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Tag: 2003

  • Theresa May – 2003 Speech on One Nation Conservatism

    Theresa May – 2003 Speech on One Nation Conservatism

    The speech made by Theresa May, the then Conservative Party chair, to the Compassionate Conservatism Conference on 16 September 2003.

    I am sure many people in Britain would be surprised to know that the Conservative Party has hosted such a successful conference on Compassionate Conservatism.

    All too often, we have allowed ourselves to be portrayed as a party which cares nothing about compassion. As Iain Duncan Smith said earlier this year, we have let our opponents place us in a box marked self-interest. We all know that this is not the case.

    We know that many Conservative Party members up and down the country are at the heart of community groups and voluntary organisations that work with some of the most vulnerable people in our country. We know that Conservative councils deliver the best services for the least well off, for the lowest tax.

    Since becoming Chairman I have seen countless examples of how Conservative councils make life better for people. How they improve schools, how they make town centres safer, how they tackle graffiti and anti-social behaviour.

    Today I want to give a clear message.

    There is nothing inconsistent about being Compassionate and a Conservative. Indeed, compassion has always been at the heart of what we have been about. There has always been a rich vein of compassion running through the Conservative Party. We never stopped being the party of one nation, the party of the poor, or the party of the vulnerable. Conservatives have always been about providing the ladder of opportunity, and the safety net for those in need.

    Labour often think history began in 1997, so let me establish a few facts about Compassionate Conservatism.

    · We were the party that granted home ownership to a million and a half council tenants when we were last in office. In 1997 there were four million more home-owners than there were in 1979.

    · We were the party that helped hundreds of thousands of people gain access to university. By the time we left office, one in three young people went to higher education – up from one in eight in 1979.

    · We were the party that helped countless people set up their own business. There were a million more small businesses in Britain by the time we left office than there were in 1979.

    · The last Conservative Government offered more help to families on low incomes, to lone parents, to pensioners and helped expand opportunity so that social mobility became a reality for many.

    Labour would like us to believe that they have a monopoly on compassion.

    – Tell that to people trapped in crime-ridden estates.

    – Tell that to the mothers who see their children high on drugs, without any help or rehabilitation.

    – Tell that to the children trapped in failing schools.

    – Tell that to elderly people who use up all their life savings to pay for a vital operation that the NHS won’t provide for months.

    – What is compassionate about a Government that imposes so many regulations on care homes that they have to close, leaving thousands of elderly people with an uncertain future?

    There is nothing compassionate about New Labour.

    This is a Government that have shut the door on the policy of right to buy – denying home ownership – the fastest vehicle of social mobility to hundreds of thousands of people.

    This is a Government that has already slapped thousands of pounds in tuition fees on university students, and now plans to burden them even more with top-up fees – a policy which could end up deterring thousands of academically able people from disadvantaged backgrounds from entering university. Where is the compassion in that? It is a policy I am proud to say the Conservative Party has opposed, and which we are committed to reverse.

    Under Labour, the gap between the rich and the poor is wider now that it has been for over a decade. For all its talk about social justice, this is a Government in which allows a quarter of all pensioners to live below the poverty line.

    In today’s Britain a crime is committed every five seconds; record numbers of young people are caught up in a culture of crime and drug abuse; and people fear to walk out alone at night.

    That is just a snapshot of ‘compassion’ in New Labour’s New Britain. It is no wonder people are looking for an alternative.

    When I speak to people across Britain, they tell me that they simply want things to be better.

    They want better schools, better hospitals, better public transport, less crime.

    They can’t understand why they pay more tax, and the public services are getting worse.

    They are sick of the Government’s obsession with spin. They are tired of hearing about the Government’s latest target or initiative. What matters to them is whether the things on which they depend – the public services – are getting better or worse.

    To put it simply – they want a fair deal.

    This presents us with a challenge and an opportunity.

    But it is not enough for us to point out Labour’s failures.

    Nor can we simply point to our achievements when we were in office.

    Neither of these alone provide people with a fair deal.

    We have to persuade people that we can offer a genuine alternative to Labour.

    We need to persuade people that we can deliver the changes in the public services they need.

    For the last two years, that is what the Conservative Party, under Iain Duncan Smith, has been doing just that.

    This is how we are changing.

    As Iain said last week, we are now in our strongest position for ten years. We’re talking about the issues that matter to people. We’re offering solutions to the problems that concern people.

    And instead of Labour’s phoney compassion, we’re offering genuine solutions.

    Surely that is what opposition is about.

    And that’s what ‘Compassionate Conservatism’ is about too.

    Showing that we don’t have to settle for second best in the public services.

    That Government isn’t only about managing decline in the health service – but revitalising them.

    Showing that our goal shouldn’t be simply to curb crime, but to create a neighbourly society.

    Persuading people that inner city children shouldn’t be condemned to failing schools, but provided with a stepping-stone to success.

    That opportunity should be open to the many, not the few.

    Under Iain Duncan Smith, Renewing One Nation has had a central place within the Conservative Party. For that is surely our mission. To renew Britain. To breath new life into failing public services. To show that we can offer genuine alternatives.

    But why should people believe us? Labour promised the earth, and failed to deliver. People feel let down. People’s faith in New Labour has been betrayed.

    How are we going to convince people we are different? We have to show we understand their problems. And we are changing here too.

    The culture of politics is changing.

    People are tired of politicians who argue by throwing statistics at each other.

    They are sick of politicians who think the answer to a problem is to come up with a good slogan.

    People want to know what we stand for, not simply what we are against.

    On Sunday I attended the 30th anniversary of the foundation of the Cookham and Maidenhead branch of Amnesty International – based in my constituency. There was a time when the idea of a conservative attending an Amnesty International event was anathema to many Conservatives. Because we had difficulties with some things they did and said, we appeared to be completely against them. Now, we are grown up enough to say ‘we admire your commitment and recognise your dedication to fighting against injustice and although we don’t always agree with you, we are happy to work with you when we do, such as when Caroline Spelman met representatives of the Indian Government pressing the case for Ian Stillman.

    I believe that is the sort of constructive political engagement that Britain needs to reinvigorate British politics, because too many people have been put off political debate because of the way it is conducted.

    Too many people have lost faith in politicians because of the culture of British politics.

    That is not only bad for politics. It is bad for Britain.

    People want to know that we understand what they want – not simply what makes a good headline.

    We have to show people what a Conservative Government will do for them.

    How a Conservative Government will make their streets safer, how it will make our schools better, how it will improve health services.

    We have already made great progress doing this.

    Last year’s party conference was, I believe, our most successful for a decade. We unveiled 25 new policies that will begin to reverse the decline in our public services, and we have followed this with more announcements.

    Oliver Letwin has set out our commitment to recruit an extra 40,000 police – the largest increase in police numbers for a generation – and our pledge to provide intensive drug rehabilitation for every young hard drug addict.

    David Davis has set out our policy to allow thousands of more people to own their own homes.

    Damian Green has set out how we would give children stuck in failing schools the chance to go to better schools.

    Since then, we have unveiled new policies on health, crime and education.

    We have launched our policy to scrap tuition fees and oppose top-up fees.

    We have set out proposals to improve public health.

    We have begun our consultation on improving Britain’s transport.

    We have produced our own Green Paper on revitalising the voluntary sector. Up and down the country, each and every day, people from all walks of life take part in voluntary activities that knit together civil society. This is the front-line of compassionate Britain. A Government which neglects this well-spring of compassion will never tackle the problems facing Britain today. We will empower civil society in Britain to be an engine of social renewal.

    Labour think the answer to social problems is ever more state control. We disagree.

    Last week, Iain Duncan Smith and David Davis released a major critique of Labour’s culture of command and control, and promised that the next Conservative Government would cut through suffocating Whitehall bureaucracy and empower people on the front-line.

    Since the last party conference Iain has toured the length and breadth of Britain, telling people what a Conservative Government would do for them.

    We have been to some of our most deprived communities – the areas which have most reason to feel let down by Tony Blair.

    We’re not just going to these areas and telling them what we would do. Through organisations like Renewing One Nation, we are listening to them, to their problems, listening to the voice of people – people not obsessed with Westminster politics – to see what they want.

    And I think the fact that this conference is taking place is testimony to how much the Conservative Party is changing.

    Yesterday Iain Duncan Smith set out the Conservative Party’s approach to fighting poverty. Greg Clark has set out the policies that underpin the Fair Deal. Caroline Spelman has spoken of our approach to the developing world. Peter Franklin has spoken about drug rehabilitation. Jill Kirby has spoken about the role of the family. Oliver Letwin has spoken about helping young people off the conveyor belt to crime, and our mission to create genuine neighbourhood policing.

    Later we will hear from leading Conservative figures in local Government about how they are already tackling poverty and empowering communities where they live. We will hear about how Conservative principles, put into practice, can make a genuine difference.

    This afternoon we will hear from David Lidington about how Conservatives will resolve tensions between different communities in Britain – something we need now more than ever before. David Willetts will speak about a Conservative approach to welfare and poverty, and how we will free people from a culture of dependency.

    In a few weeks, we will meet for our annual conference, when even more policies will be set out about how we will take power out of the hands of politicians and bureaucrats, and give it back to the people.

    We won’t deal in slogans. We will set out our policies. People will know what we stand for. And then they will decide.

    This year’s local elections showed that people are already making that decision. Across Britain, people are deciding to come back to the Conservatives.

    On May 1st, we gained over 500 council seats and we are now the largest party in local government in Great Britain.

    People have realised that Labour have failed to make life better. Labour’s voters are abandoning them – not simply because Labour are addicted to spin, not simply because of the war on Iraq, but because they have broken their promise to make Britain better. As Iain said yesterday, there is no heart in Labour’s heartlands. Under Labour, people pay higher taxes, but live in a country of rising crime and declining public services. That is why people are turning to us to deliver a fair deal.

    As this conference has reminded us – there are conservative solutions to the problems Britain faces today.

    Conservative solutions that ensure no one is held back, and no one is left behind.

    But we cannot be complacent. Britain does face huge problems. Too many children leave our schools unable to read or write. Too many communities and town centres have been lost to drug dealers, vandals, and criminals. Too many people wait too long for vital hospital treatment.

    I believe compassionate conservatism offers the answer to these problems. Our party under the leadership of Iain Duncan Smith is providing these answers.

    We have to be disciplined. We have to stick to the course we have set.

    Our goal – as a party and as a country – must be to turn around the decline in our public services, and restore life to our communities.

    This is why we are Conservatives.

    We are Conservatives because we believe in One Nation. We believe that by Conservative principles we can address Labour’s failure.

    Renewing One Nation will be at the heart of our campaign.

    Our mission is simple. It is to make Britain better.

  • Oliver Letwin – 2003 Speech at the National Volunteering Convention

    Oliver Letwin – 2003 Speech at the National Volunteering Convention

    The speech made by Oliver Letwin to the National Volunteering Convention at the Britannia Hotel, Canary Wharf, London on 16 September 2003.

    In a speech given at Toynbee Hall last year, Iain Duncan Smith described Britain’s intractable social problems as “five giants” – an echo of William Beveridge’s famous words. Since Beveridge’s time the giants have changed, but they are still with us. After almost sixty years, our society still faces enormous challenges. The main difference is that public confidence in the ability of state to meet those challenges has evaporated. Which is not to deny an equal degree of scepticism in the universal applicability of market solutions.

    Failing schools, substandard healthcare, rising crime, child poverty and insecurity in old age: the persistence of the same old problems demands a new kind of politics. A politics distinct from that of the 1940s and from that of the 1980s. A politics that looks beyond the state and the market for new solutions. A politics that looks to the voluntary and community sector.

    Don’t we already have this new kind of politics? Hasn’t the voluntary and community sector been getting more attention than it has done for decades? Yes, but only up to a point. And that brings the voluntary and community sector to a potentially dangerous place.

    The threat is that the sector will be seen as a source of replacement parts for the worn-out components of an essentially unchanged public service framework. A framework governed by the same old politics. What is sold to the voluntary and community sector as partnership may turn out to be subservience. After decades of being locked out of the public services, the voluntary organisations may find themselves being locked in, co-opted as unofficial and under-resourced agencies of the state.

    And yet the opportunities of true partnership are enormous – both for the public services and for the voluntary and community sector. That much is obvious. What is not so obvious is how you can have the opportunity without the threat.

    The voluntary and community sector cannot complain that it is been ignored by Government and Opposition. Politicians on all sides are touting their solutions to the dilemmas facing the sector.

    Government initiatives include the Compact on relations between the public and voluntary and community sectors; the Treasury cross-cutting review; and the possibility of a Charity Law Bill in the next Queen’s speech. Incidentally, I will continue to press my opposite number to make room for such a Bill in the legislative timetable.

    On the Conservative side, in 2001 we were the first party to issue a civil society election manifesto; in 2002 our annual business breakfast was replaced with a charities breakfast at party conference; and this year we published Sixty Million Citizens a consultation paper containing sixteen proposals aimed at unlocking the full potential of Britain’s voluntary and community sector, whilst safeguarding its independence.

    In short, there is some pretty healthy competition for your hearts and minds. Of course, it would be far from healthy if the voluntary and community sector were turned into some kind of political football. Indeed, there is a great deal of cross-party consensus on these issues and we have welcomed a lot of what the present Government has done for the sector. Nevertheless, there are differences in each party’s approach to relationship between civil society and the state. You need to be aware of those differences, because I believe they will have a profound influence on the sector as it stands on the brink of enormous opportunity and real danger.

