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Tag: 2019

  • Matt Warman – 2019 Statement on Hacker House

    Below is the text of the statement made by Matt Warman, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in the House of Commons on 25 September 2019.

    I thank the hon. Lady for raising this question today. I am answering it because it is part of my portfolio.

    As hon. Members may know, the Department runs a programme known as the cyber-security immediate impact fund. It is one of a range of programmes designed to increase the number and diversity of people who pursue careers in the cyber-security profession. Through the fund, we want to support new, creative and innovative projects that are delivered by a range of organisations, including start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises.

    We have supported a variety of initiatives, awarding grants of between £20,000 and £500,000 since March 2018. Hacker House is one of the businesses that was awarded a £100,000 grant in February 2019 as part of our second funding round. To date, it has been paid around £47,000 for work completed. The grant was awarded by officials from DCMS, the Department for Education, techUK and, indeed, people from the National Cyber Security Centre. If the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) wishes to impugn the motives of those officials, I invite her to think carefully before she does so.

    To date, we have awarded 11 companies grants to deliver 12 initiatives. More than 400 people have benefited from support through the fund. Our objective is that even more people will benefit as the businesses with which we partner further invest in a sector that I know the hon. Lady agrees is vital to the future of our security and our economy. That is part of our mission as a Department to identify untapped talent and help a broader range of individuals who have the capabilities and aptitude to develop their careers in cyber-security. I assure the House that all grants are awarded through an open, transparent and competitive process. Each grant is judged on specific assessment criteria and is approved by the panel I referred to earlier, with cross-departmental and industry representation. We are, of course, aware of the claims raised recently by The Sunday Times, and the Department is reviewing the decision that was taken, but we monitor all initiatives that have been awarded grant funding and we treat any allegations of impropriety with the utmost seriousness. As soon as I have any further information to share on this matter, I will, of course, update the House at the earliest possible opportunity.

  • Geoffrey Cox – 2019 Statement on Prorogation

    Below is the text of the statement made by Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, in the House of Commons on 25 September 2019.

    As the hon. and learned Lady knows, the Supreme Court gave judgement on this issue yesterday, and that judgement sets out the definitive and final legal position on the advice given to Her Majesty on the Prorogation of Parliament. The Government’s legal view during the case was set out and argued fully before the Supreme Court. The hearing was streamed live and the Government’s written case was, and is, available on the Supreme Court website.

    I took a close interest in the case—[Interruption]—and I oversaw the Government’s team of counsel. I have to say that if every time I lost a case I was called upon to resign, I would probably never have had a practice.

    The Government accept the judgement and accept that they lost the case. At all times, the Government acted in good faith and in the belief that their approach was both lawful and constitutional. These are complex matters, on which senior and distinguished lawyers will disagree. The divisional court, led by the Lord Chief Justice, as well as Lord Doherty in the outer house of Scotland, agreed with the Government’s position, but we were disappointed that, in the end, the Supreme Court took a different view. Of course, we respect its judgement.

    Given the Supreme Court’s judgement, in legal terms the matter is settled, and, as the hon. and learned Lady will know, I am bound by the long-standing convention that the views of the Law Officers are not disclosed outside the Government without their consent. However, I will consider over the coming days whether the public interest might require a greater disclosure of the advice given to the Government on the subject. I am unable to give an undertaking or a promise to the hon. and learned Lady at this point, but the matter is under consideration.

  • John Bercow – 2019 Statement on Prime Minister’s Unlawful Prorogation

    Below is the text of the statement made by John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, in the Commons on 25 September 2019.

    Colleagues, welcome back to our place of work.

    The UK Supreme Court ruled yesterday that

    “Parliament has not been prorogued”

    and that the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Speaker

    “can take immediate steps to enable each House to meet as soon as possible”

    to decide upon a way forward.

    I will arrange for the citation for that judgement to be entered in the Journal of this House and accordingly direct that the item relating to the Prorogation of Parliament in the Journal of Monday 9 September is expunged and the House is instead recorded as adjourned at the close of the business. I instruct the Clerk to correct the Journal accordingly and to record the House to have adjourned at the close of business on Monday 9 September until today.

    Members should also be aware that Royal Assent to the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill, which formed part of the royal commission appointed under the quashed Order in Council, will need to be re-signified.

    I wish to record my thanks, and I hope colleagues across the House will join me in doing so, to the staff of the House, including the security, catering, Chamber business, parliamentary digital and in-house services teams, who have worked exceptionally hard over the past 24 hours to prepare for this resumption.

    You will know—but in the name of the public intelligibility of our proceedings, I think it worthwhile to note—that there is no ministerial Question Time today, including therefore no prime ministerial Question Time. The reason for that is very simple. As colleagues will be aware, there are notification requirements: questions ordinarily are tabled three sitting days before the exchanges take place, so there are no Prime Minister’s questions today. However, there is scope, as I indicated in public yesterday, for urgent questions, ministerial statements and other business.

  • Boris Johnson – 2019 Speech to UN General Assembly

    Below is the text of the speech made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, to the UN General Assembly on 24 September 2019.

    Mr President, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, faithful late night audience. It is customary for the British Prime Minister to come to this United Nations and pledge to advance our values and defend our rules, the rules of a peaceful world.

    From protecting freedom of navigation in the Gulf to persevering in the vital task of achieving a two-state solution to the conflict in the Middle East and of course I am proud to do all of these things, but no-one can ignore a gathering force that is reshaping the future of every member of this Assembly. There has been nothing like it in history.

    When I think of the great scientific revolutions of the past – print, the steam engine, aviation, the atomic age – I think of new tools that we acquired but over which we – the human race – had the advantage. Which we controlled. That is not necessarily the case in the digital age. You may keep secrets from your friends, from your parents, your children, your doctor – even your personal trainer – but it takes real effort to conceal your thoughts from Google. And if that is true today, in future there may be nowhere to hide.

