Tag: 2003

The speech made by Michael Howard to launch his leadership campaign at the Saatchi Gallery in London on 31 October 2003.

I am announcing today that I am a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

I pay tribute first of all to Iain Duncan Smith, to his courage, to his dignity, to his decency and to what he has achieved for us in the last two years.

At its best, we are a party broad and generous -broad in appeal and generous in outlook -a party capable of representing all Britain and all Britons. I will lead this party from its centre. I will call on the talents of all in the party and the party will expect all to answer that call.

We will offer a new kind of politics, for people today view conventional party politics with contempt. We won’t hesitate to give credit to the Government when it gets things right. We won’t oppose for opposition’s sake. People want better than that.

We will expose the Government’s failures not with gleeful pleasure at seeing them fail, but because we passionately want things to be better for our fellow citizens.

We will never place our electoral self-interest before the good of the country. No narrow partisan opportunism for us. I will always tell the truth. I will say it as I see it.

Most of you know that I’m a lawyer. But I won’t argue a lawyer’s case. If something is true but tough, I won’t shrink from saying it. If something can’t be done, I will level with the public.

Rigorous honesty, measured criticism, realistic alternatives. Only that way can we revive people’s trust in politics.

We must look forward not back. Many people have forgotten that in 1979 we won more support among younger people than in the electorate overall. But we didn’t do that by pandering to youth or by trying to be hip or cool, but by showing that we understand how younger people aspire to live their lives, by depicting a Britain of the future where people would have more freedom, more power to do good things for themselves, for their families, for their communities, for their neighbourhoods -a vision of Britain in tune with people’s aspirations.

Today, we know that there are pockets of desperate poverty in our cities, whole communities left behind by decades of failure. No party that aspires to govern a great nation can ignore them. Modern Britain must be a country where those now left behind can rebuild communities rich in opportunity, self-respect and mutual support.

Many of our great provincial cities are Conservative deserts today. It’s my mission to change that. There can be no no-go areas for a modern Conservative Party.

I was lucky. My parents weren’t rich, but I had the chance to go to a good grammar school. Britain offered me a ladder to climb and put the first rung within my reach.

We won’t be afraid to make the case for lower taxes. You don’t just have a stronger economy, you have a more cohesive society when people pay less tax. They do more not just for themselves but for each other and for their communities…

But we will be responsible. Not for us reckless pledges that mortgage Britain’s future. We need to repair Britain’s mortgaged public finances and to respond to the crying need for urgent reform of our public services.

We’ve begun to unveil the policies. Trust the people. That means trusting parents, trusting patients and trusting families, and trusting professionals, doctors, nurses, police officers. Giving choice to all, not just to those who can afford to buy it.

And unleashing the creative powers of innovation to reinvigorate our public services in the next decade, just as we did for business 20 years ago.

Our party will be internationalist in outlook. My parents were immigrants. They saw Britain as a beacon in a dark and threatening world.

Conservative Britain will never flinch from confident engagement with the wider world. We know that while our obligations begin within our shores, they don’t end there. We must look confidently outwards.

If we have concerns about the direction of the European Union, it’s not because we are little Englanders or because we hark back to some bygone Golden Age. It’s because we see it as too intrusive, too rigid for the fast-flowing networks of the era of globalisation.

I wasn’t born into the Conservative Party. I chose it. I chose it because I thought, as I still do, that it offers Britain its brightest future.

I’ve been in Parliament for 20 years now. I think I’ve learnt a bit in that time.

I’ve learnt that if we want to persuade people, we need to preach a bit less and listen a bit more. I’ve learnt that just winning an argument doesn’t on its own win hearts and minds. I’ve learnt that politicians won’t be respected by the public unless they respect each other and that people won’t trust us unless we trust them.

There may be no more than 18 months before the next general election.

We’ve come some way in the last two years. We’ve talented candidates that show us capable of representing today’s Britain in all its splendid diversity.

We’ve begun to renew our policies. But we are still only in the foothills of our ascent. The hard climb still lies ahead. We will need stamina and comradeship. We will need to show respect for each other as well as for our opponents.

In the contemporary Conservative Party that we forge there will be no place for ancient feuds or rankling discords. We will build afresh, knowing that we have no God-given right to hold our place.

Britain deserves better than it has today. It is our destiny to provide it. We must prove that we are equal to that challenge.

The speech made by Michael Howard, the new Leader of the Opposition, on 6 November 2003.

Who was it who said a week is a long time in politics?

This has been a bruising period for the party. Some hard things have been said on all sides. It has obviously been hardest on Iain. All of us here will want to thank him for what he has done, in what I am about to discover is the toughest job in politics.

But now it’s time to move on. To look ahead not back.

And I want to begin by thanking you all for the confidence you have placed in me. It is an immense privilege to lead this Party – the most successful party in the history of modern democracy. But it is also a truly awesome responsibility.

I will work tirelessly not to let you down. But I will make mistakes. And I will inevitably at times upset some of you.

And when that happens – indeed even when it does not happen – there are things we will need to remember. That we are a party broad and generous; broad in appeal and generous in outlook.