    These differences are rooted in each party’s fundamental values, which determine what each party values most about volunteering and the voluntary sector. Our Conservative values are set out in Sixty Million Citizens, where they are stated as five principles, which together can be remembered by the acronym VALID:

    The first principle is volunteerism: The uncompelled gift of time or money by volunteers and donors is virtually unique to the non-statutory, non-commercial third sector. Professionalism and professional staff are also important to the sector, as is income from contractual arrangements with other sectors. But we hope that these will always be used in a way complementary to volunteerism, not as a substitute for volunteering.

    The second principle is altruism: Though the unselfish desire to better the lot of others is by no means absent from either the public or private sectors, it is most apparent and important in the voluntary and community sector. Altruism and voluntarism are deeply interdependent. Altruism motivates volunteers and donors, who in turn influence voluntary organisations to serve the common good, rather than the enrichment or aggrandisement of those in control.

    The third principle is localism: If the private sector is fuelled by money and the public sector by power, then the life blood of the third sector is compassion. And while money and power can be centralised, compassion cannot be. Whether large or small, the best voluntary organisations retain a strong local character, rooted in the communities from which they draw support and to which they render service.

    The fourth principle is independence: A sector which is genuinely voluntary, altruistic and local is almost by definition independent. However these internal drivers of independence could be overwhelmed by external pressures from the much larger public and private sectors. As, for the very best of reasons, voluntary organisations deepen their involvement with the state and the marketplace, independence cannot not be assumed. Independence must become a cardinal value in its own right to be defended at all costs.

    The fifth principle is diversity: Proof of the independence of the sector is its ability to represent every need and cause, to encompass organisations of all sizes, and to include every shade of religious and secular motivating ethos. This clearly distinguishes the voluntary and community sector from its public and private counterparts, and also explains why it is able to find solutions to intractable social problems where neither the state nor the market can.

    Each of these principles describe what we think is good about volunteering and voluntary organisations – not what they are good for. Of course, the voluntary and community sector is good for all sorts of things. Not least the pivotal role it could play in the reform of the public services. Conservatives believe that we should empower the sector to play a much bigger role in fighting poverty, rebuilding community and improving delivery. But it must be stressed that, as far as we are concerned, this is an invitation not a command. Unlike Don Corleone, we are making you an offer you can refuse.

    In fact, it goes further than that. While we want to increase opportunities for partnership with the public sector and, like everyone else, ensure that such partnerships do not disadvantage those volunteers and voluntary organisations that choose to get involved; we also want to ensure that there should be no disadvantage to those volunteers and voluntary organisations that choose not to get involved.

    In short, we do not regard civil society as a means to an end, but as an end in itself. A healthy voluntary and community sector is one which flourishes both in partnership with the public sector and by itself.

    So far I have spoken of the voluntary and community sector generally. Now I’d like to turn to the specific issue of volunteering – which, of course, includes Britain’s longstanding and much valued tradition of volunteering within our public services, as well as volunteering within voluntary organisations.

    Conservatives strongly believe in the inherent value of all volunteering as a leading dimension of full citizenship. It should, therefore, be encouraged for its intrinsic value – as well as for its instrumental usefulness to both the public and voluntary sectors. We do not want to devalue the importance of an increasingly professional voluntary sector; nor the need for its employees to be properly paid and to enjoy full pension provision. Nevertheless, increased rates of volunteering are essential if we are to build a culture of active citizenship and if we are to expand the sector’s capacity to reach vulnerable people. Many people struggling with addiction, loneliness or low self-esteem desperately need the reliable care of another human being and that cannot be provided by overloaded caseworkers. Conservatives want to encourage the voluntary and public sectors to greater consideration of what volunteers might bring to their work.

    That’s our vision for volunteering, but is it achievable? In particular, can we really hope to see an expansion in the number of volunteers at a time when many voluntary organisations, especially those involved in partnerships with the public sector, are taking on more paid staff?

    The experience of other nations is instructive. According to research carried out by the Comparative Non-Profit Sector Project, the world’s volunteering superstars are the Swedes. And yet in terms of paid employment, Sweden has one of the least developed voluntary sectors in the western world. It is also the case that Swedish state dominates public service provision, with next to no role for the voluntary sector. From the Swedish experience we might conclude that a professional voluntary sector and partnership with the public sector is incompatible with a flourishing culture of volunteering. However, if one then looks at Holland, which comes second only to Sweden in volunteering levels, one would have to come to exactly the opposite conclusions. Not only does Holland have the highest level of paid non-statutory, non-commercial employment in the world, it also has public services in which voluntary organisations play an extensive role.

    Britain is more like Holland in that it has high levels of both paid and unpaid third sector employment, though not quite as high. And it is more like Sweden, in that the voluntary sector has a limited role in the public sector, though not quite as limited. If Britain were to move to Dutch levels of voluntary sector participation in the public services, paid voluntary sector employment would be sure to be boosted accordingly – but what would happen to volunteering?

    As I said earlier, the work of volunteers is one of the good reasons why the voluntary sector should play a bigger role in the provision of public services. However, it also provides a very bad reason. Volunteers are unpaid and therefore the danger is that partnership with the voluntary sector could be seen as a way of providing public services on the cheap. I don’t have to tell you how damaging this would be to all concerned. Indeed, nothing could be more guaranteed to kill the culture of volunteering in this country than its exploitation by an unscrupulous government.

    However, there is an equal danger that partnership between the two sectors will proceed without significant involvement from volunteers. This is just what has happened in the former East Germany following reunification with the west, where public service reforms boosted levels of paid voluntary sector employment, but left volunteering not much stronger than it was in the Communist era.

    Not only would this deprive our public services of the contribution that volunteering can make. It would also compromise the whole approach to the third sector. Volunteers keep voluntary organisations focused on their grassroots, an invaluable anchor in all circumstances, but especially in situations of partnership with the state – where the temptation can be to fix on centres of political and bureaucratic power. This temptation is understandable when projects depend on the continuing good will of the powers that be, but a voluntary sector that loses touch with its grassroots is well on the way to losing its independence too.

    I would like to offer two solutions. One general and one specific.

    Our general solution is the decentralisation of the public services. By returning power to the frontline providers and users of our public services, we will radically reduce the power of politicians and bureaucrats to pull the strings – whether from the town hall or from Whitehall. This isn’t so much a single policy, but an entire platform on which we will base our appeal to the nation at the next election. Indeed, it is more than a platform, it is our purpose as a Party.

    Obviously, our decentralisation platform is not aimed at the voluntary sector alone, but it would be of enormous benefit to the voluntary organisations. By giving users a greater choice of service providers, and making sure that funding followed those choices, we would multiply the opportunities for voluntary sector involvement. And by making service providers primarily accountable to local users, rather than to political and bureaucratic hierarchies, we would enable voluntary organisations to maintain their independence.

    Our specific solution is to make sure that some of these bottom-up funding streams are devoted to the expansion and development of volunteering. Our green paper, Sixty Million Citizens, includes an outline proposal for the creation of what we call a “volunteer bounty”. That is, a simple and straightforward per capita payment for each volunteer signed up to an accredited training programme. We would very much welcome your continued feedback on this proposal, but we believe that it would be a much better way of distributing public funds than the current top-down bureaucracy – whose flaws have been amply demonstrated by the Experience Corps debacle.

    In the words of Iain Duncan Smith: “The alternative to a bigger state is not… a lonely individualism. The centralised state and Darwinian individualism are, in fact, natural accomplices in the undermining of society. Both cut people loose from the institutions that provide identity and personal security. The real alternative to a bigger state is a stronger society. Chris Patten once talked of a smaller state and bigger citizens. Government should be focused on strengthening the natural institutions of society – and not replacing or undermining them.”

    Likewise, Government should be focused on strengthening volunteering – and not replacing or undermining volunteers.

  • David Lidington – 2003 Speech on a Fair Deal for the Dairy Industry

    David Lidington – 2003 Speech on a Fair Deal for the Dairy Industry

    The speech made by David Lidington, the then Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on 17 September 2003.

    The Dairy Industry is going through a period of drastic and painful change.

    The rules of the market place are changing in three significant ways. First, we are seeing the gradual opening up of world trade and the dismantling of production subsidies.

    Despite the failure of the WTO talks in Cancun, the world looks almost certain to continue moving, albeit hesitantly and erratically, towards the further liberalisation of international markets.

    The enlargement of the European Union from 15 to 25 members will lead to an increase of about one fifth in total EU milk production and more vigorous competition for British producers in some of our traditional export markets.

    Together, enlargement and the push towards global free trade are bringing change to the Common Agricultural Policy. The need to limit the overall CAP budget and the growing political pressure from churches and charities to help developing countries will, in my view, lead to export subsidies being reduced or phased out all together.

    Second, the structure of the food industry is changing. Retailing is already dominated by a handful of big players and I hope that the sale of Safeway does not lead to a further reduction in the number of national supermarket chains. Meanwhile, both catering and food processing are following the pattern already set by the retail industry. Both sectors are consolidating, giving us a market with fewer big players and fewer food factories.

    Third, customers’ demands and shopping habits are changing. I welcome the rise of farmers’ markets and internet sales of food but the figure that leaps out of the Curry Report is that more than 95 per cent of us do our main shopping at a supermarket. Customers value the convenience, price and variety that the big retailers offer and I see little prospect of that changing.

    More people live on their own, in most couples both partners work. Fewer people are willing to make time to prepare fresh food. The demand for ready-to-eat meals is rising.

    If we look at dairying, figures from the Institute of Grocery Distribution show that demand for traditional dairy products – full fat milk and cheddar cheese – is static or declining. The growth in demand is for value added products, for skimmed milk, yoghurt and fromage frais.

    There is a market for speciality products – I want to be the first in the queue for cheese like Llanboidy or Stinking Bishop. And there is a demand for novelty foods. When I read about the prospect of Tandoori flavoured cheddar, I want to run a mile. But it does actually offer the possibility of a new market for British dairy producers.

    What should politicians do to help dairy farmers to meet these various challenges?

    I want to see British farmers make profits. The job of government should be to help make it possible for them to do so.

    That doesn’t mean that politicians should be taking business decisions. Governments have a dire record of picking winners in business. Not even the brightest and best in Whitehall or Brussels is likely to be able to tell you which cheese or ice cream is about to become the customers favourite. Farmers, not civil servants, let alone politicians, have the enterprise and ingenuity to produce the food that customers will want to buy. That is why I believe that the future lies in a world where farmers are free to respond to the signals from their customers rather than those from government. The duty of government is to help create the economic conditions in which farm businesses can prosper.

    I believe that government should be fighting to get a fair deal for British agriculture in the EU and the WTO, that we should make changes to the home market to give domestic producers a better chance and that we should be helping farmers to cut their costs by a different approach to regulation and determined action against disease.

    We are meeting just a couple of days after the collapse of the Cancun negotiations and before the Trade Secretary has made any statement to Parliament about the reasons for that failure. So it is difficult to speak with any certainty about what is likely to happen next, though I can truthfully claim to have expressed doubts ever since the Luxembourg Agreement that the partial and incomplete decoupling regime agreed then by the EU would be sufficient to secure progress at the WTO.

    There are two things in particular that I regard as important in further WTO talks. The first is that the burden of making concessions to help the poorest countries in the world should be shared fairly amongst all the developed nations. For once, American rhetoric about free trade needs to be matched by American practice. Second, we have to find a way in which to write animal welfare into the rules governing international trade so that our producers do not suffer on account of the welfare standards that we as a society impose upon them.

    When it comes to the Mid Term Review, I support the principle that the link between farm support and production should be broken. But I am worried that the concessions made to France and others in terms of both the timing and the scale of decoupling may lead to market distortions and the fact that “degressivity” has now been renamed “financial discipline” cannot conceal the fact that British farmers are going to be expected to pay a disproportionately large share of the costs of CAP reform.

    However, the priority now must be for the Government to announce clear decisions on how it plans to implement what was agreed at Luxembourg. Whatever its flaws, that is the deal to which the Government has signed up and it is vital that farmers are told how they will stand under the new support arrangements.

    If decoupling is to come in as early as 2005, farmers need to take decisions by the end of this year in order to plan their businesses. Uncertainty over the precise implications of the Mid Term Review is causing turbulence in the quota market (already in some turmoil following the Thomsen case) and in the market for land. People need to know what the new rules mean for them.

    The Government also needs to come clean about cost compliance. One of the big attractions of decoupling is that it will sweep away a lot of form filling and red tape. That will be of little account if we simply substitute a host of new rules in the name of the environment. Nor is it clear how the standards required of farmers under cross compliance will relate to those that will have to be met to get into the “broad and shallow” environmental payments scheme.

    One further point about Europe – with the end of OTMS, it is vital that DEFRA makes it a priority to campaign for the lifting of the date based export scheme to ease the pressure on the home market. I was dismayed to read that Health Ministers are stalling over whether to implement the recommendation from the Food Standards Agency that to allow Over 30 Month beef back into the food chain. That kind of hesitation will only give ammunition to those on the Continent who want to maintain export restrictions.

    When it comes to the domestic market, I know that the chief concern amongst dairy farmers is that the farm gate price of milk often does not even cover the cost of production, let alone give you a decent return.

    Those worries have undoubtedly been made worse by the collapse of United Milk. I think that it is in everyone’s interest that the receivers are able to sell United Milk as a going concern and I hope that the business remains in the hands of farmers themselves. A takeover by one of the other cooperatives would of course raise issues of market share and it is vital that the OFT recognises the need of the industry and does not block a merger on competition grounds. The last thing that we need is a “Son of Milk Marque” judgement.

