlier today to salute the achievements of party members up and down the country.

    Community campaigning, election victories, breakthroughs where we’ve never won before, and putting our policies into action on behalf of the people we are here to serve.

    That’s one duty as leader that I miss.

    But there is one achievement that I cannot stop myself from mentioning.

    A bigger challenge than being elected as MP. Or even of becoming a Peer of the Realm.

    A bigger responsibility. And it’s right here in Brighton and Hove.

    There can be few more difficult jobs in this country, at this time, than running a Council.

    And it’s been a tough year for the Council and the local party here in Brighton and Hove. They’ve taken some hard knocks. Learned some painful lessons.

    But think what they’d had to deal with.

    We’ve had some pretty choice ministers in charge of local government down the years.

    Nicholas Ridley. John Prescott. Michael Howard.

    But nothing, nothing, compares to Eric Pickles.

    What’s his plan? Dump everything on local authorities.

    Give them none of the tools or the resources they need to care for local people. And then call it localism.

    He’ll tell your Council they should ban speed bumps. He’ll override local democracy and impose new developments, roads, even nuclear waste dumps. You name it.

    All in the name of localism.

    Imagine his fury that there is one local authority that won’t toe the line.

    They know that their job is to serve the people of Brighton and Hove.

    No-one in this city voted for Eric Pickles. They didn’t vote for swingeing cuts or for a cap on local taxes.

    Eric Pickles, remember, is the man who said it was reasonable for MPs to claim for 2 houses because they sometimes had to work late.

    You tell that to the fire fighters, the social workers, the teachers and all the other council staff, in Brighton and Hove and up and down the country, who work late, serving their local communities.

    Two homes? They are lucky if they can meet the rent or the mortgage payments on one home, because Pickles and his friends are imposing real-term wage cuts, and slashing benefits.

    Eric Pickles tells Councils that they need to balance their books. He lectures them about good housekeeping.

    Yet his own department, Communities and Local Government, ended last year overdrawn to the sum of £217 million pounds. On an unauthorised overdraft. And was fined as a result.

    The truth is, no-one shows more hostility to local government and local democracy than Eric Pickles.

    And when you think his colleagues in power include George Osborne, that’s frankly some achievement.

    But that isn’t the only cause of the crisis in local government.

    We have a political elite who have decided that the axe must fall hardest on those in the greatest need.

    On those with the least political clout.

    And that means local councils and the people they serve.

    The money can be found to replace Trident, but not to keep our libraries open.

    It can be found to speed the wealthy between London and Birmingham, but not for the rural buses that people who don’t drive depend upon.

    It can be found to build new prisons, but not treat the underlying causes of crime, such as addiction and unemployment.

    Local government is responsible for the basic services that every civilised community needs.   Meals on wheels. Public toilets. Care homes.

    Not the fashionable ones, perhaps.

    Not the ones that make good photo opportunities. Not the ones that their friends in big business see as the profit centres of the future.

    If you spend your time in the company of people from News Corporation, British Aerospace and Vodafone, then mending potholes, maintaining street lights or caring for the elderly must seem a bit beneath your notice.

    But that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?

    Because people are getting a raw deal from politics, and we want to do something about it.

    For people now, the vulnerable, hit by government cuts from one side, and ripped off by unscrupulous businesses on the other.

    For those who have no-one to speak for them – the prisoners held without trial in Guantanamo – we think again of Shaker Aamer, held without charge or trial for over 11 years.

    For the communities in Africa blighted by hazardous waste, the communities in Asia and Latin America pushed aside to make way for mines and ranches to feed the West’s extravagant lifestyle.

    For everyone who cares about the natural world, for everyone alarmed that 60% of species have been declining over the last 50 years, and wants it to be protected for them and their families.

    For those to come, whose future is being wasted by government and businesses, who, like 18th century rakes, seem intent on squandering our human inheritance, encouraging the rest of us to consume with no thought for the morrow.

    And for those in other countries too – those who are already feeling the impacts of our rapidly warming world through flooding, drought and sea level rise.

    Securing a safe climate means leaving at least two thirds of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground. Unburnable carbon.

    A rapid shift to renewables and a redoubling of energy efficiency is also about tackling fuel poverty, creating good jobs for our young people, and the prosperity and security of 7 million UK citizens.

    If you are Labour, saying that we’re on your side is nothing more than another slick marketing slogan.

    For us, it’s the reason we’re in politics.

    Much of the time we’re putting the alternative that Labour no longer wants to provide.

    The alternative to austerity.

    The alternative to zero hours contracts.

    The alternative to Trident.

    The alternative to a rail system that allows private shareholders to profit while passengers pay some of the highest fares in Europe.

    We won’t always get it right.  But we’ll always try and do the right thing. Not swayed by big business or block votes or the Daily Mail.

    That’s what sets us apart.

    And why we are needed more than ever.

    All of us have the chance to contribute to this cause

    For me, it’s been through the privilege of being able to represent in Parliament the people of Brighton Pavilion, and all those who support our values or who need our voice and our support.

    Sometimes it’s working behind the scenes.

    Publishing a Tax and Financial Transparency Bill to crack down on the half a million companies that evade taxes each year.

    Protecting small businesses from unfair energy contract roll overs and from high business rates.

    Being an advocate for the mother fleeing domestic violence, not seen as the main parent because she is too afraid to insist she get child benefit and therefore now being hit by a crippling reduction in housing benefit thanks to the cruel bedroom tax.  A woman who is desperately seeking work but cannot afford the price of a pair of tights to wear to interviews.

    Sometimes, my role is more visible.

    Speaking out about against the media’s sexism, and being challenged in parliament for the “inappropriate” act of wearing a No More Page 3 t-shirt.

    Calling out the Government for its mean and miserable act of removing the link between benefit levels and inflation

    Getting companies who promote illegal weapons of torture ejected from the DSEi arms fair – and, of course, campaigning for the whole thing to be shut down.

    Sometimes my work is cross-party. Like backing community pubs or opposing the badger cull.

    And often, it’s about raising issues that few other MPs want to support and where Labour and the Coalition have similarly dirty track records.

    Like speaking the truth to power on the scandal of undercover police targeting legitimate protest groups. On secret Courts and the erosion of our personal liberties.

    And telling the truth about the scale of the challenge of climate change.  Not saying what we think is politically palatable.

    But saying it, as it is

    I couldn’t do any of it without the support of my amazing staff, to whom I pay tribute again here and now

    And I know that when I am joined in the House of Parliament by Jenny Jones, the collective Green voice that is every one of you, every member of our Party, will be heard even louder.

    And increasingly, we’re filling the gap left by the Liberal Democrats too.

    Who would have thought, just a few years ago, that the Liberals would be part of a government that was introducing secret courts, where you are tried using evidence you can’t even see, let alone challenge.

    Liberals supporting a government that pays for lorries to drive around with ‘foreigners go home’ painted on the side.

    Liberals backing the bombing of Syria, without waiting for the United Nations to try and co-ordinate an international response.

    This is the vampire kiss of this coalition.

    You offer yourself to Count David, and before long you are one of them and you’ve sold your soul, and grown fangs of your own.

    The way the 3 main parties have become so similar in their policies and their values over the years means that the outcome of the next election is hard to predict.

    But whatever else happens, it is a key moment for the Green Party.

    2010 was a historic achievement.

    The culmination of the work of thousands of people over decades.

    And we have to repeat that achievement again in just two years time.

    It won’t be any easier.

    We have Labour desperately targeting Brighton Pavilion.

    They don’t like the idea of the Greens joining them on the national stage.

    It gives people too much of a choice. It shows that you can stick to your principles and still get elected. They don’t like that.

    So we have to be honest.

    Those years of steady progress that we have made are at risk. Single seats on councils.  Then Council groups.  Then The European Parliament. The London Assembly. And now the House of Commons.

    If we don’t redouble our efforts, we may find ourselves going backwards.

    We aren’t after power for ourselves, but it matters for those we represent.

    And it matters now more than ever.

    We have a government that is intent on demonising the poor and vulnerable. That is tearing up the idea of society and of our inter-dependence.  That is taking us towards environmental catastrophe.

    This is worse than the Victorian era. It is not just about substituting personal charity for the welfare state.

    The Government is saying that the poor do not deserve help from the state or from individuals.

    Instead, people are encouraged to despise those who have less.

    And so you have the grotesque spectacle of boys from Eton lecturing others about how to get on in life.

    But where is the alternative?

    Labour are still dancing to Thatcher’s tune.  Private sector good, public sector bad. Enterprise is better than solidarity.

    But in many ways, when in power they went further than Thatcher ever dreamed.

    She did not kill our National Health Service – but it is Labour’s market reforms have paved the way for the Tories’ break-up of the NHS.

    The state now spies on its citizens in ways undreamed of under Thatcher. But where are Labour to protest about the trampling of our basic liberties?

    And most shaming of all, we see Labour MPs – heirs to the party of Nye Bevan and Clement Atlee – failing to properly challenge the Tories all-out attack on the  welfare system.

    So it is time that we as Greens restated some basic principles about our country.

    First, we are all in it together. We can’t have a society based on the haves casting off the have-nots, who are then marginalised, demonised, even criminalised.

    Successive governments have gone after the enemy within. Miners. The unemployed. Trade unionists. Asylum seekers. Scroungers.

    But to exclude others is to lessen, to tarnish ourselves. No-one is outside the pale. They are us. Our friends. Our work colleagues. Our neighbours.

    Second, we are one nation.

    We cannot have a metropolitan and home counties elite writing a set of rules for themselves and their neighbours, and another set of rules for the rest of the country.

    We see communities being asked to do the dirty work for the rich. To take the nuclear waste. To put up with the fracking.

    This is wrong. It is unfair. It is, dare I say it, unpatriotic.

    For this is fracking at the national scale. Breaking up the land, taking the profits, and leaving local communities to pick up the pieces.

    This is the politics of selfishness.

    It seeks to free those with wealth from the responsibilities that go with the privileges. And in the end it is the millionaires and the billionaires who gain the most.

    This is why we stick to our belief – that fair is worth fighting for.

    It’s not just a slogan.

    For us, fairness is not a buzzword from a focus group. We know what it means. We believe in it.

