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Tag: 2004

  • John Hayes – 2004 Speech on Housing

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Hayes at Toynbee Hall on 24th May 2004.

    We plant trees for those born later – and we build houses for them, too. Well – that’s how it should be. In recent times we often build – like we shop – for immediate consumption, on an excessive scale and with little regard for the future. Today I want to set out a different vision. A new vision. Built on age-old principles.

    First, I will propose that the idea of the home – and its protection – should become a defining theme for Conservatives as we seek to become Britain’s government again.

    Second, I will expose the twin threats posed by Labour’s gargantuan housebuilding plans –to Britain’s precious countryside and to the prospect of urban renewal.

    Third, I will describe the priorities that will guide our housing policy.

    The home and Conservatism For me, the idea of the home is an emblem of Conservatism.

    To talk about housing is one thing. To talk of the home lifts us to a different emotional plane. The difference between a house and a home is like the difference between calling a parent a mum or an acquaintance a friend.

    The home stands at the bright centre of our lives. Home is where lives start and end. It is where we return at the end of each day and at the end of all of our days. But there are far too many people – in our otherwise wealthy society – who either do not have a home or else the kind of home they deserve.

    Frustrated aspirations to home ownership, overcrowding and fuel poverty are painful symptoms of what’s wrong with Britain. So what do Conservatives have to say in response? What do we have to say about homelessness and broken or abusive homes? What do we have to say to the young couple fearing that they’ll never be able to afford a first home together?

    The Conservative Party must have specific and credible answers to these questions. Today I will describe the policy direction which has emerged from our dialogue with the organisations represented here today and many others besides. But, for me and Caroline Spelman – who I’m delighted is here – providing better housing is not simply about the mechanics of policy. Policies must be built on sound foundations. Ours will stand on our commitment to:

    · help more people to afford a home of their own…

    · ensure everyone has a warm, safe home – built-to-last – those least advantaged just as much as those of good fortune…

    · give local communities control over how they develop…

    · protect and enhance our precious environment…

    · and regenerate urban Britain – building high quality homes on brownfield sites.

    These are our goals. Goals at the heart of authentic Conservatism. The idea of the home can define a Conservative agenda for the twenty-first century. Homes are a symbol of social justice – of private ownership – of security – of independence from intrusive government – of local identity – of embryonic community life…

    The duty of Conservatives is to help people to find a home that supports their aspirations and anchors them for life’s journey. That duty involves protecting people from forces that make that journey more difficult. On the first day of his leadership Michael Howard spoke of this duty.

    “No one should be over-powerful”, he said.

    “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 we oppose the over-mighty planning system. It’s bureaucratic, unresponsive and esoteric. It frustrates developers and bemuses council tax payers. It’s intrusive when a light touch is needed; yet ineffective when it comes to saving greenfields or ancient woodlands. Heavy-handed regulation limits the scope for innovative development but fails to stem urban sprawl.

    Conservatives know that the energy of the market powers the drive to social renewal. So we support protection of tenants from bad landlords BUT without making those protections so onerous that private landlords are discouraged from letting their properties.

    We believe that private developers should build long-lasting homes in character and scale with the built environment and local landscape BUT to do so we know they need an efficient planning system which assists their businesses to plan.

    And we support enterprise BUT oppose Gordon Brown’s eagerness to scrap controls on out-of-town hypermarkets introduced by John Gummer for the last Conservative government. Because Mr Brown’s permissiveness threatens market towns and high streets as much as it threatens the countryside. Conservatives recognise that the market and government can be good servants of the common good but neither should become so powerful that they make it harder for families to lead free and responsible lives. The idea of the home and all that it represents helps Conservatives to rediscover the things that really matter.

    Labour’s approach to housing

    You can tell how much Labour value housing. John Prescott has been put in charge. The Deputy Prime Minister has now turned his attention to housing. Recently, he welcomed the Treasury-commissioned Barker report. The Deputy Prime Minister is arguing that Britain needs at least two million more houses. That’s more than enough houses to gobble up land equivalent to two cities the size of Birmingham. That means for every year – two towns the size of Middlesbrough will eat into England’s shires. Mile after mile of the world’s finest countryside – Britain’s green and pleasant land – would be bulldozed. There’s a greenfield site near every Briton that he proposes to build on and every community will be blighted by his plan to slacken planning regulations.

    Mr Prescott’s other misplaced passion – Regional Authorities – will overrule the wishes of local people and impose sprawling developments on reluctant communities. Labour’s policy has mutated from ‘predict and provide’ to ‘dictate and provide’. But one-size-doesn’t-fit-all. We should encourage local diversity and allow local government to come up with local solutions.

    I’m clearly not alone in finding Labour’s approach frightening. The House of Commons Committee that shadows John Prescott has warned that a major housebuilding programme is unlikely to reduce house prices. They know that it’s low interest rates, macroeconomic factors and the relative unattractiveness of alternative investment opportunities that drive up house prices. A supply-side solution to the problem of house price inflation will be slow and crude.

    The same Committee warned of “excessive pressure on the water supply and other natural resources” and the significant costs of providing “the transport links, education and other facilities which new neighbourhoods require”.

    Similarly, the Campaign to Protect Rural England has said: “any such massive increase in the rate of building of new homes would have unacceptable environmental impacts and would impose enormous infrastructure and service costs.”

    Mr Prescott’s impending blitz of Britain’s countryside would be distressing enough if it was justified. But Labour’s approach is based on fundamentally flawed assumptions. Mr Prescott would lead you to think that there was a shortage of available dwellings. In fact: there were a million more dwellings than households in 2001. An excess that has grown by 300,000 dwellings since 1991.

    Labour’s approach would lead you to conclude that population growth is outstripping expectations. In reality the 2001 census revealed that there are 900,000 fewer people in Britain than previous government estimates. Labour’s approach would lead some people to believe that housebuilders are desperate for more land. In fact: planning permission has already been granted for 250,000 homes.

    Labour’s approach might lead you to think that they’d cracked the problem of empty houses. In fact: more than 700,000 homes stand empty in England tonight – and have done so for at least six months.

    Labour’s approach would lead you to believe that new home construction had a big impact on house prices. In fact: data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders has shown that 90% of property transactions involve existing homes.

    Myths and errors fuel Labour’s unacceptable approach to housing. Rural and urban communities are both being let down by Labour. Much of rural Britain would be concreted over – destroying vast swathes of the world’s finest countryside. And the opportunity to renew urban Britain – a task that includes housebuilding but also requires the introduction of school choice programmes and a zero tolerance of drugs and crime – would be missed yet again.

    A wholly different approach is needed.

    Conservative housing policy

    The direction of Conservative housing policy has been inspired and informed by many meetings with developers, pressure groups, charities and housing experts. And I’m very glad that some of those people are here today. I’ve listened carefully and I’m certainly committed to a continuing dialogue. The priorities that will characterise a future Conservative government’s housing policy are:

    · Aspiration.

    · Social justice.

    · Community.

    · Harmony.

    · And sustainable regeneration.

    (1) Supporting the aspiration to own a home

    Our first policy priority addresses the crisis of affordability. The Barker Report revealed that only 37% of new households in England could afford to buy a home – down from 46% fifteen years previously. The situation in London is especially serious. In 1993 a home in London cost approximately four times the annual income of those in the bottom quarter of the earnings scale. In 2002 eight times that group’s annual income was required to buy a home. No wonder 35% of our capital city’s first time buyers need help from parents or others to buy a home. The problem is so acute that the Government has been forced to introduce schemes to help the capital’s key workers find homes. But on-the-job houses are today’s tied cottages. They are a quick fix for the symptoms – not a cure for the cause of the affordability crisis. This is not the portable share of equity or assistance with mortgage eligibility that would help key workers to buy a home of their choice – where they want.

    The affordability pressures on key workers and first-time buyers will only worsen if Labour gets the opportunity to load graduates with tuition fees debts. It will deteriorate still further if young people, living with their parents and slowly saving for a deposit, are hit by the Liberal Democrats’ plan for a local income tax.

    Affordability is about people – not buildings.

    Setting affordability targets ignores the plain fact that houses become unaffordable as the market changes. So, we must help people to afford the homes that are available. Promotion of shared equity will be at the heart of the Conservative Party’s help for first-time buyers, key workers and other people currently struggling to fulfil their aspiration to home ownership. First-time buyers who can’t afford to buy 100% of a house might be able to afford a half or two-thirds. Building on the policies introduced by the last Conservative government– a government lucky enough to have as housing ministers Sir George Young and David Curry – we will work with the lending industry, builders and local authorities to bring about an equity revolution enabling millions more people to get on the property ladder.

    In my own area I know there is consideration of how a fresh approach to shared equity can help provide affordable local housing. Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy policy was one of the defining ideas of her first government. It enabled millions of people to own their own homes.

    But now we must go further. I want people to have the opportunity not just to buy the place they occupy but to buy a home of their choice. This opportunity – rooted in the concept introduced by the last Conservative government but never enthusiastically endorsed by Labour – will mean looking at how we can promote and extend transferable discounts to help tenants buy a home in the marketplace. By achieving a better pull-through from social housing this should ease pressure on the public purse.

    Conservatives also want to extend the right-to-buy to housing association tenants and we will consult housing associations and tenant representatives on how this policy can be implemented.

    Our aim is to create a more fluid social housing sector. One that increases the sector’s capacity to help those people desperate for a home because it also helps others to move from social housing to market housing.

    (2) Social justice: all Britons to have warm, safe homes – built-to-last

    The policies I’ve just outlined on affordability will most help people on lower incomes.

    But the Conservative commitment to ensure more people – whatever their income – live in warm, safe homes doesn’t end there. The scale of the empty homes crisis is a scandal when the number of homeless people has rocketed under Labour. Priority homelessness has risen from 102,650 in 1997-98 to 129,320 in 2002-03. These aren’t just damning statistics. Homelessness blights futures and costs lives. Homeless children are more likely to suffer ill health. Homeless adults are more likely to succumb to addiction. Roughsleepers are thirty-five times more likely to commit suicide than you and I. The Government has moved 4,000 families out of bed and breakfast to meet a pledge. But as Barnado’s say 9,000 families in B&B aren’t covered by it.

    Conservatives believe that families placed in temporary accommodation by social services – who say the Government don’t count – need help, too. We should redefine suitable accommodation and aim at a new measure of what is appropriate. I seek the advice of Shelter, Crisis, Barnado’s and others on achieving this.

    We will also take action to correct the mismatch between people and the properties they want and need. Many people – who as they get older – have more special needs but are living in unadapted, large houses whilst large, growing families are living in overcrowded accommodation. We must enable those who want to downsize to do so, by reviewing the availability of accessible, sheltered and extra-care housing. And by working with the care homes sector rather than against them – as the Government seems to do.

    Getting a better housing match could also helped by the provision of better information. I want to see local authorities maintaining an ‘accessible homes register’. Such a register would assist disabled and elderly people in their search for suitable housing and potentially save local authorities a fortune because of the reduction in unnecessary adaptation and readaptation of houses. Even so, much of the housing stock is unsuitable for people with disabilities. With a 300,000 shortfall in wheelchair-accessible homes, urgent action is needed.

    In England alone there are over 700,000 homes that have been empty for at least six months. Another 100,000 are estimated to be empty in Scotland and Wales. Many more properties – that fall just outside the definitions set by the Empty Homes Agency – are empty, unused and deteriorating. At last – after continuous pressure from Conservatives and others – the Government has reacted by offering an amendment to its Housing Bill.

    But, as usual, they’ve missed the point.

    A fifth of these empty properties are owned by the public sector! Dilatory local authorities must be obliged to let homes quickly. In the private sector incentives are normally preferable to penalties. The challenge is to encourage homeowners to make vacant properties available for rent. We need to look again at legal, administrative and tax incentives and disincentives of bringing these homes into use. Before Labour destroys more of Britain’s countryside it would seem sensible to fill these empty homes – over 300,000 of which are in London, the South-East, the South-West and the Eastern region.

    There are particular housing problems in rural Britain. The exception site policy has provided important opportunities for incremental development in rural towns and villages, but the Government is unenthusiastic about it. Not only is there a case for its maintenance, but also one for extending the opportunity for developers and local authorities to cross-subsidise affordable housing, through the construction of market houses in rural areas.

    We also propose to look again at incentives to the use adapted redundant farm buildings for housing. But it’s no good building rural homes to suck in second homeowners and buy-to-letters. The allocation of affordable housing should prioritise local people: those with roots, family or a job in the countryside.

    Urban areas that have been gentrified suffer, too, and we will look at how this can be addressed. I’m personally interested in ideas put forward by Gary Streeter MP for a new system of housing tenure – called ‘local hold’. Homes that can only be bought by people with long-standing, local connections.

    Social renewal means helping those in most need. 380,000 households do not claim the housing benefit to which they’re entitled. Those households are being failed by an over complex system. David Willetts MP, the Conservative spokesman on welfare issues, is already committed to find remedies to this failure.

    (3) Community – giving local communities control over how they develop

    My third policy theme is the need to give communities control over how they develop. Lawyers have said that the Government’s planning bill will keep their profession employed for years. Rather than undertaking necessary reform of planning Labour’s bill will throw the whole system into a period of massive upheaval. It’s a bill built on irreconcilable objectives. The first, purportedly, to make the planning system more transparent and effective. The second, unforgivably, to transfer more power to unaccountable regions. A more remote system can never be better at recognising local needs and responding to communal sensitivities.

    We need more user-friendly, efficient planning. There will be no ‘dictate-and-provide’ under the Conservatives. We will trust local communities; reduce government dictats; counter the undercapacity in the planning system – and give developers a fair deal by setting tougher statutory planning timetables. Conservatives understand that real communities evolve. They’re not designed by economists and imposed by Whitehall. Local people – not Mr Prescott – should decide what kind of houses they want and where they should be built.

    In its rush to build more and more houses Labour is stripping local authorities of strategic planning powers and giving them to regional planning bodies that cannot be as sensitive to the needs and traditions of local communities. The Leader of Kent County Council, Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, has rightly warned that: “Local areas are in danger of losing their local identity to the man in Whitehall. Local people are in danger of losing their local voice and ultimately their countryside”.

    The Barker report calls for an even greater erosion of local democracy. New regional planning executives would deliver housebuilding goals that would be “independent from local government”.

    Yet, ironically, the Government’s unwillingness to provide adequate infrastructure is inhibiting development. Kent alone has an allocated land bank of 41,000 acres – largely undeveloped – because of a lack of infrastructure.

    The transfer of power from local people to remote regional bureaucracies is supported by the Liberal Democrats – but will be reversed by the Conservatives.

    (4) Harmony – the protection and enhancement of our precious environment

    Housing isn’t just about where we live but how we live and who we are. Housing policy and planning should give everyone the opportunity to live in a safe, warm, well-designed home. Our aim must also be to mix generations, help families to stay together and build houses that add to the landscape and locale. Everything built should add aesthetically to what is already there. This vision must inspire all development. Social housing should never be ugly; it should never be bad housing.

    For too long the most disadvantaged of our countrymen have endured indecent homes. Good local authorities are already working to ‘decent homes plus’ because standards set by the Government aren’t good enough. Shelter tell me that 500,000 households are officially overcrowded. An estimated three million live in fuel poverty. This just isn’t acceptable.

    I congratulate South Holland District Council who are building village council homes to a standard set higher than the private sector equivalent. They are showing that the design and quality standards that win awards must be the standard for all. Every local authority should develop supplementary planning guidance through local design guides and specific site appraisals – as the best already do.

    I think of the ambitions of the Victorians and the way those ambitions were reflected in the way they built. From public lavatories to public libraries the Victorians built to last Every building – a statement of local pride.

    We must raise our sights today and build warm, secure homes that people are proud to live in and others pleased to gaze at. The Prince of Wales has also modeled a very special vision of community in Poundbury. Tenants live next door to owner-occupiers. Workshops and offices are close to the homes of the people who work in them. All of the building materials used complement the local environment.

    All over Britain market and social housing should harmoniously meet environmental objectives. Britain’s housing industry is already building concept homes that recycle ‘grey-water’ and harness bio and solar power. Our age should match the ambition of the Victorian age with a commitment to environmentally sustainable housing.