We are here to serve – the syllable at the heart of our name, and at the heart of our purpose.
We are here to work – because all of us have been sent here to safeguard our constituents and our country.

And we are here to win. Because if we don’t win we cannot put into practice the things we believe in for the good of our country. If we don’t win we can achieve nothing – and we will be letting so many people down.

And if we are to win we must work together as a team. We must rediscover the habit of thinking the best of each other. We must rediscover the virtues of mutual support and friendship.

Let us, in this party that vaunts its belief in personal responsibility, each resolve that we will, all of us, assume a personal responsibility for the success of our endeavour. No bystanders. No snipers from the sidelines. Every one of us a fully engaged participant in the great battle of hearts and minds and ideas.

Because we have an extraordinary common thread that binds us all together. We all want to see a Conservative Government elected. We are all crew on what at its best is the most superb campaigning vessel politics has ever known.

I said last week that we are all trustees of this party. It doesn’t belong to any of us. We have taken it in trust from those who went before; we are obliged to pass it on in better repair than we found it.

This afternoon I am making a speech in one of our key marginal seats, Putney. I will set out a little further the direction that I propose we should take. You won’t find a huge amount of policy detail. It’s about the over-arching ideas, the arguments, the principles that will inform everything that we do.

We have an enormous opportunity.

People really have begun to see through Labour. Their trust ratings are way down. Their support levels are down. Tony Blair’s own personal ratings are in tatters. Britain is not working properly.

Our challenge is to build up ourselves as a credible and appealing alternative government. And we can do it. We already have a platform of exciting new policies on which to build.
We really can do it. Of course it will be tough, uphill work. The hard slog’s only just beginning. As I said last week, we will need stamina and comradeship, and total commitment. Whether we win lies with us.

We can’t depend on Labour failure, nor with economic downturns, nor any other brigade of the US Cavalry riding to our aid.

But if we are to succeed every Conservative must ask themselves each morning “What can I do today to persuade the people of this country that we can serve them more effectively than this failing and discredited government”.

It is sometimes said that oppositions don’t win elections, Governments lose them. Well yes up to a point. But Oppositions can lose them too. Our high and heavy duty is to ensure that as disillusion with Labour turns to dismay, we are there as the next Government: firm of purpose, clear of mind, united in our common goal. Our destiny, and therefore the destiny of our country, lies in our own hands. Let’s work together to seize it.

The speech made by Michael Howard, the then new Leader of the Opposition, at Alton Parish Hall, Roehampton on 6 November 2003.

A week ago I set out why I was seeking the leadership of the Conservative Party. Today, with a speed and degree of consensus that has confounded the pundits and astonished me, I am excited, if daunted, to find that it has happened.

I wanted my first public statement as Leader to be away from Westminster, here in Putney, on an estate in a constituency where Conservatives must start to win again. And surrounded by those who as candidates will be in the front line of our campaign.

I said I would lead this party from its centre. A party that is uniting around its central principles. Our task is to put these principles to the service of 21st century Britain.

I also said that we would offer a different kind of politics. Something better. Rigorous honesty, measured criticism and realistic alternatives.

A different kind of politics does not mean that there are no longer any differences. Labour’s preferences are still for state control and central diktat. Faced with a problem they are still programmed to tax and regulate their way out of it. Our approach is based on different solutions, on what people themselves can do in their own communities and families. People are already disillusioned with Labour’s approach. They see the inadequacies of Labour’s delivery; and above all they see that Labour continually present public service failure as success. The only result is a growing cynicism about the whole political process, from which we suffer as much as they do.

Our task is to be once again a credible and appealing alternative government. 21st century Conservatives must show they understand 21st century Britain. Of course a great and historic party has a strong feeling for Britain’s history. We feel no need to reject Britain’s past. We are proud of it. We know that Britain’s future has to be built on what is already there.

But we have to look forward, not back. We must understand how Britain has changed in the last twenty years. And that means we have to be respectful of decisions people make about how to live their lives.

I want us to be a party for all Britain and all Britons. Conservatives know that most of what we do is done together – with others, whether in the family, at work, sports, clubs, church. A living thriving community is one where people come together to make things happen. They don’t assume that everything is someone else’s responsibility. Self-help, mutual support, neighbourliness in action.

In Britain today, people are making choices all the time in their daily lives. We live in a free and sophisticated society, in which every day people make myriads of decisions which determine the quality of their lives. They want the opportunity to do the best for themselves and their families. Parents know their own children best, better than any bureaucrat. So parents should have more say and more choice over their children’s education. And greater choice in health care.

And people work hard for the money they earn. They want to keep more of it, to save more, to support better their families and communities.

People want a sense of security. They want to know they can get the health care they need. To feel secure in retirement. To be safe in their homes, and on their streets.

And they want fairness. No one should be over-powerful. Not trade unions. Not corporations. Not the government. Not the European Union. Wherever we see bullying by the over-mighty, we will oppose it, and stand up for people’s rights and freedoms.

There is a growing consensus today that our public services are inadequate.

