Tag: 2012

Below is the text of a speech made by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, on crime and justice on Monday 22nd October 2012.

Two weeks ago, I spoke about this Government’s mission: to build an aspiration nation, where those who work hard can get on – and no one gets left behind. A stronger private sector. Welfare that works. Schools that teach.

Today I want to talk about another, critical, part of helping people to rise up and that is confronting the crime and bad behaviour that holds so many people down.

Go to some neighbourhoods in our country and you can feel that aspiration is dead. Children learning from a young age that life is about surviving, not thriving. Gang leaders as role models, drug dealers as career advisors. This doesn’t just matter to the elderly lady with five bolts on her door or the woman terrified to walk home in the dark. It matters to all of us.We will not rise as a country if we leave millions behind and write off whole communities.

So today I want to tell you about our approach to crime and justice – and the bold, unprecedented action we’re taking.

For many people, when it comes to crime I’m the person associated with those three words, two of which begin with ‘H’, and one of which is ‘hoodie’; even though I never actually said it. For others, I’m the politician who has argued frequently for tough punishment. So do I take a tough line on crime – or a touchy-feely one?

In no other public debate do the issues get as polarised as this. On climate change you don’t have to be in denial on the one hand or campaigning to get every car off the road on the other. Life isn’t that simple – so government policy isn’t that simple. And yet with the crime debate, people seem to want it black or white.

Lock ‘em up or let ‘em out. Blame the criminal or blame society. ‘Be tough’ or ‘act soft’.

We’re so busy going backwards and forwards we never move the debate on.

What I have been trying to do – in opposition and now in government – is break out of this sterile debate and show a new way forward: tough, but intelligent. We need to be tough because the foundation of effective criminal justice is personal responsibility.

Committing a crime is always a choice. That’s why the primary, proper response to crime is not explanations or excuses, it is punishment – proportionate, meaningful punishment.

And when a crime is serious enough, the only thinkable punishment is a long prison sentence. This is what victims – and society – deserve.

Victims need to know the criminal will be held to account and dealt with. And the ‘society’ bit really matters: retribution is not a dirty word, it is important to society that revulsion we all feel against crime is properly recognised. But punishment is what offenders both deserve and need, too. It says to them: “You are adults. Your actions have consequences.”

To treat criminals as victims – to say they had no choice – is to treat them like children. I firmly believe in their right to be treated as adults, with the responsibility to carry the consequences of their actions. But that’s not the whole story.

Just being tough isn’t a successful strategy in itself. Come with me to any prison in this country. There you’ll meet muggers, robbers, and burglars. But you’ll also meet young people who can’t read, teenagers addicted to drugs, people who’ve never worked a day in their whole lives.

These people need help so they can become part of the solution and not remain part of the problem. Recognising this isn’t soft, or liberal. It’s common sense.

We’ll never create a safer society unless we give people, especially young people, opportunities and chances away from crime. Prevention is the cheapest and most effective way to deal with crime – everything else is simply picking up the pieces of failure that has gone before. That’s part of what I mean by being intelligent as well as tough.

Not just saying what people want to hear, not playing to the gallery, but thinking hard about dealing with the causes of crime as well as the fall-out. And today, being intelligent has got to mean something else too. Achieving our ambitions when there is much less money than there used to be. The politics of the blank cheque are well and truly over.

The only way to achieve our ambitions is reform – radical, intelligent reform. So much of what went wrong in public services previously wasn’t because the money was missing, it was because the methods were wrong.

Top-down, bureaucratic, centralising. Judging every service by the money you put in rather than by the service you got out.

Our whole reform agenda is about turning this on its head.

Going from big government to big society; more choice, more competition, more openness. You see it in welfare providers paid by results and hospitals publishing their results online.

Some say, this is fine in welfare, fine with hospitals or fine with schools, but it won’t work in criminal justice. They think when it comes to keeping people safe, we’ve got to stick with the old, state-heavy approach. I believe that’s wrong.

It was the old approach that gave us police stuck behind desks filling in forms. It left us with the criminal justice system chasing ridiculous, unhelpful targets. And it left us with sky-high re-offending rates.

So we are bringing the logic of our public service reform agenda – transparency, payment by results, accountability – to transform criminal justice too. Because every part of that system needs change. Every part needs tough, but intelligent reform.And today, I want to explain how that’s working, right through the criminal justice system.

Let’s start with the police. I am profoundly grateful for the job our police officers do.

Years ago I used to run near Wormwood Scrubs every morning, and on my route there was a small stone monument. It said: ‘Here fell PS Christopher Head; PC Geoffrey Fox; PC David Wombwell, 12th August 1966’; and it was a daily reminder of this single truth: Police officers put on their uniform in the morning, kiss their children goodbye, and leave home having no idea about the dangers they might face.

Just a few weeks ago, Police Constables Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone answered a 999 call without knowing where it would lead. And though PC Ian Dibell was off-duty, he too could not have imagined what he would come up against. These people were professional, brave, instinctively selfless. The same can be said of thousands of police officers who work on our streets, protecting our families day-in, day-out.