    And it’s a fight we can win.

    Electorally. In Brighton and Hove and across our country.

    Morally. Our values are shared by so many people, who may not be members or supporters.

    Now we must do more to show all those who see that our country is heading in the wrong direction, that they are not alone.

    It is like a march, or a demonstration. We hold our banner high, but we are proud to march alongside others, under other banners, who share the same cause.

    We each have our role.

    Ours is to give our cause a voice in politics.

    No-one else can do this but the Greens.

    We have two years until the next election.

    Two years to show this to all those who share our values, in communities up and down the land.

    And above all, to show them that we can be re-elected here in Brighton and Hove.

    That their voice, our voice, cannot be stifled and silenced by the old politics.

    We have two years to produce another piece of history.

    That work starts today.

  • Caroline Lucas – 2010 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech in the House of Commons made by Caroline Lucas on 28th May 2010.

    Mr Speaker,

    I am most grateful to you for calling me during today’s debate.

    The environment is a subject dear to my heart, as I’m sure you know, and I’ll return to it in a moment.

    I think anyone would find their first speech in this chamber daunting, given its history and traditions, and the many momentous events it has witnessed.

    But I have an additional responsibility, which is to speak not only as the new Member of Parliament for Brighton Pavilion, but also as the first representative of the Green Party to be elected to Westminster.

    You have to go back several decades, to the election of the first Nationalist MPs in Scotland and Wales, to find the last maiden speech from a new national political party.

    And perhaps a better comparison would be those first Socialist and Independent Labour MPs, over a century ago, whose arrival was seen as a sign of coming revolution.

    When Keir Hardie made his maiden speech to this House, after winning the seat of West Ham South in 1892, there was an outcry.

    Because instead of frock coat and top hat, he wore a tweed suit and deerstalker.

    It’s hard to decide which of these choices would seem more inappropriate today.

    But what Keir Hardie stood for now seems much more mainstream.

    Progressive taxation, votes for women, free schooling, pensions and abolition of the House of Lords.

    Though the last of these is an urgent task still before us, the rest are now seen as essential to our society.

    What was once radical, even revolutionary, becomes understood, accepted and even cherished.

    In speaking today, I am helped by an admirable tradition – that in your first speech to this House, you should refer to your constituency and to your predecessor.

    David Lepper, who stood down at this election after thirteen years service as Member for Brighton Pavilion, was an enormously hard-working and highly-respected Member whose qualities transcend any differences of Party.

    I am delighted to have this chance to thank him for his work on behalf of the people of Brighton.

    It is also a great pleasure to speak about Brighton itself. It is, I am sure, well-known to many Members, if only from Party conferences.

    My own Party has not yet grown to a size to justify the use of the Brighton Centre, although I hope that will change before long.

    But I can say to honourable members who are not familiar with it, that it is one of the UK’s premier conference venues; and there are proposals to invest in it further to help ensure that Brighton retains its status as the UK’s leading conference and tourism resort.

    There are also the attractions of the shops and cafes of the Lanes and North Laine, the Pier and of course the Royal Pavilion itself, which gives its name to the constituency.

    And beyond the immediate boundaries of the constituency and the city, there is the quietly beautiful countryside of the South Downs and the Sussex Weald.

    Brighton has always had a tradition of independence – of doing things differently. It has an entrepreneurial spirit, making the best of things whatever the circumstances, and enjoying being ahead of the curve.

    We see this in the numbers of small businesses and freelancers within the constituency, and in the way in which diversity is not just tolerated, or respected, but positively welcomed and valued.

    You have to work quite hard to be a “local character” in Brighton.

    We do not have a single dominant employer in Brighton. As well as tourism and hospitality, we have two universities, whose students make an important cultural, as well as financial, contribution to the city.

    There are also a large number of charities, campaigning groups and institutes based there, some local, others with a national or international reach, such as the Institute of Development Studies, all of which I will work to support in my time in this place.

    I would like also to pay tribute to those wonderful Brighton organisations that work with women. In particular I’d like to mention Rise, who do amazing work with women who have been victims of domestic abuse.

    Many of my constituents are employed in the public and voluntary sectors. They include doctors and teachers, nurses and police officers, and others from professions that do not always have the same level of attention or support from the media, or indeed from politicians.

    But whatever the role – social workers, planning officers, highway engineers or border agency staff – we depend upon them.

    I’m sure that members on all sides would agree that all those who work for the State should be respected and their contribution valued. In a time of cuts, with offhand comments about bureaucrats and pencil-pushers, that becomes yet more important.

    There is also a Brighton that is perhaps less familiar to honourable members. The very popularity of the City puts pressure on transport and housing and on the quality of life.

    Though there is prosperity, it is not shared equally. People are proud of Brighton, but they believe that it can be a better and fairer place to live and work.

    I pledge to everything I can in this place to help achieve that, with a particular focus on creating more affordable, more sustainable housing.

    Brighton was once the seat of the economist Henry Fawcett who, despite his blindness, was elected there in 1865. Shortly afterwards he married Millicent Garrett, later the leader of the suffragists, a movement he himself had supported and encouraged.

    So he lent his name to the Fawcett Society, which is still campaigning for greater women’s representation in politics.

    The task of ensuring that Parliament better reflects the people that it represents remains work in progress – and as the first woman elected in Brighton Pavilion, this is work that I will do all that I can do advance.

    I said when I began that I found this occasion daunting.

    Perhaps the most difficult task is to say a few words about the latest radical move that the people of Brighton have made – that is, to elect the first Green MP to Parliament.

    It has been a long journey.

    The Green Party traces its origins back to 1973, and the issues highlighted in its first Manifesto for a Sustainable Society – including security of energy supply, tackling pollution, raising standards of welfare and striving for steady state economics – are even more urgent today.

    If our message had been heeded nearly 40 years ago, I like to think we would be much closer to the genuinely sustainable economy that we so urgently need, than we currently are today.

    We fielded fifty candidates in the 1979 general election as the Ecology Party, and began to win seats on local councils. Representation in the European Parliament and the London Assembly followed.

    Now, after nearly four decades of the kind of work on doorsteps and in council chambers which I am sure honourable members are all too familiar, we have more candidates and more members, and now our first MP.

    A long journey.

    Too long, I would say.

    Politics needs to renew itself, and allow new ideas and visions to emerge.

    Otherwise debate is the poorer, and more and more people will feel that they are not represented.

    So I hope that if, and when, other new political movements arise, they will not be excluded by the system of voting. Reform here, as in other areas, is long-overdue.

    The chance must not be squandered. Most crucially, the people themselves must be given a choice about the way their representatives are elected.

    And in my view, that means more than a referendum on the Alternative Vote – it means the choice of a genuinely proportional electoral system.

    Both before the election and afterwards, I have been asked the question: what can a single MP hope to achieve? I may not be alone in facing that question.

    And since arriving in this place, and thinking about the contribution other members have made over the years, I am sure that the answer is clear, that a single MP can achieve a great deal.

    A single MP can contribute to debates, to legislation, to scrutiny. Work that is valuable, if not always appreciated on the outside.

    A single MP can speak up for their constituents.

    A single MP can challenge the executive. I am pleased that the government is to bring forward legislation to revoke a number of restrictions on people’s freedoms and liberties, such as identity cards.

    But many restrictions remain. For example, control orders are to stay in force. Who is to speak for those affected and for the principle that people should not be held without charge, even if it is their own homes?

    House arrest is something we deplore in other countries. I hope through debate we can conclude that it has no place here either.

    A single MP can raise issues that cannot be aired elsewhere.

    Last year Honourable Members from all sides of the House helped to shine a light on the actions of the international commodities trading group Trafigura, and the shipping of hazardous waste to the Ivory Coast.

    There was particular concern that the media in this country were being prevented from reporting the issues fully and fairly.

    This remains the case, for new legal actions concerning Trafigura have been launched in the Dutch courts, and are being reported widely in other countries, but not here.

    Finally, I would like to touch on the subject of today’s debate.

    I have worked on the causes and consequences of climate change for most of my working life, first with Oxfam – for the effects of climate change are already affecting millions of people in poorer countries around the world – and then for ten years in the European Parliament.

    But if we are to overcome this threat, then it is we in this chamber who must take the lead.

    We must act so that the United Kingdom can meet its own responsibilities to cut the emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that are changing our climate, and encourage and support other countries to do the same.

    This House has signed up to the 10:10 Campaign – 10% emissions reductions in 2010. That’s very good news. But the truth is that we need 10% emission cuts every year, year on year, until we reach a zero carbon economy.

    And time is running short. If we are to avoid irreversible climate change, then it is this Parliament that must meet this historic task.

    That gives us an extraordinary responsibility – and an extraordinary opportunity.

    Because the good news is that the action that we need to tackle the climate crisis is action which can improve the quality of life for all of us – better, more affordable public transport, better insulated homes, the end of fuel poverty, stronger local communities and economies, and many more jobs.

    I look forward to working with Members from all sides of the House on advancing these issues.

  • Tim Loughton – 2010 Speech to the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People’s Services

    Below is the text of the speech given by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families, Tim Loughton, on 29th June 2010.

    Thank you, Sir Paul. And thank you Christine for inviting me to speak to you today.

    C4EO is doing some really interesting and important work, which complements a lot of thinking in Government Departments across Whitehall, particularly in these financially challenging times. So I think this is a very good opportunity to talk about that approach, what we can learn from each other, and how to put those lessons into practice.

    But first it might be useful to put the current situation in context, and say something about the challenges facing all of us in the coming months and years.

    (Outline of the financial situation – how we got here, need for financial restraint, etc.)

    Last week the Chancellor’s emergency budget set out the tough but fair measures that we need to take to tackle the country’s budget deficit and bring spending back under control, in I think a measured and realistic way.

    The scale of the fiscal challenge is huge, and that does mean there will be very real and unavoidable challenges – and the Department for Education is not immune from them.

    Many families will face the challenge of hardship.

    There will be a strain not just on resources, but on relationships too. As pressure on families increases, so too will the pressure on children.

    One child in five in this country is currently living in poverty, and two million children live in poor housing.

