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  • Chris Skidmore – 2019 Speech on Access to Higher Education

    Below is the text of the speech made by Chris Skidmore, the Universities Minister, at Nottingham Trent University on 28 February 2019.

    I am delighted to be here at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) this morning to make my first speech on access and participation. And what better place to do so than at a University that is genuinely leading the way in delivering equality of opportunity to students.

    NTU has earned a national reputation for innovation and quality in advancing the social mobility agenda, and I’m pleased to have the opportunity this morning to tour the University’s facilities and to speak to some of the staff and students at the heart of this dynamic community.

    I’m also pleased that NTU has today been recognised for its efforts by the Office for Students (OfS), which has awarded the contract for its new ‘Evidence and Impact Exchange’ to a consortium of NTU, Kings College London and the Behavioural Insights Team.

    The Evidence and Impact Exchange aims to support a culture of evidence-led policy around access and participation, and will develop and share good practice. As Universities Minister, I look forward to seeing what comes from this project. And I want to use this occasion today to outline my own five-part vision for the access and participation agenda – to help set a strategic direction for the sector and support the OfS in holding providers to account on these vitally important issues.

    When it comes to widening participation, I know NTU isn’t alone in its efforts to support more people from currently under-represented groups to go university and succeed. I recognise considerable progress has already been made right across the sector, and we should all be proud of just how far we have come.

    Today, there are over 2.3 million students enrolled at higher education providers across the UK – all from different walks of life and all with a wide range of prior attainment and experiences behind them. But it wasn’t always this way. When I started university twenty years ago, the higher education landscape was very different – with student number caps the norm, and a diversity of backgrounds and circumstances relatively scarce. I know I was one of the lucky ones.

    We have thankfully come a long way since then, and the dream of a higher education has become a reality in this country for more people than ever before. Since 2009, we have witnessed a proportional increase of 52% in the entry rate of disadvantaged 18-year-olds to full-time higher education. And I’m proud to be a member of the Party and a Minister in a Government that has made this all possible.

    Expanding access to education has always been the key to this country’s prosperity and success. By allowing more people to flourish and succeed, the UK is now home to a vibrant knowledge economy, which is powering British business and industry, and enabling us to go from strength-to-strength as we make our way into the digital age.

    Investing in education is undoubtedly the best way to bring about positive returns for society – from boosting creativity and inspiring innovations, to generating wealth, tackling the grand challenges, and enhancing our health and wellbeing. As Universities Minister, I am proud the UK boasts one of the best higher education systems in the world – as testified to just yesterday by the QS World University Rankings, in which UK universities took the top spot in 13 subjects, ranging from Anthropology to Veterinary Science. This is indeed a fantastic achievement, but it needn’t be “the high-water mark” for the sector and I fully believe the sector can build on these accomplishments and carry on going from strength-to-strength.

    I’m pleased to see so many people opting to study at one of our world-class institutions, from both the UK and across the globe. According to data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), over 560,000 people applied to start a full-time undergraduate course in the UK as of 15th January this year. That’s almost 2,500 more than at the equivalent point last year.

    What’s more, the gap between the most and least advantaged applicants is narrowing – with the rate of disadvantaged 18-year-olds applying to university up by 1.3 percentage points, compared to the one percentage point growth in the most advantaged applicants. All this is good news and a welcome move away from the days when going to university was just for the fortunate few. Yet, we all know that behind the positive headlines lies a much more complex picture of inequality and progress is not as rapid as it should be.

    And that takes me on to the first point in my plan – namely that we now need a more nuanced approach to ‘access’ and a greater recognition of the true access gaps. Major themes I want to see the sector and the OfS addressing are geographic disparities and widening access for specific groups, including White working-class as well as Black and minority ethnic students.

    In this day and age, it pains me that where you come from and who you are can still make a huge difference to your prospects of progressing to higher education. While 42.4% of 18-year-olds from London entered higher education in 2018, only 31% of 18-year-olds from the East Midlands progressed to university, revealing the extent of the disparities across the country. When we add to this known measures of disadvantage, such as free school meals and ethnicity, then the inequalities become even greater. Here in the East Midlands, only 14% of White pupils on free school meals entered university by the age of 19, compared to 38% of their non-disadvantaged peers. And there are also significant variations between local areas. In Nottinghamshire, 18-year-olds from Rushcliffe are proportionally almost twice as likely to enter higher education than their peers from the neighbouring Nottingham East. It is exactly these types of burning injustices, which I want to help wipe from the map of twenty-first century Britain.

    I also want to reverse the trend of students from currently under-represented groups being less likely to apply to high-tariff universities. In 2018, 17% of students who were eligible for free school meals entered higher education in the UK. Yet only 2.7% of them enrolled at high-tariff providers. Now, I’m not saying that high-tariff institutions are necessarily the best option for everyone. Plenty of excellent lower-tariff providers offer students a first-rate education with exceptional graduate outcomes, and are the right choice for many. But what worries me is that some people may not be considering high-tariff providers even when they could clearly benefit from them – showing how prior social and educational experiences can all impact on an individual’s life choices.

    I am genuinely saddened when I hear people hesitating about applying to one of our world-leading providers because they simply don’t believe that going to a university like that is really for people like them. We need to be empowering individuals to be the best they can be and doing all we can to encourage more people from currently under-represented groups to have high ambitions from the start.

    The UK is blessed to have a diverse, multi-cultural society, and it is simply not right that, despite displaying obvious talent, some people still feel a ‘top’ university education is out of reach for them. I welcome moves like that from the rapper Stormzy, who set up a scholarship programme at Cambridge last year specifically to encourage Black UK students to follow their dreams and apply to one of the best universities in the world. Moves like this are about much more than the financial assistance they provide; they are about breaking down the toxic image barriers that wrongly tell so many people, “you can’t go there, you just won’t fit in”.

    This is why I also welcome the fact the Duchess of Sussex recently added public prominence to this issue when expressing shock that too few professors in the UK are from diverse backgrounds. She is right – as she herself said, “change is long overdue”, and if we want our student communities to reflect our wider population, then we have to start thinking seriously about the role models and examples we are setting them.

    The second point in my plan has to do with making the shift from simply widening access to higher education towards thinking about what it takes to enable students to participate fully and succeed. Measures by previous governments have undoubtedly been good at galvanising effort in expanding access to previously under-represented groups, but now is the time we also think about what constitutes successful participation for these students. The new frontier needs to be about enabling students to complete their studies and succeed.

    For too long, disadvantaged students have been less likely to complete their degree, and Black and mixed race students more likely to withdraw from their course. It’s a scandal that there is currently an unexplained 17 percentage point gap between Black students attaining a first or 2:1 degree and their White peers. It’s a scandal that, even after completing their degrees, graduates from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are still five percentage points less likely to be in highly skilled work or further study than their most advantaged counterparts. And it’s a scandal that, even ten years after graduation, graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds earn much less than their peers from more affluent backgrounds, even after completing similar degrees from similar universities.

    Clamping down on injustices like these is exactly why this Government passed the Higher Education and Research Act in 2017 – an Act which gave rise to the OfS and expanded the traditional focus on widening access to include the full student journey as well as graduate outcomes. One of the main weapons in this fight is the new Director for Fair Access and Participation, whose job it is to approve Access and Participation plans required from all registered providers seeking to charge higher tuition fees. It is expected that providers will use these plans to set out how they will improve equality of opportunity, not just in improving access to higher education, but also to enable progression, retention and success.

    And this week marks a significant milestone in the development of the OfS: Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Education sent our own guidance letter to the OfS setting out what we expect over the year ahead. And today, the OfS has also published its own guidance on what it expects Access and Participation plans to look like for the academic year 2020/21.

    In the former, we have asked the OfS to secure greater and faster progress in access and participation, including at the most selective providers, as well as for key target groups, including disabled students and care leavers. We are also specifically looking to the OfS to ensure that providers focus on those parts of the country experiencing the greatest challenges, including in our twelve Opportunity Areas, which encompass Derby and Stoke-on-Trent here in the Midlands.

    In terms of what the OfS expects of the sector, I welcome the ambition it has shown in its guidance. Aiming to reduce the gap in participation between the most and least represented groups from a ratio of 5:1 to 3:1 by 2024/25 is the right thing to do – as is reducing the gap in degree outcomes between White students and Black students. On this, I am particularly pleased to see the OfS heeding the call from the most recent Race Disparity Audit initiative I launched earlier this month alongside my colleague David Lidington. In it, we called for the OfS to hold universities to account for attainment disparities through their Access and Participation plans and, if necessary, to use its powers to challenge any provider failing to support equality of opportunity.

    I’m also pleased to see the OfS focusing on reducing the gap in degree outcomes between disabled students and non-disabled students – an area I care passionately about. Shortly after becoming Universities Minister, I made it one of my first priorities to go out to Brunel University to see for myself how it is improving the campus experience for disabled students. I also met representatives from Vision UK and the Thomas Pocklington Trust, who are working hard to enhance university life for the visually impaired, and I shall be heading to the University of Birmingham in May to host a roundtable at VICTAR, the Vision Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research, with visually impaired students to better understand their concerns and needs.

    I’m also progressing work alongside my colleague Nadim Zahawi to improve support for care leavers across the entire education system. Even today, only around 6% of care leavers go on to university and, once there, these students are more likely than most to drop out, given the whole host of financial and domestic challenges they face. I was fortunate to meet care leaver students during a recent visit to Kingston University and to see some of the exemplary work done by its dedicated ‘KU Cares’ support team. I want work like this to be the norm, and I trust the OfS will do its utmost to ensure care leavers are getting the attention they deserve in the wider access and participation agenda.

    The third point in my plan has to do with making better use of evidence. Higher education in England is in a unique position, in that providers plan to spend £860million in 2018/19 on access and participation activities across the sector. This is largely thanks to this money having been dedicated for these purposes. £860 million is not an insignificant sum and, so, I believe it is essential that this money is used well, and that any future spending is underpinned by clear evidence and evaluation. Although some providers already do this, for too long the sector as a whole has been too slow in using evidence to inform its approaches and to understand what really works. This is why I want to see the OfS taking a lead in this area, and why I particularly welcome the launch of the Evidence and Impact Exchange today, which will harness existing sector expertise, including from here at NTU.

