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Tag: 2010

  • Vince Cable – 2010 Speech to Liberal Democrat Spring Conference

    vincecable

    Below is the text of the speech made by Vince Cable to the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference on 13th March 2010.

    I have a very simple message.

    We, the Liberal Democrats, were right about the financial crisis.

    We warned of the dangers and we led the debate when the crisis came.

    And now we have a clear vision for the future of the British economy.

    The Queen is said to have asked why no one warned about the crisis in the banking system. Actually, we did.

    Ten years ago a group of us, Lib Dem activists, fought the demutualisation of building societies: a consequence of Conservative legislation which led to the disasters of Northern Rock, Bradford and Bingley and HBOS.

    We told Gordon Brown to curb the excess profits of banks which were dependent on a taxpayer guarantee.

    We warned him for years that he was in denial about the build up of household debt and the bubble in property prices. He took no notice; nor did the Conservatives.

    But we were right.

    And when financial disaster struck we insisted that there must be no nationalisation of losses and privatisation of profit: a point belatedly grasped by the government and even more belatedly, and reluctantly, by George Osborne and the Tories.

    The government’s economic record speaks for itself: remember the phrases ‘no more boom and bust’, ‘prudence’, ‘Golden Rules’ – all abandoned.

    And standing amid the wreckage of the economy Gordon Brown sounds more and more like Mr Ashley Cole saying – give me another chance.

    What the public wants to know is who can guide the country out of the present morass: the broken, discredited, banking system; the deepest and longest post war recession, whose effects are far from over; and levels of government borrowing which are not sustainable.

    We can.

    We have deep, long term problems: an overdependence on banking; an obsession with property over productive investment; a yearning for high, Scandinavian levels, of public spending financed by low US levels of tax; and a financial aristocracy which regards tax paying as something for little people not themselves.

    Let me make no bones about it – the challenges are enormous.

    I start with the banks since they have been at the root of our recent problems.

    Not all bankers were greedy or stupid, but plenty were and they have caused immense economic damage.

    The damage continues because the banks have swung from the reckless over-lending which fuelled the boom to conservative under-lending deepening the slump.

    Thousands of sound and solvent small and medium sized companies are being slowly throttled because they can’t get credit or it costs too much.

    Banks do have a funding problem: all the more reason not to squander what they have on bonuses.

    Banks, bailed out by us – the taxpayer – are also building up their balance sheets in readiness for an early re-privatisation instead of supporting British business.

    RBS has fallen short of its legally binding lending target to British business.  Lloyd’s won’t even tell us.  That’s simply arrogant.

    I challenge them to give us the figures and Alistair Darling to force them to if they refuse.  Many thousands of British jobs depend on it.

    The need for radical reform doesn’t end there. Banks with global ambitions that are guaranteed by the British taxpayer cannot be allowed to run excessive risks again.

    The Governor of the Bank of England has to be supported in his constant warning that banks that are too big to fail are simply too big. They have to be broken up, to increase competition and protect the taxpayer.

    The banking collapse and recession have dug a deep hole in the government’s finances.

    The next government will have to deal every single day with the consequences. The growing worry about sovereign debt means that there is no hiding place. Nor should there be.

    It grates to have the economy held to ransom by currency speculators and the clowns in the rating agencies who missed the Icelandic crash and so badly misjudged the safety of banks. But any Government, of any hue, will have to depend on the markets to finance its deficit.

    We must and will be fiscally responsible.

    Unlike the Tories and their cronies who want to create a financial panic and run on sterling to frighten people into voting for them on May 6th.  Playing fast and loose with the financial stability of this country for political gain – destabilising the markets – is dangerous, irresponsible and wrong.

    It is also irresponsible to engage in a phoney war over cuts weeks before an election that will affect the lives of millions of people.

    The Government is trying to present itself as the party of spending and public investment but growing numbers of government scientists, FE college and university staff are currently being sacked.

    The Tories were trying to project their economic team as ‘Slasher’ Osborne and the Hard Men – until David Cameron executed a giant slalom down the Swiss ski slopes and announced that cuts are off the agenda this year. For now.

    Or at least that’s what I think they said.   I’d love to attempt a critique of the Tories budget plans but I have no idea what they are. I think the present line on the budget is: trust us and we’ll tell you after the election. Well I’m sorry but that simply isn’t good enough.

    We have to be frank with people about the difficulties ahead.

    Spending cuts must not be forced through too soon, making the recession worse. That is not just my view – Sir Alan Budd, the Conservatives’ designated head of fiscal policy thinks the same.

    The timing and speed of cuts must reflect the state of the economy, not political dogma. But cuts there will be. We have spelled out some of them.

    Serious public sector pay restraint for the next two years: no one with a pay rise over £8 a week and no bonuses at all.

    Ending government contributions to the Child Trust Fund and cutting tax credits for high earners.

    Axing unaffordable defence contracts such as Eurofighter, and the Trident replacement.   And others, subject to a rapid defence review.

    Scaling back programs like HomeBuy, cutting back RDAs. Taking out tiers of burdensome regulation of local authorities, and scrapping undemocratic regional government.

    Slashing a bloated central bureaucracy – kicking the consulting habit – and ending illiberal and costly government data bases: like ID cards and Contact Point. And we continue to look across all government departments for further savings. There can be no ring fencing if we are serious about getting the public finances back on track.

    And there will be a levy on the profits of banks.

    So far we have identified over £15bn per year of savings, most of which are to reduce the structural deficit and which we will be setting out in full at the time of our manifesto.

    But again, we need to do more.

    A Liberal Democrat Government would conduct an urgent public spending review. Not Tory butchering behind closed doors.

    We will identify priorities and then debate them publicly.

    It’s right and fair that the people who are going to be affected by these changes get to have their say.  That’s Democratic.  That’s open. That’s Liberal.

    Cynics say to me: how can you possibly talk about making economies when the voters want to be promised lots of freebies?

    But it is a massive mistake to underestimate the British people.

    They don’t want to be insulted and patronised by politicians they don’t trust telling them that two plus two equals five, because five is a bigger number than four. Or that all of our problems will be solved by painless ‘cutting waste’.

    Our programme is different not just because it is more transparent but because it offers two things our rivals can’t: hope and fairness.

    The hope derives from a commitment to invest part of the savings more productively in sustainable forms of growth which creates jobs.

    Without growth there is no new money to pay down government debt. But it must be sensible growth which doesn’t depend on consumer spending sprees, destroying the environment or the roller coaster of financial gambling.

    We want a Green New Deal. Investing in jobs by improving our homes and building more social housing. And we will set up an infrastructure bank to invest in big projects like railways and renewable energy.

    And fairness is crucial.

    The public will accept austerity for a time if the burdens are fairly shared.

    They will not accept it from a government that imposes hardship on the majority while rewarding rich cronies, grovelling to tax exiles and non-doms and ignoring the widening inequalities in income and wealth.

    So we will change our unfair tax system.

    3.6 million people who earn less than £10,000 will no longer pay any income tax at all.

    Pensioners will be £100 better off and the average person’s income tax bill cut by £700.

    We will pay for the tax cut by blocking tax loopholes that favour the wealthy and taxing their wealth in their mansions worth over £2 million: in other words the people who profited from the boom.

    People are desperate to see the back of this Labour government. But they don’t want the same old Tories. And make no mistake they are exactly the same.

    There is an alternative.

    In just over 50 days there will be a general election.

    We know that people want to vote for a party that will radically change our economy, for the better in a financially responsible way.

    Our job is to show them we are that party.

    Our job is to make sure that on May 6th they vote Liberal Democrat.

    I know we can.  With Nick’s leadership, with your help and work – and your passion and your belief – we will.

  • Vince Cable – 2010 Speech to the Green Alliance

    vincecable

    Below is the text of the speech made by Vince Cable, the then Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, to the Green Alliance on 1st March 2010.

    Thank you for the kind invitation to speak to you.

    The fact that you have invited me I take as a challenge to demonstrate that the Liberal Democrats see the environment in holistic terms: not as a separate set of concerns but connected to mainstream economic policy. I am also aware that I am following in the footsteps of Mr George Osborne. I see that, since that meeting, the Tories have deleted the environment from their list of 10 Reasons to Vote Conservative. I don’t know what you did to him but I can assure you that I won’t react in the same way. The environment – defined as part of a sustainable economy – will be a major plank of our election message.

    When you mark your card after the beauty parade of political parties may I suggest that depth of commitment is not measured only, or even mainly, by the number of boxes which the parties tick in terms of policy statements. To explain the Liberal Democrat position on the environment, I go back a generation to the late 1970s. At that time, I wasn’t involved in Liberal politics; I worked for a Labour Minister, John Smith. I was however intrigued by an earnest group of people who came round my local streets in Twickenham collecting bundles of paper for recycling. In truth, I think I regarded them as rather loopy. But they weren’t a joke. A few years later they wiped out the local Labour Party, defeated the Conservatives and, having taken over the council, launched a pioneering drive in municipal recycling which we now regard as a basic function of local government. And twenty years ago when climate change was still a subject confined to the scientific journals Paddy Ashdown asked me – I had just become the candidate for Twickenham – to set up a group looking at the issue, out of which came the ideas for green taxes on which we have continued to build. The Green Fiscal Commission we regard as the best source of new thinking on the subject.

    Perhaps I could indulge in a few more personal recollections: not to personalise the arguments but so that you are clear where I am coming from. My starting point is that of a fairly hard-nosed economist whose formative years were spent working in or with developing country governments in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. I had a pretty negative view of conservationists who seemed obsessed by preserving animals and views for rich, white, people to look at while keeping the local population in a romanticised traditional lifestyle. I saw my job as identifying ways of helping an expanding population of poor people to improve their living standards. And I regarded as economically illiterate the Club of Rome, anti growth, theorists whose obsession with raw materials running out took no account of prices. I confess that I continue to trail various environmental heresies with mixed results. Some years ago I was ranting about the fallacy of the concept of ‘food miles’ at a public meeting and seriously annoyed a farmer in the audience, a lady with strong, green, views. The argument continued after the meeting but it was resolved; we are now very happily married.

    But my first encounter with serious environmental thinking was as part of the small team which worked with Mrs Brundtland to produce Our Common Future in the mid-1980s and which first launched the concept of ‘sustainable development’. ‘Sustainable development’ has become a mantra we all now use. But it emerged from fierce debate between those, mainly from developed countries, who wanted economic growth slowed down to take account of environmental damage and limits, and those with a developing countries standpoint, including me, who wanted economic growth speeded up to reduce poverty. ‘Sustainable development’ was an ideological compromise – a plea for growth which respects the environment. The underlying tension remains and is reflected in the way different views of the EU on the one hand and China and India on the other at Copenhagen. ‘Converge and contract’ – the compromise formula for climate change – is designed to resolve that tension but agreement is a long way off. And both sides are right. The continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions threatens serious consequences for the next generation. But the rapid growth achieved in China , especially, and India in the last three decades has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and there is an enormous, understandable, appetite to continue.

    I moved from Brundtland to work on the first of the major intergovernmental reports on climate change to Commonwealth Prime Ministers and worked with the East Anglia scientists and others who were trying to raise awareness of the issue over two decades ago. I was persuaded of the need to take climate change seriously – as was Mrs Thatcher, one of the Heads of Government to whom the report was presented – by the rigour of the climate scientists: stating that there was a problem but always acknowledging uncertainty and the range of error; never overstating the case.

    No one could now complain about lack of awareness of the climate change issue. But I worry about the damage done by failure at Copenhagen and the process of rapid political retreat now taking place, particularly in the USA. The underlying problem is that climate change is an elite project with a narrow and thin political base. It depends critically on public trust in science and scientists. That trust has now been dented. I know that the sceptics are employing every dirty trick in the book and are wildly overstating the significance of a few pieces of slipshod work and exaggerated claims. But much damage has been done to trust in climate science. I don’t agree with a lot of George Monbiot’s work but he was absolutely spot on in his tough response to the slippage of scientific standards. Scientists complaining about emails being stolen and the burden of FOI requests are behaving like the more obtuse MPs during the expenses crisis.

