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Tag: 2009

  • David Miliband – 2009 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    davidmiliband

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Miliband, the then Foreign Secretary, to the 2009 Labour Party conference.

    Conference,

    Let’s start with one simple, undeniable fact. The earth does revolve around the sun… but not the one printed in Wapping.

    And the sun that we rely on is the one that has been shining on this conference every day here in Brighton.

    Led by Gordon’s speech, this week we have not just shown the idealism to dream of a better future; we have shown the ideas and the courage to make that future possible.

    Nowhere is courage more needed than in the defence of our country.

    So let me start with the war in Afghanistan.

    With the men and women of our armed forces fighting a vicious and unrelenting enemy.

    And with questions that are being asked by millions of families across Britain.

    They are asking why are we there? Can we succeed? Is it worth it?

    It is right to ask those questions. And right for us to answer them.

    Because I know that for every British soldier killed, there is a bereaved family, a grieving wife or husband, children who will grow up without their father or mother, parents who will never be grandparents.

    Words cannot heal the daily anguish of the families of the fallen, or the pain of the maimed.

    But we would not be risking the lives of our soldiers if we were not convinced that the work they are doing is essential to our security at home.

    Our armed forces in Afghanistan are not just doing a vital job. They are showing themselves to be the best, the very best in the world and a credit to our country.

    We know what would happen if the coalition abandoned its work in Afghanistan.

    The clock would be turned back to the 1990s, when Afghanistan was a place for al qaeda to seduce, groom, train and plan for deadly terrorist missions.

    With the best of intentions we would be risking the next 9/11 or 7/7.

    The British people don’t want that. They do want to know that we have a plan that can work. And we do.

    The way to defeat this enemy is to divide it.

    Separate the hard core from the rest.

    Does that mean the Afghan government talking to the Taleban?

    Yes, with a simple message:

    …live within the Constitution, and you can come home to your communities and have a share of power, but stay outside, in hiding, linked to Al Qaeda, plotting mayhem for Afghanistan, and you will face unremitting military force.

    The biggest problem in Afghanistan is that ordinary people don’t know who is going to win, and so don’t dare give us all the backing we need.

    The way for us to win their confidence is to make them feel safe, above all with more Afghan troops.

    Three years ago the Afghan Army had 60 000 troops. Today 90 000.

    November next year 134 000, properly trained by us today so they can defend their own country tomorrow.

    We know that Taliban fighters get orders from leaders living in Pakistan.

    So to our friends in Pakistan, fighting for their own future as a country we say this: we support you in defeating the threat to your country, and we need you to support us in defeating the threat to ours.

    We also know that a successful plan depends on a government in Kabul acting in the interests of the country, not in lining the pockets of the people close to power.

    So, we will wait to get a credible election result, and we will not be rushed into a whitewash.

    So we back our troops, our diplomats our aid workers in support of a clear plan.

    But there is one other thing.  We expect every other government in the coalition to do the same, not by turning around but by re-committing to the mission.

    We came into this together.  We see it through – together.

    Strong values and sound judgment for the things we believe in.

    There are few places where strong values and sound judgment are more needed than in the Middle East.

    On Friday we revealed what we have known for some time: that Iran was constructing a clandestine nuclear facility.

    On Monday we saw their missile tests.

    Today in Geneva, at talks finally convened after 16 months of prevarication, they need to get serious.

    Over the next few months, the stakes could not be higher. The Arab world on tenterhooks.  Israel on alert.

    Our message to Iran is simple: do not mistake respect for weakness.

    You do have rights to civilian nuclear power, and we are happy for you to exercise them, but not if the price is plunging the Middle East into a nuclear arms race that is a danger to the whole world.

    I also remind Conference of this.

    We have hoped for many years for a US President to devote himself and his administration from day 1 to the creation of a Palestinian state living alongside Israel; if the international community cannot now define, develop and deliver the deal on peace then we will be paying the price in death and destruction for many years to come.

    There is a unique international consensus on the terms of what has to be negotiated.

    Borders based on the line of 1967, resolving the issue of illegal Israeli settlements.

    Both states designating Jerusalem as their capital city.  Security guarantees for Israel. Fair compensation for Palestinian refugees. The Arab world not just recognising but normalising relations with Israel.

    Conference, there would be no more historic achievement a re-elected Labour government to be the first country to open two Embassies in a shared Jerusalem, democratic Palestine and democratic Jewish Israel, living side by side in peace.

    The starting point of our politics is that all men and women are created equal.  So I am proud that we have helped Pakistan and Bangladesh elect civilian governments, return to democracy, one person one vote, and I pledge that we will not rest until we have done the same for Zimbabwe… and Burma as well.

    And in those democracies, like Sri Lanka, where civil war claimed lives and liberty, we say governments have a duty to uphold the civil, social and political rights of all their citizens, whatever their ethnicity or religion.

    We also know that for too many people in our world, equality is a dream.

    We remember with shame that in 1997, there was no Department for International Development.  The aid budget was falling.

    So we are proud that in the field of international development the UK is not a leader but the leader.

    Last month like millions of parents in rich countries, I enjoyed that special moment of pride and fear when I held my son’s hand as he went for his first day at school.

    Take pride today that because of a Labour government, across Africa, in countries like Ghana and Tanzania and Botswana, 100s of 1000s of boys and girls are going to school for the first time, with universal education not a dream but a reality, thanks to a Labour government.

    And if you and your neighbours and your friends are supporters of Save the Children, supporters of Christian Aid and Oxfam, great British charities doing amazing work with the government around the world, and you want funding for development to continue for the next five years, tell them to trust the people who raised the funding, not the Tories who opposed it every step of the way.

    Conference, what makes me angry is that the Tories have failed every big policy test they’ve faced. The Cameron plan to deal with the financial crisis was simple: do nothing, sit on your hands, hope it sorts itself out.

    To be fair George Osborne did come out fighting. But fighting for the billionaires who got us into the mess instead of fighting for jobs for hard working families.

    Friends first, country second.

    So let’s make sure they don’t run away from what they said. Let’s hang it round their necks today, tomorrow, every day until polling day.

    But it’s not just the economy they would have destroyed.

    If we had followed their advice on Europe we would have been irrelevant, on the margins, resented, and completely unable to fight for British interests.

    William Hague recently made a speech about his approach to foreign policy.

    He set out five priorities.

    He couldn’t bring himself to mention Europe.  Except to say he wanted alliances outside Europe.

    Wrong values.  Wrong judgment.  Wrong decision.

    In the last two years, we have negotiated the release of diplomatic staff arrested in Iran, launched a naval force against piracy off Somalia, sent police and judges to keep the peace in Kosovo, brought in sanctions against Mugabe and his cronies when the UN failed, and led a step change in the fight against climate change.

    Mr Hague, you say you support us on all those things; but all of them, every single one, depended on Britain playing a leading role in a strong, powerful European Union that you oppose.

    When you say foreign policy has nothing to do with Europe, you show you have learnt nothing, know nothing, offer nothing, and every single government in Europe knows it.

    In the European Parliament the Tories sit with a collection of outcasts.

    Last week on the BBC, and you should go through the transcript, Eric Pickles, the Chairman of the Conservative Party, explained without a hint of shame that we should not condemn one of their new allies, the ‘For Fatherland and Freedom’ party, who every year celebrate the Latvian Waffen SS with a march past of SS veterans, because they were only following orders.

    It makes me sick.

    And you know what makes me sicker?

    No one in the Tory party batted an eyelid.

    What do they say? All you need for evil to triumph is for good men to remain silent.

    I tell you conference, we will never remain silent.

    When Edward MacMillan Scott, one of their own MEPs, a former leader of the Tory Group in Europe, took these people on, and won the Vice Presidency of the European Parliament, defeating a man denounced by the Chief Rabbi of Poland for an anti semitic, neo Nazi past, what did the Tories do to MacMillan Scottt? They chucked him out of the Tory Party.

    It’s tempting to laugh at the Tory policy on Europe.

    But I don’t want people laughing at my country because a bunch of schoolboys have taken over the government.

    The Tories are not a government in waiting.  They are a national embarrassment.

    David Cameron has shown not leadership but pandering.  Not judgment but dogma.  Not patriotic defence of national interest but the white flag of surrender to euro-extremists in his own party.

    We’ve seen this movie before.  The last Tory government ended with a Beef War with Europe.  And what happened?  They couldn’t even win it.

    The way to stand up for our country in the modern world is through our alliances not outside them.

    Those are my judgments as Foreign Secretary in a Labour government.

    Proud of the changes that we have helped promote around the world.  Passionate about the work still to be done.