    But let’s be clear: this is just the start of a long process. If the Evidence and Impact Exchange is proven to add value, then I want to see it becoming an established part of the higher education landscape and something I expect all providers to use to inform their decisions in the future. I shall also be actively working with established access and participation charities myself to find out what more can be done to better target access and participation spend, and I shall be hosting my first roundtable with these organisations this spring.

    The fourth point in my plan has to do with increasing collaboration across the sector. Despite numerous providers undertaking excellent work in the access and participation space, by and large, the sector has been too piecemeal in its approach and too many providers have got used to doing their own thing. I will be the first to admit that this may well be a logical consequence of policy development – with an emphasis on market-style activity, a lack of data-sharing, and too little infrastructure to encourage collaboration. But now is the time for this to change.

    In this respect, I’m pleased to see the OfS has announced an expanded remit for the National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP), which is aimed at boosting participation in local areas. I’m delighted the OfS has agreed in principle to provide funding to support the NCOP for the next two years – allowing universities and colleges across the country to come together and work with local schools to boost young people’s prospects. I recognise the concept of place is extremely important in the access and participation debate, and in my ‘civic university’ speech earlier this month, I called on the OfS to consider what more can be done to recognise and appreciate the many ways in which universities contribute to social mobility in their regions.

    I’m pleased to hear the University of Nottingham and NTU have been inspired by the UPP Foundation Civic University Commission’s work to come together on a new approach to their combined civic impact. And I’m delighted that both Nottingham’s world-class universities are leading the sector’s response to this important agenda, and are even working with different primary schools in the city to avoid duplication and extend their reach.

    Later today, I shall be visiting the University of Nottingham, along with Treasury Minister Robert Jenrick, to announce further funding for University Enterprise Zones. This investment should help universities across the country, just like those here in Nottingham, to come together with local business and industry – not just to work on creating new products and services, but to boost jobs, support local economies and, in doing so, raise aspirations and opportunities.

    My fifth and final point in my plan has to do with enhancing accountability and transparency around access and participation. Historically, largely due to the way policy has evolved, higher education providers have focused less on the outcomes of their disadvantaged students than they should – particularly when compared with schools. Differing approaches have not helped. The key measure to drive widening participation in higher education has traditionally been POLAR, which reflects the likelihood of someone going to university based on where they live. The POLAR system has many strengths, and the insight it has provided has helped lead to genuine progress in opening up access to university. Yet, it is also known that POLAR doesn’t always overlap well with other measures of disadvantage – such as eligibility for free school meals which, of course, is the principal measure used in schools and forms the main basis for extra support and funding.

    This is why I have been very interested to see the work being led by UCAS to look at new and better predictors of disadvantage in higher education that take account of much more than just where someone grew up. It’s also why I welcome the OfS’s commitment in its access and participation strategy to work with providers to look not just at POLAR, but other aspects of disadvantage to ensure this work can really transform the life chances of young people.

    For me, data is vital to shape good policy, so I am glad to see the OfS implementing the Transparency Duty enshrined in the HERA, which will require registered providers to release data on the application, offer, acceptance, completion and attainment rates of students, divided by ethnicity, gender and socio-economic background. Having detailed information like this will undoubtedly help the OfS track progress and encourage further activity in this area. And on this, I further welcome the OfS’s requirement that providers set out their ambitions for improving access and participation for up to five years and report annually – something which I hope will keep everyone’s eye on the ball and prevent us from becoming complacent.

    When it comes to data, I know there is a saying that ‘what gets measured, gets managed’. This makes it essential that we measure the right things, and that we do so with a full appreciation of the strengths and limitations of those measures. For data to inform policy effectively, I am aware we need to understand not only what data shows us, but also what it does not. This is one reason why I recently announced the formation of a Data Advisory Committee, to help me ensure we are not only using the right data to shape the access and participation agenda, but are using it in the right way. I therefore look forward to working with the OfS, this Committee and the wider sector to find ways to refine and advance the data we use.

    Finally, I am aware this year is going to be a big one for higher education – not just with Brexit, but with all eyes fixed on the forthcoming Review of post-18 education in England. I know many in the sector have been critical about what could emerge from the Review’s recommendations and its potential impacts on access and participation activities.

    Let me reassure you today that progressing access and successful participation remains a top focus for this government and it will be a key lens for me and others in government as we decide how to take the Review forward. My key outcome for the Review is that we create a truly joined-up system, which is even better at promoting social mobility and countering childhood disadvantage. I also encourage us to view the post-18 Review as an opportunity to think again about how we view disadvantage, to ensure we are putting our energy and investment where it is most needed.

    In my first higher education speech in January, I spoke about bringing about a unity of purpose in the sector, and I hope this approach has also been reflected in my thinking on access and participation this morning. Only by tackling key areas of disadvantage as part of a broader access and participation agenda can we move forwards together as a truly inclusive higher education system. I welcome today’s moves by the OfS to bring social mobility efforts together in this way, and I look forward to working with it, as well as with the wider sector, on the important work already started in this area.

    Thank you.

  • Amanda Spielman – 2019 Speech at the Youth Sport Trust 2019 Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Amanda Spielman, the Chief Inspector of OFSTED, at the Youth Sport Trust Conference held on 28 February 2019.

    Good morning. I’m delighted to be joining you today. Thank you for inviting me.

    This morning I’m going to talk about the new Ofsted inspection framework that we’re consulting on, and what that might mean for PE and sport. As well as some of the research that lies underneath that framework, and how it links with the Youth Sports Trust’s own research on what’s happening to PE in schools.

    Exercise and sports are hugely important for children. That should go without saying. Schools and colleges have a vital role to play in inspiring the next generation to lead healthy, active lives and to build resilience. But it’s more than that. The pursuit of sporting excellence is a fine thing in itself. While there isn’t a single definition of excelling, a good PE education can take each child down different pathways to find what they’re really good at. And on a bigger scale, it can take the whole of humanity forward.

    But of course, schools are not a silver bullet. The responsibility for making sure children have ample opportunities to exercise and to live healthy lives cannot rest just with schools: a point I made when I published obesity research and reiterated in my annual report. By the way, when I say schools, I do use that as shorthand for all the different providers we inspect – from nurseries to schools to colleges – but I’ll say schools for the sake of brevity.

    Inspection of PE and sports

    Given that importance, how do our inspectors currently look at PE and sport? I know that some of you may have concerns that they haven’t always had the focus they deserve, especially the shorter Section 8 inspections. Ultimately this goes back to a government decision back in 2004 to simplify inspection, to take it away from being a subject-by-subject review and to focus inspection on the core subjects. Short inspections by their nature can’t provide a full review of all aspects of school life, and have to be driven by lines of enquiry.

    That being said, many of you will know that under our current common inspection framework, before making a final judgement on overall effectiveness, one of the things we look at is the cultural development of pupils and, within this, their willingness to take part in and respond positively to musical, cultural and of course sporting opportunities.

    And within our leadership and management judgement, we also look at a school’s extra-curricular opportunities.

    And we look at the use of the primary PE and sport premium and consider its impact on pupil outcomes, and we look at how well primary school governors hold schools to account for this.

    These areas give us some insight into the quality of physical education and school sport, but it is fair to say that, as with quite a few other aspects of the curriculum, PE and sport has tended to play second fiddle to the areas with more readily available performance data. Six weeks ago we published a consultation on our new draft framework, which I hope you’ve seen. We’re now halfway through the consultation, which runs until 5 April. This really is a proper listening exercise, so I would encourage you all to respond. We want your collective wisdom and expertise to help us make what I think are already a strong set of proposals even better. And we want to start working with this in September.

    Read the education inspection framework consultation and have your say by 5 April 2019.

    Rebalancing inspection to focus on substance

    Our new framework, which I’ve described as an evolution rather than a revolution, aims to tilt the focus of our inspections slightly away from performance data and more towards the real substance of education, seen through the lens of the curriculum. In this way, we hope to get back to discussing not just the results a school or college has achieved but how they have achieved them. We want to make sure inspections are professional dialogues between school leaders and inspectors about what matters to children. What are they being taught and how? How are they being set up to succeed in the next stage of their lives?

    Now don’t get me wrong – when data is used well it’s a very good thing. And test and exam results matter enormously. You can’t tell teenagers that their GCSEs don’t matter, and I wouldn’t want to tell parents that we’re not interested in how well their 11-year-olds do in reading tests. But when the balance tips too far toward data, problems emerge.

    Over the past 2 years, we’ve been researching the curriculum and our findings have highlighted some of these problems. When data is allowed to overtake substance, it’s the curriculum that suffers. It gets squeezed and narrowed. Teachers are incentivised to teach to the test. And it’s children from disadvantaged backgrounds, who have fewer opportunities generally for learning outside school, who most lose out.

    So a key principle of the new framework is to shift inspection back to where it belongs – complementing published performance data, rather than putting pressure on providers to deliver ever higher numbers. Because it matters how results are achieved. Achieved in the right way, they reflect a great education. Achieved in the wrong way, they can give a false sense of assurance that children have achieved and can move on. Leaving them ill-prepared for the next stage of their lives – any employer or university will tell you that.

    So the new framework is about the substance of education – making sure that children get to grips with mathematical concepts, master the art of passing on the football pitch, learn why the world is as it is, harness the beauty and power of the English language, develop their front crawl and learn to dance. If you take care of teaching a broad and balanced curriculum and teaching it well, the test results and performance table outcomes should take care of themselves.

    New quality of education judgement

    So, let’s unpack that a little. The new framework, with its focus on a rich and balanced curriculum should give a greater platform to individual subjects, such as PE and sport, and allow more time for conversations about subjects during inspections. But how will this work in practice?

    There isn’t and there won’t be an Ofsted curriculum. The research that we published last year demonstrates that we can recognise and evaluate a range of different curriculum approaches in a way that’s fair.

    And of course a high-quality education is made up of many parts, not just a good curriculum. We distinguish the curriculum – what is taught – and pedagogy, which is how the curriculum is taught. It is also distinct from assessment, which is about whether learners are learning or have learned the intended curriculum.

    So we will approach the curriculum in 3 ways. First, we’ll consider the framework for setting out the aims of a programme of education, including the knowledge and skills to be gained at each stage: the curriculum intent.

    Secondly, we’ll consider the translation of that framework in practice and the contribution that teaching makes to the intended curriculum: the implementation.