    And we know about the links between economic recession and the effects on mental health in the family and, increasingly, in children.

    As they look to us, and to you, for support in these difficult times, we have to ensure that our services offer them what they need in the best possible way.

    That’s why the coalition government has put the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility at the heart of our decision-making and our policies.

    We have already announced that we will protect spending on schools, Sure Start and 16-19 funding, while also announcing the introduction of a pupil premium that will allow us to tackle educational inequality by ensuring that additional money is provided to those who teach the most disadvantaged children. And we will refocus Sure Start on meeting the needs of the most disadvantaged families.

    But there’s no doubt the landscape has changed, and when we’re thinking about how to provide public services in future – whether that’s childcare places, safeguarding vulnerable children, or school IT projects – we need to look first and foremost at quality outcomes as well as value for money, and do all we can to make sure that we get the maximum bang for our buck.

    That means looking at outcomes rather than, for example, throughput.

    Because in the past I would contend, too much of what passed for evaluation of any particular process or project was often not much more than a measurement of quantity – how many young people were signed up for this or that particular scheme, for instance – rather than a thoughtful analysis of what each individual may or may not have gained from the project. Did it have a life-changing impact for them? How did it improve their life chances?

    So we have to be smarter, we have to think about how children have actually benefited (or not) from our policies and investment; about the timeliness of interventions, and whether departments and agencies have done as much cross-cutting work as they can.

    In the coming years, all of our interventions must be targeted on the people who will benefit most, and provided in the way that will help them best.

    So I am really switched on to good practice. Where is it? And how do we learn from it?

    How do we discover the best models for public services in times like these?

    At the heart of the new government’s approach is a determination to move away from a top-down, prescriptive approach, and to devolve more power and freedom to parents and professionals.

    Parents have the primary responsibility for raising children, and our policies should always recognise that. But even the best parents need support from time to time.

    So we need to make sure they have access to the professionals – whether state-provided or from the voluntary sector – who are experts in their respective fields.

    They are the people we need to trust, and it’s their experience we need to share.

    Thousands of them are already doing excellent work, and formerly as an opposition front-bencher, and in the first month in my new job, I have visited some great examples of local schemes that are really making a difference.

    There are successful projects in every part of the country. In Kent, for example, an Early Talk programme has been set up in Ashford, at low cost, to help children with speech and language difficulties to develop their communications skills early on. It’s a multi-agency approach, and it has resulted in over 90 per cent of those children making good progress in a mainstream primary school when in the past they would have needed specialist language provision. Poor speech development is often at the heart of poor learning, and the earlier it is detected and dealt with, the better a child’s chance of keeping up both educationally and socially.

    And Kensington & Chelsea’s ‘Virtual School’, with its focus on attendance and attainment, is improving the educational outcomes of looked after children and young people in the borough, and making real reductions in the number who are not in education, employment or training (NEET).

    Or there’s Tower Hamlets’ ‘Parents as Partners in Early Learning’ scheme, where a system for sharing information between parents, teachers and others involved with the child’s learning has resulted in a significant increase in children’s communication and personal skills.

    So there’s plenty of good practice going on out there. But there’s no point having a brilliant idea and not telling anyone about it. That’s why C4EO’s work on improvement is so important. It allows local authorities to use the best evidence and research to improve local practice and drive up standards.

    Because knowledge is power – power to do good – but only if you share it.

    Travelling about the country, I have been struck by the number of times I’ve heard about a scheme or initiative that’s achieving excellent results in addressing a problem in one authority – but which is completely unheard of in the neighbouring area.

    We need to be smarter about using and disseminating good practice, and in future I see an important role for government in facilitating best practice. For instance, my ministerial colleague Sarah Teather and I are looking at organising an event that gets together local authority lead members and directors to look at best practice, and discuss what might be transferable from one area to another. It needs input from both local authority elected members and officers, and I’d be interested to hear your views on how we take that forward.

    It won’t be a case of funding all the good schemes we hear about. What we will be doing is helping appropriate voluntary sector organisations to become part of the solution, by making it easier for them to work with statutory agencies.

    Families

    The Government believes that families are the building blocks of society. We believe that in order to build strong communities, we need to nurture and support families of all kinds.

    That doesn’t mean we think it’s Government’s business to lecture families about how to live their lives. That can be counter-productive. What we need to do is provide them with an environment in which they can thrive.

    That is why we are setting up a new Childhood and Families Task Force, to look at areas like parental leave and flexible working, the support we give children in the event of family breakdown, and how to help children avoid the pressures forcing them to grow up too quickly.

    The Task Force will be chaired by the Prime Minister, and again Sarah Teather will be playing a crucial role as our departmental representative.

    In recent years, services that take a ‘whole family’ approach to helping families with multiple problems have grown rapidly, and here again there is a great deal of excellent local practice we can learn from.

    In Westminster, for example, the Westminster Family Recovery project is addressing the needs and behaviours of the families who place most demands on the local authority’s public services – as well as having a high impact on the communities around them. By working intensively over a period of around a year with these families, the project aims to bring about long term inter-generational changes in behaviour. It’s an approach that is already delivering good results: for example, 50 per cent of children in families who have been part of the project for six months or more have shown an improvement in their school attendance.

    From a financial and effectiveness perspective, it has to make sense to concentrate a holistic solution on those families whose problems are taking up a disproportionate amount of professional time and resources.

    And in Suffolk, agencies are also doing excellent work in identifying and working with their ‘high demand’ and ‘high cost’ families. They have also carried out some intensive work looking at the needs of Young Carers. They are another neglected army of dedicated volunteers, and I went to their annual get-together at Fairthorne Manor last weekend.

    Early intervention

    If we are serious about addressing the problems facing us, and doing it with scarcer resources, then it’s essential we adopt new ways, smarter ways, of thinking and working.

    But one very old way of working – the ‘stitch in time saves nine’ principle – can also stand us in good stead. Early Intervention is a key component of providing effective, and cost-effective, services.

    At just 22 months, a poor child’s skills already lag behind those of a child of the same age from a better-off home. That disadvantage – if it is not tackled – will remain throughout life, with huge implications for choice of career, the limiting of opportunity, and even reduced life expectancy. A child born into one of England’s poorest neighbourhoods today will die (if nothing changes) seven years before one born into the richest.

    The stitch in time approach saves lives – sometimes literally.

    It often saves money too.

    For instance, it’s been estimated that a reduction of just one per cent in the number of offences committed by children and young people has the potential to generate savings for households and individuals of around £45 million a year.

    That’s why projects such as Action 4 Children’s Intensive Fostering are so interesting, concentrating the expertise of highly trained and motivated foster carers on teenagers on the cusp of the youth justice system.

    I am well aware of C4EO’s invaluable work on Early Intervention and cost-effectiveness, and we will study it closely as part of the work that we are currently carrying out on cost-effectiveness within the department.

    Incidentally, it seems to me that Early Intervention provides another argument against the reform of public services being driven by central government. If the solution to a problem has to wait until someone in Whitehall makes a decision, the chance for getting in early and sorting out trouble at its root is likely to have passed.

    And to encourage further that local approach, and to drive home the cost-effectiveness message, we will be investigating ways in which we can ensure that providers are paid partly by the results they achieve. That seems only right.

    Disparity of local authority outcomes – why are some LAs so much more successful than others?

    I believe that it’s only by sharing knowledge and expertise that we will be able to tackle the scandalous disparity of local authority outcomes.

    Why are some local authorities, with no more resources and with similar populations, so much more successful than others at improving outcomes for young people?

    Nottingham, Leicester and Haringey are all in the top 20 most deprived local authorities, but have all seen improvements in reducing both youth crime and teenage pregnancy recently. These local authorities have seen falls of between 15.9 per cent and 21.5 per cent in the rate of teenage pregnancies, compared to the average decrease nationally of 0.2 per cent, where overall figures remain stubbornly high.

    They have also seen falls of between 18 per cent and 62 per cent in youth crime. Stoke-on-Trent – also in that top-20 most deprived category – managed to achieve a fall in its youth crime rate of over 70 per cent between 2006-7 and 2008-9.

    What can explain those statistics? And why aren’t those results being replicated across the country? In large part it must be because less-good authorities are failing to learn from the best.

    And in a strange way, there’s an encouraging message there. It means there are authorities out there doing really great work. It means we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Using good practice developed in one area to help other areas improve their services is a cost-effective way of helping all children and families to achieve good outcomes.

    I’d like to give a plug here for the C4EO website. A good case study can be like gold dust, and C4EO’s rigorous process of validation means that the case studies on your website are a fantastic resource for others seeking to provide better services for their own communities, and great scope for peer mentoring between authorities, ADCs and LGAs.

    Conclusion

    All of us, whether in government or the voluntary sector, whether large organisations or individuals, need to work together to tackle the difficulties facing our country.

    That is what the Big Society is all about, and we shall be hearing a lot more about that. It’s all about empowering the sector, local communities and individuals to take the lead, to pool and share their expertise.

    And I believe that far from being helpless in the face of global processes, we actually have the solutions in our own hands. We have the resources in our local hospitals and schools and community groups to make this a better country.

    By identifying programmes and organisations that can actually deliver the results we want to see, and using an empirical approach rather than one that is ideologically driven, we can create a pattern for working more intelligently in future.

    In that spirit, over the summer we will be looking at how the Government can best support improvement in children’s services without stifling the very real innovation that’s at the heart of the best local authorities and their children’s services partners.

    I know C4EO and many of you here today will be monitoring our progress, and giving us the benefit of your experience. I look forward to working with you and hearing your views.

    Thank you.

  • Mark Lowcock – 2013 Speech on Ethiopia

    Below is the text of the speech made by Mark Lowcock, the Permanent Secretary at the Department for International Development, on 12th December 2013.

    Introduction

    Justine Greening, my Secretary of State, has made economic development –especially creating jobs to reduce dependency and improve the opportunities of the poor – 1 of the very top priorities for Britain’s international development programme.

    I am delighted to be able to discuss with you here today what that means in Ethiopia, and how Britain and Ethiopia can work together on this issue. And to be returning to a country I have visited regularly for nearly thirty years. My first visit was as a fresh-faced twenty-something in 1986 – I hope the economists amongst you can do the maths!