    But as a Labour Party member for 26 years I say this:

    In every part of Britain, when you think of the extra teachers, doctors and police; when you see the new schools and hospitals rather than outside toilets and people waiting on trolleys; when you remember the legislation for equality and against handguns; when you speak to people getting dignity from the minimum wage or the £1000 Child Benefit or the Winter Fuel Allowance; when you feel that buzz of the Olympics coming to London rather than the world turning its back on Britain.

    Tell yourself. Tell your neighbours. Tell your friends. That for all the challenges that still remain Britain is better because the British people elected a Labour government.

    And when members of the party, even Members of Parliament, say that nothing much has changed, that we could use a spell in Opposition…tell them don’t do the Tories’ dirty work for them.  If we do not defend the record no one will.

    Of course, we are not satisfied.  Our work is not finished.  That is what makes us the agents of change in British politics.

    Because what do the Tories really believe?

    Scrap inheritance tax.

    The NHS condemned as a 60 year mistake.

    Trash anything European.

    Their great cause for the future, their burning ambition: bring back fox hunting.

    If you look at the opinion polls, they are back. But that’s our fault.

    The word that matters most in modern politics is ‘future’.

    The work that matters most is making that future possible.

    Because either you shape the future or you are condemned to the past.

    This week we showed which side we are on.

    This is not a country crying out for the Tories. It wants to know what we are made of.

    So let’s tell them.

    Which party has new ideas on the jobs of the future? We do.

    Which party is leading the world on climate change? We are.

    Which party is the only party with a plan for social care for the elderly? Us.

    Which party is standing up for reform of the welfare state? We are.

    Which party will build British influence in Europe and beyond? We will.

    Which party has the right values to guide tough decisions? The Labour Party.

    Don’t believe that we have run out of steam. We haven’t.

    So let’s show the country that we’ve still got the energy, the ideas, the hunger, the commitment.

    This is a fight for the future of our country.

    It is a fight we must win.

  • Michael Martin – 2009 Resignation as Speaker

    Below is the text of the resignation statement made by the then Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, on Tuesday 19th May 2009.

    Since I came to this House 30 years ago, I have always felt that the House is at its best when it is united. In order that unity can be maintained, I have decided that I will relinquish the office of Speaker on Sunday 21 June. This will allow the House to proceed to elect a new Speaker on Monday 22 June. That is all I have to say on this matter.

  • John McDonnell – Speech to the 2009 PCS Conference Speech

    Below is the text of the speech made by John McDonnell to the Public and Commercial Services Union in 2009.

    Look, thanks, look I’ve got to be brief today, sorry about this, I can’t hang about, I’ve got to get back home, there’s a bloke coming round to do the moat, put up the pergola and tarmac the tennis courts.

    I couldn’t get here the other day for Mark’s rally because I was dealing with the bill on prostitution in parliament, and I’ve learnt a lot, so when I heard that someone had claimed for floating their duck, I thought it was rhyming slang for some bizarre sexual practice.

    You just can’t make this up can you? I was here two-years ago, can you remember? It was the day that I hadn’t got nominated to stand as leader of the Labour party.

    I couldn’t get the nominations, one of the MPs told me that ‘I’d seen your manifesto and I’ve seen your proposal for public expenditure and I can’t nominate you, ‘cos we can’t trust you with the public finances’. You can’t trust this lot with the bloody tea money, let alone the public finances. Unbelievable isn’t it.

    There is a deep sense of irony that when all this scandal on the expenses was beginning to break, parliament, MPs were voting through the welfare reform bill.

    A welfare reform bill where people lose benefits, not for fiddling their benefits, not for fiddling at all but just because they simply don’t turn up for an interview.

    A welfare reform bill, where we are forcing the long term unemployed to work, under workfair proposals where they will work for one pound seventy three an hour, contrast that with the £400 a month that some of the MPs have been spending, two-thousand pounds on plasma television screens, tens of thousands of pounds on mortgages which didn’t even exist.

    Obscene? Of course it is. And no wonder people are pissed off quite honestly, no wonder. I’m angry as well ‘cos they bring us all down, they bring us all down.

    You know the solution isn’t just about sacking the speaker, or a few corrupt, bent politicians, it’s just as the solution to the economic crisis isn’t just about getting rid of a few bankers.

    The solution for this political crisis isn’t just about getting rid of a few MP’s, this is a systemic crisis, it’s a systemic failure.

    And the political and economic crisis are not isolated, they’re two sides of the same corrupt, incompetent, unfair, and un-democratic system in which we live. An economic system which has created grotesque inequalities of wealth.

    A society where 3 million children still live in poverty, whilst the rich pay less in proportion of their taxes than their own cleaners.

    But also it’s a political system which has created vast inequalities of power, why, and we know, we see it everyday, a government permeated by big business.

    Number 10 populated by advisors who have come from big business, lucrative jobs, or are going to lucrative jobs in big business.

    Where we witness the farce of welfare reform, designed for this government by a venture capitalist, someone clearly expert in poverty and it’s experience.

    Where former ministers who have awarded contracts to companies within months of standing down as ministers are employed as consultants by those companies and raking in anything in some instances from 50 and in some instances a 100 thousand pound a year.

    And to be frank with you, where MPs will vote for what ever is put in front of them. What for? Just to be offered the chance of being a bag carrier to a bag carrier.

    And this week, the reason I was in parliament yesterday is a classic example, we had before us a change in the standing orders of parliament, not as enlightening as the last debate I have to say, it was bringing forward a change in standing orders which would allow parliament to debate the new planning policies that the government is bringing forward on, nuclear power, on expansion of airports, on the major infrastructure projects that will design the future of our environment for generations.

    And the government gave us the opportunity to allow us to debate those proposals. So I moved a simple amendment, that when we’ve debated them, can we have a vote. Labour MPs voted against even having a vote. We are voting ourselves virtually into irrelevancy, out of existence.

    And yes, there are issues of morality, but I don’t think we should loose sight of the real morality that’s at stake in government and politics today.

    Yes, be angry at the thousands of pounds that are spent on moats and mortgages and expensive meals. But I tell you, be angrier at the expenditure on immoral wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, and elsewhere, where thousands have died.

    And yes, be angry at the expenditure of tax payers money on their extravagant lifestyles, but be even angrier at the extravagance of spending seventy-three billion pounds on trident when there are 3 million children, and 2 million pensioners still living in poverty.

    And yes, be shocked at how much they consume, the food, the allowances, the TV’s and all the rest, but be more shocked that despite all we know now about climate change, despite all that we know, they are still promoting policies like airport expansion that will consume our planet.

    And yes, be angry, at what they are spending on their second homes, but I tell you, be bloody angrier that after twelve years of a Labour government that hasn’t spent the money to house the 80,000 homeless families that we have in our country.

    Be angry at that. And you know, when they wanted to keep their allowances private, I was angry at the privatisation of the jobs that we’ve seen over the last twelve years. The cuts in a 100,000 workers of this union.

    But I say to you now, let’s not waste that anger, lets not waste it. Don’t waste that demand to change, otherwise this anger would be futile.

    And if it’s diverted solely into stringing up a few MPs, enjoyable as that may be, if it is just diverted into that and the Tories are allowed to use it opportunistically to get them into power, or worse still if the revulsion of political practices of Labour and other MPs delivers people into the hands of the BNP, or even UKIP, that anger and that revulsion will be wasted.

    I think our task, and the task of this union now is to link up with all those others who are angry as well.

    Link up with all those others who want change, to channel the anger that people feel, to channel this exasperation into a demand for change, but real change this time.

    We don’t want just a new parliament. That’s not what we are about. We want a new society. A society that’s based on rights. The rights at work, the right to a decent wage, the right to decent working conditions. The right to be safe at work, and yes to have a say and to be represented and yes, in many instances, to have that say through public and common ownership of our services.

    A society that’s based upon rights at home. A right to a decent home. A right to a decent and clean environment, treatment when our children or members of our family are sick. Free education at all levels. A right to be free from poverty and a society which is fifth richest country in the world.

    And yes, rights in our communities. Community institutions which have the power and resources at local level to tackle the problems that we experience. The need for homes, the need for safe areas, the need for a clean and green environment.

    And yes, a local democracy that isn’t just about marking a ballot paper once every four years, but where we can all have a say and continual basis to change our society.

    But it is also about the rights to control the destiny of our country. To own and democratically control our financial institutions so we can plan the future of our economy so that we no longer suffer the risk, the scourge of approaching 3 million unemployed.

    To own and control our public services which are the foundations of any civilised society.

    Ending the rip-offs and the privatisations. And yes, the right to a parliament elected that is truly representative of our country of all classes.

    A government not appointed by patronage through the prime minister but elected by MPs and ministers elected directly by MPs.