All of us owe them our thanks. All of us owe them our respect. And for all those who wear the uniform, it’s essential we get policing right. For years police officers were held back from doing the job they signed up for. We had targets like the ‘Offences Brought to Justice Target’ which encouraged police to chase easy wins.

I remember being out on the beat with a police officer in South Wales and he felt he had to book a boy for taking some money from his mum’s purse – rather than just a stiff talking to down at the nick. That’s what the culture and targets demanded. He knew it was ridiculous. Everyone knew it was ridiculous. But the targets forced his hand. And then there was the out-of-control bureaucracy.

Police officers spending almost half their shift on paperwork. So Theresa May is doing what so many Home Secretaries before her shied away from; fundamentally reforming the police and allowing them to get on with the tough, no-nonsense policing that they want and we want.

We’ve scrapped all the targets and given them a single, core objective – to cut crime.We’ve ended micro-management from Whitehall and returned professional discretion to local forces.

The notion that you had to fill out a form every time you stopped someone on the street – it’s gone.The endless looking up for instruction from some official in the Home Office – it’s over. And we’re going further; reforming police pay so it rewards crime-fighting, not just time served; and changing the leadership of the police too.

Our reforms are comprehensive, they are sophisticated – and they are working.

HMIC – the independent regulator – found that even at a time of tight budgets, the frontline is being protected. The number of neighbourhood police officers is up. Public satisfaction is up and crime is down. And if you like official figures, here they are.

Even though in real terms, central police spending cuts are around 20 per cent over four years, the latest figures – out at the end of last week – show that crime is down 6 per cent in the last year.

We can have tough policing when money is tight. And we’re bringing intelligent reform too. More accountability and transparency to put people in charge of policing. That’s what Police and Crime Commissioners are all about.

These are big, important elections coming up. It’s the first time they are being held. People are going to be voting in their own law and order champion: One person who sets the budgets; sets the priorities; hires and fires and Chief Constable; bangs heads together to get things done.

Some people are saying that no one’s bothered, that people aren’t interested in how we fight crime in their area. I don’t agree. I say look at crime maps and you come to a conclusion.

They said no one would care about transparency – but this website has had 500 million hits and counting.

The more high profile Police and Crime Commissioners get, the more engaged people will be – and the more pressure they’ll put on them to deliver tough local policing.

So my message for these elections is clear: If you want more tough policing, you can get it.If you want coppers who are on the beat, on your street, cracking down on anti-social behaviour, focussing on the things you care about, then don’t just talk about it, get out on November 15th and vote for it.Intelligent reform is happening at the national level too, with the National Crime Agency.

This is, if you like, Britain’s version of the FBI; recognising that there are some highly serious and organised crimes – human trafficking, money laundering, drug rings – that need the very best in terms of national co-ordination.

The next part of the criminal justice chain is prosecution and here again we need tough, but intelligent reform.

Too often the story’s the same. Someone gets arrested in the middle of the night. They’re bailed. It takes months before they appear in court. Then the day dawns and they’ve disappeared.

It’s why you get whole walls of police stations papered with pictures of people missing on bail. But we saw with the riots last summer it doesn’t have to be like that. Justice was swift and it was tough – and we want that all the time.

So we’re opening our courts earlier in the morning, in the evenings and weekends; because crime doesn’t keep normal working hours and neither should our criminal justice system. Already this is happening in 48 courts across the country.

Another innovation is video links between police stations and courts. If someone is arrested, the police can flick the switch on a monitor and get them in front of a magistrate in hours rather than months. So no bail to jump and no cracks to slip through.

And we need to toughen up the process in court too.

Today, once the verdict is passed, the defendant can stand in the witness box and make their case for a more lenient sentence; but too often the victim doesn’t get a say. The one person whose life has been torn apart is kept silent.

We want to give more victims the chance to be heard – to say how their life has been affected by the crime. And to back that up we will be appointing a new Victims’ Commissioner to make sure that victims’ voices are heard not just in court but right at the heart of government.

We need intelligent reform, too, to open up our whole justice system. Today it’s all too closed, opaque, unaccountable.

We hear second hand what sentence a criminal is getting. Wouldn’t it be better if we could hear and watch the result and the reasoning – directly?

So we are legislating to start televising the sentences that Judges deliver, so that people can hear why a decision has been reached directly from the Judge.

This will start in the Court of Appeal next year, and in the long-term we want to see this happening in the Crown Court too.

When those criminals are convicted, we need to make sure the punishment fits the crime. At every single level of sentence this Government is getting tougher.

Where fines used to be limited, with us magistrates will be able to impose unlimited fines. While the maximum compensation that criminals used to be liable for was £5000, we are uncapping it. If you cost someone £10,000 or £20,000, you should potentially have to pay that back.

And we are toughening up community sentences too.

Having a monthly meeting with your probation officer is hardly a punishment – so tomorrow in Parliament, something important is happening. We are laying amendments to the Crime and Courts Bill, making sure that every community sentence contains an element of punishment.

And this tough change is aligned with an intelligent reform.

We’re introducing new GPS satellite tagging that can pin-point exactly where offenders are. Making it literally impossible to duck under the radar.

