Below is the text of the speech made by Kenny MacAskill, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice in the Scottish Parliament, to the SNP conference in October 2011.
Ladies and gentlemen, fellow delegates.
What a difference a year makes. Well, in some respects. You may remember last year, whilst expressing how privileged I was to serve as Justice Secretary I lamented that whilst Cabinet colleagues went to India and South East Asia I went to Belfast – and was very pleased to do so.
So much so that while my colleagues have been or are going back to China, India and America, I went back to Belfast once again.
This time highlights included visiting the Police Board Headquarters, followed by a visit to the Police Service of Northern Ireland HQ and a visit to PSNI station in loyalist East Belfast.
I know what you are thinking – why should I have all the fun? True. That’s why Roseanna is getting to go too!
There are considerable upsides to my privileged position. When I came back last week from visiting my son abroad, before I had even got through passport control I had been identified and acknowledged by the visible police presence. It wasn’t just the rest of the passengers, but me that began to wonder what I had done!
Delegates, last year I stood before you and stated the record upon which we sought re-election – 1,000 additional police officers into our communities and they in turn delivered a 33-year low in recorded crime. But it wasn’t just the outcome of the election that got better. Because ladies and gentlemen this year we have 1,100 additional officers and a 35-year low in recorded crime. We were returned as a majority Government because we are making Scotland stronger and safer. We are moving Scotland forward.
But it’s not just on recorded crime that we are moving forward. Violent crime is down by just under a fifth since we came to office and the possession of knives and other offensive weapons is down by almost 40% since we took office. But for those who transgress, there is no hiding place, because sentences are up for the fifth consecutive year.
We are not just making Scotland safer, but making Scottish communities feel safer. People are more positive about the crime rate in their local area than at any time in the last ten years and the risk of becoming a victim of crime continues to fall and is lower than south of the border. It’s a record upon which we were re-elected and it’s a record that we can be proud of.
But we are not complacent. We do know that there’s still far too many tragedies caused by knives in our country. We are taking action on the booze and blade culture that causes so much mayhem and too much misery in too many parts. The No Knives Better Lives scheme is making progress. In Inverclyde knife crime down by 35%. In Renfrewshire down by 29%.
We have extended it into Edinburgh, Glasgow and Clackmannan and, later this month, I will be announcing it’s extension still further. There’s a long way to go, but we are moving forward.
However, we recognise as a Government that it’s not just about dealing with the consequences of crime, but stopping crime occurring. That’s why since we came to office, over £44 million has been spent on the Cashback for Communities Scheme – providing opportunities for over 600,000 young people. Football, basketball, rugby, have all benefitted as well as arts, drama and other outlets for young folk’s energy. Earlier this week, I announced £360,000 to be invested into boxing in Scotland. It’s not my sport – I’m a football man – but I tell you this – because the police tell me it – it works for the some of the hard to handle kids as well as many others. Some may go on to be a Ken Buchanan or a Jim Watt, but for many others it simply keeps them out of trouble, on the straight and narrow, and fit and healthy.
But we do face challenges. None perhaps more so than the severe financial challenges wrecked upon us by Westminster. The cuts are deep and severe. Notwithstanding that, John Swinney has done a fantastic job in ensuring that we protect as much as possible the police budget. But, ladies and gentlemen, I can’t ask officers to do more with the same or even less. It is for that reason that there requires to be police and fire reform.
We will ensure the maintenance of the outstanding police service to Scotland’s communities through a single police service. The status quo is not an option. The alternative is what’s happening south of the border. According to their Inspector of Constabulary, up to 30,000 officers could be lost and in Greater Manchester alone between 2,000 and 4,000 are to go. We will not countenance. Nor will we countenance tearing up the terms and conditions of the police officers who do such a fantastic job for us, as is happening down south as a result of the Winsor review – not now, not ever.
Let me challenge some of the hypocrisy from those who opposed a single service. The Liberal Democrats criticised reform that was taken to protect the outstanding forensic science service we have in Scotland. We have consolidated, but protected it. Ensuring not just that there will be state of the art premises in Dundee and Gartcosh, but a continuing service in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. But what have the Liberal Democrats been doing in the coalition south of the border? They are privatising the service lock, stock and laboratory. Their claims on the police service were equally hypocritical and they got the election result that they deserved.
There have been some legitimate concerns raised but they are being addressed. We will ensure that there’s neither centralisation, lack of accountability or interference in governance. It has been suggested that a single service will see a reduction in officer numbers in our communities. Let’s look at the historic facts. In 1975, when we last saw police reform here in the north there was once 3 police services. After reform, there was just one. There were 2 Chief Constables less, but equally 300 additional officers more. As the First Minister said, bobbies before boundaries.
Our police force and prosecution service will continue to serve us both at home and abroad. The events in Libya in the last 24 hours may have brought one issue to a conclusion. But, as we have always made clear, the Lockerbie investigation remains a live inquiry. Our police and prosecutors – as they have done diligently for the 23 years since the atrocity – will take whatever action is necessary and follow any lines of inquiry in the interests of justice.
That will be one of the major pieces of legislation and it will lay the groundwork for a safer and stronger Scotland. But there’s much more work to do. As the First Minister has correctly said, not just Scotland’s national game, but parts of Scotland are tarnished by sectarianism.
My colleague Roseanna Cunningham is taking through what is a short, but very important Bill through parliament. And I can assure you ladies and gentlemen that neither Roseanna, the First Minister, nor myself will shirk from taking the necessary action.
When I was in Belfast at the Strandtown PSNI station, I saw footage from the riots that occurred in the summer in East Belfast, violent and hate-filled.
Back in Glasgow, a few weeks back, the First Minister and I attended the national police memorial day. We met Nuala Kerr, the mother of PC Ronan Kerr murdered by a terrorist bomb. A young man 4 months into his police service killed for being a Catholic in the PSNI.
When people say it’s just a bit of banter, it’s just a song that doesn’t hurt anyone.
These are songs of hate and there is no place for them in a modern Scotland.
When people say it’s just a political chant – tell that to Ronan Kerr’s mother.
It is for that reason that Roseanna will lead this Bill through Parliament. It’s not about the Boyne in 1690 or Dublin in Easter 1916 it’s about dragging a small minority of folk in our country into the 21st century.
There are other challenges we face. We need to protect the integrity of the High Court in Scotland. It is for that reason we welcome the report from Lord McCluskey and other eminent lawyers. Scotland has long cherished it’s distinctive criminal justice system and we will protect it.
Equally, until such time as there is further constitutional change, we have always recognised that civil matters are different. It’s for that reason that I am delighted that the UK Supreme Court vindicated the actions of our SNP Government and validated the Court of Appeal in Scotland by upholding justice for the victims of pleural plaques.
We have to embark upon legal reform, whether driven by Europe or by financial challenges. For that reason we will take action to make whatever changes are necessary once Lord Carloway returns with his report on criminal procedure. We will take action to protect the integrity of our legal aid system in a time of austerity. We will ensure protection for those who need it most. However, the days of the victim of domestic violence having to contribute to the cost of getting protective orders whilst the perpetrator got criminal legal aid with no contribution have to change. It can’t be afforded, but it’s also not right. Those who can afford to contribute to criminal legal aid must do so.
However, when we talk about Courts and procedures, lawyers and judges, we must never forget the victims of crime. For too long it seemed it was so. Thankfully the former Lord Advocate, now Dame Elish Angiolini, made considerable strides to address that. That good work is being continued by her successor as Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, and Roseanna and I will deliver it in Parliament through a Victims Rights Bill.
So, ladies and gentlemen – a record upon which we sought re-election, a record that saw us re-elected, and a record that we can be proud of. It hasn’t been simple to date, and the journey ahead won’t be easy. There will be turbulence and there will be challenges. But we are making a Scotland a safer and stronger place. We can be proud of our record as a minority Government. Proud of the actions we are now taking as a majority Government. We are moving Scotland forward.
Below is the text of a speech made by the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Andrew Smith, to the Government Procurement Service conference held in Brighton on the 4th December 2001.
Introduction
1. I am very glad to be here today. As Chief Secretary, it is quite rare for me to be out of London addressing conferences, but I am here today because of the importance of your work.
2. From the election through to last week’s Pre-Budget Report, from the Prime Minister and Chancellor downwards, we have been stressing the importance of delivery of our service commitments – and that means not just more money but also better use of money.
3. But to make sure the money we invest is used wisely, we must also invest in the capacity of our public sector systems, workers and management to ensure our public services are efficient, effective and professional.
Office of Government Commerce
4. All of you, the Government Procurement Service and the Office of Government Commerce, have an important role to play.
5. We established the OGC to act as a catalyst to improve the quality of procurement, with an important role in improving the quality of investment by the public sector. It is encouraging the use of modern techniques and a cross-Government approach to procurement. These professional approaches are already proving successful – generating savings that can be invested in our priorities.
6. Procurement has moved up the Government agenda, with active and growing political interest and support, and increasingly visible involvement of Departments at the highest level. This reflects the priority we give to improving the quality of public services, with a strong emphasis upon both successful delivery for the public, and value for money for the taxpayer.
Government Procurement Service
7. In 1997, we realised that, whilst we had good commitment of public sector staff, in some areas the capacity to spend taxpayers? money efficiently was frequently worse than it should be. Procurement was too often the poor relation of the civil service: orders had to be placed, invoices had to be matched, and bills had to be paid, but that was about the extent of anyone’s interest. We wanted to change all that.
8. The Treasury and Cabinet Office commissioned the Public Expenditure Committee to report into ?Efficiency in Civil Government Procurement?. Their work, completed in 1998, focussed on a set of targeted measures, enabling government to maximise procurement efficiency. One of the key recommendations was to establish a new, professional, GPS. This was part of a package of measures designed to recruit, retain and motivate professional procurement staff.
9. That report, together with Peter Gershon’s rigorous analysis of the problems with procurement, provided the basis for action. We moved decisively to accept and implement the recommendations. We established the GPS, under the able guidance of Brian Rigby, in April 1999.
10. The GPS brought together the 1,500 procurement staff working across Government into one professional body. The aim is to enhance your contribution to the achievement of Government objectives by:
ensuring the availability of staff with appropriate skills, experience and qualifications to deliver professional, good quality and legally compliant procurement processes;
providing departments and members with best practice guidance on training, career development, and related issues to help ensure the best match of procurement staff to posts; and
offering members the information on employment opportunities and support they need for more effective career management.
11. So we have established procurement as a professional discipline within Government: acknowledging the valuable contribution that you make and raising the profile of your work across Whitehall and beyond.
12. By improving the career opportunities, training and status of hard working procurement professionals we will ensure that your effort is rewarded and your contribution is recognised. With the support of the GPS you will come to play a more important part in the life of your Departments. You will help us to achieve our three-year target of £1bn in value for money improvements. And your Departments, in their turn, will play a more effective role in delivering on our public service commitments.
Reform of procurement
13. To deliver that improvement in our public services we have to reform the way we think about procurement. We need to move procurement towards higher value added activities, such as:
building partnership with the private sector – using procurement to lever in business efficiency, innovation and expertise;
developing adult approaches to supplier management – working with third party providers to standardise procurement process, increase competition in the market for government business, and drive down the costs for all parties; and
considering the whole life cycle of projects in the procurement process – working with stake holders to identify desirable outcomes early in the day, and considering the whole life cycle of a scheme when identifying our Best Value objectives.
14. That is how we will improve the management of complex spending programmes, fulfil our responsibilities to the taxpayer, and deliver on our commitments to the consumer of public services.
15. These are ambitious goals. To achieve them we will have to work hard and we will have to work together. Working together means ensuring that you, the procurement professionals, have the skills and expertise to drive forward your departments spending programmes. We need to make sure you have got that.
16. In the past, the capacity to achieve value for money savings through better Government procurement practice was simply not there. There was no political commitment, there was wasted expertise, and there were no resources to support efficient purchasing procedures.
17. The first step was to revitalise the skills of the government purchasing community. Great strides have been made towards educating procurement professionals and informing departments about the value you can add. We are entering into an era of continuous professional development for staff at all levels. For those of you who have just achieved your qualification this is only the beginning.
18. We are Investors in People: we will work tirelessly to ensure that you have the opportunities to develop and grow. You will attain the skills necessary to advance your careers and at the same time contribute to the advancement of your Department’s objectives.
19. I would like to say a big thank you to Chris Howard and his colleagues on the GPS management board for their hard work on the programmes for professional development.