    We will need to look at the implications of last week’s ruling from the ECJ but I am already persuaded that we need to overhaul the competition rules as they affect farmers’ cooperatives. If British farmers want to follow the path of the profitable cooperatives that we see in New Zealand or on the continent, they should be free to do so. If politicians tell farmers that we expect you to compete in a European and global market place, then our competition rules should be framed to take account of that fact rather than looking solely at domestic market share.

    We also need stricter rules on labelling. A British shopper should be able to tell instantly whether the food she is buying came from British producers or not. I acknowledge that there are practical issues to be worked out over processed foods that contain ingredients from a number of different countries. But the current situation, where food can be grown abroad, processed here and still labelled as “UK” is unfair to our farmers and amounts to fraud on consumers.

    At a time when dairying is going through a traumatic recession, government should be making every conceivable effort to reduce the costs that it imposes on farmers. Too often that is not the case. Regulations are agreed and imposed without adequate thought being given to the practical, including the financial, implications. We all know the examples: nitrate vulnerable zones, fallen stock, not to mention the sheer incompetence of the Rural Payments Agency. Even after the Government had conceded the principle of a ban on the burial of fallen stock, it could have used exemptions and derogations to allow time for an alternative system of disposal to be put in place. Ministers agreed to delay the implementation of the Animal By-products Regulation for waste food from retailers. It should have done the same. Other countries were more ingenious. The Spaniards even secured a derogation to allow carcasses to be left on the hills as a conservation measure to preserve vultures!

    We could all draw up our list of regulations that we would like to see repealed or amended. But more important still I believe is to bring about a change in the whole culture of regulation in this country. We need much earlier consultation with industry, much more effective scrutiny by Parliament (especially of secondary legislation), an end to the gold plating of Brussels’ Directives. We need sunset clauses embodied in new rules so that they lapse automatically after a given period unless renewed. That way, we give everyone the chance to assess how the rules have worked out in practice and to make changes.

    We need to end the duplication of forms and inspections that waste hours of time that would be better used running your business and winning customers. Government should adopt a risk-based approach to regulation. It is not necessary to monitor and inspect every enterprise every single year. Different agencies should make use of the same body of information and not insist on sending out their own special list of questions and tick boxes. A single set of data for each farm business, filed on line, could surely be interrogated by the different regulatory bodies and remove the need for much of the paperwork.

    The other issue raised with me at every meeting I have had with dairy farmers has been Bovine Tuberculosis. This is now developing into as great a threat as Foot and Mouth Disease. The latest figures show that 4,200 herds were under restriction during the first half of this year. More than 15,000 beasts have been slaughtered. In 2002 the cost of TB to taxpayers was between 80 and 90 million pounds and while that figure included compensation payments it did not cover the costs borne by farmers through the disruption of their businesses. This year, those costs will be much higher.

    There are still more than 3,000 herd tests overdue. It must be a top priority to eliminate that backlog altogether and to ensure that reactors are quickly removed from the farm.

    Restocking after Foot and Mouth was almost certainly responsible for bringing Bovine TB into Cumbria. I think we will need firm rules on testing both before and after movement to avoid such a thing happening again.

    We have to revisit the issue of culling. Yes, the way in which disease is transmitted between wildlife and cattle is complex and still not wholly understood. But the Irish evidence is clear. Culling, in combination with other disease control measures, can bring about a big reduction in the incidence of TB. There are now disturbing reports that TB is found, not just in the badger population, but amongst deer on Exmoor and in the New Forest.

    On both economic and animal welfare grounds, this situation should not be allowed to continue. Where there is clear scientific evidence that local wildlife has become infected with TB, the government should be prepared to authorise culling of the diseased populations.

    The long term answer has to come through developing effective vaccines. This needs to move to the top of DEFRA’s research agenda and when the Irish Government is carrying out field trials on a BCG vaccine for wildlife we should be saying to Dublin that we would like to take part in that experiment.

    The Dairy Industry is going through a time of great difficulty and challenge. No politician could come to this event and say truthfully that he, or for that matter any government of any political colour, had all the answers. But I believe there are initiatives that Ministers could and should take to show dairy farmers that their government is on their side and will fight to get them a fair deal in a rapidly changing world.

  • Iain Duncan Smith – 2003 Speech at the Chartered Insurers Institute Conference

    Iain Duncan Smith – 2003 Speech at the Chartered Insurers Institute Conference

    The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, on 18 September 2003.

    The new political year has just begun.

    And I can almost hear you groan!

    Well, the outlook from 10 Downing Street is certainly bleak.

    The Labour Party is divided from top to bottom:

    …on Iraq and relations with the United States…

    …on the euro and relations with the European Union…

    …on foundation hospitals, tuition fees, and the whole direction of public service reform.

    Throughout Whitehall, political will has been replaced by political infighting.

    Ministers’ commitment to their country has been replaced by concern for their jobs.

    And that concern is valid.

    The Hutton Inquiry has exposed to the public’s view the inner workings of this Government.

    And the public have had enough of it.

    However, I do not intend to make a speech about the immediate difficulties of the Government.

    Beyond all the serious charges in the Hutton Inquiry…

    … – Hoon versus Gilligan, Blair and the mistreatment of Dr Kelly – …

    …there are the serious failures of this Government that affect the everyday lives of the British people.

    Labour’s mismanagement of the economy is one of its least reported failures.

    It is under-reported because the growing weaknesses of the UK economy, are growing beneath the surface.

    Like an iceberg we can only see the tip of the uncompetitiveness and supply side rigidities that Labour is creating.

    Last year, business investment fell at its fastest rate for nearly 40 years.

    Manufacturing is losing 10,000 jobs a month, without gaining in competitiveness:

    …we have had a trade deficit in each and every month since August 1997.

    The UK stock market has fallen – and fallen further and faster than in other advanced countries.

    Since May 1997, the FTSE 100 has been outperformed by the Dow Jones by over 40 per cent…

    …and by the French stock market by over 30 per cent.

    GDP growth has slowed…

    …and Gordon Brown’s forecasts may well prove over-optimistic for a third time in a row.

    Next March, with falling tax receipts squeezing his spending programmes, the Chancellor will face a dilemma:

    He can choose more tax and borrowing, or – for the first time – he can choose real reform to the public services.

    I have an idea which he will go for.

    The most striking feature of our economy since 1997, of course, is the increase in the burden of tax.

    There have been sixty tax rises since Labour came to power.

    Since 1997…

    …the overall tax take has increased by 50%…

    …and as I reminded the Prime Minister in Parliament yesterday, that includes a 70% rise in Council Tax…

    …the savings ratio has fallen by 50%…

    …and the amount of the average personal pension has also fallen by 50%.

    It is not plausible to claim – as Gordon Brown does – that these facts are unrelated.

    High taxation damages the economy and erodes the incentive to save.

    Households now put aside less than 5% of their income for the future.

    This is hardly surprising.

    Gordon Brown has imposed a five billion pounds a year tax on pensions.

    The withdrawal of the dividend tax credit has imposed a downward pressure on equities…

    …further eroding the value of pensions invested in the stock market.

    And the unstoppable advance of the means-test, higher and higher up the income scale…

    …has seen the incentive to save grow smaller and smaller.

    According to the New Economics Foundation, British citizens on average owe 120% of their disposable incomes – at a time when real take-home pay is actually falling.

    In seeking to boost saving, it is important that savings and investment products are properly explained and marketed.

    I am glad that the Financial Services Authority is turning its attention to financial promotions…

    …though I hope that statutory regulation will not be necessary.

    We have had enough of that already.

    Membership organisations like the Chartered Insurance Institute…

    …which has been setting professional standards for financial services for over a hundred years…

    …are often better placed to monitor best practice than Government is.

    And I strongly commend the work you are doing alongside the FSA to improve professional practice.

    The central plank of our election platform is that Conservatives offer a fair deal for everyone.

    You will hear a lot about that fair deal in the coming months – and I would like briefly to outline what we mean by it.

    Earlier this week I addressed an important Conservative conference on poverty.

    I pointed out that economic inequality has widened since Labour took office.

    And that over the last five decades – the life of the welfare state – upward social mobility has become harder, not easier.

    Labour has failed to tackle poverty.

    Conservatives have a different way.

    We want a society in which no-one is left behind – where no-one has to put up with second-rate housing or education or healthcare.

    And we want a society in which no-one is held back from realising their potential.

    That includes entrepreneurs – the people who create the wealth which Governments tax and redistribute.

    You are the agents of social justice in this country.

    You are the people this country depends on for a better and fairer future.

    But Labour has hurt wealth creation.

    The sad fact is that productivity growth has halved since 1997.

    The combined cost of Labour’s tax and red tape has been estimated by the CBI at £15 billion a year.

    And as Digby Jones of the CBI commented recently, business people feel, and I quote:

    “that the most dominant feature of running a business [today]… is no longer creating wealth – it is dealing with regulations.”

    So when Conservatives talk about a fair deal they mean a fair deal for everyone:

    …for the poor, trapped in poverty…

    …for the taxpayer, denied value for money…

    …and for business people, taxed and regulated to despair.

    These are not contradictory messages.

    They are a single message.

    A fair deal for everyone.

    How will we go about delivering the fair deal?

    As far as your industry is concerned, we urgently need to revive the culture of long-term responsibility – the culture of saving.

    That is why we propose what we have called the Lifetime Savings Account.

    This would allow people to save in an escrow account with the benefit of a matching Government contribution.

    They could withdraw the money if they needed it, and re-invest at a later date without sacrificing the Government contribution.

    But this country also needs sounder economic foundations.

    I should emphasise that we cannot, at this stage, anticipate the economic situation in two or three years’ time.

    But Conservatives will always be a lower tax party than Labour.

    In order to achieve this, the first thing we must do is tackle the problem of high taxation at its root –

    …the culture of profligacy and waste which is found in our unreformed public services.

    The Chancellor likes to boast of his ‘investment’ in our schools and hospitals.

    But as we know all too well, most of the Government’s public expenditure is not ‘investment’ at all.

    It is spending to stand still.

    Inputs rise, but outputs remain the same.

    Figures from the Office of National Statistics show Government’s current spending has increased by 50% since 1997…

    …but that the value of Government outputs has increased by only 15%.

    Since Labour came to power, public service productivity has actually declined by 5%.

    This is most evident in the NHS.

    Since 1999 we have seen a 22 per cent increase in health spending, but a meagre 1.6 per cent increase in the number of patients treated…

    …and an actual fall – of half a per cent – in the number of hospital admissions.

    These figures pre-date this year’s National Insurance rise, which has fallen especially hard on large employers like the NHS.

    Labour are taxing… spending… wasting… and failing.

    We must reverse this trend, and improve the efficiency of our public services.

    And by reforming them, Conservatives will provide proper value for taxpayers’ money, and make savings which can be returned to the people.

    I want to end with a word on the euro.

    On Sunday Sweden rejected the single currency.

    Not a single country has yet endorsed the euro in a referendum.

    I believe that after the Swedish vote the prospects for a referendum in this Parliament are remote.

    Of course, if we win the next election, the prospects for a referendum in the next Parliament will be non-existent.

    And that is why I urge the business community to support us in that election.

    Many of you will have a different view from me on the single currency.

    But I hope you agree that what the British economy needs most is certainty.

    Mr Blair is incapable of providing it.

    He has promised his colleagues in Europe that he will call a referendum.

    But he knows that he would lose it if he did so.

    So there is only one alternative route for him – the route he always chooses.

    The route of the third way: ambivalence.

    Ambiguity.

    Calculated indecision.

    One Cabinet minister authorised to say one thing, another instructed to say the opposite.

    Well, that might be the way the Labour Party operates.

    But after six years of mixed messages and confusion, the British people, and British businesses in particular, are entitled to a little certainty.

    They will get it with the Conservative Party.

  • Iain Duncan Smith – 2003 Speech to the Scottish Conservative Party Conference

    Iain Duncan Smith – 2003 Speech to the Scottish Conservative Party Conference

    The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, on 20 September 2003.

    It’s great to be back in Scotland.

    Betsy and I had three wonderful weeks with the children here in the summer.

    I could say we came to support the British tourist industry.

    In fact we came because we just love Scotland.

    The Prime Minister spent his holiday abroad.

    After all, he can’t enjoy being in Britain much these days.

    There are lots of things he probably wants to get away from.

    The damning questions of the Hutton Inquiry…

    …the failure of his policies on health and education…

    …his own party – and Mr Cook and Ms Short in particular…

    And his oldest friend, the man next door who wants his job.

    Over the summer I watched the David Kelly tragedy unfold with growing horror.

    In response to Dr Kelly’s death a panicked Tony Blair established the Hutton Inquiry.

    I welcome Lord Hutton’s work and I hope it will help Dr Kelly’s family to understand a little more about why this dedicated civil servant lost his life.

    We called for a judicial inquiry and I, today, restate that demand for a desperately needed investigation into the many questions that the

    Hutton Inquiry does not have the authority to answer.

    Particularly Labour’s alleged manipulation of the pre-war dossiers presented to Parliament.

    I will not anticipate the outcome of the Hutton Inquiry but it has already done the British people a great service.

    It has exposed the deceitful and manipulative way that this Labour Government works.

    This Government has been confirmed as the most closed, secretive and downright dishonest Government of my lifetime.

    It took the death of a senior public servant to shine a light into the deepest and darkest workings of Tony Blair’s government.

    First Mr Blair denied having anything to do with the public naming of Dr Kelly and was then forced to admit that he chaired the meetings at which the exposure strategy was devised.

    But there have been many other shameful episodes in the history of New Labour.