    And thirdly, we’ll look at the evaluation of the knowledge and skills that students have gained across the curriculum and the destinations that they go on to next: the impact.

    We propose a new quality of education judgement to capture the most important aspects of curriculum intent, implementation and impact. The judgement still recognises the importance of outcomes, but in the context of how they are achieved.

    Inspectors will take a rounded view of the quality of education that all children get across the whole range, including every kind of advantage and disadvantage.

    We’ll continue to look at teaching, assessment, attainment and progress, much as we do now, but through the lens of the curriculum implementation and impact.

    We won’t grade intent, implementation and impact separately, individually. Instead, inspectors will reach a single graded judgement for the quality of education, drawing on the totality of the evidence they have gathered, using their professional judgement.

    And it will be important to consider intent, implementation and impact in the context of physical education. As for, all other subjects, PE subject leads will need to think about their curriculum. The most fundamental question of all is:

    What do you want pupils to know and to be able to do?

    And then, are there any physical competencies that pupils need to get better at, such as balance, agility and co-ordination? If so, how will we help them to improve?

    How do you make sure that pupils are physically active for sustained periods of time? Are activities chosen inclusive and enjoyable?

    How do you make sure that pupils can compete in an enjoyable and inclusive way? And how do you make sure that PE is helping all children to be fit and active?

    The national curriculum sets out the content that must be covered in maintained schools and is a benchmark for the breadth and ambition of the curricula that academies devise. The new handbook makes clear that inspectors will have this in mind.

    There are of course other questions to ask and you are the experts in this area and know how to design a curriculum to meet the needs of the pupils in your community. I know that Matt Meckin HMI, our national lead for PE and sport, has been working closely with the Youth Sports Trust to make sure that we increase our inspectors’ familiarity with these questions.

    Personal development judgement

    And for another of our judgements, personal development, we want to look at how the curriculum helps pupils to develop in different ways, moving beyond the core timetable. We’ll look at schools’ intent, and the way this translates into practice. What we won’t do here is to second guess the impact of the parts of the curriculum angled towards personal development. A lot of the likely value that schools add here will only be realised in pupils’ lives many years down the road. No school and certainly no inspector can definitively say from an inspection what has been achieved in this area.

    I am sure, for example, that all of you put on a range of extra-curricular sporting activities and enrichment. These are vital for pupils. But we can’t measure on inspection whether these opportunities have encouraged pupils to lead healthy and active adult lives.

    While a school has its children for 6 or 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, these same young people are influenced by their home environment and their community. Schools can teach in ways that build children’s confidence and resilience, but they can’t determine how well they draw on this. Schools can teach young people sports but as I say, the impact may not be seen for years. Which is why I think calls to use average pupil Body Mass Index, or even ‘performance on the bleep test’ in coming to our judgement probably don’t make sense.

    We are instead being careful to ask the inspection question in the right way. A key criterion in the proposed personal development judgement is that:

    The curriculum and the school’s wider work support pupils to develop resilience, confidence and independence and lead a healthy and active lifestyle.

    So, on inspection, inspectors will look to see what the school does to help pupils keep physically and mentally healthy and maintain an active lifestyle. Are pupils getting ample opportunities to be active during the school day and through extra-curricular activities? These are the kinds of conversations we’ll be having, and for evidence, we’ll look, for example, at the range, quality and take-up of extra-curricular activities offered.

    Narrowing of curriculum

    I’ve talked a little about the narrowing of the curriculum. This links with research you published a year ago.

    Your research in secondary schools found that:

    Timetabled PE time is decreasing and the cuts get bigger as students get older. You found that at KS4, 38% of schools had reduced timetabled PE in the past 5 years and nearly a quarter had done so in the past year. By the time young people are sixth form, they’re doing barely half an hour a week.

    You also found that nearly 40% of teachers said their PE provision had declined because core or eBacc subjects have been given additional time, with students taken out of timetabled PE for extra tuition in those subjects.

    And PE teachers feel sport needs to be more valued by school leaders, parents and young people for what it offers.

    This chimes with our own two-year research programme on the curriculum, which was divided into 3 phases.

    In phase 1, we wanted to understand how schools were thinking about the curriculum. We did find many of them teaching to the test and teaching a narrowed curriculum in pursuit of league table outcomes, rather than thinking about the careful sequencing of a broad range of knowledge and skills. PE is likely to be a subject that’s been affected by that curriculum narrowing.

    Curricular thinking

    In phase 2 of our research, we chose schools that were invested in curriculum design and aimed to raise standards through the curriculum. We went to schools that had very different approaches, but we found some common factors relating to curriculum quality, including the importance of subjects as individual disciplines, and using assessment intelligently to shape curriculum design.

    In phase 3, we wanted to find out how we might inspect aspects of curriculum quality, including whether the factors we’d identified can apply across a much broader range of schools. We found that inspectors can indeed have professional, in-depth conversations about curriculum intent and implementation with school leaders and teachers across a broad range of schools. And crucially, we found that inspectors were able to make valid assessments of the quality of curriculum that a school is providing.

    We visited 33 primary schools, 29 secondaries and 2 special schools. Within each school, inspectors looked at 4 different subjects: one core (English, science or maths) and 3 foundation – arts, humanities, technology, PE or modern foreign languages.

    This allowed us to find out more broadly which subjects, if any, had more advanced curriculum thinking behind them. Inspectors also gave each school a banding. Only around a quarter of primary schools scored highly overall, as against over half of secondaries.

    For PE, of the 33 primary schools we visited, 7 out of 10 scored well on our scale. Of the 29 secondaries, two-thirds scored well. This means PE actually came out better than some other subjects, especially at primary: for example, we’ve recently published our findings on science curriculum, which in primary didn’t come out nearly as well. There is some good practice out there in PE and some work still to do.

    We also unpacked intent and implementation. Most of the schools that scored well for intent but not so well for implementation were primaries. It is not hard to see primaries, particularly small ones, being less able to put their plans into action. It is difficult in many areas to recruit the right teachers. In small primaries, it is asking a lot of teachers to teach across the range of subjects and even across year groups. Of course we’ll consider these challenges when making judgements on inspections.

    In contrast, those schools that scored much better for implementation than for intent were all secondaries. Again, it is not hard to see why that might be. Weaker central leadership and lack of whole-school curriculum vision are more easily made up for in some of the secondary schools, especially large ones, by strong heads of departments and strong specialist teaching.

    So in our new framework, we hope that judgements of quality of education and personal development will allow us to look more on broader and deeper subject content, at how well the curriculum is being thought through and sequenced, and what knowledge and skills children are acquiring.

    The curriculum research that we’ve been doing has had a PE strand. Last autumn we carried out 12 research visits looking specifically at PE and sport. This will feed into the development of some subject-specific training for inspectors.

    And with a proposed extra day for our shorter section 8 inspections, we should have more time to have those conversations that will really help us get underneath what’s happening.

    Primary PE and sport premium

    What we don’t expect to be doing from September is checking a PE and sport premium plan and looking at its impact. I know this is a disappointment for some of you, but we simply don’t believe that the current approach is leading to improved PE and sporting outcomes. Inspection doesn’t have the greatest positive impact in schools when it’s about checklists or processes. Inspection drives real improvement where the inspection conversation really helps leaders think about the education they provide. As we have seen more widely with the use of data, checking only specific pieces of data or information encourages strange behaviour that is directed more towards compliance and hoop jumping, which can be at the expense of providing really good education.

    We would like to bring about a shift in thinking, moving to: “How effective is the intent, implementation and, where appropriate, impact of the PE curriculum?” rather than “how is the money being spent?”

    Attitudes to PE in secondary schools

    Another piece of research I’d like to draw attention to is the 2015 Sport England survey. It’s sobering stuff. Their survey of older teenagers showed that a fifth of them hated or disliked PE at school. And that a bad experience at school can put children off physical activity for life – with girls more likely to dislike or hate PE.

    So it was heartening to hear Sport England announcing from than £13 million from the National Lottery to train secondary school teachers to teach PE and sport. That is a significant amount of investment in secondary school PE and I hope it will support children develop and maintain that love of sport that will carry them into healthy and active adult lives. Your own 2018 impact report showed that more than 80% of young people were not meeting the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines of more than 60 minutes of activity every day.

    This secondary teacher training will, I hope, do a great deal to raise the profile of PE and sport in school and to make it more appealing and inclusive. I applaud the work that you are doing here to help make this a reality.

    Obesity research

    Our own research on obesity was published last July. I’m sure you’re familiar with the figures – according to the National Child Measurement Programme, almost a quarter of children in England are overweight or obese at the start of primary schools and it rises to over a third by the time children leave primary school. Obesity happens for complex reasons. Children are influenced by many factors and we don’t fully understand how these factors interact when it comes to individual children.

    What we did not find was that schools could have a direct and measurable impact on a child’s weight. There are too many factors beyond the school gate that make this impossible for them to control. Obesity is too complex and schools cannot do it alone. Schools cannot become a catch-all for everything that’s going wrong in society. That distracts them from their core purpose: educating children and getting the curriculum right.

    Our research also looked at what parents wanted – and as well as wanting more information on what their children were learning about at school, and what they were eating, parents wanted to see more time in the curriculum for PE. Obviously some of this can happen in after-school clubs, but a quarter of parents said their child couldn’t access all the clubs and activities they wanted, often because not enough spaces were available. Then there were some issues with cost or the school had not taken into account parents’ work and childcare patterns.

    Obviously some activities are more expensive. Not many primary schools have swimming pools, for example. But we found one activity pupils wanted to do more of was dodgeball, where all you need is some space. Many schools were really making the most of the school day for PE and offering the daily mile or purposeful play. But I think it’s fair to say many schools could do more to listen to parents about what they need to know about and what parents want for their children.

    Teacher confidence at teaching PE

    And we also picked up that some schools, especially primaries, need to do more to help their teachers get more confident and skilled at teaching PE. Coaches are great – but we worry that some schools have become over-reliant on them and I’m sure you’re concerned about this too.

    Coaches can add value when used in the right way, but we must not forget the importance of teacher training in primary schools. This is something that we at Ofsted will look into further when we reconsider our approach to inspecting initial teacher training. Is there enough time devoted to PE training?