Achievements so far
20. Higher standards of training, better opportunities for development, and greater levels of professionalism all add up to a massive boost for the procurement agenda. We are already beginning to see the results.
the Government Procurement Card (GPC) – reducing transaction costs wherever it is used;
the Gateway process – helping us manage complex projects; and
collaboration between Government Departments – hard working professional working together to deliver on our shared objectives.
21. The GPC was introduced in 1997 and has already delivered £30m in efficiency savings. It has enabled Government Departments and agencies to streamline their purchasing processes, realising these dramatic savings both in time and costs incurred by standard administrative processes.
22. Today’s launch of the consortium of VISA banks? fourth annual report into the use of the GPC, audited by KPMG, confirms that the 2001 target of £150m spend on the card has been exceeded by 7.5%.
23. In just four years, over 155 departments and agencies have implemented their own card programmes, and the number of cards issued has risen by over 50% in the last year. A landmark was reached in April of this year when we saw the millionth transaction. That is a million transactions where money was saved, costs were driven down, and extra resources were freed up for investment in crucial public services.
24. The Monitor Card? – which is accepted in over 12,500 outlets and accounts for 100 million litres of motor fuel – is already delivering similar savings in Government procurement of motor fuel. The NHS and Ministry of Defence provide branded fuels cards for their own fleets. Many Departments are organising similar initiatives and the number of corporate travel cards is set to increase dramatically. These cards drive down costs, reduce administrative overheads and allow higher levels of control.
25. Delivering on priority areas often means working over longer time scales, managing large amounts of money, and achieving objectives through collaboration with a range of different partners. In the past there has simply not been the capacity to manage this type of project. That is why I launched the Gateway review process in February this year.
26. The Gateway review process is a technique for developing and delivering complex projects based on proven private sector practices, designed to ensure value for money improvements in major Government programmes. Through the Gateway, experienced senior staff, separate from the schemes, consider their development at crucial stages – helping to guarantee the taxpayer a return on their investment. So far 70 projects – or £18bn of Government investment – have benefited from the Gateway process.
27. The pilot projects we ran saved around £150m, and once the scheme is in full operation we anticipate savings of around £500m a year. These savings are not kept by the Treasury, but are available to be spent elsewhere, where they can deliver further benefits to front line services.
28. This is an achievement of which we can all be proud. We are planning to build on this success and roll out the process to a wider public sector audience.
29. Gateways are just one of the ways in which we are reforming our procurement processes. The deal you reached with Vodafone for the supply of cell phones to the entire public sector has exceeded all expectations. I know that arrangements are in hand to develop similar deals for the supply of Government vehicles, hotel accommodation, and energy supplies.
30. These framework agreements realise value for money savings for the taxpayer, reduce the costs of doing business with Government, and release valuable procurement resources – your time and effort – to concentrate on areas that really matter. This is a win-win situation.
31. Professionalism in procurement and in the delivery of public services also means closer working between Government Departments and agencies. As we develop the capacity of the procurement community to work towards our shared objectives, so we must build the capacity in Departments and agencies to work together, generate economies of scale, spot the synergies, and realise the value for money savings.
32. The OGC is leading the way in joining up procurement programmes across Government. The happy marriage between the OGC Buying Solutions catalogue and the Procurement and Supply Agency of the NHS is just one example.
33. In the short term the results will be value for money savings that can be recycled into the NHS, adding to the extra £1bn the Chancellor announced in the Pre-Budget Report. In the longer term we want to see more successful partnerships, delivering greater cost savings, and freeing up even more resources for investment in front line services.
Conclusion
34. In conclusion, let us take stock of what we have achieved:
the GPS – more opportunities for you to develop, greater professional expertise for your departments to draw upon;
the GPC – improving transactions, freeing resources and achieving value for money savings;
the Gateway Review – facilitating the delivery of large and complex projects, already producing results and savings; and
collaboration between Government Departments – pooling expertise and pooling public sector purchasing power.
35. On skills, already this year we have seen a 20% rise in the number of GPS staff either fully qualified or moving in the right direction. You all have the skills, expertise, and commitment to take the procurement agenda forwards, and soon 83% of you will have the certificate to prove it. This year, 98 students have gained their Certificates of Competence, bringing the programme total so far to 855. In addition, I know that another 98 students were studying for the graduate diploma of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.
36. So, a lot done, still a lot to do. We need to diffuse procurement expertise even more widely around Whitehall. The Wider Skills agenda will develop the skills to manage IT, programme delivery, and procurement across government departments. We are sowing the seeds of change and modernisation, bringing cohesion to our wider commercial agenda. I am taking a close personal interest in this project and I look forward very much to seeing how it develops.
37. I thank you for all you are doing and wish you a very successful conference.
Below is the text of the speech made by the Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, to the 2011 Oxford Farming Conference.
I’ve been really looking forward to the Oxford Farming Conference. It’s my first as Secretary of State and allows me to set out my stall as we approach a new year in the agricultural calendar and the start of serious negotiations.
I’m a lucky lady because years ago as a commodity secretary of the NFU I would look to this event to set the framework for the industry to operate in. And now I’m here helping to set it.
As the Coalition we now have a credible negotiating mandate and the right to be a positive participant in Europe – a participant that will be looking to get the best deal for farmers, taxpayers, consumers and the environment alike.
It helps to speak other’s languages of course. But more than the words it’s the fact the UK is a real player at the negotiating table that we are more likely to achieve our aims.
Aims which include the reform of the Common Agriculture Policy.
We need to address the tendency to protectionism in other Member States which undercuts producers in developing countries, because this is morally wrong. Favouring protectionism over liberalisation will actually hold back European farmers in the long run.
To continue as we are threatens to prevent the transition we need towards a market that can sustain EU agriculture in the future. And there has to be change, because the new member states will demand a fairer allocation – with which I have considerable sympathy. There won’t be a deal, frankly, without this.
We now need to make the new CAP fundamentally different. Its strategic approach must change; as well as its detail. It must be re-positioned so that we can tackle the new challenges of achieving global food security and tackling and adapting to a changing climate.
The Commission recently published its plans for CAP reform. Although they set out the challenges for the sector they did little to create a dynamic strategy that would usefully contribute to President Barroso’s 2020 vision. So, while I welcome their proposals for further moves towards market orientation and international competitiveness I believe we can be more ambitious.
We can be more positive. More confident. Now is the time to make very significant progress towards reducing our reliance on direct payments – it’s certainly something the farmers I know want to see happen. Rising global demand for food and rising food prices make it possible to reduce subsidies and plan for their abolition.
Furthermore we should encourage innovation in the industry. Provide help with environmental measures and combating climate change. Our taxpayers have every right to expect other public goods for the subsidies they pay. I’m wary of the proposal to ‘green’ Pillar 1. What is proposed is nothing like as ambitious as British farmers have shown themselves to be. That’s why we want to see Pillar 2 taking a greater share of limited resources.
We are prepared to work hard to achieve this vision. As a coalition we have a positive relationship with the EU, with fellow Members States and with all EU institutions. We are forming alliances with those who share our vision of a competitive industry, who share our desire to see it deliver on public goods and who want to see a level playing field in the CAP. This is the only way we can achieve our goals.
We can do it. We’ve already seen it work. It may not be what you expected me as a Secretary of State to say, but it’s true. Recent negotiations on whaling, on forestry and at the December Fisheries Council all succeeded because we built partnerships.
The relationships we build will pay off. At the end of last year – in Nagoya – we saw an international agreement on a new global framework for protecting biodiversity.
In the year of its Presidency of the G20, France has boldly and wisely proposed a meeting of Agriculture Ministers to improve the functioning of world markets.
A timely decision as the global demand for food rises. As international food markets open up and the risk increases of a wrong-headed, protectionism. In some cases this has already happened – we just have to cast our minds back to late summer and the ban on Russian and Ukrainian grain exports.
I would therefore like to work with France to seek an end to export bans – one of the most restrictive practices found in the world market.
This challenge is the clear focus of the Foresight Report which will be published at the end of this month.
Of course our vision for the future and the goals we set ourselves must be tempered by the current fiscal climate.
There’s a need for a reality check. It’s astonishing that the Commission’s initial views on the CAP barely acknowledge the hard times currently facing Europe.
It’s hard for us here too.
We’ve been in office for just over 6 months. It’s been a challenging time. But, as the PM said, Britain can become one of the international success stories of the new decade. But first we must deal with the economic problems we inherited. Our overriding goal has been to set in motion measures to tackle those problems. This began with an emergency budget swiftly followed by the comprehensive spending review.
But this hasn’t stopped us spending in excess of £2 billion of taxpayers money in pursuit of our objectives. Of greening the economy. Of enhancing the environment and biodiversity.
Of supporting the British food and farming industry and helping it develop.
That is a theme that runs right through our business plan. Particularly the role the food sector plays in our economy. And the contribution made by farmers in managing the land.
Over the coming years we need to increase the competitiveness of the whole UK food chain, to help secure an environmentally sustainable and healthy supply of food.
Underlying all of this is the power shift from the centre towards local organisations – putting local people back in charge – a classic example of what we mean by Big Society.
This shift will change the way the department works. We want to see a greater degree of trust and collaboration when developing and delivering policy. This will allow you as an industry to shape your own destiny.
I think this last point is of paramount importance. I see my job as helping you to become more profitable, innovative and competitive. By creating the right conditions for the industry to raise productivity, to be entrepreneurial, to continue to develop strong connections with your markets and customers and establish robust links throughout the food chain. I’m really keen to do my bit but it will require you as an industry to step up and seize these opportunities. Sustainable intensification is an example, where fewer agricultural inputs results in less cost to you and the environment. A win-win situation all round.
The whole industry must strive to be as good as its best operators and in turn the best need to keep raising the bar.
This is crucial – as a nation we’ve never been so interested in where food comes from, how it’s produced and animal welfare. As a result corporate values can easily be damaged by food scare stories. Public opinion and the media can bring great pressure to bear. Those in the industry who are good at their business understand this and are more responsive to the market’s changing demands as a result.
We want farming to enjoy a better image. We want more young people to enter the industry. We need to convince them that it offers good prospects. That’s why the work of the Agri-Skills Forum is so important, putting in place the infrastructure for lifelong learning through continuous professional development.
We want everyone to see the potential in UK farming. It’s an industry that – with the food sector – enjoys an £85 billion income. It has succeeded in growing even through recession. People are always going to need food. It has the potential to become a dynamic and progressive industry with an image to match. Where professionalism and high skills are ably demonstrated. Where farmers are enterprising business people looking to make the most of their experience, always looking for new business opportunities.
I was impressed by Lincolnshire farmers innovation during the recent freeze and their efforts to slow the thawing of cauliflowers to avoid the waste of last year.
For the industry to innovate like this we need to allow it to operate in an environment where there is a greater degree of trust.
This approach marks a departure from the old way of doing business. The paternal approach of Government telling industry what to do and industry complying.
We want a system which recognises most people try to do the right thing.
So what we now need is a greater degree of collaboration. We’ve already seen this at work through the new voluntary food labelling code. The Task Force for Farming Regulation is another example.
A clear priority for this Government, and one that must underpin the Commission’s approach will be to reduce the unnecessary red tape for farmers. We want to be in the vanguard in Europe in pursuing this further. Our aim is to develop an industry fit for an exciting future. A future which is innovative, competitive and profitable. We will not achieve that by burdening farmers with more regulations.
Through the Task Force we want to see how and where, we can reduce the cost of compliance. We hope the group will be able to offer advice on how to reduce the regulatory burden and identify examples of gold-plating and overly complex implementation.
We know they’ve asked for your input and that they are looking at a number of areas of concern. Particularly around arrangements for livestock movement and identification, for cross compliance and nitrate vulnerable zones, as well as inspections – an issue that affects a lot of you. Currently, you might be visited by an official agency inspector, by the local authority and by a private sector assurance auditor, all looking at the same thing for different reasons. We look forward to the Task Force’s recommendations for a simpler, risk-based way of doing things.
We’re looking to the Task Force to make clear strategic recommendations on how we use regulations. They’ll report back in April.
Elsewhere we’re looking at how responsibility for dealing with animal disease can be shared with animal keepers which will demand trust on both sides. We know sharing responsibility makes for better decisions, Bluetongue being a case in point.
Our overriding goal here is to reduce the universal risk and costs of disease to industry, government and the wider economy, while at the same time increasing the effectiveness of investment in disease prevention and management.
The recommendations from the independent Advisory Group were released just before Christmas. We’re busy looking at what was said and will respond in due course.