    Smart cities will pullulate with sensors, all joined together by the “internet of things”, bollards communing invisibly with lamp posts. So there is always a parking space for your electric car, so that no bin goes unemptied, no street unswept, and the urban environment is as antiseptic as a Zurich pharmacy. But this technology could also be used to keep every citizen under round-the-clock surveillance.

    A future Alexa will pretend to take orders. But this Alexa will be watching you, clucking her tongue and stamping her foot. In the future, voice connectivity will be in every room and almost every object: your mattress will monitor your nightmares; your fridge will beep for more cheese, your front door will sweep wide the moment you approach, like some silent butler; your smart meter will go hustling – if its accord – for the cheapest electricity. And every one of them minutely transcribing your every habit in tiny electronic shorthand, stored not in their chips or their innards – nowhere you can find it, but in some great cloud of data that lours ever more oppressively over the human race.

    A giant dark thundercloud waiting to burst and we have no control over how or when the precipitation will take place and every day that we tap on our phones or work on our ipads – as I see some of you doing now – we not only leave our indelible spoor in the ether but we are ourselves becoming a resource, click by click, tap by tap. Just as the carboniferous period created the indescribable wealth – leaf by decaying leaf – of hydrocarbons.

    Data is the crude oil of the modern economy and we are now in an environment where we don’t know who should own these new oil fields, we don’t always know who should have the rights or the title to these gushers of cash and we don’t know who decides how to use that data. Can these algorithms be trusted with our lives and hopes? Should the machines – and only the machines – decide whether or not we are eligible for a mortgage or insurance.

    Or what surgery or medicines we should receive? Are we doomed to a cold and heartless future in which computer says yes – or computer says no. With the grim finality of an emperor in the arena? How do you plead with an algorithm? How do you get it to see the extenuating circumstances. And how do we know that the machines have not been insidiously programmed to fool us or even to cheat us?

    We already use all kinds of messaging services that offer instant communication at minimal cost. The same programmes, platforms, could also be designed for real-time censorship of every conversation, with offending words automatically deleted, indeed in some countries this happens today.

    Digital authoritarianism is not, alas, the stuff of dystopian fantasy but of an emerging reality. The reason I am giving this speech today is that the UK is one of the world’s tech leaders – and I believe governments have been simply caught unawares by the unintended consequences of the internet. A scientific breakthrough more far-reaching in its everyday psychological impact than any other invention since Gutenberg

    And when you consider how long it took for books to come into widespread circulation. The arrival of the internet is far bigger than print. It is bigger than the atomic age – but it is like nuclear power in that it is capable of both good and harm – but of course it is not alone. As new technologies seem to race towards us from the far horizon. We strain our eyes as they come, to make out whether they are for good or bad – friends or foes?

    AI – what will it mean? Helpful robots washing and caring for an ageing population? Or pink eyed terminators sent back from the future to cull the human race? What will synthetic biology stand for – restoring our livers and our eyes with miracle regeneration of the tissues, like some fantastic hangover cure? Or will it bring terrifying limbless chickens to our tables. Will nanotechnology help us to beat disease, or will it leave tiny robots to replicate in the crevices of our cells?

    It is a trope as old as literature that any scientific advance is punished by the Gods. When Prometheus brought fire to mankind. In a tube of fennel, as you may remember, that Zeus punished him by chaining him to a tartarean crag while his liver was pecked out by an eagle. And every time his liver regrew the eagle came back and pecked it again and this went on for ever – a bit like the experience of Brexit in the UK, if some of our parliamentarians had their way.

    In fact it was standard poetic practice to curse the protos heuretes – the person responsible for any scientific or technical breakthrough If only they had never invented the ship, then Jason would never have sailed to Colchis and all sorts of disasters would never have happened and it is a deep human instinct to be wary of any kind of technical progress. In 1829 they thought the human frame would not withstand the speeds attained by Stephenson’s rocket and there are today people today who are actually still anti-science.

    A whole movement called the anti-Vaxxers, who refuse to acknowledge the evidence that vaccinations have eradicated smallpox. And who by their prejudices are actually endangering the very children they want to protect And I totally reject this anti-scientific pessimism. I am profoundly optimistic about the ability of new technology to serve as a liberator and remake the world wondrously and benignly, indeed in countless respects technology is already doing just that.

    Today, nanotechnology – as I mentioned earlier – is revolutionising medicine by designing robots a fraction of the size of a red blood cell, capable of swimming through our bodies, dispensing medicine and attacking malignant cells like some Star Wars armada. Neural interface technology is producing a new generation of cochlear implants, allowing the gift of hearing to people who would not otherwise be able to hear the voices of their children.

    A London technology company has worked out how to help the blind to navigate more freely with nothing more than an app on their smartphones –

    New technologies, produced in Britain, helping the deaf to hear and the blind to see. And we used to think that printing was something you did to run off a boarding card. Now a British company has used 3D printing to make an engine capable of blasting a rocket into space.

    In African countries, millions of people without bank accounts can now transfer money using a simple app; they can buy solar energy and leap in one transaction from no electricity to green power. And new advances are making renewable energy ever cheaper, aiding our common struggle against climate change. Our understanding of the natural world is being transformed by genome sequencing.

    The discovery of the very essence of life itself. The secret genetic code that animates the spirit of every living being. And allows medical breakthroughs the like of which we have never known. Treatments tailored to the precise genetic makeup of the individual. So far, we have discovered the secrets of less than 0.3 percent of complex life on the planet. Think what we will achieve when – and it is a matter of when – we understand 1 or 2 percent, let alone 5 or 10 percent.

