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  • Michael Howard – 2004 Speech on a New Deal for Europe

    Michael Howard – 2004 Speech on a New Deal for Europe

    The speech made by Michael Howard, the then Leader of the Opposition, at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Berlin on 12 February 2004.

    Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I am enormously grateful for your warm words of welcome and for giving me this opportunity to speak to you here this evening.

    The Conservative Party and the German CDU in partnership with the CSU share many political values and I appreciate the strong relationship that continues to exist between our parties.

    It is no accident that I should be giving this speech in Berlin, a city which encapsulates so much of Europe’s recent history. There is no better place in which to set out a new vision for Europe’s future.

    My first visit to Berlin was in the summer of 1963. I was there on 26th June. I was one of the half million people who thronged in front of the Rathaus Schoneberg to hear President Kennedy give his famous address. The whole world remembers his words: ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ – I am a Berliner; I am at one with the people of Berlin.

    To all those who believe in democracy, in freedom, in hope for mankind, President Kennedy had a simple message: ‘Lass’sie nach Berlin kommen’. Let them come to Berlin. It was an iconic moment, echoed almost a quarter of a century later when President Reagan stood in this city and called across the divide ‘General Secretary Gorbachev…if you seek peace…if you seek liberalisation: come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall’.

    Throughout those years, West Berlin was a beacon at the frontier of the battle for freedom. Those Presidential visits were inspirational. They represented defiant idealism in the face of a brutal reality.

    Today, the people of Berlin are one. The West’s vision and determination unified a city, a country and a continent. So I come to Berlin once again – to the capital of a country which has been one of the great success stories of the post-war era – aware of history but looking to the future, aware of the battle for freedom that took place here, and determined that freedom should flourish in Europe.

    I am here in a new century, in a city that is the gateway between the east and west of Europe, at the heart of this great continent. We are on the point of welcoming ten nations as new members of the European Union. The entry of these countries, large and small, from Poland to Malta, which my Party has always welcomed, will profoundly change the nature of the European Union. And the European Union has a profound responsibility. For if it stands for anything, it is for the healing of our continent.

    Different National Perspectives on the European Union

    Britain and Germany are two great nations with their own histories and their own perspectives.

    Germany has wanted to achieve closer and in some cases irreversible integration thanks to her specific experiences in two world wars. Konrad Adenauer, whom we honour in this foundation, understood that the European process could be of great service to Germany. As a result, he made this country strong in Europe, valued as a trading partner and trusted as an ally. I understand why his European policy, which helped to establish Germany’s place in the community of nations, is admired in Germany today.

    We in Britain came through the war with our national institutions strong. When we seek to preserve those institutions, we are defending a constitutional settlement that has survived great stresses and strains and which continues to work well and be understood by people in Britain.

    Britain has always been a global trading nation. We have historic connections with our Commonwealth partners and with the United States. Look, for example, at where our international telephone calls go at Christmas and New Year: to North America, to the Caribbean, to the Indian subcontinent, to Australia and New Zealand.

    This is not just a sentimental point. It is also a hard commercial truth. More of our trade is with non-EU members than is the case for any other member state. We have more overseas investments in non-European markets than any other member state. We are unique in the EU in having a global financial centre.

    But Britain and Germany are not the only countries that approach European integration from a perspective shaped by their history. Every European country does. I do not always agree with your Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer. Nor I suspect, do you. But he was recently quoted in one of our newspapers as saying: ‘All the countries … have different traditions, different political disputes at home, complicated parliaments, complicated majorities … Language and history matter in Europe and we have to understand these different histories and difficulties’. He makes an important point.

    The Eastern European accession countries have thrown off the yoke of Soviet domination. They, along with other new member states, have rediscovered their own national identities and the freedom to determine their own destiny. As a result they may well be wary of giving up too much of that hard-won independence.

    Different histories, different institutions and different traditions.

    To undermine these institutions and ways of life, whether they have developed uninterrupted over hundreds of years or only recently re-emerged, and which are seen as legitimate by their people, would be an act of folly. Most people in the nations of Europe do not feel the same affinity or identity with EU bodies that they do with their own national institutions. People who identify themselves as Europeans rather than as citizens of their own country still remain a very small minority in every member state of the European Union.

    Most people simply do not feel European in the same sense that they might feel American or German – or British.

    There is no European public opinion; no European national identity. In the absence of a European demos, we are left with unadorned kratos: the power of a system that commands respect through force of law, not public affection.

    A Competitive Europe

    Yet the European Union has achieved a great deal. Together we have created a single market of 380 million people. People now have the right to work, study or retire in any other EU member state. We have also achieved some of the best environmental standards in the world. These are things of which we can all be proud.

    But there are dangers too. The communications revolution means that individuals now have a global reach and a global outlook. International institutions, whether they are businesses or charities, have abandoned the head office culture. Today, they create multi-centred organisations with power devolved to local and national centres.

    In this world, competition is fiercer than it has ever been before. The pace of change is faster than it’s ever been before. Those who respond most quickly and effectively to these changes will win the prizes. So flexibility is at an enormous premium.

    In this new environment we need a flexible Europe which puts global competitiveness at its heart. It would be idle to pretend that we have it. We now have to compete against China, India and the Asian economies. We cannot afford to be complacent.

    When I was Employment Secretary in the early 1990s I had to negotiate over the Working Time Directive. I had a meeting with one of my European counterparts, and pointed out to him that this new regulation would harm our competitiveness. His reply was chilling. ‘If we all do it’ – by which he meant the countries of the EU – ‘It won’t make any difference’.

    I hope we have all moved on since then. The EU was designed to free up our markets so that we could compete globally. But the weight and burden of the directives and laws it has introduced has had almost exactly the opposite effect – damming the flood of enterprise that should be sweeping across our continent.

    I was struck by the recent remarks of Gerrit Zalm, the Dutch Minister of Finance, who pointed out that ‘over 50% of the administrative burden on businesses in the Netherlands has a direct European origin. On a European scale these costs must be enormous. European legislation tends to be very detailed in its prescriptions and in its information demands. It also tends to grow rapidly. The decision makers involved, including the politicians in the Parliament and the Council, should realise the pressure they put on the economic potential’.

    These are fine words and I agree with them. But reform is simply not happening. The nation states of the European Union are still bedevilled by rules, regulation and red tape, which significantly impede our ability to compete. That is why our economies are not as dynamic as that of the United States. That is why productivity per person is almost 20% higher in the United States than it is in the European Union, and output per hour is 15% higher. That is why over the last decade employment in the United States grew almost twice as fast as in the European Union. If we had the same record as the United States in creating jobs, 28 million more people would be in work in the European Union today.

    We must build a Europe that is flexible. There is huge scope for improvement. This means that we must be honest about the work that the European Union should and should not do.

    The Conservative Vision for Europe

    Europe needs to go in a new direction. I say this as leader of a Party, the British Conservative Party, that has been at the forefront of Britain’s engagement with Europe. It was a Conservative government which first applied for membership in the early 1960s. It was a Conservative government which took us into the European Economic Community in 1973. It was a Labour government which threatened to withdraw from Europe and held a referendum on that issue in 1975. It was the Labour Party which stood on a manifesto of withdrawal from the European Community in 1983, a manifesto on which Tony Blair was first elected to Parliament. Three years later, in 1986, it was Margaret Thatcher who was one of the leading forces behind the Single European Act which established the single European market. Which is perhaps why the former European Commissioner Jacques Delors was recently moved to remark that ‘I have nothing to complain about with Mrs. Thatcher…she is a figure who counts in Britain’s and Europe’s history’.

    So let me, too, speak frankly. I am determined that Britain shall remain a positive and influential member of the European Union. But British policy towards the EU has often led to worse rather than better relations between States. Faced with a new EU initiative, our traditional response has often been to oppose it, to vote against it, to lose the vote, then sulkily to adopt it while blaming everyone else. You are understandably sick of constant British vetoes. And shall I tell you something? So am I.

    Many fears about the way in which the European Union is developing, on both sides of the Channel, stem from the fact that it is seen as a one-way street to closer integration to which all must subscribe. This is a perception which must be changed if Europe is to retain public confidence.

    Of course there are basic requirements which all member states must accept. Foremost among these are the four freedoms of the single market; free movement of goods, services, people and capital. But a single market does not require a single social or industrial policy, far less a common taxation policy. Allowing countries to pursue their own policies in these areas will encourage the spread of competitiveness across Europe. Forcing common standards upon them will mean that Europe as a whole falls further and further behind as each member state tries to put its own costs onto its neighbours.

    A Flexible Europe

    A flexible approach raises the important question of how to decide which areas should be applied to every member state, and which should be optional. In my view, every member state should be allowed to administer for itself those policies which do not directly and significantly affect the domestic affairs of other member states. So, matters such tariffs and cross-border pollution could be left to Brussels. But in areas which serve their own national interest, individual member states would be able to decide whether to retain wholly national control or whether to co-operate with others. The nations of Europe should come together as a series of overlapping circles: different combinations of member states should be able to pool their responsibilities in different areas of their own choosing.

    I first spoke about the need for Europe to adopt a more flexible approach a decade ago. For me this is not a new concept.

    And nor is it the revolutionary approach that many commentators might consider it to be. Historically, there have always been moments when Europe has been prepared to be flexible. This, after all, has been the case with NATO since its inception, where France signed up for membership but refused to submit her armed forces to separate NATO command and control. It is the case with the Euro. It remains the case with the 1990 Schengen Agreement. It was the case with the Protocol on Social Policy, negotiated at Maastricht, the so-called Social Chapter.

    A New Deal for Europe

    So the precedent is clearly established. And it can be developed. So far, everyone has had to move forward together, with individual countries negotiating specific opt-outs. This has caused tremendous tension. But since 1998, there has been a procedure within the Treaties which could be used to allow some member states to go ahead with further integration in a specific area, without involving every other member state. It is, as you know, called enhanced co-operation. It means that, instead of individual member states having fraught negotiations to opt-out of a new initiative, those that support it can simply decide to opt-in.

    This would allow those countries who want to integrate further to do so. But others would not be compelled to join them. It suits the integrationists. It suits the non-integrationists. Let’s use it.

    It would enable us to strike a new deal on Europe. Those member states which wish to integrate more closely would be free to do so. It would not be necessary for them to drag Britain and quite possibly some other member states kicking and screaming in their wake. We would say to our partners: ‘We don’t want to stop you doing what you want to do, as long as you don’t make us do what we don’t want to do’. In that way we would be able to break free from the institutionalised tug of war which has so often characterised relations between the Member States of the European Union in the past.