    What is now required to restore trust is to reassert the importance and values of science: making it clear that man made global warming is not a fact but a scientific hypothesis with strong evidential support; that there is a lot of uncertainty about magnitudes and impacts; but that the costs of preventive action are likely to be much less than the cost of climate change if it materialises. Climate science must be open to challenge, like all good science. It is not a religion. And critics, however tiresome, have to be treated with courtesy not abused (I can’t be the only person who takes deep offence at the term ‘climate change deniers’, equating sceptics with neo-Nazi holocaust deniers). Those of us who are still convinced that climate change is a major challenge have to reflect that humility if the arguments are not to be lost, irretrievably. What I can assure you is that the Liberal Democrats will continue to give prominence to climate change as a crucial issue we must address.

    But let me turn to our approach to policy. Where economics and environment come together is in recognising that the costs of environmental pollution should be captured in the price. A proper marriage of economics and environment would sweep away the array of subsidies, protectionist trade policies and tax breaks which disguise the costs of farming, water extraction, fishing, timber production, waste disposal, energy production, mining and manufacturing. Pollution costs would be taxed as the rather dry pre-Keynesian economist Pigou argued almost a century ago. There has been some progress at least in the developed world to tackle that agenda. The Liberal Democrats bring together environmentalism and liberal market economics and are comfortable promoting sustainable economics; while our sister parties, in Canada and Germany for example, have a track record of delivering on the ground.

    That is also the rationale for carbon taxes which are clearly the best way of setting a carbon price for consumers and producers. Liberal Democrats support the concept. But in practice we are starting from somewhere else: a complicated system of national taxes bearing quite heavily on motor vehicles but hardly at all on domestic heating or aviation, with a modest industrial – climate change – levy and an EU carbon trading regime (which has so far had minimal impact on the carbon price because permits have been issued too liberally and grandfathered rather than auctioned).

    We suggest that one useful step forward is to introduce realistic pricing for aviation in ways that circumvent the treaty restrictions on taxing aviation fuel. Aviation is a rapidly growing source of emissions and the last redoubt of the old idea that polluters don’t and won’t pay. Aviation has unfair, distorting tax advantages over competing modes of transport, notably long distance rail, because there is no tax on fuel, no charge for landing rights which, in a sensible world, would be auctioned (and in contrast to the track charges imposed on rail operators) and with subsidised landing charges (cross-subsidised by shopping in the bizarre, Alice in Wonderland world of aviation regulation). As a result aviation does not pay for carbon, or localised – nitrogen dioxide – pollution or the disamenity of noise, especially at night. We suggest as one – modest – first step: changing the tax base, and increasing tax, by applying it to flight take-offs in a way which captures the emissions generated by the engines and flight distance and scrapping the current ticket tax which penalises the efficient use of aircraft and doesn’t tax air freight. We would aim to raise £2.6bn from this green tax which would contribute towards cuts in direct taxation on the low paid. We are also opposed to the current ‘predict and provide’ approach to airport expansion in the South East. We hope that the Conservatives will be as good as their word in working with us to stop Heathrow expansion in particular.

    Road transport is already taxed relatively heavily in the UK by international comparison – a fact which encourages road hauliers to dodge British tax by filling up with diesel on the continent. But despite unpopular tax indexation, the cost of motoring has risen less rapidly than the cost of bus or train travel. Moreover, petrol duty and VED make no distinction between travel on congested roads where there are alternatives and remote rural areas where there is no congestion and no alternative. We should be moving towards a proper road user pricing system for which the technology is now available. Tax is however only one way of changing behaviour. A more direct route is a tightening of energy efficiency standards – miles per gallon – for new vehicles along the lines advocated by my former boss at Shell, Mark Moody-Stuart.

    Tougher standards – for insulation in new building are likely to work better for domestic heating than the price mechanism – higher taxes – which would cause fuel poverty with only a very blunt incentive to invest in energy efficiency. And in parallel there has to be a concerted drive to improve the existing housing stock, street by street, rather than the current fragmented, shambolic, set of programmes.

    There are big strategic choices to be made in power generation. At present, progress on new renewables in the UK is pitifully slow and the opportunities for changing the basic model of energy delivery to local, distributed, power systems is being missed, though feed in tariffs will help in future. The government has effectively shelved the 2003 White Paper which set out a strategic framework based on energy conservation, new renewables and – transitional – gas. Intensive lobbying has led to agreement for a new generation of coal-fired power stations as at Kingsnorth and more importantly support for a new generation of nuclear power stations. I appreciate that nuclear power has attractions to many in the green movement because it is an – almost – zero carbon fuel. Its proponents have also cunningly exploited public anxieties about energy security with wildly exaggerated stories about disruption to gas supplies which, in the case of the UK, are very diverse and safe. The hidden costs of nuclear waste storage and decommissioning are vast. When I spoke in Parliament against the bailout of British energy in 2003, some of the best analysis I encountered came from Greenpeace.  The Liberal Democrats oppose new nuclear power not from some theological opposition to the principle – it would be ludicrous to declare war on physics – but because of the potential hidden cost – the blank cheque needed from the taxpayer – and the potential which nuclear power has to ‘crowd out’ new renewables. A traditional, grid based, system gets in the way of more innovative, distributed, localised systems.

    But the whole environmental agenda is in danger of being derailed by the current economic crisis. Economic necessity concentrates the mind. The environment has plummeted down the list of the electorate’s priorities.

    Much of the established green approach, resting as it does on environmental taxes and a more general approach to frugality, assumes that there is a large appetite for self flagellation. For those people who clamoured for a zero growth world – well, here it is and it isn’t very nice.

    Fortunately there is a growing recognition that the current economic crisis presents opportunities as well as threats to environmental thinking. The key issue is jobs and where they come from. Britain has a major short term problem of cyclical unemployment or underemployment arising from the banking collapse and recession and a longer term structural problem of generating jobs and growth out of an economy which can no longer rely on consumption driven by household debt, inflated property prices and the high octane economy of the sharks and young bloods in the City.

    The short term problem cries out for classic Keynesian public works based on ‘shovel ready’ projects. The construction sector has been the worst hit by the recession and arguably has the richest potential for job creation directly and through supplier industries from timber frames to ceramic fitting. There is massive pent up demand for social housing, and supply is seriously constrained by lack of funding. Improvement of empty and substandard property for rent is one – relatively cheap – way forward. The Liberal Democrats have also been arguing for a concerted programme of home insulation.  Since we acknowledge that there is a major fiscal contraction ahead and no scope for enlarging deficit financing we identify savings from government spending which can be redeployed in this way. Environmental goals can be neatly reconciled with job creation. I shy away from the term ‘green jobs’ since it implies that non-green jobs like being a car mechanic or a gas fitter are somehow less worthwhile which is not right or sensible. Indeed I note with some amusement that the centrepiece of President Obama’s ‘green’ public works programme is road building.

    Liberal Democrats are anxious to ensure that the baby of environmentalism is not thrown out with the bath water of unsustainable public spending. We are, for example, seeking to use some of your ideas on carbon spending for saving money.

    The term Green New Deal also captures the convergence of economic and environmental aims. The term suggests a short term, recession, programme but it has been better described to me by Colin Hines, one of the authors of the idea, as creating a ‘green spine’ for the economy from which many diverse activities will branch. It is already possible to see some of the activities around which future employment and growth will occur – creative industries; pharmaceutical and biological science; specialist IT based services; health and education services; and financial services disarmed of their destructive potential.

    Environmental services and industries are another and could be a leading sector with encouragement. Much will happen spontaneously led by market demand. But this new economy will require infrastructure, preferably a green one. There is a potentially vast demand for digital infrastructure, new and improved public transport, renewable power production and transmission systems plus the education and training of a new generation of scientists, engineers and skilled workers to operate this new economy. The Government is not going to be able to finance much of the infrastructure because the public sector balance sheet is so weak. The funding will have to come from the private sector and I have been promoting the idea of an Infrastructure Bank tapping into the hundreds of billions in annuity funds of pension and insurance companies looking for a home in the UK or retail investment in what could be ‘green bonds’. Part of its remit would be environmental but it would clearly have a broader infrastructure role. It could also mobilise private, retail, investors looking for an attractive, long term productive use of their savings. Colin Hines has coined the term ‘savers and saviours’ – what is needed is the imagination and leadership to link employment growth, environmental imperatives and the self interest of entrepreneurs and investors.

    The Liberal Democrats want to work with like-minded people to develop that vision. We must take these ideas forward on all fronts: national, international and local.  Birmingham City Council which we run in joint administration with the Conservatives has advanced plans for a municipal green new deal.  Given our traditions of localism, we have more confidence in bottom up than top down initiatives. A sustainable future will require both.

  • Andy Burnham – 2010 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    andyburnham

    Below is the text of the speech made by Andy Burnham to the 2010 Labour Party Conference.

    Conference.

    You’ve been so good to me this week.

    It’s not every day that you lose a leadership election and your team goes bottom of the league.

    I am proud of my campaign. I said in my own words what I felt needed to be said.

    But I am proud of our new Leader too – the spokesman for a new generation and our next Prime Minister.

    Conference, you know me now. I will give him all my support to make that happen.

    But I can’t deny that we didn’t have our disagreements on the campaign trail.

    Picture the scene – early Sunday morning, on the train to the Cardiff hustings, Ed and his team were sitting in our reserved seats.

    It’s fair to say that, if we’d known then what we know now, we probably wouldn’t have turfed him out!

    But he’s right – a new generation is ready to lead Labour forward.

    We are more united than any other time in our history.

    We are ready to rise to the big challenges of our time, drawing inspiration from Labour’s post-war generation.

    The way older people have to pay for care today is as great an injustice as health care before the NHS.

    A cruel ‘dementia tax’ where vulnerable people empty their bank accounts and surrender their homes – not the British way, but as brutal as American healthcare.

    And it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

    David Cameron’s cuts to councils will put half a million older people at risk – left alone without help, piling yet more pressure on family carers, paying even more out of their own pockets.

    Ending the injustice of the ‘dementia tax’ in this century of the ageing society will be for Labour a cause as great as any that has gone before.

    A National Care Service free at the point of use – paid for by a care levy – will give peace of mind to everyone in later life and let them protect what they’ve worked for.

    It will be for Labour in this century what the NHS was for us in the last – proudly proclaiming our values to the world, showing how they can build a better and fairer society.

    A big, inspiring idea in the best traditions of our Party – that’s the way to Reconnect Labour.

    But it means rediscovering the courage of our convictions.

    Thank God Nye Bevan wasn’t the kind of man who worried about what the Daily Mail might say. If he was, we might never have had an NHS.

    So, going forward, let’s worry a bit less about what the media might say and do what we know to be right.

    Bevan called the NHS: “a real piece of socialism”.

    Today, it is Britain’s most cherished institution.

    But it is now facing the biggest attack in its 62-year history.

    A White Paper out of nowhere that will unpick the very fabric of our NHS and turn order into chaos.

    They are the wrong reforms at the wrong time – and a bad deal for patients.

    Before the Election, Mr Cameron said his priority could be summed up in three letters: NHS.

    Barely a week went by without a photocall alongside NHS staff.

    No mention of the bombshell he was about to drop on them.

    My message today to the Prime Minister is simple: you can’t pose as the friend of the NHS on one day and rip it to pieces the next.

    People will not forgive you for it.

    You have no mandate for the break-up of a successful NHS.

    Patients aren’t asking for it.

    GPs and NHS staff don’t want it.

    The public did not vote for it.

    I say to you today – put these dangerous plans on hold.

    Give the NHS the stability it needs.

    If you don’t, get ready for the fight of your life – and the public will be on our side, not yours.

    You made promises to patients and NHS staff – we won’t let you betray them.

    Conference, on some things, though, David Cameron has been true to his word.

    Do you remember how in the Election he promised to look out for the ‘Great Ignored’?