If you’re on a community sentence, you will be supervised. You will be properly punished. And you will be forced to complete that sentence.Of course, for many crimes, only one form of punishment will do – and that is prison.

I want to be clear. I want to see people who ruin the lives of others – rapists, murderers, muggers – behind bars, and kept there for a long time.

I’ve always supported the principle of the life sentence.

You do something heinous – and for the rest of your life you are either in prison or on licence and subject to recall if you step out of line. I don’t believe that’s old-fashioned, it is vital, so we are increasing life sentences.

A new two strikes and you’re out rule means that if you commit two serious sexual or violent offences, you get life. Not at the Judge’s discretion – but mandatory life.

We are creating a new maximum sentence of life for those who import guns and death onto our streets. And we are looking too at toughening up knife sentences, because to me a caution for carrying a knife just does not seem enough.And for anyone sentenced to a spell in prison, there will be space in prison. There will be no arbitrary targets for our prison population.

The number of people behind bars will not be about bunks available, it will be about how many people have committed serious crimes.

Once they are inside prison, we’re toughening up the regime.

Too many prisoners see out their time by just lying on their beds for hours and hours, watching TV, doing nothing, learning nothing. So we are turning those prisons from places of idleness into places of work.

Like HMP Manchester, where prisoners work in the laundry or printing workshop for up to 40 hours a week. I saw myself today a number of programmes where it is possible for prisoners to work and earn.

This is about fit and able people getting out of their cells, having a structured day, earning respect and earning privileges. And when they earn money, we’ll be making them pay a chunk of it back to their victims too.

So on the punishment of criminals – I don’t want there to be any doubt that we will be tougher. But it’s not good enough just being tough, locking people up and thinking: that’s it.

We need to be intelligent too, about what happens to these people during and after their punishment. And here’s why.At the moment, six out of ten of those leaving jail are reconvicted within two years. If you think that figure’s depressing, try this.

While those in the care system account for just one per cent of children, a quarter of those in prison were in care as children.

Half the prison population say they have no qualifications. We have got to give these people a chance. Not just for their sake, but for ours. To stop that revolving door that sucks millions of pounds of public money in and spits thousands of unreformed offenders out.

We’ve tried just banging people up and it’s failed.

We’ve tried letting people out with £46 in their pocket and no help on the outside and guess what? They’ve gone back to their old ways.

So I’m not going to try and out-bid any other politician on toughness, saying “let’s just bang them up for longer, let’s have more isolation, and once they’re out they’re on their own.”

I say: let’s use that time we’ve got these people inside to have a proper positive impact on them, for all our sakes.

It’s not a case of ‘prison works’ or ‘prison doesn’t work’ – we need to make prison work. And once people are on the outside, we’ve got to stick with them, and give them proper support, because it’s not outer space we’re releasing these people into – it’s our streets, our towns, among our families and our children.

That’s why this Government is engaged in what can only be described as a rehabilitation revolution – led by the new Justice Secretary Chris Grayling.

His main, driving mission is this: to see more people properly punished, but fewer offenders returning to the system.

To achieve that, we’re saying to charities, companies and voluntary organisations – come and help us rehabilitate our prisoners. Give offenders new skills. Educate them.

If they’ve been in a gang, send a reformed gang member to meet them at the prison gates and take them under their wing. If they’re on drugs, try the latest techniques to get them clean.

Do whatever it takes to get these people back living decent, productive lives. We will pay you for that; but – and it is a major but – once again the payments will depend on results.

We’re going to pay people by the lives they turn around. Just think of what this means for the taxpayer.

When this Government came to power we were spending £40,000 a year (per person) just on banging people up. With payment by results, your money goes into what works: prisoners going straight, crime coming down, our country getting safer.

It’s such a good idea I want to put rocket boosters under it; indeed today I have an announcement to make.

By the end of 2015, I want to see payment by results spread right across rehabilitation. Of course, there will be some high-risk offenders for whom this is not appropriate but this approach should be the norm rather than the exception. And I want to see rehabilitation reach more of those who would benefit from it.

Today, rehab just goes to those who have been inside for a year or more. But that misses all those who go in for shorter sentences yet re-offend time and time again. So I want to look at making them part of the rehabilitation revolution too.

I’ve touched on all the parts of the criminal justice chain, from policing to prison but where we need the most intelligent reform is prevention: stopping all this happening in the first place.

The riots last summer were a stark warning that parts of our society are broken. They told us we need to intervene much earlier in the story, before the jail cell, before the robbery, before the petty theft.

As the CSJ has argued so passionately, having a strong family is absolutely vital to people’s life chances and we believe that too. Strengthening families, strengthening partnerships, strengthening marriages, encouraging commitment are all part of our agenda.It’s why we’re shaking up fostering and adoption, ending the scandal that left children languishing in the care system for years.

It’s why we’ve re-focussed Sure Start centres – with more parenting classes, reaching out to the parents who really need support. And it’s why we’re bringing new help for the most 120,000 troubled families, the ones that live in a constant cycle of poverty, addiction and hopelessness.

For these families we’re bringing in professional, targeted help to get them into work, get the kids in school, help bring some order to their chaotic lives. And prevention means something else.