    (5) Sustainable regeneration – high quality homes for urban Britain

    Brownfield land is a stream and not a reservoir. Brownfield development will be a central component of Conservative housing policy. Because, as we know, as land use changes development opportunities emerge. A housing policy that is seamlessly connected to a vision of urban renaissance so that, once again, our cities become places where families want to live and have their children schooled. Urban development has an unhappy post-war record in Britain. There has been an inhuman concentration on purely utilitarian objectives. Britain’s post-war cities, towns and villages have often been disfigured. Local identity corroded by an aesthetic orthodoxy which has given us buildings out-of-keeping in scale, design and materials with their surroundings. Time and again hastily-built, thoughtlessly-designed houses are demolished ahead of time at significant cost to the taxpayer. The planning system has routinely torn communities apart.

    Fortunately there are signs of better practice in regeneration today. Where regeneration projects are owned by local people they are much more likely to be sustainable. At Perry Common in Birmingham, local people – local champions – have modeled a kind of regeneration that meets local needs and is in harmony with community wishes. I know that Wimpey, Redrow and Bovis all have particular developments in different parts of Britain that illustrate what the best can be like.

    Smaller builders also often excel. I was proud to be a guest at the Federation of Master Builders awards lunch where the outstanding success of projects across Britain was recognised.

    The planning system – and government guidance that supports it – must enable best practice to become contagious. Such high quality housing depends upon a high quality construction industry and I welcome Kate Barker’s emphasis on increasing take-up of building industry apprenticeships. The challenge for government is to give builders the chance to excel – the challenge for builders is to rise to the task. Too often local authorities, Government departments and quangoes hold on to land that could be developed.

    We will review the planning, regulation and tax treatment of contaminated land with a view to making it safe and then developing more of it. In contrast, anxious to meet its brownfield development targets the government has crammed high density housing into suburban back gardens. More than half of the ‘brownfield land’ which the Government claim has been previously developed is people’s backyards, gardens and the like.

    Labour is doing nothing to prevent ‘town-cramming’. Nor are they stemming urban sprawl. The inner green belt is being built over. The percentage of greenbelt land developed has doubled under Labour. 91% of Mr Prescott’s much-trumpeted new greenbelt land is actually in a handful of remote parts of northern Britain – faraway from the development pressures of southern England. Mr Prescott’s greenbelt is clearly elastic.

    The Conservative ‘brownfield first policy’ will be heralded by the drawing up of a ‘Blacklist of Blight’. The people of Portsmouth recently saw the beginning of the demolition of the long and much-loathed Tricorn Centre. Other great British cities have been blighted by buildings that shout too much and insult their neighbours.

    Over the next twelve months I’m going to tour Britain and put together this ‘Blacklist of Blight’. In some cases an infamously ugly building will be blacklisted. In other cases a derelict dump spot – a crumbling and disused factory or the site of a demolished warehouse- will be added to my list of Blight.

    Some of this land will be suitable for new housing. Sometimes for greening over. Once fully evaluated by the next Conservative government all blacklisted buildings and sites will become priority candidates for a mixed provision of high-quality housing and community services.

    Building houses on brownfield sites by redesignating former commercial and industrial land will be a priority for that government. There is a great opportunity for Britain’s property developers to use their world class skills to rejuvenate urban Britain.

    Conservatives are also ready to reflect on some of the factors driving the scale and volatility of demand for housing. Volatile demand makes it particularly difficult for developers to invest with confidence. So can this volatility be ended?

    Stabilising the demand for housing raises controversial issues in the same way as increasing its supply… They’re just different controversies.

    The growth of the buy-to-let and second home markets – partly a result of the relative unattractiveness of alternative investment vehicles – hardly helped by Labour’s mishandling of the pensions industry – is one area of concern.

    Family breakdown is another. I believe that much more could be done to help couples to fulfil their aspirations to start a family home and to stay together once children have arrived.

    Conclusion

    Owning a home is the number one financial objective of most working families. Families that are being let down by Labour. During the horror of World War I soldiers dreamt of ‘home fires burning’ – and then Lloyd George promised ‘homes fit for heroes’. Now, as then, if housing policy is right – many of society’s other goals become easier to achieve.

    A child learns more quickly if he or she isn’t moving from one temporary form of accommodation to another. A warm home improves the welfare of children and older people, in particular. Thoughtfully-designed housing estates prevent crime. Where housing tenure and size of dwelling is mixed different generations are more likely to look after one another.

    Borrowing – prudently secured on a home – can support small business start-ups. It is in the interests of good, holistic public policy that we enter a virtuous circle of good housing feeding better health, education and welfare and these, in turn, supporting a good housing policy.

    A focus on the home will also help Conservatives to reconnect with the British people. Helping everyone to have a good home reinforces traditional Conservative strengths like our commitment to property ownership and independence from government.

    But the principles and policies I’ve also outlined point to equally deep to sometimes neglected Conservative beliefs. The emphasis on protecting the countryside and ending urban blight renews our party’s aesthetic and conservationist character. The emphasis on tackling homelessness and the affordability crisis is in tune with the Conservatism of Disraeli and Shaftesbury. Conservatives know that we are all diminished when some of us are diminished. And Conservative housing policy requires new vision. New vision. Age-old principles. A journey to deep-rooted Conservatism. A journey home.

  • David Davis – 2004 Speech to ACPO

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Davis, the then Shadow Home Secretary, to the ACPO Conference held in Birmingham on 12th May 2004.

    It gives me great pleasure to address your conference today. May I thank Carol Gustafson for her warm introduction, and ACPO for inviting me to be here today.

    I have enjoyed meeting a number of you over the last few months and look forward to our regular dialogue continuing.

    Labour’s approach fails to tackle crime and disorder

    Conservatives have for many decades been identified instinctively as the party of law and order in Britain.

    We are the party that automatically backs the police and the law-abiding majority.

    Tony Blair tried to claim that mantle for the Labour Party with his pledge to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.

    But after seven years of Labour Government the facts speak for themselves.

    Yesterday, David Blunkett admitted that the public ‘remain unconvinced’ that crime is actually falling.

    According to the British Crime Survey, most people believe crime is rising.

    According to the Recorded Crime Survey, crime is rising.

    We all know that neither the British Crime Survey nor the Recorded Crime Survey are 100% reliable. But whilst confidence in the police remains high people feel less safe than ever before.

    As a mathematician, a scientist and a manager, numbers have always been my business but you’ll be pleased to know I don’t intend to spend all day debating statistics.

    Whatever statistics say about the level of crime, people simply don’t feel safe or secure.

    Much of this is caused by an epidemic of anti-social behaviour. Most of you deal with this on a daily basis.

    – The mindless vandalism or graffiti caused by teenagers with nothing better do.

    – The burnt-out cars abandoned on estates.

    – The bins set on fire in city centres.

    – The bricks thrown through shop windows.

    – The drunkenness and thuggery now commonplace in town centres up and down Britain every weekend of the year.

    The number of people reporting these issues as a problem is higher than ever before.

    What all these have in common is a breakdown in respect.

    Respect for authority, for self-discipline, for self-control and self-restraint.

    These problems aren’t confined to people from certain economic, social or cultural backgrounds.

    The breakdown in law and order runs wider and deeper than that. Collectively, they are some of the biggest problems facing Britain today.

    I believe we should fight back against this breakdown in order. I believe that through concerted effort, the decline can be reversed.

    Restoring respect for the authority and the law is not a pipe-dream. It’s not nostalgia.

    Unless we believe that the forces of disorder and criminality can be fought back and beaten, what hope is there for civilised society?

    Some of you may have seen in the papers earlier this week a story about one of my front bench team, the Shadow Attorney General Dominic Grieve. His story was not one of heroism, it is not one of bravery or courage. In a way it is a telling sign that it is a story at all because it is simply a story about active citizenship.

    For those of who haven’t read about it, let me tell you the story. Dominic was leaving an official dinner and saw a young man vandalising a bus shelter. He went over to tell the youth to stop. He refused. So Dominic made a citizen’s arrest and asked him to wait for the police.

    Instead, and unsurprisingly, the man ran off and Dominic gave chase giving the police a running commentary on his mobile phone of their route.

    The man was caught, arrested and has served his sentence. Lets hope next time he wants to bash down a bus stop he thinks twice.

    But it doesn’t always work out like this.

    There’s the story of a train driver who made a citizen’s arrest on a teenager playing chicken on the tracks. The driver made an emergency stop, caught the boy, put him in the train cab and handed him over to the police at the next station. The next thing the train driver knows is that he is being charged with assault because the boy complained that the train driver had been too rough with him.

    The court took five minutes to throw the case out.

    There’s the story of an actor who made a citizen’s arrest on a youth trespassing in his allotment. The man frog-marched the youth, who was armed with a hammer, down to the police station. He was subsequently hauled through the courts on an assault charge but the jury threw the case out.

    And finally there’s the story of a teacher who rescued a colleague from being beaten up by a pupil. He was accused of assault, suspended, then dismissed but subsequently cleared by a tribunal.

    Engaging the public in the fight against crime is crucial.

    I’m not talking about vigilante-ism or actions on the scale of Tony Martin.

    And I don’t expect the public to deal with violent drug dealers.

    I am talking about the need to rebalance justice on our streets.

    About a culture where people don’t walk on by when a bus shelter is being vandalised;

    – where people don’t turn a blind eye towards those who endanger the safety of others;

    – or where people don’t step in to help a colleague, friend or stranger from being beaten up.

    The police can’t be everywhere all the time.

    It shouldn’t be left solely to the police to maintain the standards of behaviour that underpin civilised society – and whose collapse creates the conditions for more serious crime to grow.

    There is a role for parents, for families, for schools, and for society at large, to teach and enforce respect for the law.

    But we have to ensure that people who actively demand proper behaviour on the streets or in the classroom don’t end up facing the full force of the law themselves.

    The public demand that the Crown Prosecution Service behave with a little more common sense and proportion than these cases demonstrate.

    It shouldn’t be necessary for me as Home Secretary to legislate to protect those who seek to maintain the peace, but I will if that is the only way to resolve the problem.

    Public spaces are not the property of the criminals – they are the property of the community. And while the community must play their part, I will now outline what I believe to be the right approach to give you the maximum freedom to play your part in the fight against crime.

    The Conservative Approach

    I trust the police.

    I believe that the custodians of law and order are NOT politicians.

    I believe that the guarantors of peace and tranquillity are NOT civil servants.

    We don’t sleep safely at night because of the [police] standards board, or the countless Home Office agencies, or ministerial taskforces.

    Criminals aren’t intimidated by the 63 ‘units’, 10 ‘teams’, 6 ‘directorates’, 5 ‘groups’ or 25 other miscellaneous bodies that make up the full panoply of Home Office bureaucracy.

    The frontline defences against criminal and anti-social behaviour are the police. The police, backed up by the community.

    Jack Straw cut police numbers.

    David Blunkett has raised them.

    I welcome that.

    But there is a long way to go before there are enough police to reclaim the streets for the honest citizen.

    I believe we have to give power back to the police. Genuine power. And that demands radical solutions.

    40,000 Extra Police

    My first commitment to the police is our commitment to resources.

    In 2002, my predecessor Oliver Letwin promised to increase police numbers by 40,000, funded out of savings through reform of the asylum system. I repeat that promise to you today.

    It’s an honourable promise; it’s an achievable promise; and it is a promise which has caused a row between the Home Secretary who wants to match our pledge and a Chancellor who won’t let him.

    Extra police are indispensable to the fight against crime.

    In order to achieve real neighbourhood policing, in order to confront and reverse the decline in order, in order to restore respect for authority and the law we need the police to become true custodians of their neighbourhoods.

    This will never happen unless there are police on the streets in sufficient numbers.

    Local Policing

    My second commitment is to get central Government off the back of local policing.

    It’s not enough simply to talk about increasing police numbers as if that is the answer. Police officers need real freedom.

    A Conservative Government will remove central Government interference in local policing, and put local policing on a sustainable financial footing.

    Under our plans, the powers of the Home Secretary to intervene in the day to day running of local policing, other than in a real emergency, or upon the advice of HMI, would come to an end.

    We need a different type of Government.

    A smaller and a tougher one.

    A quieter and a stronger one.

    And a more honest government: a better government.

    And the way we handle policing will be an example of that.

    The police can’t be expected to catch criminals if they are caught in a web of bureaucratic control.

    I want a country where criminals are looking over their shoulders, not where police officers worry about civil servants breathing down their neck.

    As Home Secretary, I would remove my right to tell Chief Constables what to do.

    I would tear up the National Policing Plan.

    And I would scrap the litany of pointless, interfering, time-wasting, unfair, and damaging targets that distort your priorities and prevent you from getting on with your job.

    But there’s more.

    I believe there is a financial aspect to genuine freedom.

    A future Conservative Government will not hold local police to ransom by keeping control of the purse strings.

    Money from central Government will come in a block grant. The days of ring-fenced funding will come to an end. Police need to be flexible to respond to changing circumstances.

    Priorities should be decided at a local level, and funding allocated at a local level.

    We will not force police forces to choose between the latest gimmick handed down from Whitehall or increasing the number of bobbies on the beat.

    The funding settlement will be transparent and the funding formula will be simpler. The Home Secretary will still decide the overall level of grant, but he will have to be entirely open about the level of grant each police force is receiving. Under our system, there’ll be no fiddled funding for the pet projects of politicians in Westminster.

    And finally I can announce today that we will move local funding to a more sustainable basis by ending the current system of annual grants, and moving to a system of three-year budgets.

    This will enable police authorities to make strategic planning more effective. And it will end the farcical routine of short-term initiatives that only last a year or two before the funding dries up.

    Local accountability

    My vision for policing is genuine local accountability.

    Police accountability is crucial to the effectiveness of local policing.

    Either police are accountable upwards – to Whitehall. Or they are accountable downwards – to the people they serve. David Blunkett wants the police to look upwards to Whitehall. I want the police to look towards the people they serve and protect.

    This is the most radical part of our proposals.

    To ensure the police and the public share the same priorities, to create a genuine partnership between the police and the public, we intend to establish directly elected police boards for each and every police force in England and Wales.

    Powers currently exercised by the Home Office over local policing will be transferred to these police boards.

    At the moment, we envisage people being elected to serve four-year terms, with fifty per cent being elected every two years.

    We also foresee a role for magistrates on the board.

    By giving people greater control over the policing of their neighbourhoods, we can begin to restore the spirit of active citizenship to modern Britain. It will also encourage a stronger interest in, and support for, local police forces.

    Conclusion

    One of the first duties of any Government is to uphold the rule of law. The final arbitrator of success in this is not the Office for National Statistics. It is not the British Crime Survey. It is certainly not the Home Office. It is the British public and they believe the Government is failing.

    Unfairly, the police bear the brunt of the public’s frustration at the rise in crime, the failure to catch criminals, and the failure of the courts to hand down appropriate sentences.

    It is unfair, because the police are fighting crime with their hands tied behind their back. Not only are centrally imposed bureaucracy and paperwork a continued problem for the police – despite David Blunkett’s much vaunted bureaucracy busters. The real problem is that police are accountable to civil servants rather than people on the ground.

    The programme I have set before you today – 40,000 extra police, freedom from Whitehall, longer-term financial stability, and real local accountability – will set in place the most radical change in policing for a generation.

    These changes are crucial and controversial – as the most radical changes often are.

    The alternative is more of the same – the same, endless struggle against crime and anti-social behaviour, and the same endless suffocating bureaucracy.

    The choice is clear – professional and operational freedom to tackle crime – or micro-management from the man in Whitehall.

    One will tackle crime. One will not. It is a choice whose importance for the future of the ordinary citizen of our country cannot be over-estimated. It is a choice which the people in this Hall will play the crucial, the pivotal, role.

  • Lord Falconer – 2004 Speech to the Law for Journalists Conference

    charliefalconer

    Below is the text of the speech made by Lord Falconer on 26th November 2004 to the Law for Journalists Conference on 26th November 2004.

    I am delighted to be here to speak to you today.

    Because today is an important milestone on our path to good government: government which is both more open, and government which is more effective.

    This morning, I signed the Commencement Order which officially brings the Freedom of Information Act fully into force on 1 January 2005 – now barely a month away.

    This is, I believe, an important step towards the realisation of a long-promised commitment: a commitment to openness, to freedom of information, to radical reform.

    I want to talk to you today about this reform:

    – what it means, to you and to the public

    – what we’re doing to make it work

    – and what you need to do for your part to make it work

    Signing the Order this morning is an important step. But it is only a step. We will deliver on our commitment to freedom of information when the Act comes into force in a few weeks’ time. But only in part.