The issue of trust plays out in initiatives set up by the department. Particularly the Campaign for the Farmed Environment. Here we believe it gives the industry the opportunity to show everyone that the farming community is best placed to deliver the required environmental outcomes from their land. We know farmers are the stewards of the countryside this is your opportunity to show that. We have put our money where our mouth is by backing both environmental schemes. Increasing the higher level by 80%.
The key tool we use to enable farmers to deliver on our strategic priorities for natural resource protection.
While walking the fields on John Plumb’s Warwickshire farm I saw for myself how he sows a mixture of seeds on the headlands to attract pollinators and farmland birds.
Currently we’re working with Natural England and others to make all strands of Environmental Stewardship more effective and better targeted. The aim here is to ensure that the scheme is more focused on results.
All of this will ensure that agri-environment outcomes delivered to date are protected and maintain our commitment to making Environmental Stewardship available to all farmers.
This work dovetails neatly with the ideals and goals behind the publication of our White Paper on the Natural Environment.
A document that looks to make the natural environment’s real value count. The first of its kind for twenty years.
The white paper gives us an unmissable opportunity to make a real difference and ensure the health of our natural environment and our economy go hand in hand.
The farming community has a role to play here. You are the custodians of the countryside. You conserve and promote a vibrant natural environment. We’re now looking to build on this and get the balance right between the public’s demands for affordable and plentiful food while meeting their demands for a healthy natural environment.
This generation should be the one that reverses the loss of species. A generation which secures a healthy natural world for the future and one which properly values and protects the benefits that nature gives us.
I enjoyed a preview of the research on the value and viability of UK Farming prepared for this conference. I hope that what I have said today has demonstrated the collaborative approach it calls for. The importance of farming to the UK economy is recognised by the priority we have given it in Defra’s business plan, providing the kind of leadership you call for.
This should help to address the concern in the research community that the UK government understands agriculture less well than our competitors. With all four ministers at Defra having agricultural credentials we defended Government research in the spending review.
The priority we give to farming and the food industry will also help to improve the image and profile of the sector.
Today I’ve tried to lay out my ambitions, goals and vision for the food and farming community of this country. I believe the whole industry has a lot to contribute to a healthy economy, environment and society. As Secretary of State I fully intend to maintain this dialogue and help create a competitive and sustainable industry that is successful because it gives customers what they want.
An industry that embraces risk and manages risk. An industry that wants to deliver public environmental goods. That takes greater responsibility for animal health and welfare standards. And an industry that underpins the quality of rural life.
All of which further develops the levels of trust needed for us to move forward. What I can do is provide the framework for you to succeed. You are the entrepreneurs. You make it happen.
Below is the text of the speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, in London on 31st October 2011.
Introduction
It’s a pleasure to be here tonight to celebrate the life and work of Michael Young.
Lord Young was a visionary of our time.
His approach to public service reform was a lesson to us all.
A lesson that we achieve far less from sitting in ivory towers drawing scientific conclusions on public policy…
…and far more from actually listening to ordinary people, understanding their problems, and proposing practical solutions.
I’m also very grateful to the Young Foundation and Grandparents Plus for arranging for me to be here tonight, and I congratulate them on reaching their 5th and 10th anniversaries respectively.
Both organisations are building an honourable legacy for Lord Young.
7 billionth person
I’d like to begin this evening by considering a remarkable fact.
Today, the United Nations announced the birth of the world’s 7 billionth person.
What is notable is that the world’s 6 billionth person – Adnan Mevic of Sarajevo, Bosnia – has only just celebrated his twelfth birthday.
So that’s an extra one billion people in the world, within a space of just over a decade.
Compare that to the fact that it took 250,000 years to reach 1 billion people in around 1800, and over a century more to reach 2 billion in 1927.
The huge population growth we’ve seen in recent decades has given rise to some incredibly young societies.
Take Zambia, where half of the population are under the age of 16.
But there is another side to this story.
For while countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have been getting progressively younger, societies in the West have been ageing at a tremendous rate.
Ageing population
In the last century or so the UK has seen a surge in the retired population relative to those in work.
So back in 1926 – when the State Pension age was first set – we had some nine people of working age for every pensioner.
Today, that ratio is just 3:1, and it will be moving closer to 2:1 by the second half of this century.
Sitting behind this shift are declining fertility rates and huge improvements in medical science, pushing life expectancy inexorably upwards.
Take the fact that a baby boy born today has a one in four chance of making it to 100.
The chance of a baby girl making it to 100 is one in three.
Young versus old societies
In the press coverage of the UN’s Population Report there have been a number of contrasts drawn between these younger and older societies.
When discussing the younger societies, the talk was a “demographic dividend” – a chance for high investment and growth on the back of a young workforce, as long as the right conditions can be fostered.
But when focus turned to the ageing societies the “dividend” became a “liability”, with foreboding descriptions of “disproportionately more old people depending upon a smaller generation behind them”.
This was followed by statistics about how many “dependents” western societies would have in relation to the number of working-age adults.
Ageing challenge
Now I am the first to accept that we face a demographic challenge.
Age-related spending currently accounts for some 12 per cent of GDP, and is projected to grow by around 5 per cent of GDP by 2060.
And I’m certainly concerned for the next generation – a generation that will have to foot the bill for a crippling national debt, at the same time as helping to pay for their parents retirement and trying to save for their own.
But if we continue to use the language of “dependency” to talk about older people in our society then we will get nowhere.
As Michael Young recognised, we miss the point when we arbitrarily cut the life-cycle into standard segments, with:
“People turned into numbers and the galaxy of differences between individuals deliberately ignored.”
We have to look at how we can change things so that older people are no longer seen as a liability, but are more and more involved in society…
…changing the attitudes that push them to the sidelines…
…and recognising the vital roles they must play in the future.
Working longer
So we need to change our attitude to ageing.
Someone of 60 or 65 can no longer be lazily considered as “past it” – such attitudes are patronising and just plain wrong.
When I arrived in the Department, British business could still force someone to retire at 65 even if they didn’t want to.
This process was called the Default Retirement Age.
It led to lazy business practices and a failure to find out how best to use the talent and experience of an older workforce.
As Young eloquently put it, this provision meant that:
“When the clock strikes sixty-five, the magic wand of the State turns not coachmen into mice but men into old men…[with] no transition. When the wand is waved millions of people have at once to obey”.
Well I am enormously proud that this Coalition Government acted on Young’s admonition and finally consigned the Default Retirement Age to the dustbin of historical discrimination.
But that is only the start.
We need businesses to stop thinking of old people as having a “sell by date”, and to look more closely at the skills and experience they bring with them.
At my Department we’ve been working with employers and employer organisations through the Age Positive initiative, challenging outdated assumptions about older people.
There certainly seems to be a trend in the right direction – the past decade has seen the age at which people leave the labour market increase.
And this is likely to continue, especially once you factor in the changes we’re making to the State Pension age – changes that are difficult but necessary, given how much life expectancy has changed since the State Pension age was first set.
But to keep all of these changes on track, we have to challenge the damaging claim that older workers block employment opportunities for young people.
This is a fallacy, based on the idea that there is a fixed amount of work available in the economy.
In actual fact, evidence from both the UK and abroad suggests that this is far from the case, and that having more people in work is likely to increase the availability of jobs through the effect it has on growth.
Work-sharing
Nonetheless, I wonder if there is more society could do to match the work of younger and older people.
For example could UK businesses look more intelligently at sharing work between older people…
…who may be looking to do fewer hours…
…and the young, who are keen to start getting some experience?
I understand that Germany has some experience with intergenerational mentoring, where older people work with young school leavers to help them find their way into employment.
I leave this to the social innovators out there – the Michael Youngs of today – to think about some more.
Older people caring
But this isn’t all about work.
Far from simply being members of the labour force, the role that older people can – and in many cases do – play in wider society, is enormous.
Whether it be volunteering, providing social care, or looking after grandchildren, we all gain hugely from the time and commitment that many older people give.
We ignore this at our peril.
Though the vast majority of older people give their time willingly…
…and indeed get great pleasure out of doing so…
…we should not forget that many of the jobs they undertake would otherwise fall on the state.
This is family doing what family does best – quietly, with great commitment, carrying out its duties.
But I’ve long believed that the state has become ambivalent about the importance of family structure.
Not just decent parenting but also the role of the extended family.
In an increasingly atomised society, and in a context of growing family breakdown, it is all the more important that we continue to support, celebrate and hold together these wider relationships.
Without them society would simply collapse.
So far from older people being “dependents” supported by the rest of us, it is worth reminding ourselves of the extent to which society is dependent on them.
The economic backdrop
As a country we face an immense economic challenge at the moment.
Sorting out our huge budget deficit and paying off our enormous debt is a priority if we are to restore growth at a sustainable level.
But we also need to recognise that this isn’t all just about economics.
It is also about how families can support each other so that they can take advantage of any work opportunities in the future.
Where possible we’ve tried to design our reforms so that they make this kind of support and caring easier and encourage it where it matters most.
Grandparent Credits and Childcare
This is something my colleagues at the Department for Health and the Department for Education have been working on carefully, from investing money in short breaks for carers to improving GP awareness of carer issues.
And at my Department one of the first changes we made on coming into Government was the introduction of ‘Grandparents Credits’, meaning that those below State Pension age can start building up credits for a State Pension if they are caring for young children rather than working.
This is about recognising the hugely valuable contribution this kind of caring makes to many children’s lives.
I also believe we’ve managed to strike an important balance with Childcare Support through the benefits system.
When we introduce the Universal Credit we’ll be saying – for the first time – that working parents can get help with their childcare costs even when they are working fewer than 16 hours a week.
This is about saying that it should pay to go back to work no matter how many hours you do – and I hope it has the potential to ease childcare responsibilities for the extended family as well as for parents.
Kinship care and conditionality
Another issue that I know has been raised is the conditionality regime in the benefits system.
Kinship carers accessing the benefit system under the new system will fall under the same conditionality rules as biological parents.
But, crucially, there is the flexibility available for the Jobcentre to take their particular circumstances into account.
We want kinship carers to be looked at on a case by case basis.
And the Jobcentre absolutely has the power – indeed the responsibility – to not impose full-time work search and availability requirements on carers of younger children.
There are specific safeguards on this in the Welfare Reform Bill.
Even where work-related requirements do apply, advisers will have broad discretion to limit these, taking account of an individual’s caring responsibilities.
So I hope this strikes the right balance.
But I’m always willing to listen on this kind of thing – and we’re currently talking to kinship care organisations to understand their priorities.
I’ve specifically asked my colleague Lord Freud to look at the kinship carer issue…
…as we have been approached by a number of people on this.
Not just about government
But none of this is just about what government can do.
As I think Michael Young would have agreed, most of the best ideas in the world come from outside Government.
I understand Lord Young pioneered a venture called LinkAge, bringing together older people without grandchildren, and young people without grandparents.
My own colleague Lord Freud has been personally involved for a number of years now with a very similar project known as Grandmentors – something he helped to set up.
And the organisation I founded – the Centre for Social Justice – recently gave an award to a project in Liverpool called ‘Growing Old Together’ which takes young people into care homes and sheltered housing schemes to spend time with the residents and build relationships with them.
This brings me back to the point about atomisation – projects like these can help reconnect the stretched relationships we find in an increasingly mobile and fluid society.
But remember that these important projects have been driven largely from outside Government.
Out there, in our local communities…
…and amongst our social innovators…
…are where the real change will happen.
The change we need if we’re to move from viewing our older people as dependents, to seeing them as one of the lynchpins of our society.
Ageing Well
I’m pleased to say this is something my Department have started to understand.
When we came in to government we launched the Ageing Well programme, which is about driving better services for older people at a local level.
Although this programme was already being considered when we entered government, we were insistent that it needed to be reconfigured so that it drew much more from local knowledge and expertise.
The Young Foundation has been playing a critical role in this project, and I thank them for their continued hard work.
Age Action Alliance
In addition to this we recently helped launch the Age Action Alliance…
…an ever-growing partnership of public, private and civil society organisations…
…which is taking forward a preventative, community based approach to improving the quality of life of the worst off older people.
This hardly involves central Government at all.
We provide a small secretariat, but that is really just facilitating the work of over one hundred organisations who know what works – including a number of those represented here tonight.
Conclusion
So these are some of the areas that we – and society at large – are working on.
But what is more important is that we recognise what each of these different projects means.
A rejection of the idea of older people as dependents, or a burden…
…and an acceptance that we will need to change our institutions to ensure this overarching narrative becomes a reality.
We need to redesign our retirement system so that older people are encouraged to work longer – and are able to do so if they want to.
We need to think hard about the way we recognise and reward caring, so that we don’t lose the invaluable support from friends and family that currently exists.
