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  • Oliver Letwin – 2003 Speech at Conservative Spring Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Oliver Letwin at the 2003 Conservative Spring Conference on 16th March 2003.

    On our minds today, we have two great matters: the war with Iraq and the threat of terrorism in this country. But we cannot allow these matters to prevent us from considering the abiding problems of our society – in particular, the problems of crime and disorder. Just as Rab Butler took his great Education Act through Parliament in 1944, against the backdrop of war, so, we, today, must attend to the nature of our society, notwithstanding the dangers in which we find ourselves.

    2003 did not begin well for Britain.

    It began with a tragedy.

    On New Years Day two teenage cousins Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis – out at a party in Birmingham – died in a hail of sub machinegun fire.

    Alas, this was not an isolated incident.

    Gun crime has risen; violent crime has risen; burglary has risen; drug offences have risen; and criminals contemplating a crime know they have only a 3% chance of being caught and convicted.

    In almost every sphere of criminality it is the criminal that is winning.

    What kind of country are we now becoming?

    We are facing a retreat from civilised values.

    Things happened yesterday that didn’t happen last year. Things happened last year that didn’t happen ten years ago.

    First fists, then knives, then guns. First pot, then smack, then crack. First cities, then towns, then villages. First men, then women, and then children.

    Only a few years ago we were worried about knives. Now we are worried about sub machine guns.

    In some of our inner city estates, those who can get out do so. The poor, the old, the weak retreat from parks and playgrounds, from streets and shopping areas to live behind closed doors.

    But, despite this crisis of criminality, despite the retreat from civilisation that is occurring in many of our most vulnerable neighbourhoods, I am still optimistic we can turn back the tide.

    Across the country, I have met and seen remarkable individuals who are determined to reduce crime on their estates.

    These are individuals who refuse to give up. We Conservatives must do everything we can to support them.

    I want to tell you this morning about some of these people.

    Recently, I visited Handsworth in Birmingham where I met two groups, Parents United and the Partnership Against Crime. These groups were set up in response to the shootings in Aston. They are determined to work with local churches to draw their young people away from the gun culture and off the conveyer belt to crime.

    They are doing everything possible to ensure that the tragedy that befell the families of Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis does not happen to another family.

    Recently I also went to the Clarence Way Estate in Camden, North London. This is an Estate riddled with drug users, dealers and drug related prostitution. Residents often have to step through needles, excrement and vomit just to get out of their front door. Young children see addicts injecting in front of them on their way to school, as often as other luckier children might see their friends on swings in a park.

    The whole Estate has just one part time WPC who manages to patrol every Tuesday, Wednesday and every other Saturday. I doubt that the drug-dealers wait politely to let her arrest them when she arrives!

    I am not sure that the drug dealers regard the police as having a right to be on the estate. When I was there, I saw at first hand drug addicts waiting for their next drop and dealers providing it. They even shouted at us to move on as we were on their “territory”.

    I was told of a man who lives in the block and is a leaseholder. He hasn’ t seen his daughter for three years because she is too afraid to make her way through the drug addicts on every corner. He has had excrement and firebombs put through his letterbox because he had the temerity to ask the drug addicts to get away from the outside of his front door. The police couldn’t deal with it because they were tied up with other crimes in the area, or as it was described “with paperwork”.

    Mental torture is not too strong a term for this man who suffers day in, day out, for months, for years.

    This is an Estate which has been virtually taken over by the forces of criminality…

    Almost.

    I say “almost” because of the efforts of a remarkable woman, Silla Carron who lives on the Estate.

    Almost single handedly she has worked hard to make her Estate a better place to live. She has established a Tenants Association and she has organised petitions for more police on her Estate. Through vigorous campaigning she has secured funding for a dog patrol that provides some safety on the estate.

    When Silla Carron decided to do something about her estate, nobody told her to do this.

    She did it out of a sense of service and responsibility to her family and neighbours.

    You can’t teach good neighbourliness from on high or for that matter from Downing Street.

    This is something the Home Secretary doesn’t understand. He is well intentioned. He talks tough. But he delivers very little.

    Every time there is a crisis, every criminal outrage we face, Mr Blunkett responds with initiatives and targets, ably designed to create favourable newspaper headlines to show that he is doing something.

    He thinks that every problem can be controlled by pressing buttons at his desk in Queen Anne’s Gate.

    But, what is really needed, is to find ways to encourage and motivate the networks of individuals, families and community associations that are doing their best to keep their neighbourly society alive.

    Over 5 years we have had over sixteen Criminal Justice Bills and over 100 initiatives. We have had targets galore. But the targets have not been met. Targets for recorded crime, for class A drugs and for reducing robbery have been missed. Other targets on drugs, vehicle crime, burglary and asylum have gone missing altogether.

    Then there are the inevitable “summits” at the Home Office and Downing Street.

    An American philosopher George Santayana once said:

    “trust the man who hesitates in his speech and is quick and steady in action. But beware of long arguments and long beards”.

    Thinking of David Blunkett, I agree.

    It is time he was reminded of that old proverb “saying is one thing, doing another”.

    All this tough talk by the Home Secretary impresses for a while. The problem is that the failure to deliver in the long run breeds at best cynicism and at worse despair.

    If we are not careful, the public will turn away from traditional politicians to local, dangerous extremists whose only appeal is that they are ‘outsiders’ and offer quick and simplistic solutions. Their success will cause immense damage to the fabric of our society.

    That is why all of us have to work hard to ensure that the success of the BNP in some towns in the North is not replicated across the country.

    We face the threat of ever growing apathy and of ever-decreasing turnouts at elections. We face the danger of ever-increasing support for the kind of people who want to make this country a nasty and brutish place to live.

    We must not and we will not allow the contrast between rhetoric and the Government’s reality to be exploited by such people.

    Nowhere is that contrast between rhetoric and reality greater than in the case of asylum.

    Britain has lost control of her borders. Last year a record 110,000 people sought asylum here – the highest number in Europe. Of these, just 8,000 and their dependents were judged to be genuine refugees.

    Yet of the tens of thousands who were turned down, a mere 3,000 were removed from the country.

    The whole system is in chaos.

    David Blunkett’s response to this problem has been the same again: talk tough but do very little.

    Now we have the implausible spectacle of the Prime Minister, clearly under pressure, pledging to halve the numbers of asylum seekers by September. Unless the Government intend to manipulate the statistics by issuing in-country work permits or visas without restrictions on work to people who would otherwise claim asylum, this is a very rash promise indeed.

    A future Conservative Government will scrap our entire asylum system.

    We will replace it with a system of rational quotas for genuine refugees. We will accept around 20,000 refugees in a quota identified offshore with the help of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. That 20,000 is larger than the number of genuine refugees admitted each year at present, but only one-fifth of the number of people currently using our asylum system to enter the country.

    Conservatives are determined to end the asylum chaos. We can no longer tolerate a system in which the genuine refugee, sometimes suffering from the most horrific persecution, is pushed way down the queue by those who are brought here frequently by people traffickers, to seek economic security.

    We can no longer support a system on which the taxpayer is spending ÂŁ1,800 million a year. The quota system eliminates the need for asylum centres and costly processing. There will be no need for processing here because those within the quota will already have been identified as genuine refugees in refugee camps overseas. All those who arrive illegally and outside the quota will be removed. Our scarce financial resources could be better spent elsewhere.

    And I have a clear idea – which I am glad to say I share with the Shadow Chancellor – about where the money we save on the asylum system could and should be spent.

    We will spend it on the police.

    I know very well that policing is not the whole answer to the breakdown of order.

    That is why we have set out a range of policies that will offer long-term solutions to crime rather than quick fixes.

    For over fifteen months we have been meeting and consulting with hundreds of experts and practitioners in the field. We have travelled to America and countries across Europe visiting prisons, young offenders institutions, drug offender projects and neighbourhood policing schemes. In Bournemouth last October I set out to you the direction of our policy.

    We are determined to tackle crime at its source by lifting young people off the Conveyer Belt to Crime. We will intervene early when children show signs of disruptive behaviour, giving support to parents struggling to provide necessary authority and guidance. We will tackle persistent young offenders by providing for longer but more constructive custodial sentences, in which there is an intensive effort to rehabilitate and in which support continues long after they have been released. And we will focus effort on getting children off heroin and crack cocaine, providing a choice for every addict between compulsory, intensive treatment and rehabilitation or the penal system.

    But before we can do any of these things effectively, we have to reclaim our streets for the honest citizen.

    We have to ensure that once again police become the custodians of our neighbourhoods and the guarantors of authority and order.

    We can do this only by putting police on the streets where they can apprehend criminals and deal with social disorder.

    Often politicians promise more police on the beat but the reality is empty. The Government have been doing this for the past six years.

    It is time for real policemen and real neighbourhood policing.

    That is why I make this pledge to you today that the next Conservative Government will increase police numbers by 40,000.

    That is 5,000 extra police officers a year over eight years.

    This commitment will cost money.

    For those of you wondering where we will get the money from, let me reassure you: I have never been a serial spender! And I do not intend to start now.

    As I mentioned to you a moment ago, Britain pays a heavy price for the shambles on asylum.

    Total spending on asylum seekers is now – I remind you – ÂŁ1.8 billion a year. This is a crazy figure given that most of the cash goes on those who are not genuine refugees.

    Were we to have an efficient and working system we could make significant savings on this amount and spend it where it is needed the most: waging the battle against ever rising crime by having tens of thousands more policemen on our streets.

    Our strict quota system for refugees will in due course save more than ÂŁ1.3 billion a year. We know that, because the Australian quota system shows how much such an arrangement costs.

    These savings will allow us to provide 5,000 extra police officers a year, starting one year into the next Conservative Government. And amazingly enough we will have money left in the bank.

    Our proposals will enable our chief constables to put police officers back onto the streets in every Parish and neighbourhood across Britain.

    A long time ago, the Prime Minister promised to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.