    I think of the way the Paddington train crash survivors were bullied and the attempt to use the tragedy of September 11th as a good day to bury bad news.

    I remember the Eccelestone, Mittalgate, Hinduja and Bristol flat affairs.

    Labour’s culture of spin and deceit is destroying the British public’s faith in the democratic process.

    Peter Mandelson, Alistair Campbell and Stephen Byers have been rightly blamed for contributing to this culture.

    But it is not enough for each of them to have resigned.

    Tony Blair appointed and directed all of these people.

    Only with his departure from Downing Street will the culture of lies be shut down for good.

    That’s why Tony Blair should go and go now.

    I’ve always thought that Tony Blair’s support was as wide as his grin and as shallow as his record.

    And on Thursday – in Brent – voters abandoned Labour in their droves.

    They abandoned Labour because they saw through the veneer and saw Tony Blair’s record of rising crime and failing public services.

    Let me make it absolutely clear: Thursday night was a disastrous night for the Labour government and Tony Blair. A good night for us all who have opposed him.

    We watched as the Liberal Democrats used the usual tricks, of course, faithful to the words of their secret campaign handbook: ‘Be wicked. Act Shamelessly. Stir endlessly.’

    But this week something else happened, which was different and dramatic.

    The Liberal Democrats made a strategic blunder.

    The lie that the Liberal Democrats are a moderate party of the centre was exposed like never before.

    I am determined that the campaign which won them Brent will lose them seats all over Britain at the next election.

    Charles Kennedy, in a desperate attempt to shore up his own position, attacked Labour from the left in Brent.

    The result is that people who voted for Red Ken Livingstone in the 1980s are now voting for the Liberal Democrats.

    As our vote held up, we saw a move from Left to Left.

    The Liberal Democrats talk about honesty in politics.

    But they are a Left-wing party who pretend to be moderate when it suits them.

    In Brent East, Labour voters were honest about wanting to punish this government.

    And so they voted for a party that wants even higher tax than Labour.

    Even more spending.

    That is opposed to any attempt to toughen up Labour’s failing and chaotic asylum system.

    That will weaken our criminal justice system by not jailing first time burglars.

    And of course, that wants to scrap the pound.

    Oh yes ….. The Liberal Democrats are a left wing party – proof positive is that here in Scotland, they work alongside the Labour Party in a joint administration.

    But not just that.

    At their party conference next week, Liberals want to abolish the monarchy, ban smacking, and impose compulsory sex education for seven year-olds.

    These are offensive policies.

    The idea that Thursday night’s result in Brent suggests the Lib Dems are now the main party of opposition is nonsense.

    Brent wasn’t the only by-election on Thursday – throughout the country as many people voted in council by-elections as voted in Brent.

    And the Conservatives won 45% of the vote to Labour’s 25% and the Lib Dems’ 16%.

    And let me remind you that on May 1st, the Conservatives won control of more councils in a single night than the Lib Dems control at all and became the largest party in local government.

    And in Scotland in May the party made great progress in the elections for the Scottish Parliament. We are on the move.

    And I have a message for “Hurricane Charlie”. Hurricanes spin round and round, making a lot of noise but they leave havoc in their wake and always blow themselves out.

    We should also recognise that at last the Lib Dems said in public what we have known in private for too long.

    From now on, they cannot have it both ways.

    The party of Brent East cannot be the party of Newbury, Guildford, and Aberdeenshire West.

    The voters of those places, and others as well, will now recognize the Liberal Democrats’ deceit and double standards.

    The defeat for the Labour Government is good news. We should all celebrate the fact that the electorate have punished Mr Blair.

    And it is our job to remind them endlessly of the Liberal Democrats who won Brent East and ensure they never vote Liberal Democrat again.

    I’m pretty used to Labour and the Liberals joining forces – I see it most weeks at Prime Minister’s Questions.

    In Scotland the combination has been disastrous.

    Just look at the public services since 1999.

    The number of people on NHS waiting lists has risen by a quarter.

    Two thousand more NHS administrators.

    600 less beds.

    25 per cent more violent crime.

    37 per cent more drug crime.

    Half of all 14 year-olds not meeting the expected standards for reading or writing.

    The number of assaults on teachers up an appalling 700 per cent – because of the Executive’s ludicrous refusal to exclude disruptive pupils.

    That is the record of Labour and the Liberals in Scotland.

    So forget about the third party.

    And forget about the third way.

    Throughout Britain there are only two ways of doing things.

    You can centralise the public services, tax and tax the public to pay for them, and blame everybody else when things go wrong.

    Or you can give both power and responsibility to the people in the front line:

    …the professionals who provide our public services and the citizens who use them.

    That’s a real devolution of power…

    …the kind of ‘devolution’ the Scottish people deserve.

    Next month, in Blackpool, our party will show that we are ready to govern again.

    You’ll see the first draft of the manifesto we will present to the British people at the next general election.

    I want to run through the outlines of that manifesto with you today.

    Even in the devolved areas of policy, I know David and his team are working along similar lines to the party in Westminster.

    Britain used to have a health service and an education system as good as any in the world.

    Sadly, in neither case can we be so confident anymore.

    It’s not that we don’t have excellent heads, inspiring teachers or dedicated doctors and nurses.

    We do.

    And I pay tribute to their dedication and professionalism.

    But the structures these professionals work in suffer chronic levels of bureaucracy.

    Staff are undermined and underrated.

    Neither teachers nor doctors are free to practice their vocations, to follow their training and use their experience in the service of the people.

    According to Mr Blair, their experience counts for nothing.

    Their commitment and knowledge of the children, the patients, the communities they serve, counts for nothing in Labour’s Scotland, Labour’s Britain.

    What counts, said Mr Blair, is what works.

    He means what works for him, and his electoral fortunes.

    Labour’s basic, governing belief is what I call Total Politics.

    For New Labour, everything that ever happens in every school, every hospital and every police force must be directed, supervised and controlled from the centre.

    Conservatives, both north and south, have a different vision from Labour.

    We’ll put parents and patients in charge of the services they receive.

    And that means we’ll give them choice.

    I want to be very clear what I mean by choice.

    I do not mean the choice of the high street.

    I do not expect parents and patients to shop around for a school or clinic, the way they shop around for a holiday or a television.

    There is a profound difference between choice in the marketplace and choice in the public services.

    Choice in the marketplace means variety and abundance….

    Choice in public services means a guarantee – and peace of mind.

    It means that you are not stuck with second-rate services.

    It means you have an alternative if you need it.

    So when Conservatives say to people: We want you to have choice…

    …we do not mean, you’re on your own.

    We mean: we will fight to ensure…

    … that in the things that matter…

    … – in your family’s healthcare and education – …

    …we will be by your side.

    We will enable patients to receive their treatment anywhere in the health service…

    …and if decent treatment is not available in the NHS, we will assist them to go private.

    And in the inner cities, we will give parents the right to take their children’s education to the school of their choice.

    We will fight to ensure…

    …that no-one is held back by a lack of opportunity…

    … and no-one is left behind by a lack of compassion.

    With choice for the users of public services, we can give freedom to the providers.

    In healthcare, we will trust our hospitals to the people we trust our lives to: the people who work in them.

    Doctors will follow clinical priorities, not political guidelines.

    In education, Scottish Conservatives won’t tell schools what to do.

    We will give them the freedom they need to cater to local demand.

    We will encourage a greater choice of specialist schools, including faith and Steiner schools.

    And because children only get one chance at education…

    …we will restore discipline in schools.

    We will give head teachers the power to exclude violent or disruptive pupils who make learning impossible for everybody else.

    In higher education, we will give universities and colleges back their freedom.

    Independent institutions, dedicated to pursuing excellence not government targets.

    And we will abolish the Lib-Lab graduate tax.

    The Liberals like to peddle the fiction that there are no tuition fees in Scotland.

    What you really have are fees paid through the tax system at a later date.

    Combining income tax, national insurance and graduate tax, young Scottish graduate earning just £10,000 a year will be paying an effective marginal tax rate of 42%.

    In England and Wales, Labour want to introduce extra fees, on top of the tuition fees they’ve already imposed.

    Another one of Labour’s broken promises.

    Of course, top-up fees and graduate taxes amount to the same thing.

    A tax on learning.

    Almost the first thing we do will be to pay the tuition costs of all students in Scotland.

    And we will increase the value of the student loan to £5,000 a year.

    We will guarantee access to higher education solely on merit.

    And in England and Wales we will scrap the top-up fees.

    My visit to the Gallowgate estate in Glasgow was one of many I have made to hard-pressed communities since I became leader.

    The places and people have been different, but the problems are the same.

    Dependency, drugs, crime.

    The breakdown of family and community in the face of unbearable pressure.

    Everywhere the sense of hopelessness which is the unmistakable mark of real poverty.

    All these communities had one other thing in common.

    They’ve been ruled by Labour for as long as anyone can remember.

    By Labour councils.

    And a Labour Executive.

    Labour policies.

    And Labour results.

    But blaming Labour isn’t good enough.

    We have to deliver policies that will make a difference.

    If Gallowgate shames us, it also inspires us.

    In the midst of despair there is hope.

    Local people, abandoned by government, are finding their own solutions.

    Community groups are succeeding where the politicians have failed.

    But they do need the help of politicians – because we might not have the solutions to local problems…

    … but we have the money, and we have the power, to remove obstacles and make local solutions really take off.

    As one remarkable woman from the Gallowgate Family Support Group told me:

    “We don’t need more politics.

    “We need more hope.

    “Just give us hope and we will do the rest.”

    And that’s what I will do.

    So where do we start?

    We start by taking back the streets for the law abiding citizen.

    We start by winning back the estates from the muggers and the drug dealers.

    We start by getting the police back on the beat.

    Because there can be no end to poverty without a start to security.

    Figures from the Executive show that, on average, there are only 138 police officers out on foot patrol in the whole of Scotland.

    Conservatives believe in visible, effective, neighbourhood policing.

    That’s why in England and Wales we have pledged to put 40,000 additional police where they are needed the most – on our streets.

    And why under a Conservative Government here in Scotland there would be more money to fight crime and keep you safe in your communities.

    David …..

    We believe in getting persistent offenders off the streets.

    And we believe in fast track prosecution and stiffer sentencing for drug dealers.

    Because the fight against crime and the fight against drugs are one and the same.

    Since 1999, drug deaths have increased by 70%.

    Every day in Scotland, a life is lost to drugs.

    That is the legacy of Labour’s “Know the Score” strategy.

    Conservatives, north and south, are united behind a different approach.

    United behind the parents and grandparents of the Gallowgate Family Support Group.

    As Annabel Goldie says

    “addicts need to be faced with a stark “tough love” choice between immediate and effective rehabilitation or the full force of the law.”

    We will give those addicts that choice.

    And that is how we will give hope to their families.

    In delivering a fair deal for the broken communities of our nation, we will never punish the prosperous.

    That is Labour’s way.

    When Conservatives talk about a fair deal we mean a fair deal for everyone:

    …for the poor, trapped in poverty…

    …for the taxpayer, denied value for money…

    …for the elderly, denied a decent pension…

    …and for business people, taxed and regulated to despair.

    These are not contradictory messages.

    They become one message.

    A fair deal for everyone.

    Since Tony Blair promised ‘we have no plans to increase tax’, Gordon Brown has imposed sixty tax rises on the British people.

    This week, I forced the Prime Minister to admit that Council Tax in England and Wales has risen by 70% since he came to power.

    In Scotland, the increase has been less fast, but still an enormous 42%.

    Poor pensioners are paying almost a tenth of their incomes in Council Tax.

    And what are we seeing for all these increases?

    Certainly not the improvements we all so desperately want.

    Public sector productivity has actually declined since 1997…

    … but taxes keep on climbing, and taking money which people need to save and invest.

    Since 1997…

    …the overall tax take has increased by half…

    … but household saving is down by half.

    Spending on public services has increased by 50 per cent…

    …but the volume of public services we receive has increased by only 15 per cent.

    But at the same time there has been a fall of 5% fall in productivity.

    In the health service, Labour has spent 22% more money in the last three years.

    But less than 2% more patients are being treated.

    And today we hear we are to be asked to pay 5p more tax for a gallon of petrol.

    That is Labour’s record.

    Taxing.

    Spending.

    Wasting.

    Failing.

    The next Conservative government will be different.

    We will reform our public services so they deliver value for money for taxpayers.

    By eliminating waste and by getting more money to the front line of our public services, we will deliver better public services…

    … and, let me be absolutely clear, we will be a lower tax Government than Labour.

    Down in Westminster, Scottish politics sometimes gets overlooked.

    There are a lot of Scottish MPs, of course.

    Half the Cabinet seem to come from north of the border.

    But don’t kid yourself that this Government pays a lot of attention to Scotland.

    This summer’s botched reshuffle saw the Secretary of State’s position abolished, then reinstated.

    The plaque removed from the building, then screwed back on.

    And we end up with the job being done on a part-time basis by the Transport Secretary.

    It’s not as if Alistair Darling hasn’t got enough to be getting on with – sorting out the chaos on our roads and railways!

    Well at my Shadow Cabinet table Jacqui Lait is a powerful advocate for the interests of Scotland.

    Thank you Jacqui for all you do.

    If this Government insults the office of the Secretary of State, that is nothing to the way it insults the Scottish regiments.

    Throughout the history of the Union, Scotsmen formed the backbone of the British Army.

    My father used to tell me stories of the great battles fought by Scottish regiments in defence of the United Kingdom and its interests.