    It would no longer be necessary to impose on the European Union a rigid straitjacket of uniformity from Finland to Greece, from Portugal to Poland. We would be able to create a structure in which Europe’s member states would have room to breathe.

    I am not talking about a two-speed Europe. That implies that we are all agreed on the destination and differ only about the speed of the journey. I don’t want to reach the destination that some of our partners may aspire to. But I don’t want to block their aspirations.

    My policy is simple. Live and let live. Flourish and let flourish. That is a modern and mature approach.

    In my view it would create an imaginative structure for the European Union which could well be seen as a model by countries in other parts of the world which wish to co-operate more closely with each other without sacrificing their essential national sovereignty. That flexible approach, variable geometry, would ensure that we create a ‘made to measure’ Europe in which the institutional arrangements comfortably fit national interests, not an ‘off the peg’ Europe, ill-fitting and splitting at the seams.

    Britain’s Influence in Europe

    There are some who say that this would mean a loss of influence on the part of those countries which choose not to integrate more closely. But influence is not an end in itself – it is a means to an end.

    Britain, for example, does not need a seat at the table when decisions on the Euro are being made. And our economy has not been adversely affected by staying out. The decision to keep our own currency does not mean that we oppose the establishment of the Euro, or secretly hope for its failure. On the contrary, the euro-zone accounts for a significant amount of our trade: we depend on the prosperity of our European partners. So we wish them, and the Euro, well. But I thank M. Delors for acknowledging, in the same interview that I quoted earlier, ‘Since we have not succeeded in maximising the economic advantages of the euro, one can understand the British…saying “things are just fine as they are. Staying out of the Euro has not stopped us prospering”.’

    For a long time, on both sides of the Channel, commentators expected that Britain would eventually have to join the single currency. They simply could not envisage a situation where the United Kingdom diverged permanently from the rest of the EU. But it is now widely accepted that the status quo is sustainable. Our absence does not seem to be causing any ill effects within the euro-zone. We see, in short, a major European policy from which Britain, along with Sweden and Denmark, has amicably stood aside. This is something which seems to cause some people anguish. I see it as a source of satisfaction all round.

    Britain is the second largest economy in Europe. It is also the strongest military power in Europe. So we should not have any fears about our influence. Influence depends much more on what you can bring to the table than on any particular institutional structure.

    National Powers

    The kind of approach I am suggesting should also enable adjustments to be made to the acquis communautaire. Where it is clear that policies can be more effectively implemented on a national basis the European Union should be prepared to recognise this. Proposals to achieve national control in such circumstances should be treated on their merits and not automatically rejected as an affront to the European ideal.

    In 1996, when I was Britain’s Home Secretary, my country tabled a proposal to re-assert national control cover over civil defence and emergencies: that is, over how Governments respond to disasters like floods and fires. I could see no reason why we needed to have common policies on volcanic eruptions – something hardly likely to be relevant to Britain. It struck me as absurd that these matters should be dealt with by a European Secretariat funded by the European taxpayer. British negotiators were therefore instructed to press for the removal of the provisions relating to civil defence and emergencies from Title II of the Treaty.

    But my fellow European interior ministers took a different view. Interestingly, none of them argued that there was some compelling European interest in how we should respond to burst dams. Rather, their concern seemed to be that any diminution of Brussels’ role would be a betrayal of the European ideal.

    There should be no need today to maintain that attitude. Just as it would be dogmatic to refuse to co-operate with our European neighbours in areas where we have clear common interests, so is it equally dogmatic to insist that the EU should administer policies which can perfectly well be left to national governments.

    Specific Areas of Concern

    Within this new framework, what would be my priorities for reform?

    From a British perspective, the Common Fisheries Policy has been a failure: it has led simultaneously to the dwindling of fish stocks and the near-destruction of the British fishing industry. Its quota system encourages the dumping of dead catches over the side of boats. Its rules have turned good men into liars.

    There is no reason why fishing grounds could not be administered at national level. Not only does this happen in the rest of the world, where many countries have pursued successful conservation policies; it has also happened within the EU itself, where large portions of European waters were never incorporated into the Common Fisheries Policy.

    That which no one owns, no one will care for. The first step towards regenerating fisheries as a renewable resource is to establish the concept of ownership. That is why an incoming Conservative Government will immediately negotiate to restore national control over British fishing grounds, out to 200 miles or the median line as allowed under maritime law, with sensible bilateral deals and recognition of the historic rights of other nations.

    I am also keen to see individual member states take more control over their overseas aid budgets. Britain has one of the most effective overseas aid and development programmes, where almost all of the aid reaches the people it is intended to help and is used effectively. Very few people could make the same claims about the EU programme, despite Commissioner Patten’s heroic efforts at reform. As someone who is genuinely concerned with the need to give British taxpayers value for money, and to alleviate global poverty, I see a compelling case for increasing national control over overseas aid and development.

    Other Areas of Reform

    There are many other areas where reform is needed. I shall resist the temptation this evening to give you a long list of examples. But radical reform of the Common Agriculture Policy is especially urgent.

    It is no exaggeration to say that this policy has been disastrous for many of the poorest countries in the world. It has led to the over-production of food in Europe and the dumping of cheap food in Third World countries, harming their indigenous industry. Enlargement has made the need for reform more urgent. Over 40 per cent of the EU’s budget – 40 billion euros – is still spent supporting this policy, and that is likely to increase with the advent of the accession states, unless there is urgent reform.

    The European Constitution

    In short the European Union should stop trying to do everything and concentrate on doing fewer things more effectively. It should give the member states the chance to develop their own European approach that suits their national traditions, within the framework of the EU.

    It is on this basis that British Conservatives oppose the proposed constitution. We disagree with many of its contents, of course, but we also oppose the idea of having an EU constitution. There is a world of difference between an association of nation states bound together by treaty, and a single entity, whether you call it a state or not, with its own legal personality, deriving its authority from its own constitution.

    If this constitution were accepted in anything like the proposed form, the EU would gain many of the attributes and trappings of statehood: its own president, its own foreign minister, its own legal system. For the first time, the supremacy of EU law would derive not from Acts of national Parliaments but from a supra-national constitution. That is a profound and radical change.

    It is quite dishonourable to pretend that this is all a tidying-up exercise. What is proposed is perhaps the biggest change in Britain’s constitutional arrangements since the Seventeenth Century.

    I do not believe it is right to make a change of such magnitude without specifically consulting the people on whose behalf we purport to govern. Parliament does not own our liberties. It is meant to safeguard them. It should not diminish those liberties without an explicit mandate from the British people.

    So let me make it clear. I believe any proposal for a new constitution must be put to the British people in a referendum.

    Europe and America

    Our continent has always had close links with America. She has stood by us in two world wars and beyond. For all of us, she has been the difference between living a life of freedom or living a life under tyranny. It is a very long way from this city of Berlin to the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. But from the late 1940s onwards President Truman and his successors disregarded that distance. They declared that a threat to Berlin’s security was a threat to America’s security. They all gave steadfast support to NATO. They were all honorary Berliners.

    It is vital that Europe and America continue to remain close. Germany’s role in this is critical. Most of the greatest challenges the world faces can best be overcome by Europeans and Americans working together. But if each of those challenges becomes a cockpit for transatlantic rivalry, an opportunity for one to score points off the other, the outlook is very gloomy. The challenges will be much more difficult to resolve. We must not allow friction to become fracture. So we must manage our differences so that they do the least possible damage to a crucial relationship and we should draw back from initiatives that will risk exacerbating these difficulties.

    For example, I have grave reservations about Europe’s plans to undertake a new defence initiative which involves duplicating the planning and command structures of NATO. I strongly support greater co-operation between European countries on defence. But it should take place within the framework of NATO. NATO should remain the cornerstone of our defence. And Europe should not seek to create a defence structure as an alternative to NATO or as a counterweight to the United States.

    After a year in which the death knell of the transatlantic relationship has been sounded on both sides of the Atlantic, I hope that both Britain and Germany will play their part in repairing and renewing the relationship. Undermining NATO is not the best way to achieve that.

    A Europe for the 21st Century

    It took more than a quarter of a century after Kennedy spoke for the Berlin Wall to come down. It was dismantled brick by brick by the people it had divided. Its fall united a city, a nation and a continent.

    Now, some fifteen years later, ten new countries will be joining the EU, many of whom never expected to experience freedom in our time. Their accession to the Union is a matter for celebration.

    Now we are in a new century. And I can do no better than to quote my predecessor Iain Duncan Smith. This is what he said in Prague last year. ‘The Union’s founders built a solid foundation. They built structures that served their time well. But some of those structures are no longer right for today’s Europe or today’s world. The children and grandchildren of those who shaped post-war Europe now want to stand on the shoulders of their forefathers to advance a vision of their own.’

    We have today a unique opportunity. An opportunity to recast Europe in the image of the 21st century. To build a Europe that is truly free, one based on co-operation and not on coercion. One that serves each and every citizen in this great continent of ours, from whatever background and from whatever nation. I hope we can work together to make the most of that opportunity. History will not forgive us if we squander it.

  • Michael Howard – 2004 Speech to the Conservative Councillors’ Association Annual Conference

    Michael Howard – 2004 Speech to the Conservative Councillors’ Association Annual Conference

    The speech made by Michael Howard, the then Leader of the Opposition, on 9 February 2004.

    I want to start with congratulations, congratulations to all of you whose hard work and dedication have made us once again the largest party in local government. We have almost 8,000 councillors and we run 137 councils in Britain.

    These gains we made last May in the local elections owed a great deal to the leadership of Iain Duncan Smith and I take this opportunity to pay tribute to him today.

    But the credit goes to you as well, for keeping the Conservative flag flying, for making a reality of our belief that sensible Conservative policies cost you less, and for laying the foundations for our victory at the next election.

    When we win the next General Election, as I believe we can, we will never forget that it was your hard work that helped to put us there.

    Across the country, there is concern about the high levels of council tax. Since 1997 council tax has soared by 60 per cent in cash terms. Every year the average council tax increase has been almost triple what it was when we were in power. This year alone, council tax rose by almost 13 per cent – its highest ever one-off increase.

    The average council tax on Band D properties has now reached four figures – at more than £1100.

    Labour thought they could use the council tax as another stealth tax. They slipped through the back door of the council tax what they dared not pass through the front door of income tax.

    But the trouble is that people have noticed. When pensioners start to march, you know you’re in trouble.

    Labour has made the council tax shoulder a burden it was never meant to carry. They have disfigured it. Increases in national insurance and the raid on pension funds have both hit councils directly.

    Labour has piled on regulation after regulation, responsibility after responsibility, burden after burden without giving local councils the funding to do the job.