Let me be clear about what I mean. There are many thousands of talented and dedicated people working in our schools, hospitals and other services. They strive to provide excellence – and often they deliver it.

But the quality of the services used by most people no longer matches our greatly increased expectations.

This is emphatically not the fault of those working on the front line. On the contrary, they are as much the victims of the system as the patients, pupils, parents and passengers.

It is the system of central control that needs changing. For too long, politicians have preferred to offer false assurance and increased expenditure as a substitute for serious thought and action.

I’m quite sure that Tony Blair and some of the people around him now realise that things cannot go on as before.

But he knows that the Labour Party will never accept the reforms needed to build first class public services. For too many of his MPs words like ‘choice’ and ‘competition’ are as welcome as a clove of garlic to Dracula.

Indeed it is an exquisite irony that the Prime Minister who railed against ‘the forces of conservatism’ now finds himself at the head of the forces of reaction.

We are different. We are passionately committed to the transformation of our schools, hospitals, transport and policing.

The modern Conservative approach for modern Britain is to trust people. Trust the users of services to make choices. Not to patronise them by assuming they’re not capable of it. Give people choice and people will generally make good choices.

And trusting those who deliver services to know how best to do it. We’ll cut the fly-by-wire controls that lead straight back to a dashboard in Whitehall. We want the police to be answerable directly to the residents they serve, not to remote target-setters and bean-counters in London SW1.

Central control stifles initiative and innovation. If people don’t have the freedom to make mistakes then they will never have the space to make the huge step changes that fuel human progress.

For as long as I’ve been in politics Labour have claimed that Conservatives would destroy public services. The scare stories flow off the word-processors as if hard-wired into the system. Even Mr Blair’s half-hearted reforms have been condemned as vandalism by trade union reactionaries. And no doubt the same Mr Blair will use the same language to denounce us at the next election.

I don’t think people will be swayed this time. Because the ideas we put forward won’t come out of thin air. They have been tried and tested in other advanced democracies – and have worked.

Britain has the fourth largest economy in the world. We are a first class country with second-class public services. It isn’t good enough, and it’s our challenge to put it right.

But the election won’t only be about public services. It will also be about tax.

Tony Blair said he wouldn’t raise taxes. But he’s presided over sixty tax rises.

We’ll do something different. We won’t promise tax cuts unless they are backed by rock solid savings in wasteful spending. Nor will we play ducks and drakes with Britain’s precarious public finances. Not for us the spend today, pay tomorrow approach into which Labour are now falling.

We will be responsible custodians of the public finances. The next Conservative Government will be a reforming administration. Our priority will be to shape our public services to meet the legitimate expectations of the British people.

Some will say: ‘Why can you not do that AND deliver tax cuts?’

To them I say this: when the public services have been reformed the money will certainly go further. And yes, we would like to cut taxes. I hope we can.

And we will make the case for low taxes. You don’t just have a stronger economy; you have a more cohesive society when people pay less tax. They do more not just for themselves but for each other and for their communities. But we will be responsible.

My approach is a simple one: Promise less, deliver more.

I said last week that a Conservative Party that aspires to lead a great nation cannot ignore the pockets of desperate poverty that disfigure modern Britain. I meant it. The poverty that traps generations is concentrated in inner city neighbourhoods where communities have been failing for a generation or more.

So often these failing communities suffer from very high levels of crime, failing schools, poor quality housing, poor health. Breaking the cycle of failure requires concerted action and strong new local leadership with the power to force through change. I don’t claim for a second that we have all the answers yet. But our policies to enlarge choice and opportunity point the way forward.

It’s not just in terms of geography that we will not accept no-go areas. On policy too we insist on our duty to talk frankly and directly to the voters.

We aren’t going to duck any of the problems that face Britain. No retreat into blandness. No turning the other way.

I am proud of Britain’s history as a safe haven for refugees over the centuries. People have always wanted to come to Britain, as my own family did.

But like every other country, we know that immigration has to be strictly controlled. We have a choice. We either create an orderly system in which those who are entitled to come here are admitted, or we can persist with the chaos of the status quo.

And let no one argue that the current muddle is in any way humane. It is not humane to allow desperate deprived people from the third world to believe that they will be able freely and lawfully to enter Britain, making them prey to the human traffickers who exploit them. It is no kindness to genuine refugees to keep them waiting sometimes for years before their cases are resolved.

I said last week that I had learned quite a bit in my time in politics. I’m probably a bit more mellow than I was. I’ve had more time in recent years to see and enjoy this amazing country of ours; to meet lots of people. I’ve learned quite a lot more about Britain and its people. And I’m constantly inspired by their qualities. Generosity. Respect. Humour. Ingenuity. And sheer enjoyment of life.

Every one of us can do the most astonishing things. But only if we get the chance. If we have the space, the freedom, the education, the good health, the opportunity, to do great things, great things will be done. There is no higher privilege I can imagine than to be entrusted with the government of this country.

It will not be easy to win that trust. The Conservative Party will have to show day by day through what we say and what we do that we are fit to govern. When the day of decision arrives, if we have earned it, we will be called to serve. We must be ready to answer that call.