    Battles like Waterloo and Balaclava and through both world wars all noble monuments to the bravery of the Scottish regiments.

    I was proud to serve in the Scots Guards.

    I am deeply troubled that the Government is considering further disbandments.

    An attack on the Scottish regiments is an attack on the Union.

    An attack that Scottish Conservatives must repel.

    I am appalled by the false economies this Government is always trying to make at our armed forces’ expense.

    I know that the army is a costly asset.

    But we will not save taxpayers money by weakening the defences of the United Kingdom.

    Nor will we fulfill our responsibility to the environment by eroding our most precious national resources – I mean our stock of North Sea fish.

    As Ted Brocklebank said recently, Scotland has the richest fishing grounds in Europe…

    …and we have a duty, not only as Britons but as members of the European Union, to sustain this remarkable, renewable gift of nature for future generations.

    This duty is not being met by the Common Fisheries Policy.

    Over two million tonnes of healthy fish thrown back into the sea every year – and this is the how the EU tries to ‘conserve’ fish stocks.

    What nonsense.

    My commitment to conservation begins with the UK Government regaining control of UK waters.

    We will do this by negotiation if possible – by unilateral action if necessary.

    To those who say, you cannot withdraw from the CFP, I say: watch me.

    If Parliamentary sovereignty means anything, it means that.

    And while we are on that only the Conservative Party will campaign to give the British people a referendum on the European Constitution. Only the Conservative Party will give people the respect they deserve.

    Parliament is also supposed to be sovereign over our borders.

    But Labour’s asylum and immigration system is a disgrace.

    Conservatives will scrap that system lock, stock and barrel.

    We’ll make sure that all applications are processed offshore.

    No one will be allowed to sneak into this country illegally and then claim asylum.

    We will introduce a system based on quotas – so we, not the criminal gangs, decide how many people we receive and from where.

    We will fulfill Britain’s duty to genuine refugees but eliminate the waste, abuse and injustice of the present system.

    When Conservatives take office we will cut the number of asylum seekers entering Britain dramatically.

    And so as we near the next election, I want to set out two challenges to the party.

    First, I want us to take over from the Nationalists as the official opposition in Scotland.

    After all, as the only party on the centre-right, we’re the real opposition anyway.

    The only party to speak up for families, for businesses, and for the Union.

    Already the Scottish people are abandoning the other parties.

    The disintegration of Labour and the Nationalists is our opportunity.

    In the May elections we drew level with the Nationalists, and will now charge ahead to chase Labour’s lead.

    And I want to pay tribute to the man who is leading that charge – the directly-elected member for Edinburgh Pentlands: David McLetchie.

    David is an outstanding leader of the Scottish Conservatives.

    Don’t take it from me.

    The Times this week said that under David’s leadership, the Party has – I quote – “rediscovered a confidence and a voice that it has lacked since 1997”.

    I have every confidence in him and his team as he leads you towards the European elections next year and the general election whenever it is called.

    I have said before that a victory in the general election, without victories in Scotland, is not a complete victory.

    And I stand by those words.

    For this is the second challenge for the party across the United Kingdom.

    I mean victory at the general election.

    When I became leader two years ago I knew we had a mountain to climb.

    And halfway through the Parliament, the top is finally in sight.

    Trust in this Government has entirely seeped away.

    Trust in the Conservatives is returning.

    Back in 2001 I set my Shadow Cabinet team a task.

    To develop an analysis of Labour’s failure which would not just be a means of attacking the Government.

    But also be a plan for our Government.

    And I can tell you now that my team has delivered.

    Next month we will unveil policies in health, in education, in home affairs…

    …which will bring home to the British people the control over their lives that Labour has stolen.

    From now until the election I will be tireless.

    I will be tireless in exposing Labour’s failure.

    Tireless in speaking up for the victims of that failure.

    And tireless in campaigning for the Conservative solution for that failure.

    I know that you will be with me in this campaign.

    After 11 years, many defeats and huge difficulties we gather here today all of us knowing that it is different now.

    I do not stand here and tell you that victory is ours by right, it is not.

    I do not stand here and tell you that the next year and a half will be easy, it will not.

    However, I will tell you that for the first time in 11 years this party has at last earned the right to be heard.

    That the next year and a half is for the first time in far too many years a contest.

    Everyone of us is here today bound together by one strong and abiding belief that each and everyone of us loves our country.

    It brought me here and it sustains me.

    And I know that the British people are the most decent, determined and tolerant people that I have ever met anywhere.

    And I know that they are worth fighting for.

    That is our challenge.

    That is also our duty.

    To fight for the British people and to regain power for the British people.

    Together, united, focused and determined, come with me and let us show them that we are ready for government.

  • Iain Duncan Smith – 2003 Speech to the Carlton Club Political Dinner

    Iain Duncan Smith – 2003 Speech to the Carlton Club Political Dinner

    The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, on 23 September 2003.

    I know that we can win the next general election. And I want to tell you how.

    Today we are in the best position for eleven years…the largest and fastest growing party of local government, with levels of representation as high as in Labour’s winter of discontent in 1979.

    Tonight I want to explain how that has come about…how we will build on that to create a real lead over Labour by the next election.

    Already, people are sick and tired of Labour.

    The 70 per cent increase in council tax. Sixty new tax rises. Failing schools and hospitals. Rising gun crime. Labour’s lies about the war.

    But we also need to expose one of the biggest lies in British politics today.

    For too long, we’ve allowed the Liberal Democrats to get away with murder:

    …sending different messages to different groups.

    Pretending to Conservative voters that they are a moderate party and a suitable alternative to Labour.

    From Guildford to Hereford, from Newbury to Aberdeenshire, we need to remind voters what Liberal Democrats are saying in seats like Brent.

    On Saturday I made a strong attack on the Lib Dems. It wasn’t a tactic in response to Brent. But the beginning of a major campaign. A campaign we will take to every doorstep in Britain – and has already produced results on the front pages of the Sun and the Times. As those papers have proved, the Lib Dems are not moderates.

    In Brent, they campaigned on a platform of anti-Americanism and even higher public spending. At their conference this week, they are voting to abolish the monarchy, ban smacking and impose compulsory sex education for seven year-olds. They’ve moved from weak Left to loony Left. Red Kennedy isn’t an alternative to Tony Blair – he’s his echo.

    Blair’s soft on soft drugs – Kennedy’s soft on hard drugs too. He wants higher taxes, weaker asylum rules, fewer burglars in prison and an end to our national currency.

    Now I know that everyone here – and everyone in the wider Party – sees straight through Tony Blair and his government of liars and incompetents. We want him out today, and we can’t quite believe that he’s still in No. 10.

    But I have to tell you something. Not everyone in the country has felt like that for as long as we have. Most people have been willing to give Tony Blair the benefit of the doubt. But that has now changed. Most people now believe that Labour’s policy on the public services – the policy of throwing untold billions at them – is failing and will always fail.

    As we have seen over the summer, trust in Mr Blair has collapsed. And I can tell you that in the things which matter – on schools, hospitals, crime and transport – people are beginning to trust the Conservatives.

    People are disappointed and they are angry. And now the Conservatives must be their champions. Earlier this month we published Total Politics, a critique of Labour’s record of centralization of the public services. That paper contains the policy framework for the next Conservative government, a government committed to a fair deal for everyone.

    Next month at Blackpool, we will fill out the details of that framework. Policies to put parents and patients first…to return power to front-line professionals…and to deliver what Labour is congenitally incapable of delivering: taxpayer value for money.

    We’ve never been more advanced in the parliamentary cycle. We have the policies in place. We have the organization in place. And we have a full eighteen months to take the fight to the government. To convince people that there is an alternative to Labour. And at the same time – to finish off the Liberal Democrats.

    After 11 years, many defeats and huge difficulties we gather here today all of us knowing in our hearts that it is different now. That the prize is before us.

    But knowing it’s different is not enough. We need to want to win more strongly than anything else. We need to set aside all else but this. To wake up every morning with the sole and over-riding ambition to drive Tony Blair from office. I have that ambition. I know you do too.

  • David Willetts – 2003 Speech on Europe and the Atlantic

    David Willetts – 2003 Speech on Europe and the Atlantic

    The speech made by David Willetts, at the launch of the pamphlet ‘Old Europe’ on 23 September 2003.

    Despite this pamphlet’s rather grim title and the even grimmer photograph on the cover, this is not another bleak account of how we can’t afford our pensions because we are all living too long. Instead, it is an attempt to get beyond the financial analysis of the pension crisis to a deeper understanding of the demographic and social changes behind it. And actually I am quite optimistic that societies and economies can adjust and will carry on doing so. But what really matters is how they will adjust.

    The pamphlet begins by clearing away the widespread misconception that somehow the problem is that we are all living too long. It is good news that life expectancy is improving. These are not extra years of miserable incapacity; if anything we die fitter than before. Anyway life expectancy has been improving pretty steadily for 150 years. The problem is not longevity. The problem is that there are not enough young workers coming along behind. After the baby boom of the 1950s we have had the baby bust. Europe’s real demographic crisis is not longevity but birth rates.

    The biggest single reason for the golden years of growth in the 1980s and 1990s was that many European countries had a surge in the number of people of working age. We have had virtually no increase in the number of pensioners in Britain for 20 years and with falling birth rates we have had fewer children to maintain as well. The population has been bunched in the middle like a rabbit in a python. That means lots of producers and consumers and not many dependents. The fundamental economic change facing Europe over the next 50 years, is that the EU will have an extra 40 million people aged over 60 and an absolute reduction of 40 million in the number of people aged 15-60. The EU Commission has shown that this change in the age composition of the EU’s population will on its own reduce its underlying growth rate from 2.1% to 1.3% per annum. America faces a very different demographic prospect. It is a younger country with a higher birth rate and much more migration. Its underlying growth rate will carry on at about 2.5%. America’s population will overtake Europe’s in about 2030. In 2050 America’s economy will be an even bigger share of the world economy than it is today – perhaps up from 23% to 26%. Europe’s, by contrast, will have fallen from 18% to 10%. This is why the age composition of the population matters. By 2050 Europe will have a shrinking population, a low underlying growth, and a falling share of world output.

    Of course all of this does have an effect on pensions. We used to be complacent and think that somehow Britain was uniquely blessed when it came to pensions. Such complacency is long since over. At the heart of all this is the question of how we register claims on future resources. One way you can do it is a pay-as-you-go system in which future workers pay taxes to pay benefits. This can be sustained provided that you have got enough future workers to pay the taxes. It is the interaction of a pay-as-you-go system and a shrinking workforce which is devastating.

    There is a widespread misconception that somehow the Continent’s problem is that they don’t have enough savings. This is untrue. Continent savings are not explicitly linked to age and therefore don’t count as pension assets, though many of them, especially in France, are in practice used to finance retirement. The last thing that the Continent needs is more saving. What it needs is more consumption and more borrowing.

    I then look in the pamphlet at three ways in which economies can respond. One option is for us all to work more. But this is easier said than done. High employment societies are very different from low employment ones. The best way to get more people into employment is to have a diverse labour market with a whole range of different types of work as many people, such as students or disabled people or parents with young children, might not wish to work in a conventional full-time job. The regulation of the European labour market around some notion of a standard job with standard hours is the biggest single obstacle to increasing employment. Even if there were a transformation in Europe’s rate of employment we would be running to stand still. The absolute fall in the number of workers is so dramatic that the EU could reach its target of a 70% employment rate and still be facing reductions in its workforce.

    Migration is another way in which economies can adjust. The UK has shifted to mass migration over the past few years. Increasing migration has been explicitly used by the Treasury to justify their claims that our underlying growth rate has gone up. But even if total output grows because of migration, output per head does not. This is why our productivity performance under Gordon Brown has been so poor. Moreover, competition at the bottom of the labour market forces drives down the wages of the low paid, hence the increase in income inequality which we have seen under this Labour Government. It is also difficult to see how any major European country could absorb the number of migrants that would be needed in order to offset the big demographic changes.

    There is one other option – to have more babies. Europe faces a birth-dearth. Nobody wants to force women to have more children than they wish. But we have created an environment in which people are having fewer children than they aspire to. I’m not saying that women should go back into the home. The evidence is very significant. It is the societies with the most traditional roles for women (and men) such as Italy, which have the lowest birth rate.

    This is not – emphatically not – a statement that a woman’s place is in the home. Nor is this about forcing people to have more children than they want. But we have created obstacles to people having as many children as they would wish. It would be absolutely wrong to take away from women the opportunities that are at last opening up for them. The fresh evidence in the pamphlet breaks down the widespread – and false – belief that somehow traditional roles for women mean a higher birth rate. The opposite is the case. It is societies where women – and men- can combine work and children that have higher birth rates. Feminism is the new natalism.

    It is because European societies are so different that their demographic prospects are very different as well. The worst demographic crisis is in the South and the East. Donald Rumsfeld’s ‘new Europe’ is even older than old Europe. Britain was doing quite well. But our birth rate has fallen in each of the past 5 years, probably because high house prices are a very powerful contraceptive. It is France which is doing best of all. In the year 2000, for the first time since the French Revolution more babies were born in France than anywhere else in Europe. Europe’s demographic future lies on its Atlantic seaboard.

  • Eric Pickles – 2003 Speech to the National Association of Local Councils

    Eric Pickles – 2003 Speech to the National Association of Local Councils

    The speech made by Eric Pickles, the then Shadow Minister for Local Government, on 4 October 2003.

    In addressing you today I wish to make two points:

    The first is that Conservatives strongly support parish and town councils.

    We support you on the basis of your mandate and advocacy for your local community.