    The truth is that under Labour there has been very little serious, concerted and effective action to achieve a long-term change in the level of crime.

    There are no coherent and focused programmes to take young people off the conveyer belt to crime. There are no substantive measures to get people off hard drugs. There are no efforts to recapture the streets through real and sustained neighbourhood policing.

    The Government have missed an opportunity to get to grips with crime.

    It is time to offer a real alternative.

  • Chris Leslie – 2014 Speech on Public Finance

    Below is the text of the speech made by Chris Leslie, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in a speech to the Institute for Chartered Accountants of England and Wales on 30th May 2014.

    I want to thank the Institute for Chartered Accountants in England and Wales for hosting this morning’s focus on the long-term challenges facing the public finances and tackling Britain’s fiscal deficit. The ICAEW has been a relentless campaigner for improved decision-making arrangements at the Treasury to deliver long-term sustainable public finances and I commend your work in setting this agenda.

    Before Christmas Ed Miliband and Ed Balls announced that we would conduct a root and branch review of every pound the government spends to prepare for the challenges the next administration will face.

    We set out the principles that our Zero-Based Review would follow: stronger efficiencies, taking a fairer approach to deficit reduction, supporting growth, intervening early to prevent higher costs, and testing how justifiable programmes and projects are in an era following the global financial crisis.

    In my February speech at the Social Market Foundation I set out our approach to decluttering public service delivery and streamlining government.

    Since then I have completed the first round process analysing every departmental budget and exploring public service reform and redesign in detail with every shadow team – and all my Shadow Cabinet colleagues know that the settlements we will need to make following the general election will be the toughest faced by an incoming Labour government for a generation.

    We will publish an interim report summarising early findings in the near future, and complete the Zero-Based Review in our first year in office.

    Today, though, I want to talk specifically about how the next Labour Government will place long-termism at the heart of public spending plans.

    But I want to go beyond the lip-service that politicians often pay to long-termism and instead propose a fundamental restructuring of the decision-making process.

    Short-termism is now a chronic disease eating away at the heart of our public services. Ministers repeat their ‘long-term-economic-plan’ mantra with such frequency that they are deluding themselves into a belief that simply uttering these words will magically make them come true.

    So I want to set out why we can no longer continue with the myopic year-by-year lack of foresight that is too often a hallmark of the current Treasury and the coalition government.

    For one thing, the existing short-range view of Ministers risks costing the country far more in the decades ahead.

    And with the Prime Minister’s promise to balance the books by next year now at least £75 billion wide of the mark, we need to get a grip of this situation and move onto the right path towards eliminating the deficit in the next Parliament in a fair and sustainable way.

    So what does a long-term approach to rebalancing public finances look like?

    First things first – let’s stop wasting so much taxpayers’ money.

    Nothing infuriates the public more than seeing hard-earned taxpayer resources thrown away because of short-term decision-making or poor planning.

    Let me give you an example from my own constituency in Nottingham from just last week.

    The police station in Sneinton was refurbished in 2005 at a cost of ÂŁ720,000.

    It is an important base in the fight against crime and reassuring the public.

    Yet the salami-slicing of grants to Nottinghamshire Police, shaving off a chunk each year, has left this public body like so many others looking for bite-sized operational savings.

    It only costs ÂŁ21,000 a year to run the Sneinton Police station.

    But now it looks set to close.

    How wise is it to throw this ÂŁ700,000 asset overboard, all for the sake of that short-term saving?

    Shouldn’t we factor in the new costs that might arise from higher crime levels that could occur without this one stop shop?

    Or is that just ‘somebody else’s problem’ shunted across to some other department to pick up the bill?

    I don’t really blame Nottinghamshire Police on this occasion.

    They’re just doing what a thousand other public service organisations are forced to do.

    They don’t really know what lies around the corner; they are given little insight into national budget settlements and have limited scope to plan beyond the annual parcel of money delegated to them.

    Yes, cuts do need to be made. Of course this is the case. But why do we hobble our public services by refusing to let them cast ahead in a mature and long-term manner? There is an alternative.

    The Home Office are not helping the 43 police forces across England & Wales to make sufficient savings by working together, procuring together, collaborating on support functions and specialist work. We need structures that are leaner and more appropriate – because the Government isn’t taking that long-term strategic approach which defends the frontline first. As the widely respected Independent Police Commission chaired by Lord Stevens and commissioned by Yvette Cooper set out, on matters such as procurement we should be looking at a national procurement model to save money and enhancing collaboration in all appropriate areas, something that could save at least £60million before 2016/17 if enacted swiftly.

    And there are other flaws with the way this Treasury has approached deficit reduction.

    To some managers, setting artificial deadlines is a way of driving results. But others have learned that it’s the outcome we need to focus on – because sometimes the means do matter as much as the end. And sometimes that narrow-minded focus on the end-of-financial-year can provoke plainly stupid decisions. Just look at the millions spent sacking or ‘retiring’ senior officials at the Ministries of Defence, Transport and Foreign Office, only to see them re-hired again at greater expense.

    A long-term, partnership approach which includes delegated bodies in the forward planning process is more likely to deliver the goods and avoid false economies.

    WHAT SHOULD THAT LONG-TERM APPROACH LOOK LIKE?

    It needs to start with a fiscal commitment that is stretching but achievable, which takes account of the reality that public finances have an impact on society and the economy – and vice versa.

    George Osborne dismissed the idea that fiscal consolidation could have an adverse impact on economic growth. But his 2010 Budget and Spending Review undoubtedly knocked confidence from what was an emerging recovery at that time – and the three years that followed created the slowest recovery in a century.

    Growth has finally returned not because of those fiscal choices, but despite them. Yet the Chancellor continues to deny that public expenditure decisions can support growth and the positive revenues that flow from growth.

    This is why Labour’s fiscal commitment will get the current budget into surplus and national debt falling as soon as possible in the next Parliament. Judgements about the degree of capital investment that the country may require in the early years of the next Parliament must be evidence based – especially as Britain could well face productivity constraints and imbalances that only long-term public policy can overcome.

    Unfortunately this Chancellor’s timetable has never been evidence-based or grounded in economic realities. What evidence is there that people should believe George Osborne’s arbitrary target of 2017/18, when he has failed so notably on his original 2015 target?

    These are the sort of short-term political timetables that distort sound decision-making and can create perverse consequences. And there are too many instances of short-term budget decisions that cost more in the long run:

    – The closure of fourteen prisons at the Ministry of Justice, creating a shortage of capacity and provoking Ministers to later change tack and commission new ‘Titan’ prison projects which appear unfunded and may even worsen re-offending.

    – A decision to withdraw the A14 upgrade in 2010 as “unaffordable” at ÂŁ1.3 billion – yet the resurrection of the same scheme in 2013 now costing ÂŁ1.5 billion.

    – The roads maintenance budget for local authorities cut by a fifth in 2013, followed by an about-turn in 2014 with a complex ‘Potholes Challenge Fund’ assessed by Whitehall civil servants on the basis of bureaucratic bids submitted from town halls – hardly progress towards localism.

    – And not forgetting the bedroom tax, which not only causes great hardship but merely shunts costs from local authority housing benefit and into the more expensive private rented sector element of housing benefit.

    Just a few examples of short-term poor decisions driven more by an artificial timetable than the careful forethought and planning that we desperately need.

    When the Chancellor did have a three year spending review from 2011/12, it rapidly fell to pieces with salami-slicing and shifting parcels of money to meet political year-end goals. Eventually, Coalition pressures led to last summer’s one-year spending review – which was a one-off budget settlement in all but name.

    Annual processes just make this situation worse. The next Labour Government will take a more strategic long-term approach to the savings that need to be made. So Ed Balls and I have concluded that a Labour Treasury will put an end to the one year spending reviews recently introduced by George Osborne. We will instead set out Spending Review plans on a multi-year basis. And we would go further and expect departments in turn to provide public bodies and organisations under their stewardship with the same longer-term certainties, so they can make better decisions and plan for the savings they will need to make. As we have seen across local government and various agencies, keeping public services in the dark makes it harder to plan the fundamental reforms that ought to be addressed.

    Settlements need to give departments a clear incentive to retain some of the savings and efficiencies they can achieve. We have to reduce the litany of false economies and illusory ‘savings’ that end up wasting public money and stacking up greater costs further down the line.

    It is why we have also concluded that the Treasury must improve its partnerships with other departments, and look at the real world outcomes that people care about most – which don’t neatly fit into a single department of state portfolio. The previous government created Public Service Agreements as a way to join-up Whitehall and prevent problems falling between the gaps. But there were too many of them to allow for the degree of focus and prioritisation needed today. It’s clear that the Coalition are lacking an adequate accountability mechanism as departments flail around and the goal of deficit eradication goes further into the distance.

    So the next Labour Government will ensure greater accountability and will concentrate efforts on a core set of outcome-based inter-departmental priorities. In the coming months we will agree the scope of this prioritisation process and precisely how each inter-departmental arrangement will be implemented. This is a key part of sticking to a strategic, long-term focus and delivering firm commitments on lasting and sustainable savings.

    We will support early intervention programmes where there is a robust invest-to-save business case. Early intervention must mean preventing costs from hitting budgets further down the line.

    Eliminating the deficit as soon as possible will not be the end of the job – because the task of reducing the national debt in the long term will require savings to be maintained in the decades ahead. There are three other areas I want to highlight today in this respect.

    1. LONG-TERMISM AND THE CAUSES OF WELFARE INFLATION

    Capping the aggregate social security budget is something we support as a way to bear down on rising costs, but it can only be a part of the solution. If we are going to tackle the benefits bill in the long-term, we need to dig deeper. We need to be tough on welfare inflation, and tough on the causes of welfare inflation. And those underlying causes are a series of long-term pressures which the Government has shied away from:

    – We need to move the long term unemployed off benefits and into work, which requires greater effort than the Work Programme can muster – and we need guaranteed starter jobs fully funded from a repeat of the bank bonus tax to give young people out of work for a year or more that first meaningful foot on the ladder.