Some of those rioters last summer showed a complete indifference to the rules. We need to make clear to young people that respect is not something you can just expect, it’s something you earn.

So we’re bringing real discipline to schools – with teachers having more power to use reasonable force and take control of their classroom. And crucially, we’re focusing on those children who have been excluded from school.

Some Pupil Referral Units have been little more than a nursery class before the juvenile detention centre. So we’re turning failing PRUs into Academies, just as we are with failing schools, so that powerful, effective sponsors can bring the same radical improvements to them, as to some of the most challenged schools in the country.

On the other side of the coin we’re doing more to encourage good behaviour. National Citizen Service is about showing young people that they have responsibilities as well as rights, that they have a stake in our society.

Tens of thousands took part this year, and it is a personal passion of mine that in the coming years this should become a permanent part of the landscape in our country, a rite of passage that every teenager in every school goes through.

And all this fits into the bigger, broader picture of what this Government’s doing.

Whether it’s changing welfare so there’s no more something for nothing or putting the law on the side of victims and not criminals, we are re-scoring that line between right and wrong; between good behaviour and bad.

So I don’t want there to be any doubt how serious this Government is about law and order. Yes, we are tough – but we’re being intelligent too.

Not just giving police more power but giving people more power.

Not just speeding up our courts but opening them up.

Not just punishing but rehabilitating too.

By taking this approach we can cut crime even while cutting budgets. We can show law-abiding people that finally, the system is on your side.

And we can go to all those communities where life felt like a dead-end. Where crime felt inevitable; and we can restore hope and opportunity there too.

This is our goal. An aspiration nation. Where no one is left behind. And we are absolutely determined to achieve it.

Below is the text of a Parliamentary statement made by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, to the House of Commons on Monday 22nd October 2012.

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on last week’s European Council.

The European Union faces difficult choices in the coming months to meet tough economic challenges and to deal with the problems in the Eurozone.

There were no landmark decisions at this Council but there was some limited progress on both issues.

Mr Speaker, we are in a global economic race.

All European economies need to become more competitive, expanding the private sector, reforming welfare and improving education.

In terms of action at the EU level, that means: lifting the burdens on businesses, completing the single market and taking forward trade deals with the biggest economies and the fastest growing countries in the world.

I have consistently promoted these solutions and will continue to do so.

And at the Council we made some good progress.

On deregulation, I joined with others to secure a new agreement that specifically refers to withdrawing legislative proposals from Brussels that stifle our businesses.

Of course, we now need to see specific actions, but it is worth noting that the conclusions refer to the “intention to withdraw a number of pending proposals and to identify possible areas where the regulatory burden could be lightened”

On completion of the single market, as I reported in June there is a proper plan with dates and actions for completing the market in energy, services and digital.

These are reflected in both the Conclusions’ text and in the document issued with the Growth Compact.

Again it is vital that this plan is followed through to secure jobs and growth.

On trade, the Council agreed an ambitious agenda to create 2 million jobs across Europe.

This includes completing free trade deals with Canada and Singapore in the coming months and starting negotiations with the US next year on a comprehensive transatlantic trade and investment agreement.

And we made some new progress on launching negotiations with Japan “in the coming months.”

This deal could increase EU GDP by 42 billion euros.

Let me turn to the Eurozone.

Britain is not in the Eurozone – and we’re not going to be joining the Eurozone.

But it is in our national interest that the uncertainty surrounding the Eurozone comes to an end.

I have argued for some time that a working Eurozone needs a working banking union.

It is one of the features a successful single currency needs.

You don’t need a banking union because you have a single market you need it because you have a single currency.

So Britain should not – and will not – be part of it.

Britain’s banks will be supervised by the Bank of England, not the ECB.

And British taxpayers will not be guaranteeing or rescuing any Eurozone banks.

But we do need Eurozone members to get on and form a banking union.

And at this Council I joined those arguing for progress to be made on the plan announced in June.

Put simply, it is not enough having a banking union stripped of the very elements like mutualised deposit guarantees, a common fiscal backstop and a framework for rescuing banks that are needed to break the dangerous link in the Eurozone between sovereign debt problems and the stability of Eurozone banks.

But because not all countries outside the Eurozone will want to join such a banking union it’s also essential that the unity and integrity of the single market is fully respected.

The organisation that currently ensures a level playing field for banking within the single market is the European Banking Authority.

We need to make sure that it will continue to function properly, ensuring fair and effective decision making.

And this is specifically recognised in the Conclusions.

More broadly, as Eurozone countries take steps to deepen their economic and monetary union, I also secured an explicit commitment in the Conclusions that the final report and roadmap in December will include concrete proposals to ensure that the integrity of the single market is respected.

Finally, the next Council in November will discuss the financial framework for Europe between 2014 and 2020.

Mr Speaker, I have not put in place tough settlements in Britain in order to go to Brussels and sign up to big increases in European spending.

I don’t believe that German voters want that any more than British voters and that’s why our governments have led the argument in Europe for fiscal restraint.

So I put down a marker that we need a rigorous settlement.