    So to finish, I’d like to reiterate the importance of PE and sports in schools for helping children lead healthy lives, building their resilience, making them strong, and giving them a lifelong love of being active and simply the pleasure of excelling. I hope that our new framework will allow us to look more at the brilliant work that PE teachers and sports coaches do across the country, and that our focus on the curriculum will bring PE and sport the greater focus that it deserves. Please do join in with our consultation.

    Thank you.

  • Rosena Allin-Khan – 2019 Speech on Care Homes

    Below is the text of the speech made by Rosena Allin-Khan, the Labour MP for Tooting, in the House of Commons on 26 February 2019.

    Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker, and thank you for being in the Chair for my first Adjournment debate, which concerns such an important matter.

    The UK has a world-class national health service, full of the most fantastic doctors, nurses and support staff. It is a testament to our fantastic NHS that, for decades, we have generally seen life expectancy increase across the country. With increasing life expectancy, however, we have seen a growth in degenerative diseases such as dementia. For families living with a relative with dementia, it is an incredibly difficult experience to see a parent, for instance, lose the ability to talk and forget the essence of who they are. You never forget the first time that they look straight through you, having no idea who you are. I am sure that the Minister will extend her sympathies to the families across the country who live with those circumstances day in, day out.

    Many families are increasingly reliant on extra care facilities and nursing homes to manage the healthcare needs of their elderly and vulnerable relatives. They will therefore experience the heart-wrenching feeling of visiting dozens of care facilities and wondering if their loved one will be happy and safe there—will the care be good enough? Sadly, my family and I have found out what happens when the answers to these questions is no. While the majority of those working in the care sector are wonderful and deserve medals for the incredible service they provide, there are, as in any industry, those who are not, and who, sadly, prey on the vulnerable.

    I am going to now share something that is not at all easy to talk about. Minister, there are some phone calls you never wish to receive, and I can say that one of them is the hushed phone call from a carer who knows your family, who tells you that as a matter of urgency you need to come to the care facility and check on your loved one because they have been hurt. Nothing prepares you for arriving to find your loved one with black eyes, bruises, cuts and blood on their face. And I can tell you, Mr Speaker, that nothing prepares you for discovering that these injuries in fact happened three days previously and nobody called you, no one alerted you, nobody called an ambulance despite the fact that somebody had a head injury, was on blood thinners and is elderly, and with not a single person—not one—having any answers as to how this may have happened or any proof at all as to how this occurred.

    My father has dementia. It started very young and affects a part of his brain that is involved with speech. He is fully aware of everything and even has memory, but his days as a university lecturer would be hard to imagine now were you to meet him, as not only does he not speak, but he can only sing in his mother tongue—which I have never heard him even speak in my lifetime. This makes him extremely vulnerable as he is unable to communicate with those who do not know him. As his children, however, my brother and I can understand his body language and his emotions; we know when he is ​happy, we know when he is sad, and unfortunately we now know what his demeanour is when he is deeply, deeply frightened.

    He was found extremely distressed by a carer covered in bloody injuries which would have caused a great deal of blood loss wherever they had taken place. To our horror we were told that he had not left the building overnight, there was no evidence of him having fallen and no other resident had any evidence of injury. Quite unexpectedly, the centre manager suddenly left and not a single person had any excuse for what had happened or why we were not called. Three days—three days—it took for us to receive a phone call, which came in the manner of a hushed call from a carer who was leaving the very next day. She said she was entirely aware that we had not been told and deeply thought that we should know.

    As any family would, we complained immediately to Wandsworth Council, which contracts out the care to London Care, which manages Ensham House, which is owned and run by Optivo. I am sad to say that there our nightmare began, and that nightmare is the reason for this debate, for if two young professionals can endure what happened in the following months in pursuit of answers I fear deeply for the elderly in our community, such as the 80-year-old woman who herself is frail, who is caring for her husband with dementia, and who is too fearful to speak out for fear of going through what I am about to describe.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this matter to the Chamber. She and I spoke about it last night, so I had a bit of an idea of what the issues were going to be. I commend her for bringing us her personal story and this exposé of what has happened to her family. Does she agree that the ability of former owners and management of care homes that have received bad ratings simply to operate elsewhere under a new name is not conducive to openness and transparency, and that consideration must be given to introducing further and better regulation of the staff, management and ownership of these homes, which house some of the most vulnerable people in the UK? Unfortunately, we have had similar circumstances in Northern Ireland, and they are heartbreaking for the families. I understand exactly what the hon. Lady is saying.

    Dr Allin-Khan

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I entirely agree with him. This debate is about safeguarding all our vulnerable adults, including his constituents and all the people up and down the country who want and deserve the very best for their families.

    Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)

    The hon. Lady is making an incredibly powerful speech, and I congratulate her on securing this, her first, Adjournment debate. The experience that she is sharing with us speaks volumes as to why we need to make improvements to the way in which care homes are regulated, and particularly to the way in which the complaints and concerns of relatives are dealt with. This Minister for Care and her predecessors in the role will know that I have raised consistently the case of my constituent, Mr John Barrass, whose mother passed away in a care home in circumstances that have never, in his view, been satisfactorily explained. ​He has fought for eight years to get the answers that he requires. Does the hon. Lady agree that the points she is raising illustrate only too well the need to ensure that there is more transparency and clarity for relatives?

    Dr Allin-Khan

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I am sorry that his constituent has had to live through that for eight years. I know how terribly difficult it has been to deal with such a situation for one year. His constituent is very lucky to have him raising this matter on his behalf again.

    From the very first meeting with the safeguarding team at Wandsworth Council, my brother and I felt as though we were being put on trial. A new manager from Ensham House was present, but he had no idea about what had happened to my father, despite having been sent the horrific photos of his brutal injuries. The safeguarding team had not even looked at them. London Care had no answers as to why we were not called, and again had no answers as to how it could have happened. It was not until the wonderful police officer arrived, at my request, viewed the photos and showed visible alarm at the injury patterns that the Wandsworth Council staff actually took notice. I would like to extend my thanks to the fantastic police that we have in Wandsworth and up and down the country, who give of themselves day and night to ensure the safety of our community, even though they often stand up for people for whom they may never get answers.

    It was agreed with Wandsworth Council’s safeguarding team that a police investigation would now commence, but it was explained to us that because Optivo housing association had not placed any CCTV cameras anywhere in Ensham House other than in the communal areas, and because my father could not communicate what had happened to him, it was very likely that we would not receive the answers we were looking for, and that a criminal conviction would be very difficult to obtain. As the police commenced their investigation, we expected the council to start conducting its own investigation, at the very least, because regardless of whether there had been criminal activity, questions needed answering. They were not answered, however.

    In the following months, we found my father bruised again on two further occasions, with no explanation. He started to sleep in the communal area, for fear of being alone in his room. By this time, the Ensham House care staff knew that we were paying close attention because we were incredibly concerned, and that is when they started to attempt to claim that, despite a year of living there with no issues relating to him, my father was being difficult. The allegations were not corroborated by his community psychiatric team or any staff at the day centre where he spent up to 25 hours a week, and there had been no record of any issues prior to the first incident. Relatives of other residents started to tell us that staff had boasted that they were trying to get dad out because we were asking too many questions.

    Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)

    I congratulate my hon. Friend not only on securing this debate, but on sharing her personal experience. By doing so, I hope that we will see some change. Where Wandsworth Council and other councils contract out care to private providers, does she agree that the right checks and balances must be in place to ensure that her father’s situation happens to no one else?

    ​Dr Allin-Khan

    My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this is about scrutiny, but it is also about saying that a Care Quality Commission rating is not good enough, because vulnerable patients cannot articulate their needs, fill in forms or speak the truth accurately to a shiny inspection team when a care facility prepares for their arrival.

    Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)

    My hon. Friend is brave to make a speech in the Chamber about her personal experiences. Does she agree that one of the most disconcerting things about what has happened to her family is to think about the impact on other families who are not as well informed or as articulate and who do not have a doctor or MP in the family? They will be vulnerable and distraught, but they will not have the opportunity to engage in the same way as my hon. Friend.

    Dr Allin-Khan

    It is for the very reasons that my hon. Friend so beautifully articulates that I am using this platform to raise this issue. This is no longer about my father; this is about every single member of our society—the veterans who fought in our wars, the older people who worked so hard for us to enjoy the liberty that we have today. I am speaking about this for our families, friends, neighbours, loved ones and the people to whom we owe our lives.

    Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)

    I join colleagues from across the House in commending the hon. Lady on her incredibly brave speech. I am in awe of how she is articulating her case this evening. As a former co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on dementia, I am conscious of the fact that we are at the start of a ticking dementia timebomb and that more and more people will fall victim to this cruel, horrible disease in the coming years, making them far more vulnerable in their communities than ever before. Does she agree that now is the time to ensure that the right safeguarding measures are in place, both for today and for the future?

    Dr Allin-Khan

    I thank the hon. Lady—I will call her my hon. Friend—who is tireless in fighting against loneliness and for people to have dignity in their communities, and she makes the most essential of points: we are at the start of a ticking timebomb.

    While all this was going on, my father was admitted to hospital one afternoon for a routine issue. As we were undressing him, we found bruises all over his body. Did the Ensham House care staff phone to check on him? No. Did Optivo show any care? No. Instead, we were served an eviction notice, detailing a list of allegations against my father without any evidence. How heartless is it to receive an eviction notice while in hospital? What did Wandsworth Council do at this time? Nothing. What was London Care doing? In the space of just five months, London Care had five separate managers at Ensham House. This all started after the first incident with my father. One manager after another came and went, unfamiliar with my father’s safeguarding cases. Some were hostile, others made up incidents involving my father being difficult. Dementia is a degenerative illness, but it does not spiral downwards overnight. Prior to those incidents, as I previously mentioned, not a single issue regarding my father’s difficult behaviour had ever been reported.​

    In all meetings, it was agreed that the extra care setting was appropriate for my father as he still knew his way around the area, he had a level of independence and my very young daughters felt comfortable visiting him there. Why deny someone their last few months of independence? The extra care setting was deemed by the social services team and everyone involved to be entirely appropriate for him. However, each time we interacted with Ensham House care staff following the first incident in which we found my father beaten, and when we had not been called, we felt as though we were on trial, that we had somehow made up the fact that he was acting afraid, and our concerns were dismissed by a different manager every month.