    Because real delivery will only take place when freedom of information is integrated fully into what government does. Now, and in the future. Not a bolted-on afterthought. But fully part of how government does its business.

    Getting even to this point has been far from easy. Reaching the stage where the implementation of the legislation is only a few weeks away has been a hard, hard road.

    No-one should be in any doubt about how tough it has been, how tough it is being now, and how tough it will be to change the way governments do things.

    When people talk about cultural change, the glibness of the phrase can sometimes not get anywhere near catching the scale of the challenge.

    Cultural change in Whitehall is exactly like turning round the classic ocean liner. Opening up Whitehall and introducing freedom of information is a titanic task.

    But it’s also a vital task – and vital that it succeeds.

    It’s essential that government finally embraces openness.

    The benefits of open government are clear: transparency, accountability, honesty. That’s the kind of government which people want to see.

    Making sure that people get those benefits is hard. But it’s worth it.

    Politics rarely achieves anything without a struggle. Securing freedom of information has been a real struggle. But: no pain, no gain. The difficulty of opening up Whitehall is a measure of precisely how important it is to do it.

    From January 1, the Act puts in place, for the first time in this country, a presumption of openness. A presumption that there is general public interest in access to information.

    And, just as importantly, it also recognises that this presumption, in order to enable the government to govern, must have limits.

    Just as the Act itself struck a balance between openness and retention, so we shall strike a balance in its application.

    Good government is open government. But good government must be effective government too.

    Without openness we cannot hope to encourage greater participation in our democratic life.

    Without openness we cannot hope to build public confidence in the way that we are governed.

    And without confidence we cannot develop the credibility and effectiveness of public authorities, both in Whitehall and beyond.

    These objectives – greater democratic engagement; greater confidence in government; greater credibility and effectiveness – are objectives for which all of us should strive.

    One of the tests of the success of this Freedom of Information Act will be the extent to which it improves the quality of government.

    Openness and transparency lead to better decision-making.

    Greater accountability will improve standards.

    The Act is designed to bring about a more transparent and honest dialogue, and to make services more responsive to the public.

    We have cast the net widely.

    The scope of the Act is almost without international precedent, with over one hundred thousand public authorities covered by the legislation.

    From those who provide the services on your doorstep to the largest Government department, from the regional health authority to the local doctor’s surgery, and from 10 Downing Street to the local school: the Freedom of Information Act applies to them all.

    And we will not be passive in our approach.

    This is not about leaving the statute on the shelf – sitting back and waiting to see whether it will succeed or fail.

    In fact, it’s the opposite.

    In our preparations for 1 January 2005, we have sought to learn the lessons from other Freedom of Information jurisdictions overseas. Some jurisdictions in other countries left Freedom of Information to manage itself, leaving the policy rudderless. We will not do that.

    A clear lesson is the crucial importance of leadership and management not just in the lead-up to a new regime, but in the months and indeed years that follow.

    I will make sure this happens.

    We’ve done a lot – over a number of years – to turn the aspiration of open government into a reality. And we will do all we can to make the reality work.

    My Department has been focussing its energies primarily on preparations within central government; the Information Commissioner has been taking the leadership role across the broader public sector. I believe that that division of labour has been invaluable in preparing the way for successful implementation of the Act.

    I am determined to make the Act work. I urge you to judge us by what we do to make it happen, and by what we have already done:

    Today, as well as signing the implementation order, my Department is publishing a revised Statutory Code of Practice showing what public authorities must do to make a success of the Act.

    A month ago, my Department published clear and comprehensive guidance aimed at officials and lawyers in government departments.

    This guidance will ensure that a potentially complex piece of legislation, with connections to other legislation and information access regimes, is consistently and appropriately applied. It provides a balanced and responsible approach to the proper application of the Act.

    My Department has also established a Central Clearing House to assist officials in dealing with complex requests for information. This Clearing House will act as an expert advice centre from which advice on the appropriate application of these access regimes can be sought by officials in central government departments. It will be responsive to emerging case law as our practical experience develops.

    And information is for all, not the privileged few. We are clear that no individual should be priced out of the right to know.

    Under the fees proposals that I announced last month, there will be no charge for the majority of information supplied under the Freedom of Information Act.

    The Government will lay fees regulations before Parliament shortly. There will be no charge for information that costs public bodies less than £450 to provide. And for central government, the cost ceiling will be set at £600. This is the right approach. It confirms our commitment to making open government a reality for all.

    What does all this mean in practice ? What difference will FOI make to the public ?

    One answer is the difference it is already making.

    In many areas, Freedom of Information is already making a significant difference, before the full introduction on 1st January.

    Look, for example, at the schemes set up by the police forces, by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department of Health, which – for example – now publishes information on local MRSA rates on its website.

    Major announcements, such as the assessment of the five economic tests for joining the Euro, are now underpinned by the publication of supporting studies, including externally commissioned studies on technical economic policy issues.

    And my own Department has published, for the first time, its evidence to the Senior Salaries Review Body, which makes recommendations about the pay of the judiciary.

    I believe this is all imaginative, user-friendly and interactive information – provided as a matter of course, rather than after being prodded to do so. Communication direct to the public.

    But we will go even further than this

    Where, for example, we see scope in raising the standard for Whitehall publication schemes, we will take it.

    By referring to a departmental publication scheme, individuals will be able to directly access information, including a wide range of background factual analysis behind policy decisions and contract information.

    All departments have publication schemes in place already. What we need to do now is develop this. My department is encouraging others within government to review their publication schemes continually, so that all meet a ‘gold standard’, giving the public easy access to information without the need to make a request.

    And, in government, we are committed to pro-active releases of information, including releases of the background material assembled and analysed in the development of policy and the making of decisions.

    Let me give you a concrete example:

    Police forces up and down the country have already begun to release more information about speed cameras. Information that responds to genuine public concerns about their use. Information that is proactively released in publication schemes.

    And now we’re going further.

    In January and April of next year, the Department for Transport will publish extensive data on the location of cameras and ‘before and after’ casualty rates. Data of direct interest to everybody who uses the roads across the country. Freely available in the department’s scheme.

    A simple, powerful example of our commitment to release information without anybody asking us to do so.

    Releases of information of this kind, some of which represent information released for the very first time, demonstrate our commitment to a clear step-change in terms of the openness that people can expect from government.

    But let me be clear too – about what Freedom of Information will not be.

    The Freedom of Information Act does not signify a ‘free for all’.

    It does not mean disclosure of every piece of advice.

    It does not mean every discussion and disagreement becomes the subject of public debate.

    When the Bill was going through Parliament there were people who said it did not go far enough – that the exemptions were too numerous and that no provision should have been made for a ministerial override, even one so narrowly drawn.

    But the exemptions are there for good reason. If the balance goes too far the other way, good government would be impossible.

    Governments of all political stripes, need to be able to reflect upon policy options. To share their ideas and proposals candidly before collectively deciding on an official policy line.

    FOI will not change this. It is not in the public interest for policy to be formulated in an atmosphere that prevents Ministers and officials from thinking across the whole range of options.

    Similarly FOI does not allow for real-time access to Cabinet minutes. And nor should it. There needs to be balance to allow access to information, but also to allow scope for private debate, discussion and dissent.

    But, once policy decisions have been publicly taken, the supporting information – the background and the statistical facts – used to adopt the policy position should be made available.

    Let me give you some examples of what I mean:

    If the Government is making decisions on its renewable energy programme, it is important to make available the empirical evidence on which decisions were made. Information which would help members of the public understand the basis on which decisions were made.

    But it would hinder good government, if we were to make available the full range of policy advice Ministers considered. To do so would hinder innovation. It would risk undermining free and frank policy-making in the future.

    And let’s take another example where balance is needed – in the international arena.

    No-one could argue that information provided to us in confidence by another state should be disclosed in all circumstances.

    There will be occasions where the clear effect of disclosure would be to sour the relationship between two countries. It would send out a highly negative message to our international partners about the value we place on the information they provide to us.

    This would not be in the public interest, nor the national interest.

    Nobody really disagrees that exemptions are necessary to protect crucial information in areas such as defence, foreign affairs or national security.

    In these sensitive areas, it is right that many of the discussions held and decisions taken should be shielded from full public glare.

    So, we need to look at freedom of information in terms of balance.

    In individual cases, we need to look at the balance between the need for confidentiality as a means of promoting effective government, and openness as the best means of promoting that same objective.

    In the months and years to come, there will no doubt be a great deal of debate about whether particular, individual documents should be disclosed.

    And, no doubt, these individual decisions will be held up as examples of the Act being either a complete failure, or a resounding success.

    But what we should really be looking for is whether there is a shift in approach across the piece. Whether public bodies are becoming more open, whether the standard of information and of debate is being raised.

    As journalists you have a clear part to play here. You are the prism through which the public will often look at open government.

    We are taking our responsibilities seriously. We are determined to make this work in a way that is pragmatic, sensible and shifts the balance in a very real way.

    I hope you will share this approach. You need to take your responsibilities seriously too.

    The media in all its forms – television, radio, advertising, newspapers, the internet – now penetrates all our lives every day in a way that would have been impossible thirty years or more ago.

    With that increased influence comes an increased responsibility.

    From January, the public’s right to know – and your right to know – will be supported in statute and enforceable in practice.

    Freedom of Information will give you as journalists access to more information than has been made available before.

    This is a powerful new tool and I hope that you will welcome the opportunity to use it constructively.

    One of the reasons why freedom of information has been vital in opposition, but unappealing in government is because it presents risks.

    More cautious Governments would say that freedom of information means more challenges. More questions. More complaints.

    But it is right that we do this. Let me give you a recent example:

    The Press Gazette, just two weeks ago, reported how the Ipswich Evening Star approached the Suffolk constabulary for a look at files on a notorious, but now decades-old, unsolved murder.

    The police dealt with this as if it were a request on the 2nd of January. They opened their files.

    It led to a great splash in the paper.

    But more importantly it started to build a better connection between the media, the public institution – in this case the police – and the public.

    There was openness and people could see for themselves the facts of the case and make their own judgements based on all the information.

    Under Freedom of Information, the public themselves will have the opportunity to have access to the information and form their own view.

    We in government and you in journalism have a clear responsibility to help them in doing so.

    It is in our interest as government to show people how government reaches decisions in their names. Freedom of information, done properly, will mean better government.

    And it is in your interest to use the act wisely, so that people can see the full picture. Freedom of information, used properly, will mean better journalism.

    The debate about freedom of information in the coming weeks will inevitably focus on the details. What is being disclosed, what will be exempt.

    That’s important. But the argument over freedom of information runs at a deeper and even more important level too.

    Freedom of information is an important step – a bold and significant step – in how people and the state work together. With the media as a key agent in that relationship.

    It is the next stage in a revolution which, step-by-step, is reshaping the relationship between citizen and state – strengthening the connection between government and the public we serve.

    It will change the relationship between the citizen and the state, between school and parent, between patient and hospital, even between politician and journalist.

    For too long, freedom of information was an aspiration of political parties – more particularly, my political party – when in opposition. And for too long, it remained for political parties an aspiration if or when they reached government.

    From January 1, that is about to change.

    From January 1, freedom of information can bring about a real change in the quality as well as the quantity of information that both government and the media put into the public domain.

    From January 1, freedom of information can improve the quality, accuracy and completeness of the public debate.

    From January 1, freedom of information can mean that the relationship between the government and the people, and between the media and the people, can be different. Can be better. Can be more open. More transparent. More honest.

    Those are objectives worth striving for.

    And we both have a job to do.

    We as politicians in government. You as journalists in the media.

    Not for the benefit of government. Not even for the benefit of the media. But for the benefit of the public.

    Let’s get on and do it.

  • Tim Yeo – 2004 Speech on Patient Choice

    timyeo

    Below is the text of the speech by Tim Yeo made on 10th May 2004.

    I am delighted to have this chance to attend your Congress. Not just to speaking this session but also to meet many of you as I have been doing since I arrived in Harrogate. I have already had valuable discussions with Beverly Malone and I look forward to continuing those in coming weeks and months.

    Later this week we will recognise Nurses day. Today I would like to pay tribute to the tremendous work you carry out in the NHS, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and to express my appreciation of the huge contribution which nurses and all health professionals working in the NHS make to our society.

    I am well aware that over the past few years your job has got harder. Despite the increase in staff numbers which ministers so much like to trumpet, there are still too few nurses working in our hospitals.

    Equally important there are too few nurses working in our communities.

    As nurses you are caring for patients who have more complex illnesses than ever before.

    Alongside this you are expected to treat patients faster. There are fewer beds in the NHS today than there were a decade ago. Demand for these is high and great pressure is put on managers to move patients on so others can take their place.

    And as things stand, that pressure is going to increase.

    As a nation we are living longer. The number of pensioners has already overtaken the number of children in this country for the first time. It will be a major challenge to provide the next generation of elderly people with the services they require. All the more so as a result of 70,000 care home places lost since 1996.

    I am here today to give you a better understanding of what you can expect from the Conservatives.

    It’s just over six months since Michael Howard phoned me and asked me to take on my present role in the Shadow Cabinet. I was thrilled to be offered the chance to return to the health field, in which I have had a long standing interest.

    My last full time job before entering politics was as Chief Executive of The Spastics Society, now called Scope. The Society’s activities included the provision of long term care for adults with disabilities, short term respite care for both adults and children, and the sponsorship of medical research.

    I went on to start the successful campaign to keep open the Tadworth Court Children’s Hospital – the country branch of Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children – and became the first Chairman of the Trust set up to manage the hospital.

    After entering Parliament I became a member of the Health Select Committee and later one of my ministerial posts was at the Department of Health where I was responsible under Virginia Bottomley for social services, mental health and children.

    Inevitably that experience has shaped my perspective on the challenges we face now to sustain a world class National Health service.

    Let me make clear at the outset that the Conservative Party is totally and utterly committed to the founding principles of the National Health Service.

    We will maintain a service that provides care which is free to patients at the point of use. Which is available to everyone on the basis of need , not of ability to pay.

    That is Michael Howard’s view.

    That is my view.

    That will be the basis of our policy when we form a Government

    Our aim is to improve and strengthen the NHS, not to destroy it as some of our opponents try to claim.

    When we highlight some of the major problems, we are not talking the NHS down

    We know full well that much of what goes on in the health service is excellent. Every day thousands of people are satisfied with the care and treatment they receive. Genuine progress is being made in many areas, not least in cancer, most of it the result of tremendous hard work and dedication on the part of those who work at every level in the Health Service.

    But in our view these improvements are happening despite the system and not because of it.

    And the plain truth is that things are not as good as they should be

    If they were, why do over a quarter of a million NHS staff – 22% of the total- leave each year and have to be replaced at a annual cost of £1.5bn – before you take into account the cost of lost experience?

    While I welcome recent announcements on reductions in waiting lists, I still ask myself – Why is it that we should have to put up with health rationing in this country when for example in France the concept of a waiting list does not exist?

    And I share the public’s cynicism about statistics emerging from this Government . Average waiting times have not improved . We are all aware that data can be manipulated by delaying scans or access to consultants. More people are resorting to paying rather than waiting like the former fireman in Wiltshire who used his redundancy money for his wife to be treated privately when she was told she would have to wait 18 months for an hysterectomy.

    Whether you believe the spin or not, there is growing consensus that one consequence of Government focus on waiting lists is that the needs of the 17 million people with long term medical conditions have been neglected. Similar concerns exist over mental health.

    And the shocking report produced recently by the European Respiratory Society confirmed that Britain has one of the worst records on respiratory disease, with death rates twice the EU average.

    Not only is Britain lagging behind other countries. In some areas of public health, things have clearly got worse since 1997.

    Obesity rates in both adults and children are increasing. Rates of sexually transmitted infections are getting worse. Notifications of tuberculosis are up by over twenty per cent in the United Kingdom since 1999.

    And I know that it’s as worrying for nurses as it is for patients that on average, 13 people a day die from MRSA, caught in hospital.

    Figures published by the Health Protection Agency this Spring show that the number of people dying from the MRSA ‘hospital superbug’, has increased by 106 per cent since 1997 in England and Wales.

    Most people in the country will agree with The Chief Medical Officer who described the figures as ‘shocking and unacceptable’ .John Reid’s answer is to introduce some more bureaucrats and give nurses badges saying ‘ Ask me if I have washed my hands’.

    It’s time to get serious about the basics. I believe nurses in charge of wards should be given the authority to ensure that wards are clean, with the power to stop payments to cleaning companies if the job has not been done properly.