    Well, to be fair, he has. Nick Clegg could not have had a warmer welcome into the Tory fold.

    And it’s hard to ignore Nick now, isn’t it?

    Nick, if you don’t mind, a bit of advice: your tie doth protest too much. The yellower it gets, the more you look and sound like a Tory.

    That’s today’s Liberal Democrats: Tories in yellow ties.

    But I’m told the Lib Dems are happy with this new image. In fact, they’ve already picked a campaign song for the next Election to promote it.

    It’s a remake of a classic love song based on the Tory tree logo.

    It’s called: ‘Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree’.

    Now we all know Nick likes the spotlight. But, incredibly, he is planning to sing the key lines himself in a very personal appeal to his friend David:

    ‘So tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree

    It’s been three long years, do ya still want me?’

    But, Conference, this is a tear-jerker. Nick goes on to open up his heart about his fear of rejection on campaign trail:

    ‘If I don’t see a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree –

    ‘I’ll stay on the bus (he must mean his battle bus), forget about us, put the blame on me.’

    Make no mistake, Nick.

    If you and your MPs nod through the break-up of the NHS, we will put the blame on you.

    Not just us – but the seven million people who voted for you too.

    They didn’t vote for this.

    You didn’t tell them you would allow your friend Dave to carve up the NHS – a service which is today the envy of the world.

    In June, a respected international think tank gave this verdict on the NHS: the 2nd best health care system in the world and top on efficiency.

    Conference, feel proud of that – the final word on Labour’s NHS.

    No-one can take it away from us, however much they try to re-write history.

    But it’s all at risk. 13 years of careful work – staked on the roll of a dice. A 1000-piece jigsaw thrown up into the air.

    It makes me want to weep.

    Before the ink was barely dry on a Coalition Agreement which promised ‘no more top-down reorganisations of the NHS,’ we get the biggest and most dangerous ever.

    A epic U-turn from a Government fond of pious statements on restoring trust in politics.

    What changed, Mr Cameron? I think shell-shocked NHS staff deserve an answer.

    But patients deserve answers too.

    It’s our job, Conference, to tell them what this plan means.

    Waiting times getting longer again with the scrapping of our maximum 18-week wait – and our cancer targets.

    They deride them as ‘process targets’.

    But with cancer, process equals time, and time saves lives.

    Patients facing that familiar Tory choice in healthcare – wait longer or pay to go private – as the private patients’ cap is lifted

    A postcode lottery writ large, with up to 500 GP groups making different decisions.

    Vulnerable patients – people with mental health problems, rare conditions or complex needs – left without the guarantees and certainty they need.

    For staff, it means the end of national pay structures which bring stability to the system.

    I was proud to make the public NHS my preferred provider. But now staff have no guarantees that they’ll be working in the NHS in five years time.

    These reforms have nothing to do with what is best for the NHS – and everything to do with ideology.

    It is nothing short of scandalous to spend up to £3 billion on a political experiment with our NHS at a time when every single penny is needed to maintain jobs and standards of patient care.

    They are an attack on the N in NHS – a frightening vision of a fragmented health service, where markets rule, competition trumps cooperation, private sector giants outbid the NHS and profits trump patients.

    No wonder morale is at rock bottom.

    Tens of thousands of decent, hard-working PCT staff have been told they are simply expendable.

    It’s no way to treat loyal people who helped put the NHS back on its feet.

    I tell them today that I value your contribution and the country should too.

    We have GPs wondering when they signed up to become the managers of markets and multi-million pound budgets.

    Ian spoke for many when he said: “Don’t destroy what we’ve spent many years building up.”

    Lansley says listen to GPs – well it’s about time he did the same. If the Royal College of GPs and the BMA can’t support your plans, something is seriously wrong.

    A chorus of protest – from patients, nurses and now even GPs – is rising across the country.

    It is aimed at a Tory Party that voted 51 times against the NHS.

    It’s never been safe in their hands and it’s not safe now.

    So, Conference, let the message go out from here today that we’re getting ready for the battle of our lives.

    People need to know that their beloved NHS will never be the same again if this madcap plan goes ahead.

    I call on all of you to sign up today.

    Put your name on Labour’s Defend Our NHS petition and recruit friends to do the same.

    Let’s build an army of NHS defenders in every community in the land.

    Let’s take the fight for a universal, public NHS to every street and doorstep.

    Let’s give heart to those demoralised NHS staff, who do so much for us all, that Labour will stand up for them and defend what they believe in.

    And let’s show this arrogant Government the might of this Labour movement when it fights as one.

    To those who say we can’t win – 16,000 people have already proved you wrong.

    We saved NHS Direct.

    And well done John Prescott for that.

    Conference, we can and must win.

    We will win.

    Because the public will be willing us on.

    They didn’t vote for this.

    Mr Cameron, you have picked the wrong fight.

    We are a resurgent Labour Party – and nothing matters more to us than the NHS.

    It is the best thing about Britain today.

    Labour’s finest achievement.

    Conference, defend it with everything you’ve got – and get ready for the fight of our lives.

    Thank you.

  • Andy Burnham – 2010 Speech to Age UK Social Care Conference

    andyburnham

    Below is the text of the speech made by the former Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham, on 10th March 2010.

    When I became Health Secretary last year, I put reforming care for older and disabled people at the top of my priority list.

    I have to admit there have been days since when I’ve had cause to question the wisdom of that decision.

    This issue, as we all know, is a political minefield and I’ve asked myself more than once whether I’d bitten off more than I could chew.

    But, as difficult as it gets, I am absolutely determined to see it through.

    That’s because, though real improvements have been made, our social care system remains fundamentally unfair – as harsh as healthcare provision in the days before the NHS.

    And my conviction to do something about it was forged from seeing my own grandmother – a proud Scouse lady – laid low emotionally and financially.

    I have a strong sense of the injustice here and there’s no point being in politics if you’re not prepared to act on those instincts when you have the chance.

    So I can say today that I am resolved on two things: first, that I will bring forward proposals for a National Care Service in a White Paper this side of the Election; second, that I still want to build as much political consensus around it as I possibly can.

    With that in mind, I think it is a positive thing that we’re gathered here today and that all three parties are back in the same room. I’d like to thank Age UK for making it possible.

    As well as revealing our differences, I hope today’s debate might also surprise people by revealing more consensus between the parties than they might think.

    First, all parties seem to agree that reform is now urgent, and that the Green Paper has achieved the aim I set for it of building unstoppable momentum for a fundamental reform bill in the next Parliament.

    Second, that the idea of a National Care Service – replacing today’s local lottery with national assessment and national entitlement – has been broadly accepted.

    Third, there is also emerging consensus that payment must be based on a partnership between the individual and the state and be fair across the generations, as a cross-Party commission concluded this week.

    Fourth, that in its design, the National Care Service should provides care which is personal, preventative and integrated with other services.

    As we look to build further consensus, I have been listening and reflecting on what has been said during our Big Care Debate.

    Some felt the Green Paper didn’t say enough about carers and I think that’s a fair criticism. The White Paper will say more about how the National Care Service will help carers cope, by providing them with better support when they need it.

    People also raised questions about benefit reform. On Attendance Allowance, the Age Concern manifesto states that ‘any reform…must retain its essential features’. I agree. And I will ensure that the White Paper reflects this.

    So far, so good. But from here it gets harder as we talk about how to pay – with claims of taxes of one kind or another.

    The problem with this politically-charged debate is that it ignores the fact that today we have the cruellest tax of all – a dementia tax, as the Alzheimer’s Society puts it, where the more vulnerable you are, the more you pay.

    We know that eight out of ten people will develop a care need as they got older. So we know we are likely to have to pay something for our care but no-one knows how much. It’s a cruel lottery where people are forced to gamble with their homes and savings.

    The need for reform is not in doubt. The question is how to pay for it.

    The broad choice is between a voluntary and compulsory system. There are pros and cons with each.

    A voluntary funding option would provide more choice, but with low take-up. It would come at a greater cost to the individual, and the question is: can it be made affordable to all? I think of my constituents in Leigh when I ask that question. Our Green Paper put the cost of this at £25,000.

    A compulsory option would be more affordable and provide care on NHS terms – free at the point of use when it is needed – but it would take choice away from the individual.

    So that’s the basic question that the Government is still considering.

    For me, the crucial test of any proposed solution is that it must be within the reach of all people and affordable to everyone.

    It will only be lasting solution if everyone is able to get the peace of mind that comes from knowing your care needs are covered. And any solution must help all people to protect what they have what they have worked for so it can be passed on – nobody should have to lose their home to pay for their care.

    If we fail to act now, the unfairness will only increase as we all live longer.

    And the problem now affects many more families and many more communities as today’s generation of pensioners are the first real home-owning generation.

    They are looking to us work together to find the solution and we must not let them down.

  • Andy Burnham – 2010 Speech on the National Care Service

    andyburnham

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham, on 30th March 2010.

    Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It’s a great pleasure to be here, and to welcome you all.

    For carers, for older people, for people with disabilities, for families and communities, for everyone who has campaigned for a better deal for those in need of care and support – for all of us – this is a momentous day.

    When William Beveridge wrote the founding document of the welfare state in 1942 he set out the five ‘giant evils’ of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness, that as a society we would work join together to overcome.

    Now, as we all live longer, thanks in no small part to the NHS, a sixth giant has emerged – fear of old age.

    The social care system is the only remaining part of our welfare state that is not organised on a collective basis. And as a result, over the years we have seen too many vulnerable people and their families struggling to cope, often losing everything to pay for care.

    But today, once and for all, we say – no more.

    I want to thank all of you for everything you’ve done to help us get to this point and in particular Imelda Redmond and the Care and Support Alliance. I’d also like to thank a wonderful man – Phil Hope the Minister for Care Services. And to thank David Behan, Sally Warren, and their team, and so many others. It has been a tremendous effort. And when the road has become rocky – which at times it has – I’ve been spurred on by your commitment.

    This has become a personal mission for me – forged by my own family’s experience, by memories of my mother fighting for better care for her mum.

    There is a historic wrong here, which we have to put right.

    For the sake of the generation entering care now, and for generations to come, we have to put in place a fair, affordable and lasting solution.

    And that is why, today, I am confirming that the government is committed to the principle of creating a National Care Service.

    A service that is comprehensive, fair for all, and free for everyone when they need it.

    A service that completes the vision of the welfare state – that sees only the individual and their needs, and not their ability to pay.

    A service that promises not just more support for carers, for older people and for people with disabilities, but peace of mind for all.

    The White Paper we are publishing today sets out how we will build this new service.

    The case for change

    And it’s been a long journey to get us here today.

    Improvements have been made over recent years. But there are still too many people whose experience of the system is defined by frustration, poor quality and neglect – and often by a wearying battle to get the help they need.

    Too often the system can be confusing and unresponsive. Different services don’t always work together, and there is a postcode lottery, as people with the same needs receive different levels of care depending on where they live.

    The fact is our care system was designed for a different era. It cannot cope with the challenges of today, let alone the demands of tomorrow.

    The Big Care Debate

    We recognised the scale of the challenge in last year’s Green Paper, Shaping the Future of Care Together. And because this is an issue that affects everyone we launched the Big Care Debate. It soon became the largest ever consultation on care and support in England.

    Over 68,000 people took part – including many of you. We have published the independent summary of the consultation alongside the White Paper.

    And it confirmed much of what we thought about the current system. In one response someone said:

    ‘There are a great number of people who do not understand what to do or where to go. I myself have spent 12 months looking and only by accident found what I was looking for.’

    That’s no way to serve some of the most vulnerable people in society.

    But we’ve listened – and our White Paper has been shaped by what people told us.

    We set out three options. 35% of people supported a partnership approach. 22% an insurance approach. But the most popular option, with 41% support was a comprehensive approach.

    We’re responding to that desire for real change – for fundamental reform of the system. That’s what today is all about.

    The National Care Service

    The new, National Care Service will offer high quality care and support for all – whoever you are, wherever you live in England, and whatever condition leads you to need that support.