    But how we design the emerging technologies behind these breakthroughs – and what values inform their design –will shape the future of humanity. That is my point to you tonight my friends, my Excellencies – at stake is whether we bequeath an Orwellian world, designed for censorship, repression and control, or a world of emancipation, debate and learning, where technology threatens famine and disease, but not our freedoms. Seven decades ago, this General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with no dissenting voices, uniting humanity for the first and perhaps only time behind one set of principles.

    And our declaration – our joint declaration – upholds “freedom of opinion and expression”, the “privacy” of “home or correspondence,” and the right to “seek…and impart information and ideas”. Unless we ensure that new technology reflects this spirit, I fear that our declaration will mean nothing and no longer hold.

    So the mission of the United Kingdom and all who share our values must be to ensure that emerging technologies are designed from the outset for freedom, openness and pluralism, with the right safeguards in place to protect our peoples.

    Month by month, vital decisions are being taken in academic committees, company boardrooms and industry standards groups. They are writing the rulebooks of the future, making ethical judgements, choosing what will or will not be rendered possible. Together, we need to ensure that new advances reflect our values by design.

    There is excellent work being done in the EU, the Commonwealth, and of course the UN, which has a vital role in ensuring that no country is excluded from the wondrous benefits of this technology, and the industrial revolution it is bringing about. But we must be still more ambitious.

    We need to find the right balance between freedom and control; between innovation and regulation; between private enterprise and government oversight. We must insist that the ethical judgements inherent in the design of new technology are transparent to all. And we must make our voices heard more loudly in the standards bodies that write the rules.

    Above all, we need to agree a common set of global principles to shape the norms and standards that will guide the development of emerging technology.

    So – here’s the good news – I invite you next year to a summit in London, a wonderful city, where by the way it is not raining 94 per cent of the time, and where at one stage – when I was Mayor of London – we discovered that we had more Michelin starred restaurants even than Paris. The French somehow rapidly recovered – by a process that I wasn’t quite sure was entirely fair. But we still have by far, in the UK, by far the biggest tech sector – fintech, biotech, meditech, nanotech, green tech – every kind of tech – in London – the biggest tech sector anywhere in Europe, perhaps half a million people working in tech alone.

    I hope you will come there, where we will seek to assemble the broadest possible coalition to take forward this vital task

    Building on all that the UK can contribute to this mission as a global leader in ethical and responsible technology.

    If we master this challenge – and I have no doubt that we can – then we will not only safeguard our ideals, we will surmount the limits that once constrained humanity and conquer the perils that once ended so many lives.

    Together, we can vanquish killer diseases, eliminate famine, protect the environment and transform our cities.

    Success will depend, now as ever, on freedom, openness and pluralism,

    the formula that not only emancipates the human spirit, but releases the boundless ingenuity and inventiveness of mankind, and which, above all, the United Kingdom will strive to preserve and advance.

    Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your kind attention.

  • John Major – 2019 Statement on Supreme Court Ruling

    Below is the text of the statement made by Sir John Major on 24 September 2019.

    I am enormously grateful to my legal team, led by The Rt Hon The Lord Garnier QC, and Andrew Lidbetter (Herbert Smith Freehills LLP), on whose counsel and professionalism I have depended these past few weeks. I am also most grateful to the Supreme Court for their calm and detailed examination of this Appeal.

    I am delighted that the Court has ruled the Prime Minister’s lengthy and contentious prorogation of Parliament to be unlawful. This was a case that should never have had to be considered, and it gave me no pleasure to be pitted against a Government and Prime Minister of my own Party.

    Parliament must now be recalled immediately to recommence its work, and to receive the Prime Minister’s unreserved apology.

    I hope this ruling from the Supreme Court will deter any future Prime Minister from attempting to shut down Parliament, with the effect of stifling proper scrutiny and debate, when its sitting is so plainly in the national interest.

    No Prime Minister must ever treat the Monarch or Parliament in this way again.

  • Jeremy Corbyn – 2019 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, to the Labour Party conference on 24 September 2019.

    Conference, thank you. This is an extraordinary and precarious moment in our country’s history.

    The Prime Minister has been found to have acted illegally when he tried to shut down parliament. The highest court in the land has found that Boris Johnson broke the law when he tried to shut down democratic accountability at a crucial moment for our public life.

    The Prime Minister acted illegally when he tried to shut down opposition to his reckless and disastrous plan to crash out of the European Union without a deal. But he has failed. He will never shut down our democracy or silence the voices of the people.

    The democracy that Boris Johnson describes as a “rigmarole” will not be stifled and the people will have their say.

    Tomorrow parliament will return. The government will be held to account for what it has done. Boris Johnson has been found to have misled the country. This unelected Prime minister should now resign.

    That would make him the shortest serving British Prime Minister in history and rightly so. His is a born-to-rule government of the entitled who believe that the rules they set for everyone else don’t apply to them.

    That’s what today’s Supreme Court judgement spells out with brutal clarity. There was no reason – “let alone a good reason”, the judges concluded, for the Prime Minister to have shut down parliament. Conference, he thought he could do whatever he liked just as he always does. He thinks he’s above us all. He is part of an elite that disdains democracy. He is not fit to be prime minister. Let me quote the Supreme Court’s conclusion: “Unlawful, null and of no effect and should be quashed” – they’ve got the prime minister down to a tee.

    This crisis can only be settled with a general election. That election needs to take place as soon as this government’s threat of a disastrous No Deal is taken off the table. That condition is what MPs passed into law before Boris Johnson illegally closed down parliament

    It’s a protection that’s clearly essential. After what has taken place no one can trust this government and this Prime Minister not to use this crisis of their own making and drive our country over a No Deal cliff edge in five weeks’ time. The Prime Minister has no mandate for a No Deal crash-out which is opposed by a majority of the public. It would force up food prices cause shortages of medicines and threaten peace in Northern Ireland thus destroying the work of the Good Friday Agreement.