The speech made by Michael Howard, the Leader of the Opposition, at the Charities Aid Foundation annual conference on 13 November 2003.

First, may I thank you for inviting me to speak at your Conference today. You invited me to address you as Shadow Chancellor. But I am delighted to do so in my new role as Leader of the Opposition. It is, in fact, the first major speech I have delivered since my acceptance speech. That I should do so at a Conference with the theme `Mission Tough, but not Impossible’ seems to me to be rather apt.

Indeed, the qualities which your Conference publicity says are required for getting your job done – namely ingenuity, creativity and resourcefulness – are qualities which any Opposition requires too.

We have much to learn from you. Ingenuity, creativity and resourcefulness have characterised the work of the Charities Aid Foundation throughout its entire history – and, indeed, have characterised the charitable sector as a whole. And the discussions you are having over the course of this Conference, together with the exhibition and Cyber Café, demonstrate these qualities in abundance.

Responsibility

At the heart of what I have to say lies the concept of responsibility: the responsibility that people have towards their neighbours; and the role of government in facilitating and fostering that sense of responsibility.

It is important for politicians to keep sight of both these aspects of responsibility. Government can never supplant the responsibility that people themselves have for each other – as families, as local communities, as a society, and as fellow human beings. I do not accept that personal responsibility can somehow be `nationalised’ or handed over wholesale to the State. But I also do of course accept that there is a proper role for government.

The Conservative Approach

My party has a long and proud record. Social housing provides a good example. Disraeli’s path-breaking legislation in the 1870’s was the start. In the 1920’s and 1930’s Conservative ministers laid the foundations for what later became modern council housing and in the 1960’s it was Keith Joseph as Housing Minister who recognised the potential of housing associations.

Modern social services departments are largely the product of Conservative legislation. The landmark event was the decision by Keith Joseph and Ted Heath to go ahead with Lord Seebohm’s recommendation to set up local authority social services departments. And most of the important legislation that underpins the work of a modern social services department was passed by recent Conservative governments. As a result of the 1989 Children’s Act, we have one of the most coherent and sophisticated legislative frameworks setting out the principles for children’s policy in the world.

The 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Act was an important step in making care in the community a practical reality for people who wanted to choose it and it ended the perverse set of incentives that sometimes obliged people to accept care in circumstances where they had no real choice.

The 1990 Community Care Act directly led to the position where we now have a genuine mixed economy in the provision of social care. The public sector, through local authorities, still directly provides and organises social services itself, but local authority social services departments also fund other organisations like voluntary organisations and charities which directly provide care.

Today many social services departments spend over 50 per cent of their budgets in the independent and voluntary sectors.

There are many occasions where the voluntary sector can provide services in a new and imaginative way or in a way that is more flexible and provides the users of the service with greater choice. These developments in social services illustrate that there will often be occasions when the state should step aside from directly providing the service itself and fund other people like voluntary organisations to do so instead.

Getting the Economy Right

That role of government is many-faceted.

Too often politicians compartmentalise their policies. Much of what I have to say will, indeed, relate specifically to charities and how government can help them – or, at the very least, not set obstacles in their path.

But there are wider responsibilities too. Governments must help to create the economic climate in which people are encouraged to show responsibility for others. That means a climate in which taxes are kept low and enterprise is encouraged.

The promotional literature for this Conference notes right at the start that high consumer debt and economic uncertainty have hit those in the charitable sector, `dependent as they are’, it says `on the surplus cash of their supporters’. It is true that when real net disposable earnings are falling, as they have been doing as a result of the tax rises which came in last April, people will be less able to donate money to the voluntary sector. And people will feel similarly constrained if they are concerned about their future financial security, as a result of the record combined levels of consumer and government debt which now exist.

There are some ironies here. Governments which seek to create an enterprise climate, to keep taxes down, to limit the role of the state, are sometimes accused of fostering selfishness. You will not be surprised to hear that I do not accept that. It is no coincidence that charitable giving is often highest in countries – such as the United States – which have adopted the free enterprise model.

But, while an enterprise economy may assist in the fostering of a responsible society, this is by no means the limit of the government’s role.

Other Government Responsibilities

Governments themselves have direct responsibility for the alleviation of need and for the funding, and in some cases provision, of important services. Of course the last six and a half years have shown that merely levying ever higher taxes is rarely if ever the best way to fulfil that responsibility. While taxes have risen, expectations have been disappointed. We believe that reform is required – of public services and of welfare.

These government responsibilities will not always involve the not-for-profit sector. But sometimes they will. And this brings me to the government responsibility I want to focus on today: the responsibility to protect and promote a vibrant voluntary sector.

The Importance of the Voluntary Sector

Why is this important?

One reason is a practical one. Quite simply, there are some things that charities can do better. They are often more responsive, more flexible, and more innovative than the state sector, as a result of being less rigid and less bureaucratic.

There are also philosophical reasons. Voluntary activity is a vital channel through which people can show responsibility for others in society – whether those next door or those at the other side of the world. That is a healthy thing in itself. A thriving voluntary sector, by virtue of the very fact that it is voluntary, is a sign of society in which people are willing to show that responsibility.