    I’ve drawn attention to these shortcomings not because I believe that all the news about the NHS is bad, but because to hear some of the claims made by Ministers, you’d think everything was perfect.

    Far from it. My diagnosis points to three failings.

    Yes, welcome new investment is going in but too much money is being wasted on layers of administration that don’t add value to patients.

    Secondly there has been too much interference from politicians in the running of the NHS. Too many initiatives driven by the needs of spin-doctors not patients. Too little trust in the competence and judgement of qualified professionals in the front line

    And thirdly as a result of that political inteference, a culture has grown up which too often seems to treat patients as statistics and the people we rely on to deliver care as just cogs in a vast bureaucatic machine.

    These are not failings of the professionals who work in the NHS but of the politicians who have got their priorities wrong.

    Let me illustrate some of these concerns

    I am concerned about waste because the more money that’s wasted, the less there is to recruit and retain permanent nurses and doctors. The less there is to support Agenda for Change.

    That’s why I’m horrified by the increased cost of the NHS Administration and Estates Staff in England from approximately £3 billion to £5 billion since 1997. A jump of almost two billion pounds in five years – all spent on bureaucracy.

    Over the last year the number of managers has increased at almost double the rate of nurses.

    And Department of Health administration costs have increased by £40 million since 1998.

    Then there’s the Modernisation Agency, introduced as a result of the NHS Plan, with a staff which grew to 760 in three years and consumed an annual budget of £230 million. It will soon cease to exist in its current form.

    What have these millions of pounds spent on bureaucracy delivered in terms of improved patient care?

    Last month a leaked ministerial document in the Sunday Times revealed that since 1997, Health productivity as measured by consultant episodes has actually fallen by 15%. Productivity may not be a useful measure for nursing, but the report, and the way the Government sought to conceal this information, suggests that something may be amiss.

    How did ministers respond? By asking that the basis of calculation be changed to make them look better.

    Which brings me on to my second concern , the level of political interference in the NHS .

    We did a consultation exercise last year. From the hundreds of letters we received from health professionals , one consistent message came through loud and clear.

    Leave us alone to do our job!

    I agree.

    It is time for politicians to stop trying to micromanage the NHS.

    With over 400 targets in Labour’s NHS plan ,we are in danger of forgetting what the Health Service is for.

    We know how this target culture takes up your time and the time of other professionals.

    We know how it distorts clinical priorities and demotivates staff.

    Last year, a House of Commons Committee heard evidence from Dr Richard Harrad of the Bristol Eye Hospital who explained that waiting time targets for new outpatient appointments at the Bristol Eye Hospital had been achieved at the expense of cancellation and delay of follow-up appointments. The result was that 25 patients went blind.

    And the chilling words from Ian Bogle, outgoing Chairman of the BMA Council who said,

    ‘The one memory that will linger long …. is the creeping, morale-sapping erosion of doctors’ clinical autonomy brought about by micro-management from Whitehall which has turned the NHS I hold so dear into the most centralised public service in the free world.

    He continued:‘We now have a healthcare system driven not by the needs of individual patients but by spreadsheets and tick boxes.

    What a damning indictment of the environment you are being asked to work in !

    Nothing is more important to the quality of patient experience than the role of nurses.

    But as a result of added bureaucracy and continued staff shortages, nurses still experience difficulty in finding sufficient time to attend to the needs of patients.

    Yes there are more nurses, but not as many as the Government would have us believe.

    Within some categories there are in fact fewer numbers of staff now than in 1997. For example the number of health visitors has decreased since Labour came to power, as has the number of district nurses working for the NHS.

    And the statistics, if not my eyes, tell me that nurses are getting older.

    According to an RCN study , 100,000 nurses are due to retire in the next 5 years .Combine that trend with the current 15% fall out of trained and student nurses each year , and it is clear that the Government is running hard to stand still on nurses numbers.

    It is typical of them to go for the quick fix. You know better than I how increasingly reliant we are on agency staff and on nurses from overseas, often from countries that cannot afford to lose them. These are unstable props on which to build for the future.

    Meanwhile this country continues to export qualified health professionals. Last year, for example, the number of nurses leaving the UK to work in the USA doubled.

    We need to show much greater urgency in addressing the reasons why nurses are leaving and why the Government has failed to persuade them to return to the NHS.

    Yes, I recognise there are real issues around pay and access to affordable housing.

    As with all professions, nurses need to feel that they have a career ladder to climb should they wish to do so. And this should not mean having to move away from patient care and into management. In this context I see Agenda for Change as a step in the right direction.

    We need to look creatively at ways to incentivise experienced nurses to defer their retirement plans whether it be through more flexible hours or financial rewards, linked to length of service.

    And we need to pay particular attention to how we encourage future generations into nursing. I particularly want to understand why so many students drop out of training. Is it because courses focus too much on the academic aspects of nursing rather than the practical elements? Or because nurses struggle to find convenient clinical placements to complete their training ? And when they do find such placements, are they being adequately supported and supervised? Or are the hours so inflexible that they can not accept them?

    And last but by no means least , we must address the workplace issues that frustrate what I am sure remains the core instinct of every nurse – the desire to give the best possible care to people who can’t help themselves.

    Too much form filling; too much inteference; confused layers of authority; insufficient resources to do the job.

    These are some of the responses I have received, but it’s not for me to tell you – its for you to tell me.

    So what difference would the Conservatives make? What can you expect from us?

    First, we recognise that the National Health Service has been subjected to continuous reform over the last few years and the last thing it needs is further root and branch upheaval.

    That is why our policies for the health service propose a change in approach rather than disruptive structural reform.

    Politicians talk too much about structures and about money. These issues are important but we must not lose sight of what matters to patients. Everyone would rather be healthy than be ill so Government’s first aim should always be to improve our prevention strategies, something that Ministers lose sight of if they become bogged down in trying to micro manage the NHS.

    And when people do become ill they want fast access to consistent , high quality care which treats them with dignity as individuals. This is what the people who pay for the NHS deserve .

    Our plans for helping the NHS deliver that on a more consistent basis reflect tough lessons learnt in the past – both in Government and opposition .

    They are built around three interdependent pillars.

    Firstly, we are committed to invest the money that will give you the tools to do the job.

    Secondly, we see our mission as taking the politics out of an NHS that has been a political football for too long.

    We are determined to free qualified professionals from the bureaucracy that too often gets between you and the patient who needs your help.

    Thirdly, we want to give those patients much greater say over where they are treated. With that power of choice we believe comes the power to get quicker treatment and to force improvement in the service they receive.

    Let me give you a clearer idea of what that means.

    Underlying our commitment to the NHS is the promise made by my colleague Oliver Letwin, Shadow Chancellor last February.

    In the first two years of the next Parliament a newly elected Conservative Government will match Labour’s spending on the NHS.

    This means that regardless of who wins the election, spending on the NHS will increase by broadly the same amount.

    So the debate is not about ‘ How much money? ‘ but ‘ How will you spend it?’

    And we are determined to spend it better , with much fewer layers of administration to divert money from the front line.

    Our mission to give hospitals much greater freedom means that many more decisions about investment will be taken locally by people who are closer to patient needs. Labour talk about this but will not deliver. The instinct of Gordon Brown’s Treasury is to control everything from the centre and drive improvement through national targets. I believe very strongly that this is wrong. The system was too centralised when I was a Minister twelve years ago. It’s far more centralised today.

    That has to change. It’s not the job of the Secretary of State to be Chief Executive of the NHS. It’s time instead that he and other politicians admitted the damage that results from incessant interference

    So we will scrap targets and star ratings. Standards will continue to be monitored by CHAI within a framework set by Government but Hospitals will become accountable to patients not bureaucrats.

    And the money will follow the patients. So that success will be rewarded and failure will not be tolerated for so long.

    And because we are determined to give patients more choice, we need to invest in making more capacity available to them . Critically that means a quantum leap in the number of qualified permanent doctors and nurses. We do not underestimate the challenge but know that we can go much further than Labour in stripping away the red tape and bureaucratic interference that is so damaging to job satisfaction. Indeed I know from my seven years as Chairman of the Tadworth Children’s hospital that when nurses and other professionals are set free from artificial external controls,job satisfaction and staff morale increase dramatically. The whole of my experience – in business and politics- convinces me that the more you trust professionals to do their job the better they will do it.

    That will be our way.

    Both Conservatives and Labour talk about extending choice. The difference lies in scope and commitment.

    Our programme of choice goes with the grain of Government initiatives to establish a national tariff and electronic patient records. But we intend to go further than them in extending choice. We have called our instrument of choice – the Patient’s Passport.

    Any patient requiring elective treatment will be able to use the passport. We intend the passport to be just as relevant to those with chronic conditions as it is for those who require hospital treatment. Of course the choice of pathways for someone with a chronic condition will be more complicated to map, and in some cases the framework of standards is not yet clear. So this is why we have already started our discussions with the relevant organisations on how best to translate our policy into action for those with chronic conditions.

    The passport will enable the patient, usually in consultation with a doctor or another professional, to decide where they go for treatment. That may still be their nearest hospital, but it could be another hospital where the waiting time is shorter, or which is more convenient for their family, or where clinical expertise is greater.

    Choice will be informed with information on waiting times, treatments and outcomes available to them and their advisers.

    But the choice will be theirs.

    Our proposals represent a comprehensive of programme of patient choice. This means that, for the first time NHS patients can choose to be treated in an alternative setting to the NHS.

    Should they decide to do so, our proposals will allow them to take a proportion of the NHS cost to assist them with the payment of their treatment elsewhere.

    Not only does this give patients more control over where they are treated, but it will also help those who elect to stay within the NHS by giving them faster access to NHS treatment. It is not about taking resources from the NHS. It is about taking pressure off the NHS.

    Labour can hardly criticise this aspect of our policy. After all they are now buying services from the private sector at an ever increasing rate

    Our choice agenda will cut waiting times because patients will have the right to go where the waiting list is shortest.

    Because the money goes with them , their right to choose will make providers of care more responsive to their needs.

    It will stimulate new provision both inside the NHS and outside. As long as we maintain a service that provides care to an acceptable standard , which is free to patients at the point of use, then we have no political obsession with who owns that capacity.

    But we are committed to help the NHS respond to this new environment.

    Through a massive programme of investment to make sure the resources are there .

    Through immediate withdrawal of politicians from day to day management of the NHS , giving qualified professionals the freedom to address patient needs.

    It boils down to where trust is best placed.

    After 7 years, it is clear that Labour places its trust in Whitehall.

    Our vision, born of experience, is different.

    Trust is best placed with patients and the people they trust. You.

    Our vision is to give Britain a truly National Health system in which every patient has access to any doctor and any hospital , and where doctors and nurses choose to stay because they are respected and given the freedom to deliver a standard of care that they are proud of.

  • David Cameron – 2004 Speech at Independent Fringe Meeting

    davidcameron

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Cameron at the Independent Fringe Meeting on 4th October 2004.

    You’ve given me 5 minutes.

    Let me try it in a sentence.

    By emphasising the Conservative values that the vast majority of the British public share, by turning them into Conservative polices – and by showing how we would put them in to action.

    In other words: values, policies and action.

    Before expanding on that let me say how we don’t win.

    We don’t win by a fruitless search for differences between us and our opponents where none really exist. It’s opportunist Punch and Judy politics. It’s unattractive and it doesn’t work.

    We have to forget about what Blair is going to say tomorrow or the next day. I don’t know what he’s going to say. He doesn’t know what he is going to say.

    We should just get on and do what we think is right.

    Second, we won’t win by picking one subject – whether it is Europe or anything else – and talking about it incessantly. People want their political parties to tackle the broad range of issues that they care about. In the main that means schools, hospitals, crime, immigration and the economy.

    If you don’t sound balanced, you won’t seem balanced.

    Third, we won’t win by being exclusively negative. People now know they have been let down by Labour. We reminded them of that- quite rightly- during the local election campaign. They don’t need anymore reminders from us. And every reminder we send probably says as much about us as it does about them.

    It’s time to accentuate the positive…

    So, back to the simple formulation – values, policies and action.

    Above all we have to recognise that the biggest problem in British politics today is cynicism, apathy and disillusion. They are the enemy, not Labour or the Liberals.

    How many times have we all heard on the doorstep – “you’re all the same”, “you won’t make any difference”, ending with the question: “what’s the point?”

    Judging from the turn out at general local and by-elections, most people’s answer to that last question – “what’s the point?” – is that there isn’t any.

    Labour and the Conservatives are marooned on broadly the same poll rating, somewhere in the low 30s.

    They’re there because they’ve let people down. We’re there because people don’t yet think that we will make any difference. The Liberals are doing well, more than anything else, because they are not either of us.

    But I’m upbeat.

    There are three questions that matter in terms of political success.

    Do people share your values?

    Do they agree with you about what’s wrong?

    And do they think you have the right plans for doing something about it?

    The answer to the first question about values is good for the Conservatives. Why else do you think the focus group obsessed Labour party has been so timid?

    Should crime be punished or tolerated? Does Britain do best when it is control of its own destiny?

    Are families the key building block of a stable society? Does equality of opportunity matter more than equality of outcome? Are our institutions a source of strength not a cause of weakness?

    Should we encourage people to do more for themselves when they can?

    All value questions – and all get a Conservative answer almost anywhere in the country you care to ask them.

    Answers to questions about what is wrong in Blair’s Britain are just as encouraging.

    Here I admit, we’ve checked with polls and focus groups.

    Do people think that crime is rising and the hands of the Police are tied by bureaucracy and paperwork? Yes.

    Do people think that hospital managers and head teachers are too busy looking up to Whitehall to manage effectively? Yes.

    Do people feel over taxed and in awe of third term tax rises and a £2,000 council tax. Yes. They don’t just think these taxes are coming if Labour win again – they know they are coming.

    So that brings us to the big one – “do people agree with our plans?”

    First, they don’t know enough – if anything at all – about them.

    Second, even if they do, because of the wall of cynicism and disillusion, they don’t believe we will achieve them.

    That’s why the Timetable of Action being published this week is so important. It will tell you what we will do in the first day, the first week, the first month.

    It gives you details of the first queen’s speech and the first budget. It is about being accountable.

    It is about people feeling that they are in charge again, and not the politicians. To make sure we are the servants, not the masters.

    Two last points.

    Does the Conservative party need to modernise itself?

    Yes, of course. If you don’t understand the complexities and changing nature of modern society you are irrelevant.

    If you don’t address the modern concerns of a modern country, you are dead.

    Second, by saying that most people in this country share broadly Conservative values, have I said enough?

    No. We have to make sure that we include all of those values.

    That we have a vision of society. That we believe we have obligations unto each other. That there is a net beneath which no one should fall. That there is a “we” as well as a “me”.

    As I look at a Labour Government that is closing special schools for disabled children, that is throwing wardens out of sheltered accommodation schemes, that endlessly threatens community hospitals, that offers drug addicts the sort of treatment place that is worse than useless and that crushes the voluntary and charitable sectors with its belief that “Society is the State” – nothing more, nothing less – there has never been a greater need for Conservatives to explain our view of society, our obligations to each other and our compassion for those in need.

    And with everything I’ve said – I hope we can inject some passion – as well as compassion – into what we say at the same time.

    So how do we win?

    Values, policies and action.

    Who knows? If we follow this with passion as well as discipline, people might just listen.

  • Gordon Brown – 2004 Mansion House Speech

    gordonbrown

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, at the Mansion House in London on 16th June 2004.

    My Lord Mayor, Mr Governor, My Lords, Aldermen, Mr Recorder, Sheriffs, Ladies and Gentlemen.

    In thanking you for your invitation let me start My Lord Mayor by thanking you for the work you and your staff do not just here in the City of London but round the world in promoting the City and Britain. And let me at the outset pay tribute to all the companies and institutions represented here today.

    Let me thank you first for the scale of the contribution you make to the British economy – the £50 billion of income, 4 per cent of national output, and the 1 million jobs that arise.  And let me thank you also for the resilience, the innovative flair and the courage to change with which you have responded to not just the world economic downturn but to the greatest economic challenge of our times – the challenge of global competition.