    We will do all in our power to make your community service easier.

    We will wind back Labour’s overbearing command state from parish and town councils – but more about this later.

    We do not see you as the Government’s branch office

    Secondly, there is a need to achieve more in large towns and cities – we wish to see an expansion of Town and Parish councils in urban and inner city areas, because rejuvenation must come from within and have a strong element of local accountability. I believe the National Association of Local Councils has a vital role to play in this aim.

    True localism: Parish and town councils shaping and guiding local communities

    Before there was new Labour and new localism there were town and parish councils.

    And when New Labour is but a distant memory there were town and parish councils

    True localism is local advocates for a local community.

    You entered public service not because it would end in Downing Street, or be part of some great ideological struggle, but because you wanted to put something into your community.

    The driving forces behind local communities are not edicts and diktats from Whitehall but the sheer energy and commitment and innovation displayed by local councillors.

    Like all generations before us, we have the ability to shape and render the society we wish to hand over to the next generation.

    Parish and town councils have a particularly important role shaping the growth of their local community.

    Yet in 2003 many of this shaping comes under what the Government allows councils to do under Labour’s freedoms. Freedoms that fit in with the other Blair’s concept of language in double-speak

    Eric Blair (George Orwell) would recognise that these are not true freedoms at all.

    In truth. The Government imprisons councils.

    You are told you are free.

    When in reality those freedoms are your prison warden. Ensuring you stay within boundaries set by the Government. Innovation is restricted. Councils are prisoners on licence of central government.

    I want to see central government retreat from its command state.

    · Retreat from telling you what local councils can and cannot do.

    · Retreat from the burdens, the targets, the statutory plans, the tick-a-box culture.

    · Retreat from the clutter of centralism.

    Labour cannot be trusted

    I have a confession to make. I had listened to what Labour had to say about local government when they were in opposition. I agreed we quite a lot of it. I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.

    But after six years it turned out to be “sound and fury signifying nothing”

    The process has been good for me, because it has given me some empathy with Labour Backbenchers – For I too know what it feels like to be betrayed by New Labour

    You cannot believe a word they say. Especially when it comes to local government.

    And I will give you an example. Indeed, a saga.

    It relates to local government finance and obviously impacts upon you.

    Capping and council taxes.

    In November last year Minister Nick Raynsford announced that councils graded as excellent by the comprehensive performance assessment will not be subject to reserve capping powers.

    In December, Nick Raynsford announced the provisional local government finance settlement.

    I could see that council tax bills for Band D homes were going to hit the £1000 bill mark. Hitting families and pensioners and those on fixed incomes.

    And I said so in the House of Commons.

    It was and is quite clear to the impartial observer that the fiddled funding saw money transferred from Tory councils to Labour councils.

    Council tax, especially in the south was going to skyrocket as councillors tried to protect public services. The ultimate stealth tax. Fiddled by Whitehall for local councillors to take the blame.

    The Government pooh-poohed Conservative claims as scare mongering.

    We continued to warn that the result of the government’s fiddled funding, combined with Labour’s ethos of burdens and targets – council tax was going to not only hit the roof. It was to put a large hole there.

    And you know what happened…

    Council tax bills went out in April.

    Band D council bills hit over £1000. Council tax went up 12.9 per cent – three times the rate of inflation.

    As councils and councillors struggle to keep up with Labour’s spending demands council tax has gone up nearly 70 per cent since 1997.

    The Government did nothing.

    Seven months later in October – only when we have the sight of pensioners preparing for jail and Chief Police Officers warning of the break down in law and order has the government stirred.

    Not acted to restore the funding to councils. Not acted to remove burdens and targets and the grime of centralism.

    They feared they had been rumbled.

    And in a moment of crisis they turned to their greatest ally – spin.

    They blamed the councils. They blamed councillors. They blamed us. We are apparently part of a conspiracy to undermine values. Councils putting up local taxes to undermined the Government. If you like, role reversal to Labour Councils in the Thatcher years. But if that was the case, Ministers would be able to cite examples of Conservative Councils giving donations to right wing causes or flooding our school libraries with Michael and John go hunting and shooting,.

    So they blamed everyone else.

    And now they will shift the blame further by renouncing their promise on no more capping and have reverted to the cap council tax.

    I don’t trust or believe Labour anymore when it comes to local councils. And frankly, nor should you.

    You don’t fit in with their project. You are an inconvenience.

    Whether it is the code of conduct, best value, the audit regime – Labour finds parish and town councils a nuisance

    The Government’s aim is to mould and shape parish and town councils into little boxes to fit neatly within Labour’s project.

    Little cubes that are the same in Devon as they are in Lancashire. Little Whitehall franchises up and down the country.

    The same size, delivering the same services regardless of local need or want.

    Little boxes that only exist because the centre grants them life.

    Little boxes all full of ticky-tacky that all look the same

    It is more subtle Labour’s last attacks on parish councils. But just as deadly

    In 1999 Labour called for parish councils to be replaced with ‘neighbourhood forums’.

    Labour then said that parish councils should include ‘neighbourhood managers’ – rather than elected representatives.

    In 2000 Labour’s Environment Minister said he was worried about the ability of parish councils to represent rural people.

    Last year former Labour Cabinet Minister, Mo Mowlam called for parish councils to be abolished to make way for regional assemblies.

    Just recently in March this year was forced to Labour revealed secret plans to eradicate parish boundaries from Ordnance Survey maps. Winston Smith would have been proud

    The Conservative Approach – A Fair Deal

    These plans and plots are to be compared and contrasted with the Conservative approach. Conservatives who will deliver a fair deal for you.

    Conservatives who value the work of parish and town councillors.

    But we fear Labour’s regulations, interference and red-tape will restrict the role of parish councils and result in a large-scale reduction in the number of people willing to be involved.

    We will deliver a fair deal for parish and town councils. We will deliver a fair deal for the thousands of parish and town councillors.

    What we will do? Put it simply – it is a question of trust

    Trust the people to make their own decisions on standards of conduct

    Trust the people to ensure that their parish and town councils operate to accepted standards.

    Trust the people to run their own villages and towns.

    So what policy commitments will we make to you?

    For the local government sector we will abolish comprehensive performance assessment.

    We will abolish Best Value. Under Conservatives, parish and town councils will not be subjected to the introduction of Best Value.

    Statutory plans…

    Most will go to the dustbin. Where they belong.

    For town and parish councils we will remove the code of conduct.

    On this point I will suggest that if the National Association for Local Councils was to recommend a voluntary code of conduct for the larger councils then that, is a matter entirely for you to decide.

    But I will not allow good people to be forced out of voluntary roles because of bad laws.

    We will have a giant bonfire of the Quangos

    I am drawing up a list that will see on average at least one Quango abolished for every week of the first Conservative Government.

    They will not be re-named or replaced with Conservative versions.

    Their powers will revert to councils and local communities.

    Conservatives want to see a power shift of function not form.

    And this real revolution involves you. It involves all of you in this room and your colleagues back home.

    While Labour are effectively imposing a blueprint of rigid conformity on parish councils Conservatives believe in diversity.

    All town and parish councils should be given freedoms automatically. It is insulting for Labour to suggest that the freedoms should be ‘earned’ through compliance with central government. Your actual existence should guarantee such rights.

    Accountability and responsibility

    And if you or your town or parish council make mistakes then like the rest of us, you learn and move on and bear the consequences

    And if you keep on making mistakes then it should not be the fear of some distant bureaucrat in Whitehall that should concern you.

    The best system of accountability will be the wrath of your community. The people you live and work with.

    I can think of no better system of accountability.

    · Responsibility by association,
    · and accountability by the ballot box

    Only at the last resort. When governance is dissolved and responsibility absolved should there be intervention from Whitehall.

    The best remedy will be to ensure that you don’t the mistakes in the first place. Conservatives support training and continuous improvement. Public perception of standards and expectations of service continue to rise. And councils must meet that challenge.

    But any system must be voluntary and must not be seen as a burden on service.

    Why should clerks with many years of sound service be obliged to undertake courses?

    Surely their attendance should be voluntary and should not reflect upon the funding status of any parish council.

    Enhanced role of town and parish councils

    I genuinely believe in the vibrance all tiers of local government.

    For too long, local councils have been treated as an extension of Whitehall – bodies through which centrally decided policies are administered rather than local communities being able to use powers and resources to decide policies of their own.

    Tied up in so much red-tape, the talent of local councils is wasted as they are turned into the agents of Whitehall rather than the strong local voice wanted by local people.

    The next Conservative Government will not be characterised by the power wielded but the power yielded.

    Conservatives will not only wind back Labour’s command state from your daily operations but also want additional reforms.

    Conservatives not only want to see power and responsibility transferred from Whitehall to county, district and metropolitan councils but even further. Where councils and communities agree and were it is practicable I envisage a devolution of power from district and county councils to parish and town councils.

    We do see a greater role for parish and town councils.

    But only if the councillors and their community want a greater role.

    Town and parish councils can be so much more. You can do so much more as advocates for your local community.

    Growth of Parish and Town Councils

    Conservatives not only want an enhanced role for existing town and parish councils we want to see new parish councils not just in rural areas – but also in urban areas, both in towns and cities.

    We want to make it easier for new parish and town councils to be established.

    In recent years our televisions have been throwing towards us lifestyle programmes concentrating on the retreat from urban life.

    Families and stressed out city types are shown to escape to the sanctuary of small towns and villages.

    Part of this is a retreat from a crumbling urban society. Failing schools, rising crime, deteriorating hospitals, inner cities in decay. Communities not just breaking down but dissipating.

    One of the main attractions for this urban flight is wanting to belong to, or feel part of a community.

    We need to do more in our cities and large towns to encourage the sense of community that we find so strong in the country and towns. A sense of community that comes through your work. A community supported by parish and town councils.

    Labour will establish a taskforce. Recommendations will precede John Prescott’s intervention. He will throw taxpayer’s money like confetti at various schemes. Schemes will fail. Followed by a Government review. Conducted by another taskforce.

    I think we could use parish and town councils as good basis to start urban regeneration. By getting the individual members of the community involved in the community we will help to develop a sense of ownership.

    Damian Green, our Shadow Education Secretary of State has already announced Conservative policies that will allow communities to take over failing state schools and establish independent schools.

    Establishing town and parish council models in inner cities will help those communities regenerate.

    Conclusion

    But we do need to do much more.

    The Conservative Party is currently undertaking a major review of all of our policies dealing with local government.

    In the next few months I will bring forward to you further proposals that build upon themes outlined in this speech.

    I would welcome any written contributions that you as councillors and guardians of your community that you may wish to make. This offer is made regardless of your political affiliation or lack of affiliation.

    · If you want a fair deal for parish and town councils.
    · If you want a massive reduction in the clutter and grime of centralism.
    · If you want parish and town councils to be trusted and respected
    · And you want your councils to be unshackled but empowered then come with me as we tear down John Prescott’s rambling and unstable empire.

  • Tim Collins – 2003 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    Tim Collins – 2003 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    The speech made by Tim Collins, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, at the Conservative Party conference held in Blackpool on 6 October 2003.

    Someone told me a story the other day. A man arrives at the pearly gates, and sees a clock above his name.

    He asks the angel what it signifies. This, he is told, is a clock whose second hand moves forward every time he tells an untruth.

    The man spots another clock, where the second hand has not moved at all. “Whose is that?” he asks. The angel says, “That belongs to Mother Theresa, who never told a fib in her life.”

    So the man asks, “Where’s Tony Blair’s clock?” “Oh that”, says the angel – “Gabriel has it with him and uses it as a portable fan.”

    Our Prime Minister has a problem with telling the truth. But we are quite happy to tell the truth about him and his Government.

    On transport they have been a miserable failure.

    Tax paid by the motorist up by an extra £13 billion a year – up yet again last week – yet we have had the smallest road-building programme since the Second World War.

    Motorway congestion up by 50 to 250% – while the CBI estimates congestion costs to business rising to over £20 billion a year.

    And train punctuality sharply worse since 1997.

    Transport Secretary Alistair Darling came up with a clever scheme to reduce the number of trains running late. Run fewer trains!

    After all if a train never sets off, it can’t arrive late. But even on his plans, train punctuality won’t return to 1997 levels, even after billions more, until 2010 at the earliest.

    Even worse there is the national scandal of the West Coast Main Line. After billions and billions of pounds of spending, and after months of disruption for engineering work – all designed to enable trains to run faster and to shorten journey times between the North West and London, we have just had the new autumn timetable published. The good news is that there is a 40 minute difference between the old time and the new time for getting from Oxenholme in my Cumbrian constituency to London. The bad news is that this is an extra 40 minutes – meaning that journeys which took three and a half hours ten years ago will be taking four and a half hours in year 7 of this Labour Government. Your money, ladies and gentlemen, is going straight down the plughole – and we all have every reason to be furious about it.

    Listen to people talking about transport and you soon hear frustration, disappointment and anger.

    The train boss who told me of growing bureaucracy from a Strategic Rail Authority set up just to supervise the rail industry, not to run a single station or train, yet shortly due to employ more people in central London than British Rail did when it ran the lot.

    The signalling engineer who told me that moving one signal box a few feet costs tens of thousands just on the contract.

    The residents of small villages – near Rugby and Cliffe, Gatwick and Stansted – with homes and lives blighted by Labour’s plans to destroy historic churches and wildlife sanctuaries in the pursuit of new and bigger airports everywhere – and I challenge Alistair Darling to do as I have done and visit these areas himself.