    The battle over No Deal isn’t a struggle between those who want to leave the EU and those who want to remain. It’s about a small rightwing group who are trying to hijack the referendum result to rip up our rights and protections to shift even more power and wealth to those at the top.

    Under the cover of No Deal they want to sell off what’s left of our public services strip away the regulations that keep us safe while slashing corporate taxes even further. That would mean a race to the bottom in standards and workers’ rights to create an offshore tax haven for the super-rich. And they want all of this locked in with a one-sided free trade deal that would put our country at the mercy of Donald Trump.

    That’s why a No Deal Brexit is really a Trump Deal Brexit. That would be the opposite of taking back control. It would be handing our country’s future to the US president and his America First policy. Of course Trump is delighted to have a compliant British prime minister in his back pocket. A Trump Deal Brexit would mean US corporations getting the green light for a comprehensive takeover of our public services

    I am not prepared to stand by while our NHS is sacrificed on the altar of US big business or any other country’s big business. And in the coming general election Labour will be the only major UK party ready to put our trust in the people to have the final say on Brexit.

    We need to get Brexit sorted and do it in a way that doesn’t leave our economy or our democracy broken. The Tories want to crash out without a deal and the Liberal Democrats want to cancel the country’s largest ever democratic vote with a parliamentary stitch-up.

    Labour will end the Brexit crisis by taking the decision back to the people with the choice of a credible leave deal alongside remain. That’s not complicated Labour is a democratic party that trusts the people. After three and a half years of Tory Brexit failure and division, the only way we can settle this issue and bring people back together is by taking the decision out of the hands of politicians and letting the people decide.

    So within three months of coming to power a Labour government will secure a sensible deal based on the terms we have long advocated and discussed with the EU trade unions and businesses: a new customs union a close single market relationship . and guarantees of rights and protections. And within six months of being elected we will put that deal to a public vote alongside remain. And as a Labour prime minister I pledge to carry out whatever the people decide.

    Only a vote for Labour will deliver a public vote on Brexit. Only a Labour government will put the power back into the hands of the people. We can bring our country and our people together. Let’s stop a No Deal Brexit and let the people decide.

    We must get Brexit settled not least because Brexit has dominated our politics for too long. The coming election will be a once-in-a-generation chance for real change. A chance to kick out Boris Johnson’s government of the privileged few and put wealth and power in the hands of the many.

    A chance to give our NHS, schools and police the money they need by asking those at the top to pay their fair share. A chance to take urgent action on the environment before it’s too late for our children. And a chance to end the Brexit crisis by letting the people .. not the politicians have the final say.

    In a shameless bid to turn reality on its head Boris Johnson’s born-to-rule Tories are now claiming to be the voice of the people. A political party that exists to protect the establishment is pretending to be anti-establishment. Johnson and his wealthy friends are not only on the side of the establishment they are the establishment. They will never be on the side of the people when supporting the people might hit them and their super-rich sponsors where it hurts – in their wallets and offshore bank accounts.

    Let me send this message to Boris Johnson: If you still lead your party into an election we know your campaign will be swimming in cash. But we’ve got something you haven’t. People in their hundreds of thousands rooted in all communities and all age groups across Britain and we’ll meet you head on with the biggest people-powered campaign this country has ever seen – and if we win, it will be the people who win.

    Labour stands for the real change Britain needs after years of Conservative cuts and failure. We will rebuild and transform our country so that no one is held back and no community left behind.

    We live in a country where top chief executives now pocket in just two-and-a-half days what the average worker earns in a whole year. Where Thomas Cook bosses were able to fill their pockets with unearned bonuses, while their workers face redundancy and 150,000 holidaymakers are stranded because of their failure.

    We’ve had the greatest slump in wages since the first steam trains were built. To share wealth, we need to share power. And that’s what we’ll do in government with bold, radical measures such as giving the workforce a 10 per cent stake in large companies, paying a dividend of up to £500 a year to every employee.

    We’ll bring about the biggest extension of rights for workers our country has ever seen. We’ll scrap zero-hours contracts; introduce a £10 living wage – including for young people from the age of 16; give all workers equal rights from their first day in the job; take action on the gender, disability and ethnicity pay gaps; and introduce flexible working time for workers experiencing the menopause.

    It’s Labour that will get more money into your pocket, rather than line the pockets of multi-millionaires. And we will give people a democratic voice at work, allowing them to secure better terms and pay for themselves.

    Within the first 100 days of our government we will scrap the Tory Trade Union Act. And by the way, Labour will never tell people they have to work until they’re 75. A Labour government will mean better wages, greater security, and more say. Putting power in the hands of the people. And we’ll bring rail, mail, water and the national grid into public ownership so the essential services that we all rely on are run by and for the public not for profit.

    Yesterday I met Luis Walker, a wonderful nine-year-old boy. Luis is living with cystic fibrosis. Every day he needs at least four hours of treatment and is often in hospital keeping him from school and his friends. Luis’ life could be very different with the aid of a medicine called Orkambi. But Luis is denied the medicine he needs because its manufacturer refuses to sell the drug to the NHS for an affordable price.

    Luis, and tens of thousands of others suffering from illnesses such as cystic fibrosis hepatitis C and breast cancer are being denied life-saving medicines by a system that puts profits for shareholders before people’s lives.