    And I say yes, as a Labour party member, a party which is not a degenerate bureaucracy, but a party where members take back the power to select their candidates to determine their policies and their programs and elect the party’s officers. And yes maybe just occasionally to elect the leader of the party in a democratic ballot.

    This is just the start of this debate. The crisis can be exploited and will be exploited by the Tories and the fascists or we can harness the powerful surge of anger and revulsion amongst the people to determine that new society that we want. How do we go forward?

    Well there’s various discussions and proposals. Some like Compass and the Guardian and others are calling for an immediate debate.

    But that debate they want to contain within the political elite.

    The political class, the very people who have corrupted our system so far. They are looking for some form of self-interested rotation within that elite. That sort of discussion, I think, is absolutely meaningless and ineffectual.

    These are the very people who gave us Blair, supported Brown and now deifying Alan Johnson. All of them voted for the same wars, the same privatisations, the same attacks on our civil liberties and yes are now voting for policies that will cut our jobs, our services and yes even attack the poor on benefits.

    And its interesting isn’t it. That there’s a consensus almost across all of them, all the political parties now. It’s a consensus that the economic crisis will be paid for by us, not them. Paid for by cuts in services, cuts in jobs, more unemployment, cuts in wages, and yes, and then they come for your pension.

    We need now new voices. We need new political formations which reflect the breadth of the challenge to the status quo and to these vested interests. The government is talked about, and the prime minister is talked about convening conventions about parliamentary reform.

    My view is that this change will only come about, not through parliament, not through MP’s, not through prime ministers but through us, through the people themselves, and I think PCS has a fundamental role working with others. We set up the trade union co-ordinating group to work with other unions.

    Why don’t we invite other unions with us, to convene our own conventions? Invite other trade unionists from all unions, but also organisations that are campaigning in every policy field for the same changes we demand.

    Why don’t we link up with all those others who are demanding fundamental change, the campaigners on climate change, the groups demanding decent incomes, decent pensions, the families who have got no homes, the asylum seekers, the most oppressed within our society, the cleaners on poverty wages that we mentioned earlier today in the debate.

    The teachers, the public sector workers, the ones who are facing the cuts in privatisation, the people at the sharp end. They are the ones who should determine the new society that we want to create.

    And it will mean new structures, new alliances, new formations, new methods for mobilising the demand for change. That’s what we need.

    And you know it isn’t just about electoral politics. I tell you wherever necessary, wherever it is needed, it may mean direct action if parliament fails to give us a choice we have to relocate democracy from parliament onto the picket line and onto the streets.

    If it comes to it, we have to seize the power again that the MPs themselves have so distorted. We can’t be spectators as party leaders and media commentators try to prop up this system which is so degenerate.

    It’s time for us to seize the moment. Its time for us to seize the moment for change, and it takes courage, it takes courage to stand against the stream.

    But if we don’t unite, if we don’t call upon others, if we don’t unite with all of those who are angry like us, all those who are coming under attack, all those who are entering into struggle already, if we don’t do that, they’ll simply reform the system, tidy up the expenses, give themselves all a wage rise, stuff their pockets yet again and carry on as before.

    That’s not acceptable to our members, it shouldn’t be acceptable to us, so the demand we want now is change led by the people.

    It’s about restoring democracy to the people themselves, it’s about getting rid of this degenerate bureaucratic system that we have, and restoring the rights that people demand.

    Real rights to a decent home, a decent environment, a decent job, a decent education, a decent health service and security in the long term.

    We as a union have always demonstrated that we are capable of leading that demand for change. From this conference, let’s put out that call to all those other unions and all those other organisations that want change like us to unite with us for this creation, not of a new parliament, but of new politics and a new society. That’s the challenge, let’s seize it. Solidarity.

  • Peter Mandelson – 2009 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Peter Mandelson, the then Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, to the 2009 Labour Party Conference.

    Conference, let me say after these years away – it’s good to be back home.

    When the Prime Minister asked me to return to the Cabinet last October I felt a lot of things.

    Shock. I think I was as shocked as most of you were.

    Surprise. My network of informants had let me down on this one.

    Apprehension.  Returning to the goldfish bowl of British politics – and all my fans in the media. It made me pause.

    I had been in this movie before – and its sequel – and neither time did I like the ending.

    But I did not hesitate for too long.

    The pull was too great.

    The pull of coming back to serve my country when it was in the midst of the global whirlwind that had hit us.

    The pull of coming back to serve this Prime Minister, our leader, Gordon Brown – who was gripping this financial crisis, leading the fightback against it when so many others seemed caught in the headlights.

    But there was something else. It was the pull of coming back to serve our party.

    I did not choose this party.  I was born into it.

    It is in my blood and in my bones.

    I love working for this party and those who work so hard for it – even if, at times, perhaps not everyone in it has loved me.

    I understand that.  I made enemies, sometimes needlessly.  I was sometimes too careless with the feelings and views of others.

    But please accept this. It was for one reason only. I was in a hurry to return this party to where it should be – in government to help the hard-working people of our country.

    I know that Tony said our project would only be complete when the Labour Party learned to love Peter Mandelson.

    I think perhaps he set the bar a little too high.

    Though I am trying my best.

    But the fact is our project is far from complete.

    A Labour Government has never been more needed.

    Needed to fight back against the recession.

    Needed to build and secure our future economic strength.

    And needed to ensure we pay down debt in a way that is fair and protects jobs, homes and our frontline public services.

    And yet, we must face facts.

    Electorally, we are in the fight of our lives.

    And, yes, we start that fight as underdogs.

    But conference let me say this.

    If I can come back…, we can come back.

    I came into politics to help remake the Labour Party as a party of Government.

    My relationship with Gordon was forged when people said we’d never form a government again.

    It made us not just modernisers, but fighters… and certainly not quitters.

    That spirit still burns as brightly within us now as it did then.

    Gordon, I am proud to serve in your Government as you lead the fightback against the global recession.

    The policies conceived and executed over the last year have now begun to pull our economy back onto the long road of recovery.

    When it mattered, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have made, and are making, all the right calls.

    Of course, they could have made different choices.  They could have taken David Cameron and George Osborne’s advice to let the recession take its course.

    Can you imagine if we had?

    I hope these two can find the humility to acknowledge that at every point Tory policy would not just have put the recovery at risk but have made this recession deeper, longer and far far worse.

    As we get closer to the election, I want to see them and Tory candidates across the country explaining why they wouldn’t provide the money to help small businesses and families in this recession when they needed it most.

    No extra money to boost family incomes.

    No money for the tax deferment for business and no VAT cut.

    No additional money to help those who have tragically lost their jobs.

    No funding for the car scrappage scheme.

    They got it plain wrong at every step along the way and I say to every Labour member and campaigner across the country.

    Do not let them off the hook.

    I certainly will not.

    Conference, the foundation of all that we want to achieve is a strong economy.

    So what does that mean?

    It means continuing to limit the recession’s damage to our economy because when private demand plummets governments must step in.

    It means, once we are through the recession – and only when this is clearly the case –  we will tackle the deficit without eating into the fabric of people’s lives.

    And it means investing in future growth.

    On all three counts, the Tories are on the wrong side of the argument.

    I tell you.  Withdrawing our help for the economy now as Mr Osborne demands would choke off recovery before it has even properly begun.

    Not for the first time, Boy George is sailing close to the wind.

    There are encouraging signs that the economy is picking up.  But recovery remains fragile and uncertain, especially in manufacturing and one of its cornerstones, the car industry.

    Our car scrappage scheme has been so successful the money is running out.  The industry has asked that the scheme be topped up.  Conference, we cannot do everything but that does not mean doing nothing.  So today I am extending our popular car scrappage scheme with extra money for an additional 100,000 cars and vans.

    In support of our car industry too, this government will stand behind Vauxhall workers in Ellesmere Port and Luton where the workforce themselves have been the main driver of change.

    And the same goes for Jaguar Land Rover too.

    But all of this only makes sense if we continue to invest in our country’s future growth.  It is growth that will see off recession. It is growth that is key to paying down debt.

    More than ten years ago I spoke to this conference as Trade and Industry Secretary about how we needed to renew the British economy and build it around knowledge, science, innovation and enterprise.

    But this isn’t 1998. This is a different world.

    China and India are undergoing the greatest revolution in the economic history of the world.

    The greatest financial crisis of modern times also requires us to rethink our growth model for Britain.

    Of course, we should be proud of our record.

    Production is up by a third.  More businesses. More research. More people than ever at university.   More people learning new skills although still not yet enough technicians being recruited for our new industries at the heart of our growth strategy.

    Some people think that Britain is a post-industrial country that doesn’t make anything anymore.

    Well, someone needs to tell them that we are still the world’s sixth biggest manufacturer.

    And we will remain a modern manufacturing nation as long as I and the Government remain in our jobs.