    Like the NHS, everyone will contribute and everyone will get their care for free when they need it.

    It will support families, carers and communities, and ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect. No-one will be forced to give up their home or their savings to get care – ensuring everyone peace of mind.

    And the National Care Service won’t just make people into passive recipients of care handed out by an unresponsive system. It will provide more personalised care that is focussed on keeping people well and independent, enabling them to stay in their home if that is where they want to be. It will give people choice and control over their own care and their own lives.

    Rather than being told what services they are going to receive, people will have a personal budget if they want one, giving them power over how their care and support entitlement is spent.

    We’ll take common sense steps to make people’s lives easier – like joining-up referral processes for social care and attendance allowance.

    We’ll ensure that different parts of the system work better together, with a new duty for NHS bodies and local authorities to deliver integrated care.

    And we will provide a better deal for those unseen and unsung heroes of our care and support system.

    In this country today millions of people – on every street in every town – are providing care at home for a loved one.

    These everyday heroes are the mark of a civilised society – but in truth we are not serving them today as well as they are serving us.

    The National Care Service will provide better support for carers through clearer and more accessible information – and it will give them the peace of mind that their loved one will receive high quality care and support under the new service.

    We can’t, in any situation, replace the loving support that carers give – and nor would we ever wish to. The National Care Service has to be built on that bedrock, to enable us to help everyone.

    Funding

    We all have a stake in these issues. Eight in ten of us will need care as we get older. And, of course, no-one knows how much care they will need or how much they will have to pay.

    That’s because we currently have – as the Alzheimer’s Society described it – a dementia tax, where the vulnerable pay more, where people can see tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds wiped out by the costs of care. People are having to deal with the loss of their homes, their savings and every ounce of their financial security, at the very time that their family is going through a period of terrible emotional stress.

    To make the National Care Service work, everyone will have to make a contribution.

    But because of this, care and support will be free for everyone when they need it – and the costs of covering everyone’s care needs will be reduced.

    This means people of all incomes will get peace of mind in old age and be able to protect everything they have worked for. Like the NHS before it, it will end the catastrophic costs of care.

    And it will promote social mobility, because it will help to protect people’s homes and savings – helping lower-income families keep their foothold on the property ladder.

    So at the start of the next Parliament we will establish a commission to reach a consensus on the best way of financing this system. The commission will determine the options which should be open to individuals so that people can have choice and flexibility about how they contribute.

    That’s what you told me at the Care and Support Conference in February. I hope you recognise much of what is in the White Paper today.

    We expect that people will continue to pay for the accommodation costs for residential care. However, we will introduce a universal deferred payment system, so no one has to sell their homes in their lifetime in order to pay for residential care.

    We will also keep the current system of Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance. The National Care Service should be built on these foundations. The benefits of the current system will be replicated in the new service – and I am happy to confirm that today.

    Delivering the National Care Service

    Building the new National Care Service will be one of the biggest changes to the welfare state since the creation of the NHS.

    It is a major reform and it can’t be completed overnight. So we will build the new service in three stages, and we will establish a National Care Service leadership group to co-ordinate the implementation of the new service.

    The first stage is to implement the Personal Care at Home Bill, which is before the House of Commons this evening. This Bill enables us to guarantee that those with the highest needs will receive free personal care in their own home.

    It also establishes intensive reablement services in every community to help people retain or regain their independence and confidence after a crisis or the first time they need care.

    During this stage we will also continue to implement the reforms to the system that are already delivering benefits – such as in tackling dementia or supporting carers.

    And the fact that this Bill is before the Commons tonight should give you all encouragement that this is not just words – the action starts right now.

    The second stage, during the next Parliament, will be to start to build the National Care Service, including creating the commission on funding for the Service.

    To ensure that the Service has a proper legal basis, we will introduce a National Care Service Bill, which will set out the duties of the Secretary of State and local authorities to provide care to those who need it.

    We will abolish the postcode lottery by establishing in law the point at which someone becomes eligible for state support.

    And from April 2014, people will receive their care free if they need to stay in residential care for more than two years, again removing the fear of catastrophic costs and protecting people’s assets and savings.

    These two stages will together mean the most vulnerable in society – those with the highest needs – are protected from very high care costs wherever they may need care.

    The third and final stage of reform, after 2015, will be the introduction of the comprehensive National Care Service – establishing once and for all a system that is fair and free at the point of need for everyone.

    Conclusion

    There’s no doubt this is an ambitious goal.

    In creating a comprehensive National Care Service we are setting out to change, forever, the story of our welfare state.

    But that, simply, is the challenge for this generation.

    Some six decades ago when my predecessor, Nye Bevan, was moving the NHS Bill in the House of Commons, he said it would ‘lift the shadow from millions of homes’.

    It did lift the shadow – and that reform has lit the nation ever since.

    Looking to the future, I believe the National Care Service can do the same.

    And in closing, I’d like to ask you to go out and make that argument.

    If you believe this is the right reform for older, vulnerable and disabled people in this country please join us in making that argument for fundamental reform.

    I believe we have an opportunity to make a change and we all need to come together to seize it – to create a National Care Service and to protect our citizens now and for the rest of this century.

    Thank you very much for listening.

  • Jeremy Browne – 2010 Speech in China

    jeremybrown

    The below speech was made by the Foreign Office Minister, Jeremy Browne, on 15th September 2010 at the University of Nottingham Ningbo Campus in China.

    Introduction

    I am delighted to be the first Minister in the new British Government to visit the city of Ningbo, one of main engines for economic and broader development of Zhejiang province and wider region.

    I am no less delighted to be here at the University of Nottingham campus. I may never have been to Ningbo before, but as a former student of Nottingham University, it is in some ways a return to familiar territory, albeit in a way I would never have imagined then.

    That such a development could happen in the space of less than two decades since I graduated is testament to the Ningbo government’s far-sighted vision in developing foreign ties and international relationships (as well of course that of my university in responding to that vision).

    Nearly 10 years ago, the city of Ningbo set about ambitious plans to transform its economy and the skills and knowledge of its citizens. In doing so, the City sought to partner with the best of international knowledge and ideas. The opening of this campus in 2004, as the very first Sino-Foreign University in China with approval from the Chinese Ministry of Education, laid the ground for others to follow.

    That this could happen is also testament to the dramatic and unprecedented changes that are reshaping the world in which we live and which are opening up possibilities and opportunities for you, as students, undreamt of in my student days.

    In my speech today, I want to talk about how these changes – globalisation and the new G20 world order – will reshape this century, how we are responding to them, and why education and the people-to-people exchanges that this campus symbolises are so important in ensuring that globalisation is to our mutual benefit.

    New Global Order: Opportunity, not Threat

    I simply cannot understate the significance of this changing order. We have all been accustomed to a G8 world for many years. Best summed up by images of summits, 9 people if we include the EC President, of which 8 were westerners plus Japan. This largely symbolised how most of us in the West viewed the world when I was an NU student.

    But it is no longer relevant. In less than a decade, we have moved from a G8 to a G20 world. A world in which major powers such as China are catching up rapidly with the existing long-established economic powers.

    According to some predictions, today’s emerging economies will be 50% larger than the economies of the current G7 by 2050. In 2010 China’s Q2 GDP growth was 10.3% and the most recent quarterly total GDP put China ahead of Japan as the second largest economy after the US.

    What makes this change in the world order arguably even more significant than previous ones is that it is not just a shuffling of the seats at the top table, a new Group of 7 or Group of 8. It’s not just that the characters have changed, but the architecture has too.

    The significance of the transition from a G8 to a G20 world is that the grouping at the top table, economically and politically, is much more representative of the globalised, ‘networked’ world of which the British Foreign Secretary William Hague has spoken.

    UK Government Response

    As I said in my first Ministerial speech in Parliament in June, these are not changes we should fear, and certainly not something we should resist. It is in fact something we should welcome as a great opportunity.

    First and foremost, there is an opportunity to expand our financial and trading ties as the people of these emerging economies become wealthier.

    The World Bank estimates that the global middle class is likely to have grown from 430 million in 1999 to over a billion by 2030 – an increase in middle class consumers equal to the total population of the EU.

    But it is also an opportunity politically and diplomatically to find new ways to harness international action to deliver the changes we will need to safeguard our collective security.

    The new world order will be a more multilateral one, politically as well as economically. In one sense that will be a more complex world and managing complexity will be a key challenge for all of us. Which is why closer cooperation between governments, and understanding between peoples, will be all the more important.

    It is increasingly the case that the prosperity of any one country today – whether big or small – is dependent on what happens in other countries.

    In a similar way, many of the problems faced by countries today are global rather than local – whether that’s climate change, immigration, security, crime or any number of other issues that are blind to international boundaries.

    That is why strengthening our relations with these fast growing economies and powers is one of the key foreign policy objectives of the UK’s new government. We recognise the importance to us of our close and historic relationships with Europe and North America – but also realise where the new opportunities increasingly lie.

    For you – as Chinese students or students of Chinese – these changes are going to be particularly significant. Which brings me to why education, and people such as you, are so important to this emerging new world order.

    People-to-People Exchanges: Globalising education

    In a speech during his visit to Japan and China in July, William Hague set out four distinctive ways for UK to pursue its foreign policy. These included intensifying our engagement with the emerging economies of the world and also, and perhaps most important for my speech to you today, engaging with people and their aspirations. By seeking engagement with other countries beyond the constraints of traditional and diplomatic ties, by building engagement among people across different cultures and boundaries.

    He argued that if our foreign policy is to be effective in a networked world we must extend opportunity to others as well as striving for the best for Britain, upholding our own values and influencing others by being an inspiring example of our own values.

    In the process of forging these people-to people links, education, particularly higher education, has a pivotal role. That is why I am glad to see the world’s leading universities increasingly put internationalisation at the heart of their mission, and that Britain, and British universities, are at the forefront of this dynamic.

    Britain is fortunate to have more than 340,000 students from 239 different countries pursuing education opportunities in UK, second only to USA as a destination for international students. More than 20% of academic staff in UK universities come from outside UK. A 2008 study found that 75% of UK universities funded international research collaboration, with nearly 90% having international research links.

    Around 200,000 students, just like you, are currently taking UK qualifications from more than 100 higher education institutions around the world.

    As students, your choice is now immeasurably different to that even of my generation. Now the choice is not simply which university should I go to, it is which country should I study in. Should I start my degree in my own country and complete it in another, picking up along the way the vital cultural insights that studying in another country provides. Which institution, wherever it is in the world, will best meet my needs and priorities?

    The institutions which will rise to the challenge of internationalisation most effectively will be those which are prepared to develop international strategic partnerships with universities in other countries across a range of activities, including research and knowledge transfer. These deeper, broader partnerships will complement the array of international links which exist between individual researchers and academics.

    There is clearly an economic incentive here. International education provides the UK with a dynamic, high-skill and sustainable export industry that has been estimated to be worth more than £10bn.

    But it is much more than merely an export industry. It enriches our society in many ways by deepening our awareness and understanding of other cultures, and likewise deepening others’ awareness and understanding of our own. The relationships that we develop can last forever and often provide the potential for greater educational, cultural and scientific exchange, as well as greater trade, investment, and political dialogue.

    By internationalising its education provision, the UK is able to attract intellectual capital – making a vital contribution to its capacity for research, technological growth and innovation; it is able to sustain programmes which might not otherwise be viable, ensuring a wider range and greater quality of internationally-focused courses are available for other students, including those from the UK.

    In short, international education is at the centre of the UK’s knowledge economy and the long-term wealth and prosperity that delivers.

    China-UK Education Partnership

    We know that UK education is held in high regard by both government and the education sector in China. The closeness of bilateral co-operation in this field is a good indicator of the positive regard within which the UK is held in China, especially when considering that many countries seek to develop such co-operation with China, and China is in the fortunate position of choosing from the best of the world’s education systems.

    Bilateral co-operation in education is very strong overall; a Framework Agreement on Educational Co-operation Partnership has guided that co-operation over the last decade, and annual education summits take forward the joint priority areas for both countries. We hope that the next summit will take place before the end of the year.