As the letter signed in December 2010 by a number of European leaders said given the tough spending settlements that all Member States have had to pursue in their own countries -and I quote – “payment appropriations should increase, at most, by no more than inflation over the next financial perspectives.”

On foreign affairs, this Council, led by Britain, once again discussed further restrictive measures on the Syrian regime and made clear to Iran that we will increase the pressure if there isn’t progress on the nuclear dossier.

So Mr Speaker, making our economies competitive, dealing with uncertainty in the Eurozone, keeping the EU budget under proper control and making sure the EU speaks with a strong and united voice on the key international challenges – this is our agenda.

And I commend this statement to the House.

Below is the text of a speech made by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, at Britannia Naval College on Wednesday 17th October 2012.

It is a huge privilege to be here with you today. I have spoken at passing out parades at Sandhurst, and at Cranwell so I suppose you could say I’ve left the senior service and the best till last.

As Prime Minister, I get to spend quite a lot of time with our Armed  Forces. From visiting bases at home and abroad to meeting our top officers for briefings as part of our National Security Council. And I can just tell you this, there is nothing that makes me more proud of our country, of what we stand for in the world or what we’re capable of doing, than our Armed Forces.

You are the pride of Britain and to share this moment of celebration with you today is very  special.  The 68 of you passing out today come from nine countries; not just from Britain, but from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates, from Barbados, the Bahamas, Kuwait and Jordan.  And we are very proud that you’ve all chosen to come here for your training.

There will of course be huge challenges ahead, but as you leave here today I hope that you will take three things with you. First, pride in what you’ve achieved. Second, pride in the navy you are going to join. And third, pride in those things you are going to do in the future.

Let me take each in turn. You’ve been through 30 weeks of the toughest and best training that anyone could have.  You’ve done fitness training, weapons training, navigation, seamanship, leadership, boat handling. You’ve proved yourselves in challenging environments, from braving the elements of Dartmoor to deployment at sea in HMS Illustrious and HMS York.

Outwardly, you are fitter, leaner and stronger. Inwardly, more confident, more sure of your abilities and your own limits.  You have succeeded where other could not.  A third of those who sit the Admiralty interview board don’t get accepted in the first place.  Nearly a tenth of those who pass in, don’t pass out.  So your success is a great testament to your strength and to your endurance.  And you should take great pride in that.

The second thing I want you to take away is pride in the navy you’re going to join. For the Brits amongst you, you are quite simply becoming part of the navy with the greatest history in the world.  The Royal Navy is absolutely fundamental to our security as an island nation, and it is a vital part of our heritage. As Viscount Cunningham famously said at the Battle of Crete in 1941, ‘It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition.’

You will stand on the shoulders of those that have come before you, those who saved Britain from invasion, who swept the evil of slavery off the high seas, who’ve won great victories in every corner of the globe, and those who defeated Hitler and preserved our freedom. Our ships, submarines and naval air squadrons carry battle honours that literally span every part of the planet.  In my generation alone we have sent the Navy to the Falklands, to the Gulf twice, and recently to Libya, and not forgetting the constant patrolling of the nuclear deterrent, the South Atlantic patrols, the countering of Somali piracy, and capacity building across the world.

A shell casing from HMS Liverpool sits in my office in Number 10 Downing Street. It was the last fired in anger in the Libya campaign, and it is a permanent reminder to me of the Royal Navy and its work to defend freedom.  Put simply, the words carved into the front of this imposing building remain as meaningful today as they were 350 years ago.  It is on the Navy, under the providence of God, that our wealth, prosperity and peace depend.

Now that leads me to the third thing I want you to take away,  pride in what you’re going to do.  The challenges you face over the coming years may place demands on you experienced by few others of your age in the world today. Because, despite the technology of today, being in the armed forces is an intensely human business.  It is based on personal relationships and the ability of people like you to lead your fellow men and women, even in the face of danger. And there is no greater honour that a nation can bestow than the trust to lead your fellow men and women.  That is the task that you will have. Your training here has given you the best possible start.  You will need to continue to develop all these skills and more.  But I want you to be proud of the difference that you can make.  Quite simply, you will be helping to defend our way of life, and there is no greater calling than that.

In return for all you will give to your country, I want your country to have pride in you. As a Government, we will do everything we can to support you, to look after your families, and to rebuild the  Military Covenant that is so important to this country and, I believe, everyone who lives in it.  People expect us to do the right thing by you, and we must.

But today is about you and what you will do, about your service and your leadership. So let me finish with the words of His Majesty King George VI, engraved on a plaque in the college next to his statue: ‘Nobody can lead unless he has the gift of vision and the desire in his soul to leave things in the world a little better than he found them. He will strive for something which may appear unattainable but which he believes in his heart can one day be reached, if not by him, by his successors if he can help to pave the way.’

What you will do is not just important for our country today but for generations to come. I wish you all the very best for the future and, once again, congratulations on this very, very special day.  Thank you.

Below is the text made by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday 26th September 2012.

Mr President, Deputy Secretary General, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am proud that this year Britain welcomed the world to the Olympic and Paralympic games and put on a great display showing that while we may only have the 22nd largest population, we can roll out one of the warmest welcomes in the world.