    But we do need to accept that, during this time, we have not got everything right.

    The truth is growth was so strong we started to take it for granted. We nurtured finance – not wrongly, but we should have done more to nurture our other strengths as well.

    The potential is there in Britain – we know that. In the services sector, the creative sector, the biosciences sector and in hi-tech advanced manufacturing.

    But to release this potential we need a clear plan for growth and this is my mission.

    First, with Labour in office, there will be no cap on talent in this country.   People with university degrees and skills earn more, climb higher and create more value.

    The Tories think that more means worse. We don’t agree.  Britain gains when every person who is capable can get the chance to go to university, get an apprenticeship or a new skill.

    But to make this possible in a tough public spending environment we all need to contribute – government, individuals and employers.

    Second. I want to see an innovation nation. Science is one of the jewels in the crown of Labour’s years in office. And we want closer links between businesses and universities so that good ideas don’t stop at the research lab or the library door.

    We’re one of the world’s biggest investors in Research & Development. But we still do the R better than the D and that must change.

    Third. We’re going to do more to put finance at the service of industry by building up new public channels to deliver private funds to innovative and fast growing companies.

    Less financial engineering and a lot more real engineering.

    Fourth – no more saying: the market on its own will always sort it out, like some kind of dogma.

    Instead, in my department, over the last eight months, we’ve said: “this is viable, and it’s important, but the market alone won’t get it off the ground. And we can help make it happen”.

    We’ve committed three quarters of a billion pounds to new manufacturing innovation in Britain.

    Investing in low carbon cars and aircraft. New digital platforms. Plastic electronics. Life sciences. Industrial biotechnology. Wind turbine development and wave power.

    This isn’t us picking winners as happened too often in the 1970s, when more often the losers were picking us.

    This is us giving public support to new technologies without which they may never get off the drawing board.

    Finally, we’re committed to making sure that the benefits of investment in growth are felt in every part of this country.

    The Tories say abolish the Regional Development Agencies.   We say “go for growth, let’s see what you can do.”

    This is the industrial activism we need more of in this country and I am determined to provide it.

    Where are the Tories on all this?  When did you last hear David Cameron or George Osborne last say anything about Britain’s industrial future?

    I would ask Ken Clarke but his mobile phone and blackberry always seem to be turned off.   Or given that he keeps privately agreeing with me, perhaps David Cameron has cut it off.

    The truth is these Tories have nothing to say about an active government economic role because their dogma prevents them.

    They just don’t get it.

    This failure, I believe, speaks to a wider truth about our opponents.

    David Cameron has been pursuing a strategy not of real change, but of concealment.

    Yes, they have made changes to their presentation.  The image-making department has done its work and done it well.  Who am I to criticise?

    But the Tories seem not to realise that change has to be more than a slogan.  The first rule of any marketing strategy is that it must reflect the product it is selling.

    And what is becoming more evident by the day is that, in their case, it doesn’t.  The two faces of the Conservative Party are increasingly on show. The one they want to present to the public of a revamped Tory party. And the other that betrays the reality of traditional right-wing Conservatism.

    You know, the Tories seek to give the impression that somehow they have learnt the lessons from New Labour and our party’s march back to the centre ground.

    Well, the Tories may have skimmed the headline summary of the New Labour manual.  But they never bothered to read the book.

    If they had they would know what real change involves.  They would know what a painful process it is.

    We in this hall know what it took to make the change. Show me what has really changed in the Conservative Party.

    The truth is that the old Tory right that was rejected in 1997 are quietly feeling at home again with David Cameron.

    At home with his tax plans.

    At home with the barely disguised glee a new generation of Conservatives is showing at the prospect of deep and savage cuts to public services.

    And at home with a position on Europe that sees them aligned with extremists and sidelined in Britain’s biggest market.

    That is not change.  Its the same old Tory policies.

    So lets take on the arguments about change.

    This will be a “change” election.  Either we offer it, or the British public will turn to others who say that they do.

    Of course, we must celebrate our record and be proud of defending it.  We did fix the roof while the sun was shining.

    We can look at the way we have turned around our public services, our record on tackling poverty at home and abroad, our role as a force for progressive social change.  The minimum wage and the new rights for working mothers and fathers.  And we can feel proud.

    But let us remember that you win elections on the future, not the past.

    Do not make the mistake of sitting back and expecting people to be grateful.

    We must not translate the pride we feel in what we have achieved into a defence of the status quo.

    Just as we fight against a Conservative Party that is still steeped in the old Tory attitudes of the 1980s, we must not allow ourselves to fall into old Labour thinking.

    The British people have their eyes on the future and so must we.

    We are the true progressives.

    We must be restless for change, impatient to do more for the hard-working people we serve, unafraid to embrace new reform, new policies and new thinking where it is needed.

    We need to think like insurgents, not incumbents.

    To challenge. To argue for change. To campaign.

    To be the real change-makers in British politics.

    This is our task.

    We need to fight back.  Of course we do.

    But to do so successfully it is up to us to explain – with confidence, clarity and conviction – what the choice is.

    The choice between a Conservative party whose judgements on the credit crunch were wrong, or a party providing leadership in the toughest of times.

    A choice between a party that lurches to the right the second it sees a chance of doing so, or our party that is resolutely in the progressive centre.

    A choice between a party that does not understand the new world we live in or even what has happened in the last year, or a Labour Party that knows the world has changed and we have to change with it.

    Experience and change with Gordon’s leadership.

    Or the shallowness of David Cameron.

    In one way or another I have been part of the last five election campaigns this Party has fought.

    Let me tell you a secret.  Deep down in my guts I always knew who was going to win. Even, sadly, in 1992.

    This time, it is not cut and dried.

    This election is up for grabs.

    So conference, we may be the underdogs.

    But if we show the British people that we have not lost the fighting spirit and appetite for change which has defined this party throughout its history then we can and will win.

    Win for our Party.

    Win for our country.

    Win for the British people.

  • Jack Straw – 2009 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    jackstraw

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Secretary of State for Justice and the Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, to the 2009 Labour Party conference.

    Conference.

    I’m hard wired into our party. My mum joined Labour when Clem Attlee was leader.

    I delivered my first leaflet in Loughton, Essex in 1955, the month that Winston Churchill resigned.

    I’ve been a Labour student. A Labour councillor. A Labour MP for 30 years. 12 years in the Cabinet.

    I’m still delivering leaflets – and I’ve even started blogging.

    The other day Gordon brought along to Cabinet the man who invented the internet – a Brit – Sir Tim Berners-Lee. With that great gravitas in my voice which befits an alleged elder statesman, I told the Cabinet that being introduced to Sir Tim was like meeting the inventor of the wheel.

    Quick as a flash, young Ed Miliband pipes up:

    “And what was that like Jack?!”

    Brilliant.

    And Ed’s right. I’ve been around a bit.  And there’s one thing my experience tells me: You never write off Labour.

    We’ve faced tougher times before and come through.

    We don’t shirk the challenge. And we deliver.

    Go back to 1997. If I’d told people in Blackburn then that if they got a Labour government they’d see a £120m hospital, hundreds of old homes replaced by new and affordable housing, and more than twice as many youngsters getting good GCSEs, they’d have thought I’d lost the plot.

    But we’ve delivered that and much more.

    The first government since the war to oversee a fall in crime. The Conservatives doubled it. Never forget that.

    A government which has delivered what has been called a “quiet” constitutional revolution – the Human Rights Act, FoI, devolution, independent national statistics. More open government, more power where it belongs: with the people.

    Take Lords reform as well. We removed most hereditary peers in 1999.

    Now we’ve got a bill before Parliament to end the hereditary principle once and for all.

    Soon we’ll be publishing detailed legislative proposals on a new second chamber to replace the Lords. A chamber elected by the people for the people.

    Then there’s the laws to protect the rights of the weak, the powerless, of minorities. We’ve now got the best legislation in Europe on race, religion and women, and it will be better still with Harriet Harman’s Equality Bill.

    And it’s only Labour who’s ever acted in this way. Nothing from the Tories – except for just one piece of legislation. On discrimination against gay people. You know what the Tories did? They passed a law to make that discrimination worse – it was called Section 28 and it was disgusting. We repealed it.

    Our work is not done but huge progress has been made.

    Just look at what we’ve achieved this last year in my department

    Stronger protections against forced marriage.

    Tougher enforcement of employment tribunal awards.

    Opening up family courts.

    Measures to prevent house repossessions.

    Giving local communities much more say in the criminal justice system.

    For example, last December I brought in high visibility jackets for offenders on unpaid work – Community Payback.

    Since then more than two million hours have been worked on almost 7000 such schemes and increasingly it’s the local community deciding what the offenders will do.

    Conference, we have dramatically improved services available for victims.