    Cooperation between the UK and China is particularly strong on higher education. We have well established links, such as a 13 year strategic higher education collaboration project between the Ministry of Education and the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the British Council.

    In 2008/9 there were 85,000 Chinese students in the UK, We have the same proportion of our own population studying in China, some 3,000 students, as mainland China has in the UK, although of course we are seeking to increase this number. As an example, every summer some 200 students from across Britain come to China for one month on a government-supported programme of language and contemporary studies.

    Now there are more than 105 joint programmes and some 15,000 Chinese students following UK qualifications here in China.

    New education models from the UK such as this university/campus are testimony to the high level of confidence that the Ministry of Education has traditionally had in our higher education systems.

    Conclusion

    This engagement and co-operation between our two education systems is delivering deeper and broader ties between our two countries and responding to the need to deepen our understanding of each other as much as our dependence on each other grows. The latter without the former could be a point of weakness. Together, they represent a source of strength and establish solid foundations for the cooperation we will need to have in an increasingly networked world.

    Broader engagement between people needs to be built upon foundations of mutual understanding and trust, and needs to be carried out by the many diverse organisations working to further international collaboration in fields such as education, science, culture and international relations.

    This campus and the networks of knowledge and learning it represents are a prime example of that, and illustrate clearly:

    First, that the flow of ideas and information around the world is now as much the preserve of students, of academics, of business people and of ordinary citizens as it is of governments.

    And second, that that flow and dialogue between individuals is critical to our collective future security and prosperity.

    So before you have the chance to turn the tables and address me, let me take this opportunity, not just as former Nottingham student myself, but also as a British Government Minister, to say how delighted I am to have had this opportunity to come here, and to congratulate you on the work you are doing, and the model for future cooperation you represent.

  • Gordon Brown – 2010 Speech at Labour HQ Following Election Defeat

    gordonbrown

    Below is the text of the speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, at Labour HQ in May 2010.

    On the back of our party cards it says: By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more together than we do alone.

    And in constituency after constituency despite all odds we proved that again and again on Thursday night.  By the strength of our common endeavour we achieved more together than any of us ever have done on our own.

    And so I am here to thank every member of Labour’s staff, every volunteer, every member, every supporter for what you have done in the past, and what I know you will do in the future.

    To thank also Harriet, Douglas, Peter, Ray Collins, the Chair of our NEC Ann Black, and our candidates and campaigners.

    We know – more certainly now than ever before – that there is a strong progressive majority in Britain.

    I wish more than I can possibly say that I could have mobilised that majority to carry the election– but I could not.

    And so now I have to accept – and indeed assert – personal responsibility. The fault is mine, and I will carry it alone.

    So to give this party I love the best possible chance to prepare for its future, I have resigned the leadership of the Labour Party with immediate effect.

    I wish my successor in that role well; and I will stand by Labour’s new leader, whoever that may be — loyally and without equivocation.

    Because one thing will not change: I am Labour, and Labour I will always be.

    Let me a few days after our election thank those who never gave up and never gave in, who fought so hard and whose dignity in defeat makes us so proud.

    In the past few weeks, our Labour Party has shown, even when up against the odds, what we are made of.

    Of course we went into this election massively outspent and with, shall I call it, a difficult media environment. In the most difficult of circumstances after an economic crisis a political expenses crisis and after 13 years in government it is to your enduring credit that we denied our opposition the majority they took for granted.

    And you know better than anybody how hard fought this election was, and how dependent we were on the small, well disciplined team of which you were such a crucial part. Strong policy, robust research, creative communications and inspired new media work were allied with the most targeted and the most commanding ground war I have seen in my whole time in politics.  And for all that, I thank you.

    And I’m proud to say that we proved last Thursday that committed people matter more than limitless cash.

    Sarah and I will never be able to thank you enough for what you have done. But I hope when you look back on these times you will tell your children, and your children’s children, about the Britain we built together and the good that we did in this campaign.

    Because let me tell you what it was really all about. Last week when I was out knocking on people’s doors … and this wasn’t recorded on tape … I met a girl who was exactly the same age as the Labour government. Born on the 1st of may 1997, she had grown to know and love a Britain with Sure Start, with one to one tuition, with the expectation that every person from every background will have the chance to get on and not just get by.

    She took opportunity for granted, and we fought for the chance for every child to be born in a Britain like that. We fought for the future.

    And we continue to fight unceasingly because progress is not a word we just speak but a reality we have been creating where the ambit of opportunity always expands and never contracts. And we fight for progress because we know the energy and talent of the British people are boundless whenever they are released from stereotype and allowed to soar.

    We know that progressive change is possible, because our very record shows it is.

    The minimum wage.

    Sure Start.

    The child tax credit.

    The shortest waiting times in NHS history.

    Record exam results in schools.

    More police officers than ever.

    Half a million children out of poverty.

    And two million more jobs than in 1997.

    And on top of everything we did to change Britain for the better and forever, we can be proud that there are people alive in Africa today, children in school there who have access to health care there, because of what we have done here thousands of miles away.

    So when this think of these times think on the lives saved and changed, and always remember – that New Labour’s achievements do not belong to me or to Tony Blair, but to you.

    We fought and will continue to fight for our public services –  services that are not something that we conjure up on our own– or that most of us can pay for by ourselves – but services that are valued because they and the realization of a true nobility that sees beyond selfish individualism, on to what can be done through our collective endeavour.

    That is why we fought – and why we together we will keep fighting for justice.

    So tell your children you were a part of this – but also never to stop believing that people of courage and conviction can lift our country and make it equal to its best ideals.

    So to those who gave their hearts, their hard work and their votes to labour, i say thank you. I will never forget how we stood together – in happier days and through the hardest hours.

    And so as you fight on, know that I will be with you, heart and soul.

    And know that you have my undying gratitude, because you have given the best of yourselves to the greatest of causes. And because you have fought every hour of every day you will be able to say for the rest of your days;

    I was there.

    I was on the progressive side of history.

    And you are part of a Labour Party which is and will always be the greatest fighting force for fairness our country has ever seen.

    We are irrepressible: we fight for fairness, and tomorrow we fight on.

  • Gordon Brown – 2010 Speech on Election Pledges

    gordonbrown

    Below is the text of the speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, before the 2010 General Election.

    In the history of each nation there are moments of clear decision. Moments when paths are chosen and decisions made that impact not only the months or years to come, but shape the whole course of the decades that follow. So it was in 1997. And so it is today, in 2010.

    In the dawn of this new decade, Britain faces the biggest choice for a generation. It is a choice about whether we want to continue on the road to economic recovery or want to turn off, whether we believe that we can face the biggest challenges with the strength of a community around us, or whether every individual should simply be left to sink or swim.

    The choice is real, the risks are real, and let us be clear, the consequences are real.

    If we get it wrong, we face what they themselves call an age of austerity. If we get it right, we can achieve an age of shared prosperity.

    The economy is more central and the choice more serious in this election than any time in my lifetime.

    That is why top of Labour’s pledges to the people is economic recovery.

    When people ask what are my top three priorities for the country let me tell them – keeping on the road to recovery, keeping on the road to recovery, keeping on the road to recovery.

    A sharp right turn off that road would risk your job, your home, your savings.

    Securing the economic recovery or wrecking it – that is the choice the country will face in the weeks ahead.

    Elections are choices for the future. And so I now pledge myself and my party to fighting each and every day for a fairer future for the people of Britain, a future in which the many and not just the few have the chance to earn a better life for themselves and their children.

    We will always put the British people first – before personal interest, our party interest, or any vested interest. We will renew this nation – not for our own benefit or the benefit of a narrow section or clique – but for all the people of this country we love.

    We are the people’s party – and we are pledged to serve the people. Today I am announcing the five pledges on which we will fight this election. Each is substantial, deliverable and carefully costed. If you will support us, we will:

    – Secure the recovery and halve the deficit through economic growth, fair taxes and cuts to lower priority spending.

    We pledge that we will:

    –  Raise family living standards, by keeping mortgage rates as low as possible, by increasing tax credits for families with young children, by providing new help for first-time buyers and by restoring the link between the state pension and earnings from 2012.

    We will:

    – Build a high tech economy, by supporting businesses and industry to create 1 million more skilled jobs and modernising our infrastructure with high-speed rail, a green investment bank and broadband access for all.

    We will:

    – Protect frontline investment in policing, schools, childcare and the NHS with a new guarantee of cancer test results within a week.

    And we will:

    – Strengthen fairness in communities through an Australian style points-based system to control immigration, through guaranteed education, apprenticeships and jobs for young people; and through a crack down on anti-social behaviour.

    I know that in this time of cynicism and lack of trust in politics, there are some people who will say that politicians will promise the earth but never deliver, that a pledge isn’t worth the paper it is written on.

    And I understand that, but these are not general pledges without dates, without tests, without scrutiny. these are our pledges to every single citizen, tied to timetables, regular reporting and proof of performance.

    So I want to build-in accountability mechanisms to the pledges we are making, so that you can hold me to account, and we can test our progress against our promises in the year to come.

    I believe the business of government should be more business-like – that the British people are the boss and like any employer they deserve to know about the performance of their team.

    And so I am proposing the following.

    Firstly, Sir Tim Berners Lee, the man most associated with the invention of the internet, is the government’s advisor on data openness and transparency all across the internet.

    In the months to come he will be ensuring that there is the maximum possible information available to the public at all times.

    This rapid extension of transparency will show in real time how government are delivering against our pledges.

    Secondly, I will set out a clear and public annual contract for each new Cabinet Minister, detailing what I expect them and their department to deliver to the British people, and that their continued appointment is dependent on their delivery just as it would be in a business or any other organisation.

    Thirdly, I will require the Cabinet Secretary to performance manage the Permanent Secretary of each department against their delivery of pledges and other priorities as set out in the letter of appointment.

    Because to be in Government is an honour – and if it is extended to us once again I am not prepared to waste a single second. We have big plans for this country – and we intend to see them through.

    We have already laid the foundations for a better fairer future in this week’s Budget for growth and jobs – a Labour Budget with progressive priorities. If you want to know who and what we stand for, just look at what Alastair announced;

    – We’re extending the young person’s guarantee, to ensure that young people continue to be guaranteed a job, training or working experience if they can’t find work within six months

    – We’re funding 20,000 extra undergraduate places on courses starting this year

    – We are investing in Britain’s 21st century infrastructure by creating a green investment bank that will support low-carbon projects

    – We are offering first time buyers a two year stamp duty holiday on transactions up to £250,000

    – From next month we will make additional payments of £100 into the child trust fund accounts of disabled children

    – And we will bring in a weekly increase in the basic state pension of £2.40 from next month, bringing greater comfort to 12 million older people

    That’s the difference with Labour – that’s the change we choose. So never doubt that you can build a fairer future. Never doubt we can lift this country and make it equal to its best ideals.

    Some will say that we should give up on such high ambitions, that the times to build a fair society are gone and now there’s nothing great that we can do. But 65 years ago, in the aftermath of war, our Labour Party stood before the British people and asked for a mandate to build a National Health Service.

    And what is the lesson of those days? Let others resign themselves to small ambitions – we the Labour Party have never believed that difficult times should mean diminished dreams.

    Caution says it is too difficult. But we are not cautious but resolute – because our party is the greatest force for fairness our country has ever seen.

    Fear says it is beyond our reach. But we are not afraid but bold – because our party will show the people that we are the greatest force for fairness our country has ever seen.

    Cynicism about politics says they’re all the same. But we are not cynical – we are energized – because our party will prove again that we are the greatest force for fairness our country has ever seen.

    Resignation says ‘they’ve had their time’. But Labour can never resign our ideals to fate we mark out a path ahead – we fight and we win whatever the odds because our party is and will always be the greatest force for fairness our country has ever seen.

    We will prove it again and again because our whole history tells us never to believe that injustice is forever woven into the fabric of our lives, never to believe that fairness is a dream beyond our grasp, never to doubt the British people’s desire for decency.