    Labour will tackle this. We will redesign the system to serve public health – not private wealth – using compulsory licensing to secure generic versions of patented medicines. We’ll tell the drugs companies that if they want public research funding then they’ll have to make their drugs affordable for all. And we will create a new publicly owned generic drugs manufacturer to supply cheaper medicines to our NHS saving our health service money and saving lives. We are the party that created the NHS. Only Labour can be trusted with its future.

    My parents’ generation fought hard to establish the principle of a universal health service owned and run by the public. They left it in our trust. It’s our duty to defend it. We will end the sell-offs and privatisation. Our NHS is not for sale not to Trump or anyone else.

    And Conference, we will make prescriptions free in England, as they have been in Wales since 2007 when charges were abolished by the Welsh Labour government.

    And we need to talk about social care as well. When older people, who have paid into the system all their lives need a little help we shouldn’t deny it to them. So we will introduce free personal care for those who need it as the first step in our plan for a National Care Service.

    Government should provide a platform that allows everyone to reach their full potential. That’s the principle behind the National Education Service that the next Labour government will create. Free education for everyone throughout life as a right not a privilege. No more university tuition fees. Free childcare and a new Sure Start programme. Free vocational and technical education. And free training for adults.

    And when it comes to paying for our public services Labour will raise tax but only for the top five per cent. The Tories will cut taxes for highest paid. Labour will make the big corporations pay the tax they owe. The Tories will give them tax breaks.

    How can it be right that the largest companies and wealthiest individuals are being given tax cuts while at the other end mums are dads are missing meals so they can feed their kids? Shouldn’t it be a source of shame that the United Nations – the United Nations – had to take our government to task this year over the shocking fact that 14 million people are living in poverty in the fifth richest country in the world? Let me quote directly from the UN report. It said:

    “Much of the glue that has held British society together since the Second World War has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos.”

    Doesn’t that sum up the Tories: a harsh and uncaring ethos?

    Labour will stand up for tenants, for underpaid workers, and for all those struggling to make ends meet. We’ll start the largest council house building programme in a generation. Because Labour puts people before privilege. We will end austerity and help rebuild your community. We’ll restore local pride, revive the high streets that are the centres of our communities and reverse the cuts that have caused violent crime to double.

    Labour will get our economy working in every town city and region with a record investment blitz, and we’ll boost the devolved budgets in Wales and Scotland. We’ll upgrade our transport energy and broadband infrastructure with 250 billion pounds of investment. And breathe new life into every community, with a further 250 billion of capital for businesses and co-ops. Investment on a scale our country has never known, bringing good new jobs and fresh growth to where you live.

    That’s the scale of Labour’s ambition.

    No more tinkering around the edges. Because these aren’t abstract numbers on a spreadsheet. They stand for an economic transformation that will change your daily life.

    Let me give you a concrete example of what it will mean. Labour will invest in Crossrail for the North to link our great Northern cities, from Liverpool to Hull and up to Newcastle in the North East. And we’ll restore the bus services that have been cut leaving people isolated from their communities.

    For decades we’ve been told the economy is beyond our control, an irresistible force that can lay waste to entire communities while we can only watch on, passive.

    But it’s not true.

    With a serious industrial strategy and a radical Labour government, the economy can be a tool in our hands rather than the master of our fate. And with a government that’s prepared to intervene we can prioritise the things that matter most.

    Which is precisely what our times demand, because nothing matters more than the climate emergency. That means taking on the big polluters and wealth hoarders who profit from the current system. Bringing our emissions down to net zero won’t happen by itself. It will only be possible with massive public investment in renewable energy and green technology.

    That’s not a burden. It’s an opportunity to kickstart a Green Industrial Revolution that will create hundreds of thousands of high-skill high-wage unionised jobs as we triple solar power, double onshore wind and bring about a seven-fold increase in offshore wind projects.

    And that’s why we announced today that the next Labour will build three new battery plants in South Wales, in Stoke-on-Trent and Swindon.

    The climate and environmental emergency we all face is an issue of global security. We’re seeing ice caps melting, coral reefs dissolving, wildfires in the Arctic Circle and Brazil’s far-right leader President Bolsonaro fiddles while the Amazon burns.

    Real security doesn’t come from belligerent posturing or reckless military interventions. It comes from international cooperation and diplomacy, and addressing the root causes of the threats we all face. Our foreign policy will be defined by our commitment to human rights and international justice, not enthusiasm for foreign wars that fuel – rather than combat – terrorism and insecurity

    So it really beggars belief that this week Boris Johnson is openly talking about sending troops to Saudi Arabia as part of the increasingly dangerous confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, in an apparent bid to appease Donald Trump.

    Have we learned nothing?

    Time and again over the last two decades the British political and military establishment has made the wrong call on military intervention in the wider Middle East, spreading conflicts rather than settling them.

    We must not make those mistakes again. Under a Labour government Britain will be a force for peace and international justice.

    Dangerous and wrong-headed international interventions have also exacerbated community tensions at home. When Boris Johnson compared Muslim women to letterboxes or bank robbers, it wasn’t a flippant comment, it was calculated to play on people’s fears. Displays of racism, Islamophobia or antisemitism are not signs of strength, but of weakness.

    This Conservative government as well as the far-right has fuelled division in our society. They’ll blame people’s problems on the migrant worker trying to make a better life. They’ll blame it on the mum who’s struggling on Universal Credit. They’ll blame it on Muslims, on young people, on anyone but themselves and their backers, who benefit from a grossly unequal and rigged system.

    Labour will do the opposite, we will bring people together. A Labour government will transform our economy and communities. We stand not just for the 52 per cent or the 48 per cent but for the 99 per cent.

    The Labour government I lead will take on those who really run our country – the financial speculators, tax dodgers and big polluters – so the real wealth creators, the people of this country, can have the jobs, services and futures they deserve.