    I think of the pensioner who told me he was left gasping for breath, frail and fearful of a fall because at one station he had to climb steep steps in deep darkness and when he asked a member of staff for help was told “we don’t do that anymore”.

    Or the disabled person, coping with courage all her life, brought to tears because Gordon Brown’s petrol taxes mean she can no longer afford to drive.

    Think of these people and you will realise – enough is enough. And how dare Labour claim they care about the vulnerable, when this is what they do to the vulnerable?

    Conservatives believe in freedom, in a smaller state, in the unlimited potential of individuals and private enterprise.

    That’s why the motorist will always be hated by the Left, and championed by the Conservatives. It’s about freedom.

    Ten years ago Mr Blair used to tell a story. While canvassing he met a man washing his Mondeo, who said he’d never dream of voting Labour. Mr Blair spent years wooing Mondeo Man. What he never said was that in office he’d try to ensure the only thing you could afford to do with a Mondeo is wash it.

    When will they learn? Driving is not a sin. For millions of pensioners, people with disabilities and rural residents it is the only thing which makes life bearable.

    British motorists get the worst deal in the industrialised world.

    Just 14p in the £ of taxes raised from drivers is spent on roads in Britain. It’s by far the lowest ratio in any G7 country.

    The result? A road system which one Midlands company boss told me is unfair to call Third World – because at least in the Third World many roads are getting better.

    The Lib Dems just offer the same as Labour but with added spite. Even more congestion charging. Even higher motoring taxes. Even less road-building. Not so much an alternative to socialism as an alternative to sanity.

    The Left’s prejudice and intolerance have a sinister consequence.

    Under the Conservatives, the numbers killed on our roads halved – from 6,800 in 1979 to a still far too high 3,500 in 1997. Year after year the numbers fell. But no longer.

    In each of Labour’s first five years over 3,400 people have died on the roads – effectively the same number they inherited.

    What has changed? Cars still get safer. Medical science still gets better. Yet 1200 more people lose their lives each year now than would if 1980s trends had continued.

    However unintentionally, Government policy is largely to blame.

    They stopped building new, safer roads – in 2001, not one inch of tarmac was added to the national road network.

    And they have used speed cameras to replace, not supplement, traffic patrols. Under Labour, police officers on traffic duties have been cut by nearly 10%. As Chief Superintendent Mike McAndrew, former head of traffic policing for the Met, has said “speed on its own is not the real killer – it’s dangerous driving.” Without enough traffic patrols, he says, “people who drive dangerously, recklessly and carelessly don’t get caught”.

    So under Labour the numbers caught for driving without a licence or proper insurance have fallen by 10%. The numbers caught for driving with a defective car have fallen by 30%.

    Yet the number of speeding tickets issued to people who have

    correctly registered their car has shot up by 250%.

    So generally safe, generally responsible drivers are pursued ruthlessly for every mistake they make – while the really dangerous and irresponsible drivers, those without a licence, without insurance, without a safe car are let off time and time again.

    Enough is enough. And so my first announcement today is that we will tell the police and the courts to concentrate not on easy catches but on the really dangerous drivers.

    We will boost the numbers of traffic patrols. Improve driver education. And increase significantly penalties for those driving without a licence or without insurance, including permanent confiscation of their cars and when appropriate longer jail terms. Our Fair Deal for the Motorist starts with basic commonsense.

    Greater safety also comes from new roads. We’ll cut both the costs and the time of building roads, starting by scrapping time-wasting Multi-Modal Studies.

    Unlike Labour, we don’t aim to obliterate every last blade of grass in southern England. Our approach will ease overheating in the South – a sensible regional policy, respect for the Green Belt and, at last, firm and fair immigration and asylum rules to cut the numbers moving here from abroad.

    And of course we’ll keep the presumption, placed into law by the last Conservative Government, against major road developments in National Parks or Areas of Natural Beauty.

    But we also know sensibly planned, sensibly built roads enhance the environment for villages and small towns, cut pollution and congestion, and reduce the number of accidents.

    Most serious crashes occur not on motorways, but on small roads.

    International experience shows that higher and more rigorously observed limits on motorways, combined with lower limits on small roads, strongly help to reduce road casualties.

    That’s why we will on entering office immediately start a swift and comprehensive review of speed limits. It’s likely to mean raising the motorway limit to 80 mph while providing lower limits – of 20 mph or below – near schools or in small communities.

    A more rational attitude towards risk across transport is needed.

    In the eighteen months since the last time anyone was killed on a crashing train in Britain, over 5,000 have died in road accidents.

    It is much safer to travel by rail than by road. Yet very often the opposite impression is given. This distortion has got to stop.

    Because of it, we spend far more public money on rail safety than on road safety, putting a small chance of saving a few lives ahead of much better prospects of saving far more.

    Because of it, we saw a 3 month shutdown of London’s Central Line after an incident with no serious injuries – even though that caused tens of thousands to travel at far greater risk on the roads.

    And because of it, we saw a collapse of rail performance after Hatfield, causing many to switch to riskier road journeys.

    In the same way thousands of speed bumps were constructed, often thoughtlessly – when the London Ambulance Service say more die because ambulances are slowed than are saved by the bumps.

    So a narrow obsession with health and safety is endangering lives, not saving them. And we have yet another way of taking money from taxpayers and giving it to the legal profession.

    I don’t know about you but my view is that the lawyers get quite enough of all our money as it is.

    So my second announcement today is that Conservatives will concentrate on the big risks, not the small ones. When the next rail incident occurs, we will not rush to feed the frenzy of dangerous speculation encouraging people to switch to the roads.

    We’ll revise Government guidance which arm-twists councils into unwise speed bump schemes. Some make sense; many do not.

    And in office we will spend public money available for transport safety not to get headlines but to save the largest number of lives.

    Bus services need to be reliable, speedy and above all accessible, especially for pensioners. So we’ll aim to build on today’s half-priced bus pass to boost mobility for all, not just those near a bus route – because retirement should be a pleasure, not a sentence.

    We’ll be creative about transport solutions in the big cities – we’ll explore entirely private sector means to build London’s Crossrail, and welcome the thinking by Birmingham Conservatives about a privately funded new Tube. I look forward to further talks when next June Conservatives there sweep Labour out and take charge of England’s second city.

    Money spent on our railways must be better spent.

    So my third announcement is a radical slimming for the bloated Strategic Rail Authority. We doubt it makes sense to have three different public sector bodies – all created by Labour – supervising the rail network. And we’ll give longer franchises and more freedom to train companies, in return for much better service.

    We must also end Labour’s non-stop milking of the motorist.

    In London, Steve Norris is campaigning vigorously against Ken Livingstone’s Congestion Charge – not least because instead of the promised millions for public transport it is so off beam that it actually means less money for public transport. And we will resist Labour’s plan for the greatest stealth tax of all: charging 50p a mile for using roads we’ve already paid for many times over.

    In fact, here’s a thought. For years the British taxpayer has paid for new roads in Ireland, Greece, and Spain – and now in Iraq and Afghanistan. How about using British taxes on British roads?

    My final announcement concerns the purpose of the Department for Transport. The next Conservative Government will focus it on a goal which today astonishingly is not even an aspiration – reducing the time it takes to make a journey.

    We’ll address the frustration of millions – that it takes longer and longer to get home from work, get goods to market or visit friends.

    As technology advances, we expect many things to get better year by year. It shows the poverty of ambition of the Left that their aim on transport is just to manage decline into ever greater misery.

    There are no easy overnight solutions. But we can do better than the Left because we will at least try.

    Our policies will help traffic flow, not force it to grind to a halt. And we’ll aim to make journeys easier for all, not just for some.

    Under the Conservatives, the right to travel will not be confined to those with two Jags, huge egos and the sort of staggering hypocrisy which it takes years of socialist belief to create.

    I’m not saying this lot get things wrong – but they do sometimes remind me of the dyslexic devil-worshipper who sold his soul to Santa.

    Conference, let’s take pride in fundamental Conservative values.

    Never has loyalty to our nation-state been more evident in every age group, or more necessary in a changing world. Never has the need to get rid of petty interfering bureaucrats been greater.

    And never has it been more popular to believe in lower taxes – especially lower council taxes for pensioners.

    So let us for goodness’ sake take off the sackcloth and ashes.

    I for one am proud that Conservative Governments won the Cold War, revived our economy, and gave power and wealth and home ownership to millions who only dreamed of it before.

    And I’m proud to point out that today’s prosperity wasn’t built by Tony Blair but by Margaret Thatcher.

    With renewed self-confidence we can take on and take apart a Prime Minister who calls himself “battered”. Not half as battered, Tony, mate, as you are going to be.

    But let’s start with the Lib Dems. Their leader said that it was quite wrong to call his party Left wing – and then his Conference debated turning Britain into a People’s Republic, called for voting rights for convicted prisoners, voted to abolish all effective immigration controls and said most burglars should not go to jail.

    Charlie, the only place those ideas aren’t leftwing is in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. The Loony Left rides again.

    Lib Dem Menzies Campbell says he wants to turn our head of state into a bicycling monarch. We have not forgotten that wonderful Golden Jubilee, nor that we have seen a magnificent half century of public service for which all of us should be profoundly grateful.

    A bicycling monarchy, Mr Campbell? Let me echo Norman Tebbit – on your bike.

    Mr Blair has done so much harm to this nation. Ripped up its constitution, ramped up its taxes, bankrupted its farmers and fishermen, persecuted its motorists and let its violent crime soar.

    Worse, he has lied and lied and lied again. But none of this constitutes the most serious charge against him.

    Signing this country up to any European constitution, against his solemn word, is a grave matter. Committing Britain in principle to the current version of that constitution, which represents the end of national liberty, is shameful. But doing so without seeking the consent of the British people in a referendum is an absolute, utter and wholly unforgivable disgrace.

    Mr Blair arrogantly takes a third term for granted.

    Some Labour rebels want to see the back of him tomorrow. Good luck to them, I say – but we all know they won’t succeed.

    The Liberal Democrats have already conceded that they cannot deny him a further term in office.

    Only this Conservative Party can eject Tony Blair from Number Ten within the next two years.

    But we’ve got two obstacles to overcome to do that.

    First, there are some in this party who need rapidly to relearn the virtues of loyalty. Let us remind them – Iain Duncan-Smith was elected overwhelmingly, is daily exposing Tony Blair’s deceit and dishonesty and deserves the undivided support of this entire party.

    So let the message go forth to every Conservative, however eminent, senior or self-important – if you can’t say anything positive about your party, kindly don’t say anything at all.

    Second, we need to raise our sights. Some say our aim should simply be to cut Mr Blair’s majority and prepare to win the Election after next.

    Conference, we can’t wait that long. Those relying on failing public services, those paying skyrocketing taxes, those seeing years of striving to give their children a good education ruined by the corruption of the exam system, those held up as transport grinds to a halt – all these people can’t wait.

    Above all, Britain can’t wait. Another New Labour term could end all that makes Britain what it is.

    That is why our job is not just to oppose this Government, but to replace this Government.

    If we go forward now with energy, and fire, and passion – if we demonstrate commitment and clarity and courage – if we pledge ourselves anew to fight for liberty, for democracy, and for Britain – then we will do more than deserve to win – we are going to win.”

  • Liam Fox – 2003 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    Liam Fox – 2003 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    The speech made by Liam Fox, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Health, at the Conservative Party conference held in Blackpool on 6 October 2003.

    I want to begin today with a little general knowledge test. I’m sure we all remember Labour’s 1997 election campaign.

    Remember “24 hours to save the NHS”?

    Remember how they were going to get rid of hospital waiting lists?

    I wonder how many of you have been following the detail. Let me ask you. At the current rate of reduction, after six years of Labour government – how long would it take to deal with the backlog for NHS surgery?

    5 years, 15 years or 20 years? Well, actually, none of these .

    According to the Government’s own figures published last Friday, it will take no less than 62 years and 3 months to deal with the backlog of patients waiting.

    Some 24 hours to save the NHS.

    There is something going very badly wrong in Labour’s NHS. Record amounts of taxpayers money have been thrown at it. Yet despite huge spending increases, the number of hospital admissions actually fell last year. And the average waiting time for an operation actually went up not down. And the number of hospital beds fell …. again.

    It’s all because Labour have never learned the basic lesson that it’s not how much money you spend, it’s how you spend the money. It’s easy to spend money – especially, as a taxi driver in Birmingham pointed out to me last week, if it’s other people’s money. It’s easy to create waste and regulation and bureaucracy. It is much harder to carry out the real and difficult reforms which create greater choice, improved outcomes and more efficient use of taxpayers’ money.

    Yet to listen to Labour Ministers you would think everything was improving no end. Not that we can believe a word they tell us.

    What will they tell us next? That there are no pregnant mothers waiting more than six months for delivery?

    When they announced last year that only 2 patients were waiting more than eighteen months for treatment my office was inundated with calls from patients all over the country wanting to know who the other one was!

    There seem to be 2 NHSs. The one we all use and the virtual NHS that exists in the minds of the Government.

    So we need to ask them:

    If the NHS is doing so well, why are more nurses leaving Britain to work abroad than ever before?

    If the NHS is doing so well, why are we asset stripping some of the world’s poorest countries to staff our wards?

    If the NHS is doing so well, why is it harder to get to see your GP?

    If the NHS is doing so well, why are 3,500 elderly patients unable to leave hospital each day?

    If the NHS is doing so well, why are our hospitals so filthy, and why do so many patients pick up infections while they are in hospital?

    It is an appalling fact that 1% of all deaths in this country, the 4th richest in the world, are caused by hospital acquired infections.

    How many of us here today will be victims of what we catch while in hospital?