60 Million Citizens

I believe Government can encourage the voluntary sector in two principal ways.

First, it can encourage people to be responsible for others through voluntary activity, by donating their time or their energy or their money to voluntary organisations.

Second, it can give voluntary organisations themselves more freedom, and more opportunity, to serve the communities they were established to serve.

Some policies to back these principles up are set out in our Green Paper, Sixty Million Citizens, which was published earlier this year.

The central idea behind the paper is the need to ‘unlock Britain’s social capital’. That is not referring to the state or to the apparatus of government, but to people giving of their own time, energy, money – and allowing them more say over the resources they already provide.

Here I want to pay a tribute to the work of Iain Duncan Smith. He recognised the importance of the voluntary sector in Britain, and of policies to promote the voluntary sector to the Conservative Party. It is my intention that such policies will become a core component of our programme for government.

The Green Paper sets out a range of proposals. These do not yet represent official Party policy. We have been consulting on them and considering the best ways to take them forward. This work will continue.

Today I want to outline some of these proposals.

They include the establishment of a new Office of Civil Society, championed by a Cabinet minister. We want to ensure that the voluntary sector is no longer under-represented and overlooked when important policy initiatives are being developed.

And they include specific suggestions under the two broad themes I have set out: encouraging people to be more responsible through voluntary activity; and freeing voluntary organisations themselves to get on with the work they were established to do.

Encouraging Individual Responsibility

The work of the Charities Aid Foundation in showing people and business how they can give tax-effectively is invaluable. You have pioneered ideas such as the Charity Account. But the fact that only about one third of individual giving is tax efficient is a sign that there may be room for government action too.

First we have been looking at the costs and mechanics of tax relief on spontaneous giving, in recognition of the generous work of those who collect money through, for example, collection boxes.

The Green Paper also proposes that people in receipt of universal benefits – such as the state pension or child benefit – should be given the option of donating these benefits to charity.

The idea of government-matched funding, focused on endowments for poorer areas, would also encourage other charitable or private forms of giving.

But people don’t just donate money. We want to support those who donate their time to voluntary causes too. As in the case of voluntary activity as a whole, volunteering should be encouraged both for its practical usefulness and for its inherent value as a core component of a responsible society.

So the Green Paper proposes the creation of a volunteer bounty for every volunteer or mentor signed up to tackle certain social challenges and who becomes part of an accredited training programme.

The Voluntary Sector

Those are some of the ways in which a Conservative Government would encourage people to be more responsible for others. But that is not all we need to do. Voluntary organisations themselves need to be given greater opportunity to serve the communities they want to serve.
That means a better legal structure. We have pressed the Government to make room for a Charity Law Bill in its legislative timetable.
Sometimes what is required is just for government to get out of the way – or, at least, to make the bureaucracy of government as straightforward as possible.

We want to see less red tape in the grant-making process, and have suggested a single application form across government departments and less bureaucracy for those organisations which belong to approved voluntary sector umbrella groups. And more fundamentally there is room for a greater emphasis on the results which organisations achieve rather than the precise means by which they do so.

Of course where public funds are involved there are bound to be conditions attached. That is perfectly legitimate – and proper. But we do not want to see an over-zealous interpretation of those rules. Because risk aversion comes with no cost to the officials involved, there is an inbuilt tendency in Whitehall to implement legislation more rigidly than the legislators intended.

Voluntary organisations need someone there to put the other case. Our suggestion of “Bureaucracy Busters” has this in mind. They would have the authority to curb over-zealous application and interpretation of regulations, and the powers to require fast communication and decision-making across government departments. They would also report back on those regulations which could be eliminated.

After all, too much red tape from the centre risks negating some of the very attributes which make the voluntary sector so valuable in the first place. We have seen how the Government’s rigid and centralised target culture is suffocating innovation and local discretion in the public services. The last thing we want is to see it suffocate these values in the voluntary sector too.

There are of course plenty of other ways in which voluntary sector organisations can be encouraged by government.

For example an unfair competition test would protect not-for-profit organisations from being usurped by handsomely-funded government initiatives.

We want fairer treatment for faith-based organisations.

And, more radically, we have suggested a right for community organisations or entrepreneurs first to manage and then to assume ownership of under-used public sector assets such as community halls, parks or vacant land, subject to necessary safeguards. Such Community Asset Trusts could then apply to manage and deliver other local public services.

Indeed, our wider reforms to the public sector, in which more funding will follow the users of the service rather than the providers, will also open new opportunities for the voluntary sector. If voluntary organisations are able to provide services which people prefer to those provided under existing structures, then increasingly they will be able to do so.

Protecting Charities from Government

So these are all ways in which we see government helping the voluntary sector.

But I know that a note of caution is needed. I have already alluded to the fact that too much attention from government can put at risk the very qualities which make the voluntary sector unique – diversity, innovation, flexibility.

Such attention may well be well-meant. But being smothered by an elephant is no less painful if there is no deliberate malice involved.
We must seek to ensure that such smothering does not occur.