    When last year, as we made our euro assessment, we conducted a detailed and in depth review of the British economy, we were able to conclude that because you, here in the City, had been prepared to change and adapt, to innovate and invest in the future, to embrace technological change like automated trading not as a threat but as an opportunity, and to acquire – from all over the world – the skills financial services need, London’s already considerable and historic advantages and assets – our stability, our global reach, our reputation for integrity, our willingness to be flexible – had been so enhanced for the new global era that, even in the face of a pre-eminent American economy and an integrated euro area, London has today

    – a greater number of foreign bank branches and subsidiaries than any other city in the world;

    – the largest share of global cross border bank lending;

    – with the London Stock Exchange, the largest trading centre for foreign equities in the world;

    – and the foreign exchange market, the largest and most important in the world.

    And it is a visible demonstration of London’s global reach and position – and now, in recent years, the modern links being forged not just with the USA, Japan and the euro area but with China, India, South Africa and other countries round the world – that I am told that there are more countries represented this evening than at any time in the 120 year history of the Lord Mayor’s Banquet. And I welcome all of you here from every continent and every corner of the globe.

    Your presence tonight demonstrates that the City of London – and our financial services industry – has learnt faster, more intensively and more successfully than others the significance of globalisation :

    – that you succeed best not by sheltering your share of a small protected national market but by striving for a greater and greater share of the growing global market;

    – and that stability, adaptability, innovation and openness to new ideas and to global trading opportunities – great British assets and advantages – matter even more today than ever.

    – and what you have achieved for the financial services sector, we as a country now aspire to achieve for the whole of the British economy.

    And this is my theme this evening.  That the nations that will succeed in this fast changing, fiercely competitive global economy will be those that:

    – first of all, lock in long term stability;

    – second, encourage a competitive environment and the deepest and widest entrepreneurial culture;

    – third, make the commitment to invest in what offers comparative advantage as global economic and technological change restructures where and what we produce – world class levels of innovation, technology, education, skills and, as you My Lord Mayor have mentioned,  infrastructure;

    – and fourth, have the strength to take the hard long term decisions in favour of free trade and outward looking internationalism.

    And I believe that if we have the strength to take the right decisions for the long term Great Britain stands better placed than almost any comparable industrial country to be one of the great success stories of this new global age.

    Why?  Because I believe that if we build on qualities and values that have made us great in the past – our British enterprise, British creativity, the British openness to the world, the British adaptability to new ideas and our strong British sense of fair play and civic duty – and if around these great enduring qualities we can develop a shared British economic purpose about our future destiny as a country, then I foresee a new era of economic success for a global Britain.

    Now Sir Winston Churchill – who we remember particularly in this month, the sixtieth anniversary of D-Day – spoke pointedly on the qualifications needed for a politician: “The ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.”   But in another remarkable phrase he warned his contemporaries that they must never be, as he put it: “Resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity and all powerful for impotence”.

    And it is indeed the need for resolution, solidity, an unwavering commitment to British values facing the challenges of the global economy, and the strength to take the long-term decisions, that is central to my message this evening.

    Stability

    First, Britain will succeed amidst this ever more intensive global competition only by locking in the monetary and fiscal stability that we have been enjoying.

    And I can tell you that we have not taken the tough decisions on stability from 1997 onwards to lower our guard or relax our discipline now.

    Let us remind each other of Britain’s chronic history of stop-go – under-investment, short-termism, insecurity and higher unemployment:

    – an instability that meant businesses would not invest;

    – people would not start up businesses;

    – both families and businesses could not and did not plan for the long term;

    – everyone expected inflation to recur; and

    – short-termism was dominant.

    Indeed, stop go had entered our psychology.

    And when we came into government in 1997 it would have been easier not to have taken the decisions to raise interest rates. I would have avoided difficulties in my own Party if I had ignored the case for independence of the Bank of England. It would have been far more comfortable politically not to have frozen public expenditure or introduced tough new fiscal rules. But I believe that the test of our capacity to govern is whether we have the strength to take the right long term decisions for our country.

    And it was our resolve that facing more intense global competition than ever – where investments will move to the countries that can demonstrate a long standing commitment to and record of monetary and fiscal stability – Britain had to have a new monetary and fiscal regime.  And so the changes we made were not just making the Bank of England independent but:

    – cutting the national debt dramatically;

    – imposing tough new fiscal rules over the economic cycle which allowed us to invest through a world recession;

    – and introducing a symmetrical inflation target that targeted deflation as much as inflation.

    And so let me thank the new Governor – Mervyn King – first for the work he did establishing the new regime as Deputy Governor and now for the contribution he has already made as Governor, showing why he is a worthy successor to Sir Edward George.

    I know the Governor will agree that it is because we have developed a British model for monetary and fiscal stability – which allowed the Bank to cut interest rates aggressively during the world downturn and allows the Bank to act proactively and pre-emptively in the upturn too – that while the USA, Germany, Italy and Japan suffered recessions, Britain for the first time in 50 years did not suffer a recession during the world downturn and instead has grown in quarter after quarter, year after year.

    And I can report to you that now the world economy is strengthening, growth in Britain is also becoming more balanced with business investment, manufacturing output and exports rising now – and expected to continue to rise this year and next.

    Such is our determination to lock in our hard won stability that looking forward we can, and will, take nothing for granted.

    With financial markets expecting interest rates to rise around the world as the world economy turns upwards and looks forward to rising growth and trade, we will continue to support our monetary authorities in the difficult choices they have to make and entrench not relax our fiscal discipline.

    And we will be vigilant to global risks: geopolitical uncertainties, current account imbalances, the long term fiscal pressures of ageing, and specifically three challenges – oil prices, house prices and the need for continued fiscal discipline.

    First oil: while the OPEC decision to raise production targets in July and August is welcome, I can tell you tonight that I and other Finance Ministers will continue to press OPEC both on meeting these quotas and on the case for raising the targets higher.  And because a secure production environment is crucial for stable oil prices in the long term, we will support Mr Rato – the new Managing Director of the IMF – in his proposal for a modern and up to date approach to global energy policy.

    Let us recall that most stop go problems that Britain has suffered in the last fifty years have been led or influenced by the housing market. 40 years ago we built 400,000 homes a year, by the mid 1990s it had fallen to just 200,000 so we will press ahead with resolution – following the Miles and Barker reports and building on the success of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Sustainable Communities Plan – to tackle the large and unacceptable imbalance between supply and demand in the British housing market.  Reforms that, as we said last year, are right in themselves but are also necessary for sustainable and durable convergence with the euro area.  And on the euro, the Treasury will again review progress at Budget time next year.

    And while debt servicing costs are on average substantially lower than ten years ago, the housing market has remained strong. And with Britain’s forward looking and pre-emptive approach to monetary policy we are showing our determination to maintain both a sustained economic recovery and stability, remaining vigilant at all times.

    Let us recall also that at times like this in the political and economic cycle – as the economy starts to grow faster – governments have relaxed their fiscal disciplines and resorted to quick fixes and short cuts in fiscal policy and gone on to raise the rate of spending in a pre election spree. But the spending review I will announce in the next few weeks will both meet all our commitments and all our fiscal rules.  And because our duty is to achieve fiscal sustainability over the longer term we will not make the mistake of other countries whose pension and health care costs could rise to 20 to 25 per cent of national income in future decades. And I can tell you that i am determined to ensure that we can lock in greater stability not just for a year, or for an economic cycle, but in this generation —– a prize of greater stability that has eluded successive governments of all parties in the post war era; a prize that – with resolve and prudence – is now within our grasp.

    Enterprise

    British success in the global era depends on us not just building a consensus around the importance of long term stability but building a similar shared purpose about the importance of flexibility and enterprise – historic British qualities, now more relevant than ever for success in the global age.

    We all know about the rise of China:

    – over recent years contributing more to the growth of the world economy than all the G7 countries put together;

    – consuming, for example, half the worlds cement, over a quarter of the world’s steel and a third of the world’s iron ore;

    – the largest market for mobile phones in the world, and one of the fastest growing car markets too, with more Volkswagens sold in China than Germany.

    We all know about the rise of Asia: whose economy, without Japan, has been growing at twice the rate of America and seven times the rate of the euro area; and to whom 5 million European and US jobs could be outsourced in the next fifteen years.

    And we all know about the rise of developing countries: the vast majority of whose exports twenty years ago were primary products but which are now two thirds manufacturing goods with, in twenty years time, developing countries perhaps accounting for 50 per cent of all manufacturing exports worldwide.

    And I think we can now say with some certainty that the advanced industrial countries that will do well will be those that are able to combine the skills of their people in design, science, technology, finance and management – and modern manufacturing strength – with the production advantages available in emerging economies.

    Think back again to the 1960s and 70s when the old corporatism stifled enterprise and creativity — what we called:

    – ‘the productivity problem’;

    – ‘the management problem’;

    – ‘the union problem’;

    – ‘the short termism problem’;

    – the ‘what’s wrong with Britain problem’.

    So deep rooted was the British problem – sometimes called the British disease – that as they said at the time:

    – first in the fifties we had managed decline;

    – then in the sixties we mismanaged decline;

    – then in the seventies we declined to manage.

    Corporatism led not just to inflationary pay settlements but to mistakes made by governments trying to pick winners and to subsidise loss making industries and to sterile confrontations between union and management as between private sector and public sector, between market and state, with little shared economic purpose on the way forward.

    And it is only recently that we are seeing a new Britain rising in its place.  Our task – and here I acknowledge the work of my predecessors – is to complete that break with the sterile self defeating corporatism that belongs in the past – hence the last Budget’s decision to end permanent on going industrial subsidies in steel, coal and shipbuilding – and develop a far a wider deeper entrepreneurial culture where enterprise opportunities are genuinely open to all.

    So same way that we made the Bank of England independent of government we made our competition authorities independent of government and created one of the most open competition regimes in the world.  And although not quite as public a symbol as the Bank of England independence – but unique in terms of labour’s history none the less – we have cut capital gains tax substantially. Even with other priorities to finance – not least the NHS  – we have cut capital gains tax from 40 pence down to 10 pence for long term business assets and in budget after budget I want us to do even more to encourage the risk takers, those with ambition, to turn their ideas into reality and make the most of their talents.

    And just as public services reform in health, education, transport and the criminal justice system will be stepped up, so too I can tell you that we will propose further economic reform and in particular greater flexibility to make us globally competitive.

    Take the planning system where I can tell you that we will make our planning laws quicker, more flexible and more responsive to the needs of industry and people.

    On pay: we will do more to encourage local and regional pay flexibility

    On tax: having cut corporation tax from 33 pence to 30 pence and small business tax from 23 pence to 19 pence, I promise we will continue to look with you at the business tax regime so that we make and keep the UK as the most competitive place for international business.

    On transport not least here in London: we must work with you – private and public sectors together – to tackle the massive backlog in infrastructure investment.  And with £180 billion of investment over ten years we will.

    And on regulation:  I have announced measures – both for the City and beyond – to tackle unnecessary and wasteful bureaucracy and red tape:

    – all new FSA rules subject to scrutiny by our competition authorities;

    – the Office of Fair Trading now specifically examining the impact of the financial sector regulatory framework on competition;

    – and because 40 per cent of new regulation – and as much as three quarters of new financial sector regulation – comes from Europe I can tell this gathering that having won the battle for a Savings Directive against tax harmonisation, Britain has, having consulted widely with you, already insisted on improvements to the Prospectus Directive, the Transparency Directive, the Market Abuse Directive, the Occupational Pensions Directive and the Investment Services Directive – and we will continue to resist inflexible barriers being added into the Working Time Directive and the Agency Workers Directive.

    And now that the UK Government has agreed with Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg to put regulatory reform at the heart of our four EU Presidencies through to 2005, putting every costly and wasteful regulation to a competitiveness test, we must ensure that if other countries fail to implement EU Directives we will not be discriminated against and there will be a level playing field.

    Science

    British inventiveness is not just a feature of our industrial revolution past.  I am proud to say that today we lead the world not only in so many areas of financial services but in technologically advanced spheres from aerospace and pharmaceuticals to telecommunications, broadcast technologies and digital electronics.

    And while it would always be easier to take the short term route – and fail to continue to make the necessary investments for the future – we propose to take the longer term view and to choose – even amidst other spending priorities – innovation, science and technology, education and infrastructure.  And I can tell you today that in the spending review we have not only financed higher standards in schools and the development of world class universities but we will move forward our ten year transport plan and set out a long term ten year framework for innovation, seeking a partnership with the private sector to do more as we set ourselves an ambitious target of increasing UK R and D investment.

    So instead of stop go, Britain is now a stable economy.  Instead of instability and corporatism, Britain is embarking on an enterprise renaissance and demonstrating a commitment to science and a new determination to raise standards in education and training.

    But just as we have forged a consensus on stability and on enterprise, science and skills, so too I believe we can forge a consensus on the issue of Britain’s place in the world – and particularly on our relationship with Europe.

    Global Britain

    As I said at the outset a commitment to stability and world class levels of skill, innovation, enterprise and investment must be matched in the global economy by the same commitment the City has shown  – to being outward looking and global in our reach.

    That is why I can assure you of our determination to achieve a successful outcome of the Doha Round in the world trade talks and we will also make the case for our membership of the European Union for the advantages it brings to Britain – and for being a leader in the enlarged Europe, the biggest single market in the world.

    Let us not forget the significance of enlargement.

    It brings to an end half a century of division between east and west — once it was said that Europe was divided into two halves – those in the west who had Europe and those in the east who believed in it.

    The idea of the European Union was that with economic cooperation a new prosperity would reinforce that peace.

    It was not just an attempt – to use the words of the Bible – to ‘turn swords into ploughshares’ but to ensure there would be no need for swords ever again: although, with the Common Agricultural Policy, we ended up with rather more ploughshares than we might have wanted.

    So European economic cooperation is vital to our prosperity and let us not forget that 750,000 companies trade with Europe accounting for 3 million British jobs.  53 per cent of our total imports of goods and services are from Europe. 50 per cent of our total exports of goods and services go to Europe.  And 65 per cent of our investment overseas now goes to Europe.

    We are linked to Europe by geography, history and economics

    A Europe of self-governing states working together for common purposes is in Britain’s interests.

    And at a time when a significant section of political opinion appears to be making the case against Britain’s very membership of the EU, I say that we must, and will, make the positive case for Britain in Europe.

    And I believe that the best contribution pro-Europeans committed to Britain leading in Europe can make to the cause of Europe is by ensuring that in Europe – indeed in every debate including the constitutional debate – we face up to rather than duck the difficult decisions about economic reform.

    For just as Britain has to reform to meet the challenges of the new global economy, so must Europe.

    Thirty, twenty, ten years ago it was commonplace to think of Europe as a trade bloc and of the growth of European companies, European brands and European flows of capital – and then to debate the internal rules, disciplines and institutions necessary to make the trade bloc work.  Hence the assumptions of many that a single market and single currency would lead to tax harmonisation and a federal fiscal policy and then a quasi-federal state.

    But globalisation has meant that it is not simply European but global companies that have mushroomed, not mainly European brands but global brands, not European flows of capital alone but global flows of capital – and because it is globalisation that is driving our economies, the new enlarged Europe of 25 must look outwards not inwards, must think globally, reform, be flexible and rise to meet the competitive challenge of globalisation.  And it is global Europe not trade bloc Europe that is the way forward and a flexible, reforming Europe that thinks globally must now reject the old, fatally flawed assumptions of tax harmonisation and federalism.

    First, facing worldwide competition, this new global Europe has no alternative but to embrace flexibility and liberalisation in product and capital markets: the opening up of electricity, utilities, telecommunications and financial services markets must proceed with speed; we need a new competition policy that ensures the single market delivers the lower prices and greater productivity of the US single market; and we should abolish wasteful state aids and promote both a European wide venture-capital industry and Private Finance Initiatives across the continent.

    Second, with more than 18 million Europeans out of work, a globally orientated Europe must combine a new labour market flexibility with policies that equip people with the skills they need for work.   And third, Europe must think globally and because half of the world’s output arises in Europe and America, forge a new relationship with the USA – seeing America as a partner not rival.  It is not just in Britain’s but in Europe’s interest that the EU and USA make a greater effort to tackle the barriers to a fully open trading and investment relationship, strengthen joint arrangements to tackle competition issues, engage in dialogue about the approach to financial services regulation and together make multilateralism work for developing countries.