And we need to work more closely with local groups to redesign projects, products and services so that they are better suited to an older society – and one which is increasingly active.
Lord Young once wrote about the UK as a society that has:
“enjoyed a demographic revolution, even if it has not yet enjoyed it as much as [it] could”.
With the right changes…
…and a firm commitment…
…perhaps we can fulfil Lord Young’s vision…
…and start to enjoy our older society that little bit more.
In fact, maybe now is the time to say that this is the age of the older society.
Below is the text of the speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, to the British Venture Capital Association on 12th October 2011.
Introduction
It is a pleasure to be here tonight.
I know the economy is on everyone’s minds at the moment.
No more so than in this audience.
Today’s jobs figures are a sobering reminder of the challenge we face.
But before we discuss where the economy is going, I’d like to reflect on where we have come from.
Boom and bust
In the decade to 2008 we saw an uninterrupted period of growth, with employment levels up by over 2 million.
Boom and bust had been eradicated – or so we were told…
Of course we all know what happened when the bubble burst.
But we cannot say that the warning signs weren’t there.
Personal debt had boomed in the years leading up to the recession.
The Centre for Social Justice warned that levels of personal debt were unsustainable in a report published that same year.
Not long after, Northern Rock went to the wall.
And it wasn’t just the banks that were overstretched – it was Governments too.
In fact, the UK had the highest structural deficit of any country in the G7 before the recession started.
Deficit reduction
We were in 2010 that our priority was dealing with this damaging deficit.
And this was a plan that got widespread support – from the OECD, to the IMF, to the CBI.
It also received the support of the Credit Ratings Agencies, with Standard and Poors taking the UK’s Triple A rating off negative watch.
This last step was crucial, and I think we underestimate it at our peril.
While countries across Europe are facing soaring interest rates we have managed to maintain rates comparable to Germany’s, thanks to our consistency in holding the course.
If we deviated from our plan – let’s say we spent just a few billion pounds more – we would face the serious risk of this extra spending being wiped out by billions of pounds more in higher interest costs for families, businesses, and taxpayers.
You simply cannot borrow your way out of a debt crisis.
No complacency
But this does not mean we can be complacent – by any means.
Today’s jobs figures serve as a sobering reminder that while we can protect our own interest rates, we cannot so easily protect against the international economic crisis.
We are riding out a storm at the moment, but it is important that we stay the course.
And it is also important that we do everything we can to stimulate growth.
That doesn’t mean breaking our deficit reduction targets.
It means reducing regulation, freeing up the economy, and getting money moving around the system once more.
So we’re cutting taxes for businesses, reducing corporation tax to the lowest rate in the G7 by 2014.
We’re increasing capital spending on roads and railways, even at a time of deficit reduction.
And we’ve struck a deal with the big high street lenders to increase lending to small businesses by 15 per cent this year.
We have also agreed to the Bank of England undertaking another round of Quantitative Easing…
…and, as the Chancellor confirmed last week, we are looking at whether there is more we can do to get money directly to businesses in the form of Credit Easing.
Private equity and venture capital has an important role to play in this growth story.
I understand that, just last year, private equity and venture capital between them invested some £1.75 billion in high technology companies in the UK.
That’s real money, in the real economy, pushing the technological frontier and promoting growth.
Pensions
But, for me, there is another side to the growth story.
In my role at the Department for Work and Pensions I’m responsible for two of the groups that really matter here: workers and pensioners.
Take pensioners: a significant chunk of our economy is devoted to retirement spending, and so it can have a huge impact.
Our first priority was to secure the position of today’s pensioners.
But we also knew that we needed to reform for the future.
We had a pension system that was increasingly unfunded, and the trend was only set to get worse as life expectancy increased, year on year.
So we were clear that if we were not going to fall back into a debt crisis of a different kind – with the resultant effects on growth – we would need to get the house back in order.
For me this is about asking what kind of society we want for the next generation.
We were heading for one marked by a triple whammy, with our children footing the bill for a crippling national debt at the same time as helping to pay for their parents’ retirement and having to save for their own.
That’s why we are taking the tough decision to ask people to work longer before they receive their State Pension.
And it’s why we are encouraging people to do more to save for their own retirement though automatic enrolment into pension schemes.
Some people have claimed that automatic enrolment is wrong-headed because it will be a drag on growth.
I reject that entirely.
Analysis suggests that automatic enrolment will actually have a positive impact on the economy.
Pension contributions are not somehow lost to the economy.
They are invested in gilts, corporate bonds and equities, supporting increased investment and economic growth.
Social breakdown
So what about the other side I mentioned – the country’s workers?
Britain still has some of the best workers in the world.
But we are increasingly a society divided, because we also have a whole group of people who are cut adrift from the labour market – even from the rest of society itself.
August’s riots forced us – as a society – to take a good hard look at ourselves, and to ask why we had allowed such explosive social problems to become ghettoised.
For these problems have been with us for some time, and were not simply a product of the recession.
More than 4 million on out of work benefits.
One of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Western Europe.
Over a million children growing up in households with parents addicted to drugs or alcohol.
These were problems that the Centre for Social Justice reported on at back in 2007 – in other words, before the recession started, during a period of unprecedented growth.
This breakdown destroyed our ability to compete in the global market.
The cost of maintaining that many people on benefits was a drag on economic growth and a factor in the growth of the deficit.
And it is now well documented that during this period almost half of the rise in employment was accounted for by foreign nationals.
So potential workers were paid to be idle, rather than being skilled up and supported into employment, while businesses imported workers from abroad to do the available jobs.
Yet much of the money being earned here was being sent back home, so the British economy wasn’t seeing the benefits.
Equally tragic was the human cost – people in communities up and down our country unable to fulfil their potential.
Gangs
This unfulfilled potential takes its most potent form in the street gangs that terrorize many of our poorest neighbourhoods.
In many ways these gangs act to fill a vacuum left by other figures of authority.
Frequently from broken families, gang members seem to be searching for that structure and consistency they are failing to find at home.
Many never make it to the age of 25, yet some of these are really bright kids, just born into the wrong circumstances.
Dealing with Britain’s violent gang culture is vital because the simple truth is that that where gangs rule, decent people cannot live, businesses cannot invest, and communities cannot grow.
What we need is a way out for those who’ll take it and the toughest enforcement against those who refuse. And, crucially, we have to prevent them joining these gangs in the first place.
Broken welfare system
The first step here is getting to grips with our broken welfare system.
The system is complex, contradictory and incoherent.
It takes people’s benefits away at incredible rates as they move into work, meaning work is frequently not worthwhile.
It treats people more as statistics than human beings – as a box to be ticked or a process to be completed.
And it is racked by fraud and error – some £5 billion lost annually because of the immense complexity of the system.
Reform
So first, we are simplifying things with the Universal Credit, a single integrated payment which will replace an array of benefits and tax credits.
It will be clear, it will be consistent and – most importantly – it will make work pay.
That’s the first vital step for people who have been out of work for a long time.
Second, and equally important, we have introduced the Work Programme, a package of support run by the private and voluntary sectors which provides tailored help to get people back into work.
Crucially, we will only pay for what works.
And we will continue to pay these organisations as they keep people in work.
Third, we know how important experience of work is for young people who are trying to get their foot in the door.
That’s why we have funded an extra 100,000 Work Experience places over the next two years.
And it’s why we’ve committed to an extra 250,000 apprenticeships over the coming years.
Making work pay, skilling people up, building their experience of work – that’s how we can start to rebuild our labour force and keep people off welfare.
The challenge
All of this is vital, but we cannot do it alone.
We have had a great response from businesses to our Get Britain Working campaign.
But I want to know if there is more that the financial sector can do.
I want to know if there are areas where you could get involved that you wouldn’t normally look, or where you are currently underrepresented.
The tragedy is that there are plenty of bright kids out there whose start in life means that they will never end up somewhere like this.
I’ve met many of these young people – and let me tell you, when working with numbers and figures there are some who could leave people in this room standing.
But it’s hard for them to get that first break – take the fact that less than a quarter of all employers in England have given a young person their first job after education.
So I have a challenge for you tonight – a direct challenge to the financial sector to get involved in three areas where we are working with young people.
First, through work experience, giving our young people a chance to get a taste of the world of work.
I understand that few work experience placements are currently available in the financial services sector, and I want to know if there is more that can be done.
Second, through apprenticeships, working with my department and BIS to look at placements which bring young people in, help them learn the trade, and set them up for the future.
This is about giving our brightest young people a shot, even if they haven’t gone through the traditional university route.
It’s about letting them prove to you that they can work hard and better themselves.
And third, we need the financial sector getting involved in the early intervention work that Graham Allen has been driving.
Graham’s reports for Government have shown the incredible impact that intervening early in a young person’s life can have.
He has also shown that where we can turn a young person’s life around, the savings to the public purse are potentially huge.
Take the fact that it costs around £59,000 a year on average for a young offender to be placed in a young offender’s institute, or hundreds of thousands of pounds to support an individual for a lifetime on benefits
The tricky bit is getting the money there up front so that we can reap these savings.
And that’s where social investment comes in.
The idea here is that government encourages private investors to back projects…
…whether it be helping young people back in to work, rehabilitating offenders, or helping a drug addict into recovery…
…by investing in ‘Social Impact Bonds’.
These investors are then rewarded with some of the savings to the public purse further down the line – but only if their investments work.
It is still early days, and this is still a fledgling market.
But I think it is a powerful opportunity.
Sir Ronald Cohen – who will be familiar to many of you as one of the father’s of venture capital – is clear about the possibilities here, stating that:
“Social enterprise and impact investing, in short, look like the wave of the future.”
Indeed, in his view: “Impact [social investment] capital is the new venture capital”.
We are already seeing successful projects getting underway…
…from the reoffending social impact bond in Peterborough…
…to my own Department’s ‘Innovation Fund’, which is currently going through its procurement process.
Yes, Government still has more work to do to provide a clearer direction to the market.
But we also need investors to be willing to take the risk and start getting involved.
Repeat the challenge
So let me repeat: these are the three areas – work experience, apprenticeships, and early intervention – where I ask you to think about reconnecting yourself to some of the most troubled parts of our society.
These are places full of young people who – with the right help, and the right support – could aspire to be where you are tonight.
My challenge to all of you is this: don’t just be a successful business – for all the benefits that that brings to our country, and it really does.
We need you to also be thinking about how you can put something back into your local community to change people’s lives.
Conclusion
So let me bring this back to where I started – the state of the economy, where we have come from and where we are going.
Getting the deficit in down is crucial, and so is the plan for growth.
But we cannot assume that these issues are separate from the social side of things – from welfare, from pensions, from family breakdown, from drug addiction, or from gangs.
Whether it be the cost of paying 4 or 5 million people to sit on out of work benefits while bringing in workers from abroad…
…or the cost of putting the same young people over and over again through the criminal justice system…
…the social side is absolutely crucial to the economy.
It is a terrible waste of resources to have people sat on the margins of society, unable to engage with the system.
Ignoring this has been the mistake that too many Governments have made in the past.
But August showed us was that containment is not an option anymore.
For the riots provided a moment of clarity for us all, a reminder that a strong economy requires a strong social settlement.
Our task is to achieve this rebalancing of society,
Restoring our economy must go hand in hand with restoring society.
I believe that this is the challenge of our generation.
Below is the text of the speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to the Robert Owen Institute on 14th September 2011.
Introduction
It’s a pleasure to be with you this evening.
And I’d like to extend my thanks to the Robert Owen Institute for inviting me to be here tonight.
Robert Owen was ahead of his time in believing that a person’s character was informed by the effect of their environment.
“Any general character, from the best to the worst, from the most ignorant to the most enlightened, may be given to any community…by the application of proper means”
How we achieve a rebalancing of our society by application of those means is the topic of my lecture tonight.
Last month’s riots were a wake-up call.
But while I was appalled by what took place on the streets of some of England’s major cities, I cannot say I was entirely surprised.
For I believe we have seen Britain’s social fabric fraying for some time.
Social breakdown
Before the recession started we had more than 4 million people sat on out of work benefits – many of whom had been receiving them for ten years or more.
We had one of the highest levels of unsecured personal debt in Western Europe, and the highest teenage pregnancy rates.
At the same time we had over a million children growing up in households with parents who were addicted to drugs and alcohol.
And when it came to violent crime we found ourselves to be amongst the leaders in Europe.
Yet this was during a period when the economy was growing – with employment up by more than 2 million in the decade to 2008.
What had become clear and was starkly illustrated in the Centre for Social Justice’s two reports – “Breakdown Britain” and “Breakthrough Britain” – was that one section of society had become semi-detached from the rest.