    Councils are forced to contend with rampant public sector inflation, a startling increase in litigation, additional responsibilities such as the new Licensing Act, and an ever more complex funding formula. More than half last year’s increases are caused by national pay and price inflation.

    Something has had to give, and it turns out to be the council taxpayer.

    Labour’s reaction to this home grown crisis has been one of panic and intimidation. Ministers are now threatening to cap councils the length and breadth of the country. In fact they are threatening to cap more councils in one year than the last Conservative Government capped in 18 years. When it comes to localism Labour’s actions speak far louder then their words.

    Who was it who said he was “wholly opposed to the capping of a council’s budget. It is an abuse of central power, it demeans democracy, it undermines the right of local people to decide what services they are ready and willing to pay for”?

    Those aren’t my words. They were the words of Jack Straw when Labour were in opposition. But then we know all too well that Labour say one thing and do another.

    When Labour are faced with a problem their immediate solution is to create more politicians and another expensive layer of bureaucracy.

    Across our nation, there are areas with strong regional identities. People are proud to call themselves Yorkshiremen or Cornishmen. But a Yorkshireman or a Cornishman is proud of his county, not some soulless region drawn up by Whitehall. We salute that. And we do not believe a strong regional identity is boosted by creating another tier of government.

    Labour’s plans for regional assemblies are unnecessary, expensive and out of date. At a time when more and more people are crying out for power for themselves. Labour is planning to make government even more remote.

    The regional assemblies will have vague and undefined powers and a license to meddle in the affairs of local areas. They will take crucial decisions that are much better taken at the local level. Who are they trying to fool when they say that regional assemblies, the abolition of counties, and yet another wholesale upheaval of local government would mean the devolution of power.

    People want more policemen, not more politicians; more nurses, not more political nursemaids; more teachers, not more tiers of bureaucracy.

    Of course, the Liberal Democrats fully support Labour’s plans for regional assemblies – with bells on. As well as being another layer of Government, their Regional Assemblies would be able to levy a regional income tax.

    This would come on top of their plans to replace the council tax with a Local Income Tax. It was launched with great fanfare at the local elections last year – although a briefing note left behind at their conference gave the game away.

    It said “You might be asked about the rate of local income tax…we don’t want to be drawn extensively into this!”

    Well, if the Liberal Democrats can’t or won’t answer your questions, perhaps I can.

    A local income tax would hit many more people much harder than the council tax.

    Students, currently exempt from council tax, would have their holiday earnings subject to a local income tax.

    Young people, in their first jobs but still living at home, would have their earnings subject to a local income tax.

    A young couple where both are working would both have their earnings subject to a local income tax – making them more than a £1000 a year worse off.

    Pensioners who have saved all their lives to give themselves an income in retirement would have their retirement earnings subject to a local income tax.

    Businesses would have to administer the tax – having to adjust their payroll to take account of employees who lived in different areas from each other.

    More people would avoid tax. Currently, the council tax is the most efficiently collected tax of all.

    The Liberal Democrats’ local income tax is a pickpocket’s charter, unfair, unnecessary and undemocratic.

    I know how frustrating it is to campaign against the Liberal Democrats. They claim credit for any success, and distance themselves from any failure.

    They won’t tell the public what their policies mean – so we must.

    Every one in this hall today must spread the word about the Liberal Democrat Tax.

    I recognise that there is an urgent need to find the right way forward for local government.

    People want local services locally delivered.

    Local government has come to a fork in the road. Either it is to become simply a delivery arm for central Government, or it is to be given back real powers to deliver services and raise money.

    Labour has sucked the lifeblood out of local discretion. Of all the world’s major economies, the UK government exerts the highest degree of control over local government.

    Labour’s so-called “new localism” is simply a set of new plans, new legislation, new guidance, new financial controls and bidding systems and new inspectorates. Local government inspectors now receive £1 billion a year in taxpayers’ money. The proportion of a council’s grant which is ring-fenced by central government has more than doubled since 1997. And much of the rest is hedged around with restrictions, conditions and limitations.

    Labour is addicted to targets and regulation. It simply cannot let go.

    There’s a questionnaire that’s been developed by a well known clinic. It’s designed to help people face up to their addictions. So here are some helpful questions to find out just how bad the Government’s habit really is.

    – Do you use regulation to help cope with your problems?

    – Is regulation affecting your reputation?

    – Have you lost friends since you started regulating?

    – Have you ever tried to quit or cut back regulating?

    – Do you need to regulate more than you used to in order to get the effect you want?

    Sadly I think we all know the answer.

    This huge bureaucratic burden wastes money and saps at the very heart of public service, weakening motivation and innovation. Good nurses, care workers and teachers are leaving their jobs because of the weigh of regulation and control.

    A Conservative Government will reverse this tide.

    We will halt the flood of tax and regulation which is drowning local government.

    We remain committed to abolishing the Comprehensive Performance Assessment scheme, the Best Value scheme and a substantial number of the statutory plans.

    Local government in this country used to be the engine of innovation. Councils had the power to both succeed and fail. Nearly all the public services we now take for granted were invented locally. Water, sewerage, gas, education, a safety net for the poor – all of these services for local people were pioneered by enterprising local corporations whose leaders were great men of their times and who brought real improvement to life in their cities and communities.

    We want to start the journey back to what local government used to be. We announced our review of local government finance at last year’s party conference. We will be announcing the results shortly. Our plans will be rooted in the principles of freedom, responsibility and independence. In our belief in local democracy. In our desire to bring about stability and avoid costly upheaval to local government. And in recognising the need to lighten the load of the council taxpayer.

    Together we want to deliver a winning formula to help you carry on delivering the best services for local people.

    I want to see a more balanced relationship between local and central government.

    Most people go into local government to represent their local communities. Councillors do an important job, for little or no money.

    It is time to give you back the respect you deserve for the hard work that you do.

    We have important local elections in June. And then, in all probability, there will be just 12 months until the general election.

    I did not take this job to be a caretaker or to reduce the Government’s majority. I took it to win. Not for my sake. Not for our party’s sake. Not even for the sake of the people in this room. But for the country’s sake.

    This week we saw just how urgent it is for us to win the next election when it became clear that the prime minister cannot even be bothered to ask the most basic questions about a matter as vital as our going to war.

    Tony Blair’s casual approach runs through every action of his government.

    It is a Government that is taxing and spending and failing.

    It is a Government that has lost the trust of the British people.

    It is a Government that breaks its promises to the British people.

    It is a Government that is incapable of delivering real reform.

    Tony Blair may talk about giving power back to people. But the truth is he cannot deliver. He can’t deliver because his Party won’t let him deliver; because the trade unions won’t let him deliver; and because his Chancellor won’t let him deliver.

    Sixty tax rises and no real improvements in our public services. Hospital waiting lists are still near the million mark. Truancy rates in our schools are still far too high. Crime is rising, particularly violent crime.

    It is a Government which is wasting huge sums of our money. I have asked David James to look at how to root out Government waste. You may remember him. He was the man the Government called in to sort out the Dome. In a backroom of the Dome, a place called Yard 10, he found £80 million of unused equipment.

    We believe that the Government has a Yard 10, and we are going to find it.

    We are going to look hard at the level of tax in this country. Only last month, at the Chancellor’s own enterprise summit, the chief executive of Tesco commented that “the level of taxes seems to be forever rising. The water is now above our waist. National insurance, corporate, property and employment taxes are now over 50% of our profits…What saps our strength are high taxes, excessive regulations, inflexible working practices, and the gold plating of EU directives”.

    Well, we have heard that cry and we are going to listen to it.

    Oliver Letwin, the Shadow Chancellor, has already set out the problems created by an over-complex and opaque tax system. Very soon, he will set out his strategy for dealing with the inexorable rise in Government spending.

    But our major focus in Government will be making our schools and hospitals as good as possible. I make no apology for that.

    The next Conservative Government will deliver the public services that people want. The reason I came back into front-line politics because I was genuinely shocked, from my own experience in my own constituency, about the decline in our public services.

    I want to win the next election to put that right. To give the people who use our public services – the parents and the patients – control.

    To allow them to choose where to send their children to school or when and where to have their operation.

    To see more policemen on the beat instead of behind a speed gun.

    To let people keep more of what they earn to spend on themselves and their families.

    To see Britain do better.

    We all know that the Conservative party is in good heart. Thanks to all of you here today we are back in business. You have shown that Conservative government at local level across Britain can make people’s lives better. That’s not theory, that’s reality.

    Now it is up to those of us in Parliament to show the people of Britain that a Conservative government can do the same at the national level.

    Labour have failed the people of Britain. Above all, they have the lost their trust.

    I genuinely believe that the Conservative party can bring to government a new approach to Government.

    A government that is honest.

    A government that is competent.

    And most important of all, a government that trusts the people. That is our mission. With your help I know we can achieve it.

  • Michael Howard – 2004 Speech to Forum on Trade Justice in the Developing World

    Michael Howard – 2004 Speech to Forum on Trade Justice in the Developing World

    The speech made by Michael Howard, the then leader of the Opposition, on 1 March 2004.

    “I’m delighted to be here today at the Trade Justice Forum hosted by the Conservative Party.

    The subject we are addressing this morning is of absolutely critical importance: because our success or failure will help determine prosperity, peace and democracy right across the globe.

    I’m delighted to welcome you all, and in particular Harriet Lamb from the Fairtrade Foundation, Jeremy Lefroy from Equity for Africa, and Bob Geldof.

    The Global Challenge

    All of us in this room share common objectives. We want to play our part in the alleviation of global poverty. And we want to help developing countries grow and prosper.

    With a world facing dangerous political, ethnic and religious divides; and in a world where regional conflicts can have and do have such terrible consequences; the need to narrow the economic divide across the globe becomes ever more compelling.

    None of us should ever forget that we share bonds of common humanity with all who share our planet. We should never pretend that we can insulate ourselves from the deprivation of others. We have a duty to help.

    Future generations will look back and judge our generation on how hard we tried, and how far we succeeded, in meeting these challenges; by how far we did so in a practical way; and, above all, by how far we did so in a long-term and sustainable way.

    Globalisation

    At the heart of my remarks today are the benefits which can come from globalisation. These are the benefits which can come in particular to poorer countries as companies look across the world at new markets and new opportunities. They are the benefits which come from the ease, speed and cheapness of electronic communication and the internet. And they are the benefits which come as countries and organisations agree to conform to international standards, rules and practices.

    There are numerous examples of countries that have prospered by abandoning inward-looking policies and adopting outward-looking policies.