    We found multiple examples of my father’s medication not being written on the drug chart, with London Care saying that he had refused medication when we had seen him take it. We even found one manager had written a note in the staff communication book asking staff to write negative comments about my father in his care notes. The final nail in the coffin, and the point of no return, was when we found my father unconscious on the floor, with blood on the walls and the floor, and a carer’s set of keys left next to him. Following this, he spent one month in hospital.

    Four months after that final event in October, there was nothing from Wandsworth Council addressing any of these concerns. The catalogue of disasters crescendoed last week, when the director of adult social services at Wandsworth Council, Liz Bruce—who had refused to look at photos of my father’s injuries, did not know how many open safeguarding complaints there were relating to my father, did not talk to anyone else who knew my dad and had never met him herself—declared that my father had sustained the injuries because “he had asked for it.” Despite police voicing their concerns in the meeting and saying that they cannot rule out abuse, despite her failure to investigate London Care fully and despite her clearly having no detailed knowledge of the case, she chose to use Optivo’s letter, which was full of unsubstantiated claims in the language of the Ensham House managers, as her proof. Well, I think we can all agree that this is a dangerous, highly unprofessional and highly unsatisfactory approach.

    Of course it is easier to blame the patient and the family, anything other than looking inwards and accepting responsibility for the fact that the council is awarding care contracts to organisations that are, frankly, unsafe. Quoting CQC ratings in safeguarding communications, when it is well known that patients are fearful to talk, is frankly unacceptable. If this were happening to the UK’s children, the country would be in uproar, and rightly so. Someone living with dementia is just as dependent in their final years as children are in their first years.

    Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)

    Will my hon. Friend give way?

    Dr Allin-Khan

    I am just finishing.

    With an ageing population and an increase in degenerative illnesses, this issue will only get worse. As parliamentarians, we must act now to ensure that even more families do not experience the horror of finding their loved one bruised, bleeding and terrified. We owe it to the elderly in our community. We owe it to the ​vulnerable. We have to be their voice. They should not be deprived of their quality of life. We must give our vulnerable a fair chance at ageing safely and gracefully. Their voices must be heard.

  • Jesse Norman – 2019 Statement on Old Tyres

    Below is the text of the written statement made by Jesse Norman, the Minister of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 27 February 2019.

    Colleagues across the House will be aware of the potential dangers posed by ageing tyres. In that context I would like to update the House further about potential changes to legislation that the government is proposing to improve the safety of buses, coaches, heavy goods vehicles and mini-buses.

    This country has one of the best road safety records in the world. But over 1,700 people were killed last year on UK roads, and we are determined to improve the UK’s road safety record still further. In my written statement to the House on the 13 June 2018 I reported on the progress made toward the ambitious goals listed in the government’s 2015 Road Safety Statement.

    Penalties for using mobile phones while driving have been increased and commitments for police funding to tackle drug driving have been exceeded. Learner drivers can now gain valuable experience of motorway driving when accompanied by an instructor in a car with dual controls. We are pioneering new mobile breathalyser technologies, supporting the use of photographic and video evidence in police enforcement, and going further than ever before in investigating the causes of road collisions.

    However, in recent years the safety of older tyres on heavy vehicles has become a matter of serious concern to my department, and to this House. This followed a tragic coach crash in 2012 in which 3 people from the wider Liverpool area lost their lives. Mrs Frances Molloy, whose son Michael was one of those killed, has campaigned unceasingly for a ban on the use of older tyres on buses and coaches.

    She has been vigorously supported by the Honourable Member for Garston and Halewood, who has highlighted this issue in a number of Parliamentary Questions, and tabled a private member’ bill on this subject on several occasions. Responding to public concerns, in 2013 my department provided guidance to all bus and coach operators on how to establish the age of the tyres on their vehicles, and against the use of tyres more than 10 years old on the steering axles of those vehicles. This was updated and extended in 2016.

    The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency has also been monitoring compliance with the guidance on age: Since June 2017 they have inspected 136,263 buses and coaches and found 82 to be non-compliant. I am pleased to say that this represents a non-compliance rate of 0.06% – that is, less than one tenth of 1% of over a hundred thousand vehicles inspected.

    But I, with the full support of the Secretary of State, have been determined to go further. In May 2018, in response to evidence that emerged from a collision investigation, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency introduced a change to roadworthiness requirements for tyres. In my written statement to this House on 23 November 2018 I announced further measures to address noncompliance with the tyre age guidance, and provide the basis for the Traffic Commissioner to intervene in cases of non-compliance.

    Importantly, this guidance also covered the misuse of older tyres not only on buses and coaches, but on all heavy motor vehicles and heavy trailers.

    A key constraint on this work has been the absence of robust and objective evidence as to the effect of age on tyre integrity. But we have addressed this issue too. In March 2018 I reported to the House that I had commissioned specialist research to investigate changes in the characteristics of tyres based on their age. I am pleased to tell the House that the investigative element of this pioneering work is complete, and we expect to report on the overall findings later in the spring.

    Yesterday in the Coroner’s court there was another awful case involving an old burst tyre which cost the lives of several people. Independent experts came together to testify that here too age was a factor. Their analysis fits with the department’s own emerging body of evidence. The government now intends to consult on options to ban older tyres on heavy vehicles, including legislation that could make it illegal for buses, coaches, heavy goods vehicles, and minibuses to have tyres more than 10 years old. We also intend to extend this consultation to taxis and private hire vehicles. Subject to consultation, we would expect antique and heritage vehicles to be exempt.

    I would like to pay tribute to Mrs Molloy, to the Honourable Member Garston and Halewood, and to all involved in the Tyred campaign. Road safety affects us all, often in the most direct and personal and distressing way. As this legislation underlines, this government is committed to ensuring that the UK continues to have some of the safest roads in the world.

  • Andrew Selous – 2019 Speech on Dental Health

    Below is the text of the speech made by Andrew Selous, the Conservative MP for South West Bedfordshire, in the House of Commons on 27 February 2019.

    This Adjournment debate provides an opportunity to discuss a very important but often overlooked issue, which can have a major impact on the wellbeing of older people: their oral health. Many of us will have older relatives who have reached the stage where they need some extra support. It might be that they live in a residential care home, have a carer who visits them in their home a couple of times a week, or just require a bit of extra help from us personally to stay independent.

    However, one issue that often slips under the radar when we think about an older relative’s needs is their oral health; it can often seem like a small issue, but in fact poor oral health can have much wider implications. Having a painful oral health problem can impact on someone’s ability to eat comfortably, to speak and to socialise with confidence, and on the ease with which they can take medication, something which may be a particular issue if an older person is living with other long-term health conditions. Maintaining good oral health can also become much more challenging for older people with reduced dexterity, who may for example have more difficulty with brushing their teeth. Furthermore, for the most vulnerable older people, such as those with dementia, who may have difficulty communicating where they are experiencing pain, an oral health problem can be especially distressing.

    Ensuring that older people are supported to maintain good oral health, and have access to dental services when they need them, is therefore very important. However, while data on this issue is limited, the information that we do have suggests that these are areas in which we often fall short.

    The Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons published a report on “Improving older people’s oral health” in 2017, which estimated that 1.8 million people aged 65 and over in England, Wales and Northern Ireland could have an urgent dental condition such as dental pain, oral sepsis or extensive untreated decay. Moreover, the Faculty of Dental Surgery also highlighted that this number could increase to 2.7 million by 2040 as a result of several demographic factors, thereby increasing pressure on dental services in the future. As well as the ageing nature of Britain’s population, increasing numbers of people are also retaining their natural teeth into old age; while this is good news, it also means that dental professionals are facing new challenges as they have to provide increasingly complex treatment to teeth that may already have been heavily restored.

    Separately, in 2014 Public Health England published the findings of research looking at oral health services for dependent older people in north-west England, which found that access to domiciliary and emergency dental care can often be very challenging for those living in residential care homes or receiving “care in your home” support services. More recently, Public Health England last year published the results of a national oral health survey of dependent older people living in supported housing. This revealed that nearly 70% of respondents had visible plaque and 61% had visible tartar, indicators ​of poor oral hygiene, and that in some parts of the country, such as County Durham and Ealing, over a quarter of dependent older people would be unable to visit a dentist and so required domiciliary care in their home.

    It is difficult to get a complete up-to-date picture of the oral health needs of older people across the country, partly because there has not been an adult dental health survey for 10 years, an issue I will return to later. However, these figures, as well as anecdotal reports from dental professionals working on the frontline, suggest there is a real issue here which potentially impacts on large numbers of often vulnerable older people.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this important issue to the House. As he said, 1.8 million elderly people across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have problems, which is shocking. The hon. Gentleman outlined some of the solutions such as extra attention on domiciliary care and in residential homes, and for those at home and dependent on carers. Does he agree that older people’s confidence can also be diminished by not having their teeth correctly done? My mother went this week to have her teeth done; she is 87 years of age and she depends very much on her dentist. She has attended over the years, but many have not, and we need to have that care at all those different levels.

    Andrew Selous

    I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving us his personal family experience of this issue.

    There have been some welcome developments over the last few months, including the recently published NHS long-term plan highlighting oral health as one of the priorities for NHS England as it rolls out a new “Enhanced health in care homes” programme across the country. However, I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to five particular areas in which more could usefully be done: training for health and social care professionals; access to dental services; data; regulation; and the social care Green Paper.

    First, on training, health and social care professionals regularly do a brilliant job of caring for older people, but as I have mentioned, oral health is one issue that can easily fall between the cracks, particularly if someone is living with a range of other health conditions that also require care and attention. One example of this is oral care plans. Ideally, whenever someone is admitted as a resident to a care home, their oral health needs should be considered as part of their initial health assessment. Those needs should then be reflected in an oral care plan that all their carers are aware of and that will, for example, set out whether the resident needs extra help brushing their teeth.

    There is some good guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, but this can often be overlooked. In Public Health England’s research in north-west England, 57% of residential care home managers said that they did not have an oral care policy, and one in 10 said that an oral health assessment was not undertaken at the start of care provision. Knowing how to provide good oral care is especially important when it comes to supporting those with more complex needs. For example, for those with dementia, electric toothbrushes can sometimes be quite intimidating, ​and it makes a big difference if a carer knows that they should use a manual toothbrush when helping with tooth brushing. More broadly, if someone who is living with dementia refuses oral care, this can become an obstacle to maintaining good oral health, so it is important that carers understand how to manage these situations, ideally with input from a dental care professional.