    Like my boss (and all good people!), I am an accountant who studied economics and went to business school.

    So I’m particularly pleased to be talking about these issues with an audience of economics and business students from the Economics and Political Science and International Relations Department, as well as policy makers and business people. I know this proud faculty can rightly consider itself 1 of the places of strength in teaching economics and business studies in Africa. Students from this faculty have become the bedrock of both the civil service and the private sector in Ethiopia. I know that when I speak today I am speaking to Ethiopia’s future movers and shakers.

    I am also delighted to be speaking to you in this new Eshetu Chole Building. I am sure you all know that Eshetu Chole was an esteemed Ethiopian economist whose knowledge, capacity and skill were of enormous pride to Ethiopians, and respected by other Africans.

    As well as looking at economic development, I am here in Ethiopia to discuss higher education and understand better how the UK might support your academic institutions. Both DFID and the British Council have supported linkages and knowledge transfer partnerships between Ethiopian and UK Higher Education Institutions. We are looking to do more, and I have just had the pleasure of meeting your State Minister for Higher Education, Dr Kaba, where we discussed this issue.

    And I know higher education matters greatly to Ethiopians. Indeed, your late Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, somehow found the time to study for an MBA at the UK’s Open University, while also running your country. He earned 1 of the best business degrees the Open University has ever awarded. No pressure on you then!

    But back to economic development.

    It’s always a source of wonder for me how much the country has changed. I know how frustrating it is for Ethiopians that views of your country are still shaped by the terrible famines of the 1980s. Too many people wrongly think that Ethiopia is still suffering in the same way.

    Yours is a country of incredible achievements and diversity. From the green and fertile plains of the highland regions. To the dry camel-filled Somali Regional State. From the almost supernatural landscape of the Danakil. To the jaw-dropping vistas of the Simien Mountains. Ethiopia as a country could not be more diverse. Its people could not be more diverse. And their needs could not be more diverse.

    But 1 of the things that has brought this most diverse of nations together has been the singularity of vision. Ethiopia’s success, over the past decade in particular, has been to maintain that vision. And turn it from a dream into a living, breathing, and forward looking reality.

    In the last 30 years life expectancy here has increased by 50%. Ethiopia is on track to meet most of the Millennium Development Goals. You have achieved the infant mortality goal 2 years early. Economic growth, in double digits, has been impressive. All the more so because, unlike other parts of the continent, it hasn’t been driven by commodities alone. Per capita income has doubled.

    On my last visit to Ethiopia, 2 years ago, I was privileged enough to spend a day alongside a young woman called Eyerusalem. She has a job breaking rocks for road building, but I was not very good at that. She earns money washing clothes for her neighbour, and I was even worse at that. And she collects water from the river, which I could not do at all – the container was too heavy and the rocks too slippery. Today Eyerusalem has a job in local government, earning 700 Birr a month – money which helps her to support both herself and her family. Her story illustrates how far – and how fast – Ethiopia has changed.

    On this visit I’ve had a very different but equally fascinating time. I spent yesterday looking at how economic development is changing Ethiopia. I spoke to farmers whose land tenure is being made more secure, to small shopkeepers benefiting from micro-finance in Addis’s outskirts and to workers at a state-of-the-art leather factory.

    I have heard first hand from a range of Ethiopian firms and foreign investors about the increasing attraction of Ethiopia as a place to do business. Drawn by Ethiopia’s sustained economic success, the size of its growing market, and its potential as a location for production, a range of industries are emerging that barely existed when I first visited.

    I have seen, for example, a successful vegetable producer, who exports produce to the EU. And I’ve met with a host of UK firms who are being drawn here, from leather glove makers, to clothes retailers to drinks manufacturers. This is both to their benefit, and that of Ethiopia, which stands to gain from their financial investment, creation of jobs and sharing of best practice.

    I think that that the strides that you have made away from poverty and famine, towards development and shared prosperity, make Ethiopia 1 of the world’s great development success stories of the last twenty years.

    Theme of inclusive growth and managing transitions

    The theme of my talk today is what drives inclusive growth and how to best manage the transitions that growth may bring over the next 10 years.

    Why? Firstly, because Ethiopia is already booming. But Ethiopians know there is still much to do. I hope the keen young economists and business students among you, not to mention policy makers and business people, will be asking yourselves these questions. How can Ethiopia sustain its success? How can you adapt to the changes which will come in its wake? There may be useful lessons to learn from other countries. And others can learn from you too.

    Adjusting to the challenges that transformation brings is just as important as sustaining growth. I believe there is a saying in Ethiopia, ‘siroTu yetatekut siroTu YeFetale’. Just in case my attempt at Amharic is less than perfect, I’d better add the English version: ‘a belt fastened while running will come undone while running’.

    Secondly, because the UK’s partnership with Ethiopia needs to adapt and change too. This is our largest development programme in the world. We’re incredibly proud of the things we’ve helped Ethiopia achieve to date. We want to be here for the long-haul. But we would like our relationship to change over time from a donor-recipient one to one of import-export and equal partnership on the world stage, on issues that affect us all, like climate change, world trade and counter-terrorism.

    As part of this, we want to expand our work on economic development here. Mindful that in the long run it will be the private sector development that will lead the process of job creation and provide the tax base for social spending and public investment by future generations.

    We’re starting with new support on land certification, access to finance and helping make the leather, textile and horticulture sectors in Ethiopia truly world class. But we want to go beyond this. We want to help Ethiopia attract the private capital, technology and know-how it needs to achieve its ambitious growth targets. And end reliance on external support, potentially within a generation. I hope in the discussion after my talk, you’ll give me some ideas on where we can best help.

    Inclusive growth

    So, back to my first theme. What drives inclusive growth?

    Ethiopia has very clear ideas about where it wants to be by 2025, and the best way to get there. Now, every country grows differently, and finds its own path. But it’s worth reflecting on some of the common features of countries that have successfully transformed themselves.

    The Commission for Growth and Development, set up by the World Bank in 2008, did a good job of setting out some of these features. They looked at 13 success stories of sustained and transformational growth to see what feature they shared. They came up with 5 ‘ingredients’. With 9 of these 13 countries being east Asian, I think the ingredients have particular resonance for a country like Ethiopia.

    The first of these features highlighted by the Commission was integration into the global economy. Two aspects of this are particularly important. First is the willingness and ability to import ideas, technology, and know-how from the rest of the world. Second, these countries exploited global demand. They encouraged a specialisation that allowed them to excel in world markets. The 4 east Asian Tigers, for instance, saw their manufacturing exports grow from under $5bn in 1962 to $715bn in 2004.

    Ethiopia is moving towards this kind of integration. It has publicly set a target of joining the WTO. It has a rising export base, including diversifying from traditional crops like coffee into new areas like cut flowers. There’s a booming services sector, to which energy exports could soon become a major contributor. And foreign direct investment is being actively courted. This is an incredibly effective carrier of ideas and know-how, as well as bringing in capital resources. However, inward FDI flows have not yet matched the levels of other parts of Africa. Nor the levels associated with take-off in many of the Asian examples of dramatic transformation. More on this later.

    The second common feature of these high performing economies has been macroeconomic stability. Whilst some may have experienced periods of high inflation – Korea in the 70s, for instance, or China in the mid-90s – it’s clear that the countries of east Asia took action in the face of these episodes, even though this may have been unpopular at the time. They knew that inflation would deter savers and threaten long term goals. Equally, fiscal deficits rose and fell but were contained to ensure they did not pose a risk to savers and deter investors.

    Again, this reminds me of what I see in Ethiopia. The Government has recently taken action to get inflation back under single digits and there is not the history of macroeconomic instability we see in much of Africa. I admire the way my friend Ato Sufian, your Finance Minister, and others in your Government approach macroeconomic stability

    The third feature is a focus on the future and high saving and investment rates. A key pillar of the success of the east Asian tigers was their farsighted decision to forgo consumption today in order to pursue higher levels of income in the future. China, for instance, is famous for having saved more than a third of its income for over a generation. These savings rates are what facilitated the high levels of investment, both public and private, that characterised these countries’ development paths.

    Whilst savings rates have increased in Ethiopia in the last couple of years, they remain lower. Definitions vary but over the last 5 years they have averaged less than 10% of GDP. Whilst investment spending has passed a quarter of all economic activity. In some ways this appears to be an enigma. Ethiopia is 1 of the few countries in the world to have successfully raised incomes but seen private savings rates drop. This is possibly the biggest difference between Ethiopia and the east Asian tigers.

    Learning from Asia, a 2 pronged approach seems sensible. First, expanding financial services and new savings products. Great strides have been made here with the number of bank branches doubling in less than 2 years. Secondly, linked to my earlier point on macroeconomic stability, savers will need to be reassured that their deposits are safe through positive real interest rates. Savers might not want to defer spending today if inflation means those savings are actually worth less tomorrow.

    The fourth common feature of these 13 successful economies was the importance of property rights and letting markets allocate resources. Whilst they varied in the strength and clarity of property rights, in all of them businesses and investors could be confident their investments were secure.

    There was variation in the degree of state intervention. Hong Kong is as famous for its laissez faire approach as China has been for a more hands on role. But even with this hands-on approach, China knew that you can’t just celebrate and foster success. You have to allow failure when sectors and firms are not viable. To avoid wasting precious resources that could be better used elsewhere. And send important signals about what works and what doesn’t. All successful economies have examples of things they have tried but no longer do, for instance even Singapore experimented with import substitution before looking outwards.

    Looking east has already yielded results for Ethiopia. Whilst land remains the property of the state, improving the security of poor farmers’ land tenure through better certification helps give them the incentives to invest in that land.

    The Commission’s final observation was the importance of committed, credible and capable governments. For these high-growth economies, growth and poverty reduction is the overarching political priority. A long term vision that is well communicated is a common feature. Just as important is pragmatism about how this plan will be delivered, learning from mistakes and adjusting course as necessary. The Chinese premier, Deng Xiaoping, described it as ‘crossing the river by feeling for the stones’. A common theme in all 13 countries is a technocratic administration, a focus on delivery and an approach to policymaking that is driven by evidence and learns from mistakes.