    We have trebled the money for that great voluntary organisation Victim Support. We’ve provided victims and witnesses with much better services in court.

    We’ve appointed an independent Victims Champion, in Sara Payne. Soon there’ll be the first Victims Commissioner.

    Now we want to go further, better to bring services for victims together.

    So I can announce today that later this year we’ll be unveiling detailed proposals to create the first ever National Victims Service. In a parallel to the way in which the Probation Service is there for the end-to-end management of offenders, the new Victims Service will be there to provide one-to-one care and support for victims of crime.

    This service will take some years before it is fully operational but we are going to make a start now. I’ve had to make lots of economies in my department but I have found the money to get this going. £2m for this year, £8.5m for next.

    Working with Victim Support, we will start with those bereaved victims whose lives have been torn apart by the murder or manslaughter of a loved one.

    Over time the service will be available to everyone who has been a victim of crime – if they want more support we will be there for them.

    This is a pioneering idea. It’s what Labour is about. Supporting those who need and most deserve our help.

    I didn’t come into politics to cut services. But for sure the taxpayer should get value for money. And sometimes that means making difficult decisions.

    We are not going to shirk from them. But we’ll act with care. Treasure the things which matter the most.

    Like our key public services. In contrast, for the Tories, public service is almost a term of abuse.

    So I say this to anyone thinking of voting Tory:

    Be careful of what you wish for. Don’t take the risk.

    We’ll make savings when we have to. The Conservatives will cut because they want to.

    Entrusting the Conservative Party to reduce the public sector deficit is like asking Sweeney Todd for a quick trim.

    George Osborne is already displaying a ghoulish enthusiasm for wielding the knife.

    He can’t wait. He can’t resist. It’s in the Tories’ DNA.

    It’s why they’ve made the wrong calls on all the big decisions throughout the recession.

    And conference, believe me people are starting to wake up to the Tory danger.

    My mum, I’m pleased to say, is still going strong, aged 88. She can’t knock on doors these days, but she’s still making the case for Labour.

    The other day a friend of hers – a lifelong Conservative – called her to say that at the age of 79 she’s made a big decision. She’s not taking the risk of voting Conservative next time.

    She’s voting for Gordon Brown because she says she believes in him.

    And if we show self belief we will win next year year.

    We all believe in this party.

    What it stands for, what it’s done, what only it can do. We have the values, the record, the policies for the future. Now we’ve got to go out and fight for them in a mother and father of a battle – and win.

  • Andrew Selous – 2009 Speech on Poverty

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions, Andrew Selous, on 7th October 2009.

    I am proud to be serving in a party whose leader, David Cameron has said he wants the government he aspires to lead to be judged on how it tackles poverty in office.Those sentiments are nothing new for this party.

    From Shaftesbury to Disraeli, from Stanley Baldwin to Rab Butler, we have always seen the relief of poverty and the improvement of the conditions of all the people as a core part of our purpose.

    Labour have tried to make the eradication of child poverty their issue, but much of the most powerful thinking on combating poverty in our country today is coming from those on the centre right and within our own party. I want to pay tribute to the outstanding work of Iain Duncan Smith and the Centre for Social Justice in their Breakthrough Britain reports on ending the costs of social breakdown.  My colleague in the Lords, David Freud wrote the key Government report on reforming welfare before he joined this party to help put real reform of welfare into practice and the shadow Work and Pensions team published its welfare reform paper last year in order to make British poverty history.

    I do not doubt Labour’s commitment in this area.  But Labour have failed to meet the targets they set themselves and are miles away from meeting the target to reduce child poverty by half by 2010.  Even before the recession took hold they were very unlikely to have done so.  400, 000 more children are living in poverty since 2004  which means there are still four million children in poverty in the UK.   Even Alan Milburn has said that “poverty has become more entrenched”1 under this Government.

    Labour have concentrated almost entirely on tax credits to relieve poverty.  I do not believe that tweaking a benefit here or a tax credit there will ever get to the heart of the problems that trap so many of our nation’s families in poverty. Our approach must be focused on turning round the lives of people who live in poverty and in many cases who have lived in poverty for generations.

    That will require dealing with the root causes of poverty in a far more rigorous way.  We know that educational failure, worklessness, benefit traps, addiction, serious personal debt and family breakdown are the pathways into poverty for all too many of our fellow citizens. All these causes need to be addressed to keep families out of poverty.

    This government measures poverty by looking at households which have less than 60% of median income.  We have greater ambition than to raise a family’s income by a few percent. If you knocked on the door of a household whose income had gone from 58% to 61% of the median and asked “What does it feel like to be out of poverty? “, I suspect you would get  a pretty surprised reply.  So we are looking at a wider range of indicators to measure success in this area.

    Our approach to tackling poverty will be based on sound Conservative principles.  We know that to eradicate poverty you have to create more wealth.  You can not defeat poverty through the welfare system and tax credit system on its own.  So the people who start and grow businesses will be in the frontline of Conservative plans to combat poverty and we will need to pay special attention to those areas of our country which are jobs deserts, where almost no one works.  Some local authorities like Kent are taking the lead in this area and we want to see that best practice spread across the whole country.

    As Conservatives we also recognise that poor children don’t exist in a vacuum.  They are part of poor families and we will take a whole family approach to combating child poverty. And that means extended families, including grandparents.  We believe not just that every child matters, but that every family matters. It is no coincidence that the United Kingdom has both one of the highest rates of child poverty in Europe as well as one of the highest rates of family breakdown.  The courage and determination that David Cameron has shown to strengthen families has never been more necessary to reduce poverty in our country.

    We also recognise that government and families can not, on their own, always find the solutions to getting out of poverty.  The helping hand of the voluntary sector is absolutely vital too.  It’s  role and that of so many social enterprises will be central to the next Conservative’s government’s approach to fighting poverty.  And one thing we will change straight away is the refusal of the Department for Work and Pensions to signpost the voluntary help available in their areas.  This summer I learnt  that the department had actually stopped a job centre from telling its customers about a local food bank.  And they did this even though health visitors, social services and probation officers all work in closely with the food bank.  You see Gordon Brown’s view is that if everybody can’t have something then no one should.  Well, we think that’s wrong and we will instruct every Jobcentre Plus district manager in the country to sit down with charities providing emergency food,  debt counselling services, homelessness charities, family support groups and so on, to work out how this support can be signposted locally so that people in desperate poverty can find it.

    Ending family and child poverty is indeed everybody’s  business and I can give you this pledge today, that it will be very much at the heart of the work of the next Conservative government.

  • Oliver Letwin – 2009 Speech on Regulation

    Below is the text of the speech made by Oliver Letwin to the Policy Exchange on 27th January 2009.

    Arguably, the biggest failures of the last eleven years have been failures of regulation. Some of these failures have been failures of under-regulation.

    Notoriously, bank lending has been under-regulated. Equitable Life was under-regulated. Haringey children’s services department has been under-regulated.

    But other failures have been failures of over-regulation.

    Doctors, nurses, teachers and police officers all complain about being over-regulated.

    Small businesses and voluntary groups are screaming about being over-regulated.

    And farmers are being driven mad by over regulation.

    How come there is both over-regulation of some things and under-regulation of others?

    Superficial answers abound. ‘The Government has its eye on the wrong balls’. ‘It all depends on the tabloid headlines’. ‘Some things are more difficult to regulate than others’. ‘Some things are easier to over-regulate than others’.

    But all of these superficial answers miss a deeper point …

    … Labour’s failures of under-regulation stem from exactly the same conceptual mistake as Labour’s failures of over-regulation.

    Indeed, in many cases, over-regulation of Type A has actually caused under-regulation of Type B.

    What are these two types of regulation?

    And what is the conceptual mistake that has led both to over-regulation of Type A and to under-regulation of Type B?

    First, the two types of regulation:

    Type A regulation is RULE-BASED. It has the form (often also the legal character) of law.

    Like any other rule-based system, Type A regulation prohibits certain actions and mandates others.

    So, for example, the Type A regulation of money-laundering forces every bank and building society to do certain things when a new client seeks to open an account. Passports are to be inspected, the addresses of grandmothers written down, and so forth. In the absence of such procedures, the Type A regulation prohibits a new account being established.

    Whether the things that are commanded actually have any effect on the amount of money-laundering is not a concern for the clerks and managers who are compelled to keep these records. As long as the records are amassed, dutifully stored and available for inspection, the call of duty (which is the stern daughter of the voice of God) has been heard and obeyed.

    This is, of course, what happened – mutatis mutandis – in the case of Haringey children’s services.

    They received, just after the horrific death of Baby P, a commendable Ofsted report. Processes were in order. Everything requiring to be done under regulation of Type A had been done.