    Equally, for those with dentures, it is important that training and procedures are in place to minimise the risk of a denture getting lost, even if this is a simple thing such as ensuring that they are kept in a jar by the bedside when not in use. A lost denture takes weeks to replace, and this can be a devastating experience for an older person who relies on them to eat and speak. This is particularly sensitive if someone is coming to the end of their life, when it may not be possible to manufacture a replacement in time as they spend their remaining days with loved ones. An understanding of good denture care is particularly important in these situations.

    Improving awareness of oral health among health and care professionals should therefore be a priority, and was a key recommendation in the Faculty of Dental Surgery’s 2017 report. This highlighted schemes such as the Mouth Care Matters programme, in which mouth care leads are recruited to provide oral care training to staff in hospitals and care homes, and I would be interested to know from the Minister whether there were any plans to replicate such initiatives nationwide.

    Secondly, ensuring that older people can access dental services when they need them is essential. It is not uncommon for people to think that if someone has no teeth, they cannot be experiencing pain or other oral problems. Sadly, this is not the case and they should still have an oral check-up once a year, not least because the majority of cases of oral cancer occur in people over 50. There are all too many tragic instances of an older person being diagnosed with oral cancer too late—the saddest two words in the English language—simply because they had not seen a dentist in a number of years. Attending a dental appointment can be a particular challenge for those with reduced mobility—for example, if they are unable to climb stairs to reach a dental practice on the first floor—in which case, domiciliary visits are vital. However, evidence suggests that access to domiciliary dental care can be challenging, particularly for those living in care homes or supported housing, and I would appreciate the Minister’s thoughts on how we can address this.

    In 2015, Healthwatch Bolton reported that it was easier for a local care home resident to get access to a hairdresser than to a dentist. In 2016, Healthwatch Kent reported that care homes had told it about accessibility problems for wheelchair users within dental practices. In 2016, Healthwatch Lancashire reported that care home staff said:

    “The residents don’t get regular checks; they are only seen when there is a problem.”

    Healthwatch Derby was concerned about the lack of information for social care providers about how to access dental services for their residents. While the commitment in the NHS long-term plan to

    “ensure that individuals are supported to have good oral health”

    in care homes under the “Enhanced health in care homes” section is welcome, there is no mention of a similar commitment for older people who use domiciliary care agencies. Those people should not be forgotten, so ​what do the Government intend to do about that for domiciliary care agency users under the NHS long-term plan?

    Thirdly, the intelligence around older people’s oral health is quite limited, making it difficult to build a full picture of the level of need or assess the barriers that older people face in accessing dental care. The most immediate action that could be taken to address that would be for the Government to commission a new adult dental health survey. It is one of the few resources to provide detailed, national-level data on standards of oral health among older people, and it is a key reference for many commissioners, policy makers and dental professionals. The survey has been conducted every 10 years since 1968, but the last edition was published in 2009, so a new one is due. However, the Government have yet to give any indication of when or if a new survey will be taking place, which is causing increasing concern within the dental profession, so an update on that would be most welcome.

    There are other steps that would help to improve our understanding of such issues. For example, NHS Digital publishes a regular set of NHS dental statistics for England, which reports on the proportion of children aged zero to 17 who attended an NHS dentist in the preceding 12 months, as well as the proportion of adults aged 18 and over who attended an NHS dentist in the past two years. That data provides a useful measure of access, and expanding the figures to include attendance rates for older people would help us to develop a clearer picture of whether there are particular groups or areas where access to an NHS dentist is a problem.

    Jim Shannon

    Many elderly people are independent and proud, and one of the things that puts them off attending the dentist—I see this in my constituency—is that they think they have to pay for the treatment, but they do not. Perhaps we need to put out a reminder about that.

    Andrew Selous

    I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting that on the record.

    Fourthly, in addition to health services, care home providers and dental professionals, regulators can play an essential role by monitoring standards of oral care and driving improvements. The Care Quality Commission in England does not explicitly look at oral health during its inspections of hospitals and care homes, although I understand that it is doing a lot of work behind the scenes to try and push that on to the agenda for care providers, which is obviously welcome. Health and care regulators in other parts of the UK can also make a valuable contribution to ensuring that the importance of oral health is recognised by those that they inspect.

    Lastly, I continue to look forward to the publication of the Government’s long-awaited social care Green Paper. Given the importance of oral health to our wider health and wellbeing, an all-encompassing model of care for older people must include dental services, so it will be important that the Green Paper clearly sets out how social care and dental services can work together in the future and what more can be done to ensure that older people have access to dental services when they need them. As I have mentioned, one of the most valuable things we can do to improve older people’s oral health is to ensure that it is not overlooked amid the ​many other issues that we are dealing with, and I hope that the Government will show leadership on that in the Green Paper.

    Oral health can sometimes seem like a small issue, but it has a significant impact on quality of life. The Minister will be aware that we have spoken a lot in recent years about the need to improve children’s oral health, and quite rightly so, but it is also essential that we do not take our eye off the other groups who need support. For an older person who is in pain because of an oral health problem, finding it difficult to eat or speak, or who may be distressed at the loss of a denture that will take weeks to replace, such issues are very real. We can all contribute to addressing them, including Members who care for older relatives in our everyday lives. Indeed, the Faculty of Dental Surgery published some useful advice over Christmas about using visits to older relatives as an opportunity to check their oral health and for how to spot the signs that they might have an oral health problem. That is something that Members could do over Easter when visiting elderly relatives, and we could encourage our constituents to do the same. However, I hope that the Minister will recognise that Government also have an important role to play and will look carefully at what can be done to help improve oral care for our older people.

  • Alun Cairns – 2019 Speech on St. David’s Day

    Below is the text of the speech made by Alun Cairns, the Secretary of State for Wales, at Downing Street, London on 27 February 2019.

    Thank you all for joining us here at No 10 to celebrate St David’s Day and to the Prime Minister for kindly hosting us for the third year in a row.

    This is a significant occasion for the UK Government to celebrate and mark the relevance of – what I would say – is the most important nation of the UK – Wales! The rugby on Saturday only confirms that!

    Some of you over the last three years will be aware that I have always sought to highlight key facts about Wales, underlining the great contribution we make to the whole of the UK.

    I think I have said on each and every occasion that Wales has more castles per square mile than any other nation in the world! So this year I‘ve got some new facts:

    We are home to the world’s steepest road – Ffordd Pen Llech in Harlech, Snowdonia.

    Mount Everest is named after Sir George Everest, a Welshman for surveying the Meridian Arc over 35 years.

    The equals sign was invented by Welsh Physician and Mathematician Robert Recorde from Tenby – so anyone who has had some problems with algebra, knows who to blame.

    And the World’s first ever radio message was transmitted by Marconi in 1897, from Larvernock Point, on the edge of my constituency to Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel – a grand distance of three miles.

    And the message was: “Are you ready?”

    Well, we may be a small nation but we are definitely ready to underline, mark and celebrate our unique history, language and culture that adds so much to the diversity of the UK and beyond.

    And as a government, we are ready to continue to support Welsh innovations, culture, academia and excellence in the public and private sectors to provide for the next generation of rightly proud Welsh men and women.

    Welsh is one of Europe’s oldest living languages, having stemmed from the 6th century. Far older than English! And it is delight to see that 30% of the Welsh population now speaks at least some Welsh, with a quarter of children taught purely through the medium of Welsh.

    Our great culture is about to be amply demonstrated by the choir and we are grateful for their presence here https://whitehall-admin.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/admin/speeches/newtoday and to the exhibitors for highlighting the great food offerings we have and their importance to the UK’s export drive.

    The Prime Minister is a true champion of every part of the UK but I can speak from personal experience, I know Wales holds a very special place in the Prime Minister’s outlook. From promoting Welsh businesses like Aston Martin, who I can now say are a Welsh business, to international trade to driving exports. The Prime Minister always has Wales in her sights.

    In August the PM and I took more Welsh businesses than any other part of the UK to Africa to promote Welsh excellence in supporting the developing world.

    And over the last year, with the Prime Minister’s support, I have had the privilege of seeing our scientists at CERN in Geneva, our semi-conductor cluster – the largest in the world- has wowed international audiences and in three weeks time, I will present the first ever catalogue of Welsh projects to an international audience at the MIPIM conference in Cannes.

    Our City and Growth Deals demonstrate our joint work with the Welsh Government. And earlier this week – for the first time ever, both governments jointly hosted an Ambassador’s event at the Foreign Office as part of Wales Week in London.

    In this room we have some of Wales’ most talented people from businesses to culture and sport and I’d like to pay tribute to you for what you do to promote Welsh interests at home and overseas.

    Let me end by bringing you the words of St. David which I hope can inspire us all:

    “Byddwch lawen a gwnewch y pethau bychain.” Or “Be cheerful, keep your faith and do the little things.”

    So Prime Minister – as well as the big things across government that you do on an ongoing basis, I know these words will be important to you because your attention to detail on the things that really matter epitomises your approach.

    So, I am sure we will all agree that you are following the path and the advice of St David, the greatest Welshman to ever exist.

    Thank you very much.

  • Liam Fox – 2019 Speech on Energy

    Below is the text of the speech made by Liam Fox, the Secretary of State for International Development, on 27 February 2019.

    As you might just be aware, Brexit is dominating our political bandwidth. Sometimes it seems we talk of nothing else. But this makes it all the more important to keep in mind that there is a future and a world outside and beyond Brexit.

    In November 2017 the Government published our Industrial Strategy. Amongst other things, it set out 4 “Grand Challenges”: the major global trends which will affect every economy over the coming decades, and to which every society will have to respond.

    These are the challenges posed by an ageing population, the rise of artificial intelligence, the changing face of mobility, and Climate Change.

    If you were focussed purely on Brexit, you could be forgiven for thinking that 15 months was a very long time.

    But 15 months after we published the Industrial Strategy and those long-term trends are still there, just as much as before.

    In December I was at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where I heard how the changing face of mobility will transform our energy use: from low-emission vehicles to the rise of mobility as a service rather than an asset, enabled by ride-sharing apps and self-driving cars.

    And whilst 15 months may be a long time in the Brexit negotiations, it is in a sense an even longer time in the world of Climate Change. I am sure you will all have seen last year’s UN report, but I think it bears repeating.