    Your late – and widely admired – Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, with whom I had the privilege of several discussions on these issues – set out a clear vision for the country with the PASDEP and subsequently the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP). This, in turn, is about to enter a new phase as the Government charts its course from 2015 with a second GTP.

    These 5 ingredients are a useful way of looking at Ethiopia’s progress and future choices. I would add 1 more, related to the investment climate.

    Whilst the Growth Commission’s observations on prioritising future incomes through investment and the role of property rights are right, they only take us so far. It is also important to think about the way the world looks to those making those important decisions on whether to consume or invest – or often whether to invest in Ethiopia, or somewhere else.

    A key factor here is the investment climate: the rules, procedures and norms that underpin how business is done. For instance, how much it costs to register a business, how long it takes to pay tax and the likelihood of being asked to pay a bribe when you do.

    In many respects the world has changed profoundly since the east Asian ‘miracle’. The increasingly mobile nature of global capital flows and the proliferation of countries competing for the same investors have changed the landscape. Investors (both international and domestic) have more choice in where and how to invest. The process of offshoring labour intensive manufacturing from advanced countries to the Asian Tigers is winding down and competition in these sectors is fierce. We know about that in Europe!

    The complexity of managing and attracting investors to a modern and diversified economy also presents challenges. Trying to tailor arrangements for individual firms and granting them high level political access to help overcome obstacles is only manageable when you have just a few investors. There is a risk that the incentives and tailored measures set up for these first few investors eventually lead to a level of complexity and unpredictability that puts off others. Many east Asian countries found that special deals sooner or later had to be replaced with broad based reforms providing clarity and equity, as well as flexibility.

    Listening to the grumbles of your key investors is always revealing. I am told that the top constraints reported by Chinese investors in Ethiopia are access to finance, access to land, electricity and the time taken and unpredictability in paying taxes. Do customs and trade regulations also rate highly, and does it takes longer to clear customs here than in other places?

    Managing transitions

    And finally, let me say a word about managing the transitions that growth and development will entail.

    Some changes countries face are inherent to the process of growth and rising incomes. Some are external, driven by global factors or environmental change. I want to mention 4 ‘transition issues’, which Ethiopia might want to turn into advantages rather than risks.

    Demographic change is my first example. As with much of Africa, Ethiopia has a young population: 85 million today, set to rise to 150 million by 2050. And the median age of Ethiopians is already only just over 16. This youth bulge has often been called a ‘demographic dividend’, with the majority of the population in work, rather than needing looking after.

    But it also creates pressures for service delivery and pressures on the labour force tomorrow. At some 2 million new entrants to Ethiopia’s labour force every year, that’s more than the total number of people currently employed in the formal private sector.

    I guess I don’t need to tell all you students studying hard and trying to pick up marketable skills what this means. The private sector must take off, particularly in the manufacturing sector. And more people like you need to develop skills in manufacturing and services. To ensure it’s really a ‘demographic dividend’ rather than a problem.

    Second, and linked to both structural change in the economy and demographics, is urbanisation. Ethiopia’s population remains overwhelmingly rural. But urban centres are growing quickly. This great city has more than doubled in size since I first visited. Some smaller cities are growing even faster. Again, no country has advanced to middle income status without significant urbanisation.

    Cities are crucibles for innovation and specialisation. Clusters of similar businesses can emerge, driving competition and creating demand for workers with key skills. Over the last 5 years almost half the fall in poverty in Ethiopia has come in towns and cities or through rural-urban migration.

    But urbanisation also causes upheaval and change. Social networks, service delivery, transport links and issues of environmental sustainability need thinking through. I see signs of this foresight here in Addis Ababa in the construction of the light railway. I am hoping to visit it myself tomorrow. But is infrastructure being developed fast enough?

    There are significant opportunities in infrastructure for Ethiopia to draw on the finance and skills of the private sector. Public Private Partnerships, for example, have proved successful elsewhere in harnessing the private sector to help deliver objectives once the preserve of the public sector. Through the “Private Infrastructure Development Group”, DFID has helped stimulate such investment in other developing countries, using a mix of financial, practical and strategic support. We stand ready to do the same here.

    The third transition I want to highlight is perhaps the most sensitive, but 1 which I know is on people’s minds. As a country grows, and its population gets more educated, wealthy and urbanized, history suggests that ways for that population to express their views openly and freely get ever more important if stability is to be maintained.

    The final transition I want to highlight is increased reliance on domestic revenues and other sources of finance. This will also mean a reduced dependence on aid. Increasing revenues will be essential for protecting the delivery of basic services like education and health care. It will also help Ethiopia build a more comprehensive social safety net. Something which all middle and high income countries committed to social equality need.

    Conclusion

    Ethiopia has come a long way over the past 30 years. I hope to live to see equal – if not greater – levels of progress over the next 30. There will undoubtedly be bumps in the road and new challenges. The flexibility and creativity with which Ethiopia meets these challenges will be a sign of its true strength. Some– like the shift in demographics – can be foreseen and planned for. Others, like global volatility in food markets or oil prices, can’t. Hence the need to build in buffers now through social safety nets and strong macroeconomic policy.

    I want to finish by saying that the UK is in this partnership for the long haul. And as Ethiopia’s development accelerates, our support needs to evolve too. As I said earlier, we have begun our shift towards economic development already. As we get into discussion on what I’ve said today about Ethiopia’s growth and transitions, I hope you will tell me how you think the UK can best support you in this.

    Thank you.

  • Mark Lowcock – 2012 Speech on The Future of International Development

    Below is the text of a speech made on the 16th October 2012 by the senior civil servant, Mark Lowcock, who works at the British Council in New Delhi.

    Mahatma Gandhi once said: “the future depends on what you do today.”

    So in looking at the future of international development, I want to start by looking at where we are today.

    I turned 50 this year. My 16 year old son asked me which 50 years in human history I thought to be the best in terms of the quality of human lives. I said, why, the last 50 years of course.

    Then I thought for a bit and said no, actually, it is the next 50 years that are going to be the best. Which made him feel a lot better but also led me to thinking about the pace of development in the last 5 decades, and how different our lives now are from those of earlier generations. There is no getting away from the fact that there has never been a luckier, healthier or more prosperous cohort than us.

    Human beings have been on the planet for roughly 150,000 years. Until very recently, almost everyone’s human experience was concentrated solely in obtaining enough food, heat and light simply to sustain an existence.

    100 years ago, there was only one country – it was Sweden actually – that had achieved an infant mortality rate below 10%. 175 countries have now brought their infant mortality rates below 10%, and 130 below 5%.

    In the last 50 years, global life expectancy on average has risen from 47 years to 67 years.

    The 3G smartphones on sale for less than 5000 rupees in Nairobi today enable a Kenyan to access more information than was in any library in the world 20 years ago – and to do so 24/7.

    I enjoyed reading this summer a book by Mark Tully – (I believe one of the more successful UK exports to India!). It was called India: The Road Ahead or Non–Stop India, as it is called here. It brought home to me just how far India has travelled in my lifetime.

    Mark Tully presents a range of compelling stories from all across this diverse country – not just illustrating the well-known economic miracle, but also the pace of change on social issues such as caste. The numbers speak for themselves.

    India has progressed from a literacy rate of 28% in late 1961 to 74% in 2011

    India’s share of global GDP has doubled – from 2.5% in 1980 to 5.5% in 2010

    India has increased life expectancy from 26 to 72 years in 60 years: 1950 to 2010

    India has raised the rate of growth from below 1% in the 1940s to around 3% in the early 70’s to over 6% in 2010’s.

    And India has reduced poverty – from nearly 90% living in absolute poverty in 1940s to 51% in 1977-78 to just over 30% at present.

    The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

    And both here in India and across the rest of the world changes have been happening faster than seemed possible even 20 years ago. In the mid-1990s in the Overseas Development Administration, I was periodically tasked with writing briefing papers for John Vereker, then the Permanent Secretary, for meetings he attended with his counterparts in the OECD on the state of global development. These meetings ultimately led to the agreement of the International Development Targets. The IDTs then became one of the key building blocks for the Millennium Development Goals.

    When they were first proposed in the 1990s, the MDGs were widely thought too ambitious and aspirational to be taken seriously. The pundits thought that halving the proportion of people living under a dollar a day, sending every child to school, reducing under-5 mortality by two thirds and maternal mortality by three quarters, all by 2015, was pie in the sky.

    As we now know, the sceptics have been confounded. The halving poverty target was achieved 5 years early. And not just because of progress in China or other parts of Asia. Even in Africa, by 2008 most people in Africa, for the first time since measurement began, were judged to be living above the extreme poverty line. The clean water target was also met 5 years early. Access to basic education has improved dramatically. Infant mortality has plummeted.

    So when my Prime Minister said in New York last month that the international community should aim to abolish extreme poverty within this generation, our generation, these were not just aspirational words. Abolishing extreme poverty within our lifetimes is absolutely within our grasp.

    Future challenges

    I’m not saying this will be easy. The figures speak for themselves:

    2.5 billion people still lack access to improved sanitation facilities

    1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty

    Every fourth child under 5 is underweight

    Over a quarter of a million women still die in pregnancy and childbirth each year from completely avoidable causes.

    Globally, we in the OECD at least, face the most difficult financial and economic outlook since the 1930s. We have lost momentum, sadly, in dealing with climate change and environmental challenges. We need to get that momentum back. We have seen major changes in many parts of Middle East and North Africa. We need to make sure those changes lead to real improvements in people’s lives. And we continue to face extensive challenges in preventing and dealing with the aftermath of conflicts.

    Beyond 2015

    So I am not saying that all the problems are solved. That is why I feel so passionately that the process that has now started in the United Nations to work out a new set of global development goals should have the same level of aspiration and ambition. The MDGs have provided a powerful focus for shared international action for the last 15 years. But after 2015 we will need a new framework, building on and taking forward the MDGs.

    The UN has set up a very thorough consultative process to help shape this framework. The different UN agencies will lead consultations on different themes. There are country-based consultations in 50 countries with a leading role for civil society. And the Secretary General has established a High Level Panel co-chaired by the British Prime Minister, the Indonesian President and the Liberian President.