    The baby was dead – ah yes, a tragic error. But the REGULATION had been observed.

    Much the same applies in the case of the over-lending and complex derivatives which are one of the main causes of Labour’s current debt crisis. The FSA – bless its cotton socks – had been studiously applying rule-based regulation. And the rules had been observed.  The procedures had been followed.

    The entire financial system was put at severe risk? Well, yes. But that was a mere lacuna. The REGULATION had been complied with.

    Proponents of Type A regulation have a touching faith that following the processes mandated in the rules will somehow guarantee the results which the rules are designed to deliver. But, of course, there is no such guarantee in practice. Following a given set of rules will produce the expected results if, but only if, the activity in question is very simple and the rules are very well judged.

    In general, the activities we most want to regulate – banking, looking after children at risk, flying airplanes, cutting people up on the operating table and so forth – are not simple at all, and devising rules that will guarantee results in these complex activities is well-nigh impossible.

    Hence, the need for regulation of Type B.

    In Type B regulation, the regulator supervises the activity in question on the basis not of rules but of professional competence. Type B regulation is not rules-based but JUDGMENT-BASED.

    A classic case of Type B regulation was Victorian school inspection. The school inspectors in those days did not require large volumes of paperwork to be produced by the schools they visited. They did not inspect the processes employed by the teachers. Instead, they inspected the children, hearing them say their lessons. If the inspector thought the children knew what they ought to know, given their abilities and ages, then all was well. If not, not.

    No rules. No processes. Just a judgment of the outcomes.

    It was much the same in the good old days before 1997, when Mr Brown hadn’t yet deprived the Bank of England of the power to supervise the banks. The main instrument of regulation was the Governor’s eyebrow. If, in his judgment (based on the judgment of his colleagues who were respected banking professionals) a given commercial bank was taking excessive risk, the Governor’s eyebrow would be raised – and the risky practice would be discontinued.

    No rules. No processes. Just a professional judgment of the risk.

    In Type B (judgment-based) regulation, what counts is the ability of the professionals engaged in the regulated activity to satisfy the fellow-professionals doing the regulating that they are properly living up to their professional responsibilities.

    By contrast, in Type A (rule-based) regulation, what counts is the ability of the professionals engaged in the regulated activity to tick all the boxes on the questionnaire sent out by the computers of the regulator.

    This is what helps to explain both the conceptual mistake that Labour has made about regulation and the reason why that mistake has generated, at one and the same time, over-regulation and under-regulation.

    The conceptual mistake is very simple. It consists of confusing Type A regulation with Type B regulation.

    Every time there is a call for something to be regulated, the Labour Government leaps into the fray – with new rule-based (Type A) regulation that specifies more processes that must or must not be followed.

    And, every time, Labour ministers imagine that they are thereby somehow going to affect, in some determinate way, whether the professionals engaged in the regulated activity are properly fulfilling their professional responsibilities.

    But, of course, there is in practice no particular reason why mandating processes in a complex activity should generally be expected to produce results similar to Type B regulation – where suitably qualified professionals in the regulatory bodies make judgments about whether the professionals in the field are living up to their professional responsibilities in an effective way.

    Neither form of regulation can produce the innovation or pressure for excellence that come only from contest and competition.

    Nor can either form of regulation create the sense of duty, the sense of professional ethics, which are the only true and sustainable basis for connecting professional responsibility with social responsibility.

    And, of course, there is no guarantee that any form of regulation will be perfect even in its own terms. Rule-based regulation will not produce 100 per cent compliance with the rules; and judgement-based regulation is only as good as the judgment of the regulators.

    But, for all that, there is a decisive difference between Type A regulation which dwells on rules and processes, and Type B regulation which dwells on judgment.

    Judging professional performance can help to draw attention to poor professional performance, and can thereby help to prevent continuing disasters.

    The last eleven years in Britain have provided ample evidence that mandating processes, by contrast, will generally do nothing more than make people follow those processes – often with little or no beneficial effect on outcomes.

    But we must add one rider.

    Process-based (Type A) regulation may well make things substantially worse.

    Indeed, the howls of protest now emanating from all those doctors and nurses, teachers and police officers, business people, charity trustees and farmers, are essentially howls of protest about the distorting effects of excessive Type A regulation.

    When processes are mandated, the scope for professional responsibility is diminished – because the time and energy that the professional might otherwise devote to fulfilling his or her professional responsibilities is reduced by the amount of time and effort that has to go into adhering to the mandated processes.

    Public choice theory teaches us what common sense in any case indicates – that people in important positions do what the system gives them incentives to do. If the system of regulation gives them incentives to adhere to processes, they will adhere to processes – even if that means suspending their professional judgment.

    And this is how the present Government has created the miracle of too much regulation becoming, at one and the same time, too little regulation.

    As the amount of Type A, rule-based regulation expands, the amount of process-following and box-ticking rises and the amount of professional responsibility exercised by the professionals in the field diminishes. In the absence of much Type B, judgment-based regulation, no-one notices that decline in professional responsibility – until, all of a sudden, there is a crisis and you wake up to find that (despite all the burdens of following mandatory processes) the activity in question displays the classic symptoms of under-regulation.

    Let me end with a little morality tale drawn from real life.

    It concerns farmers.

    More particularly, it concerns farmers near rivers and streams that are vulnerable to nitrates pollution.

    Those (many) farmers who combine high professional standards with a high conception of their social and environmental responsibilities know very well that they should not distribute slurry on land near to rivers on wet days.

    But our dearly beloved European Commission and our dearly beloved Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs decided that regulation must be introduced to protect these nitrate-vulnerable zones.

    What was the reaction?

    Search out old hands who could go and use their professional judgment to come down like a ton of bricks on farmers who were recklessly polluting rivers on wet days?

    Heaven forfend! That, after all, would be judgment-based Type B regulation.

    No, this was a serious matter requiring serious measures from serious men.

    Call for the Type A regulators.

    Make rules.

    And lo, rules were made. Processes designated. No tipping of slurry in certain (wet) months. All tipping of slurry to take place in other (dry) months.

    But, cried the farmers, some days in dry months are wet and some days in wet months are dry. Let us take professional responsibility, and we will avoid tipping the slurry when it would pollute the rivers. Come down on us like a ton of bricks if we do pollute the rivers, but let us choose the dates for the slurry.

    Alas, the farmers were unaware that they were facing a Government in the grip of a theory.

    Only rules and processes were on the menu. Judgments were off.

    So there are now, by decree (and largely unnoticed by the almighty), wet months and dry months. And the slurry is being stored in great stores every day in the wet months (including the dry days) and it is being distributed over the fields in huge quantities every day in the dry months (including the wet days); and the process is being adhered to; and the boxes are being ticked; but the farmers are bearing huge new costs of storing slurry and I’ll bet you anything you like that the pollution is not being much reduced, or even – in some cases – that it is being made worse.

    And that’s what happens when you get in a muddle about the difference between different types of regulation.

    You end up with too much regulation of the wrong kind and too little regulation of the right kind.

  • Oliver Letwin – 2009 Speech on Regulation

    Below is the text of the speech made by Oliver Letwin to the Policy Exchange on 27th January 2009.

    Arguably, the biggest failures of the last eleven years have been failures of regulation. Some of these failures have been failures of under-regulation.

    Notoriously, bank lending has been under-regulated. Equitable Life was under-regulated. Haringey children’s services department has been under-regulated.

    But other failures have been failures of over-regulation.

    Doctors, nurses, teachers and police officers all complain about being over-regulated.

    Small businesses and voluntary groups are screaming about being over-regulated.

    And farmers are being driven mad by over regulation.

    How come there is both over-regulation of some things and under-regulation of others?

    Superficial answers abound. ‘The Government has its eye on the wrong balls’. ‘It all depends on the tabloid headlines’. ‘Some things are more difficult to regulate than others’. ‘Some things are easier to over-regulate than others’.

    But all of these superficial answers miss a deeper point …

    … Labour’s failures of under-regulation stem from exactly the same conceptual mistake as Labour’s failures of over-regulation.

    Indeed, in many cases, over-regulation of Type A has actually caused under-regulation of Type B.

    What are these two types of regulation?

    And what is the conceptual mistake that has led both to over-regulation of Type A and to under-regulation of Type B?

    First, the two types of regulation:

    Type A regulation is RULE-BASED. It has the form (often also the legal character) of law.

    Like any other rule-based system, Type A regulation prohibits certain actions and mandates others.

    So, for example, the Type A regulation of money-laundering forces every bank and building society to do certain things when a new client seeks to open an account. Passports are to be inspected, the addresses of grandmothers written down, and so forth. In the absence of such procedures, the Type A regulation prohibits a new account being established.