As social mobility ground to a halt, the part of society on the lowest incomes became static.
Too many find that if they are born into such communities they are likely to remain in the same condition as their parents.
With income inequality the worst for a generation, high levels of benefit dependency, broken families, crime, debt and drugs became the norm for whole communities.
The problem was that we were treating symptoms, not causes.
And by failing to deal with these issues we were storing problems up further down the line.
For many years, while people were aware that there were problems in poor communities they remained largely unaware of the true nature of life on some of our estates.
In a sense, we had ghettoised many of these problems, keeping them out of sight of the middle class majority.
Occasionally some terrible event would make it on to our front pages…
…the names of Rhys Jones, Damilola Taylor, Charlene Ellis and Letitia Shakespeare are tragically well known to many of us.
But because they were small in number, people were able to turn away from the problems faced in certain parts of the country.
But last month the inner city finally came to call, and the country was horrified by what it saw.
And while it is of course a good thing that there were no riots in Scotland, I’m firmly of the view that is an issue we face in the UK as a whole.
While they might manifest themselves differently, the same deep-rooted problems exist on both sides of the border, and as a passionate supporter of the United Kingdom I want us to work together to solve them.
Whether in Manchester or Glasgow, London or Edinburgh, Birmingham or Aberdeen…
…I believe we’re stronger when we tackle these issues together.
Damaging culture
The riots were a wake-up call, and a reminder of the wider problem that we all face.
The scenes of our young people ransacking local businesses…
…sometimes proudly displaying their acquisitions on the internet…
….spoke to a damaging culture which I believe has been on the rise in recent years across the UK as a whole.
I touched on this problem in a recent speech, some time before the riots took place.
There I spoke about a culture of recklessness and irresponsibility, a culture of “live now, pay later.”
I felt that we had seen it in the staggering growth in both public and private debt, with little regard for who would pick up the bill, and in the unwillingness to undertake fundamental reforms of our welfare system to secure our children’s future.
Last month we saw this culture crystallized into its crudest form – not so much “live now, pay later” as “take now, pay never, and damn the consequences.”
This is what the Prime Minister meant when he said that the riots were about behaviour and values.
Gangs
The riots also played a role in heightening awareness of gangs in the public consciousness.
In terms of numbers gangs made up a minority of those actually taking part in the violence, yet their role was significant.
First, the riots showed us that in too many inner city areas, gangs dominate – if not in numbers then in the power they have over their local community.
Speaking to my borough commander in Waltham Forest there seems to be good evidence to suggest that the gangs were coordinating locations and some of the social media networks during the riots.
And, separate to the riots themselves, we know that gangs can have a disproportionately negative impact on their local area, bringing with them violence and drug abuse and pulling others around them into their destructive cycle.
Those who join the gangs are the product more often of broken families and dysfunctional upbringing.
In turn, they further that process of breakdown by creating no-go areas that make impossible the very things that could help deprived neighbourhoods to rejuvenate.
As products of and creators of social breakdown, their role is hugely influential.
I know this is of relevance in Scotland, particularly areas like East Glasgow where a high concentration of gangs are known to operate in highly deprived neighbourhoods.
But gangs are not just a cause of social breakdown – they are also an important symptom.
In many ways they act to fill a vacuum left by other figures of authority – particularly the family unit.
What these young people fail to find at home they search for on the streets instead.
As Disraeli said:
“Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.”
For too many these “divinities” are the gang leaders, and their presence speaks to the absence of something fundamental from our young people’s lives – stability, security and moral guidance.
As the excellent work in Strathclyde shows us our first response must be to deal with the violent and criminal activity of the gangs – but that will only take us so far.
Yes, we will be tough on the gangs.
Of course, where you have gangs leaders who repeatedly commit and foment violence they must be warned of the consequences.
Then the police must deal with them for even the most minor misdemeanours.
But this is only part of the bargain.
If we are to believe, as Robert Owen did, that people are shaped by their environment, then there is a great deal more we need to do.
Because at the moment we are caught in a vicious cycle.
Gangs are shaped by the destructive environment in which their members are brought up, and they in turn breed destruction in their local communities, destabilising families and increasing the chance that future generations will find themselves involved in gang violence.
A criminal response alone fails to deal with the root causes of this merry-go-round.
Again, Robert Owen was right where he explained that:
“instead of punishing crimes after they have permitted the human character to be formed so as to commit them…”
…we have to instead reach in and break the cycle – and we have opportunities to do it all the way along the chain.
In other words, we have to give people a way out.
As the good projects have shown, being tough on gangs is just one part of the challenge.
Intervening to peel people off from the gangs, and preventing them joining in the first place, is the real task we face.
Early intervention
Of course, as Robert Owen would have agreed, the earlier we get in there the better.
The evidence on the importance of early intervention is overwhelming.
I came together with Graham Allen in 2008 to write a book which established some of the key evidence on this.
In Graham’s subsequent reports for the Government the evidence on early intervention has become incontrovertible.
He cites one piece of research which shows that those boys assessed by nurses at the age of 3 as being “at risk” had two and a half times as many criminal convictions by age 21 as those not deemed to be at risk.
Speaking of the understanding that the character of a child could be moulded from such an early age, Owen asked whether:
“Possessing, then, the knowledge of a power so important…which would gradually remove the evils which now chiefly afflict mankind, shall we permit it to remain dormant and useless, and suffer the plagues of society perpetually to exist and increase?
His was a clear warning that if we fail to get in there early enough to stop young people falling out of the system, then we risk failing altogether.
While much of this area is devolved it remains a common challenge for all nations of the UK.
I know that Graham’s work drew on Scottish examples, such as the rapid reaction model in the Highland region which has been running for the last decade.
The goal in the region has been to get things right for children the first time they are identified as being at risk, so that they don’t appear again later.
And I know that the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament backed this principle recently, calling on a shift away from reacting to crises and towards a greater focus on prevention and early intervention.
So this agenda isn’t just cross-party, it crosses Governments.
Evidence suggests that one of the best ways to improve life chances for young children is to link families to trusted local networks and individuals – whether it be family nurse partnerships, health visitors, or something similar.
But much of the responsibility here falls to local authorities.
We know many local authorities already understand the importance of this agenda, and we will increasingly be looking to them to provide the leadership to make sure early intervention initiatives are prioritised.
We need to keep hammering home the message that early intervention offers the best hope for today’s children.
Schools
The next step is to think about how we can provide support at the next level – at school age – to stop young people falling off the rails and into the hands of the gangs.
First, we need to keep them off the streets and in our schools, engaged in education and learning key life skills.
The Government is committed to raising the participation age in England, with measures to ensure that all young people continue in education or training until they are 18.
And I know the Scottish Government is guaranteeing education, training or an apprenticeship to all 16-19 year olds.
But the fact is at the moment some young people do drop out, and for those who do, employment rates have deteriorated substantially in the last decade or so.
Back in 2000 around six in every ten 16-17 year olds who were not in full time education were in work.
That figure is now down to around 4 in ten.
A similar trend holds true in Scotland, where around seven in ten were working in 2000, a rate which has fallen to around four in ten now.
And this is by no means just a product of the recession – in fact, by 2008 the level had already fallen to 5 in 10, so it has been on a steady downward trend over the course of the last ten years.
By the time this group comes into the Jobcentre at 18 they have already suffered a wage scar that leaves them behind their peers in the jobs market.
So we need to do everything we can to support young people who are at risk of disengaging, intervening early to stop them weighing heavily on the benefit system in the future.
Innovation Fund
And that’s what our Innovation Fund is all about.
We’re providing £30 million over the next three years to fund organisations that are able to work with disadvantaged young people to turn their lives around.
And the remit of the fund extends to those aged 14 and 15, helping us get in there even earlier to prevent people falling out of structured training and education, and putting them on track for work in the future.
Key here is the role of social investment.
The idea of the Innovation Fund is to unlock private finance in the pursuit of the social good, getting investors to do something positive for their community while seeing a return on their investment at the same time.
As Graham Allen identified in his second report, social investment could be the key to solving some of our most entrenched social problems, many of which require a significant down payment up front to yield huge savings further down the line.
The Innovation Fund is just the start, but I hope it will be a stepping stone to a smarter approach to social breakdown in the future.
Universal Credit and Work Programme
Once our young people have left school we then need to make sure they are met by a welfare system that works.
First, it has to be a welfare system which makes work pay, which is why we’re introducing the Universal Credit – a new, simpler payment which will be withdrawn at a clear and consistent rate as people move into work.
In the current system some people lose up to 96 pence in every pound earned through benefit withdrawal.
Would any of us here work at 96% tax rates, especially if we could earn a living without any effort at all?
Just ask yourself – why should we expect behaviours from others that we wouldn’t expect from ourselves?
The Universal Credit is designed to change this, reducing the maximum withdrawal rate and simplifying the way benefits are withdrawn as people move into work to reduce the risks associated with taking a job.
Second, we have to work with people to help them find employment.
Too often people who need help have faced bureaucratic and impersonal regimes, motivated more by the number of boxes ticked than the numbers helped into work.
I hope we’re going to change all this with the Work Programme, a package of support we’re putting around people which is designed around them, for them and with them, and will be delivered by some of the best organisations in the private and voluntary sectors.
But this is going to be tough.
We are going to be dealing with people who have come from families where no-one has ever worked – generation upon generation.
They may be breaking the mould, and that won’t be easy to do.
It’s important that we stay with them and support them as they take that step, and we know that many Work Programme providers will be looking to mentor people once they’ve moved into work to help keep them there – we’ve designed our payments structure to encourage this kind of proactive support.
Work experience and apprenticeships
And of course we know that one of the biggest challenges young people face in finding work is a lack of relevant experience.
That’s why we’re providing funding for 100,000 work experience places over the next two years.
These placements will be for up to 8 weeks, but we’ll provide funding for another month where it’s linked to an offer of an apprenticeship or a job.
And we’ve put in place funding for 250,000 extra apprenticeships over the coming years, with 40,000 targeted specifically at young people on Jobseekers Allowance.
I know that the Scottish Government has also committed to creating some 25,000 apprenticeships a year.
So all the way along the life cycle you have these key interventions that pick people up and stop them falling off track – from early intervention with parents, to keeping kids on track in school, to providing a fair and supportive welfare system, combined with positive work experience, that encourages and helps people into work.
It’s part of a sewn up process – not so much cradle to grave as cradle to stability, cradle to a productive member of society.
Family
But all this brings me to one of the most important issue of all, and that is the role of the family.
I described earlier how gangs have acted to fill the spaces left by broken families, and how family breakdown has led to a sort of moral vacuum in some areas of society.
While the Government should be there to support people when they face difficulties, we can achieve so much more by providing the support that families need to grow and sustain, giving young people a stable and secure environment to grow up in.
This isn’t about Government interfering in families.
But it is about saying that we have to create a level playing field, reversing some of the biases against families we’ve seen in recent years, as well as making sure that support is available if and when families want to use it.
It is clear that people respond to incentives and disincentives – and currently in the UK there is a damaging financial discouragement to couple formation, despite its stable outcomes for children.
That’s why I intend for our welfare reforms to make an impact on the couple penalty where it matters most – amongst families on the lowest incomes.
Alongside that the Prime Minister has made it clear that we will, in this Parliament, as and when possible and after other considerations, recognise marriage in the tax system.
And we’ve already made some £30 million available for relationship support over the coming years.
But there is further we can go, and that is something the Prime Minister himself made clear in a speech last month.
We are going to apply a family test to all domestic policy from here on.
And I believe we also need to look more closely at how we tackle disincentives to strong and stable couple formation
Culture
Perhaps in bringing this value back to our personal relationships, we can start to tackle that damaging culture in our society that I spoke of earlier.
The culture of “live now, pay tomorrow” that permeated our society from top to bottom.
From those at the top of our society it was a case of “do as I say, not as I do.”
Whether in the banking crisis, phone hacking or the MPs’ expenses scandal, people have seen a failure of responsibility from their leaders.
And this failure speaks to a wider cultural development in our society, namely a gradual but consistent move to a culture which values conspicuous consumption over the quality of our personal relationships.
We have seen the growth of a culture in which people are valued in terms of how much they earn, how much their home costs, or how they spend on their holiday rather than how much value they bring to their community.
Only today, a UNICEF report has highlighted the damage that consumer culture is doing to our children’s happiness.
Owen saw some of these influences at work himself, contrasting the scant attention given to the millions of poor and destitute he saw around him to the fact that:
“we hesitate not to devote years and expend millions…in the attainment of objects whose ultimate results are, in comparison with this, insignificancy itself.”