    The panel has some of the top thinkers of our time – including Abhijit Banerjee – a very distinguished Indian economist who is very familiar to this audience. This panel had its first meeting in New York in September; its second meeting will be in London next month. And its task is to report back to the UN General Assembly next year.

    Britain doesn’t yet have a fixed position on what these new goals should be. We want to hear what other countries have to say. We have listened to those who say that the formation of the Millennium Development Goals was driven too much by the Global North – with not enough input from the Global South.

    But British Ministers have articulated some ideas as a contribution to the debate. At the end of the first panel meeting last month, David Cameron said five things:

    The objective of the new framework should be the ending of global absolute poverty.

    We should not get rid of the Millennium Development Goals. We should urge countries to complete and achieve the MDGs

    We must look at the causes of poverty, not just the symptoms of poverty

    We should consult the poorest in the world and ask what it is that they want

    We must be bold and ambitious. If we write a complicated report we won’t be held to account for the conclusions that we reach. We want something simple and straight forward, with time-bound targets that everyone can understand, that can unite the world and that the politicians of the world and the leaders of the world can be held to account over.

    The third of those points I’d like to dwell on – about looking at the causes not just the symptoms. Some people say that the current Millennium Development Goals framework – with its strong focus on access of poor people to basic services – has not focused enough on the underlying causes of poverty, the underlying enablers of progress.

    For some people that means a need to pursue the human development agenda in greater depth – to look at education quality as well as access. For others it means focusing more on environmental sustainability, resource scarcity and climate issues. We agree with all that.

    But when our own Government talks about the underlying enablers of development, they also increasingly talk about the importance of open economies and open societies, what David Cameron sometimes refers to as the “golden thread of development”.

    The idea of open economies goes a lot wider than free trade. It includes the idea that citizens should be free to provide for their livelihoods; to access goods and services, as well as infrastructure connecting them to markets; to trade their skills and capital and pursue investment opportunities; and to contribute to a thriving private sector.

    That economic governance should be transparent, credible, and stable – and include effective taxation as well as appropriate regulation.

    That the costs of doing business should be reduced and the risks of investing minimised, including through legal protection of property rights and contract enforcement. There is strong evidence behind the idea that open economies support progress – not least the impact in India that Nandan Nilekani talked about of the economic liberalisation here in the 1990s. The idea that open societies are good for development is perhaps less frequently articulated – but it is easy to believe when visiting the capital of the world’s largest democracy.

    The idea is about societies where all people have the same rights and responsibilities, regardless of their gender or their identity.

    Where they are free to exercise choice, to express their voice, to challenge, and to secure change in how they are governed.

    Where there is stability and absence of war, where people feel safe and have access to justice.

    Where states have capable institutions, deliver responsive public services, are accountable to the public and tackle corruption and manage resources effectively.

    And where the rule of law is respected, transparency promoted and an independent media protected.

    While some of this may be controversial in some quarters, one thing which is very clear from the last decade is that the countries getting left behind in the pace of progress are those enmeshed in conflict or suffering from chronically poor governance. Organisations like my own see an increasing proportion of our resources and efforts spent in such countries. The new post-2015 framework has to reflect the reality of that in some way.

    Ideas and visionaries

    The history of human progress is built upon ideas. From the time that the first human (my guess is that it was a woman) had the idea of rubbing flints together to light a fire – development has been driven forward by ideas and innovation.

    Nandan Nilekani of course is someone who personifies the big idea. As he says in his book – it is ideas that lead economic and social policy, rather than the other way round.

    As one of the visionaries behind India’s IT revolution – he has of course demonstrated this in practice. One of the books I read this summer was a pacy page-turner called One Night in a Call Centre by Chetan Bhagat. Ah – I can see that many of you have read it too. As I was musing about the idea of young Indians just outside Delhi would be sorting out refrigerator problems for Americans in the Mid-West – it struck me that this was the stuff of science fiction when Nandan, Sam and I were all little boys!

    Most of these magnificent ideas come from private individuals in the private sector. Another of the most inspirational books I have read this year (I must be giving the impression that all I do is read books – I don’t – or at least not as much as I’d like to!) was called Infinite Vision – about an idea that one man in South India had.

    I am sure most of you are familiar with Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy, or Dr. V as he is called. He defied all business logic when he founded a small clinic with a big aim of curing blindness. Today the Aravind Hospital is the largest single provider of eye-care anywhere in the world. Every day it sees 1,200 patients and the doctors perform over 200 operations. It has grown into a network of eye hospitals that has seen 32 million patients over 36 years and performed more than 4 million eye surgeries, most of them ultra-subsidised or absolutely free. For about 50 Rupees (about one US Dollar), a patient can get three eye tests in three months. The business still defies logic – and yet it is going strong and amazingly self-reliant.

    In my quarter century of work working on international development, I have come across other such inspirational stories – of big ideas that started small and have improved the lives of some of the poorest people in the world.

    Mo Ibrahim – who has helped a whole generation of Africans leapfrog into the mobile age – joining them up and also expanding access to banking and finance in a way that the formal banking system never could.

    Mohammad Yunus – who demonstrated that the poor are as credit-worthy as anybody else.

    And India’s very own Verghese Kurien – who died a few weeks ago – who used the cooperatives model to engineer India’s White Revolution – taking India from being a milk-deficient nation to the largest milk producer in the world.

    These people are the heroes – the architects of the new age of global development.

    The new architecture of development

    And that new global age brings with it a new global order. An order which no longer follows the tired old rules of the rich and the poor; the donor and the recipient; the first world and the third. It is a world in which countries like India, China and Brazil are reasserting their presence at the forefront of global progress.

    One of the snippets I picked up from Nandan’s book was that at one time India and China accounted for over half the global GDP. As Jim O’Neill – who came up with the term BRICS – observed recently: “In 2011, China’s nominal $GDP rose by 1.3 trillion, equivalent to creating an economy the size of Greece every 11½ weeks and an economy the size of Spain in not much more than a year. The BRIC countries collectively contributed around $2.2 trillion, not too far off the equivalent of another Italy.”

    To conclude then, I would like to offer a few reflections about what this changing world means for development organisations like mine:

    First we need to clarify that business we are in.

    I see three major business lines:

    First, a focus on faster progress on the MDGs in those Low-Income fragile and conflict-affected states in which none of the MDGs have yet been met. There is a few dozen countries for which this is true.

    Second, tackling global public bads: finally eradicating polio, tackling pandemics, and dealing with problems created by ungoverned spaces – terrorism, organised crime and the like. All countries in the world suffer the effects of these “bads” and official development assistance and organisations like DFID can help deal with them.

    And third, more tentatively, there is the issue of what we can do as development agencies to help tackle poverty in Middle Income Countries.

    Second, we need to do in agencies like mine is to change our offer.

    And improve it. 20 years ago, aid was a key element in the external financing and public expenditure plans of many countries. Thankfully, that is less and less so now. Trade flows, remittances, and foreign direct investment have all over the last decade grown much faster than aid. So have domestic tax revenues in virtually every country. The role of donors now is not so much to fill financing gaps across the developing world:

    We need to focus on the toughest problems (like the continuing challenge of child nutrition).

    We need to concentrate on promoting science, technology, innovation and ideas and building the evidence on whether they work.

    We need to help build the skills, capabilities, and institutions which help countries succeed.

    Third, in improving our offer, we need to keep our eyes firmly on the big development challenges.

    Just to pick two – we must retain our focus on girls & women – and increase our focus on climate change.

    I am sure you know that last week (October 11th) was the first International Day of the Girl. DFID has staked a lot (reputation, money, and also hope) in the belief that the benefits of investing in girls and women are transformational – for their own lives and for their families, communities, societies and countries. India also has a vision – as seen in the raft of new and innovative investments to get girls into secondary school, and the impressive development impacts now becoming apparent from India’s reservations for women in local government.

    Climate change. I know that there is a suspicion that the UK and Europe want countries like India to constrain their growth to tackle climate change.

    That is entirely wrong. Yes, tackling climate change is important, but so is India’s growth and development.

    Not only will India’s growth continue to underpin impressive reductions in poverty, it is also a driver of global prosperity.

    The issue is not constraining growth but how we accelerate growth, in a greener and cleaner way.

    Fourth, we need to sustain and increase aid volumes.

    Official aid globally has increased from $60 billion a year a decade ago to $120 billion now. Which is part of the reason, incidentally, why development progress has accelerated over the last 10 years. But aid budgets in some countries are under pressure. In Britain, the Coalition Government has decided that despite the global downturn we will press ahead with plans to spend 0.7% of our national income on development. And next year we will reach this longstanding UN target, the first G8 country to do so.

    Fifth, we need to focus more rigorously on the results we are delivering and the costs we are incurring in doing so – to make sure that we are spending aid to maximum effect. When I talk about results, I mean not just the longer term policy and system changes we aim to promote, but the hard facts of what immediate outputs we are buying through our aid programmes. We in DFID published our annual report last month, which set out the contribution we made in 2011/12:

    We distributed 12 million bed nets to protect people against malaria

    Gave 12 million people access to financial services so they can work their way out of poverty

    Vaccinated over 12 million children against preventable diseases

    Supported 5.3 million children to go to primary school – more than the total number of children in the UK primary school system

    Reached 6 million people with emergency food assistance

    Improved hygiene conditions for 7 million people.

    It’s absolutely right that we should tell our taxpayers in this specific way what their aid is buying.

    And sixth, we need to become more transparent and accountable

    to our stakeholders – both the taxpayers who pay our bills, and the clients for whose benefit we work. Publishing our results is a key part of this.

    But so is using all the resources of modern technology to ensure that people can check what we plan to do, whether it offers value for money, whether we achieve it, and whether what we are doing to put things back on course when they go wrong. It is the right thing to do.

    “Publish What You Fund”– an international NGO – has just published its annual international aid transparency rankings – and I am happy to report that DFID is at the top of the 72 organisations covered in rankings.

    My theme this evening has been the future of international development. I started by quoting Mahatma Gandhi saying how we build the future by what we do today. Let me end by quoting another great Indian – Mother Teresa – with a similar insight: “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”

  • David Lidington – 2014 Speech on the European Union

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Lidington, the Minister of State at the Foreign Office, in London on 8th May 2014.