In some cases, where government has a specific end in mind, it may well be that voluntary organisations will adapt to meet that end, if given the chance, more effectively than statutory organisations would do so. But we do not want to see an unintended diversion of activity away from those areas where the voluntary sector itself has identified need. We want to encourage – not discourage – social entrepreneurs to find new ways to meet those needs.

Our Green Paper proposes mechanisms to avoid, for example, the problem of `mission creep’ – the diversion of promising community enterprises from their start-up goals and activities. This is made worse by the government’s habit of changing its own mission priorities. Instead, a new system of ‘Mission Reward’ would reverse this ‘mission creep’ and direct the flow of public money and assets to social enterprises that are successfully delivering sustainable community renewal.

Under our proposals, proven successes would win an escalating series of presumptive rights to public funding, control of public assets, and the opportunity to improve delivery of publicly-funding local services.

Conclusion

These are all fresh and innovative ideas which I hope you will find appealing.

But I appreciate that some voluntary organisations will find some of the ideas more appealing than others. All, I imagine, will be keen to embrace our offer of less red tape and less interference. But some, precisely because you value your independence from government, will be less keen to enter into new partnerships for the delivery of services.

And my message is this: our invitation will be just that – an invitation. We will not feel offended if some turn it down! Many in the not-for-profit sector will feel their priorities and ethos would inevitably be compromised in any such partnership with government. And they will continue to fulfil a role which is just as valuable. A thriving voluntary sector, in all its diversity, is an end in itself. It is the very embodiment of the responsible society which Conservatives wish to see.
So I hope that what I have outlined today is a distinctly Conservative agenda. I believe it goes with the flow of the sector in which you work.

It is an agenda based on the concepts of freedom and opportunity. These are often challenging concepts. But they are essential if we are truly to create a society in which people are able to be more responsible for each other. And at a time when people and voluntary organisations alike are looking for less of a stranglehold from the state, they are concepts whose time has come.

The response made by Michael Howard, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 26 November 2003.

I begin by paying tribute to Paul Daisley. He came to this House with a formidable reputation as a reforming council leader.

Tragically, his election to Parliament was overshadowed by the diagnosis of his cancer. Obviously in pain, but with an equally obvious pride in his constituency, many remember the courage he showed when he delivered his maiden speech some eight months later. I am sure Hon Members in all corners of the House will join me in expressing the hope that his spirit will live on after him through the work of the Paul Daisley Trust.

And his spirit lives on in another way too. Paul campaigned vigorously for his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, to be readmitted to the Labour Party. It looks as though he’s going to have the last laugh.

On all sides of the House, Mr Speaker, we will miss Paul Daisley.

I warmly congratulate the proposer and seconder of the loyal address.

The Hon Gentleman the Member for Dumbarton spoke with passion. He always does.

Like the Prime Minister, he long had a passionate and principled devotion to the cause of unilateral nuclear disarmament – despite the fact that both Faslane and Coulport employ hundreds of people in his constituency.

Indeed, the Hon Gentleman’s constituency is undoubtedly one of the places in the world where even the Prime Minister could find weapons of mass destruction.

The Hon Member serves as the highly respected Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, where he has a fearsome reputation.

When he recently asked the Governor of the Bank of England the same question nine times, he was compared to Jeremy Paxman. Let me assure the Hon Gentleman. Nine questions are easy. Try fourteen, and then you really could move to Newsnight.

I am sure I speak for the whole House when I congratulate the Hon Member on his speech today.

The Hon Member for Gloucester spoke with the eloquence we have come to expect of him.

He must have been very surprised to be asked to second the motion today. For earlier this year, he voted against the war.

The website diary of the Hon Member gives a fascinating account of his private meeting with the Prime Minister just hours before the crucial vote. It is full of startling political insights.

‘The Prime Minister’, he said, `had obviously had a long and hard day’.

`His shirt, usually impeccably pressed, looked slightly creased’.

But `his eyes were bright, focussed and full of conviction’.

`Parmjit’, he said, `we are where we are’. The Prime Minister was clearly at his most persuasive.

`It’s a far from ideal position, I know, but I need your support’.

`A far from ideal position’. I don’t remember that phrase creeping into the Prime Minister’s speech in the House that day. Could he possibly have been saying one thing in public, and another in private? Surely not.

I hope all this hasn’t killed off the political prospects of the HM for Gloucester. For, on the basis of today’s performance, he has a great career ahead of him.

I also want to congratulate the English rugby team on their outstanding achievement in Australia. It is a great shame that the Sports Minister wasn’t there to see it.

There are different accounts of the Minister’s reaction when he was told to come back early. The Secretary of State said that was always planned. But the Minister’s Spokesman, when asked how he really felt, said `I can’t tell you. It’s before the watershed’. The Prime Minister was reported as being profoundly unimpressed by the Minister’s reaction. Indeed, a source close to the Prime Minister said of the Minister `I think he may regret it’. It may not be very long before the Sports Minister is proposing the Loyal Address.