    – We need greater health service emphasis on preventing illness not only to improve the quality of life, but to ensure people can be active and available for work.

    – We need to strengthen the minimum wage and incentivise the living wage, to relieve the tax credit subsidies which top-up low pay

    – And we need to tackle the underlying costs of housing benefit by getting more affordable homes built.

    If you don’t get to these root causes of higher costs that are being picked up by the taxpayer, it’s no wonder that the welfare bill goes up by more than you expect; overall spending on welfare is set to be £13 billion higher than the Tories originally planned for in 2010.

    2. LONG-TERM MANAGEMENT OF FUTURE LIABILITIES

    During the course of the zero based review discussions I have been having so far with my shadow Cabinet colleagues, it has also struck me how little attention Government departments are paying to the management of long-term future liabilities that are likely to land on the taxpayer. Departments set aside ‘provisions’ to cover costs for some staggering expenditure possibilities. For instance, the Department for Health currently estimate that clinical negligence liabilities that may arise in future years as a result of NHS litigation could be of the order of £22 billion, with more than £7 billion of this expected to be spent in the next 5 years. And the Department for Energy and Climate Change reckon that the costs of nuclear decommissioning may be as high as £62 billion, a figure that has increased by £10 billion since 2011. For these reasons I will be spending more time in the months ahead looking in more depth at the scale of provisions and ways in which we might bear down and prevent some of these liabilities from spiralling out of control.

    3. A MORE DEMANDING APPROACH TO MAJOR PROJECTS

    Every Government embarks on major projects and there are some notable disasters in the making. Seeing Iain Duncan-Smith struggle with the Universal Credit has been like watching a car crash in slow motion; after five years in office only a tiny fraction of its intended recipients might, just might, be receiving it by the time of the next election. In fact, the situation is so bad that the Major Projects Authority refused to give Universal Credit a colour coded status report. Instead they created an entirely new “reset” category, signalling that after 4 years the project is not even over the starting line.

    And how much forethought went into the reorganisation of the health service? In opposition David Cameron promised there would be no such reorganisation and then wasted ÂŁ3 billion, and caused chaos, with a damaging shake-up that led to nearly 4,000 NHS managers being laid off and then rehired, many on six-figure salaries.

    How did we end up commissioning two aircraft carriers which have doubled in cost with indecision on the type of aircraft that would use them?

    And is anyone at the Department for Education taking collective responsibility for the ballooning costs of the free schools experiment? Not to mention the lack of planning and farcical management of the Universal Free School Meals policy?

    Where major projects will have a beneficial impact saving resources in the long term, then we need departments and the Treasury working together to make better progress. Where projects are in trouble, we need the Major Projects Authority to have a greater role in flagging up risk and driving in fresh management rigour. We cannot afford vanity projects where more money is thrown at a failing scheme for the sake of sparing Ministerial blushes.

    A WIDER APPROACH TO THE LONG-TERM…

    As I say, a commitment to long-termism means concrete steps to change the way government works – not just words or slogans. So for Labour, long-termism is about more than an approach to public services and budgets. As my colleague Chuka Umunna the shadow Business Secretary has set out through his ‘Agenda 2030’ process, we need an economic and industrial strategy to compete on quality, and not cost alone.

    This means a serious strategy for investing in skills and getting the next generation ready for the world of work.

    U-turns and indecision on investment allowances, the carbon floor price and regional growth funds have become barriers to business development.

    Instead we want stability and certainty with a British Investment Bank and infrastructure decisions elevated from the daily politics with the creation of a long-term Independent Infrastructure Commission as recommended by Sir John Armitt.

    And we need to take heed of the recommendations from Sir George Cox about how to overcome short-termism in business R&D, recruitment and investment.

    Labour’s Policy Review process will culminate at our National Policy Forum in July. Ed Balls, Jon Cruddas and I have been clear that our conclusions and agenda will be radical but suited to our times. So it will not be about spending commitments, but solutions that are funded, achievable and which can be delivered in office.

    Parties that make promises to the electorate must prove that those promises can be kept. If the Government really believed in long-termism, they would also allow the Office for Budget Responsibility to independently audit the manifesto spending and tax commitments of the main political parties.

    That way we could elevate the debate at the next election into a comparison of genuine priorities, rather than a slanging match about whose statistics are accurate. But perhaps that’s precisely why the Chancellor doesn’t want independent validation of the figures.

    I’d like to conclude on the challenge to come.

    I’m not heading into this expecting popularity. Quite the opposite.

    All government departments in the next Labour Government will have to face fundamental questions as never before.

    We won’t be able to undo the cuts that the have been felt in recent years. And I know that this will be disappointing for many people.

    A more limited pot of money will have to be spent on a smaller number of priorities. Lower priorities will get less.

    We are not arguing with the Government about the scale of the challenge.

    But we do differ significantly on the best way to confront it.

    George Osborne has had his five years to eradicate the deficit. I am determined that we finish that task on which he has failed.

    Why does it matters so much to get the books into balance?

    Because if you believe that as a society we achieve more by coming together and pooling our resources to deliver services from which we all benefit, then we have a responsibility to prove to the taxpayer that this can be done efficiently and effectively.

    Public service budgets have got to be sustainable.

    We need to continually demonstrate to taxpayers that they can trust the public realm to manage services well.

    The alternative risks eroding public confidence and an opt-out culture of private provision for those who can afford it – and sub-standard services for the rest.

    There’s no reason why we cannot create decent quality services and a fair society while living within our means.

    This is why I believe those on the progressive centre-left of politics should embrace the goal of balancing the books. There is nothing left-wing about running a deficit.

    As last week’s elections showed, the public want the realistic prospect of change, not just more of the same. And they want Labour to focus relentlessly on how it would deliver those changes.

    These are serious times and they demand a hard-headed approach from political parties seeking the chance to govern.

    By taking the long-term perspective and reviewing every item of government expenditure from the ground up I am confident we can get the job done.

  • John Healey – 2011 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    johnhealey

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Healey to Labour Party conference on 28th September 2011.

    Conference.

    We’ve heard powerful testimonies today in defence of our NHS from our panel, and in our debate. Thank you.

    Today we reject the Tories’ plans.

    We back the founding principles of our NHS.

    And we dedicate ourselves to winning a Labour government to protect the NHS.

    It has been a real privilege to work with an outstanding shadow health team; with many of you in our health unions; and with Norma Stephenson and the Party’s policy commission.

    But the greatest privilege has been meeting the men and women of the NHS, and hearing patients’ experiences.

    Last week I was with Margaret Pritchard – a long-time community campaigner for Whiston hospital.

    She’s never forgotten the NHS under the Tories: ”People were waiting hours on trolleys in the corridor. I know”, she told me, “I was one of them”.

    Or Anne McCormack, who I met at Conference this week. Doctors found breast cancer and she said “Thanks to the NHS and what Labour did, I’m here today and not an obituary”.

    LABOUR’S RECORD

    We take great Labour pride in the creation of the NHS. And in the great improvements people saw during the last 13 years of Labour investment and reform.

    Hundreds of new hospitals and health centres.

    Thousands more doctors, nurses and specialist staff.

    Millions of patients with the shortest ever waits for tests and treatment.

    THE NHS – BUILT BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE

    But the NHS was not built by governments.

    The NHS was built by nurses and doctors, radiographers and pharmacists, porters and clerks and cleaners.

    Built over decades by people from across Britain and the world – committed to curing and caring; sharing their humanity and the high ideal of public service in our NHS.

    It was built by working people, through their taxes, willing in the knowledge that care will be there if they need it, free and equal for all.

    The NHS – the proudest, greatest Promise of Britain.

    CAMERON’S BROKEN NHS PROMISES

    Even David Cameron declares he loves the NHS. But he’s never been straight with people.

    He’s breaking each and every one of his personal NHS promises:

    “Protect the NHS”. Broken.

    “Give the NHS a real rise in funding”. Broken

    “Stop top-down reorganisations”. Broken. Big time.

    That’s why people are starting to see the NHS go backwards again with the Tories. Services cut; treatments denied; long waiting times up.

    We’ve seen over a million patients suffer long waits for treatment under David Cameron, breaking Labour’s guarantees to patients.

    LABOUR OPPOSING TORY NHS PLANS

    The Prime Minister is in denial about the damage his Government is doing.

    The chaos of the biggest reorganisation in NHS history.

    The waste of billions of pounds on new bureaucracy.

    The betrayal of our NHS in a health bill which will break up the NHS as a “national” health service and set it up as a full-scale market, ruled for the first time by the full force of competition law.

    No one wants this. No one voted for this.

    I am proud that it’s Labour that has led the campaign to defend the NHS.

    The first to expose and oppose the Tories’ plans last autumn.

    Then the long, slow haul of opposition: building alliances behind the scenes; making arguments that others come to accept, then make as well; and – yes – allowing others to claim credit to get results.

    David Cameron claimed last month: “The whole health profession is on board for what is now being done”.

    Conference, he’s in denial!

    He thinks he’s right. Doctors’, nurses’, patients’ groups say he’s wrong.

    So this summer we called on the people to help save the NHS.

    From the south coast of England, to the northern cities. Labour and union members, together, took to the high streets and the town squares with our campaign.

    It’s been a while since many of us can remember people queuing – queuing – to sign up to a Labour petition.

    NHS NEED FOR CHANGE

    The Tories and the Lib Dems are throwing away Labour’s golden legacy to NHS patients.

    Destroying the goodwill of NHS staff to support further reform.

    Piling extra pressure on the NHS to make short term cuts, rather than long-term change.

    And our health and care services do require reform.

    Yesterday Ed Miliband set out our Labour values. He said the rules for care services must change.

    People’s confidence in care was shaken by the crisis at Southern Cross. Care for some of the most vulnerable in our society, traded by predatory fund managers who saw elderly people as commodities. Dementia as a high-profit market.

    We did not act before but we will in future. So we will regulate for the best business practices as well as the best care standards.