    So let the message go out from Nottingham – we may be the underdog but we are the people’s party and we never give up.

    And remember in the next few weeks, every step forward we make. Every advance we achieve. Every family whose aspirations we can meet is a victory not just for us, but for that fundamental desire for decency of the British people.

    Every time we change a life we change the world, we’ve done it before, and we will do it again.

    We are fighting for Britain’s future – and we intend to win.

  • Gordon Brown – 2010 Speech to Welsh Labour Party Conference

    gordonbrown

    Below is the text of the speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, to the Welsh Labour Party conference on 27th February 2010.

    Thank you friends – and let me say today that our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Chile who have suffered their country’s worst earthquake in 50 years. The people of Chile are in agony today, and Britain stands ready to help.

    And friends I wanted to talk about what we’ve achieved together – a Labour-led Welsh administration working with a Labour Government – a partnership that has changed Wales for the better and forever.

    You should be proud of the pioneering Proact and React jobs investments that have saved and created thousands of jobs.

    And for children and families, a nursery and early learning revolution that is transforming thousands of children’s lives.

    For school children, the largest ever school modernisation programme in the history of our country.

    For Welsh teenagers and adults a modern skills for work strategy a million miles away from the so called youth opportunities of the Tory years.

    For young couples starting out, funds to deliver more than 6000 affordable homes.

    For travel throughout Wales, new investment in our railways and in the Ebbw Vale railway line – a key line connecting our communities, closed under the Tories and re-opened with Labour.

    And for our older heroes – Welsh Labour made Wales the first nation of the UK to offer free bus travel for pensioners.

    In so many ways Labour Wales has led and had a huge an impact on the world – thinking of others and not just ourselves… And so let me also congratulate you on becoming the very first Fairtrade nation on our planet.

    So today we’re talking about major Labour achievements, great social advances. Even in spite of a global recession and the difficulties we have faced, we’ve had thirteen years of progress – and let us say that what we have built together with the people of Wales we will never now let the Conservatives destroy.

    You know there is one symbol the people of Wales have chosen to demonstrate how you are building the future.

    Every time a new baby is born in Wales you plant a new tree to celebrate that birth.

    And in planting a new tree you are not only protecting the environment for them and for the generation to come, you are sending a message about the future, that every single child should be able to grow and thrive and realise their potential to the full.

    That’s what I love about Wales, that with the greatest traditions of community inspiring us from the past, you are a nation that is always thinking of the future.

    And so today I want to talk to you about the big choices we face for the future. I want to talk about the jobs of the future, the industries of the future and the public services of the future.

    I want to talk about the future we can win if we make the right choices, and what we all stand to lose if we make the wrong ones.

    And let me say our first economic priority, our second economic priority, and our third economic priority for our country remains as it has always been – jobs, jobs, jobs.

    Why? Because I know like you that every redundancy is a personal tragedy. Every lost job is an aspiration destroyed. Every business closure is someone’s dream in ruins.

    So we must never allow a return to the years of the Conservative Government – uncaring, unfair, years of mass unemployment and lost hope.

    Our shared concern about the tragedies of unemployment arises from our background and our values.

    Like so many here I come from a family whose grandfather went without work during much of the 1930s.

    A grandfather whose small savings gave his son, my father, the chance of an education, the first in our family to go to university.

    And the lesson of those days is that even in the worst of times families helped each other, supported each other, came to the aid of each other through thousands of acts of friendship caring and support. And that reveals the most important lesson of all; that it’s not markets that create morals: morals spring from the compassion of our hearts.

    In the last two years in the face of the worst global financial recession seen since the 1930’s we have had to make some of the biggest and most difficult decisions. But that’s what leadership is all about.

    We had a choice – to take control of failing banks and to nationalise Northern Rock or to take the Tory view, to reject on ideological grounds the very idea of public ownership.

    And what happened? The savings of ordinary families were protected not by default but by a decision made by a Labour Government on behalf of, and with the support of, the British people – and in the face of the ideological opposition of the Conservative Party.

    We had a choice to do what the Conservatives said and ‘let the recession take its course’.

    Or to help 17,000 businesses in Wales and 300,000 businesses across the United Kingdom to get the cash flow they needed.

    That didn’t happen by chance; it happened by choice our choice – the choice of a Labour Government.

    And then we had another decision; to leave the unemployed at the mercy of market forces or to support jobs and young people into work and training and ensure that 1.7 million more people are in work than if the experience of the last recession had been repeated.

    So let’s be proud; of jobs protected not by accident but by our actions, actions a Labour Government took on behalf of and with the support of the British people – and in the face of the ideological opposition of the Conservative Party.

    And then we had another choice – to help 300,000 families with advice and assistance with their mortgages so they can stay in the homes they worked so hard to buy.

    And that meant people’s homes saved not by chance – but by our choice – the choice of a Labour Government on behalf of and with the support of the British people – and in the face of the ideological opposition of the Conservative Party.

    At each turning point our opponents would have made the wrong decision.

    But for us doing nothing was simply not an option, because, for us, unemployment is not a price worth paying.

    And now we have a choice in the coming days.

    The Conservative Party always opposed the fiscal stimulus; they want to cut now the support we are giving to jobs, homes and businesses.

    A few days ago they said they want to tear up the 2010 budget, impose deep cuts immediately and accused us of moral cowardice for not doing so.

    Of course, typically of them, they called for big cuts before they called for small cuts before they called for modest cuts before they called for big cuts yet again.

    So their biggest claim to be the party of change is that they are the Party that keeps changing their minds.

    But I say: the consistent truth is that just as public investment has been the only way to move the economy out of recession and just as we have in place a four year deficit reduction plan to halve the deficit in the years to come, public investment must be maintained throughout 2010 until the road to recovery is assured.

    And so I tell you: we will not put at risk the recovery and the jobs, the businesses and the homes of thousands of people who would be the direct victims of immediate Conservative cuts coming at the worst possible time.

    And now from today there is an even bigger choice the country now faces for times to come – how we create the jobs of the future – how we can secure our shared prosperity and prevent the unemployment that every Conservative Government has brought.

    In the 1980s and the 1990s here in Wales and around the UK we marched for jobs, we rallied for jobs, we petitioned for jobs.

    And then we got into Government and we set about creating and supporting jobs. And now we have to work hard again for the new jobs for the future.

    In 1997 employment in Wales was 1 million 200,000 men and women in work the latest estimate is almost 1.3 million men and women in work –

    That’s despite the recession nearly 100,000 more people in jobs than when we first came to office.

    Nearly 100,000 more men and women in work than in 1997. Nearly 100,000 more families that have the chance of prosperity they didn’t have. That’s nearly 100,000 people more able to contribute not just to their families but to the community.

    And because every redundancy and period of unemployment is a matter of regret for me, I want us to do even better in the months to come.

    That’s why I propose a new UK industrial policy to signal the creation across the country of 1.5 million skilled new jobs for the future.

    Wales is leading the world in biotechnology with already a cluster of 250 companies.

    Here at the institute of life sciences at Swansea University Wales is, with IBM, a world research hub for life sciences – with its world beating supercomputer dedicated to life science research.

    And unlike the Conservatives we believe in and will push forward an industrial partnership between business, universities and Government to create over the next decade 100,000 new UK jobs. That means jobs with Labour, jobs at risk with the Conservatives.

    And let me also congratulate Bangor University’s School of Chemistry for yet another world leading role from Wales – a plan to eradicate a disease which has killed millions – Wales leading the global fight against the scourge of tuberculosis.

    And let us be proud that Wales is one of the countries leading the world with new jobs in energy – the UK pioneer for hydrogen energy, with the hydrogen engine test facility – and now the hydrogen highway, creating green jobs and companies to boost the low carbon economy. And while the Tories opposed the investment we made during the recession to help low carbon industries I can assure you that we will continue to invest in the green economy which can create another 400,000 future jobs.

    And Wales can lead in broadband and digital too. Because while the Tories oppose the funding we are putting in place, a Labour Government can ensure that no business in Wales and no family in Wales is denied the chance to benefit from the digital revolution.

    And let us be most proud of all that Wales is leading in the advanced manufacturing we need for the future.

    And let us congratulate Airbus and the Labour-led Welsh Assembly on securing one of the biggest groups of apprentices on a single site in the country – young people in North Wales, working with Airbus to create the products of tomorrow.

    That shows just what young people can do.

    So never again should someone’s potential be lost before their lives have really begun. Never again should their talent be written off. Never again should their contribution be lost.

    And that’s why, for the first time, we are putting in law young people’s rights to an apprenticeship and ensuring that an apprenticeship place is available for every suitably qualified young person by 2013. And thanks to Labour the minimum apprentice wage has just risen by more than 20 percent.

    In total we will have spent five billion pounds creating jobs and helping millions of people into them and we will continue support for young people even as we cut the budget deficit in more than half in the next four years.

    And it is because we are so determined to cut the deficit that we have already introduced tax changes and announced not only efficiency drives but cuts in some areas.

    Because we have never shied away from tough choices and we never will.

    And so I’m here to tell you that the Labour Party – our Government – has a strategy for prosperity – not just for the few, not for some, but for all. And even in the hard times we have not been deflected.

    And so today let me say this to the British people; if each and every person who can find work is prepared to take it, then I am prepared to do what it takes to secure not only Britain’s recovery, but to advance further and faster to the full employment of our ambitions.

    But let me also be clear; Labour’s focus on employment means precisely that. It means everyone who can work should work.

    Because there’s nothing progressive about allowing people to languish on benefits while their talents go to waste. And there’s nothing left of centre about denying to some people the pride, the rewards and the worth of work.

    That’s why we have told every young person who is offered work through our Future Jobs Fund that they will lose their benefit if they refuse a job. That’s why we have reformed the incapacity system so its no longer about what people cannot do but what people can.

    And that’s why we have told benefit cheats that if they scam the system, they will face immediate penalties.

    If young people don’t want to work, there will be no free passes. But for all those who are willing, you have a Government on your side.

    And so let us reassert in this time and in this place – that the recession has not weakened but strengthened our resolve to create jobs, that Labour has not deserted our historic goal for employment, but we are redoubling our efforts to achieve it. And that this fragile global recovery is not a reason to change tack but the reason to stay the course.

    And so today I feel compelled to warn you about the risk the Tories pose. The risk to the recovery, the risk to frontline services and yes, the risk to jobs. The risk to fairness.

    I said last week that people should take a long hard look at the Conservatives. And now the time has come for some simple straightforward questions about the risks that they pose to our country and to our economy.

    Because when they talk about change, just ask them a simple question: why they cannot tell you just weeks before their promised emergency budget which front line services they plan to cut this year, how many thousands of jobs are at risk and how much they would endanger the recovery.

    And when they talk about change, ask them why they can find that £200,000 for each of these 3,000 richest estates in our country but they are this year proposing to take tax credits away from over a million families.

    And when they talk about change, ask them why they say they can’t afford to guarantee front line police on our streets at the same time as undermining all the efforts we are making to close down tax havens.

    Ask them why when times are hard for families they wanted an end in Wales to free bus passes for the elderly and free prescriptions.

    Ask them why they want to isolate Britain on the fringe of Europe and work with only the most extreme right wing parties.

    Ask them why they want to keep the hereditary principle in the House of Lords.

    And ask them if they are the party of change why their highest priority at a time like this is to bring back fox hunting.

    And you know – after their slogan was announced today, I really think we ought to ask them. How they can claim to be the party of change when these policies –defending the lords, backing fox hunting, designing inheritance tax cuts, are not exactly new but the very policies that have defined the Conservative Party for a hundred years.

    Friends, in their policy of change for change’s sake, change that would take us backwards, they would risk our recovery, risk our frontline public services, and risk our country’s future.

    They call themselves progressive Conservatives but what they offer is not a manifesto but a masquerade. Not a vote for change that would take us forwards but take us backwards. For they would make the wrong changes, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons, to benefit the wrong people.

    And let us be in no doubt; they are not the party of change for families but the party that would short-change families.