    Whether the things that are commanded actually have any effect on the amount of money-laundering is not a concern for the clerks and managers who are compelled to keep these records. As long as the records are amassed, dutifully stored and available for inspection, the call of duty (which is the stern daughter of the voice of God) has been heard and obeyed.

    This is, of course, what happened – mutatis mutandis – in the case of Haringey children’s services.

    They received, just after the horrific death of Baby P, a commendable Ofsted report. Processes were in order. Everything requiring to be done under regulation of Type A had been done.

    The baby was dead – ah yes, a tragic error. But the REGULATION had been observed.

    Much the same applies in the case of the over-lending and complex derivatives which are one of the main causes of Labour’s current debt crisis. The FSA – bless its cotton socks – had been studiously applying rule-based regulation. And the rules had been observed.  The procedures had been followed.

    The entire financial system was put at severe risk? Well, yes. But that was a mere lacuna. The REGULATION had been complied with.

    Proponents of Type A regulation have a touching faith that following the processes mandated in the rules will somehow guarantee the results which the rules are designed to deliver. But, of course, there is no such guarantee in practice. Following a given set of rules will produce the expected results if, but only if, the activity in question is very simple and the rules are very well judged.

    In general, the activities we most want to regulate – banking, looking after children at risk, flying airplanes, cutting people up on the operating table and so forth – are not simple at all, and devising rules that will guarantee results in these complex activities is well-nigh impossible.

    Hence, the need for regulation of Type B.

    In Type B regulation, the regulator supervises the activity in question on the basis not of rules but of professional competence. Type B regulation is not rules-based but JUDGMENT-BASED.

    A classic case of Type B regulation was Victorian school inspection. The school inspectors in those days did not require large volumes of paperwork to be produced by the schools they visited. They did not inspect the processes employed by the teachers. Instead, they inspected the children, hearing them say their lessons. If the inspector thought the children knew what they ought to know, given their abilities and ages, then all was well. If not, not.

    No rules. No processes. Just a judgment of the outcomes.

    It was much the same in the good old days before 1997, when Mr Brown hadn’t yet deprived the Bank of England of the power to supervise the banks. The main instrument of regulation was the Governor’s eyebrow. If, in his judgment (based on the judgment of his colleagues who were respected banking professionals) a given commercial bank was taking excessive risk, the Governor’s eyebrow would be raised – and the risky practice would be discontinued.

    No rules. No processes. Just a professional judgment of the risk.

    In Type B (judgment-based) regulation, what counts is the ability of the professionals engaged in the regulated activity to satisfy the fellow-professionals doing the regulating that they are properly living up to their professional responsibilities.

    By contrast, in Type A (rule-based) regulation, what counts is the ability of the professionals engaged in the regulated activity to tick all the boxes on the questionnaire sent out by the computers of the regulator.

    This is what helps to explain both the conceptual mistake that Labour has made about regulation and the reason why that mistake has generated, at one and the same time, over-regulation and under-regulation.

    The conceptual mistake is very simple. It consists of confusing Type A regulation with Type B regulation.

    Every time there is a call for something to be regulated, the Labour Government leaps into the fray – with new rule-based (Type A) regulation that specifies more processes that must or must not be followed.

    And, every time, Labour ministers imagine that they are thereby somehow going to affect, in some determinate way, whether the professionals engaged in the regulated activity are properly fulfilling their professional responsibilities.

    But, of course, there is in practice no particular reason why mandating processes in a complex activity should generally be expected to produce results similar to Type B regulation – where suitably qualified professionals in the regulatory bodies make judgments about whether the professionals in the field are living up to their professional responsibilities in an effective way.

    Neither form of regulation can produce the innovation or pressure for excellence that come only from contest and competition.

    Nor can either form of regulation create the sense of duty, the sense of professional ethics, which are the only true and sustainable basis for connecting professional responsibility with social responsibility.

    And, of course, there is no guarantee that any form of regulation will be perfect even in its own terms. Rule-based regulation will not produce 100 per cent compliance with the rules; and judgement-based regulation is only as good as the judgment of the regulators.

    But, for all that, there is a decisive difference between Type A regulation which dwells on rules and processes, and Type B regulation which dwells on judgment.

    Judging professional performance can help to draw attention to poor professional performance, and can thereby help to prevent continuing disasters.

    The last eleven years in Britain have provided ample evidence that mandating processes, by contrast, will generally do nothing more than make people follow those processes – often with little or no beneficial effect on outcomes.

    But we must add one rider.

    Process-based (Type A) regulation may well make things substantially worse.

    Indeed, the howls of protest now emanating from all those doctors and nurses, teachers and police officers, business people, charity trustees and farmers, are essentially howls of protest about the distorting effects of excessive Type A regulation.

    When processes are mandated, the scope for professional responsibility is diminished – because the time and energy that the professional might otherwise devote to fulfilling his or her professional responsibilities is reduced by the amount of time and effort that has to go into adhering to the mandated processes.

    Public choice theory teaches us what common sense in any case indicates – that people in important positions do what the system gives them incentives to do. If the system of regulation gives them incentives to adhere to processes, they will adhere to processes – even if that means suspending their professional judgment.

    And this is how the present Government has created the miracle of too much regulation becoming, at one and the same time, too little regulation.

    As the amount of Type A, rule-based regulation expands, the amount of process-following and box-ticking rises and the amount of professional responsibility exercised by the professionals in the field diminishes. In the absence of much Type B, judgment-based regulation, no-one notices that decline in professional responsibility – until, all of a sudden, there is a crisis and you wake up to find that (despite all the burdens of following mandatory processes) the activity in question displays the classic symptoms of under-regulation.

    Let me end with a little morality tale drawn from real life.

    It concerns farmers.

    More particularly, it concerns farmers near rivers and streams that are vulnerable to nitrates pollution.

    Those (many) farmers who combine high professional standards with a high conception of their social and environmental responsibilities know very well that they should not distribute slurry on land near to rivers on wet days.

    But our dearly beloved European Commission and our dearly beloved Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs decided that regulation must be introduced to protect these nitrate-vulnerable zones.

    What was the reaction?

    Search out old hands who could go and use their professional judgment to come down like a ton of bricks on farmers who were recklessly polluting rivers on wet days?

    Heaven forfend! That, after all, would be judgment-based Type B regulation.

    No, this was a serious matter requiring serious measures from serious men.

    Call for the Type A regulators.

    Make rules.

    And lo, rules were made. Processes designated. No tipping of slurry in certain (wet) months. All tipping of slurry to take place in other (dry) months.

    But, cried the farmers, some days in dry months are wet and some days in wet months are dry. Let us take professional responsibility, and we will avoid tipping the slurry when it would pollute the rivers. Come down on us like a ton of bricks if we do pollute the rivers, but let us choose the dates for the slurry.

    Alas, the farmers were unaware that they were facing a Government in the grip of a theory.

    Only rules and processes were on the menu. Judgments were off.

    So there are now, by decree (and largely unnoticed by the almighty), wet months and dry months. And the slurry is being stored in great stores every day in the wet months (including the dry days) and it is being distributed over the fields in huge quantities every day in the dry months (including the wet days); and the process is being adhered to; and the boxes are being ticked; but the farmers are bearing huge new costs of storing slurry and I’ll bet you anything you like that the pollution is not being much reduced, or even – in some cases – that it is being made worse.

    And that’s what happens when you get in a muddle about the difference between different types of regulation.

    You end up with too much regulation of the wrong kind and too little regulation of the right kind.

  • John Healey – 2009 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    johnhealey

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

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

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

    Help for firms to stay in business.

    Help for people to stay in work.

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

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

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

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

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

    But we’re Labour.

    We’re different.

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

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

    We believe in the progressive power of public investment.

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

    “John – we must do more”

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

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

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

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

    But Conference we can do more.

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

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

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

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

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

    And I will require the same of councils.

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

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

    And what of the Tories?

    They don’t believe in building affordable homes.

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

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

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

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

    I quote:

    “The priorities identified were:

    Equalise rents between sectors

    Create one form of rented tenure using the assured shorthold tenancy

    The private rented sector needs to be cultivated.”

    Conference, these are the conclusions of:

    4 Tory council leaders

    2 Deputies to the London Mayor

    and The Shadow Housing Minister.

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

    If I am wrong, David Cameron can say so.

    But he won’t.

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

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

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

    There are two faces of the Tory Party.

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

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

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

    It’s where we are warm.

    It’s where we’re safe.

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

    It’s where our children sleep at night.

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

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

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

  • Harriet Harman – 2009 Speech to Labour Party Conference

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Harriet Harman, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, to the 2009 Labour Party conference.

    Since last Conference, we have had twelve months of determined progress towards equality. It’s been a year of promises made and promises kept.