    And let us learn lessons for the NHS. The health bill opens up all parts of the NHS to private companies, backed for the first time by a competition regulator and competition courts.

    Ministers in private conferences talk about “huge opportunities for the private sector”.

    Their civil servants hold secret talks on handing over 22 NHS hospitals to a foreign multinational.

    Privatising NHS hospitals will drive a wedge between hospitals and the wider health service.

    Companies whose bottom line depends on bringing more patients, more business into their own hospitals, will not collaborate with others to cut admissions, when the treatment for patients can be better and better value elsewhere.

    The huge challenge of changing health needs, tighter finances and a more elderly population can only be met through more reform – more say for clinicians; more control for patients; more prevention; more integration of services across hospital, primary and community care.

    Let me be clear. There has always been and will be in the future an important contribution for non-NHS providers – including private providers – towards better health care, to supplement not substitute for the NHS.

    But let me say now, hospitals are at the heart of our NHS; they should be in public not private hands; dedicated totally to patients, not profits.

    So we will oppose any government move to privatise NHS hospitals.

    We will guarantee under Labour that NHS hospitals remain in the NHS.

    Labour will look instead to develop integrated care organisations to allow primary, secondary and social care to work together. And because our values demand we’re not neutral on who provides care, we will look to promote those that share a true social ethos over those driven by narrow commercial interests.

    We make this pledge not because we want no change in the NHS but because we need greater change.

    Because our health and care system must reform, and must retain the faith of all who need and use it.

    CONCLUSION

    I had an email from a mental health nurse the other day.

    He said “you and your Labour colleagues are the last bastion of the NHS; don’t let us and future generations down”.

    Conference, the health bill has been through the Commons but the battle is not over.

    The NHS was built by the people. It is cherished by the people. It belongs to the people.

    Let us tell David Cameron today:

    We will give voice to the dissent of people who heard your promises, saw your posters; people who wanted to believe you before the election but are now seeing the truth. You can’t trust the Tories with our NHS.

    Bevan said “the NHS will last as long as there are folk with the faith to fight for it”.

    Conference, this is our faith. Our fight.

  • John Healey – 2011 Speech to National Housing Federation

    johnhealey

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Healey to the National Housing Federation on 8th July 2011.

    Introduction

    Thank you … I am glad to join you again at a NHF conference.

    A couple of years ago I spoke at the Federation’s national conference in Birmingham.

    That was almost 9 weeks to the day into my job as Housing Minister; this is now 9 months since I became Labour’s shadow health secretary.

    As before, this invitation has been a welcome spur to reflect on how we see and meet important policy challenges.

    Then I was able to set out plans for the extra £1.5 billion I’d negotiated for our Labour Housing Pledge to kick start 10 000 new homes on commercial sites stalled in recession and build an extra 20 000 new affordable homes, including the largest council house building programme for two decades.

    Now I’m no longer in Government; and no longer in a position to make things happen.

    It was Tony Blair who said there’s one essential difference between government and opposition: “In government you wake up each morning and say ‘what can I do today?’ In opposition, you wake up and ask yourself ‘what can I say today?’

    But one thing after government in opposition that’s imperative, is to learn the lessons of what worked, what didn’t and why.

    You are all housing service and policy experts. More so than I am, or will ever become. So I wanted to contribute to your conference discussion by offering my reflections less on policy debate and more on policy decisions as they are taken in Westminster and Whitehall, as well as reflections on overcoming the flaws.

    Health and housing

    You’ve brought health and housing together for debate at this conference.

    But do you know … in my 10 months as housing minister, I don’t recall a single meeting with health ministers to discuss the essential policy and delivery links.

    And in 9 months as shadow health secretary, no doctor, nurse, NHS manager or health policy expert has said to me …’we must do more to get better housing if we want better health’.

    It is an evident truth.

    You know it as housing experts from the way you run your housing and tenant services. I know it as constituency MP for part of Rotherham and Barnsley.

    Poorly heated or insulated homes can lead to hypothermia and preventable deaths.

    Overcrowded homes can lead to strains on relationships and infectious diseases spreading more rapidly.

    Badly adapted homes can lead to trips, falls, avoidable pain and hospital admissions.

    Pressure with rent payments or anti-social behaviour can lead to mental stress and ill health.

    So housing does directly affect health. Just as health affects housing.

    Addiction or mental health problems can lead to loss or work, financial problems, arrears and eviction.

    Physical disability or injury can make an existing home impossible to live in.

    The Marmot review into health inequalities, which Labour commissioned and published in government, nailed the problem of separating health and housing policy into the silos of different Whitehall departments: “Many of the difficulties in addressing the issue of cold homes is that the effects of the problem are the responsibility of one government department – the DH – while the responsibility for solutions lies with the CLG and DECC”.

    Government has not always been organised or operated like this.

    History

    When Bevan led the legislation to set up the NHS through Parliament in 1946, he was secretary of state for health and housing.

    When he launched the post-war council house building programme in the same year he said: “We must not only build quickly, we must build well. In the next year or so we will be judged by the number of houses we have put up. But in ten years we will be judged by the quality of those homes.”

    The twin responsibilities were separated by the new Conservative Government in 1951 into two different departments. And they’ve remained separated at the national level since then.

    Housing and public health remained twin responsibilities of local government, however, until 1974 when public health was taken into the NHS as a national responsibility.

    We can see both changes, I think, as part of the process of the British state centralising to expand its domestic role as its foreign responsibilities diminished post-empire.

    Flaws in system

    This is not just a feature of recent years in Whitehall. It is reflected directly in Westminster and in the way policy debate and scrutiny takes place.

    Neither the Commons health select committee nor the CLG committee has done a report on health and housing, though from time to time the essential links are raised with both and referenced in their published evidence.

    The Marmot report recommended greater integration of policy and delivery: “An important step in tackling the social determinants of health at a local level would be greater integration of health, planning, transport, environment and housing departments and personnel.”

    Even when Parliament legislates for the broader view and delivery links, this is no guarantee that it happens in practice.

    Directors of Public Health have a statutory duty to assess the health needs of their area. But the Chief Executive of St Mungo’s – London’s largest provider for homeless people – told me recently in the 30 years he’s worked for the charity, not once has a public health director approached them about the health needs of London’s homeless.

    The personal consequences of this mean only 1 in 6 homeless people come away with a treatment plan when they are discharged from hospital.

    And even when the financial evidence also underlines the imperative to overcome policy and service separations, this is no guarantee that it happens in practice.

    The Audit Commission confirm “Every £1 spent on providing housing support for vulnerable people can save nearly £2 in reduced costs of health services, tenancy failure, crime and residential care”.

    The Chartered Institute for Environmental Health report health costs of ÂŁ600 million a year from poor housing; and health, crime and education costs totalling ÂŁ1.5 billion.

    Reflecting on five years as a minister at the Treasury, and two spending reviews, we tried joint PSA targets and jointly-held dual-key budgets between departments in some policy areas.

    These worked only up to a point. Neither were strong enough to overcome the force of the single department culture. And neither were underpinned with strong enough financial metrics to support one department spending money that reduced costs or lifted burdens for another.

    The row this week over the Government’s cap on and cuts to housing benefit offers an interesting illustration. In this case the DWP wants to cut the benefit bill and, even though the consequences and costs to local government were serious and obvious, they played no part in the decision to press ahead with the policy.

    Labour steps 

    So the separation of health and housing responsibilities makes sound, sensible policy making much harder.

    We took some steps in Government to bridge the gap over the last decade. These were necessary, but not sufficient to overcome the significant policy separation between housing and health.

    We started and completed 90% of the massive Decent Homes programme, fitting new boilers, insulation, doors, windows and kitchens for council and housing association tenants in more than 1.4 million homes by last May.

    We introduced the supporting people grant specifically to help people stay in their own homes; people who are vulnerable and with complex needs for housing support.

    And we encouraged closer local working between housing and health providers. The recent ‘Healthy Homes’ initiative launched jointly by Liverpool Council and Liverpool PCT is an excellent example of integrated, locality based, whole population commissioning.

    It targets assessment of the health and the housing needs of families living in 25,000 homes across the city. Where needed they improve properties, make appropriate health referrals and expect to prevent at least 100 premature deaths a year.

    One year on – the balance sheet

    One year on – where are we now with the new government?

    The Liverpool Healthy Homes programme is exactly the type of integrated long-term commissioning at risk in the huge NHS reorganisation.

    They – like almost everyone else – are beset by uncertainty, confusion and extra cost as more bodies and bureaucracy are being created by the  upheaval in the health service.

    Within the Government’s NHS legislation however, the move to return public health to local authorities is sound in principle, although there are important unanswered questions in practice about the powers and funding that councils will have to do the job; about the retention of skilled public health staff; and about the continuing commitment of the NHS to work on public health improvements.

    But it is impossible to ignore the scale of the Government’s cuts, which have gone too far, too fast.

    I have mentioned housing benefit already. Age UK report average cuts this year of 8% – with councils reducing care hours and raising eligibility thresholds for help.

    These are short-term, budget driven cuts which will have longer-term consequences for many people’s health and welfare, and will inevitably lead to greater cost in other parts of the system, especially for the NHS.

    There are still 400,000 non-decent homes left, and the Government will not provide the funding to finish the programme. The benefits go wider even than health – for every one million pounds of public investment in housing refurbishment, 17 jobs are created and the Labour shadow housing team has calculated that completing the programme would support 54,000 jobs.

    Finally, the supporting people grant is being squeezed and is set of a 12% real terms cut over the course of the Parliament.

    The recommendations by Andrew Dilnot on the funding of social are provide an opportunity to reverse this trend of damaging policies. I have called for, and Ed Miliband has called for, cross-party talks at the highest levels to discuss and agree a new system of funding social care, and how to pay for it.

    Opposition and alternatives – proposals

    One of the very few advantages of Opposition that you are freer from the Departmental constraints of Government, and free to think more broadly.