    And Europe must also think globally and ensure that its monetary regime – the ECB and fiscal regime – the Stability and Growth Pact – enables it to deliver strong and sustainable growth.   That is why the Stability and Growth Pact must place greater emphasis on the importance of low and stable debt levels, and take into account both the ups and downs of the economic cycle and the quality of public finances including the importance of public investment.  And as we evolve the Stability and Growth Pact to meet changing European needs, it is through intergovernmental co-operation that fiscal policy delivers its most effective results.  And the British government will continue to stress that when member states are themselves answerable to their citizens for tax and spending decisions, it is right that the conduct of fiscal policy remains the responsibility of Member States.

    That is why Europe must avoid endorsing a federal–style fiscal policy which would make the Commission and not Member States responsible for fiscal discipline. That is why while tackling unfair tax competition Europe must avoid the tax harmonisation that would damage our competitive position. And that is why also in the coming financial negotiations also Europe must show the resolution to keep its budget prudent and continue to tackle the waste of the CAP.

    So the new constitutional treaty which is being debated in Brussels tomorrow must recognise these new economic realities.

    What are called our red lines – that include economic red lines requiring unanimity on tax decisions and no federal fiscal policy – are not founded on dogma as some allege but on a concrete assessment of Britain’s national interest and Britain and Europe’s economic needs as we meet the challenges of the global economy.

    So Mr Lord Mayor here in 2004 we can speak of a Britain that is no longer the country of stop go but a Britain of stability.

    A Britain that has set aside the old corporatism and is a Britain of flexibility and enterprise.

    A Britain no longer looking backwards, its mindset one of managed decline, but a Britain rising in confidence as it equips itself technologically and educationally for the future.

    And as a Britain no longer looking inwards but a Britain true to its tradition of global engagement, we can find a new confidence as a nation — our outward looking internationalism making us uniquely placed to be a part of – and lead – in a Europe that is itself engaged with the rest of the world

    A strong Britain in a strong Europe – strong to succeed.

    Our shared aim: a confident Great Britain that is a great success story of global economy.

  • David Blunkett – 2004 Speech at TUC Conference

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    Below is the text of the speech on managed migration made by the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, at the 2004 TUC Conference on 10th November 2004.

    This is first opportunity I’ve had since George Brumwell stepped down from the General Secretary’s job at UCATT to thank him for the many years of tremendous battle that he’s been engaged in. He is very familiar indeed with gangmasters given the history of the construction industry and lump labour and all the exploitation that went with it.

    So what we’re catching up with this morning is an agenda the union movement have been battling about for the last 150 years. Why it’s relevant today is because world-wide people movements have made a difference – not just now but in the past as well. Of course the world changes and economy changes because it’s not that long ago since Auf Wiedersehen Pet was on the television and it was British workers in Germany that were the entertainment.

    I think it’s worth just reminding people that we are now responding to the most successful economy – other than in Scandinavia – in the world and we’re actually seeing the requirements of that strong economy in terms of the need for labour and for flexibility. The real task and the challenge that I want to lay out this morning is how to achieve that without the gross exploitation of those workers coming into the country, the exploitation of lower paid workers who are resident and indigenous in the country here and the exploitation of better employers by swept labour being used by those employers who are prepared to undercut in the way that was described almost 100 years ago when the Wages Act was passed.

    Francis O’Grady, the Deputy General Secretary of the TUC, and I were sharing a platform a week or two ago in Chesterfield talking about these very issues. About how we have to face up to what is happening in terms of gang masters and the way in which individual unions like the Transport and General Workers and UCAT have been involved over the years in battling for a new gang master legislation which is very welcome and a starting point for getting this right. I was a very strong supporter both in Cabinet and in Parliament for getting that right. We need to ensure that we establish and develop the Stakeholders Group so that we can deal with illegal working and illegal exploitation. We need to build on the TUC’s work with the workers rights leaflet which we have been funding and developing with the TUC in respect of those workers coming in, or already being here from the Accession States under the expansion of the European Union. Of course that has been a really major success. It’s part of what we laid out almost 2 ½ years ago in the policy paper Safe Havens, Secure Borders back in February 2002. Not many people have read it unfortunately, it is on the website though.

    The paper is a balanced policy about sensible, legal economic migration underpinned by good social cohesion and integration policies, mirrored and paralleled by legal routes for people to come into the country if they are facing death or torture and are therefore asylum seekers and we’ve developed the United Nations route for doing that. It’s at it’s very early stages and we’ve had difficulty persuading local authorities to take on the challenge of being part of the pilot scheme. My own authority in Sheffield was the first to do this prior to the elections at the beginning of June – others were terrified in case their local media and local electorate took fright. Bolton are just taking on a new traunch of those people coming in legally. I mention this to begin with because we’ve got to get over the way in which some branches of the media confuse legal migration with legitimate asylum with illegal and clandestine entry and merge all of these together into a campaign against people being able to come here to receive a warm and recognition that they play an essential part in the life and wellbeing of our country.

    And we have a challenge in the trade union movement because although the leadership of the movement is absolutely committed and always have been against racism and in favour of properly managed legal migration and properly managed asylum policies – the vast majority of trade union members, as demonstrated by the opinion polls both taken internally by the Government as well as those taken by the news media – demonstrate that people are still not only misled and misunderstanding but also deeply fearful and therefore in need of reassurance.

    80% of people in this country think that asylum claims rose over the last 12 months when it actually dropped by 70%. They don’t believe the facts and they don’t believe them because they’re not told them by the media. We have a job to do here, we can be as remiss as others in terms of not being able to get the message across as to precisely what’s happening. Two years ago when I reached agreement with the French on the closure of the Sangatte camp – we stopped what was a nightly vision on our televisions and a daily vision on the early pages of the newspapers of people smuggling their way into the country. The impact that those visual images had still rests with us. So, we’ve got a real challenge to actually get across the message both inside and outside the trade union movement about the real facts.

    The facts are that we need migrant labour. That we have a vibrant economy and we can have a dual approach which doesn’t see managed migration as a alternative to training, to skilling, to improved education, to better welfare to work policies – but a corollary of them, running alongside them. So that getting it right in terms of skills, of moving people from unemployment, of getting people in the right jobs in the right place, of being able to ensure that those who have previously been excluded from the labour market for all sorts of reasons, can firstly take part-time and then full-time jobs. That’s an absolute imperative, as is making work pay and both the minimum wage and the tax credit system are now beginning to ensure that that can happen. We’ve made progress and I know that people in this audience will want us to make it faster and more effective but we’ve made substantial progress over the last few years in achieving that.

    But, we can’t simply meet our needs by that alone. When opposition parties talk about “rigid quotas” (opposition parties that always believe in markets everywhere else except in the labour market), they have to answer a simple question – how on earth can you determine a quota in terms of what employers need to fill vacancies, what the economy needs in terms of the stimulation of growth and productivity and therefore the continuing creation of jobs? The meeting of the challenge of population changes, demographics, of an ageing population and the requirement to be able to sustain us in those changes and to sustain our pension policies and our well-being in those circumstances? How could you do that with a rigid quota laid down in Parliament which would result in anybody to a restaurant and finding as they waited 2 hours for a starter, the manager came along and said don’t argue with me but get hold of your local MP and have an amendment moved next week to the quota because we’re a bit short of labour. More poignantly when the ward’s closed and the nurses are not available or the class size rises about the minimum that I set for infants and we have a crisis in the education system. This would be the result of not allowing a labour market to operate legally and openly and not allowing people to come here in that way.

    We have 600,000 vacancies in the economy, we have shortages in particular sections and regions and in the country of Scotland who are pioneering the programme of getting people to move to Scotland and to play their part in the life of Scotland and the Scottish economy. We’re working with the Scottish Executive to enhance that and to make that even more effective.

    All of these things come together in terms of opening up what should be a common cause in this country between those in work and those trying to fill vacancies. 31% of doctors in this country originated overseas, 25% of all health workers in this country originated overseas and many of the people who have come here recently under the Accession States changes have been able to fill vacancies, sometimes on a temporary basis that would otherwise have led to very considerable difficulties in sectors of the economy.

    I’m proud of what we did on the 1st May, I had to battle extremely hard privately and publicly for what we did because we and Ireland were the only ones who opened up fully the ability to come and work under Accession arrangements. Other countries in varying degrees had to let people of course come as visitors and to move able freely but not to work. As a consequence many people have been pushed into clandestine working across the European economy, undercutting and exploiting other workers and providing a misleading view that somehow they don’t need and shouldn’t have those workers. We chose instead a registration scheme, an open registration scheme. Around 90,000 people in the first 5 months registered. They made a major contribution, many of those who registered originally have already gone back to their countries of origin. 60% in terms of the agriculture sector. And it raises an interesting question about what happens to those who are not registered because they’re not part of EU Accession but are here clandestinely from outside the European Union – something I want to come back to in a moment.

    It may well be that some of those come and go. Some of them we pick up as part of the doubling of our drive against illegal working. Some of those claim asylum in country in order to be able to stay and their cases have to be dealt with on their merits. Some of them are prepared to go home, some can’t go home because their countries of origin won’t re-document them and cause major complications. But as far as the EU States are concerned, this has been a tremendous success. You just need to look back to April of this year to see what people were saying about my proposals. There was almost panic. The leader of the Opposition got up week after week on Prime Ministers’ Questions denouncing it as being an opening of the flood gates. There were newspaper articles that almost suggested that people from Central and Eastern Europe would be pillaging wives and daughters. It was utterly bizarre.

    I do therefore think that the Government deserves some credit for standing up and being counted on this issue and saying that this is the first step to demonstrating just how well a balanced policy can work in the interests of our country. It can only work of course, if that balance is right. The registration allows people to be treated properly, entitled to minimum standards and decent conditions. It also entitles us to require them to pay tax and national insurance and in the first few months alone £120 million was contributed to GDP and £20 million to tax and national insurance. It would have been a great deal higher but many of these workers are actually quite lowly paid.

    I mention the question of temporary as well as full-time workers because whilst many of the workers from Accession States are able to move freely and go backwards and forwards, there is an issue about avoiding exploitation of workers from the developing world. Many of you will have debated this on occasions – we agonised about it when I was the Education and Employment Secretary in relation to schools. Because very often we wanted people to come to our country with particular skills but we didn’t necessarily want to encourage them to stay forever because their own countries of origin desperately needed them. But there are mutual benefits if people come here to learn, to improve, to gain confidence and to go back and be able to contribute to the well-being of the country that they came from.

    I think we need to see this as a much broader policy generally, we need to be able to reach agreements with countries across the world which would reduce the need for people to attempt to claim asylum that there would be much greater freedom if those countries were prepared to guarantee re-entry for their citizens and were prepared to adhere to decent human rights. So, this isn’t just an issue about managed migration or asylum, this isn’t just an issue about fair treatment in our country – it’s also a much broader issue about human rights across the world, genuine freedom of movement and proper treatment of citizens.

    So – I just want to put one or two things on the table. I’ve mentioned that we’ve doubled the number of actions, or raids against illegal working and we’re going to step that up quite dramatically.

    We’re going to develop with the TUC and the CBI an agreement in terms of dealing with illegal working. We’re going to implement the measures in the Sex Offenders and Sex Offences Act in terms of the trafficking of workers for sexual exploitation. We’re going to strengthen the law on top of the Gang Masters Bill, around the issue of illegal employment and we’re going to work with the TUC on providing additional information to workers coming into our country. All of this needs to be seen alongside the material that we’re now supplying not only to asylum seekers but to new migrants on their rights in Britain and their duties and obligations. This will be provided as part of the development of English language for people coming into the country and of course the new citizenship courses which will be available and will encourage people to take naturalisation.

    There is a common cause here between what we’re doing on citizenship in schools which I introduced when I was Education Secretary and what we are doing in terms of citizenship for those who have come into the country and the demand and obligation that we require from our own citizens to provide a warm welcome and an integration of those settling into the communities around us.

    So the contribution that is being made overall by migration into this country is something just under 0.5% contribution to GDP. It’s a substantial tranche of our well-being and the flexible way in which we’ve been dealing with these issues over the last 3 years has actually accelerated that process. But it has to be underpinned with quite clear and tough, reassuring policies – which is why we’ve put in place the new security and immigration measures on the French and now on the Belgium coast. Why we’ve been able to reduce dramatically (by 2 thirds) the number of people who are picked up as illegal entrance into the country at the Kent coast over the last 12 months. Why the new legal routes into the country are so important and the quadrupling of work permits is so vital to making this work because people know that they can get here safely and legally and why we need to learn from the Workers Registration Scheme.

    Now, people have put to me, could we have some form of amnesty for those who are being exploited more generally, those who are not EU citizens. If I went for an amnesty at this moment in time there would be an absolute flood of people trying to get in to actually take advantage of an amnesty. So I think we’re going to have to approach this in a different way. Not everybody in the TUC agrees with me about Identity Cards but one absolutely certain fact is that until you have a proper identity system and we know who is legally here in this country and who is entitled to work and draw down on free services and we are the only country in the world that has a free health service and open access to pre-University education – then we won’t actually be able to monitor and therefore to be properly able to register and do the job. We can do it with EU Accession States because people won’t receive in work benefits and support and legal right to remain here but we can’t do it for people across the world. That is why I have to get other measures in place first before we could ever consider such a policy. I hope that the work that I’ve announced this morning, the joint work with TUC and individual trade unions and the CBI and small business federation will help.

    I hope that the Serious and Organised Crime Agency that we are about to establish will help us to clamp down on traffickers and organised criminals who are behind the clandestine entry. I hope that the further measure that we are about to take which joins Customs and Excise, Immigration, Inland Revenue, the DTI’s enforcement and DWP with the Home Office on a major new drive and pilot scheme in the West Midlands to clamp down on and illegal working will help.

    It has to help because your members are undermined just as the individual themselves are undermined by what is taking place. Because the minimum wage is undercut, conditions are ignored, the bad employer actually affects the jobs of those working for decent employers by undercutting prices and unfair competition.

    So we’re all in this together and I hope that with the umbrella of sensible, balanced migration and the new integration policies including the new integration loan that I announced at Labour Party Conference, we can start making progress. Not only to provide that warm welcome but to change people’s attitudes in this country. Because if we don’t you’ll hear again and again what you heard from the Co-Chair of the Tory Party last Saturday, Liam Fox, who spoke on the on Saturday morning and lied through his teeth.

    He talked about migration being out of hand, he talked about asylum claims going up. He talked about the dangers, he attempted to whip up fears and our job is to reduce those fears. To reduce the fear of difference, to reduce the fear of exploitation, to reduce the fear of someone else taking your job. We need to demonstrate instead that properly organised and properly managed in the community we have a win-win situation here where people being treated properly can also lead to us treating ourselves properly.

    That is the message of this morning and I ask the TUC and individual trade unions to ask their executives not just to pass resolutions or be sympathetic – or even sometimes to be critical when they think we’ve got it wrong – but to actually help us to do something about it. Like persuading those 80% of trade union members who don’t have the facts, who are fearful about what’s happening around them and who need persuading. If we don’t do it together I promise you our opponents will exploit that weakness and it won’t be us arguing about what we’re going to do but it will be all of us passing resolutions about what we’d like somebody else to do in a different world when we return to power.

    So, here we are, we’re in it together and I’m grateful for the opportunity to speak to you. I’m particularly for all of you coming this morning to listen.

    Thanks very much indeed.

  • David Blunkett – 2004 Speech on ID Cards

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    Below is the text of the speech made on 17th November 2004 by the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, on identity cards.

    Well, thank you very much for being here and for the invitation. It depends of course upon your passion and whether or not we are in favour of it. I am very happy to take on the challenge of those who feel extremely strongly about the issue of identity cards and the protection of our identity. There was a little group of people outside who burnt a card with my effigy on it. There are 80% of the population at the moment on all the opinion polls who are in favour, so if they keep up those antics, we should get over 90% by the end of the year. When I first started discussing this and it’s almost 3 years ago to the month since it was raised with me rather then my raising it publicly, there was a great deal of scepticism about whether the public themselves would be in favour. By the time I’d published the consultation, we’d reached the point where people at least were smiling about it. There was a cartoon in the Daily Telegraph, which I thought was very apposite, of two dogs smelling each other’s bottoms saying “Well at least with identity cards we won’t have to do this anymore!” So that at least bought a smile to people’s lips.