    Child Tax Credits – Labour achievement. Tory target. But we will not let them do this to our families.

    The Child Trust Fund – Labour achievement. Tory target. But we will not let them do this to our children.

    21st century schools for a 21st century education – Labour achievement. Tory target. But we will not let them do this to our young people.

    A Children’s Centre in every community – Labour achievement. Tory target. But we will not them do this to our future.

    The Social Chapter which helped deliver maternity, paternity and flexible working rights – Labour achievement. Tory target. But we will not let them do that to our rights.

    If the Tories were ever to trick the British people and win the election we would see in a matter of months a generation of achievements starting to be wiped out.

    A hard won economic recovery put at risk.

    The NHS we have rebuilt in danger.

    The education of our children under threat.

    But I say again; we will not let them do this to our country.

    Because here in Wales the soul of our party is in the soil of these hills and in the toil of generations.

    People who cared about each other, who reached out to each other, who in times of trouble sought to lift each other, who in times of prosperity sought to share with each other.

    People who not only believed but proved that there is such a thing a society.

    People who had coal dust on their faces but never lost their visions of a decent society.

    And from these valleys, with your own experience of the inequalities and indignities of 1930s health care – of nurses having to leave the bed of their patients to run charity flag days for vital life-saving hospital equipment – men and women went on to create what people once thought impossible: a National Health Service, the greatest act of compassion our country has seen.

    And over six decades what these visionary Welsh men and women achieved was not the sixty years mistake a prominent Tory called the NHS, but sixty year liberation for every single family in this country.

    And their journey – through all the successes and the setbacks, in the happiest and in the hardest of days – their journey teaches us, we who have inherited their vision.

    Never to give up.

    Never to give in.

    Always to hold to our ideals.

    Always to fight for a future fair for all.

    And so I ask you today: will you join me in the fight for fairness?

    Let us carry this fight all across Wales and all across the country.

    And when people ask if we can win that fight in 2010, I say:

    We can. We must. And we will.

  • Gordon Brown – 2010 Speech on Building Britain’s Digital Future

    gordonbrown

    Below is the text of the speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, on 26th March 2010.

    As we emerge from recession, we face fundamental questions about the kind of Britain we want to build for the future; and about who will lead us there.

    Choices: about who’s best for jobs? Who’s best for industry? Who’s best for the NHS, schools and public services?

    Decisions about the changes we must make this year that will lead us to a better tomorrow.

    And we need to ask: who has the plan not just to secure recovery – but to go for growth? The plan that will mean not just jobs for us today – but jobs for our children tomorrow? The plan that will see British business not just succeeding in the global marketplace of this generation – but leading in the global industries of the next?

    This week’s budget will set out the next stage of our plan to go for growth.

    It is built on two essential pillars.

    First, given the fragility of the economy both here and across the world, and the continuing weakness of the global financial system, the essential requirement today is to do everything possible to nurture and secure the recovery and put Britain back on a solid course for strong and balanced growth.

    Second, once that recovery is secured – and the private sector is once again strong enough to drive the upturn without exceptional support from the Government – we must carefully but decisively bring public borrowing back down fairly and without damaging front line public services.

    Our strategy for growth is not at the expense of the tough deficit reduction plan we have set out; rather it is absolutely central to it. Because it is growth that creates jobs, stimulates demand and brings in revenue.

    We know that the strong and balanced growth that we need will not materialise if we simply do nothing, stand back and leave it all to unbridled market dogma. If we have learnt one thing from the global recession of the last two years, it is that unfettered and unregulated markets cannot by themselves be relied upon to deliver a fair future for all of our citizens.

    Instead of a gamble on crude laissez faire economic theories we need a new industrial strategy for this country founded on an open partnership of business, people and government – doing all we can to support enterprise as the engine of economic growth and unleashing the entrepreneurial, innovative and dynamic talents we have in Britain.

    Encouraging those sectors in which Britain has – or can build – a global advantage; so Britain can truly lead the world.

    It means where necessary, investing now to provide the conditions in which private enterprise in these sectors can thrive.

    Sectors such as advanced manufacturing, clean energy, high speed rail, pharmaceuticals, science and research; and of course the digital industries – on which I want to focus my remarks this morning.

    I want us to consider today the Britain of 2020 – the Britain we can create at the leading edge of these knowledge industries, but also a Britain which leads the world in open, personal, interactive public services and in the new politics.

    I want to make a radical set of proposals which include transfers and shifts in existing spending, including being prepared to cancel current projects, and which – together with more detailed plans set out by the Chancellor in the budget on Wednesday – will help us to save billions of pounds a year in public sector costs in the next few years.

    I want Britain to be the world leader in the digital economy which will create over a quarter of a million skilled jobs by 2020; the world leader in public service delivery where we can give the greatest possible voice and choice to citizens, parents patients and consumers; and the world leader in the new politics where that voice for feedback and deliberative decisions can transform the way we make local and national policies and decisions.

    Underpinning the digital transformation that we are likely to see over the coming decade is the creation of the next generation of the web – what is called the semantic web, or the web of linked data.

    This next generation web is a simple concept, but I believe it has the potential to be just as revolutionary – just as disruptive to existing business and organisational models – as the web was itself, moving us from a web of managing documents and files to a web of managing data and information – and thus opening up the possibility of by-passing current digital bottlenecks and getting direct answers to direct requests for data and information.

    It will change fundamentally the way we conduct business – with new enterprises by-passing traditional media communications and governmental organisations: new enterprises spun off from the new data, information and knowledge that flows more freely.

    And in both the content and delivery of public services the next stage of the web will transform the ability of citizens to tailor the services they need to their requirements, to feedback constantly on their success, to interact with the professionals who deliver them and to put the citizen not the public servant in control.

    Today I can announce the first funding for the next stage of this research – £30m to support the creation of a new institute, the institute of web science – based here in Britain and working with government and British business to realise the social and economic benefits of advances in the web.

    It will assemble the best of world scientists and researchers and be headed by Sir Tim Berners Lee, the British inventor of the world wide web – and the leading web science expert Professor Nigel Shadbolt.

    This will help place the UK at the cutting edge of research on the semantic web and other emerging web and internet technologies, and ensure that government is taking the right funding decisions to position the UK as a world leader. And we will invite universities and private sector web developers and companies to join this collaborative project.

    So building on this next generation web and the radical opening up of information and data – and therefore more power in people’s hands – the steps towards achieving this ambition to become the leader in the next stage of the digital revolution are three-fold:

    First to digitalise – to make Britain the leading superfast broadband digital power creating 100 per cent access to every home;

    Second to personalise – seizing the opportunities for voice and choice in our public services by opening up data and using the power of digital technology to transform the way citizens interact with government;

    Third to economise – in the Pre-Budget Report we set out our determination to find £11 billion of savings by driving up operational efficiency, much of it enabled by the increased transparency and reduced costs made available by new technology.

    On Wednesday the Chancellor will set out more detailed plans for delivering these savings, totalling, overall, £20 billion.

    But over the period ahead I want to go much further in harnessing the power of technology to refashion the structures and workings of government – delivering efficiencies not simply in the back room; but also looking at how the new technologies can open the door to a reinvention of the core policy-making processes and towards a renewal of politics itself.

    Let me address each of these stages in more detail.

    Britain is uniquely equipped to lead the digital age. We are already an international hub for creativity and commerce. We have the most lucrative e-commerce market in Europe.

    And more than a quarter of our jobs – 7 million – are already in information, communications and technology related roles – a higher proportion than in France, Germany or America.

    This country has always been at its best when it has led the world in its pursuit of creativity and innovation and in the promotion of fairness and liberty. And in so many ways these issues have come together in the extraordinary development of the world wide web.

    It is already creating formidable new businesses and transforming the way existing businesses operate. From online shopping and banking to checking train times or booking flights. From catching up with the news to staying in touch with our family and friends – the web has already profoundly changed the way many of us go about our daily lives.

    And it’s not just about convenience – it’s about quality of life too.

    The other day I heard how one of Britain’s leading musicians, who spends most of his time abroad, reads his young son a bedtime story from thousands of miles away using Skype. And millions of us can now spend more time with our families because technology allows people to work easily from home.

    And although hard to imagine, the revolution we have witnessed so far is only just beginning. The next stage will be radical expansion and enhancement of two-way communication between service providers and homes that new superfast broadband is beginning to make possible.

    The Google smart meters programme delivers real time information on home energy use to mobiles and office desktops, helping people to manage energy consumption when they are out – and so save money.

    And it could soon be commonplace for children to continue learning together after the school bell has rung by studying in virtual classrooms; and for doctors to hold video consultations from their surgeries with patients at home to diagnose and in some cases even treat them.

    The internet revolution is quite literally creating a different world.

    But just imagine if you weren’t part of that world.

    Imagine if you had never accessed the Internet.

    Imagine if you had no access to the best deals on the virtual high street – that can save you on average £560 a year by shopping and paying bills online.

    Well that is reality for around one in five adults in the UK. 21% of UK adults have never accessed the internet. That’s over a fifth trapped in a second tier of citizenship, denied what I increasingly think of as a fundamental freedom in the modern world: to be part of the internet and technology revolution.

    This is unfair, economically inefficient and wholly unacceptable.

    Consider the advent of electricity. How acceptable would it have been to say that only some people should have access to electricity?

    Superfast broadband is the electricity of the digital age. And I believe it must be for all – not just for some.

    We have already decided to commit public funding to ensure existing broadband reaches nearly every household in Britain by 2012.

    Now government must decide what action it will take to bring about universal access to the next generation of superfast broadband, simultaneously ensuring the highest quality content is available online and available to all.

    The choice with broadband infrastructure is clear. We can allow unbridled market forces to provide a solution on its own terms and according to its own timetable as others would do.

    The result would be superfast broadband coverage determined not even by need or social justice, or by the national interest but by profitability alone. This would open a lasting, pervasive and damaging new digital divide.

    It would allow the country to become split between a fast-track and a slow-track to the future, between those fortunate to live in densely-populated areas and those not.

    But to concede a willingness to have superfast broadband reserved for some rather than for all also betrays a total failure to grasp the scale of the educational, economic and social opportunities that it brings.

    Because the truth is that a government that is prepared to allow a digital divide to grow would be one that creates a deeper and more pernicious divide than simply one of accessing e-mail or online shopping services.

    Faster broadband speeds will bring new, cheaper, more personalised and more effective public services to people; it will bring games and entertainment options with new levels of sophistication; it will make accessing goods and services immeasurably easier; it will enrich our democracy by giving people new ways of communicating complaining and challenging vested interests.

    In short, the world available to those with superfast broadband will be unimaginably richer than to those without.

    So one vision for digital Britain would create two nations: one digitally privileged, one digitally deprived.

    And this will mean a massive penalty in economic development to those who are denied access because of a failure of government to rise to the challenge where markets may fail.

    The alternative is our vision: ensuring, not simply hoping for, universal coverage.

    We say that Britain’s digital future – must be a future for all – not just for some. But if every household is to benefit, then it is fair that every household contributes to meeting this goal.

    That is why we have chosen to raise a small levy on each household phone line – 50p per month, about the price of a pint of milk – to help fund a partnership with the private sector for a superfast broadband network right across Britain.

    Building a universal fast-speed digital infrastructure is necessary but not sufficient.

    High quality content – whether it is news, entertainment, games, networking sites or information services – relies on maintaining the conditions for innovation and competition online.

    So in addition to the measures in our digital economy bill, I say clearly today, we will support the independence of Ofcom to ensure creativity, diversity and high standards. And we will retain the BBC licence fee to ensure a strong, independent BBC remains at the forefront of providing world-class quality content across different media.

    So we are:

    – Investing now in bringing superfast broadband and new technology to all;

    – Creating the right environment for innovation and competition in the digital sector; and

    – Leading the next generation of the web and internet.

    But now we must use this technology to open up data with the aim of providing every citizen in Britain with true ownership and accountability over the services they demand from government.