    So I want to use this period in opposition to look for solutions to the systematic separation of housing and health, solutions that we can push through from the word go when we are in Government.

    And today I want to open up this work to you and the NHF.

    I would like to invite you and your colleagues in the housing and health fields to let me know:

    –    First, what are the best examples of work being done on health and housing together. I mentioned Liverpool – tell me more.

    –    Second, where are the problems? Where do Government departments or the policy silos of health and housing get in the way of improving people’s health and their homes?

    –    Third, if there are the problems, what are the solutions?

    You can help shape this work which I will do alongside my colleagues Caroline Flint and Alison Seabeck in the autumn. We have a firm commitment to finding the housing and health policies that we can put in place once we’re in Government, and to give them the weight they will need to have a real impact to improve people’s health, housing and lives.

    Conclusion

    I wrote Labour’s housing manifesto for last year’s election. It was the first of the specialist policy manifestos we published.

    The first line was: “Labour believes that everyone has the right to a secure, decent and affordable home in a safe community.”

    There’s a strong social, moral and economic case for this commitment. What I didn’t properly appreciate then, but I do now, is that there is also a strong health case for that commitment too.

  • John Healey – 2011 Speech to Unison Conference

    johnhealey

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Healey to the 2011 Unison Health Conference.

    It’s fully ten days since I was last amongst so many trade unionists.

    Last Saturday, with 300 times as many of you marching in London alongside Mums campaigning against closure at their local surestart, kids campaigning to save their their youth club. Grandparents campaigning to stop cuts to their meals on wheels…and everyone, campaigning to safeguard the NHS.

    Britain’s mainstream saying the Tories are taking Britain in the wrong direction.

    Ed Miliband was right.  David Cameron would have seen the big society in Hyde Park last Saturday.

    And he can see the big society everyday in the heart of our British trade unions, convenors and stewards and Health & Safety officers and learning reps and pensions trustees ready to represent and support their colleagues at work.

    They put themselves out for others, unpaid and often under pressure because they believe in helping others, they believe no one should deal with the power of employers alone and they believe together we’re always stronger.

    I’m proud to have been a trade unionist all my working life.

    And as an MP I’m proud of my working links with trade unions, including and especially with UNISON.

    So thank you for the work you do to support nearly half a million other UNISON members across every area of our NHS.

    Thank you for the work you do to support the NHS and NHS patients.

    Thank you for the work you do to support me and colleagues in the Labour Party.

    And, to Dave Prentis, a special thanks, you made sure UNISON was out early in opposition to the Tories’ NHS plans with the Judicial Review, and you’ve not let up since.  I worked closely with UNISON as Housing Minister, and I’m glad to be doing the same now on health.

    To Karen Jennings, as she moves on to be your AGS, you have been an outstanding advocate for NHS staff and for the NHS itself.  I know Christina McAnea will be just as strong and challenging as your new national officer for health.

    And to your President, Angela Lynes, and health chair, Lilian Macer, as you look at what the Tories plan for the NHS in England, I suspect the case for devolution has never seemed stronger, especially this week in Scotland, where Labour’s backing has led to the end of prescription charges on the same day as the Tories in England put them up.

    With over 450,000 health members, UNISON has a strength and breadth of membership unmatched in other unions or other parts of the public sector.

    Andrew Lansley dismisses trade unions as vested interests fighting the loss of power.  And the Prime Minister dismisses the BMA as just another union.

    Of course unions in the NHS have a vested interest what the Tories fail to understand is that it’s precisely because trade unions represent their members, that they believe so passionately in the NHS.

    To those of us who care most about the NHS – Labour, unions, patients groups, NHS professionals – falls the heaviest duty.  The duty both to safeguard the NHS, and the duty to change and continuously improve the NHS.

    Ed Miliband described this yesterday as part of the British promise, that each generation makes and leaves the NHS better than the last.

    Labour is the Party of the NHS.  We are also the Party of NHS reform.  The status quo has never been good enough for Labour.  We have always championed change for patients.

    That’s why we set up the NHS, why we led the case for raising National Insurance to invest in the NHS, why we required reform – often in the face of resistance – getting GPs to open out of office hours or introducing the challenge of competition from new providers to help clear waiting lists and improve NHS hospitals for patients.

    But don’t fall for propaganda that what the Tories are doing now is an extension of what Labour was doing before.

    If the biggest reorganisation in NHS history was simply the evolution of Labour’s policies, the Tories would not need legislation more than three times longer than the Act that set up for NHS in 1948.

    We were ready to use competition, we were ready to use private providers.  But always properly planned, managed and publicly accountable, to supplement not substitute for the NHS.  By the Election last year, fewer than one in twenty treatments were carried out by independent health providers.

    We are proud of our Labour achievements in the NHS.

    Many of you here will remember the NHS of the 80s and 90s.

    Trolleys in corridors.  Chronic staff shortages and annual winter crises.

    100 hour weeks with exhausted overstretched staff.

    The NHS was a service whose staff remained true to its values let down by a government that did not share them.

    1997 we set out together – to save the NHS; then to review it.

    NHS funding doubled in real terms.

    Most NHS buildings have been updated with modern equipment.

    Staffing numbers are up by 200,000 extra clinical and support staff.

    You have training and development through Agenda for Change. And your national NHS pensions protected under Labour – the country’s recognition of the years of commitment to caring for your community.

    Some of the changes I know have not been popular, but looking back I believe that we made many of the right choices for the NHS.

    Giving well run hospitals more freedom was challenging for many of us.  But Foundation Trusts are today among the best public sector employers in the country, providing world class services to the public.

    Bringing in commercial partners to finance and build new public hospitals helped us achieve the biggest hospital building programme in our country’s history.

    Allowing patients to choose to have their operation in independent treatment centres was popular and meant patients waiting less time in pain.

    We did make mistakes – every government does.

    As I have said, we did not always get the best deals and there were times when we should have been tougher in our negotiations.  We had too many reorganisations and we should have done more to relieve the paperwork and release time to care.

    Our Labour – investment and reform – plus the hard work, collaboration and commitment of staff meant real improvements for patients.

    MRSA and CDiff – tested the collaborative effort of cleaning staff, healthcare assistants, nurses, managers and pathologists but together we cut the rates three quarters and 30%.

    Cancer deaths are down by 20% and improving faster than the rest of Europe.

    Heart deaths are down by 50% thanks to paramedics and crash team nurses collaborating to provide life saving treatment after stroke or heart attack.

    In 1997 more than a third of a million people were waiting over six months for operations they needed.

    Together, by 2010 we were doing 2.5 million more operations and the average waiting time was 4.5 weeks.

    The lowest waiting lists in NHS history, alongside the highest patient satisfaction ever.

    After the Election, we were ready for further changes.  We were ready to remove back office and bureaucratic costs.  Integrate services and see a significant shift of care, especially for elderly people and those with long term health conditions, from hospitals closer to patients at home and in their community.

    We have started fresh work on Labour’s health and care policies for the long term.  And I’m proud to chair our Labour health commission jointly with your UNISON ex President and our current Labour Party chair Norma Stephenson.

    And as we listen to the public, to staff and to experts, we’re open to criticism as well as compliments, and above all we’re open to new ideas, so Norma and I invite you, as active members of UNISON, to play your part in shaping the alternative future for the NHS through the union and through the Labour Party.

    For now our main job is to oppose reckless and ideological plans.

    We’ve been making strong arguments against the NHS reorganisation since the early Autumn, and moving amendments to the legislation since it was introduced in January.

    Our arguments are hitting home.  Our criticisms about the Tories NHS plans are now coming from doctors, nurses, patients groups, the health select committee, NHS experts, Lib Dems, Peers on all sides of the House of Lords, and I have to hand it to Andrew Lansley, it takes a special talent to unite opposition from Norman Tebbit and MC NXT GEN.

    The Prime Minister is increasingly isolated on his NHS plans.

    Only 1 in 4 of the public back him in wanting profit making companies given free access across the NHS.

    Two thirds of doctors think the reorganisation will lead to worse – not better – patient care.

    And nearly 9 in 10 believe it will lead to the fragmentation of services.

    Yesterday, in the middle of confusion, chaos and incompetence, the Prime Minister has pushed the Health Secretary out of the bunker to try and tell people what on earth the Tories are doing with the NHS.

    He didn’t want to be there, he had nothing to say.

    But he was in the House of Commons, because there’s a growing crisis of confidence over the far reaching changes the Government are making to the NHS.

    Because there’s confusion at the heart of Government, with briefings and counter briefings on all sides.

    And because patients are starting to see the NHS go backwards again under the Tories, with waiting times rising, frontline staff cut, and services cut back.

    That’s why Labour has been saying the reorganisation requires a root and branch rethink and the legislation needs radical surgery.

    This Bill is not just about getting GPs to lead commissioning or looking to cut layers of management, one third of the long legislation sets up the NHS as a full scale market ruled by the power of a competition regulator and the force of competition law.

    It is designed to:

    – break up the NHS

    – open up all areas of the NHS to private health companies

    – remove all requirements for proper openness, scrutiny and accountability – to the public  and to Parliament

    – and to expose the NHS to the full force of both UK and European competition law.

    Tories are driving free market political ideology into the heart of the NHS.

    Helpfully, the government’s new chair for the new market regulator Monitor confirmed – before he was banned from doing more interviews.

    We did it in gas, we did it in power, we did it in telecoms, we’ve done it in rail, we’ve done it in water, so there’s actually 20 years of experience in taking monopolistic, monolithic markets and providers and exposing them to economic regulation.

    So what the Tories did to public utilities in the 1980s, they’re doing now to public services, including the NHS.

    Whilst I don’t want the power companies collaborating on their services and prices, I certainly do want hospitals, GPs and other parts of the NHS to do so – it’s in the best interests of patients and in the NHS DNA.

    They are making fundamental and far reaching changes to our NHS and to its ethos.

    So there are fundamental flaws in what the Government is doing, not just what it is saying on the NHS.