    When Labour wins, the nurse wins, the pensioner wins, the student wins, the office worker wins, the engineer wins. We all win.

    The politics we stand for is about giving people who don’t have a lot of money and don’t have friends in high places the chance to take control of their own lives. My job, as Leader, and our job as the Labour Party is to champion those people, to stand up for those communities and deliver the real change our country needs.

    And I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to every one of them as well as all the members of our party our elected representatives our trade unions for making our party such a strong and welcoming place in every community every workplace and every part of the country.

    I have what might be considered a different view of leadership from the one people are used to. I do believe leaders should have strong principles that people can trust. But leaders must also listen and trust others to play their part. Because there are leaders in every community driving change. Many of them would never dream of calling themselves leaders, but they are.

    I’m thinking of the mother who campaigns on behalf of the residents in her block to get the damp removed, and the fast food worker organising their colleagues to demand a living wage. It’s those leaders Labour is now working with and supporting. Because our philosophy is to trust the people and give them the power to make change in every community and workplace, not hand more power to politicians.

    And that’s why, if the British people elect a Labour government in the coming election I will be proud to be your Prime Minister. Because I will be a different kind of Prime Minister. Not there from a sense of born-to-rule entitlement. Certainly not there for some personal power trip. There because I want to put government on your side. To put power and wealth into your hands.There because I believe government should work for you.

    And together, we can go beyond defending the gains made by previous generations. It’s time we started building a country fit for the next generation. Where young people don’t fear the future but look forward with confidence and hope.

    The tide is turning. The years of retreat and defeat are coming to an end. Together, we’ll take on the privileged, and put the people in power. Thank you.

  • Chris Skidmore – 2019 Speech at the UK Space Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Chris Skidmore, the Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, at the UK Space Conference held on 24 September 2019.

    Thank you for that warm welcome.

    I would like to start by paying tribute to Andy Green. Hearing his words and his call for the future has stressed to me both how much has been done and how much there is left to do. I want to thank him for everything he has done for the sector. I also want to welcome Will into the role and look forward to working with you in the months and years ahead.

    I’d heard a great deal about the National Space Conference, and I’m delighted finally to be here.

    Of course, a few weeks ago I thought that I’d be watching jealously from the sidelines, having been moved as a minister to the Department of Health.

    But as Graham Peters knows, even then I couldn’t be kept away from space policy, and ended up making one of my first speeches as Health Minister on the importance of space tech for delivering better patient outcomes.

    For me, the vital importance of space technology isn’t simply about what happens up there. It is here on earth that space has the opportunity to make the greatest impact, whether that is in better health screening and diagnosis, improving our telecommunications, delivering smart cities and autonomous vehicle networks, or helping to safeguard our environment as Andy has so eloquently spoken about.

    A few months ago, while I was interim Energy Minister, I signed into law the commitment for net zero carbon emissions by 2050 into law, ensuring that the UK became the first G7 country to do so.

    Yet to understand the nature of the challenge, and how we will meet it, we need satellite technology and improved earth observation to deliver the measurements needed, just as it has been satellite technology that has exposed the true scale of global warming.

    That’s why I’m delighted the Prime Minister has today announced £20 million for new space weather forecasting and technology. The effects of adverse space weather, such as solar winds, can disrupt key satellites, damage spacecraft electronics and cause problems across GPS and mobile phone networks. It’s a problem that many of you in this room will know only too well, but there are still worrying gaps in our knowledge of how to properly forecast these events.

    It is vital that we can build up our national capability to predict these phenomena and assess their seriousness. This new £20 million fund will allow us to develop a truly strategic UK approach to space weather, from research right the way through to operations.

    And when it comes to the UK’s strengths in satellites, only last week, I was visiting the National Physical Laboratory, discussing the potential of the TRUTHS mission. This new mission will allow us to recalibrate earth observation data from satellites all around the world, painting a picture of our changing climate that is more accurate than ever before.

    TRUTHS is just one of the many missions that the UK will be looking for partners with when we attend the European Space Agency (ESA) ministerial meeting in Seville this coming November.

    I want to put on record that I believe ESA is a remarkable organisation, which allows the UK access to a wider £6 billion space market for shared research in space.

    And if ESA did not exist, someone would have to invent it. I have always said, and will say again and again, that while we are leaving the EU, we will not be leaving ESA.

    Our involvement with ESA in the past year alone has delivered the launch of the Bepi Columbo mission to Mercury, the formal naming of the Rosalind Franklin rover for the Mars mission which I was delighted to attend at Stevenage Airbus, and we’ve made a commitment that British ESA staff working in Europe, and also European ESA staff working in the UK, will enjoy the same rights as one another.

    And when I attend the ESA Ministerial in November, I myself will be making strong representations that as a nation, we will need to increase our ESA contribution, to strengthen our collaborations and to lead the way in lunar communications.

    And we will also seek to extend our international partnerships with other space agencies. I’m delighted to see in the programme that I’ll be meeting representatives from over 10 space agencies, and I’d like to thank them all for making the trip to Newport. In the past few months, as Space Minister, I have announced partnerships with the Portuguese Space Agency, and on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, a new agreement with UK Space Agency (UKSA) and NASA to commit to work together on future projects.

    And this morning the UK is celebrating another agreement, with Australia, to develop a ‘space bridge’ between our two nations. It’s a sign that as the United Kingdom we are taking a truly global approach to space.

    As your Space Minister, I also want to ensure that we are in pole position to deliver on the commitments and ambitions that I have already set out in my previous speeches, to increase our global market share in space to 10%, while at the same time invest in exciting new projects that will place the UK at the forefront of space innovation.