    The most recent dramatic examples are India and China, which have averaged 4% and 8% real per capita growth respectively over the past decade or so. As a result, the World Bank estimates that the proportion of people living on less than $1 per day in China has fallen from 33% of the population in 1990 to 16% in 2000, and in India from 42% in 1994/5 to 35% in 2001.

    This is a huge and almost certainly unprecedented reduction in poverty affecting the lives of millions of people. We should celebrate it.

    Free Markets

    Free markets deliver the greatest benefit. I passionately believe that countries that adopt the market economy are the ones that will ultimately prosper.

    Look at the most successful economies across the world. They are living proof that free markets are the most effective means of wealth creation and wealth distribution. And no surprise that these are the countries where people enjoy high living standards, not just in personal disposable income but also in education and healthcare.

    Free markets and free trade generate the wealth that helps lift people out of poverty.

    Look at countries such as Mexico, Vietnam and Uganda. Over the 1980s and 1990s these countries doubled the ratio of their exports to GDP, and in the 1990s their growth rates averaged 5%. By contrast countries such as Myanmar, Ukraine and Pakistan saw the ratio of their exports to GDP fall during the 1980s and 1990s, and GDP per capita fell on average by 1% a year in the 1990s (D Dollar & A Kraay, Globalisation, Growth and Poverty, World Bank 2002).

    Opening Up Markets

    But for this to happen, the rich countries must open up their markets. That is an essential part of the long-term solution.

    It is appalling that the West should close its markets to so many of the world’s poor. It is even worse that it should target its tariffs primarily to exclude agricultural products.

    And the result? For every dollar that western countries give to poor countries, those countries lose two dollars through barriers to their exports to the developed world. So, for the developing countries, it’s one step forward and two steps back. This is hardly the right way to help our fellow human beings – more than a billion – who have to struggle to survive on less than a dollar a day.[1]

    Instead, we need to work together to open our markets to the developing world. It is a terrible indictment of our progress in this area that the poorest countries’ share of world trade has dropped by almost a half in the last twenty years.[2] But is it any wonder when those countries which advocate free trade don’t always live up to their rhetoric.

    For example, in 2001, the United States imposed tariffs to protect its domestic steel industry, which have only recently been removed. In 2002, the US and Japan spent $90 billion and $56 billion respectively supporting their domestic agriculture.[3] Indeed subsidies to farmers in rich countries total $300 billion a year, more than the combined income of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa[4]. Cotton is crucial to certain West African countries – Benin, Burkino Faso, Chad, Mali and Togo – and almost the only commodity they can export. But the US and China provide huge subsidies to their domestic producers – subsidies which stimulate artificial production, reduce world prices and lower the incomes of small cotton producers in these countries.

    The richer countries should act in accordance with what they know to be true: free trade spreads prosperity. Protectionism does not.

    Democracy and the rule of law in the developing world

    We should also encourage the development of property rights, the rule of law and democracy. These are not only of direct benefit to the citizens of those countries. Crucially, they create the stability essential for more trade and more investment – a virtuous circle.

    As the economist Hernando de Soto so vividly puts it:

    “Imagine a country where the law that governs property rights is so deficient that nobody can easily identify who owns what, addresses cannot be systematically verified, and people cannot be made to pay their debts. Consider not being able to use your own house or business to guarantee credit. Imagine a property system where you can’t divide your ownership in a business into shares that investors can buy, or where descriptions of assets are not standardized. Welcome to life in the developing world, home to five-sixths of the world’s population.”[5]

    President Clinton referred to de Soto’s work a few years ago in his Dimbleby lecture, when he stressed the importance of the rule of law and said: “Poor people in the world already have five trillion dollars in assets in their homes and businesses but they’re worthless to them except to live in and use, because they can’t be collateral for loans. Why? Because they’re outside the legal systems in their country”.[6]

    Good governance, buttressed by the rule of law, provide the order and stability essential if others are to have the confidence to trade with and invest in these countries. The lower risk, the greater the confidence. The greater the confidence, the greater the trade and investment flows. That is the way to create prosperity and spread prosperity.

    An Advocacy Fund

    Part of the mechanics of the process of actually getting something done to help the developing world is the regular round of world trade negotiations – although the collapse of the Cancun talks were a disaster for the developing world.

    I have for some time now been calling for the establishment of an Advocacy Fund for developing nations. With the World Trade Organisation, we have a rules-based system governing world trade in which trade disputes are not decided simply on the basis of which countries have the biggest muscle power. But, so far, poor countries have not been able to take full advantage of this system because they lack the necessary expertise.

    A practical solution to this problem would be for the rich countries of the world to set up and pay for an advocacy fund which would pay for the necessary expertise to help poor countries realise the enormous potential of the new trade regime.

    An Advocacy Fund would help solve the well-known problem, namely the ability of the developed world to out-gun its opponents in trade talks with an army of lawyers, economists and accountants. And an Advocacy Fund would help to provide much more of a level-playing field.

    Overseas Aid

    But although trade is of paramount importance, aid is key too. As is well-known I supported the announcement in November 2002 by Gordon Brown of the establishment of the International Finance Facility. The establishment of the IFF explicitly recognised the changed context in which aid policy is developing, namely that the reduction of poverty lies ultimately, as I have said, on the growth of free trade and the reduction of protectionism.

    The joint paper by the Treasury and the Department for International Development on the IFF in January 2003 makes that clear: aid, it says, “must be an investment for success based on clear, country-owned poverty reduction strategies, building on the foundations of stability, trade and investment”. In other words, aid is a two-way process, where countries that are putting in place institutions and mechanisms to provide long-term internal stability will be the ones that benefit most from aid.

    I believe that Britain has one of the most effective overseas aid and development programmes in the world, where almost all of the aid reaches the people it is intended to help and is used effectively. It has been made more effective by the decision of the UK government in 2001 to untie aid from export promotion. The World Bank has clearly shown that tied aid is 25% less effective than untied aid, in that tied aid restricts the freedom of choice of recipient countries, and more countries should follow the UK’s example.

    Make no mistake, a future Conservative government would be committed to Britain’s overseas aid programme. Well-directed, bilateral government aid has to remain a significant component of our aid strategy.

    Making more effective use of money currently spent on a multilateral basis will also be important.

    As someone who is genuinely concerned with the need to give British taxpayers value for money, and to alleviate global poverty, I find very persuasive the case for increasing national control over overseas aid and development, particularly that currently managed by the European Union.

    We shall also seek ways of encouraging the increased involvement of NGOs, and of charitable and private giving, in the setting and implementing aid policies. As Brian Griffiths notes in his recent pamphlet on global poverty, the private and voluntary sectors have hitherto been marginal in the way in which aid finance is spent, yet in certain countries they have played a vital role in establishing schools and hospitals. One of the key criticisms of foreign aid is that it is used to strengthen the power of corrupt governments. One of the best ways round this problem is to strengthen the role of NGOs and the private and voluntary sectors in the delivery of aid.

    Having said that, I also agree with Brian Griffiths that the culture of the aid community is still too closed. The work and audits of governments and development banks should be published and open to scrutiny.

    It is also important that we target aid at the countries that need it most. Less than half of the EU’s aid budget goes to poor countries. Much of it, for political reasons, goes to “middle income” countries, who should, in my view, be a lower priority than the least developed countries. When we look at our own aid policy, it is vital that we also target aid at poor countries.

    Conclusion

    I want to conclude my remarks this morning by thanking all the organisations represented here for the tremendous work that you do by maintaining the pressure and momentum for change. In turn, I want to assure you that we in the Conservative Party will play our part in working for reform – in removing tariff barriers; in encouraging democracy, good governance and the rule of law; and in effective management of overseas aid budgets.

    The challenge is immense. But the rewards would also be immense, for our world and for the world of future generations. It is a cause in which I passionately believe and I salute you for your efforts in trying to turn all our concerns into real and significant progress.

  • Michael Howard – 2004 Speech to the AA Awards Dinner about a Car Being a Necessity

    Michael Howard – 2004 Speech to the AA Awards Dinner about a Car Being a Necessity

    The speech made by Michael Howard, the then Leader of the Opposition, on 25 February 2004.

    You won’t be surprised to learn that I think the Government is failing to deliver in all sorts of areas. And that includes transport.

    When politicians talk about transport, what they normally mean is trains and buses. It’s vital that we get policies in these areas right, as Britain needs a first-class public transport system. The Government is taking more and more control, tying up the railways in red tape.

    For example, any progress on the vital West Coast modernisation project has to be agreed by Virgin, Network Rail, the Strategic Rail Authority, the Office of the Rail Regulator, the Department for Transport, the Treasury, and Number 10. No wonder there’s no time left for anyone to run the trains on time.

    But despite the importance of our railways and buses, politicians have to recognise the fact that most of our journeys – almost 90% – are made by car. So I want to rise to the challenge that Brian Shaw has set me, to make motorists feel like customers, not like victims.

    The car is at the heart of our transport system and it needs a Government that supports it rather than persecutes it. There’s no point being anti-car. We should all be pro-travel. A properly balanced transport policy would support every kind of transport so that people can get about in the way that suits them best.

    A Conservative Government would be the intelligent friend of the motorist. I don’t think the car is evil. I don’t even think it is a necessary evil. I think it is a necessity, which for many people remains a pleasure.

    Over the years, the car has become safer, more efficient and less polluting. We should celebrate that. The car enhances the quality of all our lives. It means that we can visit friends or relatives, go shopping, enjoy the countryside. The car gives independence and control to millions of people, and I want to keep spreading that independence and control.

    The stereotype of the driver – male and middle aged – has long since disappeared. The fastest-growing groups of car users include the elderly and the disabled. For these groups in particular the car represents a huge advancement of their quality of life.

    And of course, the growth in car use over the last few decades reflects the welcome change in our society, with far more women choosing to work and be financially independent. Far more women now own cars and they are vital to them in their busy lives. The car is a necessity, not a luxury.

    So Government should do all it can to make driving an enjoyable experience. There isn’t a public transport system in the world that could replace it. It was absurd for John Prescott to claim, when he became transport minister in 1997, that he would have failed as Transport Minister if he did not reduce the number of journeys by car. If he had succeeded, it would have meant a significant diminution in the quality of people’s lives. As it is the number of car journeys has increased by 7 per cent since 1997.

    Nothing sums up better the Government’s wrong-headed approach to the car than the whole issue of speed cameras. They are the classic example of a Government determined to intrude to an astonishing degree into people’s everyday lives. They epitomise big Government. And they are yet another example of a Labour stealth tax.

    We agree with both the AA and Sir John Stevens, the Head of the Metropolitan Police, who said last week that he doesn’t “approve of the use of speed cameras as moneymaking devices. The proper use for them is as a measure to lower the accident rate” . A survey run by the AA Trust has helped identify our most dangerous roads. Can it be right that there are a third more cameras on our safest roads than on our most dangerous roads? This is the sort of nonsense that we will put right.