I am honoured too that in this coming year I have been asked to co-chair the High Level Panel to build one of our greatest achievements with the Millennium Development Goals.

Britain takes this very seriously.

I am convinced that we need to focus more than ever on the building blocks that take countries from poverty to prosperity. The absence of conflict and corruption. The presence of property rights and the rule of law. We should never forget that for many in the world the closest relative of poverty is injustice. Development has never been just about aid or money, but I am proud that Britain is a country that keeps its promises to the poorest in the world.

Mr President, a year ago I stood here and argued that the Arab Spring represented an unprecedented opportunity to advance peace, prosperity and security.

One year on, some believe that the Arab Spring is in danger of becoming an Arab Winter.

They point to the riots on the streets, Syria’s descent into a bloody civil war, the frustration at the lack of economic progress and the emergence of newly elected Islamist-led governments across the region.

But they are in danger of drawing the wrong conclusion.

Today is not the time to turn back – but to keep the faith and redouble our support for open societies, and for people’s demands for a job and a voice.

Yes, the path is challenging. But democracy is not – and never has been – just about simply holding an election. It is not one person, one vote, once. It’s about establishing the building blocks of democracy, the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, with the majority prepared to defend the rights of the minority, the freedom of the media, a proper place for the army in society and the development of effective state institutions, political parties and wider civil society.

I am not naive in believing that democracy alone has some magical healing power. I am a Liberal Conservative, not a Neo-Conservative. I respect the different histories and traditions that each country has. I welcome the steps taken in countries where reform is happening with the consent of the people.  I know that every country takes its own path. And that progress will sometimes be slow.

Some countries have achieved stability and success based on tradition and consent. Others have endured decades in which the institutions of civil society were deliberately destroyed.

Political parties banned. The free media abolished. The rule of law twisted for the benefit of the few. We cannot expect the damage of decades to be put right in a matter of months.  But the drive for opportunity, justice and the rule of law and the hunger for a job and a voice are not responsible for the problems in the region. Quite the opposite.

The building blocks of democracy, fair economies and open societies are part of the solution, not part of the problem. And we in the United Nations must step up our efforts to support the people of these countries as they build their own democratic future. Let me take the key arguments in turn.

First of all, there are those who say there has been too little progress, that the Arab Spring has produced few tangible improvements in people’s lives. This isn’t right. Look at Libya since the fall of Gaddafi. We have seen elections to create a new Congress.

And now plans to integrate armed groups into the national police and army. None of this is to ignore the huge and sobering challenges that remain.  The murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens was a despicable act of terrorism. But the right response is to finish the work Chris Stevens gave his life to. And that’s what the vast majority of Libyans want too.

As we saw so inspiringly in Benghazi last weekend, they are taking to the streets in their thousands, refusing to allow extremists to hijack their chance for democracy. The Arab Spring has also brought progress in Egypt where the democratically elected President has asserted civilian control over the military, in Yemen and Tunisia where elections have also brought new governments to power and in Morocco where there’s a new constitution – and a Prime Minister appointed on the basis of a popular vote for the first time. And even further afield, Somalia has also taken a vital step forward by electing a new President.

So there has been progress. And none of it would have come about without people standing up last year and demanding change and this United Nations having the courage to respond.

Second, there is the argument that the removal of dictators has started to unleash a new wave of violence, extremism and instability. Some argue that in a volatile region only an authoritarian strong man can maintain stability and security. Or even that recent events prove that democracy in the Middle East brings terrorism not security and sectarian conflict not peace. Again I believe we should reject this argument.

I have no illusions about the danger that political transition can be exploited by violent extremists. I understand the importance of protecting people and defending national security.

And Britain is determined to work with our allies to do this. But democracy and open societies are not the problem.

The fact is that for decades, too many were prepared to tolerate dictators like Gaddafi and Assad on the basis that they would both keep their people safe at home .and promote stability in the region and the wider world. In fact, neither was true. Not only were these dictators repressing their people, ruling by control not by consent, plundering the national wealth and denying people their basic rights and freedoms, they were funding terrorism overseas as well.

Brutal dictatorship made the region more dangerous not less. More dangerous because these regimes dealt with frustration at home by whipping up anger against their neighbours, the West and Israel. And more dangerous too, because people denied a job and a voice were given no alternative but a dead end choice between dictatorship or extremism.

What was heartening about the events of Tahrir Square was that the Egyptian people found their voice and rejected this false choice. They withheld their consent from a government that had lost all legitimacy. And they chose instead the road to a more open and fair society. The road is not easy – but it is the right one and it can make countries safer in the end.  Next, there are those who say that, whatever may have been achieved elsewhere, in Syria, the Arab Spring has unleashed a vortex of sectarian violence and hatred with the potential to destroy the region.

Syria does present profound challenges. But those who look at Syria today and blame the Arab Spring have got it the wrong way round. You can not blame the people for the behaviour of a brutal dictator. The responsibility lies with the brutal dictator himself. Assad is today inflaming Syria’s sectarian tensions, just as his father did as far back as the slaughter in Hama 30 years ago.