    The test is whether the Prime Minister will deal with these flaws.

    Tests for the Tories on NHS

    I have five tests for David Cameron; major changes that must be made to his legislation.

    These tests reflect the concerns I have heard from patients groups, experts and NHS staff criticisms.

    These tests also reflect Labour’s deeply held concerns.

    So, Prime Minister, here’s your starter for five…..

    – Keep NHS protections against the full force of UK and competiton law, drop your plan for a free market NHS and delete part 3 of the bill

    – Keep the waiting time guarantees for patients, so they’re seen and treated quickly

    – Drop plans to break up commissioning into so many small GP consortia, make them involve wider expertise and require them to be open and accountable to local patients and the public.

    – Ban GP bonuses, stop conflicts of interest where they can commission from themselves and close the loophole that lets them outsource the commissioning job to the private sector

    – Keep the cap on NHS hospitals treating private patients, so they don’t jump the queue on NHS patients and strengthen the safeguards on closing down hospital services.

    When the Health Secretary was forced to the House of Commons yesterday.

    He said Ministers would now “pause, listen, engage” on the Tories’ NHS plans

    Andrew Lansley has not been listening for nine months.  The test is now whether David Cameron will recognise the very wide concerns and respond with radical surgery to his health bill.

    They’ve failed to listen to criticisms in 6000 responses to their consultation.

    They’ve failed to listen to the same concerns in rejecting 100 Labour amendments to the bill.

    So this ‘pause’ looks suspiciously like a PR stunt to quell the coalition of critics.

    Labour will look to turn this Tory pause into a problem for David Cameron.

    We will encourage patients, staff and the public to challenge the changes, wherever and whenever the Prime Minister, deputy Prime Minister and Health Secretary go through the motions of “listening” in the weeks ahead.

    Conclusion

    For those of us who care most about the NHS – our job, our duty must be to help people see more clearly and more quickly what the consequences of these changes will be.

    This means explaining and exposing the truth at the heart of the Tory plans.

    We must together make it impossible for the Prime Minister or Health Secretary to dismiss criticisms as the concerns of vested interests or complaints of the minority.

    Nye Bevan:  The NHS “will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it”

    It’s our NHS.  It’s our duty to fight for it now.  And it’s our mission to see the NHS changed and improved in the future.

  • John Healey – 2010 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    johnhealey

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Healey, the then Shadow Housing and Planning Minister, to the 2010 Labour Party conference.

    Conference, John Healey, Shadow Housing Minister responding to the housing motion, backed first by 28 CLPs and the Labour Housing Group, now, clearly, with every speaker and the whole Conference behind it.

    The motion calls on the Shadow Cabinet and Parliamentary Labour Party to campaign with other groups against the new government’s housing cuts and policy changes.

    We will.

    We will campaign with other groups and we will campaign together with you in your constituencies, your Labour council groups and your trade unions.

    We will campa ign together because what we see from the Tories and Lib Dems offends our basic Labour belief in a decent, secure and affordable home for all.

    And our job is to help people see more clearly, more quickly not just what this Tory-led government is doing, but also why.

    Make no mistake Conference, we must be most concerned about many of the cuts; but if we only talk of spending cuts we miss something more fundamental.

    They want a smaller deficit, of course, we all do.

    They want a smaller state, of course, they’re Tories.

    But they also want a state which sheds its duty to its people on housing.

    You can see this in their:

    Cuts to national housing investment, which means thousands fewer affordable homes built this year, and the end of our new council house building;

    Changes to the planning system which remove any national requirement on local councils to plan or agree new homes for their area;

    Cutbacks in the national sy stem of help, which leaves people with less support on housing costs and more local variation;

    Plans to remove the right to long-term tenancies in public housing, which means local landlords setting their own tenancy terms;

    Questions over the national cap on rent rises for social housing tenants and over the nationally-set homelessness duty on councils.

    On every front they are looking to withdraw national government with Tory and Lib Dem ministers washing their hands of any national role or responsibility for meeting people’s housing needs and aspirations.

    Meanwhile, local councils – increasingly Labour local councils – will be left to pick up the pieces, and, if we don’t help people see clearly what’s happening and why – local councils will also be left to pick up the blame.

    Conference, what difference a year makes, what a differe nce a Labour government makes.

    Last year, I reported to you as Labour’s Housing Minister.

    Last year, as a Labour government, we didn’t cutback housing investment, despite and because of the deep recession, we stepped it up.

    Last year, we:

    Kept Britain building through recession, starting more new affordable homes than before the downturn;

    Launched the largest council house building programme for nearly 20 years;

    Made apprenticeships a compulsory condition of getting any government contract;

    Set up special help on mortgages, so repossessions have been half the rate of the last recession;

    Gave councils new powers to clamp down on the worst private landlords and control the spread of bedsit-barons.

    Ed Miliband told us on Tuesday to be proud of what we did well in government.

    I am.

    He also said he’d back the new government when they’re right.

    So will I.

    But Conference, I have to tell you that in five months I’ve not found a single change I can support.

    Their latest plan is a “new homes bonus”, matching the council tax on any new home built with extra funding for the local council for six years.

    They’re right to want to a strong incentive system for councils and communities ready to see new homes built in their area.

    But this isn’t it.

    There’s no new money. And the government will take a top-slice cut across the grant to all local government to cover the cost.

    This scheme robs some councils to pay the rest.

    So I’m publishing a detailed analysis of their plans today, which shows:

    It will cause chaos in the council tax system, and more cuts to many hard-pressed council budgets.

    It blows a huge hole in George Osborne’s promise to freeze council tax.

    And our big towns and cities will be hardest hit, as they will have to see many more new homes built every year in their area to “break even” under the new system.

    This is the latest in the long line of damaging cuts and policy changes.

    This motion and this Conference is right to say we must campaign harder on housing.

    Our debate today is a start.

    Our duty tomorrow is to fight to stop the worst of what’s to come, and to show there is an alternative, a Labour alternative, a better way, the Labour way.

    With you, we will do that, every day until the last day of this Tory-Lib Dem government.

  • John Healey – 2009 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    johnhealey

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Healey, the then Minister of State for Housing, to the 2009 Labour Party conference.

    So Conference, we’ve heard from the people on the panel.

    Powerful words about the ways that we – your Labour government – are acting to offer real help through tough times in recession.

    Help for firms to stay in business.

    Help for people to stay in work.

    Help for families to stay – where they should be – in their own homes.

    And today Conference, I can announce that we are tightening the rules to help protect those struggling with their mortgage.

    From this week lenders will have to tell local councils, as they file for repossession action in the courts. Councils can the offer advice, or help with our special rescue schemes.

    If the Tories had their way, there would be no special help on mortgages, no extra jobs and apprenticeships, no boost for building affordable homes.

    If they’d had their way, the recession would be deeper and longer.

    But we’re Labour.

    We’re different.

    We believe we have a duty to help when people are struggling.

    We believe in using the power of government to protect the poorest and discipline the market.

    We believe in the progressive power of public investment.

    You know when Gordon Brown asked me to do this job in June,  the first thing he said was:

    “John – we must do more”

    He backed me as I put together the deal for an extra £1.5 billion in our Housing Pledge – a centrepiece of our Building Britain’s Future plans.

    So this year and next we’re backing developers to kickstart housebuilding sites which have stalled in recession.

    We’re backing housing associations to build more affordable homes.

    And we’re backing councils to build new council homes again – more new council homes starting this year than in any year for nearly two decades.

    But Conference we can do more.

    So today, I am launching a second round of funding for councils that are ready to help build the new affordable homes we need in this country.

    I’m inviting bids by the end of next month.

    And before Christmas I aim to give the go ahead to at least 1200 extra council homes.

    At this time of all times, with pressure on the public finances, I want to make sure we use the power of public investment to the full.

    So I’ve told all private developers and all housing associations that we will now require apprenticeships and local jobs as a condition of public funding.

    And I will require the same of councils.

    A total of 3000 extra apprenticeships over the next two years.

    This is what it means to get the most for every taxpayers’ pound, as we – your Labour government – invest now to help the country through recession; invest now in the homes and jobs and skills the country needs for the future.

    And what of the Tories?

    They don’t believe in building affordable homes.

    Their council leaders describe them as “barracks for the poor”.

    Their shadow minister tells Tory councils to block planning for new homes.

    This is what they say now, in public before the election. What they plan in secret is even more serious.

    Forced by FoI, we now have the record and names from these discussions.

    I quote:

    “The priorities identified were:

    Equalise rents between sectors

    Create one form of rented tenure using the assured shorthold tenancy

    The private rented sector needs to be cultivated.”

    Conference, these are the conclusions of:

    4 Tory council leaders

    2 Deputies to the London Mayor

    and The Shadow Housing Minister.

    Secret plans that would double or triple rents for 8 million people in council or housing association homes, and put their homes on the line with two months notice.

    If I am wrong, David Cameron can say so.

    But he won’t.

    I challenged him two months ago, and two weeks ago.

    I’m now publishing my letters, and I challenge him again today to come clean.

    He owes council or housing association tenants the truth about the Tories plans.

    There are two faces of the Tory Party.

    The spin, the smiles, the soft words of the Leader, frontman for a fresh Conservative brand.

    The harsh ideas and harsh ideology of those behind him; uncompromising, uncaring, unchanging.

    Conference, nothing is more important to all of us than our home.

    It’s where we are warm.

    It’s where we’re safe.

    It’s where we eat, laugh and cry with our family and our friends.

    It’s where our children sleep at night.

    This is why decent, secure and affordable homes for all has always been at Labour’s heart.

    It’s what Ben Tillett stood for 100 years ago. It’s what we stand for now.

    Proud of our action. Proud of our values. Proud to be Labour.

  • Geoff Hoon – 2003 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, to the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth on 1st October 2003.

    Conference, we have heard today from an outstanding president of Afghanistan. I would like to tell you now about one man from Iraq.