    Let me tell you that under a Conservative Government there would not be a single speed camera in place just to raise money. If a camera is not contributing to road safety, it will be taken down.

    We are also looking at other important areas. We have suggested a review of speed limits, raising the maximum on motorways to 80 miles per hour while reducing the maximum on our most dangerous roads.

    In the coming months we will be producing more policies covering road safety, tackling the problem of our most dangerous drivers, helping the emergency services with their use of the roads, and the many other key practical issues that face us. We’ll be working closely with the AA to make sure we get them right.

    Our approach to transport policy is based on three key principles:

    Governments should give people a genuine choice about the mode of transport they choose.

    Long-term transport success will come from steady and predictable investment policies, not from incessant political interference.

    The necessary investment levels will require private sector money, and that is as important for roads as it is for railways and buses.

    So I welcome Brian’s remarks about how the structures of government have failed our transport system. When he tells me to study the waste and poor performance in the way roads are funded and delivered, I can tell him that we’re already doing that. We’re going to learn from other countries, in all parts of the world, who often seem able to produce the world-class transport infrastructure that we in Britain have a right to expect for ourselves.

    And when he says that his remarks should not be seen as a bid for higher public spending I can tell him that I am very grateful indeed. It means I won’t get told off by Oliver Letwin, the Shadow Chancellor.

    The Conservatives are committed to giving Britain the best transport system possible. I want to thank the AA, and everyone here, for all the hard work that you do in making sure that we have access to your experience and expertise.

    I have had the most wonderful evening. Thank you for inviting me and letting me tell you something about what the Conservatives would do if we were elected.

    The policies I have set out are not some academic exercise. They are the means to an end. And the end is to make people’s lives bigger, by making government and its power to meddle smaller.

    To make people’s lives easier.

    To make people’s lives better.

    That’s our objective and we are determined to do everything we can to achieve it.

  • Michael Howard – 2004 Speech to the North East Business Awards in Sedgefield

    Michael Howard – 2004 Speech to the North East Business Awards in Sedgefield

    The speech made by Michael Howard, the then Leader of the Opposition, at the North East Business Awards held in Sedgefield on 20 May 2004.

    Steve, thank you for that kind introduction.

    I am very flattered to be asked to speak to you here tonight.

    These business awards are among the most prestigious in the country. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Steve Brown, The Journal and The Evening Gazette for organising such a spectacular event.

    May I also take this opportunity to congratulate Durham County Cricket Club for producing the great wicket taker Steve Harmeson, Middlesbrough, for winning the Carling Cup, Sunderland for coming so close to promotion, the Newcastle Falcons for winning the Powergen cup and Newcastle United for winning a place in the UEFA cup – and as a Liverpool fan I’m bound to add that it is the UEFA cup and not the Champions League.

    I am very proud to be standing here before all of you, and not just because of your sporting success.

    I’m proud to be here to celebrate your business success as well.

    Proud and full of admiration.

    Admiration because it’s the people in this room who create the jobs in this part of the country; the people in this room who generate the wealth that pays for our public services; and the people in this room who open up the opportunities that make the North East such a vibrant place to do business.

    Tonight I’m in Tony Blair’s constituency.

    That’s a great honour.

    The Prime Minister is coming to this hotel at the weekend and the security is already tight.

    I was lucky to get in.

    After he hears what I have to say, I may be even luckier to get out.

    Before coming here, I read a speech Tony Blair gave at the Teesside awards in 1996, before he became Prime Minister.

    He told the audience that night that what had happened in the North East in the thirteen years since he had become a Member of Parliament in 1983 was “one of the unspoken miracles of economic development, really anywhere in Europe”.

    He went on to say that the North East “has been regenerated to a degree that I think, certainly, those twelve or thirteen years ago, when I first became a Member of Parliament for Sedgefield, [I] would have found it difficult to believe”.

    It’s good to see that some times politicians are prepared to give credit where it’s due.

    The North East faced huge problems in the 1970s and early 1980s. It had relied too much on heavy industries that had failed to remain competitive. And not enough had been done to prepare for the challenges of the global economy.

    But thanks to the efforts of the people of the North East, including many of you in this room tonight, the North East did perform an economic miracle. From the domination of the local economy by coal, ship building and engineering, we now have a more diverse economy, with successful world-class companies in financial services, software development, chemicals and genetics, as well as a huge range of other businesses.

    The Conservative government of the day helped significantly not only by giving direct regional assistance, but by lowering taxes, curbing the power of the trade unions and making Britain as a whole much more competitive.

    That Government helped establish the framework which allowed people here to seize new opportunities. In a sense, that is the role of politicians. We have long moved on from the idea that we can pick winners or micro-manage every last dot and comma. What we do best is to set the right overall conditions and then, as far as possible, get out of the way and let you get on with it.

    The North East has a dynamic economic and cultural heritage. It’s a place which has seen the birth of countless inventions from the humble matchstick to Stephenson’s Rocket. An area from where Captain Cook sailed to discover Australia and from where Newcastle’s Jonny Wilkinson flew to defeat them.

    At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the North East has fresh challenges ahead. We cannot, in a global economy in the twenty-first century, afford to be complacent. And it is up to us, the politicians, to ensure that we put in place the right policies and the right framework to help you compete.

    Let me, then, tonight, tell you the approach a Conservative government would take if we win the next election.

    First, the economy.

    Tony Blair praised the achievements of the last Conservative government here in the North East. So let me return the compliment to him – and his Chancellor Gordon Brown – for the decision to give the Bank of England independence. It was a necessary further step to provide macro-economic stability for the British economy and it has certainly proved its worth.

    Nevertheless, while I do believe that is a significant achievement, I also believe that that success has to some extent concealed the damage that is being done by over-taxing and over-regulating the British economy.

    Over the last few months, as part of a concerted campaign to listen to and hear the views of business, I have talked to all the major business organisations such as the British Chambers of Commerce, the Institute of Directors and the CBI, and I have talked to business groups in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow and many other of the country’s major cities.

    Over and over again, I’ve received one message loud and clear.

    The job of running a business in Britain is getting tougher – much, much tougher.

    I know that this is a message you want to get through to Tony Blair. Sadly, at the end of last year, North East business leaders were excluded from Labour’s Big Conversation with the Prime Minister.

    But The Journal carried your message, which is echoed by your colleagues all over the country: the Federation of Small Business wanted to tackle him on “the increasing burden of red tape on small businesses and the spiralling numbers of attacks on shopkeepers”. The CBI wanted to tackle him on “over-regulation, heavy taxation and all things which are gradually eroding our position in the market place”.

    I share those concerns.

    The burden of regulation on business is, in my view, approaching crisis point. It is eroding the ability of business in the North East to compete. The costs involved can mean the difference between winning an order and losing it.

    Labour are now bringing in 15 new regulations every single working day – 50 per cent more than when we were in office. The British Chambers of Commerce say that regulation has so far cost £30 billion and is a “millstone” round the necks of British business.

    Taxes on business are a cost on your business as well – a very big cost. The tax burden on business has grown substantially in the last seven years. It is estimated that the cumulative amount of additional tax paid by business since Labour came in amounts to some £54 billion.

    And most independent commentators now predict that taxes are likely to rise again if Labour win a third election. That’s the view, among others, of the IMF, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the ITEM Club.

    We’ve done our own calculations on how much Labour’s Third Term Tax Rises would cost. To cover the black hole in the Government’s borrowing they will have to bring in tax rises equivalent to £900 a year for somebody on average earnings.

    That will make our economy even less competitive. We have already slipped eleven places in the world competitiveness league, from fourth to fifteenth, since Labour came to office. We cannot afford to fall further.

    There is another concern. In just over five years, the number of public sector jobs has risen by more than 500,000. Yet last year, jobs in the private sector fell – by 130,000. In manufacturing, as Larry Elliot pointed out in The Guardian this week, more than 750,000 jobs have been lost under Gordon Brown. Under Kenneth Clarke, 200,000 jobs were created in the sector.

    This mismatch is unsustainable. How can we possibly continue to afford a public sector which is growing, when the private sector, which pays for it, is shrinking?

    So what is the Conservative solution? It’s all very well to criticise. But what would we actually do that is different?

    Let me tell you. We have a three-fold approach. We need to reduce regulation. We need to get a grip on public spending. We need to cut back on waste.

    First, regulation. On day one a Conservative Government will freeze civil service recruitment, which is currently running at 511 new officials a week. That alone will mean fewer officials to dream up regulations. But that is only the start.

    We will ensure that the total regulatory burden imposed by government falls each year. We will introduce sunset clauses in new regulation. And like America, we will exempt small firms from a whole raft of regulation.

    A Conservative government will ensure that, over the medium term, while public spending will continue to grow, it will grow less quickly than the economy as a whole. That is the only way to avoid Labour’s Third Term Tax Rises and over time to reduce the burden of taxation.

    Low tax economies are the most successful economies. They create more jobs, they attract more investment and they generate the resources to pay for the public services we all use.

    Third, we will cut back on waste. We’ve appointed David James, the trouble shooter brought in by the Government to sort out the Dome, to highlight where the Government is wasting money – and how the Conservatives can cut it out. He is supported by 45 advisers from the world of business, who are giving their time and expertise to help us tackle this problem. He’s already identified £20 billion worth of waste, and he’s only looked at three Government departments so far!

    If you’ve got examples of pointless red tape or extravagant Government waste, please get in touch. I’d very much like to hear from you – just write to me at the House of Commons.

    Of course, not all the burdens on business I have talked about come from Britain. The single most expensive regulation for British business in the last few years has been the Working Time Directive. According to some calculations, it has cost business more than £10 billion – so far. Even the French government now acknowledges it has been a brake on their economy.

    More than 40% of new regulations start in Brussels. Regulations such as the chemicals directive which could harm so many businesses in Teesside.

    Be in no doubt – if Europe were to adopt the proposed European Constitution that burden will go on rising.

    The Constitution, for example, incorporates the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The rights under the Charter are loosely drafted. They include the right to strike, the right to so-called social protection, and the right for workers to have information and consultation within business.

    It will be up to the European Court exactly what these rights mean in practice. And if past experience is anything to go by, they will lead to yet more burdens on business – burdens British politicians would be powerless to stop.

    The European Union has achieved a great deal. Together we have created a single market of 450 million people. We have brought into the European family eight countries that just two decades ago lived under the yoke of Soviet oppression.

    But that should not blind us to the fact that the EU is failing to face up to the realities of the twenty first century.