    There have been lies, damn lies on the coverage of ID cards. I saw in a Sunday paper just a few weeks ago a quite remarkable story about how they are going to allow the government to track the shopping habits, the purchasing and the spending habits of the population, where of course, as we know it’s these little cards that actually determine whether people’s shopping habits, whether they’re purchasing, whether their family activity, the exact nature of the purchasing, where the expenditure is made, is all to do with loyalty cards and voluntarily very large numbers of the population now are prepared to have that sort of detail understood by the private sector and often used by the private sector. And I think there’s a real issue about how that should be overseen and supervised and how as part of the debate about the very limited access and use of information in terms of identity cards, we should broaden the discussion in terms of protecting our broader privacy in those circumstances. So I think it’s a really good opportunity now to start debating what is known about us, by whom, who supervises and oversees it and how we can get a grip on it. And certainly with ID cards, the real issues will be about how we reassure people that far from encroaching on their liberty, their privacy and confidentiality, we are able to build-in proper mechanisms to ensure that there isn’t either a drift in terms of the access to it or function drift in terms of the use of the information that is available on the new register.

    I want to address the issue of “why now?” and why now it is meaningful to actually undertake the project that we are about to legislate on and to develop. The first thing to say is that there is a mistake in believing that what we are putting forward is a replica of anything else that actually exists across Europe and the world. I wouldn’t be arguing for identity cards in the form that they’ve been known in Europe for the kind of measures that we want to take and the protections that we believe an identity card will give us. I wouldn’t do so because we could not actually track and properly verify identity under those schemes because firstly we wouldn’t have a secure and verifiable database of the specific biometrics, the identifiers that route back to our identity as opposed to someone else’s. Secondly, we wouldn’t be able to use that database and the verification mechanisms both through the card and direct from the person to be able to check whether the person who presents themselves, for whatever purpose, is the person who’s identified on that secure database, and thirdly because the uses to which we are now able to put the identity card linked to a database using biometrics has, by necessity, to be the method by which we will be challenged across the world as we use visa and passports linked to biometrics. So the “why now” is all about the meaningful use of a card which in itself is unimportant. It’s the identification of the individual and the use of the biometric, and it may well be that in years to come, the card itself will become superfluous. Technology would allow you simply to move past, or to put 3 or 2 fingers over a particular laser for the identity to be reflected in terms of the database. So the card is almost a reassurance. It’s a reassurance as to what’s there. It’s a reassurance for those learning to use and to provide proper verification of identity. It’s simply about this: how do we know that the person who presents themselves, is the person they claim to be? At the moment we don’t have such verification and we can’t prove it, and secondly we haven’t had methods which were free from, or as free as we could get from, from people being able to forge someone else’s identity. You can forge a card, that isn’t the issue. The issue is can you forge someone’s identity, whose identity is registered on the database? Of course if someone claims to be someone else, registers as someone else and continues for the rest of their life to be someone else, then the database will have them as someone else, until the someone else actually claims to be who they are and then we sort it out, because there can’t be 2 people with the same biometric on the same database claiming to be the same person. I think it’s quite important to spell that out because there is terrific misunderstanding about the issue about being able to forge or multiply identity. You can do what you like with the card but you can’t in terms of routing it back to the database.

    And why the necessity of doing it at all now? Well fairly obviously on a very personal level what is it good for in terms for us? If we are going to have to pay $100 a throw to get a biometric visa for clearance to travel to and from the US and there are 4 of us in the family, it’s a lot easier to use a biometric ID card, linked to our new biometric passport then it is to have to pay over and over again in order to be cleared to be able to get to the US, and that will certainly become the case in other parts of the world as well. It’s helpful for us, in terms of being able to establish common travel arrangements in Europe. Not necessary inside but certainly coterminous with the Schengen travel area, in order to be able to do that, alongside our colleagues in France, Germany and Spain who are now developing the issue of biometrics for travel inside and outside the European Union. It’s obviously the case that we need to tackle gross fraud and whilst PIN numbers help, they don’t overcome the massive growth in fraud and organised criminality which is a daily occurrence, and which is actually affecting the lives and well-being of millions of people. And then of course we get onto the issues of terrorism. Now people say to me that they don’t believe for a minute ID cards would actually help in terms of being able to track or prevent terrorist activity and they say “It didn’t stop the terrorist attack in Madrid in March, did it?” And the answer is: “no it didn’t” and I have never claimed that it would have done. The claim is very simple. ID cards, and this is true of their use in other areas, is not a panacea for all ills. It does not prevent, it does not stop, it contributes to being able to put in place another plank in the creation of a wall against those who would exploit our well-being in free societies, in a global economy, in a world of immediate communication where transport across the world allows us to move freely wherever we want to go.

    We live in a totally different world to even 20, never mind 50 or 100 years ago. And if something contributes, as it does, to preventing multiple identity being used for terrorists and organised crime, I believe we should take that opportunity. The security service say, and there is no reason on earth why they should tell an untruth, and I’ve checked with the Spanish government who after all were not in government when the attack took place, so they have no vested interest in this, what the situation is in terms of multiple identity and terrorism: 35% of known and identified terrorists have used multiple identities. They use it to hide and prevent tracking of their movements; they use it in order to be able to cover other terrorists and terrorist activities and their contacts and they use it obviously to be able to escape detection. So there is a real contribution, albeit that it isn’t a complete one, in terms of helping us to do that. What is absolutely certain, is that in a modern democratic society like ours where we have free provision of services, the attraction of being in Britain without an easy and verifiable way of ascertaining an individual’s identity, changes the relationship between citizens and residents who contribute towards society around them and those who would draw down on society without making a contribution.

    I think it’s a profound values point. Those who argue against free services argue that people misuse them if they don’t contribute to them. People who argue against transfer of income through public services, namely equalisation, providing a fairer society, do so on the basis that people exploit those services and take them for granted. Only by ensuring that we have a something for something society, those who in one form or another contribute towards the well-being of society, in my view, have the right therefore to demand that society support and develop services to sustain them. We have the only free health service in the world. It is estimated that hundreds of millions of pounds a year are drawn down on by people who have no right to use our services – primary and mostly acute care. It’s estimated that we have those in our country who know that they can come here freely and they can present themselves and receive treatment. Now clearly anybody who has an emergency, anyone who is in this country and has reciprocal arrangements, anyone who has a contagious disease that requires immediate action, should receive free treatment and under the scheme we are putting forward that would remain the case. Anyone accessing long term treatment care and expensive services by immediately registering with a GP or presenting themselves at A&E, should actually be able to prove their identity and then we can sort out not whether they receive treatment, and if they are on a long term programme, how it’s paid for. It’s as simple as that.

    The same applies in terms of the ability to work in our country. You can’t have a system where we quadruple work permits, where we open up new migration routes, where with the United Nations we get a grip on the exploitation by organised criminals of those who come into our country through asylum but actually want to stay and work. If you don’t have a system that can route out clandestine entry and clandestine working, at the moment schemes to try and clamp down on those who are exploiting others, including gang masters, are very difficult. The 1996 Act clause 8 has been very difficult to implement because employers quite rightly say that they are not an immigration service and they can’t easily ascertain whether someone is legally in the country without great difficulty. The verification process under ID cards would remove that excuse completely and people would know who was entitled to be here and open to pay taxes and NI. In my view that would be a major contributor to social cohesion, to tackling racism, to overcoming xenophobia by ensuring that people know that those who are here in our country have a warm welcome, contribute and are not exploiting themselves, or exploiting others or being exploited by rogue employers who undercut rates by sweat shops. If we really want to get a grip on the sweat shop sub-economy then we will need, I am afraid to those who disagree with me, we will need ID cards to be able to do it.

    Let me just say two other things, one about values. A lot of the fear it seems to me in this country about ID cards, apart from the clumsy way in which they were handled in the post-war era, is the history we have of having understandable and legitimate doubts about the intentions of the state, whatever state, whichever government is in office reinforced with what we saw across the world in the 20th century with communism and fascism. It goes back a long way, actually John Stuart Mill wasn’t quite the libertarian that people think he was because he understood that we held common values which were crucial to the glue of society and was not as antipathetic to the philosophies of Rousseau which underpinned the mutuality and solidarity which is much more common in Europe. Kant, I’m afraid, was the great libertarian, who took a view [and people often do subliminally in our society], that there is something inherently suspicious about government itself and if government are doing it, then something must be inherently wrong, there’s going to be oppression, there’s going to be the taking away of freedoms and rights. Whereas of course the private sector, as with loyalty cards, is perfectly alright, no problem about that, whatever they know about us is perfectly legitimate. Now I challenge this because as a democratic socialist, I believe that the great strides in equality and fairness and in creating liberty and in creating a civilised and just society have come about by people joining together through democratic politics to change the world, and they have done so by using politics through government, at local and at national level. And increasingly have to try and do so, including of course, the United Nations, by joining together and having solidarity in overcoming those challenges and I think that it’s time to take on those who simply believe that if governments are engaged in trying to ensure that people’s true identity can be ascertained, there is some suspicious and dangerous philosophy behind it. It can’t be they say, at face value. You can’t really just want to know that someone is who they say they are. Well we do, and we can build in systems that you can’t build for private enterprise to protect ourselves, our citizens, from encroachment on those aspects of our lives that we don’t want the state to interfere with or to know about. Simple identity with simple facts about who you are, where at the moment you are living, seems to me to be completely open to scrutiny as are the things we put on our passports or our driving licenses and it is exactly the same we are seeking from people.

    We have had two consultations, one on the original scheme and secondly on the draft bill. The Home Affairs Select Committee have produced their report and we have accepted a very large number of their proposals including that whilst we build the scheme on the biometric passport we actually issue a separate card. We’ve agreed that the purposes of the programme should be put on the face of the bill. We’ve agreed that we should reinforce the very important safeguards about function drift and we’ve agreed and I’m very pleased that he’s here this morning with the Data Protection Commissioner that we should take on board concerns that he quite legitimately raises from his position. And we’ve agreed that we should, through the new Identity Commissioner, widen the scope of the surveillance that he will be able to undertake to protect individual’s interests and that individuals should be able to check, not only what’s being held which is very simple and straightforward, but who has accessed for verification purposes, the check on their identity.

    So having already illustrated at the beginning that there is an issue about how we might allow checks to be made on the use of other cards, I think it’s beholden on us to get our card right in the first place. Secondly to make sure that in doing so, the Commissioner can have the powers of oversight necessary in a way that will secure people’s confidence that only accredited third parties can undertake the checks that are required and that we can check who has verified our identity on that database. I think when we do that, when we build in those checks and balances, people will be secure. We know that it’s right, that we should be cross-questioned and held to account on this. It’s a very big programme that we are setting in train, which is why we are going to take time over doing it.

    I just want to finish by very quickly explaining why even if we didn’t have ID cards, we would be incurring the bulk of the cost and the necessary identification methodology. If we want, and we’ve already agreed as a nation that we do want, secure passports, the only way to get them is to use biometrics. So the question is do we use 1, 2 or 3? We think that we should endeavour to use 3 biometric identifiers as a safeguard for all of us. Secondly if we are going to have those secure passports, and we are, does it make sense to make sure that they are genuinely secure and that the biometric can be used properly for the other purposes I outlined this morning rather then simply for travel? We believe it is because if we are going to incur the cost which was set out in the UK passport plan for the next 4 years at the end of March of this year, and the costings that went with it, that raised (over the next 4 years) the average passport charge to meet the biometric identifier required. And we need to get those identifiers at the point that someone renews their passport, does it make sense to pay a little extra to be able to have a secure database with a secure method of verification and to issue a card alongside it? In other words the £15 that I announced 2 weeks ago is now our clear understanding of the additional charge on top of the passport for the ID card in 4 years time, lasting for a 10 year period, and we believe it is. Therefore, we are going to have biometrics anyway, we want to use them sensibly, we want them to be properly surveilled and we want to protect people from intrusion and misuse, and we want to use the link database and ID card to ensure that we can protect ourselves as citizens and as individuals and we can have a society in which people are confident about what is happening around them. We can tackle organised criminality, we can stop clandestine working, we can protect our services and we can have a card which reinforces the identity of those in and working alongside us in our society in a way that will help reinforce the importance of citizenship and cohesion. And if we can do that, then we will have a scheme that is worthwhile. And if we can’t, I shall certainly will be remembered in history as one of the biggest political failures that Britain has ever produced!

  • Tony Blair – 2004 Statement on the Butler Report

    tonyblair

    Below is the text of the speech made in the House of Commons by Tony Blair on 14th July 2004.

    Lord Butler’s Report is comprehensive, thorough; and I thank the members of his Committee and their staff for all their hard work in compiling it. We accept fully the Report’s conclusions.

    The Report provides an invaluable analysis of the general threat in respect of WMD; of the potential acquisition of WMD by terrorists; and though it devotes much of its analysis to Iraq, it also goes into detail on the WMD threat posed by Iran, Libya, North Korea and A Q Khan. Some of the intelligence disclosed is made available for the first time and gives some insight into the reasons for the judgements I and other Ministers have been making. I hope the House will understand if I deal with it in some detail.

    The hallmark of the Report is its balanced judgements.

    The Report specifically supports the conclusions of Lord Hutton’s inquiry about the good faith of the intelligence services and the Government in compiling the September 2002 dossier.

    But it also makes specific findings that the dossier and the intelligence behind it should have been better presented, had more caveats attached to it, and been better validated.

    It reports doubts which have recently arisen on the 45 minute intelligence and says in any event it should have been included in the dossier in different terms; but it expressly supports the intelligence on Iraq’s attempts to procure uranium from Niger in respect of Iraq’s nuclear ambitions.

    The Report finds that there is little – if any – significant evidence of stockpiles of readily deployable weapons.

    But it also concludes that Saddam Hussein did indeed have:

    a.         “the strategic intention of resuming the pursuit of prohibited weapons programmes, including if possible its nuclear weapons programme, when United Nations inspection regimes were relaxed and sanctions were eroded or lifted.

    b.         In support of that goal, was carrying out illicit research and development, and procurement, activities, to seek to sustain its indigenous capabilities.

    c.         Was developing ballistic missiles with a range longer than permitted under relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions;”

    Throughout the last 18 months, throughout the rage and ferment of the debate over Iraq, there have been two questions.

    One is an issue of good faith, of integrity.

    This is now the fourth exhaustive inquiry that has dealt with this issue. This report, like the Hutton inquiry, like the report of the ISC before it and of the FAC before that, has found the same thing.

    No-one lied.  No-one made up the intelligence. No-one inserted things into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services.

    Everyone genuinely tried to do their best in good faith for the country in circumstances of acute difficulty.  That issue of good faith should now be at an end.

    But there is another issue.  We expected, I expected to find actual usable, chemical or biological weapons shortly after we entered Iraq.  We even made significant contingency plans in respect of their use against our troops.  UN Resolution 1441 in November 2002 was passed unanimously by the whole Security Council, including Syria, on the basis Iraq was a WMD threat. Lord Butler says in his report:

    “We believe that it would be a rash person who asserted at this stage that evidence of Iraqi possession of stocks of biological or chemical agents, or even of banned missiles, does not exist or will never be found.”

    But I have to accept: as the months have passed, it seems increasingly clear that at the time of invasion Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy.

    The second issue is therefore this:  even if we acted in perfectly good faith, is it now the case that in the absence of stockpiles of weapons ready to deploy, the threat was misconceived and therefore the war was unjustified?

    I have searched my conscience, not in a spirit of obstinacy; but in genuine reconsideration in the light of what we now know, in answer to that question.  And my answer would be: that the evidence of Saddam’s WMD was indeed less certain, less well-founded than was stated at the time.  But I cannot go from there to the opposite extreme.  On any basis he retained complete strategic intent on WMD and significant capability; the only reason he ever let the inspectors back into Iraq was that he had 180,000 US and British troops on his doorstep; he had no intention of ever co-operating fully with the inspectors; and he was going to start up again the moment the troops and the inspectors departed; or the sanctions eroded. And I say further: that had we backed down in respect of Saddam, we would never have taken the stand we needed to take on WMD, never have got the progress for example on Libya, that we achieved; and we would have left Saddam in charge of Iraq, with every malign intent and capability still in place and every dictator with the same intent everywhere immeasurably emboldened.

    As I shall say later: for any mistakes, made, as the Report finds, in good faith I of course take full responsibility, but I cannot honestly say I believe getting rid of Saddam was a mistake at all.  Iraq, the region, the wider world is a better and safer place without Saddam.

    The Report begins by an assessment of intelligence and its use in respect of countries other than Iraq.  It points out that in respect of Libya, the intelligence has largely turned out to be accurate especially in respect of its nuclear weapons programmes; and those are now being dismantled.  In respect of Iran, the Report says Iran is now engaged with the IAEA, though there remain ‘clearly outstanding issues about Iran’s activities’.