And not only in Syria.  Assad has colluded with those in Iran who are set on dragging the region in to wider conflict. The only way out of Syria’s nightmare is to move forward towards political transition and not to give up the cause of freedom.The future for Syria is a future without Assad. It has to be based on mutual consent as was clearly agreed in Geneva in June.

But if anyone was in any doubt about the horrors that Assad has inflicted on his people, just look at the evidence published by Save the Children this week; schools used as torture centres, children as target practice.  A 16 year old Syrian called Wael who was detained in a police station in Dera’a said: “I have seen children slaughtered. No, I do not think I will ever be ok again…If there was even 1% of humanity in the world, this would not happen”.

The blood of these young children is a terrible stain on the reputation of this United Nations. And in particular, a stain on those who have failed to stand up to these atrocities and in some cases aided and abetted Assad’s regime of terror. If the United Nations Charter is to have any value in the 21st Century we must now join together to support a rapid political transition. And at the same time no-one of conscience can turn a deaf ear to the voices of suffering.  Security Council Members have a particular responsibility to support for the UN appeal for Syria.

Britain, already the third biggest donor, is today announcing a further $12 million in humanitarian support, including new support for UNICEF’s work helping Syrian children. And we look to our international partners to do more, as well.

Of course the Arab Spring hasn’t removed overnight the profound economic challenges these countries face. Too many countries face falling investment, rising food prices and bigger trade deficits. But it’s completely wrong to suggest the Arab Spring has created these economic problems.  It’s a challenging time for the world economy as a whole.  And there was never going to be an economic transformation overnight, not least because far from being successful, open, market-based economies, many of these countries were beset by vested interests and corruption, with unaccountable institutions.  And this created a double problem.

Not just fragile economies, but worse, people were told they had experienced free enterprise and open markets – when they had experienced nothing of the sort.
We must help them unwind this legacy of endemic corruption, military expenditure they can’t afford, natural resources unfairly exploited – in short, mass kleptocracy that they suffered under for so long.

And while I’m on the subject of stolen assets, we also have a responsibility to help these countries get back the stolen assets that are rightfully theirs, just as we have returned billions of dollars of assets to Libya.  It is simply not good enough that the Egyptian people continue to be denied these assets long after Mubarak has gone.

Today I am announcing a new British Task Force to work with the Egyptian government to gather evidence, trace assets, work to change EU law and pursue the legal cases that will return this stolen money to its rightful owners the Egyptian people.

Finally, and perhaps most challenging of all for Western countries like mine, is the argument that elections have simply opened the door to Islamist parties whose values are incompatible with truly open societies. My response to this is clear.  We should respect the outcome of elections. But we should not compromise on our definition of what makes an open society. We should judge these Islamists by what they do. The test is this.

Will you entrust the rights of citizenship to your countrymen and women who do not share your specific political or religious views? Do you accept that – unlike the dictators you replaced – you should never pervert the democratic process to hold onto power if you lose the consent of the people you serve? Will you live up to your commitments to protect the rule of law for all citizens, to defend the rights of Christians and minorities and to allow women a full role in society, in the economy and in politics? Because the truth is this: you can not build strong economies, open societies and inclusive political systems if you lock out women. The eyes of the world may be on the Brothers, but the future is as much in the hands of their mothers, sisters and daughters.

Holding Islamists to account must also mean that if they attempt to undermine the stability of other countries or if they encourage terrorism instead of peace and conflict instead of partnership, then we will oppose them. That is why, Iran will continue to face the full force of sanctions and scrutiny from this United Nations until it gives up its ambitions to spread a nuclear shadow over the world.  And it is also why we will not waver from our insistence that Hamas gives up violence.  Hamas must not be allowed to dictate the way forward.

Palestinians should have the chance to fulfil the same aspirations for a job and a voice as others in region and we support their right to have a State and a home.  And Israelis should be able to fulfil their own aspirations to live in peace and security with their neighbours.

So, of course there are challenges working with governments that have different views and cultural traditions. But there’s a fundamental difference between Islam and extremism.

Islam is a great religion observed peacefully and devoutly by over a billion people. Islamist extremism is a warped political ideology supported by a minority that seeks to hijack a great religion to gain respectability for its violent objectives. It’s vital that we make this distinction. In Turkey, we see a government with roots in Islamic values, but one with democratic politics, an open economy and a responsible attitude to supporting change in Libya, Syria and elsewhere in the region. I profoundly believe the same path is open to Egypt, Tunisia and their neighbours.  And we must help them take it. Democracy and Islam can flourish alongside each other. So let us judge governments not by their religion – but by how they act and what they do. And let us engage with the new democratic governments in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya so that their success can strengthen democracy not undermine it.

Mr President, there is no doubt that we are in the midst of profound change and that many uncertainties lie ahead. But the building blocks of democracy, fair economies and open societies are part of the solution not part of the problem. Indeed, nothing in the last year has changed my fundamental conviction.

The Arab Spring represents a precious opportunity for people to realise their aspirations for a job, a voice and a stake in their own future.

And we, in this United Nations, must do everything we can to support them.

Below is the transcript of the speech made by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, in Birmingham on 16th July 2012.