    After all, fighting Climate Change is about salience as much as science: most people know we have to stop it, but they do not prioritise stopping it.

    To remind you, the UN said that we had just 12 years to avert Climate Change catastrophe.

    That was last year. It’s now 11.

    From heatwaves to hurricanes, you can try and ignore climate change, but it has a way of forcing itself up the agenda.

    It is no longer just a case of saving the planet for our future generations: if we don’t fix the problem by 2030, we could see permanent harm in our own lifetimes.

    I said this was a trend to which every society would need to respond.

    Clearly this is about the whole of society, not merely the Government, but as a member of the Government you could ask me what we are doing about it.

    Firstly, I should say at the outset, as this is a myth I often have to counter, that we are not and will not use Brexit as a means or an excuse to lower environmental standards.

    The UK is legally committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% between 1990 and 2050. This is a commitment that is part of our domestic law through the Climate Change Act, not EU law.

    Our environmental standards are already above the EU minimum. If this Government had wanted to reduce environmental standards, we would have reduced them already. We do not.

    We are proud of our country’s record as a champion of climate change action on the world stage, including setting the agenda by being the first country to legally-bind ourselves to meeting the Paris Accords.

    Reducing our environmental standards would not be in the UK’s interest. The United Kingdom’s comparative advantage is in quality, not price, and that includes high environmental standards.

    Secondly, the Government is taking tangible measures to combat Climate Change.

    We have made a world-leading commitment to stop the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2040. We will close our remaining coal-fired power stations by 2025 – and indeed, there were many days during the last year when we had no coal-fired stations on the grid at all.

    The UK is predicted to have enough capacity for 30 Gigawatts of electricity from offshore wind by 2030, building on its current position as the world’s largest producer of offshore wind, with 7.9 Gigawatts of capacity.

    And we are making long term investments to advance this technology, such as the £246 million allocated to battery research through the Faraday Institute.

    But, thirdly, in Climate Change as in all things, we must never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

    That is where oil and gas come in.

    Yes, we must focus on a low-carbon future.

    But the simple fact is that for the moment we do require fossil fuels to deliver secure and affordable energy: we are not in a position to heat our homes without gas or maintain our supply chains, our commutes or our rural areas without petrol.

    That need for oil and gas is especially pressing for countries in the third world, who need affordable energy to grow their economies to a level we take for granted.

    Yes, renewables are better than fossil fuels. But that should not mean that we ignore the role gas has to play in decarbonisation, when it burns nearly twice as efficiently as coal.

    Nor should we ignore the role the oil and gas industry has contributed to our society.

    This sector is estimated to have directly employed 37,000 people across the United Kingdom last year, and a further 127,000 in related supply chains. It has contributed billions in tax revenues, year after year, which fund our public services.

    And the Extractive Industries Transparency Report, published this week, found that the UK extractive sector has an excellent track record on business ethics, leading the way on accountability and transparency.

    And the oil and gas industry has also played a vital and prescient role in developing low-carbon alternatives, through investing in clean energy and its contribution to technology and know-how.

    It is hard to imagine that offshore wind would be so competitive now, with the price down nearly two-thirds to £57 per Megawatt Hour at the latest auction, if it was not for years of learning how to build and maintain offshore platforms in drilling.

    For all those reasons, the Government is proud to support the oil and gas industry. The Oil and Gas Authority has played a vital role in reviving the North Sea fields.

    And the Department for International Trade is working closely with the Authority and with Industry to increase exports from the UK supply chain, as outlined in our Maximising Economic Recovery Strategy.

    It should come as no surprise that boosting exports and international investment is such a major focus for us, when oil and gas is a supremely international industry.

    For example, our recent support for Bapco’s Sitra refinery was in Bahrain, with Technip as the main engineering, procurement and construction contractor, and WorleyParsons as the main UK contractor – worth some £539 million.

    There is also the Offshore Cape Three Points Project in Ghana, where UK Export Finance provided $400 million as part of an innovative project financing/reserve-based lending structure.

    The project is going to continuously feed Ghana’s thermal power plants for over 20 years; as well as helping Ghana meet it’s Paris Agreement obligations by displacing heavy fuel oil with gas. This is the equivalent to taking 1.2 million cars off Ghana’s roads each year, or planting 152 million trees; and it will support jobs across the United Kingdom, from Bristol and Aberdeen.

    All that is part of the Government’s wider drive to increase exports. My colleague Baroness Fairhead, the Minister of State for Exports, will headline the Energy Exporting Conference to be held in Aberdeen in June this year.

    This is all part of our wider Export Strategy, which we launched in August. It sets a national goal to increase exports from 30% of GDP to 35% by providing the finance, connections, knowledge and encouragement businesses small and large need to export.

    That international focus is only going to become more apparent as North Sea production declines and huge new opportunities arise in places such as Senegal/Mauritania, or in the East coast of Africa, which could become a major new area for hydrocarbon extraction.

    So my challenge and yours is to help companies export.

    And my challenge and yours is to prepare for the future.

    I mentioned earlier a series of global megatrends that the government is preparing for, of which climate change and the transformation of mobility are particularly relevant for our purposes.

    But there is a different trend, of particular relevance to our present political debates.

    We are at the beginning of a Pacific century, after 4 Atlanticist ones.

    The rise of Asia is no longer part of the future: one figure I often quote is that according the IMF 90% of global growth will occur outside the European Union. But that’s not 90% in the distant future. That’s 90% in the next 5 years. China alone will have 220 cities with a population of more than one million people by 2030, when the whole of Europe has just 35.

    But it is important to realise that this does not mean ignoring our European markets.

    Nor does it mean letting the perfect future be the enemy of a good future.

    That is why I want to see us leave the European Union with a deal that maximises access to European markets, while also maximising our freedom to reach out to new markets around the world.

    There is no perfect deal. But I can reassure you that the government’s goal it to make sure we leave in an orderly way.

    We do not want a no deal, which, while survivable, would cause unnecessary disruption for businesses and for our economy.

    And business should not want a No Brexit, which would undermine our democracy in a way that is not only unacceptable in itself, but would also hardly be conducive to a healthy business environment.

    What we should be doing is leaving in an orderly way, so we can look to the world and the time and opportunities beyond Brexit.

    But also so we can look to the challenges beyond Brexit: of which Climate Change is undoubtedly one of the most pressing.

    The UK and the world are undergoing and must undergo a transition towards a low-carbon future.

    And the UK and the world’s oil and gas industry can play a positive and important role here.

    So I will leave you today with a question.

    Where will you be on August 12th, 2026?

    Certainly in my case I hope to be looking at the UK’s first full solar eclipse since 1999.

    There are some things we can predict for certain, years in advance.

    Climate change is one of them.

    Our commitment to work with the oil and gas industry to deliver the affordable, secure, cleaner energy future is also something you can rely on.

    And our commitment to tackle climate change is something else you can rely upon: a fixed point on the firmament for any investor.

    Based on our current predictions of solar energy use, it is estimated that that eclipse will take up to 3.5 Gigawatts of power from the grid – something the National Grid is planning for.

    So who says the UK isn’t a sunny place in which to live and work! A sunny place with a bright future.

    Thank you.

  • Liz Truss – 2019 Speech at Enterprise Nation

    Below is the text of the speech made by Liz Truss, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, on 27 February 2019.

    It is brilliant to be here this morning with such an amazing view.

    I do believe that we are fundamentally an enterprising nation and that is one of the many things that’s exciting about Britain.

    Sometimes to appreciate your own country you have to travel overseas. Recently I did a trip to Korea and Japan and they were saying to me, “How can we get the same kind of start-up culture that you have in Britain?”, “How can we attract that investment in early stage businesses? or “How can we have that energy that we see every time we come to London?”

    I think we’ve got to appreciate what we’ve got, and in the last year there’s been a 5% increase in business registrations.

    The momentum hasn’t stopped. What is also very interesting is the attitudes of generations that are under 21.

    They’re more likely to want to start up a business than previous generations and they’re doing it in droves, as we’ve seen an 85% increase in 18 to 24 year olds setting up businesses just in the last three years alone.

    I had a group of those businesses called ‘20 under 20’ in my office in the Treasury talking to them about when they’d start up their business what motivated them, and most of them said that it was at age 11 that they’d first thought of their idea. They struggled with some of the hurdles – like they couldn’t open bank accounts to other sorts bureaucratic difficulties – but they persisted and actually due to new technology, due to the availability of things like YouTube and podcasts to be able to get wider advice or to be able to network with a wider world – they ultimately had succeeded in their ambition. It is those ideas, and it is these people that drive progress in our country.

    In the 1960s we had an expression the ‘jet set’ because only the very rich could afford to travel round the world, but now thanks to new entrants it is a lot cheaper now and many more people can afford to travel. Or, what about supermarkets. I remember when getting pasta was exciting in the supermarket and now you can buy all kinds of things from fish sauce to won tons; you can get anything you want at your local Sainsbury’s, again that’s down to enterprise.

    Even the internet itself, where the derivation of that idea came from Britain and great people like Ada Lovelace or Tim Berners Lee. Quite often we hear negative things and of course there are harms that we need to deal with, but a recent survey showed that 82% in Britain had said the internet had made their lives better. None of us have to get bored waiting in a queue at the supermarket anymore, we can use our time much more productively. We are seeing all this progress and sometimes I think we take that progress for granted. But the reason we’ve got that progress is because of the individuals that come forward and there has never been a better system than the system of free enterprise for harnessing the ideas and dreams of individuals.

    For me it’s not just about economics. Of course, it is important that we get economic growth up. Of course, it is important that people that are able to afford to live better lives and that they are able to get better food for their children and get better opportunities. But starting businesses is also important for that sense of fulfilment and self-determination for individuals and that is one of the reasons that I do love meeting entrepreneurs, because you are people with dreams who want to bring those dreams to reality and there’s something really exciting about that.

    British start-ups are also an area where it doesn’t matter what your background is. It doesn’t matter where you’re from. It doesn’t matter what gender you are. If you’ve got a good enough idea, if you’re prepared to work hard enough; if you’re prepared to fulfil those ambitions; or if there’s somebody out there who wants to buy what you’ve got to offer, you can do that and you don’t have to be ticked off by a piece of government bureaucracy.