    How things have changed. Even when I was a hospital doctor, cleanliness was not a bolt on extra for patient care, it was taken for granted. Now, to add insult to injury, of the 20 hospitals with the highest infection rates, 15 got the Government’s top rating for cleanliness.

    The gap between the spin and the reality gets ever bigger, but it’s the public who are suffering while Ministers look the other way.

    DECENTRALISATION

    Over the past year, we have produced three Consultation Papers on our health policies.

    A central theme of all our reforms has been to take the politicians out of the day-to-day running of our public services.

    We know that politicians couldn’t run the airlines, couldn’t run telecoms and can’t run the post office.

    But if politicians couldn’t properly run any of these things, why does anyone think they can run the NHS? A complex and highly varied body employing over a million people and with a budget the size of the Egyptian economy!

    Too many Conservative governments wrongly believed that they could manage the NHS better than Labour.

    But let me tell you – it cannot be managed from Whitehall, from behind the Secretary of State’s desk. The NHS is too big, too diverse and too complex.

    And, of course, it’s all especially true for a Secretary of State who represents a seat in Scotland, where health is a devolved subject. What an insult to voters in England to have a Secretary of State who will have no electorate to answer to when he gets it all wrong. And what an insult for Labour to use their Scottish MPs to force through health legislation in England when they have no say in health matters in their own constituencies. That is the real unfinished business in the devolution settlement.

    No, when it comes to the running of the NHS, we intend to slash the central bureaucracy. We intend to abolish whole departments where possible. Whole quangos. And we will be able to do it because if we don’t have the targets we will not need those who implement the targets. And if we give more power to those on the front line we won’t need Whitehall babysitters to watch their every move.

    But there are some things we can learn from New Labour.

    Perhaps most importantly, we have seen the benefits Labour has derived from the discipline of an independent Bank of England. It is a lesson we must learn in the NHS. For too long, and especially under this Labour Government the allocation of health funding has been shrouded in mystery and used as a tool of political patronage.

    The NHS must not be used as a political football.

    That is why we will establish an independent NHS Board to allocate in a fair and transparent way the funding within the NHS. This step change will give the clearest possible signal that we are deadly serious about taking the politicians out of the day to day running of the NHS and it will be part of a rolling plan to reduce the powers of the Secretary of State and the Department of Health. It follows on to our plans to give hospitals greater financial independence and our frontline professions more freedoms.

    TARGETS

    But there is one other area of freedom they need.

    If there is one aspect of this interfering, controlling, know-it-all Government that has corroded the ethical basis of the NHS, it is their pathological obsession with targets. Let me give you just two examples.

    In the Thames Valley we have had the ridiculous sight of ambulances loaded with sick patients queueing around hospitals. Why? Because if Accident and Emergency Departments don’t admit the patients then it doesn’t count for their four hour waiting target. So not only do sick patients have to wait in ambulances instead of the hospital but the ambulances are not available when other patients may require them in an emergency.

    Can you think of anything more heartless, stupid or wasteful?

    And if you think that is bad, it is nothing to the experience of patients in Bristol. 25 patients have been documented as losing their sight permanently and, what’s worse, unnecessarily. Why? Because the Consultants who they should have seen for their follow up appointments for their glaucoma were instructed to see new patients instead. Because there is a target for new patients, but not for follow up appointments.

    Going blind to save the targets. Is this the ethical basis of Labour’s NHS? Am I the only one who finds this utterly disgusting?

    What’s worse, it is a policy instruction which comes directly from Ministers.

    It is entirely a product of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s whole approach to health care. It tells us all we need to know about the real moral basis of new Labour- run for them and not for us.

    CHOICE

    So we need to alter the balance in the NHS. Labour believe that the patients are there to service the system. We believe the system should be there to service the patients.

    People must be given a real say in what happens to them, or their children, or their elderly relatives.

    Labour’s pathetic so-called choice programme is little more than a watered down version of the system they abolished when they came to office in 1997. But it is the choices that they think you should be allowed to have and you are only allowed to get it once you have reached a maximum waiting time. In other words Labour only believe that patients deserve a choice once the NHS has already failed them.

    Let me remind them. We have already paid for this service through our ever mounting taxes. We don’t want a say about what happens to us- we demand a say in what happens to us. The NHS is not a gift from Government. It is a right we have already paid for.

    Gordon Brown loves to say that the NHS is the best insurance policy in the world. But who would buy car insurance or house insurance where your insurer could keep raising the premium whether you wanted it or not, where they wouldn’t tell you what was covered and didn’t have to deliver when you needed it.

    No, it simply won’t do in the world’s 4th richest country at the beginning of the 21st century for British patients to be denied the freedoms that are taken for granted in Germany, and France, and The Netherlands, and Sweden and Switzerland and any number of other European countries. Gordon Brown says “consumers cannot be sovereign in a health market” which is New Labour gobbledygook for saying that British patients would not be able to understand or operate the sort of choices, freedoms and control that is taken for granted by the French, the Germans, the Dutch, the Swedes or the Swiss. What breathtaking arrogance. What offensive patronising drivel – especially from a Chancellor who thinks that never smiling makes you an intellectual!

    PATIENTS PASSPORT

    That is why we will introduce the Patients Passport. It will work quite simply. There will be a standard price set for each treatment or investigation inside the NHS. Patients will be able to be treated wherever they choose and the bill will be paid by the NHS.

    It means that if you see your GP and they decide you need further treatment you will be able to decide where and when you would rather be treated and by whom. Still free of charge. But for the first time you will have access to a genuinely national health service rather than being sent to the hospital that is more convenient for those running the system.

    Why do we tolerate the elderly widow waiting in pain for her hip replacement when she could be treated more quickly elsewhere?

    Why should women be told that they cannot give birth at a midwife led unit because it is outside their district?

    How can we stand by while a war veteran goes blind when the cataract surgery that would transform his quality of life is denied because his local NHS won’t pay for his treatment anywhere else?

    Under the next Conservative Government each of these patients will get a patient’s passport that will empower them to take control over the treatment they get. After all, they have already paid for it through their taxes. What could be fairer than that?

    But never underestimate how much Labour fear and hate choice. It is at the core of their being that central planning is a good thing. That we need to be told what to do. That the man in Whitehall knows best. If Labour don’t have the NHS to run they don’t know what they’re for. Redundant. Pointless. Obsolete. They have no concept that patients might want to exercise choice to improve the care of themselves or their families. They have never understood that not everyone wants to wait at the mercy of the state – and they never will.

    We, on the other hand, will take patient choice and freedom much further. Each year more and more people use their savings to buy an operation or an investigation. Last year 300,000 patients did this- 3 times the number when Labour came to power. Often they are not wealthy but forced to use their hard earned savings to spare themselves or their loved ones a wait in pain or fear. Yet despite the fact that they have already paid for their healthcare often through a lifetime of contributions, the state will give them no help whatsoever. I believe that those who have already paid for their NHS care but who reduce the queues for others by going to the voluntary or not for profit or private sectors should be given a helping hand. That is why we will give patients 60% of the standard NHS price to take with them.

    What would that mean for a patient waiting for, say, a hip replacement? The standard price might be set at around £5,000. Our Patients Passport would mean that this money would automatically fund the patient’s care anywhere inside the NHS – entirely free to them at the point of use. If they chose to go outside the NHS they could take £3,000 with them to give them a helping hand. They would leave £2,000 behind to help the NHS and the queue would have got shorter. Everyone would benefit.

    Everyone should get a helping hand – choice should not only be available for the rich.

    In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher, our greatest peace-time Prime Minister set out to extend home ownership to those who had previously been unable to afford it. We didn’t force people to buy their homes. Nor did we give them away for nothing. But through our sale of council homes we brought a new choice within the reach of millions of people. Labour fought us every step of the way. But what we achieved in home ownership we are now challenged to do in health care.

    Our principle is clear. We believe that when you pay taxes you do so to cross subsidise your fellow citizens, but you have a right to expect the state, like any other insurer to deliver when you need it.

    And the difference, the essential political, philosophical, ideological difference between ourselves and Labour is this. Labour believe that when you pay your taxes it is their money. We believe that when you pay your taxes it is still your money.

    What we propose is nothing less than the fundamental recasting of the relationship between the state and the citizen – and no wonder the self-serving, centralising control freaks of New Labour are scared.

    No wonder there is no lie they won’t tell to distort our plans. Because they know that when the British people are given a freedom they will never give it back.

    CHRONIC CARE

    People say to me – it must be wonderful to be a doctor in your political position. I want to let you in on a little secret. It can be the most frustrating experience to sit in the House of Commons and listen to debates which have little resemblance to the real NHS that I worked in. Sometimes, to listen to Ministers, you would think that the only things the NHS did were hips, knees and cataracts.

    The PM says “it’s all about hospitals”. Well, actually, it’s not. Most of our health care is in primary care from our GPs, practice nurses, midwives and others.

    And what about those patients with chronic illness? Not the ones who can be easily counted on a waiting list, but those with conditions that cause constant misery. What about the stroke patients, the MS patients, the Crohn’s disease patients? What about those with rheumatoid disease or depression or in need of terminal care. They must be part of the picture too.

    That is why we intend to extend our Patient’s Passport to chronic illness as well. To help stroke patients determine where they are looked after and how support services are provided to them. To help those in need of palliative care to decide if they want to be in a hospital setting or at home or in a hospice. We must never assume that we always know best for the patient and we must never fail to recognise the wonderful contribution the voluntary sector makes to the care of patients and their families. We at this conference thank them and salute them.

    PUBLIC HEALTH

    Over the summer I outlined a new set of proposals on public health to deal with the horrendous rise in diabetes, sexually transmitted infections and TB afflicting our country. We need to act now to prevent not only enormous suffering but enormous financial liabilities arising for the NHS and our taxpayers.

    Today’s young people with chlamydia or gonorrhoea will be joining tomorrow’s infertility patients demanding expensive NHS care.

    Today’s overweight, underactive children will be tomorrow’s diabetics with eye problems, kidney problems or vascular problems. It’s a case of too many gameboys and not enough games.

    But politicians nowadays are too scared to criticise peoples’ lifestyles.

    That is why we are going to introduce a Public Health Commissioner who will be able to force governments to take action when it is needed instead of hiding behind some pathetic and cowardly concept of political correctness.

    One of my colleagues said to me: “Are you mad? Do you know what they would do to us in office”. Yes, I do. They might force us to do the things that are right for our people rather than what is comfortable for the politicians. And isn’t it about time.

    But the most controversial aspect of our proposals dealt with compulsory health screening for those coming to stay in Britain and health entitlement cards to prevent those so called health tourists who have contributed nothing from using the NHS free of charge.

    Let me put it bluntly. We are now seeing the resurgence of TB, especially in London. There are higher TB rates in Brent than Azerbaijan. Higher rates in Newham than Uzbekistan. It cannot be allowed to continue.

    That is why we intend to base our new public health law on the model adopted in Australia. Those seeking to come to reside in the country must satisfy three tests.

    First that they do not have an infectious disease that might put the public health at risk.

    Second that they are not coming to target relatively scarce resources such as renal dialysis or cancer care.

    And third that they will not be an undue burden on the public purse by requiring long term care.

    We are perfectly willing to give care to those who need it and are genuinely entitled to come to this country. That is our moral duty. But we also have a duty to ensure that our own citizens who have paid for these services get the priority they deserve.

    The NHS mustn’t be allowed to become the international health honeypot and a future Conservative government will ensure that it is not.

    There are those who try to claim these ideas are extremist. Let me give them this warning. If we, in the political mainstream are not willing to deal with these issues in a reasonable and responsible way then there will be those on the darker edges of our politics who will exploit them in a totally irresponsible and dangerous way.

    FAIRNESS

    Today we find ourselves confronted by a Government that has tried to hijack our language of fairness. So let’s ask Tony Blair what’s fair.

    What’s fair about patients with brain cancer, prostate cancer or ovarian cancer having to wait longer for treatment now than they did back in 1999?

    What’s fair about a system where those with mental illness are the last to get help and first to be forgotten?

    What’s fair about a system that leaves people blind to satisfy government targets?

    And what’s fair about a system that forces elderly people to sell their homes for care while those who have never paid a penny tax can come from overseas and use the NHS for free?

    No it’s not fair because fairness like truth is a casualty of New Labour’s mindset- that New Labour always come first and the British people come second.

    We now have a Government which has taxed and failed and taxed again and failed again.

    It is the most dishonest and untrustworthy Government we have ever seen.

    It is led by the most self-serving, self-righteous and un-British Prime Minister we have ever had. He doesn’t trust our people, despises our history and would sell out our national interests in a minute. We are constantly given distorted truths and fiddled figures especially in health care.

    But they are not just figures- they represent real people. They could be our families, our friends or ourselves.

    How do we counteract this corrosion of truth?

    We do it by treating our people with respect and telling them the truth even if it is not what they want to hear.

    We do it by remembering that politics is about leading the debate not following it.

    And we do it by remembering what made us such a formidable force. By being a truly meritocratic party which sees Britain as a single nation.

    We should have no talk about the grey vote or the gay vote or the black vote or any other vote that tries to define our fellow citizens. Our party’s and our country’s strength lies in offering opportunity to all those who are willing to contribute to their country. We offer not patronising slogans but opportunity to all those who want it.

    We judge people on the talents and endeavours they will give to Britain not what they look like or who their parents were.

    We have an urgent task. To prepare to be the Government our country needs.

    To govern not for north or south, for rich or poor nor any other divide. But for all our people. And when the call comes let us take our place with pride.