    A key part of this is to build on the unique position that the UK can play in the future of space launch. Back in June, I was delighted to announce that Spaceport Cornwall and Virgin Orbit will push forward with work to develop facilities to enable small satellite launch, thanks to a £20 million funding package from UKSA, but also Cornwall Council. This is in addition to the £31 million we have invested in vertical launch at Sutherland.

    And today, we have announced an additional £1.3 million to be invested into planning for three potential spaceports around the UK. Firstly, we’ll be investing almost £500,000 in Snowdonia Aerospace, to develop a plan for a new centre for space R&D, training and satellite launch in North Wales, working in partnership with exciting companies like B2Space and Deimos. This will build on Snowdonia’s distinguished heritage in experimental flight testing.

    I hope you will all agree that this Snowdonia Spaceport Development Plan marks an exciting leap forward for Wales’ role in space. It is something that we should be very proud of.

    Secondly, we’ll be investing £488,000 for the spaceport cluster plan in Argyle, centred on an aerodrome with the longest runway in Scotland. It’s great to see that Reaction Engines, who I visited up in Culham, who are developing the innovative SABRE rocket engine, are also involved in that project.

    And thirdly, we’re providing just over £300,000 to Cornwall Council for an Accelerated Business Development and Research Project at Spaceport Cornwall. This will support Cornwall’s ambition to be a centre for future flight technologies and follows the positive vote by the Council’s cabinet last week in support of their £12 million funding for the project. We all know the potential that investing in space technology for the future can bring the UK.

    I don’t need to sell to you here in this room the returns that every pound spent on space can deliver.

    But I also recognise that my unique responsibility, as your ministerial representative, is not just to fight for the maximum investment, welcome though that is.

    My mission is to ensure that space and space technology remains at the forefront of our future. That means ensuring that the rest of government, equally, takes space as seriously as I do.

    I’m delighted that two other ministers Graham from DIT and Anne-Marie from MOD can be with us today – and they will be speaking shortly. Space is a cross-government, critical national infrastructure.

    It deserves and requires cross-government attention too.

    This is why I’ve called for a National Space Council, to be led at cabinet level, informing the delivery of a new National Space Framework for government.

    And I was delighted that this call has now been agreed to. Work is now beginning on both the Council and Framework, and I look forward to playing a key role in this.

    I will also welcome the active involvement of the space industry in advising the Council.

    But I want to also turn my attention to what I believe passionately, must be also a priority for the future of space.

    And that’s you: the people who make innovation in space technology happen; the people who do the research, who make the breakthroughs, who vitally underpin a sector which has thrived in recent years. I want, as your minister, to help create not just new jobs, but also to create sustainable long-term careers in the space sector.

    I want to ensure that we don’t just invest in technologies, but in the people who make them happen.

    That means not only investing more in early career research, in my joint role as Universities minister I’m determined to do that, but improving the conditions and working lives of those starting their journey in space research and innovation.

    It also means ensuring that we make the UK a more friendly place, a more accessible place to come and live and work for all brilliant and talented scientists and researchers, no matter where you have come from.

    For we can invest all we want in space: it will mean nothing if we cannot attract the talent we need to make it happen.

    So you have my word, that I will do all I can, to create a milder climate for science and research, to create the freedom of talent that the UK desperately needs.

    For we cannot afford to let talent go: if we do so, we lose and others win.

    Every time in am in my constituency, I drive past a small cottage in Oldland Common, on the outskirts of Bristol. On it is a small blue plaque, stating that it was the childhood home of Sir Bernard Lovell, one of the world’s great astro-physicists.

    As I drive past, as a historian I’m constantly reminded of the world-leading role that the UK has played in space in the past.

    From Essen’s discovery of the Atomic Clock at the National Physical Laboratory.

    To the scientific sensors on Huygens, designed at the Open University, allowing us to analyse Titan’s atmosphere and ground for the first time.

    To only this year, when it was British instruments developed at Imperial College and Oxford University, that detected the first sounds on Mars.

    Yes, this is our past, it is a heritage to be proud of.

    But I also believe that, when it comes to space, there is no better time to be alive.

    We now, today, have the chance to create, to fashion our own heritage.

    A heritage that can be one of the UK playing a leading role in space and space technology for the twenty first century. A heritage built not merely on investment, but on supporting its people.

    So let’s fight together for that investment, fight for that support, and fight for a heritage that can be ours.

    Thank you.

  • Boris Johnson – 2019 Joint Statement on the Middle East

    Below is the text of the statement made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 23 September 2019.

    We, the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, recall our shared common security interests, in particular upholding the global non-proliferation regime and preserving stability in the Middle East.

    We condemn in the strongest terms the attacks on oil facilities on Saudi territory on September 14th, 2019 in Abqaiq and Khurais, and reaffirm in this context our full solidarity with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its population.

    It is clear to us that Iran bears responsibility for this attack. There is no other plausible explanation. We support ongoing investigations to establish further details.

    These attacks may have been against Saudi Arabia but they concern all countries and increase the risk of a major conflict. They underline the importance of making collective efforts towards regional stability and security, including finding a political solution to the ongoing conflict in Yemen. The attacks also highlight the necessity of de-escalation in the region through sustained diplomatic efforts and engagement with all parties.

    In this regard, we recall our continued commitment to the JCPoA, agreed with Iran on July 14th, 2015 and unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council. We urge Iran once again to reverse its decisions to reduce compliance with the deal and to adhere fully to its commitments under it. We call upon Iran to cooperate fully with the IAEA in the framework of the JCPoA and its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement.

    Conscious of the importance of collective efforts to guarantee regional stability and security, we reiterate our conviction that the time has come for Iran to accept negotiation on a long-term framework for its nuclear programme as well as on issues related to regional security, including its missiles programme and other means of delivery.