PRIME MINISTER

Good morning everyone, and welcome. We got you here to help the headline writers with sharing platforms, minding gaps, trains on track and I am sure you will think of some others; no, the real reason for being here is that this is the next stage in the biggest investment in our rail network since Victorian times.

Already as a government, we have put in place £18 billion of investment by March 2015. Today we are announcing accelerated investment by network rail beyond that, with over £9 billion of investment between 2014 and 2019. We are creating a fast, modern, reliable railway with more capacity and cleaner electric trains. It is about getting people, and of course freight, off the roads and onto the railways.

While just ten miles of track were electrified in the last 13 years, we can commit to over 850 more miles of electric railway by 2019. By the time this is complete, around three quarters of all rail journeys in England and Wales will be made on electric trains. Here in Birmingham, we are already transforming New Street station with High Speed 2 to come as well. Today we are announcing more capacity and electric lines for the region.

There is good news for Wales, where we are committing to electrify the line all the way to Swansea and into the Welsh valleys. In the Midlands I can announce that we are electrifying the midland main line, from Sheffield to London. This has been talked about for years, actually decades, but it is this government that has got the finance and is really getting things moving.

In the North, we are committed to delivering the Northern Hub transformation, which will see a massive improvement in services between Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield.

In the South East, as well as Crossrail – which is of course the biggest construction project anywhere in Europe – London and the South East will receive an extra £700 million to support the capital’s economy and allow an extra 120,000 commuter journeys every day.

Heathrow airport will get a much needed direct connection to the West – again something that has been talked about a lot, which is now being delivered – so that trains from the West Country and Wales can reach the airport directly.

There is more to come this week, with the Chancellor and Chief Secretary setting out plans to use the strength of the government’s balance sheet to support further investment in the country’s infrastructure. We can do this only because we have a credible deficit reduction plan that is trusted and allows us to invest for the long-term.

I would argue that this is just one aspect of the long-term mission of this coalition government. Of course the coalition has come into question, some asking whether it has real momentum for the rest of this Parliament; others even asking whether it should end. I just want to say I am even more committed to making this coalition government work today than I was in May 2010 when Nick Clegg and I formed this government. I believe it has real purpose, a real mission.

I do not just believe this because the world has become even more dangerous and difficult than 2010, although it undoubtedly has; switch on your television sets and you can see weak governments being buffeted by events and economic difficulties. It is vital that this government has the majority, has the decisiveness, and has the strength to keep our economy safe, to cut our deficit – which we have done by a quarter in two years – and to have all the drive that we need for economic growth in the years ahead.

I would argue that as well as that clear justification, because of economic difficulties and uncertainties, there is also, I think, a huge momentum in this government behind the agendas that the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives share.

We are both absolutely committed to rebalancing our economy; it became too dependent on finance, on the South East, on the public sector and we need jobs and growth from the private sector that I think is absolutely vital. 800,000 new jobs in the private sector since May 2010; last year the best ever year for establishing new businesses in Britain, but frankly there is much more we need to do to rebalance. Both parties are committed to that.

Both parties are also absolutely committed to driving aspiration and giving people life chances in our country by reforming education. We announced last Friday an extra 100 free schools; something governments of one party have never done, breaking open the state monopoly of education, providing great new schools, great new education for children, real rigour in terms of discipline, exam standards, helping people to achieve their potential.

Another absolutely shared mission is what the Deputy Prime Minister calls ‘alarm clock Britain’, what I call being on the side of people who work hard and want to get on, is reforming welfare so that it actually pays to work rather than not to work. We have capped welfare; we are introducing universal credit so you are always better off in working and always better off if you work more.

I also believe there is a shared agenda on making sure that Britain stands tall in the world. We will complete the united [indistinct] over the mission that we carried out with allies in Libya, which has resulted in the first free elections in that country for over four decades. We stand together for freedom and democracy in Syria. We back Britain’s expanded aid budget, to make sure that Britain has a moral purpose in the world but also to safeguard our interests.

Those are just some of the areas I would mention where there is a great common interest, a driving mission, for this government. I would argue that we have achieved some things in two years that have eluded single party governments that have been in office for over a decade.

We were always told, ‘You can’t reform public sector pensions’; we have, and we have cut that cost by almost a half. We are always told, ‘You can’t reform welfare’; we are well down that track. We have also grappled with difficult subjects like higher education reform, to make sure we can go on having well-funded universities that will serve our economy and young people in the future.

There is much more to come on all of these agendas; we will be publishing a midterm review at the end of the summer, as we go into autumn, looking at the things we have achieved so far and also setting out the next goals and objectives of things this coalition government wants to achieve in the remainder of this Parliamentary term.

I say this Parliamentary term, because that is what this government is for. I think it is important we have that fixed term, we have that fixed government; people know, the markets know, businesses know there is strong decisive government throughout this term.

What has driven this government is a view that we need to get things done, a view that we need to safeguard the British economy in difficult times but above all that what we do is about the national interest. That is what drives the Deputy Prime Minister and me; that is what this government is all about; that is its foundation.

I think today, with this big rail announcement, is yet another example of a long-term decision that will strengthen the British economy and also strengthen our society too.