    About North Korea, the Report concludes that it ‘is now thought to be developing missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons as far away as continental US and Europe’.

    The Report goes on at para 99: ‘North Korea is a particular cause for concern because of its willingness to sell ballistic missiles to anyone prepared to pay in hard currency’.

    The Report also discloses the extent of the network of A Q Khan, the Pakistani former nuclear scientist.  This network is now shut down largely through US and UK intelligence work, through Pakistani cooperation and through the dialogue with Libya.

    The Report then reveals for the first time the development of the intelligence in respect of the new global terrorism we face.  In the early years, for example, in the JIC assessment of October 1994, the view was that the likelihood of terrorists acquiring or using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons was, whilst theoretically possible, highly unlikely.

    However, as the name and activities of Usama Bin Laden became better known, the JIC started to change its earlier assessment.  In November 1998, it said:

    [UBL] has a long-standing interest in the potential terrorist use of CBR materials, and recent intelligence suggest his ideas about using toxic materials are maturing and being developed in more detail. … There is also secret reporting that he may have obtained some CB material – and that he is interested in nuclear materials.

    And in June 1999:

    Most of UBL’s planned attacks would use conventional terrorist weapons.  But he continues to seek chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear material and to develop a capability for its terrorist use.

    By mid-July 1999 this view hardened still further:

    There have been important developments in [Islamist extremist] terrorism.  It has become clear that Usama Bin Laden has been seeking CBRN materials … . The significance of his possession of CB materials is that, in contrast to other terrorists interested in CB, he wishes to target US, British and other interests worldwide.

    A series of further assessments to the same effect issued in January 2000, again in August 2000, and in January 2001.

    To anyone who wants to know why I have become increasingly focused on the link between terrorism and WMD, I recommend reading this part of the Report and the intelligence assessments received.

    It was against this background of what one witness to Lord Butler called the ‘creeping tide of proliferation’ that the events of September 11th 2001 should be considered.  As the Report says, following September 11th, the calculus of the threat changed:

    I said in this House on the 14th September 2001:

    “We know, that the terrorists would, if they could, go further and use chemical or biological or even nuclear weapons of mass destruction.  We have been warned by the events of 11 September.  We should act on the warning.”

    I took the view then and stand by it now that no Prime Minister faced with this evidence could responsibly afford to ignore it.  After September 11th, it was time to take an active as opposed to reactive position on the whole question of WMD.  We had to close down the capability of the rogue states – usually highly repressive and unstable – to develop such weapons; and the commercial networks such as those of A Q Khan helping them.

    Again my clear view was that the country where we had to take a stand was Iraq.  Why?

    Iraq was the one country to have used WMD recently.  It had developed WMD capability and concealed it.  Action by UN inspectors and the IAEA had by the mid to late 1990s reduced this threat significantly; but as the Butler Report shows at paras 180-182, by the time the inspectors were effectively blocked in Iraq (at the end of 1998) the JIC assessments were that some CW stocks remained hidden and that Iraq remained capable of a break-out chemical weapons capability within months; a biological weapons capability, also with probable stockpiles; and could have had ballistic missiles capability in breach of UN Resolutions within a year.

    This was the reason for military action, taken without a UN Resolution, in December 1998.

    Subsequent to that, the Report shows that we continued to receive the JIC assessments on Iraq’s WMD capability.  For example, in respect of chemical and biological weapons it said in April 2000:

    Our picture is limited.

    It is likely that Iraq is continuing to develop its offensive chemical warfare (CW) and biological warfare (BW) capabilities.

    In May 2001, the JIC assessed, in respect of nuclear weapons:

    Our knowledge of developments in Iraq’s WMD and ballistic missile programmes since Desert Fox air operations in December 1998 is patchy.  But intelligence gives grounds for concern and suggests that Iraq is becoming bolder in conducting activities prohibited by UNSCR 687.

    There is evidence of increased activity at Iraq’s only remaining nuclear facility and a growing number of reports on possible nuclear related procurement.

    In February 2002, the JIC said:

    Iraq … if it has not already done so, could produce significant quantities of BW agent within days.  …

    The Report specifically endorses the March 2002 advice to Ministers which states that though containment had been partially successful and intelligence was patchy, Iraq continues to develop WMD:

    Iraq has up to 20 650km range missiles left over from the Gulf War.  These are capable of hitting Israel and the Gulf states.  Design work for other ballistic missiles over the UN limit of 150km continues.  Iraq continues with its BW and CW programmes and, if it has not already done so, could produce significant quantities of BW agents within days and CW agent within weeks of a decision to do so.  We believe it could deliver CBW by a variety of means, including in ballistic missile warheads.  There are also some indications of a continuing nuclear programme.

    The point I would make is simply this.  The dossier of September 2002 did not reach any startling or radical conclusion.  It said, in effect, what had been said for several years based not just on intelligence but on frequent UN and international reports.  It was the same conclusion that led us to military action in 1998; to maintain sanctions; to demand the return of UN Inspectors.

    We published the dossier in response to the enormous Parliamentary and press clamour.  It was not, as has been described, the case for war.  But it was the case for enforcing the UN will.

    In retrospect it has achieved a fame it never achieved at the time.  As the Report states at para 310:

    It is fair to say at the outset that the dossier attracted more attention after the war than it had done before it.  When first published, it was regarded as cautious, and even dull.  Some of the attention that it eventually received was the product of controversy over the Government’s further dossier of February 2003.  Some of it arose over subsequent allegations that the intelligence in the September dossier had knowingly been embellished, and hence over the good faith of the Government.  Lord Hutton dismissed those allegations. We should record that we, too, have seen no evidence that would support any such allegations.

    The Report at para 333 states that in general the statements in the dossier reflected fairly the judgements of past JIC assessments.

    The Report, however, goes on to say that with hindsight making public that the authorship of the dossier was by the JIC was a mistake. It meant that more weight was put on the intelligence than it could bear; and put the JIC and its Chairman in a difficult position.

    It recommends in future a clear delineation between Government and JIC, perhaps by issuing two separate documents. I think this is wise, though I doubt it would have made much difference to the reception of the intelligence at the time.

    The Report also enlarges on the criticisms of the ISC in respect of the greater use of caveats about intelligence both in the dossier and in my foreword and we accept that entirely.

    The Report also states that significant parts of the intelligence have now been found by SIS to be in doubt.

    The Chief of SIS, Sir Richard Dearlove has told me that SIS accepts all the conclusions and recommendations of Lord Butler’s report which concern the Service.  SIS will fully address the recommendations which Lord Butler has made about their procedures and about the need for the Service properly to resource them.  The Service has played, and will continue to play, a vital role in countering worldwide the tide of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, its successes are evident in Lord Butler’s report.

    I accept the Report’s conclusions in full.  Any mistakes made should not be laid at the door of our intelligence and security community.  They do a tremendous job for our country.

    I accept full personal responsibility for the way the issue was presented and therefore for any errors made.

    As the Report indicates, there is no doubt that at the time it was genuinely believed by everyone that Saddam had both strategic intent in respect of WMD and actual weapons.

     

    I make this further point.  On the sparse, generalised and highly fragmented intelligence about Al Qaida prior to September 11th, it is now widely said policy-makers should have foreseen the attacks that materialised on September 11th 2001 in New York.  I only ask:  had we ignored the specific intelligence about the threat from Iraq, backed up by a long history of international confrontation over it, and that threat later materialised, how would we have been judged?

    I know some will disagree with this.  There are those who were opposed to the war, remain so now and will forever be in that position.

    I only hope that now, after two detailed Parliamentary Committee reports, a judicial inquiry more exhaustive than any has ever been in examining an allegation of impropriety against Government and now this voluminous report, people will not disrespect the other’s point of view but will accept that those that agree and those that disagree with the war in Iraq, hold their views not because they are war-mongers on the one hand or closet supporters of Saddam on the other, but because of a genuine difference of judgement as to the right thing to have done.

    There was no conspiracy.  There was no impropriety.

    The essential judgement and truth, as usual, does not lie in extremes.

    We all acknowledge Saddam was evil and his regime depraved.  Whether or not actual stockpiles of weapons are found, there wasn’t and isn’t any doubt Saddam used WMD and retained every strategic intent to carry on developing them.  The judgement is this: would it have been better or more practical to have contained him through continuing sanctions and weapons inspections; or was this inevitably going to be at some point a policy that failed?  And was removing Saddam a diversion from pursuing the global terrorist threat; or part of it?

    I can honestly say I have never had to make a harder judgement.  But in the end, my judgement was that after September 11th, we could no longer run the risk; that instead of waiting for the potential threat of terrorism and WMD to come together, we had to get out and get after it.  One part was removing the training ground of Al Qaida in Afghanistan.  The other was taking a stand on WMD; and the place to take that stand was Iraq, whose regime was the only one ever to have used WMD and was subject to 12 years of UN Resolutions and weapons inspections that turned out to be unsatisfactory.

    And though in neither case was the nature of the regime the reason for conflict, it was decisive for me in the judgement as to the balance of risk for action or inaction.

    Both countries now face an uncertain struggle for the future.  But both at least now have a future.  The one country in which you will find an overwhelming majority in favour of the removal of Saddam is Iraq.

    I am proud of this country and the part it played and especially our magnificent armed forces, in removing two vile dictatorships and giving people oppressed, almost enslaved, the prospect of democracy and liberty.

    This Report will not end the arguments about the war.  But in its balance and common sense, it should at least help to set them in a more rational light; and for that we should be grateful.

  • Tony Blair – 2004 Speech on Law and Order

    tonyblair

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on 19th July 2004.

    Today sees the publication of the third 5 year strategy – this time for the Criminal Justice System and Home Office. The NHS strategy built on the investment and reforms of the past seven years; and indicated a step change to a de-centralised, non-monolithic consumer and patient driven NHS. The result will be an NHS true to its founding principle of healthcare available according to need not wealth; but radically changed for the world of the early 21st century.

    Likewise the education strategy signalled a move to a new era of secondary education beyond the traditional comprehensive model towards independent specialist schools.

    Today’s strategy is the culmination of a journey of change both for progressive politics and for the country.  It marks the end of the 1960s liberal, social consensus on law and order.

    The 1960s saw a huge breakthrough in terms of freedom of expression, of lifestyle, of the individual’s right to live their own personal life in the way they choose. It was the beginning of a consensus against discrimination, in favour of women’s equality, and the end of any sense of respectability in racism or homophobia. Not that discrimination didn’t any longer exist – or doesn’t now – but the gradual acceptance that it was contrary to the spirit of a new time.  Deference, too, was on the way out and rightly.  It spoke to an increasing rejection of rigid class divisions.

    All of this has survived and strengthened in today’s generation.  But with this change in the 1960s came something else, not necessarily because of it but alongside it.  It was John Stuart Mill who articulated the modern concept that with freedom comes responsibility.  But in the 1960’s revolution, that didn’t always happen.  Law and order policy still focussed on the offender’s rights, protecting the innocent, understanding the social causes of their criminality.  All through the 1970s and 1980s, under Labour and Conservative Governments, a key theme of legislation was around the prevention of miscarriages of justice.  Meanwhile some took the freedom without the responsibility.  The worst criminals became better organised and more violent.  The petty criminals were no longer the bungling but wrong-headed villains of old; but drug pushers and drug-abusers, desperate and without any residual moral sense.  And a society of different lifestyles spawned a group of young people who were brought up without parental discipline, without proper role models and without any sense of responsibility to or for others.  All of this was then multiplied in effect, by the economic and social changes that altered the established pattern of community life in cities, towns and villages throughout Britain and throughout the developed world.

    Here, now, today, people have had enough of this part of the 1960s consensus.  People do not want a return to old prejudices and ugly discrimination.  But they do want rules, order and proper behaviour. They know there is such a thing as society.  They want a society of respect.  They want a society of responsibility.  They want a community where the decent law-abiding majority are in charge; where those that play by the rules do well; and those that don’t, get punished.

    For me this has always been something of a personal crusade. I got used to the society of fear in the 1980s canvassing on the Holly Street estate in Hackney (now thankfully greatly improved); when people were too scared to open the door and the letterboxes had burn marks round them where lighted rags had been shoved through them.

    Later still, as an MP, I realised to my shock that this wasn’t confined to inner-city London. In the shire county of Durham, it was the same. I wrote a piece about it in The Times in April 1988, the first time I remember using the phrase “anti-social behaviour”.

    Then as Shadow Home Secretary, I had the chance to campaign on it. At the time the shift in Labour’s stance on law and order was seen as clever politics. Actually I just worked through instinct; and discovered that all over progressive politics, including in the 1960s generation, the same anger and concern was felt.

    But in Government, of course, the issue is not what to say, but what to do. Looking back, of all the public services we inherited in 1997, the one that was most unfit for purpose was the criminal justice system. Police numbers were falling. Though recorded crime had begun to fall, it was still double what it had been in the 1970s. Detections and convictions were going down. Trials often collapsed. Fines were often not paid.  Probation training had stalled. 1 in 6 CPS posts were vacant. There were literally no computers for frontline prosecution  staff.  But above all, there was a resigned tolerance of failure, a culture of fragmentation and an absence of any sense of forward purpose, across the whole criminal justice system. And anti-social behaviour was a menace, without restraint.

    In the first few years we took some important first steps.  We stopped the fall in police numbers, once free of the spending constraints of the first two years.  We halved the time to bring persistent juvenile offenders to justice.  We introduced the first testing and treatment orders for drug offenders.  We introduced and implemented a radical strategy on burglary and car crime which cut both dramatically.  We toughened the law.

    As a result, on the statistics we are the first Government since the war to have crime lower than when we took office.  But that’s the statistics.  It’s not what people feel.

    Building on these foundations, we started to become a lot more radical in our thinking. We introduced the first legislation specifically geared to ASB.  We asked the police what powers they wanted and gave them to them.  The latest Criminal Justice Act is a huge step forward. We put a £1 billion investment into CJS technology. We have introduced mandatory drug testing at the point of charge in high crime areas. We have established the first DNA database. There will be a new framework for sentencing. Probation and prisons are to be run under one service. Community penalties are being radically re-structured. And we have 12,500 more police than in 1997. There is a real feeling within the CJS that change is happening.

    But as fast as we act, as tough as it seems compared to the 1970s or 1980s, for the public it is not fast or tough enough.

    What we signal today is a step-change. It has three components to it.

    First, we seek to revive community policing. People want not just the bobby on the beat, but a strong, organised uniformed presence back on the streets.  And the local community itself wants a say in how they are policed. They want to be in charge. Our proposals for police, CSOs and neighbourhood action do that.

    Second, we are shifting from tackling the offence to targeting the offender. There will be a massive increase in drug testing and drug treatment, with bail and the avoidance of prison being dependent on the offender’s co-operation.  Sentencing and probation will likewise focus on the offender; and just paying the penalty will not be enough.  For as long as they remain a danger, the most violent offenders will stay in custody.

    Thirdly, we are giving local communities and police the powers they need to enforce respect on the street. ASB measures will be strengthened. Summary justice through on-the-spot fines, seizure of drug dealers’ assets, closure of pubs, clubs and houses that are the centre of drug use or disorder, naming and shaming of persistent ASB offenders, interim ASBO’s, will be rolled out.  Organised criminals will face not just the pre-emptive seizure of their assets, but will be forced to cooperate with investigations and will face trial without jury where there is any suggestion of intimidation of jurors.  Abuse of court procedures, endless trial delays, the misuse of legal aid will no longer be tolerated.

    The purpose of the CJS reforms is to re-balance the system radically in favour of the victim, protecting the innocent but ensuring the guilty know the odds have changed.

    I know this is a lot to promise and to deliver.  But there is change underway.  For the first time in years, people’s fear of crime, and of ASB and of their satisfaction levels with the CJS are moving in the right direction.  I want this to be a major part of our offer to the people of Britain in the time to come.  We can’t do it on our own.  We need the police to use the powers.  We need the public to get engaged.  But for the first time in my political lifetime the politicians, police and public are on the same side.  We are providing help with the causes of crime: big investment in the poorest communities; extra family support for the most disadvantaged families; the New Deal; Sure Start; more drug treatment.

    We understand criminal behaviour often has complex and tragic antecedents.  But out first duty is to the law-abiding citizen.  They are our boss.  It’s time to put them at the centre of the CJS.  That is the new consensus on law and order for our times.