This culture has affected everything.
We hear of people putting off getting married because they cannot afford it – not the marriage itself but the ceremony.
With the average cost of a wedding put by some surveys at something like £20,000, some couples risk getting into debt just to meet the costs.
What seems to have been forgotten is that the point of marriage is love, commitment, and creating a safe environment in which to bring up a family.
As Owen would have said, the ceremony is insignificancy itself.
We should worry instead about the human aspect.
Conclusion
Our task now is to achieve this rebalancing of our society.
For too long the political class have understood that we have a social problem, but considered it a second order issue.
The riots have provided a moment of clarity for all of us, a reminder that a strong economy requires a strong social settlement, with stable families ready to play a productive role in their own communities.
The challenge of our generation is to reforge our commitment to reform society so that we can restore aspiration and hope to communities that have been left behind.
Below is the text of a speech made by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, at Telford Sport College Conference on 9th February 2011.
Introduction
I must admit to being somewhat terrified standing before you.
I went to a sport-mad school. Sport was compulsory. And I was absolutely useless at it.
I never made a first XI or a first XV. In fact like many people who showed little promise, I was banished to the cross-country running team.
And then something strange happened.
We had an annual whole school cross-country race, divided into a senior and junior course. My birthday is in November and all my classmates with earlier birthdays were promoted to the senior school race, with just me left behind.
And to the total astonishment of everyone in the school, including me, I won the junior school race.
That was the high point of my sporting career.
But looking back on it, it was also a defining moment of my school career. Because the experience of unexpectedly winning a race transformed my confidence and in many ways turned me into a different person.
For better or worse, I doubt I would be standing here today had I not won that race.
Paying tribute
So let me start by saying this: thanks to your work, thousands of young people up and down the country are having similar experiences.
On their behalf I want to thank each and every one of you.
There was yet another reminder of the power of sport a few weeks ago, when Newsround asked young people to nominate their favourite role models and post them online.
You can probably guess some of the names that came up – Cheryl Cole, Justin Bieber, Emma Watson – but there were two things that I found striking.
First, the number of children who chose sporting role models – people like David Beckham, Rebecca Adlington, and Tom Daley – and who talked about how much they admired them for their dedication and hard work.
Second, the number of children who nominated not celebrities but the people who support and inspire them every day: their teachers, headteachers, and coaches – exactly those roles that many of you perform or inspire others to perform.
Embedding progress
But in thanking you, I also want to recognise that the last few months have been extremely challenging.
I don’t want to rake over the coals of the debate we had in the autumn. Suffice it to say it has been an incredibly testing period across the whole of government as we seek to put our finances on a sustainable footing.
I want to thank Sue Campbell and Steve Grainger in particular for their powerful advocacy of the work you do.
Their enthusiasm and passion for school sport has been vital in helping us to create a structure that will retain and build on the best of what we have now.
Not without change. Not without improvement. Not without having to live with fewer resources.
But – yes please – with the extraordinary commitment and dedication so many of you have shown over many years towards getting more children and young people to play competitive sport.
The package we have in place will put £47 million from this year’s sport budget towards helping you to embed the best elements of your work and secure staff roles to the end of the summer term.
Even at a moment when he is actively looking to slim down other compulsory obligations on schools, Michael Gove has confirmed that PE will remain a core part of the National Curriculum.
And over a transitional period of the next two academic years, £65 million of funding from his department will allow secondary schools to release a PE teacher for one day a week – to help organise competitive sport in primary schools and foster good practice.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health will provide up to £6.4 million to secure the future of Change4Life Sports Clubs in secondary schools.
And to extend this model into primary schools – creating further opportunities for those children who are the least active.
At the same time, funding from my Department and from the Lottery will allow the establishment of a new nationwide School Games – opening up massive new opportunities for thousands of young people to take part in competitive sport.
And now there is new funding available – from the Department of Health and Sport England – which will pay for hundreds of new School Games Organisers working three days a week – or more if schools view this as a priority and are able to increase that funding.
Their role will be to help as many schools as possible sign up to the School Games.
They’ll help you to set up intra- and inter-school competitions – making sure that the links are there to Change4Life clubs and sports clubs, that there is a range of sports that all can enjoy, and that those children turned off by sport are turned on to it.
I hope and expect that many current competition and partnership development managers will consider taking on these roles.
And because you need to have clarity on this as soon as possible, we will announce more details on the funding mechanisms for these posts in the very near future.
Delivering broader benefits
Why do we value school sport? Let me give you my top five reasons.
Firstly because regularly taking part in physical activity brings huge benefits in terms of health and wellbeing.
Secondly because with more than 1 in 7 children classed as obese, sport is a vital part of the drive against childhood obesity.
Thirdly because participation in sport has been proven to reduce the chances that at-risk teenagers will commit anti-social behaviour.
Fourthly because organised physical activity helps to boost concentration and feeds through directly into improved academic performance.
And last but not least because competitive sport in particular prepares people for life in a way that little else comes close to.
It helps young people develop confidence, the inner confidence that comes from stretching yourself to the limit and achieving what you never thought possible.
It teaches you teamwork and the notion of an identity that extends beyond ourselves as individuals.
And it teaches you to win with grace, yes, but also to lose with dignity. And in today’s highly competitive world, learning to lose is equally as important as learning to win.
Shakespeare said: “Sweet are the uses of adversity.” But I never forget Churchill who said that “success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm”.
Quite a useful saying for politicians to memorise…
The ‘School Games’
It was the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, who said: “The important thing in life is not the victory but the contest; the essential thing is not to have won but to have fought well”.
And it will be our new School Games tournament – inspired by the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics – that will be at the heart of our new approach to competitive sport.
Of course, we are not starting from scratch. Thanks to you, there are already plenty of great examples of strong, well-developed competitions for children and young people.
Not least the UK School Games – where I enjoyed meeting many of you in Gateshead last year.
We want to build on this success rather than replicate it, and to do so in a way that allows every child the chance to take part, compete, and discover their hidden talents.
We want to do it with a new tournament that will help drive up interest in competitive sport right where it matters most – within schools themselves.
And we want to set this up in time for the Olympic and Paralympic Games as a key part of the sporting legacy they will leave behind.
Because this is not about a one-off event in 2012, but about what happens each and every year from now on.
Starting this academic year, all schools will have the chance to hold an annual School Games Day – the culmination of a broad-ranging programme of intra-school competition.
We expect around 500 schools to pilot a School Games Day this year, with a national roll-out in time for 2012.
And our goal is that these will be different – and better – than current school sports days.
Indeed our ambitions for the School Games are so high that some schools may not initially be willing to make the commitment to be part of them.
But let me give you three specific ways in which we want them to be a transformational shift:
Firstly we want each School Games Day not to be a “one off” event, but the finals of a broader programme of competitive intra-school sport taking place throughout the school year.
Secondly, drawing on the inspiration of the 2012 Paralympics, we want to make sure that this is a scheme that will offer disabled children as many opportunities as non-disabled children.
And thirdly, drawing on the nationwide festival of culture that will accompany London 2012, we want every School Games to have a cultural element.
Opening and closing ceremonies, for example, that could involve the school band or orchestra.
At the next level – what we call Level 2 – there will be a rolling programme of leagues and tournaments promoting more competition between schools at a town or district level.
As a former Shadow Minister for Disabled People, I am very proud of the fact that, for many areas, this will be the first time there has been an inter-school Paralympic-style competition in their area.
I had a chance to discuss this with some of you last night, and I was enormously impressed by your commitment to seizing this opportunity to take a huge step forward for the disability agenda.
From there, the most successful children and young people will progress to Level 3:
Up to 60 new, county or city-level ‘Festivals of Sport’ that will showcase the best of local competitive sport in the inter-school finals.
We will be piloting this in nine regions this summer: London, Manchester, and Lincolnshire, North Yorkshire, Cornwall and the Black Country, Hertfordshire, Kent and Tyne and Wear.
Finally – at level 4 – the most talented young sports people will have the chance to represent their schools in a high-profile, national event.
In the long term, this event will take place in September.
But next year we want to offer these young sports people the chance to compete in the brand new Olympic Park – even ahead of the athletes themselves.
That’s why the first national final will take place in May – precisely the moment when we can give your efforts the highest profile in the run up to the opening ceremony on July 27th.
By doing this we can create a direct link between the achievements of our most promising young athletes at the School Games and the achievements of Team GB in the Olympics and Paralympics.
And use their example to inspire all schoolchildren with the excitement and benefits of competitive sport.
I look forward to working together to create a fantastic legacy for young people through the School Games.
Below is the speech made by the then Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, at the 2011 Liberal Democrat Party Conference on 20th September 2011.
One abiding set of values that all Liberal Democrats share is a respect for our environment, natural systems and sustainability.
With this conference’s backing, we will hold course to be the greenest government ever.
No more, no less.
But are we still on course?
Well, I can hardly pick up a Tory paper these days without a whinge about energy and climate change policies.
It’s been nip and tuck between Vince and me in recent months to win an unpopularity poll – that’s on Conservativehome among Tory activists.
So as we assert Lib Dem values within government, we must be doing something right – or is it Left?
Personally, I have no doubt that climate change is one of the greatest challenges we face.
But if you are facing a pay squeeze or even worse a lost job, if your pay packet no longer buys what you need, people understandably put other priorities higher up the scale.
As always during hard times, every other issue pales into insignificance besides the big issues of earning your living.
Keeping your job.
Making ends meet.
But cutting carbon is not a luxury to be ditched when the going gets tough.
It is essential to the survival of mankind as a species.
The science is ever more clear.
Cutting carbon is also a vital part of our recovery from the deepest recession since 1929.
Then we had David Lloyd George’s Yellow Book: now we have Green Growth.
In the thirties, we did not create new jobs by bringing back the textiles, coal and iron jobs that were lost.
We created new jobs in new industries.
And the same is happening today.
Every month, more than 300,000 people leave the unemployment register to find new jobs.
Thousands of those jobs are now in the low carbon economy. It is our route to recovery. Green business is good business.
There are now a million jobs in low carbon goods and services in Britain, and they are growing rapidly.
New jobs in cars, where Nissan will produce the all-electric Leaf at Sunderland with a £5,000 premium for each car from our government.
New jobs in energy saving, where our Green Deal, launched next October, is set to create 250,000 jobs across the nation, up from 27,000 now.
With the Green Deal, we are stopping the scandal where we use more energy to heat our homes than in Sweden, despite their icy winters.
Saving money that can be spent at home on British jobs, not foreign gas.
And I am proud to announce that our party is putting our principles into practice.
Every single Liberal Democrat council has now signed up to pioneer the Green Deal.
New jobs too in renewable energy, where we are determined to be the fastest improving pupil in class – having started from being 25th out of the 27 EU member states.
Onshore wind farms that are now the cheapest form of renewable electricity.
Offshore wind farms that are setting the standard for the world.
New jobs in heating, where our Renewable Heat Incentive is a world-beating first.
Saving power by drawing heat from the air and the ground.
And from our woodland, where we use only a tenth of the sustainable timber we could produce.
New jobs in nuclear too, without a penny of public subsidy.
And providing that we stick to the strictest safety standards in the world, and learn the lessons of Fukushima.
And new jobs in coal and gas plants, as we provide them with a long-term future through capturing and storing their carbon.
All told, energy investment will be £200 billion in the next ten years, double the normal amount as we replace Britain’s ageing power stations.
Our Electricity Market Reforms will mean three quarters of our electricity comes from low carbon sources by 2030.
Funded in part by the world’s first Green Investment Bank.
When people ask where is the demand coming from to power the economic recovery, tell them its clean energy.
It’s energy saving.
It’s low carbon transport.
It’s the new green industrial revolution.
Now, some people argue that we should not be pushing low carbon business, because no-one else is.
Nonsense.
Look at China, with six of the biggest renewable companies in the world.
Installing wind turbines across the South China Sea.
Building 28 nuclear power stations in the time it will take us to build one.
Building 10,000 miles of high speed rail in the time we will take to go from London to Birmingham.
Covering 40 per cent of the Chinese population with low carbon economy zones.
If that’s doing nothing, then climate sceptics have a weird idea of zero.
The real risk is not doing too much.
It is doing too little.
And getting left behind.
Other people argue that we cannot afford to boost the low carbon economy.
It would be cheaper, they say, to rely only on oil and gas.
To say it is to laugh at it.
World gas – and hence electricity – prices have leapt by a third thanks to Libya and far eastern growth.
Global factors.
So we should surely try to limit our dependence on oil and gas, not increase it.