    Muff Sourani was born in Northern Iraq in 1942. His father was in the army, and as a result, as a child, he moved to Southern Iraq, where he went to Secondary School in Basra.

    Mr Sourani first came to Britain in 1962 to complete his education. In the 1970s he returned to Iraq as an engineer. Saddam Hussein’s regime falsely accused him of being a British collaborator. They imprisoned and tortured him for eight weeks.

    It was only after urgent petitioning by the then Member of Parliament for Workington, the late Fred Peart, that Mr Sourani was released.

    Mr Sourani has lived in Britain ever since – with his wife Ahlam, who is also an Iraqi.

    The Souranis have experienced at first hand the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s regime.  Yet they also know of Iraq’s enormous potential, not least its educated, sophisticated people.

    Mr Sourani’s determination therefore, at the age of 60, is to see a better Iraq.  He has worked for over thirty years for the engineering unions.  He is currently a Regional Officer for AMICUS and sits on the Board of the West Midlands Labour Party.

    I am delighted that with the help of AMICUS, the TUC and the Ministry of Defence, Mr Sourani will soon be returning to Iraq to help organise free trade unions, beginning in the south of the country where he was brought up.

    Trade Unions were banned by Saddam Hussein in 1977. With the help of Mr Sourani, and others like him, trade unions will have the opportunity, once again, to recruit and to organise.  Free trade unions are a fundamental part of the civilised democratic society that we are determined to develop in Iraq.

    Conference, I am delighted to introduce you to Muff and Ahlam Sourani.

    Conference, we all know that there are different and passionately held views about the military intervention in Iraq.  There was a vigorous debate in Blackpool last year.  We have heard strong speeches today.

    But I do want to emphasise that no-one takes a decision to use military force lightly. Whether and when to intervene militarily is always the most difficult decision to take. I have spoken to bereaved family members too often lately. I will never take their loss lightly. The decision to commit Britain’s armed forces is never one that I, or anyone else in Government, takes without carefully considering all of the arguments.

    But whatever differences exist on the question of military intervention – now is the time to agree on a shared vision of the way forward for Iraq.

    Muff Sourani is determined to help rebuild the country of his birth.

    We want to work with him, and others like him, to help build that better Iraq.

    All of us should share that determination.  Whatever our sincerely held differences about the military intervention

    surely all of us want to see:

    – an Iraq that respects human rights.

    – an Iraq that respects democracy.

    – an Iraq, free and prosperous restored to its rightful place in the international community.

    Our Armed Forces are just as determined to go on playing their part.

    I want to pay tribute to the fifty-one British service personnel who have died since the conflict began.

    They died to remove Saddam Hussein’s regime – and in doing so, to disarm Iraq of its illegal weapons of mass destruction.

    They died to provide the opportunity we now have to build a better Iraq.

    We, and the people of Iraq, are indebted to them. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten.

    Nor should we forget the hard work and professionalism of all those people, both military and civilian, who have helped to support operations in Iraq.

    There are many unsung heroes – from planners to logisitics experts, from TA drivers to theatre nurses.  All have worked long hours, often in the most difficult and demanding conditions.  Proving once again that Britain’s armed forces are amongst the best, if not the best, in the world.

    Over 10,000 British service men and women are in and around Iraq today, working hard to secure that better future for the people of Iraq.  Demonstrating, now, their excellence at peacekeeping and their skill in the demanding and sensitive task of reconstruction.

    British service personnel are helping to stabilise the security situation.  The number of security incidents in the south has been declining.  Our work with local councils, schools and religious leaders is increasing public support – assisting the operations against those terrorists and criminals that remain.

    British service personnel are helping to train the Iraqi police. Some 45,000 police have been recruited across Iraq, with thousands now operating alongside coalition forces.  Together with over 2,000 Iraqi border guards they are providing vital improvements to the security of the country.  Every day enabling Iraqis to take more responsibility for their own country.

    And British service personnel are providing practical assistance to the international development efforts to rebuild Iraq. Too often those efforts have been thwarted by criminals and looters – literally stealing copper cable from power lines. That is why we still need a military presence. That military expertise is helping to deliver a more stable power supply and to significantly improve the delivery of fuel and water – securing the everyday necessities of life for the Iraqi people.

    Legitimate concerns remain. About security. About infrastructure. About the political process.

    But real progress is being made. Thanks to the determined efforts being made right across Government.

    Surely no-one would want us to fail.

    The fact that Britain’s armed forces are amongst the best in the world – able to make such a difference in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and elsewhere – does not happen by chance. Their excellence is the result not only of the inherent qualities of service personnel, but also of the decisions taken by Government on how they are trained, organised, equipped and supported.

    This Labour Government is providing our armed forces with the investment they deserve. The Tories cut the defence budget by nearly a third between 1985 and 1997. In contrast, last year’s spending review settlement produced an extra ÂŁ3.5 billion for defence. Thanks to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the defence budget is rising.

    And a growing defence budget means that we will be able to invest more money in the people that serve in the forces and in the modern technologies they need. For it is those people that ultimately define our armed forces.

    The extra money will be invested in better, more integrated training.

    The extra money will be invested to improve accommodation.

    And the extra money will be invested to provide better pay and fairer pension entitlements, where there will no longer be discrimination against unmarried partners.

    The extra money is also being invested to improve the quality of the armed forces’ equipment – equipping our forces to be the best.

    Thanks to the excellence and competitiveness of British manufacturing industry, and all those who work in manufacturing, our forces are equipped to succeed.

    We are helping the revival in shipbuilding by building over 30 ships and submarines in the next 20 years. This has given new hope to proud shipbuilding communities on the Tyne and Tees, on the Clyde, at Rosyth and at Barrow.

    And two weeks ago I was delighted to open Vosper Thorneycroft’s new shipyard in Portsmouth – the first new shipyard in Britain for 100 years.

    And this Government’s decision to choose Hawk as the next Advanced Jet Trainer for the Royal Air Force – securing over 2000 jobs on Humberside – is a further example of our commitment.

    When I visited BAE Systems at Brough last week, I was able to offer my thanks to the workforce.

    Hawk is an example of where we in government listened and where we in government have delivered.

    Talking to the shop-stewards, I was able to congratulate them on  their consistently constructive support and the support of the trade union leaders of AMICUS, the GMB and the T and G.

    They, like me, are committed to British manufacturing excellence.

    A commitment that delivers the best equipment for our armed forces when they need it.

    This is the real difference a Labour Government makes.

    With extra money for defence, there is renewed pride in local manufacturing communities, working together to build the best equipment for our armed forces.

    There is renewed pride in our armed forces, recognising the sacrifice they make on our behalf.

    And there is renewed pride in our Party’s internationalist tradition.  A tradition that ensures that the United Kingdom makes a real difference in the world.

    This debate is called “Britain in the World”. It is about Britain’s place in that world.

    This Labour Government is taking difficult decisions. Decisions that make a difference to real people’s lives.

    Providing medical and practical help to the orphans of Sierra Leone who lost limbs at the hands of vicious rebels.

    Rebuilding schools in Afghanistan to give girls – some for the first time – an education.

    And freeing the people of Iraq from a murderous and oppressive regime to give them back their rights as citizens of what is once again a free country.

    Conference, Ernest Bevin, said a generation ago:

    “We regard ourselves as one of the powers most vital to the peace of the world.” It was true then and it’s true now.

    That is Labour’s role in the world – contributing to peace, a force for good, upholding our values at home and around the world.

  • Meg Hillier – 2011 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Meg Hillier to the Labour Party conference on 27th September 2011.

    Thank you.

    Conference, we’ve had an excellent debate, proof that the Labour Party understands the threat to the environment, and we’ve the political will to protect it.

    There are people – some of them in the Conservative Party – who are climate change sceptics. They dispute the science, downplay the risks, denounce us as cranks.

    Conference, they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

    Under Labour, Britain signed up to the toughest carbon reduction targets in the world. We enshrined them in law.

    And we did it with Ed Miliband in charge of the Department for Energy and Climate Change.

    As Energy Secretary, Ed displayed leadership on the world stage on climate change.

    He understood the audacity needed to meet the challenge.

    What a contrast with the Department for Energy and Climate Change today. Humiliated almost daily. The laughing stock of Whitehall. Trampled by the Treasury. Undermined by No. 10.

    Just look at the government’s record since last year:

    The Green Investment Bank – promised in Labour’s manifesto, but hobbled under the Coalition. Delayed, and unable to borrow capital.

    Research into bio-fuels – scrapped.

    Zero Carbon homes – scrapped.

    Charging points for electric cars – scrapped.

    Low carbon businesses watching their orders disappear abroad.

    A ‘green deal’ for home insulation which promises the earth, but few have even heard of.

    Ministers call this the ‘greenest government ever’.

    Never has a claim been so much hot air.

    The great tragedy is that it doesn’t have to be like this.

    The economic recovery could be built on low-carbon growth: growing green firms, world-beating inventions, more apprenticeships, and most of all, what the country is crying out for: new jobs.

    Jobs in manufacturing, design and engineering.

    On Sunday I met some of the workers at Cammell Laird just across the River Mersey from this conference centre. They’re famed for building battle ships. Now they are gearing up to build wind turbines.

    Off-shore turbines the height of the Gherkin in London, blades the span of a jumbo jet’s wings, a diameter the same as the London Eye.

    The best of British engineering, delivering green energy.

    That’s the way forward.

    We need energy security in a dangerous world – a mix of renewables, clean coal, gas and nuclear.

    And we should never forget the price some families and some communities pay for coal.

    This Movement has always stood shoulder to shoulder with the mining communities. We pay tribute to the four miners who lost their lives. We offer heartfelt condolences to their families and communities.

    We should also pay a tribute to their local MP Peter Hain, for his compassion and support in the worst of times.

    Safeguarding our environment is not a cost. It is an opportunity, to be seized if we want real growth to return.