    Good afternoon. Guten tag. Grüß Gott!

    I’d like to welcome you to an area of London with stronger links to Germany than you might imagine.

    Over two hundred years ago, Pall Mall became the first public street in the world to be artificially lit with gas. And it was a German inventor we have to thank for that.

    Frederick Albert Winsor, using old musket barrels for his piping, lit the way to St James’ Palace to celebrate the birthday of George III, who was then King of Great Britain and Ireland, but also King of Hanover.

    Even today, the partnership between Germany and the UK, both titans in innovation, research and manufacturing, has remained one of the driving forces behind our continued prosperity.

    This partnership matters not just in terms of our bilateral ties, but also because of our two countries’ leading positions within the European Union.

    I have been asked here tonight to talk about British voters and how they see the EU, less than two weeks ahead of elections for the new European Parliament.

    And it may be of interest to you that underlying sentiment about Europe has been changing in Britain.

    Over a series of polls since March this year, more people said they wanted to stay in the European Union than to leave, reversing a pattern that had been in place for over four years.

    I think that part of the reason has to be the crisis in Ukraine that jolted us into re-examining the big questions about what our Union is for.

    As ten Member States celebrate ten years of EU membership, many have commented on the transformative changes in those countries’ economies. In Poland, for example, trade with the UK has trebled to £5.7 billion a year and incomes within the country have risen three-fold. A country that in 1989 had bare shop shelves and 500% inflation is now the sixth biggest economy in the EU.

    For the UK, it was certainly the promise of trade that drew us in to the EEC in 1973.

    But it’s about more than trade. When Chancellor Merkel came to London in February, she spoke movingly about her experiences 25 years ago.

    Chancellor Merkel said that for her personally, as for millions of people behind the Iron Curtain, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 had been a moment of incredible happiness. And that she had learned first-hand: change – change for the better – was possible.

    This “change for the better” is what people still look to the EU to achieve. In the wider world, and right now to Europe’s east, we are aware that it is not just Europe’s prosperity that attracts countries from outside. It is our shared values.

    The rule of law. A commitment to democracy. Freedom as a guiding principle. Order. Decency.

    These are values that we must protect.

    I think this chimes well with the ethos and objectives of the Baden-Baden Entrepreneur Talks. They seek to prepare a future generation of business leaders not merely for their roles in business, but also for their roles in society.

    Let me turn now to the situation in Ukraine.

    Russia’s actions have cast a chill across the whole of Europe, and recalled a time which we had hoped we would not see again.

    The people of Ukraine have lived together as a unified nation for the past 70 years. In a matter of weeks they will go to the polls to decide their future.

    We believe it is very important that those elections are able to go ahead without disruption and without interference from outside and we hope that President Putin’s statement yesterday leads to a change of direction from the Russian side.

    Up until this point Russia has done its utmost to disrupt this democratic process.

    We have seen provocation after provocation aimed at undermining Ukraine’s peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.

    Over the weekend, German OSCE monitors and their colleagues were held by Russia’s proxies in Slovyansk – though, thankfully, they were later released. Journalists were detained and beaten, bodies found in rivers and a BBC journalist had to flee after having a gun put to her head.

    It is an enormous shame that it has come to this. The UK, alongside partners in the European Union and across the Atlantic, has expended a great deal of effort over the past twenty years to create what we hoped was a positive working relationship with Russian leaders.

    But Russia should be in no doubt that the international will is there to deepen the sanctions that are already hitting their economy hard if that is what we have to do. Some things are more important than pounds, Euros or dollars.

    I have been struck by the unity shown by the West in dealing with the crisis. When the values that we share have been confronted, we have taken a long look at our priorities and at who our friends really are. In the long term, this makes us much stronger.

    Over the next six months, there are two areas where I suggest we should focus this.

    First, we should look very closely at energy security. How can we diminish the dependency of European Union Member States on Russian gas? And, equally, how can we do so while maintaining our strong record on tackling greenhouse emissions, while not burdening citizens in Member States with higher bills?

    Second, we should seek to ensure that the European model remains a potent and a powerful force in the world. This means ensuring that we make the necessary reforms to bolster our economic effectiveness.

    Our strength in the world relies on the strength of our economies, and we should never take this for granted.

    This takes me back to the theme of the talk: what do British voters expect from the European Union?

    Well, as businesses, it is always good to focus on the figures.

    I mentioned at the start of this talk that in the UK, support for Europe had grown.

    According to a YouGov poll, at the end of April, 40% of British people would stay in the EU if they were asked to vote now, as against 37% who would choose to leave. Those figures have been much the same in every YouGov poll since March.

    Moreover, the same polls show if you reform Europe – making it more flexible, competitive and democratically accountable, then the number that would vote to stay in rises dramatically. Under that scenario, British voters by a margin of two to one would want to stay in.

    Business associations are even more positive towards the EU.

    In September, the Institute of Directors – based in this building – polled its members, and found that six out of ten would want to stay in an EU with improved terms of membership. So it is incorrect to say “Britain simply wants out”. That’s one myth.

    There is a second myth that it is only the British who are dissatisfied with the European status quo.

    Eurobarometer recently asked people in all 28 Member States whether they thought their voice counted in the EU.

    In 26 out of 28 Member States, including Germany, a majority of people did not think their voice counted. In the UK, the number was 74%. And in nine other Member States, it was even greater.

    There are other points of similarity. According to an Open Europe poll, seven out of ten Britons and six out of ten Germans think that national parliaments should be able to block proposed new EU laws.

    The third myth is that people in the UK are obsessed with Europe. They’re not. Surveys frequently ask the British population what they think matters to them personally. As of February, Europe wasn’t even on the top ten.

    What people do care about is not much of a surprise. The economy. Jobs. Pensions. Tax. Healthcare. Housing. Immigration.

    You will notice that many of these issues are within the lead competence of Member States, not Brussels.

    The United Kingdom’s position is therefore that the EU should change, and start concentrating on where it can best add value. Implementing policies at a European level which boost competitiveness, reduce regulatory burdens, improve the economy, generate new jobs, and in so doing, put more money into people’s pockets.

    So what is the UK doing?

    In January last year, the Prime Minister set out his vision for a reformed European Union, looking at what changes would benefit not just the UK but all Member States.

    He talked about reforms which would make Europe more competitive, in a world where emerging economies are quickly catching up.

    More flexible – getting rid of the old one-size-fits-all mentality and setting policies which take into account the diversity of 28 Member States.

    More democratically accountable – recognising that the default answer towards solving the democratic deficit is not “more Europe”, but that a greater role for national parliaments and governments can help.

    And what we see is a growing consensus among the Member States that yes, Europe does need to change; and yes, there is sense in the reforms we have proposed.

    On competitiveness, the UK and Germany are allies. As Chancellor Merkel said: “The European Union must become stronger, more stable and more competitive than it is today.”

    Seven EU leaders, including from the UK and Germany, alongside Commission President Barroso, got together last October to discuss how the EU can get rid of unnecessary regulation that burdens businesses and holds back growth and employment.

    On flexibility, British Chancellor Osborne and German Finance Minister Schäuble have set out how the Eurozone can develop a common fiscal and economic policy – with corresponding improved governance, but without disadvantaging non-euro countries.

    On democratic accountability, we agreed with the Dutch that where action is taken, it should be “Europe where necessary, national where possible”. Our very strong belief is that decisions should be taken close to the people they affect – as with the German Länder system. We’re not alone. For instance, Dutch Foreign Minister Timmermans has been vocal in articulating his support for national parliaments to have a red card through which they can stop EU legislation where it violates the subsidiarity principle.

    We are already making progress. But much more needs to be done.

    Though we are seeing tentative economic recovery in Europe, nobody can pretend that we are in great health.

    We have a duty to lead the way in shaping the reformed and competitive Europe our citizens – and our businesses need.

    The institutional changes taking place this year in Europe – elections in the European Parliament and a new College of Commissioners – give us the opportunity to start making those changes.

    If you look at Europe through the eyes of businesspeople, some of the answers are obvious.

    You need to keep down the overheads. Last year, the UK and Germany worked with partners to cut the EU’s budget for the first time. We need to be clinical in examining where we can reduce costs yet further.

    You need to knock down barriers to growth. Member states stand to gain billions from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: in Germany, the Bertelsmann Foundation estimated last year 181,000 new German jobs could be expected, as well as a boost in per-capita income across the EU of 4.68 %. So let’s make it happen.

    You need to seek new openings. The digital market is fragmented. Though 60% of EU internet users shop online, last year only 9% of Europeans did so across borders – surely this is an opportunity waiting to be seized. Meanwhile, full implementation of the Services Directive could add 2.6% to EU GDP – more than the GDP of Austria.

    You need to tailor yourself to your market. This means having European-level regulation when you need it – not to set the working hours of junior doctors in Baden-Baden, or to stipulate the kind of jug a restaurant can use in Birmingham. Let’s be very clear on when it is suitable for Europe to act, and establish that where it isn’t, it won’t.

    And you need to advertise your strengths. From July 2014, the reduced roaming charges for customers using their mobile phone in another EU country will represent savings of 90% on the 2007 prices. That’s a good example of the kind of cost-cutting, growth-enabling policy the EU is good for. So let us concentrate on more of those sorts of policies.

    I know that in the United Kingdom, we have a very vocal debate on the European Union.

    This is healthy. Recent events in Ukraine have made us all the more aware of our shared values…

    … and all the more aware that these are values which need to be protected and strengthened.

    The EU reform agenda is more relevant than ever.

    And I am confident that Britain, Germany and our European partners will rise to the challenge, work together, and set in motion strategies for growth and prosperity which will benefit the whole of Europe.

    Thank you very much.

  • David Lidington – 2013 Speech on the European Union

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Lidington, the Minister for Europe, made in The Hague on 16th December 2013.

    Thank you to Open Europe and Teldersstichting for the invitation to speak here in The Hague.

    I am particularly delighted to be here during the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

    It’s an important anniversary for the Netherlands. But, marking as it does the [British] Royal Navy’s rowing ashore of King Willem I, it is also one of many landmarks in UK-Netherlands cooperation.