Particularly as our own North Sea resources are running down.
In the storm-tossed seas we have to sail, low carbon energy gives us security.
Assurance.
Safety.
British energy consumers will on average be better off in 2020 thanks to our low carbon policies. Yes, I said better off.
Getting off the oil and gas price hook and onto clean, green energy makes sense.
And with energy saving, we can offset the effects of higher prices and end up with lower bills.
In one generation, we will go from fossil fuel smokestack to low carbon cash back.
But there is hardship now, and we are determined to help.
Higher energy bills hurt.
None of us should have to save on warmth in a cold winter.
Some of the most vulnerable and elderly will shiver – and worse- if we do not help.
That is why this Government is boosting by two-thirds the discounts to help people in fuel poverty.
Why our Warm Homes Discount is a statutory scheme, not a grace and favour handout relying on energy companies’ good will.
That is also why this Government will make those in fuel poverty a top priority for the Green Deal, helped by our ECO subsidy.
Improving people’s homes cuts fuel poverty forever, while a discount only cuts fuel poverty for a year.
Year after year, fuel poverty rose under Labour.
Now we are helping the poor where Labour flannelled.
We are acting where Labour talked.
We are delivering where Labour failed.
But it is not just the fuel poor who need help.
Today I can announce a new package to help the hard-pressed consumer this winter and every winter.
We are determined to get tough with the big six energy companies to ensure that the consumer gets the best possible deal.
We want simpler tariffs.
Requiring energy companies to tell you whether you could buy more cheaply on another tariff.
And you can save real money.
Ofgem, the independent regulator, calculates that the average household could save £200 by switching to the lowest cost supplier – but fewer than one in seven households do so.
Britain privatised the energy companies, but most consumers never noticed.
Contrary to the Times’ report, I neither said nor meant that this was laziness.
It is just that consumers still think that they face the same bill whoever they go to.
So I want to help households save money.
With simpler charging.
Clearer bills.
Quicker switching.
I also want more consumer-friendly firms – co-ops, partnerships, consumer charities – dedicated to doing the shopping around for consumers to make sure that you are always on the best deal, even if you do not have time to check yourself.
Ofgem should also have new powers to secure redress for consumers – money back for bad behaviour.
Ofgem is already stamping out bad doorstep practices that lead to energy mis-selling, with the guilty companies suffering swingeing fines.
And we will stop the energy companies from blocking action by Ofgem, which can delay matters by a year.
I remember when I was on the board of Which? the Consumers’ Association that the best guarantee of a good deal is more competition for your pound.
We want to encourage new small companies to come into the market.
Cutting red tape so they can grow bigger.
Making it easier for them to buy and sell electricity in the wholesale market.
And with Ofgem, we are cracking down on any bad practice that could smack of being anti-competitive.
It’s not fair that big energy companies can push their prices up for the vast majority of their consumers – who do not switch – while introducing cut-throat offers for new customers that stop small firms entering the market.
That looks to me like predatory pricing.
It must and will stop.
Labour and Ed Miliband had thirteen years to get this market right, and all they can do now is call for another inquiry by the Competition Commission.
Another delay of two years.
Another chance to sit on the fence .
How feeble!
We know what’s wrong.
And with Ofgem, we are getting tough to put it right.
John Donne once said that no man is an island entire unto himself, and no government in this complex and interdependent world is entire unto itself.
National sovereignty’s historic writ does not run over so many issues that matter to every family in this country.
National frontiers do not bar toxic waste, sulphur or carbon.
That is why we must always work with our partners in Europe – and more widely – to secure our objectives, nowhere more clearly than on environmental issues.
The European Union is also key to our prosperity.
The Eurozone takes nearly half our exports.
We export more to Ireland alone than to China, India and Brazil put together.
Being part of Europe is not a political choice. It is a geographical reality
It always was. And until the tectonic plates break up, it always will be
We will not, as Liberal Democrats in government, weaken the ties that deliver our national interest through Europe.
Let me make another point about our Coalition.
Whatever we think of the Conservative campaign in the alternative vote referendum, and I for one thought that the vilification of Nick was appalling, for Liberal Democrats compromise is not and cannot be a dirty word.
Finding common ground.
Uniting in joint purpose.
Partnership politics.
That is what we had to do – Conservatives and Liberal Democrats – to get this country out of the economic danger zone.
Many countries that have suffered from the debt crisis since then – Portugal, Spain, Italy – had smaller budget deficits than us.
Yet we can borrow money at lower rates than at any time in three hundred years.
This coalition government saved Britain’s credit standing by compromise.
The danger if you don’t compromise is now clear from America.
There the markets looked over the brink when the mad-cap Republican right in Congress would not compromise with the President.
Let that be a warning to the Conservative right here: we need no Tea Party Tendency in Britain.
If you fail to compromise, if you fail to seek the common ground that unites us, if you insist that only you have the answers, if you keep beating the anti-European drum, if you slaver over tax cuts for the rich, then you will put in peril the most crucial achievement of this Government.
You will wreck the nation’s economy and common purpose.
We are all in this together and we can’t get out of it alone.
Below is the text of the speech made by Chris Huhne to the Renewable UK Conference on 26th October 2011.
I’m delighted to be here today, at Renewable UK’s annual conference.
Our location is rather appropriate. Manchester was the thumping heart of the industrial revolution. This was the world’s first industrial city. It is home to the first industrial canal, and the world’s oldest railway station.
The foundations for our prosperity were laid here. The engines which drove Britain’s extraordinary economic growth were built here – from the spinning mule to the steam engine.
We could not have picked a better place to discuss their modern equivalents.
Revolution
Renewable energy technologies will deliver a third industrial revolution. Its impact will be every bit as profound as the first two. My argument today is a simple one: the revolution has already begun.
From the Western Isles to the Isle of Wight – across the length and breadth of Britain. New companies are creating new jobs, delivering the technologies that will power our future.
As we look to pull ourselves out of recovery and back to prosperity, renewable energy can light the way.
Today, I want to look at the contribution renewable energy is making to our economy right now. The investment it is sparking, the jobs it is delivering, the growth it is creating.
And I will look at what we can to do encourage that growth – and sustain those jobs.
But first, I want to take aim at the faultfinders and curmudgeons who hold forth on the impossibility of renewables – the unholy alliance of climate sceptics and armchair engineers who are selling Britain’s ingenuity short.
“Renewables are too expensive”, they cry. “They cannot deliver energy at scale.
“They are uneconomic, unreliable and unwanted.”
It is time to retire these myths.
Money
Let us start with the most egregious: that renewables are too expensive; that they could not exist without public subsidy; that they are held up by government cash alone.
Last year, global investment in renewable energy rose by 32% to $211 billion. And $142 billion of that was new financial investment, which excludes government and corporate R&D.
Renewables are grabbing a large and growing share of new energy investment.
Yes, some of that investment is attracted by public subsidy. But globally, subsidies for fossil fuels outstrip subsidies for renewables by a factor of five.
We subsidise renewables to bring on deployment and reduce costs. And we’ve seen some remarkable successes: the cost of solar energy just keeps on tumbling.
Right now, support for renewable energy costs the average household less than sixpence a day. But decades of underinvestment in energy efficiency and reliance on fossil fuels costs us much, much more.
About half of the average household bill goes on wholesale gas and electricity costs. These costs are highly volatile, and as Ofgem make clear, the higher gas price is the real reason bills have been going up over the past eight years.
That is why we need a flexible energy portfolio.
And that’s where the counter-argument of the climate sceptics falls down. “Forget wind farms”, they say. “Shale gas will be our saviour. We should abandon everything else.”
I don’t believe government should pick winners. And if you do, I refer you to a Department of Trade and Industry white paper from 2004 that estimated oil would reach $23 per barrel by 2010. Even last year my own Department forecast oil at $80 per barrel. Brent crude is currently trading at $110 per barrel.
Lashing our economy to a single energy source is a risky business.
We don’t yet know the full extent of shale gas here; how economically or environmentally viable it will be to extract, or by when. At best, it is years away.
Unconventional gas has not yet lit a single room nor cooked a single roast dinner in the UK.
Yet those who clamour loudest for “realistic” energy policies would have us hitch our wagon to shale alone. Shale gas may be significant. It is exciting. But we do not yet know enough to bet the farm on it. Faced with such uncertainty we do what any rational investor does with their own pension fund – we spread our risks, we have a portfolio.
Capacity
The second fallacy is that renewables cannot deliver energy reliably or at scale.
But today, more than 10 gigawatts of our electricity capacity is renewable. That’s enough to power six million homes.
And with every passing year, renewable energy takes over another percentage point of global electricity capacity.
In 2007, 5% of the world’s electricity was renewable. In 2008, it was 6%. In 2009, 7%. And last year, 8%. And it’s still growing. More than a third of the new capacity added last year – some 60GW – was from non-hydro renewables. The message is clear: when we build new power plants, increasingly we choose renewables.
In fact, renewable energy can make our system more secure – not less. According to the International Energy Agency, renewables increase the diversity of electricity sources, making energy systems more flexible – and more resistant to shocks.
Yes, some renewable technologies are intermittent. But the Committee on Climate Change estimates that even with 65% of our energy provided by renewables in 2030, intermittency may cost just 1p per kilowatt hour.
After all, biomass is instantly dispatchable. And providing back-up for intermittent renewables is just not that expensive. We already swing from a low of demand of 40GW to a high of 80GW every day. Peaking plant has long been part of our mix. Without such backup the nation’s kettles would be cold in the Coronation St ad breaks.
Every year, renewable energy is attracting more investment and delivering more capacity. It is also gathering more support. One hundred and nineteen countries have renewable energy targets or policies – up from an estimated 55 just six years ago.
Attractiveness
That brings me to the third great misconception about renewable energy: that it is unwanted.
Earlier this year, Ipsos MORI polled a thousand UK adults on which energy source they preferred. By a clear margin, people favoured renewables.
Eighty-eight per cent of those polled viewed solar power favourably; 82% for wind, 76% for hydroelectric, 57% for biomass.
The highest placed traditional energy source for electricity was gas, at 56%.
Seventy-three per cent of people would support a new wind farm in their area, as opposed to just 21% for a new coal plant.
When you get behind the headlines, you find that support for renewable energy is strong – and growing.
And so is its contribution to our economy.
Economy
Across the United Kingdom, renewables are providing jobs, investment and growth.
And the numbers are really starting to add up.
Over the last financial year, nearly 4,500 new jobs were created in the low-carbon sector, which grew by 4.3%.
Fifty-one thousand and six hundred companies in Britain provide low-carbon and environmental goods and services. Exports are now £11.3 billion, up 3.9%.
By Christmas we will have 3GW of biomass installed, and by Easter 5GW of onshore wind. In the past seven months alone, plans for £1.69 billion of investment and 9,500 jobs have been announced.
Here in the North West, more than 950 jobs: 340 at the Siemens Renewable Energy Engineering Centre, just a few miles down the road; up to 600 over the next decade at Cammell Laird; three new Farmgen developments planned in Cumbria, with hundreds of jobs.
This is the sharp reality of green growth. At a time when closures and cuts dominate the news cycle, next-generation industries are providing jobs just as in the recovery after the last deep depression in 1929 to 1931. It is new and innovative industries that grow fastest.
Renewable energy is surging out across the United Kingdom, blazing a trail of start-ups and jobs.
Across the Pennines, in Yorkshire, 2,250 jobs – £130 million in Real Ventures’ biomass plant, employing up to 285 people.
And in the North East, more than 1,400 jobs – TAG Energy Solutions, delivering up to 400 jobs in the Billingham turbine factory.
North of the border, one of the jewels in our renewable energy crown – £160 million of new investment and more than 420 Scottish jobs.
Across the Irish Sea, 450 jobs in Belfast Harbour thanks to DONG Energy’s Duddon Sands offshore wind farm; 1,400 jobs in Wales.
In the heart of England, 100 jobs in the East Midlands – and 50 in the West; 120 in East Anglia.
Two thousand and two hundred jobs in the South East, supported by £172m – from Vestas, the Green Home Company, and more. And at Tilbury, the first UK coal plant to convert completely to biomass, safeguarding livelihoods.
Across Britain, from the industrial heartlands to the northernmost extremities, new energy technologies are delivering jobs and growth just when we need them most.
Capitalising on our geographical, physical and human advantages; Scotland’s research and natural resources. The Solent’s marine expertise. Manufacturing in the North East. Technology development in the M4 corridor.
Renewable energy doesn’t just have the potential to bring Britain’s economy back to life – it has already started.