    Twelve months ago, I pledged to you that we would press forward on our progressive agenda to help make Britain a fairer and more equal place and conference that is exactly what we have done.

    For us, for Labour, equality is not just a slogan – it’s what we are about. It’s a way of life. It’s about our values and how we do our politics.

    Equality matters to us because its about people’s lives.

    It’s about the right of a disabled person to work on equal terms.

    It’s about the right of a woman who works part-time not to be excluded from the pension scheme.

    It’s about the right not being written off as too old.

    Equality matters to us because it’s a fundamental human right to be treated fairly.

    And equality matters to us because it’s the only way you can have a united and peaceful society in which everyone feels included.

    And because it’s also the basis of a strong economy which draws on the talents of all. The economies that will flourish in the future are not those which are blinkered by prejudice or stultified by the old boys network – but those which draw on the talents and abilities of all.

    Equality and fairness are the very hallmarks of a modern and confident society looking to the future in which everyone is able to play their part.

    And conference this Labour Government has made clear that our quest for fairness and equality is not just for the good times. Even through the massive economic challenge of the last twelve months we have not put equality on the back burner. Because, as Labour, we know that it’s precisely when times are hard, that it’s even more important that everyone is treated fairly and that everyone pulls together.

    And so the whole labour team fights for equality – under Gordon’s leadership.

    And Gordon Brown, as Prime Minister, has indeed taken a proud lead. Last year, for the first time ever, a British prime minister hosted a reception in 10 Downing Street to mark LGBT history month. We celebrate past progress like civil partnerships – happy anniversary Angela Eagle and Maria Exell – but we resolve to step up action to tackle the problems that still persist – like  homophobic bullying in schools.

    But advancing progressive causes is a struggle for change. The truth is that it doesn’t happen because of any one individual. Progress is advanced, barriers are broken, changes are made because we are a movement of people who share the same values and because we refuse to give up the fight for what is right.

    And we won’t take no for an answer. Labour’s team is an army of equality champions – working with my committed team of equality ministers – Vera Baird, Maria Eagle and Mike Foster – demanding change

    Last year’s conference demanded a strong Equality Bill. And through the National Policy Forum we’ve done just that. We’ve shaped a Bill which strengthens the law to tackle race discrimination toughens the duties of all public authorities to ensure that disabled people can live independently and work in just the same way as people without disabilities and which bans the last legally permitted- discrimination – age discrimination – and about time too.

    BAME Labour insisted that we do more to increase the number of our outstanding black and Asian MPs – so we have. In the Equality Bill we will change the law so that parties can do more to increase the selection of black and Asian candidates.

    Trade unionists have demanded action on pay discrimination against women. Women at work are paid 22% less than men. A 22% pay gap in the 21st Century. That is just not acceptable in this day and age.   But women who work in financial services are paid 44% less than their male colleagues.  So we will make every big employer publish how much on average they pay their women per hour and how much they pay their men. I know this is controversial – especially in the private sector.  But, you can’t tackle pay discrimination if it’s hidden. Good employers have nothing to fear – but bad employers must have nowhere to hide.

    Labour Women MPs and Labour women throughout the party have demanded more help for families. So, we doubled maternity pay and extended it from 6 to 9 months. And the Prime Minister, earlier this month, announced that now we will give families more choice by letting the mother choose to either take the pay and leave herself or, when the baby is 6 months old, let the father take the remaining pay and leave. And we remain committed to our goal of achieving a year’s paid leave by the end of this parliament. And, this year, as well, we’ve given more parents rights to flexible work.  Now its not just parents with children under 6 who can request flexible work but all parents with children up to 16.

    But we are committed to doing more taking up new battles, recognising the big changes that lie ahead– in our economy, in our family life and for the next generation.

    Families are not just parents and children. More and more families simply could not cope without grandparents helping out with the kids.

    And more and more family life is not just about looking after children and going out to work but caring for elderly relatives too. In the next 20 years the number of people over 85 is set to double – so just as we’ve backed up families with children, we will back up families caring for older relatives too.

    The lives of women today – and their hopes and ambitions are different from our mothers’. And that is the case whether you are a girl school leaver in Scotland or a young mother in Wales, whether you are one of the thousands of wives of our armed forces.

    The wives of our servicemen have always held things together at home. And their task has become even more demanding with the men away fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

    Just like every other woman, service wives want to, and need to, get training, get work, find childcare. But that’s hard if your family has to move regularly and if you are on a base miles away from your parents and in-laws. That’s why Bob Ainsworth, the Secretary of State for Defence, and I are working with ministers across government to make sure that as well as doing all we can to support our armed forces, We are helping our armed forces wives’ so they don’t lose out on new opportunities to get on in their work. Our navy, airforce and soldiers make a great sacrifice for our country and we back them up.  Their wives, too, make an enormous personal sacrifice for this country and we will back them up too.

    And we are stepping up our action to protect women from violence and sexual exploitation.

    At long last we’ve ditched the antiquated law which allows a man to get away with murdering his wife by claiming that it was her fault because she provoked him.

    On rape, though 50% more men are convicted of rape than they were in 1997 – because we’ve toughened the law, got a special squad of rape prosecutors and use the DNA data base – despite that progress we know that there are still major problems in how the justice system deals with rape.

    We have got to work out where the cracks in the system are and take further action. Rapists must be caught after their first attack – if they aren’t they just carry on and more women suffer.  And that’s why we’ve set up a review under Vivien Stern. We’ve made progress. But not enough. We’re determined to make more.

    And on prostitution. We know that prostitution is not work – it’s exploitation of women by men –  often women who have mental health problems or drug or alcohol addiction. So we’re introducing a new criminal offence of having sex with a prostitute who’s being controlled by a pimp.

    We’re stepping up our action to tackle human trafficking. We’re determined to ensure that, especially in the run up to the Olympics, international criminal gangs don’t trick and abduct women from abroad and sell them for sex in London.

    And there is a very sinister development which we are determined to stop. You know Trip Advisor – a website where guests put their comments on line for others to see. There is now a website, like that, where pimps put women on sale for sex and then men who’ve had sex with them put their comments on line. It is ‘Punternet’ and fuels the demand for prostitutes. It is truly degrading and puts women at risk.

    Punternet has pages and pages of women for sale in London. But Punternet is based in California so I’ve raised it with the US Ambassador to London and I’ve called on California’s governor Arnie Schwarzenegger to close it down. Surely it can’t be too difficult for the Terminator to terminate Punternet and that’s what I am demanding that he does.

    A further challenge that we have to tackle in the months ahead is, that seeping in to many communities, is the racism and division of the BNP.

    The BNP pretend they’ve changed, pretend they’re respectable. They are no such thing.

    They’re still the same party that wanted the Nazis to win the war.

    They’re still the same party whose constitution excludes from membership anyone who is not “indigenous Caucasian.” It’s right that the new Equality Bill will ban that clause. There can be no place in our democracy for an apartheid party.

    Our active and campaigning parties have proved that the way to tackle the BNP is to be on the doorstep.

    Showing that we are taking action for those who fear for their jobs or their homes.

    And showing that we are on their side.

    Our government is – under Secretary of State, John Denham taking forward co-ordinated government action to address disadvantage and alienation.

    Our active and campaigning parties are working with black and Asian communities to challenge the BNP. Tackling the hate of the BNP and showing that we are on their side.

    We are fighting back against the BNP.

    Conference the poison of the BNP has no place in our communities – not now; not ever.

    We all know that unfairness, prejudice and discrimination is not just because you are a woman, or because of your race, or disability or sexuality.

    Overhanging all these different strands of inequality is the inequality rooted in the family you were born into and the place you were born. Your class, your region.

    Every one of us knows that although we’ve made progress tackling the massive divide that the Tories drove into society, there is still injustice and unfairness.

    So clause one of our new Equality Bill will bring in a  legal duty on all public bodies to narrow the gap between rich and poor.  It will be a law that binds all government ministers, and all government departments as well as local government.

    By the age of six, the bright child from a poor home is overtaken in school by the less- able child from an affluent home.

    In this day and age – who really feels that is acceptable? We certainly don’t. But I’ll tell you who does – the Tories.

    The Tories were pretending to be progressive – to pretend they care about inequality. But they’ve ditched that. They are back to their true nature.

    They opposed LGBT rights.

    They opposed tax credits and plan to cut childcare.

    They oppose the new Equality Bill.

    We want change – they would turn the clock back.

    We’ve built up support for families – don’t let the Tories wreck it.

    The progress we have made towards equality – don’t let the Tories wreck it.

    Every gain has to be fought for, defended and built on.

    This is our fightback conference.

    The whole Labour team is the fightback team.

    We know what we must do.

    We will fight for fairness, fight for equality and – most importantly – we will fight to win.