    I’ll not make any mention of the country from which the Netherlands had just been liberated in 1813 – I don’t want to spark a right of reply from any French diplomats that may be in the audience…

    2014 will be a major year for the European Union.

    In May we have European Parliament elections, and later in the year, a new College of Commissioners.

    There has been a lot of talk about the elections being between pro-and anti-Europeans. I am clear that the choice should not be between the status quo and extremism. Everyone knows that the EU is in need of reform. So this election should be about solutions.

    Today I will consider four key aspects of this agenda:

    – working at the right level

    – addressing democratic legitimacy

    – finding the correct role for the EU’s institutions

    – and fairness for Eurozone ins and outs.

    Reform is not anti-European. Trust in the EU is at a record low. The figures on public support for the EU show it to be what our Prime Minister has repeatedly called “wafer-thin”. In the Netherlands, Eurobarometer reports that 56% of people think the EU is going in the wrong direction.

    We need to reform the EU if it is to regain the trust of its citizens.

    We hear this echoed across Europe…

    Commission President Barroso has said that “We will not go back to the ‘old’ normal, we have to shape a ‘new’ normal”

    Your Foreign Minister, Frans Timmermans, has written that “Monnet’s Europe needs reform to fit the 21st century”

    European Parliament President Martin Schulz says “I’m an enthusiastic pro-European, but I think the EU is in a catastrophic situation”

    And in Italy Prime Minister Letta is clear that “we need to reshape the Union”.

    The next year gives us a window of opportunity to shape a new Europe. Many in the UK and the Netherlands already share similar pragmatic beliefs in making the EU work better – on improving democratic legitimacy, heightening respect for subsidiarity, unlocking barriers to growth and having a more focused Commission.

    Let me begin with “working at the right level”

    The phrase which has reverberated the most with me this year has come from the Netherlands:

    “European where necessary, national where possible”.

    In Britain, ‘subsidiarity’ is not a word often reached for in political discourse, despite it being a remedy to a widely recognised problem. So this slogan helpfully translates the principle into words that resonate with the public.

    Encouragingly, we have also seen increasing acknowledgement – at least on paper – that the EU should focus on where it can add most value.

    The Presidents of both the European Council and the Commission have reiterated this; and to be fair there has been some progress.

    In October, for example, the Commission launched REFIT, a programme designed to streamline legislation – an issue close to the hearts of national leaders in the UK, the Netherlands and beyond.

    So it has been especially disappointing to see this principle undermined all too frequently by the Commission focussing on things which are best left to Member States. We all have our favourite examples; I’m not going to list them here. But each new example adds to the view – held by many in Britain – that the EU comes across as too meddlesome, bossy and interfering. This is a genuine problem.

    The exam question is, therefore: How do we ensure that the principle of subsidiarity becomes part of the European mentality and reality?

    First of all, I suggest, we must strive to work for the right balance.

    The Dutch Subsidiarity Review has been especially helpful here, in raising the right questions at the right time. In our Balance of Competences review, too, we are undertaking a deep and balanced analysis of the impact of EU competences. We must ensure the ideas which spring from both these exercises are taken forward.

    This is not about “cherry-picking”, “clawing back”, or any other of the phrases with which people have tried to undermine this approach.

    The goal is rather to create a European Union which is more modest – and more effective.

    Dutch PM Mark Rutte recently said in London that the EU is “a practical partnership…a means to increase prosperity, employment and security” – I think that hits the nail on the head. That means that Europe has to focus on where it can make the biggest difference.

    This can work well in both directions: it acknowledges the adaptability that has been such a consistent strength of the EU.

    As twenty-eight countries working together, we have quite a voice. We can harness that and we have done: on a trade deal with the US, patents, Iran, climate change; on the big issues where action at European level carries more clout than individual countries going solo.

    Equally, the decision on reforming the common fisheries policy – approved by the European Parliament last week – proved that many things need not be done at a European level to be effective. One size does not fit all.

    Ensuring that we have this balance right needs constant attention. Our Task Force on better regulation (and if you’re curious what I mean by “better”, “less” isn’t a bad place to start) is one strand.

    Of course, regulation per se is not A Bad Thing. The days when twenty-eight European countries made twenty-eight different regulations on the same issue are over and thank goodness for that.

    But we will not be in any way shy of making the case for upholding subsidiarity, avoiding competence creep, and making sure the growth we need isn’t stifled by unnecessary regulation.

    My second point is that we need to address the democratic deficit.

    I talked a few minutes ago about the gap between theory and practice in the workings of the European Union.

    This was shown particularly starkly a few weeks ago, when the Commission brushed off the yellow card presented by eleven national parliaments, including those of the Netherlands and the UK, and pressed on with unreformed plans for a European Public Prosecutor’s Office.

    For a start, this was based on an unacceptably narrow and inflexible interpretation of subsidiarity.

    But it was also symptomatic of the disconnection between the EU and its people.

    Let us remember: the yellow card was introduced in the Lisbon Treaty so that national parliaments could play a greater role in EU decision-making.

    Remember, also, that leaders across Europe agree that national parliaments are a main source for democratic legitimacy and accountability. Well, I am afraid that on November 27 democratic parliaments were given a bit of a slap in the face.

    All of us can agree that if a football player is issued a yellow card but fails to heed the words of the ref, a red card surely follows. So that’s one solution, as outlined recently by Foreign Minister Timmermans.

    But let’s not stop there. The Dutch Tweede Kamer report said that national parliaments should have more time to scrutinise Commission proposals and to opine on issues beyond subsidiarity and that it should take fewer reasoned opinions to trigger a yellow card. The so-called “strengthened yellow card” is a proposal we fully support.

    One thing, however, is crucial. Giving national parliaments more say in decision-making works both ways…

    So if people are talking about red cards and yellow cards, why not complete the traffic light and also think about a green card?

    This would allow parliaments to propose new initiatives to the European Commission. This has been thought about in Denmark as well as in the Netherlands, and it is certainly something we would support.

    So there are some solutions here. As with the recent free movement of people discussion, the Commission needs to show through the card system that it is engaging with the genuine and legitimate concerns of national parliaments. Over the next few months I will look to discuss further with my European counterparts how we can take this agenda forward.

    Let me turn now to finding the correct role for the European institutions.

    Institutions matter. They, and the people who set their agendas, underpin what the EU does and also how it does it.

    We must therefore ensure that we have the balance between the institutions right.

    These are clearly set out in the Treaties – but, in practice, some EU institutions are more adept than others in exploiting the grey areas…

    The European Parliament’s power has increased significantly following successive Treaty changes. Some EP members believe that the candidate of the dominant political party should automatically be selected as President of the Commission.

    We, however, do not see the inevitability of this linkage and expect the European Council to assess the merits of all candidates including, but not limited to, those endorsed by the European political parties.

    The Council must ensure that the Treaties are upheld and that the institutions maintain the roles accorded by the Treaties, including in the appointment of Commission President. We regard this as vital to maintaining the independence of the Commission, and its accountability to both co-legislators.

    We also believe that the European Council should be more active in setting out the strategic direction for the Commission. It is not enough to set out goals and conclusions. You also need to monitor them to ensure that the priorities European leaders have agreed are actually implemented. The General Affairs Council is well placed to monitor progress and ensure that the objectives agreed by EU Heads of State are actually delivered.

    I read Frans Timmermans’ article setting out the idea of a more focussed Commission with interest. We agree there are areas where the Commission just doesn’t need to get involved. And we will explore precisely how the Commission’s structure can change to make it sharper and more effective. Certainly, a European Governance Manifesto is an approach we welcome.

    My final point is that we must protect the integrity of the Single Market, as well as the “rights” of Eurozone-outs as the Eurozone integrates.

    Wherever I go, I get a lot of sympathy for our reform agenda. But it’s fair to say I also hear voices clearly wishing this would all go away.

    I’m pretty blunt with them. It wasn’t the UK that changed this game. The fact that we seek a fair set of structures is due in no small part to developments in the Eurozone and what that has meant for the EU. It is clear to me that the Eurozone needs to have the right governance and structures in place to address its current challenges. We are merely seeking pragmatic solutions to problems.

    This is a hugely complicated issue and I can’t pretend we have all the answers. One thing which is clear is that we can’t tell you what to do.

    However, I won’t lie about our own interests, and those of other Eurozone-outs.

    We need any new arrangements to work fairly – for those outside the Eurozone as well as for those within it. This means working closely with partners inside and outside the Eurozone to find solutions which work.

    We achieved this in the first element of banking union through the double majority voting system and negotiations are ongoing as we speak on the second element. We will continue to work creatively with all EU partners to ensure the interests of the EU-28 are upheld.

    We see our case for reform as a positive one. The measures I have outlined – working at the right level, addressing democratic legitimacy, finding the correct role for the EU’s institutions, and making sure that the system is fair for all 28 Member States – will, I believe, help shape the better Europe we all need.

    Although in the UK and the Netherlands we are working closely on reform, we are not lone crusaders. Leading figures across Member States, the Commission and the European Parliament are suggesting pragmatic approaches to finding solutions. For us in the UK, with David Cameron’s commitment to a referendum in 2017, – as for the whole of Europe – now is the time for the EU to demonstrate that it is determined to work for and with the will of its citizens.

    I will finish with a word on Treaty change. I know that there are many (in the political classes at least) who are worried about the prospect of Treaty change. To them I say two things.

    First, that what we are primarily interested in is results. Many of the reforms that we are proposing can be achieved without Treaty change. At the same time the needed changes to the Institutions should rightly be embedded in the Treaties and we are merely reflecting the reality of the scale of changes underway in the Eurozone – look for instance at the debate around banking union over the past couple of weeks.

    Second, I think fears about Treaty change are really fears about referenda. I understand those fears. But in the UK it is clear that support for EU membership is so wafer thin that it will only be resolved through that kind of public decision. So while having the debate may be scary for some, it is the responsible thing to do. I would be far more worried about the consequences of ignoring the reality than I am about facing up to it.

    Next year, as I said, we have a window of opportunity to get the right structures in place for the European Union. We must not miss such a chance.

    We are not apologetic about trying to make the EU work better.