Our job now is to allow it to really flourish. How? By setting clear and coherent objectives. And using regulation and closely targeted support to hit them.
Targets
By the end of this decade, we must cut our carbon emissions by 34% on 1990 levels. By the end of the next decade, they must be halved.
To hit our EU renewable energy target, we must generate 30% of our electricity from renewables by 2020. That means a fourfold increase in deployment – turning our back on an inheritance that ranked us as the dunce in class, 25th out of 27 EU countries for renewables.
Growth on that kind of scale will not be easy. It will require tough decisions, clear thinking, and tightly focused support.
And everyone has a part to play.
Industry must carry on making the case for renewables. Engaging with communities – and answering its critics by delivering renewable schemes that save money and save carbon.
Government must break through the barriers that are stopping new schemes being built, overcoming the financial, planning and delivery hurdles that can hold up progress on renewables.
And together we must do a better job of communicating. That means engaging with the communities who stand to benefit, and the investors who don’t yet see the promise that renewable energy holds.
We must ensure the silent majority aren’t drowned out by the vocal minority – those opposed to renewable energy in all its forms.
That means making sure communities that host renewables benefit more directly. That’s what our proposals on business rate retention are for. And that’s why we were pleased to endorse Renewable UK’s Protocol on Community Benefits.
My challenge to you today is this: keep it up. Continue to develop and publicise new ways of rewarding those communities most affected by development.
Opportunities
Because, as the report you are publishing today shows, the opportunities are simply too great to ignore.
Globally, around half a trillion dollars has been earmarked for green stimulus spending. We will need to spend a hundred times that by 2050 to hit our climate targets.
We must be realistic. The pressure on the public finances means we cannot support everything at the level we otherwise would.
So we must ensure we send clear market signals: deploying public finance intelligently, and breaking through barriers to growth.
Our starting point is simple. We have a responsibility to the taxpayer to get the most carbon and cost-effective electricity generation online.
Review
That is why the Renewables Obligation Banding Review has studied carefully how much subsidy different technologies need.
The Renewables Obligation reinforces our commitment to renewables, and it provides what developers most need: a stable framework as we look ahead to the Electricity Market Reform.
Where new technologies desperately need help to reach the market – where they can be scaled up significantly while bringing down costs over time – we are raising support.
Where investors are on the cusp, we will give them the short-term impetus they need. So marine energy projects up to 30 megawatts will receive five ROCs under our plans.
Where market costs are coming down – in onshore wind, for example – we’re consulting on reducing the subsidy.
On offshore wind, we set our ambition high in our recent Renewable Energy Roadmap. And because we want to see a huge increase in deployment by 2020, we must see costs come down.
So we’re working to help to bring investors and developers together, for example through the offshore wind investor conference.
And our host today, Andrew Jamieson, is also lending his talents to the Offshore Wind Cost-Cutting Task Force, which met for the first time last week.
On biomass, our support will focus more strongly on cheaper transitional technologies. Conversion from coal to biomass, for example, exploits existing assets and helps build the supply chain.
Overall the new arrangements will mean a lower impact on consumer bills than staying with the current bandings.
In total, our low-carbon and energy-saving policies will reduce household enegy bills compared with a ‘do nothing policy’.
Of course, this is a consultation. We want to hear views from industry and beyond. I am sure you will not be backwards in coming forward.
Markets
Our approach to renewable energy must encourage investment and deliver value for money for consumers.
We are doing three things to help.
First, we are using policy to create new markets that will stimulate new investment – like the Green Deal, our unprecedented energy efficiency programme. It will bring jobs, growth and opportunities right across the country.
Or the world’s first Renewable Heat Incentive. It will create a whole new market in renewable heat. Not just big industrial and commercial installations, but also homes and businesses, too.
We expect green capital investment in heat to rise by £7.5 billion by 2020, supporting 150,000 manufacturing, supply chain and installer jobs.
So the first thing we’re doing is to create new markets; the second is to make existing markets work better.
This is why we published in the summer our plans for the reform of the electricity market, which will deliver secure, low-carbon and affordable electricity.
We’ve listened to the renewables industry in drawing up the reforms. That’s why we support a contract for difference model tailored to renewables and not auctioning in the near future.
We’ll publish a technical update on the institutional framework and the capacity mechanism around the turn of the year, and we’re planning to provide more information on the CfD too.
We’ll also build in a phased transition from the Renewables Obligation to the new arrangements.
By offering certainty and clarity, we can secure the scale of investment we need. And by attracting in new investors, we will also increase competition in the UK energy market.
Benefits
Our third priority is to capture the benefits of the low-carbon revolution. That means ensuring more clean technologies are designed and manufactured here.
We have a blossoming low-carbon goods and services sector, which seems to be thriving even in tough times.
But China leads the world in solar photovoltaic panel production; Germany on energy efficient housing design.
We’re missing a trick unless we start supporting low-carbon manufacturing here in Britain – and grow the green supply chain: locking in profits and expertise, and creating the exports that will keep Britain competitive.
Yes, climate change is a manmade disaster. Yes, the UK is only 2% of global carbon emissions. But if we grasp the opportunity now our businesses and economy can be much more than 2% of the solution.
We are not going to save our economy by turning our back on renewable energy.
This has been at the heart of Liberal Democrat policy for decades and it is something the Deputy Prime Minister, the Business Secretary, and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury instinctively understand.
But this goes beyond any one party. I know the Prime Minister agrees, which is why he is putting so much effort in to securing offshore wind manufacturing in the UK. And it is something I know my predecessor Ed Miliband understands.
It is this three-party consensus that makes the UK such a good place to invest.
It wasn’t always like that. It is nothing short of a national disgrace that in the 1980s the UK lost our leading wind research position to Denmark, because government refused to support the industry.
It is a mistake I am determined that this Coalition Government will not make again. That is why in the recent ROC banding consultation I have sent a clear signal to the tidal stream and wave industry – we want the UK to be the best place in the world to invest, deploy and commercialise these technologies.
So I can today assure you that this Government has resolved that we will be the largest market in Europe for offshore wind.
We already have more installed offshore wind than anywhere else in the world and we are determined to remain at the forefront.
That’s why we set aside £200 million for the development of low-carbon technologies, including £60m for supporting major new manufacturing projects on the English coast.
We will be the best place to invest in marine power, and we will be the fastest growing country in the EU when it comes to renewable deployment.
That’s why the Green Investment Bank has been capitalised with three billion pounds, to help unlock private sector investment at scale. For the first time ever, Britain will join every other leading developed economy in having a public development bank focused on key economic goals.
Research
And that’s why we’ll keep funding research and innovation – not just through DECC, but through the business and transport departments too.
We’re also funding the Offshore Wind Accelerator, a partnership between the Carbon Trust and leading developers to demonstrate a new generation of full-scale, low cost energy. I’m pleased to announce today that a project funded through the Accelerator has been has been successfully installed with a met mast by the SMart Wind consortium, with funding support from DONG Energy.
This kind of innovation will bring down the cost of offshore wind faster.
That’s why we’ve allocated up to £30 million over the next four years to fund innovation to reduce offshore wind costs. And as part of this work, our first call for proposals will focus on components of emerging offshore wind systems, with budget of up to £5m. I expect it to be launched shortly.
We’ve also allocated up to £20 million to support the world’s first commercial-scale marine energy arrays.
And we’re working closely with organisations such as the Energy Technologies Institute, which just announced plans to invest up to £25m in an offshore wind floating system demonstration project. Opening up new areas off the coast of the UK, and helping to bring generation costs down.
Non-financial
So from the structure of the electricity market to research funding, we’re breaking through the economic barriers. But we’re also focusing on non-financial obstacles.
We’re reforming the planning system, to ensure it’s no longer a brake on sustainable development.
The energy National Policy Statements set out the national need for new renewable energy infrastructure. We have introduced a fast-track process for consents. And we will close the Infrastructure Planning Commission and return decisions on major energy infrastructure to democratically elected ministers.
Over 1,000 pages of local planning policy for England are being replaced by clearer and more streamlined National Planning Policy Framework. And the Government will consult on measures for a ‘planning guarantee’.
We’re also working to improve grid connections. The connect and manage regime is now up and running. Network companies are now looking much further ahead in their planning and engaging more effectively with stakeholders. Together, this will help the network acts as a facilitator rather than an obstacle to renewable generation.
And a few months ago, we published the Renewables Roadmap – setting out for the first time how we will overcome barriers to deployment.
It’s a comprehensive action plan to accelerate the UK’s deployment and use of renewable energy.
Conclusion
In many ways, Britain can lay claim to be the home of renewable energy.
It is thought that the oldest tidal mill in the world once stood across the river Fleet, in London. The white cliffs of Dover looked over a tide mill that was recorded in the Domesday Book.
And 130 years ago, we connected the world’s first public electricity supply, in Godalming, Surrey.
It did not burn coal, or gas.
No, the power plant in question was a Siemens generator driven by 100% clean, renewable power: a watermill on the River Wey.
When Britain began its journey towards electrification, renewable energy was the future.
But we ended up choosing another path. This time, things will be different.
We will not heed the naysayers or the green economy deniers.
With over £200 billion worth of energy infrastructure needed by the end of the decade, this is our golden chance to deliver a greener future.
The below speech was made by the then Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, at the Durban Climate Conference on 8th December 2011.
Thank you, Mr President.
One year ago, we brought these negotiations back from the brink. As the global economic crisis deepened, we turned away from low ambition.
This year, we must back high ambition. Economic uncertainty may be dominating the headlines, but emissions are rising fast. Against dark skies, we must summon the strength to commit to a brighter future.
Nowhere is this more essential than here in Africa, the continent most vulnerable to climate change. For millions of Africans, climate change is not a matter of negotiating texts, informal informals or square brackets. It is a matter – literally – of life and death.
So here in Durban, we must signal that our objective remains a legally binding global deal.
Nothing else will provide certainty for the businesses and investors who are building the next generation of homes, vehicles and power plants. Nothing else will close the emissions gap, delivering the carbon cuts we need to keep global warming within 2 degrees. Nothing else will show our determination to meet the climate challenge as fairly and as fully as possible.
That is why the UK, with our EU partners, remains a firm advocate of a global legally binding agreement within the UNFCCC. We want all countries to commit now to a comprehensive global legal framework, and to complete negotiations on it by 2015 at the latest.
The UK remains fully committed to the Kyoto Protocol. We are proud of the Protocol and the part we have played in it; it is driving the low-carbon transformation in Europe. Together with the EU, we have clearly stated that we are willing to move to a second Kyoto commitment period, maintaining ambition and environmental integrity.
But to do that in isolation makes no sense. A second commitment period covering only the EU and two or three other developed countries would control less than 15 per cent of global emissions; some 85 per cent of global emissions would remain uncontrolled.
That would not provide the certainty that investors need; it would not close the emissions gap; it would not meet the hopes of Cancun; it would not help the poor and the vulnerable.
We need a clear roadmap to a wider agreement. If that roadmap cannot be agreed here in Durban, we will not agree a second commitment period of Kyoto.
Let me be absolutely clear about this. The roadmap and the second commitment period are part of the same package, the same route towards a legally binding global deal. They cannot be separated from one another, and we will not let them be. We recognise and are encouraged by the fact that the vast majority of countries here, developed and developing, share this view.
The UK’s commitment to tackling climate change is clear. We have adopted strict domestic targets for reducing emissions: a 50 per cent cut by the mid 2020s. We are meeting our fast start finance obligations: we have allocated more than £1 billion to date.
On Tuesday, I announced our package for Africa:
– £38 million for climate-resilient agriculture in Eastern and Southern Africa, helping 250,000 small-scale farmers
– £27 million for the Energy and Environment Partnership in southern Africa
– £15 million to support Ethiopia’s new national climate strategy
– £7 million for an adaptation and resilience programme in Kenya support through the Clean Technology Fund for low-carbon projects in Nigeria
– £30 million for the Least Developed Country Fund
– £10 million for the Adaptation Fund
– £85 million for the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience
By the end of 2012 we will have met in full our pledge of £1.5 billion in fast start finance. And we already have committed financial support beyond the end of the fast start period.
We are determined to make the Green Climate Fund a reality and to develop long-term sources of finance. We must make progress on technology, adaptation, forests and MRV. We must move towards a common understanding of the size of the emissions gap, and how we can close it.
These are all steps on the road to a comprehensive global agreement. And this goal is not beyond our reach. Last year’s conference in Cancun showed what we can achieve when we display flexibility and the will to compromise.
If we continue to choose co-operation over conflict, we can show that all nations are indeed united by a common ambition: to protect our planet and our people from the dangers of climate change.