    The next Labour Government will put the fight against climate change at the top of its agenda, not just because it is the morally right thing to do, to save the lives of millions around the world, but also because we can lead the world in new technologies and create green jobs at home.

    We will campaign for poverty and climate change to be tackled at the international summit in Durban this autumn. It’s a vital meeting.

    The Energy Secretary didn’t even mention it in his speech last week.

    I hear the Prime Minister is not even showing up.

    Social justice. Economic efficiency. Environmental protection. The three pillars of the next Labour Government.

    And if you have any doubt, look into the eyes of these child workers in Manila Bay.

    This stunning, shocking picture is called ‘Where The Pellets Of Poison Are Flooding Their Waters’, words from Bob Dylan’s song ‘A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall’.

    The lives and communities of these little children are being damaged by actions on the other side of the world. Actions we could do something to stop.

    Hard Rain is the name given to an amazing series of photographs by Mark Edwards. He’s been documenting the effects of pollution and climate change for over 20 years.

    For the sake of children like these, we must stem dangerous climate change.

    It’s a hard rain that doesn’t have to fall.

    Finally Conference, I must turn to a great national scandal that’s brewing up in every community, every household. Labour has been warning about it for months.

    I mean, of course, the scandal of soaring gas and electricity prices.

    One after the other, the Big Six energy companies have hiked their prices this summer.

    This winter we’ll all start to pay.

    There’s a winter fuel crisis coming down the track, and ministers seem helpless to prevent it.

    Increasingly, people think the Big Six energy companies are behaving unfairly.

    As Ed Miliband said this weekend, they represent a vested interest – a stark example of unaccountable power.

    They may be private companies, but they should deliver a public service.

    This winter, many thousands will be unable to heat their homes. Many will find their pre-payment meters running out. Many more will struggle to pay the bills.

    The people shivering under blankets need an Energy Secretary who can act, not just talk.

    This Government has not moved on since Edwina Currie told cold, poor people to put on an extra woolly jumper.

    So I am putting the Big Six on notice – the next Labour Government will break up your strangle-hold. More powers for consumers. More players in the market. More Co-ops and social enterprises.

    Fairer prices.

    And we will insist that they make their tariffs and their bills crystal clear so we can all see the true cost of our energy.

    Fair energy prices, green jobs, action on climate change.

    A decisive shift to a low-carbon economy.

    Leadership on the world stage.

    That’s Labour’s promise – one worth fighting for, one worth winning for.

    Thank you, Conference.

  • Harriet Harman – 2013 Speech to Labour Party Conference

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Harriet Harman, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, to the 2013 Labour Party conference.

    Harriet Harman MP, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, speaking to Labour Party Annual Conference 2013 in Brighton, said:

    Conference, this week, we’ve packed in hours of debate; hundreds of fringe meetings; and most importantly delivered a One Nation fiscal stimulus for the bars of Brighton.

    We began on Saturday at our fantastic Labour Women’s Conference – with 1,000 women. The biggest political gathering of women at any party conference, ever.

    Proving, once again, Labour is the only party for women.

    And what a contrast with the other parties.

    David Cameron believes that women should be seen and not heard – and that’s especially when it comes to his Cabinet.

    And as for the UKIP conference – where to begin?

    What can you say about the human car crash that is Godfrey Bloom? A man so unreconstructed, he makes Jeremy Clarkson look like a Fabian.

    But Godfrey, all is not lost.

    You’ve got some time on your hands now – so we’ve arranged a special emergency session for you.

    At the “Harriet Harperson Institute of Political Correctness”.

    And Godfrey, the good news is that I, myself, will be there to give you some advanced ‘one to one’ training.

    And we’ll start with you whisking that Dyson round the back of my fridge.

    And as for the Liberal Democrats – Lib Dem women are an endangered species.

    Our Women’s Conference was a women-only event. But Yvette and I decided we would do a bit of positive action and let one man in – our leader Ed Miliband and he got a fantastic reception.

    The Shadow Chancellor wanted to come too – but we had to say to him “sorry we’ve already got a man on the platform – and he’s called Ed.”

    Conference, in Ed Miliband we have a great leader.

    Ed, we hoped you’d do a good speech yesterday, but you gave an amazing speech.

    Ed has an unerring ability to understand the concerns that people have in their everyday lives.

    It was Ed who warned that we are seeing, for the first time, a generation who won’t do as well as the one that went before. That’s something every parent worries about.

    Then while Cameron and Clegg wallowed in complacency, Ed was the one who spoke up about the cost of living crisis.

    And when Ed sees something’s wrong, he will not shrink from the challenge.

    He will never say:

    – it’s just too difficult;

    – or the odds are stacked against us

    – or you’ll have to put up with it – because the energy companies are just too powerful.

    Ed fights for what’s right. People often feel that in this day and age there are forces which are just too big and powerful for politics to make a difference.

    But Ed has shown – even from opposition – the ability to make change.

    He stood up against phone hacking.

    He averted David Cameron’s rush to war in Syria.

    And he has shown that politics can make a difference.

    But Ed is about a new kind of politics. And that shines through in everything he does. Like when he got egged.

    You can really see the change.

    When John Prescott got egged, he was massively angry and threw a punch.

    When Ed Miliband got egged, his immediate thought was ‘Oh God – I really hope this is free range’ That’s just the kind of guy he is.

    And Ed is a leader who listens. To the people he meets and the party he leads.

    And that’s why yesterday on this stage, he moved Labour from being a party of protest which understands people’s concerns – to a party of policies which will address those concerns.

    Better childcare – for mothers who tear their hair out trying to balance work and home.

    Freezing fuel bills – how can you feel the warm glow of recovery if you can’t turn your heating on.

    And helping the next generation get their first home by putting housing at the heart of our mission and getting Britain building again.

    So now – every single one of us – our shadow cabinet, MPs, MEPs, Peers, Councillors, our great parliamentary candidates, representatives from the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, trade unionists, our members and supporters.

    Our whole Labour team in every part of this country, will get out on the doorstep and give people hope that their lives can be better than this. Britain can do better than this.

    Our momentum comes not just from our policies – but from the people in our party – the whole Labour team. We are a party that has grown.

    Just look at the membership.

    Since the General Election, our membership is up by 17 per cent.

    Since David Cameron became leader of the Tories their membership is down 40 per cent.

    We now have more members than the Tories and the Lib Dems put together.

    We are working hard and campaigning in communities all around the country.

    But we all know that we could be doing more – particularly to reach out to and involve people at work. After all, Labour is the party of people at work.

    The plan for party reform that Ed is proposing is not to weaken the relationship between Labour and trade union members – it is to make it a reality – especially at local level.

    And I want to spell out what is obvious and what is true but needs saying.

    We are fiercely proud of the link between our party and trade unionists. That link is at the heart of our history and will be an essential part of our future.

    Because while the Tories are bankrolled by a handful of millionaires – we are a movement of millions of working people.

    But these men and women are under attack.

    And so when David Cameron attacks trade unionists and stokes up hatred against them we will stand up for them.

    Because we know with the Tories – it’s one rule for them and their privileged friends – and another for everyone else.

    The rich will work harder if you cut their taxes.

    Make the poor work harder by slashing their benefits.

    Under – occupy a mansion – well you need protecting – so of course we can’t have a Mansion Tax.

    Under occupy a council home – tough – pay the bedroom tax or face eviction.

    Well, not under a Labour Government. We will axe this cruel, useless, hated tax.

    And speaking of cruel, useless and hated, let’s spend a moment thinking about how good it will feel to kick out this miserable government.

    When it came to austerity, they said “we’re all in it together”.

    But they’re not saying that about the recovery.

    It cannot be a recovery that’s only for the rich and not the rest.

    And what about the Lib Dems?

    They say they are in coalition. But look what they do in Westminster?

    Week in week out – the Tories bring forward their nasty policies and the Lib Dems – they vote them through.

    They call it coalition – we call it collusion.

    And then Nick Clegg had the nerve to stand up at his conference and claim that he had been a brake on the Tories.

    With the Lib Dems, it’s not just collusion – it’s delusion.

    Here’s a little reminder of just some of the things the Lib Dems voted for.

    – putting up VAT,

    – slashing tax credits,

    – cutting police,

    – trebling tuition fees,

    – tax cuts for the richest

    – the bedroom tax and

    – let’s not forget the top down reorganisation of our NHS – which no-one wanted and no-one voted for.

    One thing they did announce last week at their conference was they were going to bring in free school meals.

    But when Southwark Labour Council did exactly that last year – the Lib Dems bitterly opposed it.

    So, Nick Clegg, come to Southwark for a free school meal – and I’ll serve you a very large portion of humble pie.

    But it’s just not fair to say that Clegg has got no principles at all.

    He has got one principle – one that means a lot to him.

    That is, regardless of who’s in government, Nick Clegg must be Deputy Prime Minister.

    He wants to go on and on and on.

    No wonder Vince Cable looks so miserable – you almost have to feel sorry for him.

    So Conference – let’s have no talk about us being in coalition.

    Labour is not fighting for a draw.

    Labour is fighting to win.

    Conference, we know we face a huge task.

    It’s barely three years since we were kicked out of government.

    The Tories will fight a dirty, vicious campaign.

    And Lynton Crosby will be the ring-master for the right wing press.

    But remember – this is not a popular government.

    They stand up for the wrong people.

    They’ve failed on the economy.

    They’re ruining the NHS.

    And people know it.

    So yes – it is tough.

    We will not lose our nerve.

    Because the polls which are most important, are the ones where people actually vote.

    And in local councils up and down this country, the Tories are losing seats, the Lib Dems are losing seats and it is Labour who is making gains.

    Since Ed Miliband became leader, we have gained 1,950 new Labour Councillors.

    Conference – those are the polls you won’t read about in the newspapers but those are the polls that count.

    So it is tough – but we can do it.

    The General Election is there for the taking.

    So, Conference, while we are in no doubt about the scale of our task, we leave here determined to do whatever it takes to kick out this miserable coalition and fight for a Labour government.