    If the Constitution is passed, it will mean business as usual for Europe – greater centralisation, more regulation and less flexibility. It is the exact opposite of what Europe really needs. Far from solving problems it will create yet more.

    Conservatives have an alternative vision for Europe – a positive vision. It’s one we’re promoting in the run up to the European elections on June 10th, and I am delighted that two of our candidates for the North East, Jeremy Middleton and Martin Callanan, who is already serving you as an MEP, are here with us tonight.

    Just like Newcastle United and Middlesbrough, I am delighted to be in Europe.

    Just like Newcastle and Boro, the Conservatives want Britain to do the best we can in Europe. We want Europe’s member states to have room to breathe. If some countries want to integrate more closely then that is fine – as long as they do not force countries who do not want to, to follow them. Our policy is simple. Live and let live. That is a modern and mature approach – one which will allow Europe to succeed in the twenty first century.

    Just as we don’t think a European Constitution is the answer to Europe’s problems, we don’t think a North East Assembly is the solution to the region’s difficulties.

    Some of the leading voices for North East business, such as the CBI’s Steve Rankin and the Chamber of Commerce’s George Cowcher, are somewhat sceptical as well, and that The Journal to date remains to be completely convinced.

    They are right to be sceptical. When any Government comes calling with an idea for a new political quango, you should run a mile. You should certainly treat their cost estimates like that of the proverbial builder’s. Whatever they say it will cost, double it, treble it, quadruple it. That’s what’s happened with every other Assembly introduced by Labour.

    The fact is that a North East Assembly would have no additional money and no new powers. It would be an expensive talking shop for 25 politicians. And it would remove decision-making further away from the people who matter.

    Council tax has already risen enormously here in the North East. In Sedgefield, you have the highest council tax in the country. In fact, Tony Blair pays a higher council tax on his Band D property in Labour-controlled Sedgefield than he does on his Band H property – 10 Downing Street – in Conservative-controlled Westminster.

    You are paying enough in the North East for local government. You don’t need to pay even more for a North East Assembly.

    Many of you, like me, may have spent time in America. A love of enterprise is at the centre of American society and I admire many aspects of American life.

    In America, they talk about the American Dream. They talk about the ability of someone born in a log cabin to make it to the White House. As it happens, in America this is the exception, not the rule.

    In Britain it actually does happen. There are countless examples of people from humble beginnings who make it to the top: who live the British Dream.

    In Darlington, a self-taught engine-wright named George Stephenson came to call on an energetic quaker financier called Edward Pease one day in 1821 and persuaded him to use locomotives, not horses, on the Stockton to Darlington railway. The rest is history, and Stephenson went from a poor cottage in Wylam with a clay floor and no plaster to achieve great wealth and fame.

    More recently of course, Sir John Hall made himself a fortune and used it to help his team back into the top flight of English football.

    I have no doubt that there are many in this room on their way to great achievements of their own.

    So we should talk about the British Dream. We should embrace it. We should celebrate it. I want everyone to live the British Dream.

    The North East is full of talented and creative people. We could and should be doing so much better.

    We need a government that does less, but does it better.

    That provides a framework in which people can do the best for themselves and their families.

    That allows them to keep more of the money they work so hard to earn.

    And that does not constantly interfere and regulate and get in the way.

    That is the challenge we set ourselves.

    It is a challenge I shall strive to meet.

    And I shall never lose sight of the hugely important part you play in helping us to achieve these goals, by ensuring that our economy thrives.

    You are absolutely vital.

    No government I lead will ever forget that.

    So tonight I look forward to seeing some fantastic companies winning awards and to seeing the presentations that celebrate your achievements.

    Tonight is your night, and I am very grateful that you have asked me to be with you on this great occasion.

    Thank you.

  • Lisa Francis – 2004 Speech on Wales Needing a National Art Gallery

    Lisa Francis – 2004 Speech on Wales Needing a National Art Gallery

    The speech made by Lisa Francis, the then Conservative AM for Mid and West Wales, in the Welsh Assembly on 27 May 2004.

    The Assembly Government’s policy to ensure free access to museums and galleries has proved to be extremely popular and the Conservative Party supports that policy.

    Since this policy was implemented and entrance fees abolished, the number of visitors to St Fagans has doubled. St Fagans charges parking fees in order to cover the museum and car park maintenance costs.

    However, since the entrance fees were abolished, people expect the whole package to be free. Therefore, charging for parking makes the Assembly’s policy laughable.

    People now expect free entrance, which encourages families with children to visting educational sites and we should all support that.

    Given that St Fagans is outside the city centre and since public transport is so poor, people have to use their cars to reach the museum.

    St Fagans is the largest visitor attraction in south Wales and this policy of charging for car parking will hit those on low incomes, old people and students and so on. Therefore, this policy means that entrance to St Fagans is no longer free of charge.

    While public transport to St Fagans remains poor, we need to raise concerns about any car parking charges.

    The Welsh Conservative Party wishes to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the importance of the work of all those in the national museums and galleries industry and to acknowledge the many improvements that have been made and which will, hopefully, continue in the future.

    We also need to realise that, in Wales, a third of permanent museum collections are described as being in unsuitable stores by their curators, with several commenting on the poor environmental conditions and lack of space, according to the Council of Museums in Wales.

    Research has shown that the vast majority of museum stores in Wales are too full and that none have more than 10 years of growth capacity.

    Storage facilities at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales are in such poor condition that The Western Mail reported on 22 April that a member of staff had fallen through the floor of one building, which had sustained water damage.

    As has been said, a report by the Auditor General for Wales found that almost half the museum’s collection is at risk because of inadequate storage. That document, published on 21 April, revealed that only one-third of the museum’s collection is held on computerised records.

    At the Museum of Welsh Life in St Fagans, many storage areas are so full that they cannot be accessed by staff. It would take 20 members of staff 20 years to clear the museum’s conservation backlog. With less than 1 per cent of the museum’s collection of 4.7 million items on display at any given time, it means that millions of pounds worth of objects, from paintings and locomotives to shells and coins, are therefore kept in storage.

    Surely, it is high time, Minister, that you fulfilled the Labour Government’s manifesto commitment of providing Wales with a dedicated national art gallery. You indicated that it was a manifesto commitment in your exchange with Nick Bourne in the Chamber on 5 May.

    The Arts Council of Wales has not included a funding bid for that in its current corporate plan, as it was regarded as a medium-term strategy.

    Exactly when, Minister, will this strategy come to fruition between now and the end of your Government’s tenure of office? We need an answer.

    The public in Wales is being denied the chance to see some of the country’s greatest works of art because of the lack of a dedicated national art gallery.

    Such an institution would be a huge asset. It is a gallery that would be linked to other galleries in Wales, and where Welsh art could be displayed. Wales’s art collections cannot be truly appreciated if items are locked in vaults, swathed in dust-proof covers, or, worse still, inaccessible to curators and, more importantly, liable to damage.

    We believe that a national art gallery for Wales should be managed by a single organisation, comprising the national museum and the national art gallery, which would be connected, as I said, to a network of museums and galleries around Wales.

    Such a move would not take anything away, or detract from, the other galleries in Wales, such as Oriel Môn, Oriel Mostyn or the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery.

  • Hilary Benn – 2004 Speech on Increases in the Foreign Aid Budget

    Hilary Benn – 2004 Speech on Increases in the Foreign Aid Budget

    The speech made by Hilary Benn, the then Secretary of State for International Development, at Church House in London on 2 June 2004.

    In government, Labour has given a lead in international efforts to tackle global poverty.

    Compared with 1997, today more of our nation’s wealth is being spent on overseas aid – to directly improve the lives of millions of men and women living in poverty – with whom we share this small and fragile planet.

    The UK will spend £4.5 billion on aid by 2005/06 – a 93% increase in the aid budget since 1997. In sharp contrast to this record, the Tories are committed to a real terms cut of £229 million in the Department for International Development’s budget over two years, reducing aid to some of the world’s poorest people.

    In office, we have created a separate Department for International Development – recognised around the world as one of the most effective development agencies in the international system. We have led international action to wipe out debt for the poorest nations – relieving $70 billion worth of debt so far – with the UK providing 100% bilateral debt relief for the world’s poorest countries. And we have introduced the International Development Act which says that British aid must be used for the reduction of poverty. Our resources are now targeted on supporting the internationally agreed UN Millennium Development Goals, and by next year we will focus 90 per cent of our bilateral aid on the poorest countries in the world, including £1 billion a year to Africa.

    Since 1997, this Labour government has spent £800 million on helping children to get into school around the world; over the next four years this will rise to £1 billion going on education. The UK is now the world’s second largest bilateral donor in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, and we have committed $280 million to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria up to 2008.

    Labour’s increase in development assistance has helped to bring real improvements in the lives of the world’s poorest people. Kenya now has an additional 1.2 million children in school thanks to a UK grant of £10 million. Poverty in Rwanda, where the UK is the largest bilateral donor, has decreased from approximately 70 per cent in 1994 to under 60 per cent in 2002. In Uganda immunisation coverage has increased from 41 per cent to over 70 per cent. And there are many more success stories.

    Four years ago, the international community united in committing itself to the Millennium Development Goals: to halve world poverty, reduce infant and maternal mortality, and get all of the 113 million children of primary age, not in school currently, into a classroom. We must now ensure that the promises we have made on aid, trade, debt relief and sustainable development are delivered. It is my belief that international development should be an area where there is consensus between the mainstream political parties. Britain is, after all, leading the fight to tackle global poverty, and for our fight to succeed in persuading international partners abroad, our hand should be strengthened by support at home across the political spectrum.

    Despite the poor Tory record on overseas aid – in office, the Conservatives halved the aid budget as a proportion of national income from 0.51 per cent of GDP in 1979 to 0.26 per cent in 1997 – I had hoped we had seen a conversion. In 2002, the then Shadow Chancellor Michael Howard said the Tories would support measures we announced in that year’s Spending Review to increase the budget for international development.

    But the two-year cash freeze in international development announced by the current Shadow Chancellor Oliver Letwin would mean a real terms cut of £229 million in the development budget.

    So, having pledged to meet our commitments, the Conservatives have now broken that pledge, and in doing so have set their face against the growing international consensus about the need for more aid. They have committed themselves to a real terms cut in public spending which would affect help for some of the poorest people in the world.

    With typical candour John Bercow has admitted, “I cannot say to you that a freeze would not apply to the international development budget.” It would be disingenuous for the Tories to pretend a cut of this scale could come from waste or without eating deep into the international commitments we wish to make. This is especially so given Oliver Letwin’s confirmation last week that the Tories are looking to reduce public spending as a share of GDP.