    We are committed to continuing our diplomatic efforts to create conditions and facilitate dialogue with all relevant partners interested in de-escalation of tensions in the Middle East, in the interest of preserving international peace and security, building upon our joint declaration on July 14th, 2019 and G7 conclusions adopted in Biarritz. We urge Iran to engage in such a dialogue and refrain from further provocation and escalation.

  • Sue Hayman – 2019 Speech at Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sue Hayman, the Shadow Environment Secretary, at the Labour Party conference held on 24 September 2019.

    Good afternoon, conference.

    Last week we witnessed an extraordinary global event. Millions of young people took to the streets across the world to demand more action in the fight against climate change. I’m sure many of you, like me, joined them to show your support.

    Millions of young people. Inspired to make a difference by a Swedish teenager. So let us applaud Greta Thunberg!

    On March 26 this year I stood up in Parliament and called on this Tory Government to declare an Environment and Climate Emergency. They refused. They said they are doing enough. They are not.

    On May Day, Jeremy Corbyn and I went back to Parliament. We declared a Climate Emergency, anyway. It is Labour that is leading the way. Last year we published Labour’s plans for a Green Transformation. We set out how we would decarbonise our economy. We have built on those plans.

    Earlier today you heard it. Our plans for a Green Industrial Revolution.

    And in these debates we have heard more of your ideas and aims. But I have been working on another revolution. A revolution in food and farming. It is an essential part of our effort to combat climate change.

    Agriculture contributes nearly six million tonnes of carbon dioxide to our carbon footprint. A much higher proportion of other greenhouse gases, like methane and nitrous oxides. Land use offsets some of these emissions but our chosen diets, our food packaging and food wastage contributes more again.

    Food waste. A symptom of a billion dollar industry astride a broken system. A system which leads to food banks. Do you remember what Boris Johnson said about food banks? He said, “When I was running London, I set up loads of food banks. They are fantastic things.”

    Food banks, Mr Johnson, are not ‘fantastic’. Food banks are the result of Tory austerity. They are the product of poverty, of food insecurity. They are the failure of Tory changes to the benefits system. They are late welfare payments. They are privatised work assessments. They are a punitive, heartless sanctions regime. How else is it, in 21st century Britain, in one of the richest countries in the world, more than one million emergency food supplies are handed out each year.

    How, in Britain, can there be children scavenging in school bins for apple cores because there is no food at home? How can people with malnutrition be taking 200,000 hospital bed days each year? Hospital admissions for malnutrition have trebled under the Tories and their Lib Dem coalition partners.

    It’s you, Prime Minister. Tories did away with child poverty targets. Tories won’t monitor hunger. And you have no strategy for food security. Just a taste for chlorinated chicken. Healthy food is not a luxury. It is a basic human right.

    Today , I am announcing that the next Labour government will introduce a Right to Food, embedded in UK law, underpinned by an over-arching national food strategy. We will introduce a Fair Food Act. We will ensure that everyone has access to nutritious and sustainable food.

    That means that everyone is able to feed themselves. Sufficient income. Reduced living costs. Social welfare. A real Living Wage. No more bedroom tax. An uprated carers’ allowance. And an end to punitive benefit sanctions.

    What kind of barbaric society punishes someone for missing an appointment by making their children go hungry? Our measures mean that Labour will halve food bank usage within our first year in Government. And we aim to end the need for food banks completely within three years.

    Labour will set up a National Food Commission to uphold the Right to Food. We will set up a £6m People’s Access to Food Fund in the 50 most insecure food areas in the country.

    We will ensure decent pay and collective bargaining for food and agricultural workers. And we will ensure and protect access to trade union representation for all food and agricultural workers.

    Conference, we will back British farmers and food producers to produce sustainable, quality foods. We will not allow a no-deal Brexit to flood the UK with imported food produced to lower environmental, social or animal welfare standards.

    Labour will not agree free trade deals or EU arrangements that threatens our existing food standards. We will stand up for our nation’s food security. Our nutrition. Our environment, Our public health. And our farmers, the bedrock of our rural communities.

    Labour’s food and farming strategy will address packaging and waste. Hundreds of thousands of people use food banks, but we throw away 10 million tonnes of food a year. 10 million tonnes of perfectly good food.

    That’s a quarter of all food purchased in a year, at a cost of over £20 billion. And it is equivalent to more than 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. We cannot tackle climate change unless we sort out our food systems. A Labour government will commit to net zero emissions from farming and land use. The scope for carbon storage on agricultural land is huge. I’m already working with the National Farmers Union and sustainability organisations to make that happen.

    And I have also put animal welfare rights at the heart of Labour’s approach. Recently I published Labour’s animal welfare manifesto, a 50-point plan. The most comprehensive approach yet to promoting animal welfare standards and animal rights. It covers the way we treat farm animals as well as wild and domestic animals. It’s on the Labour Party website but you can also pick up a copy here.

    But conference, let me leave you with this. When someone tells you that all political parties are the same, you tell them this.

    A Labour Government will never let our children go hungry. And a Labour Government will make sure no-one has to use a food bank. Because every single person has a right to decent food. After a decade of Tories we will give people that right, as we start Rebuilding Britain.

  • John Bercow – 2019 Statement on the Unlawful Suspension of Parliament

    Below is the text of the statement issued by John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, on 24 September 2019.

    I welcome the Supreme Court’s judgement that the prorogation of Parliament was unlawful. The judges have rejected the Government’s claim that closing down Parliament for five weeks was merely standard practice to allow for a new Queen’s Speech. In reaching their conclusion, they have vindicated the right and duty of Parliament to meet at this crucial time to scrutinise the executive and hold Ministers to account. As the embodiment of our Parliamentary democracy, the House of Commons must convene without delay. To this end, I will now consult the party leaders as a matter of urgency.