    And in doing so we can put in place the best most personalised but universally accessible digital public services in the world, and harness the power of technology to economise – shaking up Whitehall and making us the most efficient, open and responsive government in the world.

    Building on the outstanding work Sir Tim and Nigel Shadbolt who have been leading on ‘making public data public’, I can now announce that we are determined to go further in breaking down the walled garden of government, using technology and information to provide greater transparency on the workings of Whitehall and give everyone more say over the services they receive.

    In January we launched data.gov.uk, a single, easy-to-use website to access public data. And even in the short space of time since then, the interest this initiative has attracted – globally – has been very striking. The site already has more than three thousand data sets available – and more are being added all the time. And in the past month the Office for National Statistics has opened up access for web developers to over two billion data items right down to local neighbourhood level.

    The Department for Transport and the transport industry are today making available the core reference datasets that contain the precise names and co-ordinates of all 350 thousand bus stops, railway stations and airports in Britain.

    Public transport timetables and real-time running information is currently owned by the operating companies. But we will work to free it up – and from today we will make it a condition of future franchises that this data will be made freely available.

    And following the strong support in our recent consultation, I can confirm that from 1st April, we will be making a substantial package of information held by ordnance survey freely available to the public, without restrictions on re-use. Further details on the package and government’s response to the consultation will be published by the end of March.

    And I can also tell you today that in the autumn the Government will publish online an inventory of all non-personal datasets held by departments and arms-length bodies – a “domesday book” for the 21st century.

    The programme will be managed by the National Archives and it will be overseen by a new open data board which will report on the first edition of the new domesday book by April next year. The Government will then produce its detailed proposals including how this work can be extended to the wider public sector.

    To inform the continuing development of making public data public, the National Archives will produce a consultation paper on a definition of the “public task” for public data, to be published later this year.

    The new domesday book will for the first time allow the public to access in one place information on each set of data including its size, source, format, content, timeliness, cost and quality. And there will be an expectation that departments will release each of these datasets, or account publicly for why they are not doing so.

    Any business or individual will be free to embed this public data in their own websites, and to use it in creative ways within their own applications.

    For example, Jobcentre Plus now offers a job search widget which can be put on any other website and a similar application for mobile phones.

    And independent developers are using the information we’ve published for innovative new websites and mobile phone applications such as ‘asborometer’ – built by one person in just five days. It finds your position using GPS and tells you how many people have been served with an asbo in that area. When it launched last month it was the number one free application in the iTunes store after a reported 80,000 downloads in two days.

    We’re determined that government websites should be efficient and meet people’s needs – easy to find, easy to use, and fully accessible. And in our relentless drive to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the way we use websites to meet this goal, we have already closed 900 now unnecessary government websites, with plans to close nearly 500 more. And we will set new challenging standards of quality and accountability for government websites – including a requirement that each one allows feedback and engagement with citizens themselves.  From today no new website will be allowed unless it fully meets these requirements.

    Six years ago we launched Directgov, as the first version of a joined-up view of government on the web.

    It now has 25 million visits a month, offering in one place a single portal of information for all citizens on all our public services. And by the end of May, developers will be able to use content from the Directgov website – for example, to translate it into another language, to rearrange it so that it is more relevant for a specific local community, to alert people when it changes, or to let people create their own personal tailored view of Directgov.

    But we need to go much further.

    So our goal is to replace this first generation of e-government with a much more interactive second generation form of digital engagement which we are calling Mygov.

    Companies that use technology to interact with their users are positioning themselves for the future, and government must do likewise.  Mygov marks the end of the one-size-fits-all, man-from-the-ministry-knows-best approach to public services.

    Mygov will constitute a radical new model for how public services will be delivered and for how citizens engage with government – making interaction with government as easy as internet banking or online shopping. This open, personalised platform will allow us to deliver universal services that are also tailored to the needs of each individual; to move from top-down, monolithic websites broadcasting public service information in the hope that the people who need help will find it – to government on demand.

    And rather than civil servants being the sole authors and editors, we will unleash data and content to the community to turn into applications that meet genuine needs. This does not require large-scale government IT Infrastructure; the ‘open source’ technology that will make it happen is freely available. All that is required is the will and willingness of the centre to give up control.

    This bold new approach will transform the way services are delivered but, more importantly, it will be the vehicle through which citizens will come to control the services that are so important to their lives and communities. With Mygov, citizens will be in control – choosing the content relevant to them and determining their level of engagement. And their feedback will in turn help us to improve services.

    With the rapid development of technology consumers today expect so much more – but when it comes to government they don’t always seem to get it. With Mygov they will.

    Today you can book and pay for a holiday online in minutes. Why can’t you do that for a blue badge for a disabled person? With Mygov you will.

    You can deal with your bank when and where you want, at any time that suits you. Why can’t you do that with your Jobcentre? With Mygov you will.

    These days websites tell you what other services or products might interest you. Why don’t government websites do that? With Mygov they will.

    And recognising the frustrations of having to prove ID in different ways to access different services, we have launched the access to public services initiative to provide a shared service across government, allowing users of government services to identify themselves simply and definitively, and to access those services online.

    Online, Mygov will give people a simple “dashboard” to manage their pensions, tax credits or child benefits; pay their council tax; fix their doctors or hospital appointment and control their own treatment; apply for the schools of their choice and communicate with their children’s teachers; or get a new passport or driving licence – all available when and where they need it.

    And it’s not just about gains for citizens either. Businesses can benefit too. By the end of the year, all public service contracts over 20 thousand pounds will be available on a single, free, easy-to-use online portal, and the data will be available free of charge for others to re-use.

    To help us realise this vision I am delighted that Martha Lane Fox has agreed to broaden her current role to become the UK’s digital champion and help us establish in the cabinet office – at the heart of government – a new digital public services unit.

    The unit will be charged with ensuring that departments achieve rapid progress on transferring and transforming services to online channels.

    It will ensure those services are designed around the needs of those who use them most.

    And it will put the 4 million people who are among the heaviest users of government services – but who have never used the internet – at the heart of our strategy rather than letting them literally slip through the digital net.

    Increasingly the digital net will be the social safety net – the only way to extend access to new, higher quality and more efficient digital services, to all of our citizens.

    Pricewaterhousecoopers has estimated that the Government can save £900 million a year just by bringing those who don’t have access to the internet online so that they can carry out transactions with public services more quickly and efficiently.

    We know that for every transaction with a public service that is done online rather than over the telephone we can save around £3.30 in administration and staffing costs.  And using the internet rather than filling in paper forms or writing letters can typically save £12 each time.

    But the total savings would be far bigger if all public services could be accessed online.

    So I want the new unit to act as a dynamic force for change within government helping to quickly drive significant cost savings with radically increased digital public service delivery.

    But this drive to economise must go further than the delivery of public services – for the coming second digital revolution also offers the opportunity to radically refashion government and Whitehall departments.

    A restructuring that means we become the most efficient, open and responsive government in the world. A reform that should allow us to make major savings on running costs – while providing better services to the citizen.

    Traditionally Whitehall departments have in varying proportions comprised three main elements. First, policy teams including people who oversee or regulate front-line delivery agencies. Second, a set of public-facing, often transactional services. And third, a series of back office functions essentially supporting the other two.

    The power of the new digital technology now gives us the chance to transform this model: to make Whitehall and the wider public sector more efficient and more effective.

    Every industry has felt the force of the internet’s ability to empower consumers and increase transparency. Now is our opportunity to be one of the world’s leading governments addressing these challenges – to oversee an enormous shift from what many have in the past seen  as  a  too  paternalistic, closed Whitehall to an open, interactive responsive enabler  where citizens personalise shape and ultimately control their services.

    I have already set out how I believe Mygov can transform the nature and cost of the Government’s public facing services.  But the same is potentially true of the other two core civil service functions.

    Take the back office. The Government is committed to achieving £4bn of savings from back office functions by 2012-13. To drive this ambitious programme forward, we intend to establish a number of business service companies that will handle the routine back office functions of Whitehall departments.

    The prototype for this new approach already exists – the shared services centre in the department for work and pensions, which already supports 140,000 staff in three departments and plans to take on four more in the next year. DWP also has plans to establish its shared services as a trading fund within the next twelve months, and will explore in parallel the scope for bringing further commercial expertise into its work.

    Our aim and intention is that these public business service companies will use modern digital platforms wherever possible, and aim to be leaders in green technology and working practices. And as they demonstrate progress there is no reason why these companies should not in time draw in private capital, giving rise to the possibility of substantial capital receipts.

    I believe that a similar approach can also be used to drive down the Government’s property costs. Significant efficiency improvements have been made over recent years and overall costs are now £740 million a year lower in real terms than in 2003.

    But operating costs can still be reduced further. We have committed to save £5 billion per year in running costs and dispose of £20 billion surplus property over the next decade.  To achieve this we will look to create a number of specialist government held property vehicles run on commercial lines.

    But the impact of technology on central government should not be confined to the back office and transactional services. We have within our grasp the opportunity to harness new technology to deliver a major step forward in giving the public a greater influence over the Whitehall policy making process.

    Revitalising our politics, our governance and our democracy means going beyond simply increased openness about previously secret information – it requires the policy-making monopoly of ministers and the civil service to be challenged – where practicable – through a step change in the opportunities for people to engage with and interact with government in its policy proposals.

    And it also means a less centralised approach to government. The Chancellor will publish on Wednesday Ian Smith’s report on how to secure a further substantial transfer of civil servants out of London and the South East to other parts of the country. I intend to build on this in the next parliament with a further strengthening of the role of regional ministers and a streamlining and amalgamation of central government functions at the regional level.

    At the same time I want to look again at whether we need so many independent Whitehall departments in the age of digital government. Most policy and delivery issues cut across the departmental boundaries – and it is not clear – despite much  innovation and experimentation with cross cutting units projects and public service agreements – how the traditional silo-based Whitehall approach can best be overcome.

    I have said there will be at least a 20 per cent cut in the senior civil service paybill and the Chancellor will provide more details of this in the Budget. And as we make these radical changes we can also reduce the number of Whitehall departments.

    But as well as rethinking how the different parts of the Government machine can be streamlined and decentralised we must urgently explore too how all practical means for giving the public far greater influence over the Whitehall and Westminster policy-making processes.

    The web and the internet offers us a chance to reinvent “deliberative democracy” for the modern age.

    Digital government will help open the door to new ways of enabling people to influence and even decide public policy. And it will give them better and more comprehensive access to the information they need to make informed choices.

    Ultimately this can provide the basis for them to participate in deliberative processes to formulate policy – setting off a historic shift in the way public policy is made.

    This includes opening more policy development to wider scrutiny, for example through the use of e-petitions and deliberative events.

    Since it was established at the end of 2006, the number 10 e-petitions service has received more than 70 thousand petitions. There have been more than 12 million signatures placed and the Government has replied with more than 8 million e-mail responses.

    Each week I record a podcast and use twitter most days. Number10.gov.uk carries out daily conversations with more than 1.7 million followers. There have been almost 2 million views of our images on flickr and 4.3 million views of our films and videos on YouTube.

    But we can do much more. Today, we are launching a brand new Number 10 iPhone application that will bring news, video and audio from the downing street website to potentially millions of users completely free of charge.

    So what I am talking about is in essence a new partnership to govern – an invitation for people to directly share in the task of government that is there to serve them.

    And I am today tasking every department to identify the far wider scope for deliberative engagements with the public, specifiying the outcome expected from such engagement.

    The digital revolution is creating a different world. And I know that we in Britain have the spirit and the talent to take the lead in that new world.

    The question is whether we are bold enough to make the necessary decisions today to build Britain’s digital future.

    My message is clear.

    We have the courage to invest in that future and secure the growth and jobs it offers not just today but for generations to come.

    We have the determination to harness the new digital technology to shake up Whitehall and drive a radical reshaping of government – focused on giving people a greater say over the policies that affect their lives and the services on which they depend.

    And above all – we have the resolve to make sure that the immense opportunities that Britain’s digital future offers us are available to all – not just to some.