    Let me illustrate the scale of the cuts the Tories would need to find.

    The first year of Conservative cuts would amount to the equivalent of eliminating the UK’s annual programmes for the Sudan (£14 million), Sierra Leone (£40 million) and Ethiopia (£57 million).

    92,000 people could be lifted out of poverty each and every year with the money the Tories want to cut.

    690,000 children in Africa could be provided with school places each year with the money the Tories want to cut.

    For each £100m spent on education in Asia, we could put an additional 2 million children in school. Spent on health in Asia, this could save the lives of another 250,000 children under 5, or avert over 50,000 maternal deaths

    The Tories must now explain where the £229 million cut from DFID’s budget over 2 years would be found.

    They must also explain why, having supported EU action to co-ordinate overseas aid as part of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, they are now calling for withdrawal from the EU overseas aid programme.

    Europe plays an important role in our efforts to alleviate global poverty. The EU is the biggest donor in the world for humanitarian aid and the third largest donor for development assistance. The EU is a major contributor, for instance, to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

    Labour believes we should continue to press for reform in the way EU aid is used: to increase the proportion spent in low-income countries and to focus aid where it can have most impact. We also want Europe’s complex and slow procedures to be further streamlined and simplified.

    With Labour, Britain has led the demand for fundamental reform of the EU’s development programmes to contribute to global poverty reduction. This is in contrast to the Tories who did nothing to improve the quality of EU aid while in government and now claim that they can withdraw the UK’s contribution to the EU’s aid programme. This isn’t possible. The Tories cannot simply unilaterally withdraw from existing treaty obligations without the agreement of the 24 other EU member states – but they have yet to identify one country that would support them. It is not credible for the Tories to pretend they can fulfil this commitment unless they plan to withdraw from the EU.

    Oliver Letwin has now placed the Tories in a position where they are reneging on a pledge to match Labour’s spending on international development. They have made what should be an issue of consensus an issue of contention, and it is the very poorest people in the world who would suffer from their cuts.

    And that’s why Labour intends to continue making international development a priority. Because it is the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do. And because unless we tackle poverty, injustice and inequality, then we will never have a safe and secure world in which we can all live.

  • Tony Blair – 2004 Speech on Public Services

    Tony Blair – 2004 Speech on Public Services

    The speech made by Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, on 23 June 2004.

    Over the coming three months, I will be setting out an agenda for a third term Labour Government. A major part of that agenda will be about the future of public services in health, education, law and order, transport, housing and employment. But the battle over public services is more than a battle about each individual service. The state of our public services defines the nature of our country. Our public realm is what we share together. How it develops tells us a lot about what we hold in common, the values that motivate us, the ideas that govern us.

    The New Labour Government was created out of the reform of progressive politics in Britain. For the first hundred years of our history as a party, we had been in government only intermittently.

    Our ambition was to govern in the way and manner of Labour in 1945 and the reforming Liberal Governments of the late 19th and early 20th century: to construct a broad coalition of the better off and the less advantaged to achieve progress, economic and social, in the interests of the many not the few.

    In seven years, we have delivered a stable economy, rising employment, and big reductions in unemployment and poverty. With that behind us, we have invested in our public realm. In particular, we have systematically raised the capacity and quality of our public services. Over the last few months there has been a growing recognition and acceptance that real improvement is happening.

    Now, on the basis of this clear evidence of progress, is the time to accelerate reform.

    In simple terms, we are completing the re-casting of the 1945 welfare state to end entirely the era of “one size fits all” services and put in their place modern services which maintain at their core the values of equality of access and opportunity for all; base the service round the user, a personalised service with real choice, greater individual responsibility and high standards; and ensure in so doing that we keep our public services universal, for the middle class as well as those on lower incomes, both of whom expect and demand services of quality.

    I am not talking about modest further reorganization but something quite different and more fundamental. We are proposing to put an entirely different dynamic in place to drive our public services: one where the service will be driven not by the government or by the managers but by the user – the patient, the parent, the pupil and the law abiding citizen. The service will continue to be free, but it will be a high quality consumer service to fit their needs in the same way as the best services do in other areas of life.

    This is a vision which combines choice, excellence and equality in a modern universal welfare state.

    We will contrast such a vision with that of the Conservatives whose essential anti-public service ideology is shown by their policy to subsidise a few to opt-out of public services at the expense of the many; to abandon targets for public service performance; and to cut the overall amount of public spending drastically. There are frequent gyrations in their precise policies; but unchanging in each new version is that a privileged minority can and should opt out in order to get a better service.

    By contrast, I believe the vast majority of those on centre-left now believe in the new personalised concept of public services. It is true that some still argue that people – usually other people – don’t want choice. That, for example, they just want a single excellent school and hospital on their doorstep.

    In reality, I believe people do want choice, in public services as in other services. But anyway choice isn’t an end in itself. It is one important mechanism to ensure that citizens can indeed secure good schools and health services in their communities. And choice matters as much within those institutions as between them: better choice of learning options for each pupil within secondary schools; better choice of access routes into the health service. Choice puts the levers in the hands of parents and patients so that they as citizens and consumers can be a driving force for improvement in their public services. And the choice we support is choice open to all on the basis of their equal status as citizens not on the unequal basis of their wealth.

    This is the case we will take to the British people. It is a case only possible because of our investment. Without investment in capacity and in essential standards and facilities, sustained not just for a year or two but year on year as a matter of central national purpose, there is no credibility in claims to be able to extend choice to all. They become mere words without meaning for the great majority of citizens, as demonstrated by the last government which promised these things but refused the investment in capacity and so ended up making its flagship policies on choice the assisted places scheme, a grammar school in every town, and subsidies for private health insurance; all of them opt-out policies for a small minority at the expense of the rest.

    Some propose to return to these policies. To return to choice for the few. To offer what is in effect not a right to choose but a right to charge. To constrain investment, either by directly cutting it or by siphoning it off money to subsidise those currently purchasing private provision.

    Our goal is fundamentally different and more ambitious for the people of Britain and I will set it out today.

    Let me go back to 1997 and describe our journey as a government.

    We inherited public services in a state of widespread dilapidation – a claim almost no-one would deny. This wasn’t because public services and their staff were somehow inferior; on the contrary, our health and education services had achieved about as much as it was possible to achieve on constrained budgets and decades of under-investment. The problem was too little resource, and therefore grossly inadequate capacity in terms of staff and facilities.

    This under-investment was not tackled in the Eighties and into the Nineties, even as economic conditions allowed. On the contrary, it was maintained as an act of policy and philosophy right up until 1997. So in 1997 the hospital building programme had ground to a halt, despite a £3bn repairs backlog. Capital investment was at its lowest level for a decade. Waiting lists were rising at their fastest rate ever. Nurse training places had been cut by a quarter. Training places for GPs were cut by one fifth. In education, teacher numbers had fallen by 36,000 since 1981. Funding per pupil was actually cut by over £100 between 1992 and 1997. Police numbers were down by 1,100.

    Underinvestment and chronic lack of capacity led, inevitably, to a failure to meet even basic standards. Standards not simply unmet, but undefined, for the simple reason that defining them would have demonstrated how far each public service was from achieving them.

    So there was no national expectation of success at school for young people – although nearly half of 11 year-olds were not even up to standard in the basics of literacy and numeracy and a similar proportion left school at or soon after 16 with few if any qualifications.

    There was no effective maximum waiting time either for a GP appointment or for hospital treatment – although the hospital waiting lists stood at over 1.1 million and many patients were waiting more than 18 months even for the most urgent treatment, with rates of death from cancer and heart disease amongst the highest in Europe.

    There were no national targets for reducing crime or dealing with youth offending, though crime had doubled since 1979 and it was taking four and a half months to deal with young offenders from arrest to sentence. Community penalties were not properly enforced, fines were not paid.

    And not only were none of these basic foundations in existence. Perhaps worse, there was a fatalism, cultivated assiduously by those opposed to public spending on ideological principle, that this was the natural order of things, that somehow there was a ‘British disease’ which meant we were culturally destined to have second-rate education and health and rising crime. The nation with some of the best universities in the world somehow destined to have crumbling, substandard primary and secondary schools; the nation which under Labour founded the National Health Service in the 1940s – one of the great international beacons of the post-war era – still leaving patients on trollys in corridors, with easily treatable conditions – hip and knee-joint replacements, cataracts – largely untreated because of lack of facilities.

    Our first task in 1997, within an indispensable framework of economic stability and growth, was to invest in capacity; to herald public investment in education, health and law and order as a virtue not a curse; and to define basic standards and to reform working practices so that extra resources delivered real capacity improvements service by service. We did so with confidence and optimism. With confidence that public service staff – the doctors, teachers, police officers, and the vital ancillary staff of all kinds – would rise to this challenge, with the better pay, training and incentives they needed and deserved. And with optimism that they would bring abut radical improvement – not immediately; not until the resources and reform programmes on which they depended had started to make an impact; but in a sustained fashion once the real rates of investment – rising now to 7.5% a year in health and 6% a year in education – had begun to drive reform and build capacity.

    Let me pause to say what that year on year investment means. In health, it means a budget now doubled from £33bn in 1997 to £67bn this year, and set to rise to £90bn by 2008, bringing our health spending towards the European average for the first time in a generation. This is enabling us to recruit 20,000 more doctors, 68,000 more nurses and 26,000 more therapy, scientific and technical staff. In education it means a budget nearly doubled, from £30bn to £53bn, again bringing us towards international standards with 29,000 extra teachers in our schools. In law and order it means a 25% real increase in police funding since 1999, and police numbers up 11,000. Across the public services, infrastructure being transformed – new buildings, ICT, equipment, facilities, in every locality in the country in ongoing programmes of investment. The schools capital programme, for example, up from £680m a year in 1997 to £4.5 billion a year today, enabling us to embark on a programme to bring every secondary school in the country – all 3,400 of them – up to a modern standard by 2015. A completely different physical environment for learning, transforming the potential of our teachers.

    But money alone was never going to put even the basics right. We in government never tired of saying – alongside so many public service leaders themselves, frustrated at past failure – that it had to be money tied to reform to ensure that basic standards were defined and delivered in each service. The workforce had to be modernized as it was enlarged and better paid; basic standards and practices defined and delivered; rewards tied to service improvements; a new engagement with private and voluntary sectors; and full accountability to the public which was being asked to pay for the service improvements, with proper independent inspection and assessment.