Before I examine the Gracious Speech in detail there are certain matters that do not fall directly within the remit of the Government’s programme.

Today the people of Northern Ireland go to the polls to elect a new Assembly. On these benches we support the Government in its efforts to re-establish devolution in the Province and we hope that there will be a constructive and stable outcome to today’s elections.

In Iraq too the Government is engaged in a commendable endeavour to replace tyranny and terror with peaceful democracy. The Prime Minister has shown political courage in standing shoulder to shoulder with our allies in America and elsewhere and we support him.

We must also remember, in everything we say and do, that many British servicemen and women are demonstrating physical courage every day in Iraq. Their job is a dangerous one and I am sure I speak for the whole House when I express my gratitude to them. In that context I pay tribute to the two Members of this House whose duty as members of the reserve forces has taken them to Iraq: my Hon Friend the Member for Westbury, who has happily returned safely to rejoin us, and my Hon Friend the Member for New Forest West who continues to serve our country in Nasiriyah.

Many of us have constituents who have suffered the tragic loss of close family members in Iraq, and we owe it to them to ensure that their loved ones did not die in vain. The House will also wish to pay tribute to the three British citizens, including the Consul General, who died in the bombings in Istanbul, and to the many others who so tragically lost their lives there.

On these benches we welcome a number of the measures contained in the Gracious Speech. We regard them as constructive and will support their passage.

We are pleased to see the Government turn its attention to child protection and domestic violence.

We will study the draft Disabilities Bill, when it is published, and hope that it will live up to the billing which the Minister for Disabled People has given it.

And we support the principle of a Civil Contingencies Bill. Those recent terrorist atrocities in Turkey and elsewhere require us to do everything possible to protect British citizens and interests.

The Civil Partnerships Bill aims to address some genuine grievances that are acknowledged on all sides of the House. I believe we all have a duty to recognise and respect the fact that people in our society choose to live their lives in many different ways. I also accept that there are a range of sincerely held opinions on how the law should reflect this. Members on this side of the House will have a free vote, and I hope that will also be the position on the Government side.

But while we welcome some of the individual proposals in the Gracious Speech, the overall reaction to it – even, I suspect, on the benches opposite – will be one of disappointment.

And that sums up the general feeling of disillusionment which has built up over the last six and a half years.

This Government was elected with great promise and a sweeping mandate. It had the world at its feet and a vast Parliamentary army ready to carry forward whatever measures it proposed.

And what has happened? In the words of Paul Daniels: `Not a lot’.

We are, after all, about to embark on the seventh Parliamentary session since the RHG became Prime Minister. He’s been in office longer than Attlee. And what has he got to show for it?

During that time we have had seven education Acts. They promised in 1998 to cut truancy by a third. What’s happened? Truancy has gone up 15 per cent overall and 25 per cent in secondary schools. What hope is there for our future if so many of our young people don’t even go to school at all?

We have had five transport Acts. Yet we have more congestion, and twice as many trains run late as before.

We have had 18 Acts from the Health Department. None of them will be of any comfort to the million people languishing on waiting lists.

And we have had no fewer than 30 pieces of legislation from the Home Office.

But crime is up by 800,000, gun crime has doubled, and we have the
highest level of violent crime ever.

Are the major Bills in this year’s Speech likely to be any different?

The Asylum Bill, the third Immigration and Asylum Bill, is merely the latest chapter in the sorry story of incompetence and irresponsibility that has marked the Government’s attempts to deal with this problem.

Almost five years ago, the then Home Secretary said he was legislating to `provide the United Kingdom with a modern, flexible and streamlined [asylum] system’.

Whatever happened to that?

They have wasted the last six and a half years reversing the measures brought in by the previous Government – and then reintroducing them!

But this time they’ve gone further than any civilised government should go. Earlier this week we read in our newspapers that the Government proposes to use the children of asylum seekers as pawns to cover up their failure to get a grip on their asylum chaos.

Children of asylum seekers are to be taken into care in order to force their parents to leave the country.

The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary should be ashamed of themselves.

We shall oppose any legislative provision that seeks to give effect to this despicable provision.

And I have no doubt that when we do so we shall be joined in the lobbies by the many Honourable Members on the Government benches who, unlike the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, still retain their self-respect.

What about pensions? The Pensions Bill will do nothing to tackle the main causes of the pension crisis. Without reform of the State Pension and a reversal of the spread of means testing, the pension crisis will continue to get worse. Without new incentives to save, pension provision will continue to shrink.

What of the pledge in the 1997 Labour Manifesto to `make the House of Lords more democratic’? Well, we now know exactly what the Prime Minister means by democracy. `One flatmate one vote’.

And while we’re talking about Manifestos, what happened to the pledge in 2001 – just two years ago?

‘We will not introduce ‘top-up’ fees’, it said. And there was more. The Manifesto boasted that Labour had `legislated to prevent them’.

Perhaps the Prime Minister could tell us what exactly happened there.

Was it a misprint? Was it meant to say `we will legislate to introduce them’?

Or did the Prime Minister simply miss that line?

Was it perhaps sneaked in by the Chancellor at the last minute?