    So our policy was not simply smaller class sizes and more teachers – although we achieved both. It was also literacy and numeracy programmes, building on best existing teaching practice, to raise basic standards systematically nationwide – 84,000 more 11 year-olds a year now up to standard in maths and 60,000 in English. It was a radical recasting of the teaching profession to embed teaching assistants alongside teachers and give them a defined role – now more than 130,000 of them, double the number in 1997. It was a reform of secondary education – including Excellence in Cities and the specialist schools and academies programmes – tackling failing schools systematically and embedding higher standards and a culture of aspiration school by school. Substantial progress is now evident on all fronts: the number of failing schools is down, there is a new culture of achievement and expectation in our secondary schools, and 50,000 more 16 year olds a year now achieving five or more good GCSEs.

    Similarly, our policy in heath was not simply more doctors, nurses and new buildings – although we have achieved a step-change in all three. It was the first national system of hospital inspection. The first national maximum waiting times for GP appointments, hospital treatment and A&E. New national service frameworks for treatment of cancer and heart disease. Premature deaths from heart disease – the single biggest killer – are down by a quarter since 1997, with a third more heart operations, twice as many patients receiving immediate access to clot-busting drugs and cholesterol lowering drugs now prescribed to 1.8 million people.

    The statistics don’t of course tell the real story of lives saved and transformed.
    Take, for example, the family turning up at A & E with their elderly relative who has fallen at home.

    Before the investment and reforms now in place they would most likely have faced a long and worrying wait, probably in a shabby casualty department. They would have read the stories about ‘waiting 48 hours on a trolley in a corridor’ and expected the same.

    Today, their elderly relative will be seen and treated within 4 hours at the very most, but typically much quicker. There will be more staff in the A & E than previously and the facilities will very likely have been refurbished with play areas for children and so on.

    In law and order, too, it is a similar story of bold statistics proclaiming real change – not only the 11,000 extra police, but also 3,300 community support officers where this type of role simply didn’t exist in 1997. Overall crime, according to the British Crime Survey, down by 4 million incidents a year, with the blight of burglary down to its lowest level for over 20 years.

    This week we held a reception at No 10 for front-line staff. Many of them were people whose jobs didn’t even exist seven years ago. New Deal advisers who have helped cut youth unemployment to a few thousand nationwide. Sure Start workers. Nurse consultants. Community Support Officers. NHS Direct staff. Classroom assistants. All of them giving us the capacity to help thousands upon thousands in new ways.

    So, taking stock, we have raised capacity to a new plateau. And it is from this plateau that we can climb to the next vital stage of public reform, to design and provide truly personalized services, meeting the needs and aspirations of today’s generation for choice, quality and opportunity service by service on which to found their lives and livelihoods.

    Choice and diversity are not somehow alien to the spirit of the public services – or inconsistent with fairness.

    The reason too many of the public services we inherited were stuck in the past, in terms of choice and quality – and the two or even more tiers of service they offered – was because their funding, infrastructure and service standards were stuck in the past too.

    Back in the 1940s, the public services were top-down in their management – like so much else at the time, and this remained too entrenched thereafter. But they were every bit as good as the private sector in terms of choice and quality – if not far better, particularly after the 1944 Education Act and the founding of the NHS, which offered services and opportunities transformed from the pre-war years within a post-war economy and society governed by rationing, funding constraints, and pervasive low skills and aspirations. Aneurin Bevan said the NHS civilized the country. It extended choice, quality and opportunity in its generation: it didn’t limit them. And when it came to means rather than ends, Bevan was entirely pragmatic about how provision should be funded and structured within the new NHS, consistent with its values of equality and fairness.

    The following decades saw a growing divergence between the availability of choice – and the perception and often the reality of quality – between the public and private sectors. But on the basis of the new plateau of capacity, we can change that, whilst keeping intact the ethos of public service.

    Choice and quality will be for all – driven by extra capacity, without charges or selection by wealth.

    In health, we will set out tomorrow a new guarantee of treatment within a set time which starts from the moment a patient is referred by their GP – not the time that they get onto the queue for their operation. Every patient will have a right to be seen and treated within this period, with a choice of which provider undertakes the treatment.

    In education, we want every parent to be able to choose a good secondary school. So we are providing for every secondary school to become a specialist school, with a centre of excellence in one part of the curriculum; and to raise aspiration and achievement in areas where the education system has failed in the past, we will expand the number of academies significantly. We will also reform the curriculum so that students get a better and broader range of options for study beyond the age of 14, developing their talents and challenging them to achieve more.

    In law and order, we will re-introduce community policing for today’s age with dedicated policing teams of officers and community support officers focused on local priorities, implementing tough new powers to deal with anti-social behaviour. There will also be personalised support for every victim of crime as we introduce a new witness care service nationwide.

    The same principles will be extended across the public services. In social housing, for example, we will extend choice-based lettings – which give council and housing association tenants a new service to identify locations and properties, in place of traditional schemes where tenants were simply allocated a property on the basis of a centrally-imposed points system.

    In welfare, every person of working age able to work – wherever they live and whatever their needs – will receive personalised support, including personal advisers able to provide tailored support to help people back into work, not just registered job seekers but steadily more of the three million of working age who are otherwise economically inactive.

    As we accelerate reform on the basis of enhanced capacity, these personalized services will be made available in every community.

    Over the last seven years New Labour has time and again shown how ideas that are supposed to be irreconcilable can be brought together: social justice and economic efficiency; fairness at work and a flexible labour market; full employment and low inflation.

    It is the same with choice, excellence and equity. There is no reason except past failure why excellence need mean elitism – why there can only be good schools and universities if a majority are kept out of them; why there can only be real choice and diversity if a majority are deprived of them. With the right services, expectations and investment, we can have excellence for the great majority, with choice and equity. And we don’t base this on theory, but on what is now happening in practice.

    Consider healthcare, where we have now been trialling choice in the public services for a number of years. The evidence shows there is demand for choice and that this is not only compatible with equity but that choice itself helps to ensure equity.

    In the NHS there have been trials in elective surgery with patients offered a choice of up to four hospitals for treatment, often assisted by a Patient Care Adviser. Take-up is high.

    Half of all those offered a choice of where to have their heart operation in the nationwide cardiac scheme took up the offer. More than two thirds of patients offered a choice in the London trial took up the offer. Three quarters did so in Manchester.

    The schemes have had a dramatic effect on waiting times. In the London pilot, extending patient choice led to a decrease in waiting times of 17% (compared with a 6% fall nationally).

    The recruitment of overseas suppliers into the NHS – setting up new treatment centres extending choice – has also had a significant effect. As the FT put it a fortnight ago: ‘By introducing a clutch of overseas providers … to provide treatment centres for National Health Service patients, the government has at a stroke transformed a significant chunk of the country’s health care … exposing to scrutiny some of the myths on which private medical care is sold.’

    Greater choice and diversity are having a similarly positive effect in education and childcare. Our new under-fives provision – Sure Start, nursery places for three and four year-olds, better maternity and paternity support, a massive extension of childcare supported by tax credits – is enabling parents to choose the provision that is best for them and their children, where previously there was often no provision at all. It is also giving parents much greater flexibility in their working life, where previously they often had none, or indeed little incentive to work at all.

    In secondary education, specialist schools have shown significant improvements in results, and most secondary schools and are now exploring the best curriculum areas in which to develop real centres of excellence and boost their provision. We have made it far easier for successful and popular schools to expand where they wish to do so, including special capital grants for new premises. New secondary school curriculum options, including junior apprenticeships for 14 to 16 year-olds, are giving pupils more choice to meet their aspirations, and we will take curriculum reform further. Academies are offering a wholly new type of independent state school, serving the whole community in areas where better provision is needed, and are proving popular. I have opened two of the new academies in the past year; it is truly remarkable what is possible when investment, aspiration and inspirational leadership – not tied down by past failure – go hand in hand.

    Let me return to my starting point. With growing capacity in our public services we can now accelerate reform. We have the opportunity to develop a new generation of personalised services where equity and excellence go hand in hand – services shaped by the needs of those who use them, services with more choice extended to everyone and not just those that can afford to pay, services personal to each and fair to all.

    It is now accepted by all the political parties that the economy and public services will be the battleground at the next election. That in itself is a kind of tribute to what has been achieved. The territory over which we will fight is the territory we have laid out.

    For our part, we must fight it with a boldness no longer born out of instinct but of experience. When we have refused to accept the traditional frontiers but have gone beyond them, we have always found more fertile land.

    And there is another reason for approaching our task in this way: the world keeps changing ever faster. With the change comes new possibilities and new insecurities. It is always our job to help realise the one and overcome the other; to provide opportunity and security in this world of change; and for all, not for a few.

    Take a step back and analyse seven years of this Government. Setbacks aplenty, for sure. But also real and tangible achievement and progress for many who otherwise would have been kept down, unable to realise their potential, without much hope and with little prospect of advance. Now we have to take it further: always with an eye to the future, always maintaining the coalition of the decent and the disadvantaged that got us here, always recognising that in politics if you aren’t adventurous, you may never know failure, but neither are you likely to be acquainted with success.

    There is still much to do and we intend to do it.

  • David Miliband – 2004 Comments on Conservative Plans for Education

    David Miliband – 2004 Comments on Conservative Plans for Education

    The comments made by David Miliband, the then Schools Minister, on 28 June 2004.

    The Tories are committed to an agenda of cuts, privatisation that would lead to lower standards in schools.

    The basic principle of Tory education policy is to cut money from state schools to subsidise private education. Their plans would take at least £1 billion out of schools to set up a bureaucratic voucher scheme and subsidise private education.

    The Tories are making no commitment to raising standards in schools and they have even admitted that they would be ‘proud’ to see standards fall under a Conservative Government.

    It is also clear that Tories continue to be at complete sixes and sevens on their plans. They cannot agree by how much taxpayers will subsidise private education. They cannot agree on the deadweight cost of their plans. They cannot say what the value of their voucher is. And they cannot say whether the voucher will be worth more for poorer families, more for children with learning difficulties, or more in areas like London, where schools’ costs are higher.

    To add to the confusion, the Tories are now saying they would abolish admission procedures, leaving heads with the task of making up selection procedures. By abolishing catchment area rules every parent who wants to send their child to their local school faces a lottery, not knowing on what basis their child will be admitted. At the same time, heads and local education authorities will have to invent criteria to make their decisions, causing chaos across the system.

    Whilst Labour’s programme of investment and reform is raising standards across the board, the Tory agenda of cuts and privatisation would lead to lower standards in our schools.

  • Hayden Phillips – 2004 Review of the Honours System by Sir Hayden Phillips

    Hayden Phillips – 2004 Review of the Honours System by Sir Hayden Phillips

    The text of the Honours System by Sir Hayden Phillips which was published in 1994.

    Text (in .pdf format)