Is that why the RHG the Member for Hartlepool has been brought in to oversee the Manifesto? To keep an eye on any last minute changes from the Chancellor?

Isn’t it extraordinary. It doesn’t matter how many times the RHG is sacked from the Cabinet and forced to leave Downing Street by the front door, the Prime Minister will always find a way of smuggling him in through the back door.

Today there was no mention of the phrase top-up fees in the Queen’s Speech. It is the tax that dare not speak its name.

Mr Speaker, Government plans for regional assemblies will take the number of referendums held by this Government to 37. But there is also a Bill in this Queen’s Speech about a referendum they dare not hold. And that is the draft Bill for a referendum on the Euro.

There is one thing surely on which we can all agree. No one believes that the Government will call a Euro referendum before the next general election. So why on earth are we wasting any time on it?

On regional assemblies we are being given referenda we don’t want. On the euro we are being given a referendum that won’t be called. But on the new Constitution for Europe – a measure of the utmost significance – we are being given no referendum at all.

No-one could say that the late Hugo Young was a Eurosceptic. Indeed the Prime Minister recently paid a handsome and well-deserved tribute to him. But the Prime Minister would do well to listen carefully to the wise words Mr Young wrote in July when he said:
“..this change in the shape of the EU is indeed constitutional, does mark something pretty big, and merits the thumbprint of the nation to endorse it.”

There is now total confusion at the heart of his government. The Prime Minister said that the Euro Constitution is good for Britain. The Chancellor has said it’s bad for Britain. The Prime Minister has told us that the Constitution is essential for enlargement. The Foreign Secretary has now said that it isn’t.

That is why the Prime Minister won’t hold a referendum. That is why he won’t even try to persuade the British people that this Constitution is either good or essential. He cannot even persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Foreign Secretary. No wonder he won’t allow the country a say.

After all, it’s not as though the Government is against consultation.

This evening the Prime Minister will be launching what is pretentiously described as a `conversation with the nation’.

It won’t come as much of a surprise to the nation to learn that this conversation will be rather one-sided.

On Sunday the Leader of the House was asked by Jeremy Vine what would happen if, in this conversation, the people said they didn’t want top up fees.

He replied:

`Well indeed but er…’

`Well the point I’m making is that top-up fees are an issue which are current now, today, this year, in this coming year, in the coming couple of years’.

So that’s clear then.

But what’s this conversation with the nation about?

Again the Leader of the House was crystal clear.

`Because’, he said, `in the context of a long term future… that is, that was what the Prime Minister was talking about and not in respect of you know, the need for reform’.

We all know the real conversation that the Prime Minister needs to have. He needs to have a conversation with his next door neighbour. The current situation makes you wonder who’s the leader and who’s being led. Real Prime Ministers lead their Chancellors. He follows his.

And what is the Prime Minister’s response? He can’t get his way on policy; he can’t get his way on strategy: all he can do is deny his Chancellor a seat on the National Executive.

The Prime Minister may strut his stuff on the world stage but when it comes to domestic policy, never in recent history has a Prime Minister been so weak, so feeble, so utterly unable to do what he wants. And all this with a huge majority in this House. How utterly humiliating for him – and how very damaging for our country.

“Outmanoeuvred” by a “politically obsessed Chancellor” – not my words Mr Speaker, but those of the RHM for Hartlepool, probably the world’s leading authority on his ten-year feud.

Is it any wonder that this Government has given up on delivery?

You don’t have to take my word for it.

We have it on no less an authority than the Trade and Industry Secretary. She has admitted – and these are her words –`when we talked about delivery, that may have been something of a mistake’.

`We are not in government’, she said, `in order to show that we can be more competent than the Conservative Party was’.

She knows – as we all do – that Labour promised far too much and has delivered far too little.

They know they can’t deliver. They know they are incompetent. They know they have failed.

And this Gracious Speech will do nothing to remedy that.

We could be doing so much better. After all, we are the world’s fourth largest economy. We are a nation of hard working, energetic and enterprising people. We have great potential. But this Government, which promised so much, has let our country down.

In the absence of real reform, its only answer is higher tax. When that fails, it can only turn to higher taxes still. They approach every problem with an open wallet and an empty mind. They are taxing and spending and failing.

After six and a half years, this is a Prime Minister who has lost his grip and a Government which has lost its way.

They are running out of steam and they know it.

We need better schools – but this Government gives us top-up fees. We need safer streets – but this Government just abolishes the Lord Chancellor. We need improved hospitals – but this Government gives us legislation on the euro.

This Prime Minister and his Government are simply unequal to the task.

They have run out of ideas.

They have run out of money.

And they are running out of time.

All they have to offer is open wallets and empty minds.

This Queen’s Speech should have included a programme that delivers real power to patients, to parents and to front line professionals. It should have included a programme that gives value for taxpayers’ money and security for the national interest.

But that programme will only be put in place by a different government.

A government that boosts the economy rather than chains it. That implements serious reform of our public services. A government that gives real power to people.

That government is the next Conservative Government. The sooner it comes the better life will be for the people of our country.”