    I think that’s incredibly empowering and one of the areas that I’m very interested in the whole area of female entrepreneurship, because we do know there are fewer female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs. If we had as many female entrepreneurs as male entrepreneurs we’d have 1.2 million more businesses in this country, and I do see it as a source of empowerment, as a source of being able to take control of your own life and run your own life.

    So what can the government do about this? First of all I think we need to be positive. Emma mentioned Brexit and the Brexit vote. I believe we will get a deal. I believe we’re very close to getting a deal. It’s always darkest just before dawn and I think that is the situation we have at the moment, but there is a definitely a will and you can sense it across Parliament, and you can sense it across the country that people who have been debating this issue for two years.

    There are various permutations of exactly what we could do, but we want to get on with it. Leave the EU in an ordered way and in a way which provides the security and stability for everybody to carry on living their lives, but also so that we can carry on trading with the EU which is a vitally important market, as well as reach out further into other markets.

    I would point out that many overseas markets are already doing extremely well, and we’ve seen our exports rise across the world. What does the government do next? In my role as Chief Secretary to the Treasury I’m in charge of public finances. We currently spend a £800 billion a year as a government and this year will be the year of the Spending Review and that’s where we set our government budgets for 2020. I think that’s a massive opportunity for us as we leave the European Union to reform our economy and to look at how we spend public money, and if we are we spending it right to deliver the maximum possible opportunities for people across the country.

    First of all the challenge is to be able to keep taxes low. Often my number one job is saying ‘no’ to people who want to spend more money because I know that ultimately for every extra pound we spend that’s a pound we have to raise in tax, and we have been able to keep corporation tax at 19% which is the lowest in the G20. We’ve been able to lower business rates, particularly for those businesses on High Streets. I’m sure there are many people in this room who feel that there are issues still with tax. I certainly think there is a lot of room to simplify our tax system. I think it’s become over complicated. So those are some of the things we need to look at over the coming years.

    The second area to highlight is infrastructure. One of the decisions this Government has made is to spend more money on capital spending, investing in infrastructure like roads; the railway network, fibre and broadband rather than day to day spending. I think that’s important. But what we need to make sure is that we’re spending that capital money in the right way and I’m very interested in your feedback as small businesses. What would make the most difference for your business. Is it rail connectivity? Is it fibre connectivity? Where is it geographically?

    What would make the most difference to making your businesses more successful and in fact tomorrow I’m going to be in Felixstowe meeting businesses there and just hearing from the ground up about what it is that will make the difference in terms of capital investment.

    Of course skills are vitally important. We’ve got a program of education reform taking place we’re introducing new T levels. I was previously the Education Minister we introduced new GCSE and A-levels and those continue to be important.

    The second area I’d highlight is improving regulation and red tape. I think the government is always in danger of creating too much red tape. I’m interested in how we can simplify that landscape and how we can make it easier for businesses to engage. How we can flag up where there are bodies which maybe not intentionally, but quite often unintentionally, might be creating those problems. I think the biggest area I’d highlight of regulation is the planning system. We need to look at cities like Tokyo which have a more liberal planning system which make it easier for office spaces to be changed, for new houses to be built and we need to look at what we can do.

    One of the things we’ve just announced in the Budget is we’re conducting a consultation on the ability to build up.

    If you have a freestanding building you’ll be able to build up to five stories without getting planning permission, and that is the the type of innovation I think we’d need to see more of. We need to allow more spaces to be easily changed. We need to allow new land to be opened up both for housing and for office space and for manufacturing. Another subject close to my heart is childcare. Again I think there’s still more we need to do on simplifying the way we organise childcare. We spend £6 billion as a government per year on supporting childcare but I think those are areas we can do better.

    The final point I want to make before we go onto questions is championing new entrants. It’s always tempting for government to end up listening to the big players. You can often see that it is big companies will have large lobbying organisations, big legal departments and I’m very keen as a government that we try to make sure that we’re looking at how will everything we do affect new entrants. How will that affect the people that have not yet got into that market and part of that market.

    This means looking at things like business support. We spend over £20 billion on business support and that’s a combination of tax reliefs and other funding through things like LEP’s but also through special grants for particular sectors. I want to look at this through the lens of how we help new companies start up.

    And finally, I want to mention about the issue of women. We launched a report recently that showed the vast majority of all venture capital funding was going into all- male teams and I do think that that is a barrier that the government has highlighted and we want to see more venture capital firms open up and fund a wider variety of businesses, because there’s no doubt that if you’re well networked, if you are based in London and the Southeast or if you are male it is easier to get funding than if you’re not.

    We simply can’t afford, as we’re leaving the European Union, we’re seeking to become a more competitive country. We’re seeking to lead the world in enterprise. We simply cannot afford to ignore huge amounts of talent, and we can’t afford to ignore half the population or cities outside London. So the Government needs to make sure that we are not skewing the playing field against new entrants and ensure that those who fund businesses are also looking beyond the usual suspects.

  • Keith Williams – 2019 Bradshaw Address on the Railways

    Below is the text of the speech made by Keith Williams, the Independent Chair of the Williams Rail Review, on 26 February 2019.

    Introduction – the case for change

    It is a privilege to be here to deliver the 2019 George Bradshaw address and to such a distinguished audience – and to be given the opportunity to offer some preliminary thoughts on the Rail Review.

    First of all, it has been particularly pleasing to see the level of interest in the Review. I gather for many that the demand for tickets for this evening has been such that not everyone has been able to get a seat. In my last job I would have seen that as a yield management opportunity but I now see it as an overcrowding problem. But more of that later.

    I have been treated with every kind consideration since I started with the review only the very rare exception. Early on I was quizzed by one individual who asked: “what can someone from the airlines do for the rail industry”. Perhaps it was a rhetorical question. It could have been worse – given my background he might have asked more pertinently what can an accountant could do for the rail industry? So I’ll take what I can get.

    Well 5 months into the review I have learned that if the airline industry is like a game of chess, then today’s complexity in the rail industry is more like a Rubik’s Cube and (by the way) only 5.8% of the world’s population can solve a Rubik’s Cube.

    So why, you might ask, would anyone want to take on the job of sorting out the seemingly entrenched problems of this, the most complex of industries. Problems that have endured despite many separate rail reviews in recent years.

    The answer, I believe, is in a shared belief that we are at a crucial juncture where public trust crosses the industry’s ability to deal with change. I believe that for the railway to be successful it needs to put passengers at its heart. And in summary that is what I am going to talk to this evening.

    But first one opening comment. Whilst there have been multiple reviews over the last decade this is the first full-blown rail review to be supported by government for some considerable time – with a very clear commitment from the Transport Secretary and from Bernadette Kelly and the whole of the department’s executive to encourage myself, the expert panel and my team to bring in root and branch change. That is the context on which we are working.

    The case for change has been building

    The case for that change has of course been building.

    It is far too simplistic (I believe) to say that this is driven purely out of recent events – franchise difficulties, the timetable fiasco, recent studies into passenger trust or the tail off in passenger growth. They clearly don’t help the industry’s case but there are also longer-term catalysts for the review.

    On any measure there is a huge amount of determination within the industry to respond to recent events – and actions are already in hand in many cases.

    The industry is not blind to the issues it faces yet has found it hard to address them. Customer satisfaction is declining and there is widespread lack of public trust. According to Which’s latest consumer insight tracker, only car dealers are more distrusted by customers than train travel.

    This is not new. Speakers who have addressed this audience over the years have called it out.

    As far back as the very first George Bradshaw address in 2011 Rick Haythornwaite spoke about the gap that existed between what the industry thought it was delivering and what the public thought of what was being offered. And last year Sir Peter Hendy spoke about the need for public confidence in the railway.

    This has for too long been a recurring theme and we have reached the point at which some uncomfortable truths need not only to be acknowledged but acted upon… that while the industry has achieved enormous success over the past decades:

    doubling passenger numbers

    running more trains than at any time in the railway’s history

    whilst delivering improvements in safety

    and seeing more money spent than ever on improving the railways

    that despite these successes we cannot ignore some harsh realities: that poor performance, fare hikes, disruptive industrial action and the failures to deliver key infrastructure projects on time or to budget have all contributed to a few dismal years for the railway.

    Whenever things went wrong in my previous job the press office would trot out how many billions we were spending on new aircraft or kit such as de-icing equipment – but try saying that was good news to the person stuck on the runway in a snow storm it pretty quickly would wear thin. It is a similar case here. When things go wrong I see protestations that the industry is spending billions on improving the railways – against what customers are experiencing daily it risks becoming another hollow statistic.

    And that’s a shame, because, unlike some competitor countries, we are spending more on the railway, in offering new services, purchasing new rolling stock, and renewing and enhancing the network. The May timetable change, for instance, was designed to offer thousands of new services, hundreds of new trains, and much improved critical infrastructure – but as a system we were unable to deliver on this investment. And the customer suffered.

    It is a hard truth that – despite everything that is being done and all the money that is being spent over time – the rail industry has lost sight of its customers – passengers and freight – and therefore lost public trust.

    Passenger focus

    I can’t emphasis the point on passengers enough. The railway is not run for engineers, nor shareholders, workers or politicians. At the end of the day it is run for passengers.

    During this initial period of engagement, the Review team has been told by passengers how the journey experience often baffles and sometimes alienates them. To replay some of what we have heard.

    What passengers want is a reliable service that gets them to where they are going when it says it will. They want to be treated as part of the railway, like customers. Communications are often poor, especially when things go wrong – and we should expect better from operating companies and Network Rail here. In the last few years, performance for many has gone backwards, when it should have gone forwards. Fares and ticketing are confusing. Most people want the basics sorted out.

    As part of this, we need to do more on making it easier for customers to access the compensation they are entitled to and improving accessibility for all users, including disabled people. I’ve asked the ORR to advise me on what more could be done by rail operators to improve this, and whether more regulatory powers are required to ensure that it happens. They will report back within the timescale of the Review recommending action to help transform compensation and accessibility across the network.

    Now, of course there’s a huge amount of work going on within the industry to respond to these complaints.

    For example, the Rail Delivery Group, our hosts this evening, published proposals on simplifying fares structures just last week.

    The department is consulting on an extension to Pay As You Go.

    There are improvements coming from the Glaister review into timetabling and I’ve been impressed with the customer focus that Andrew Haines is seeking at Network Rail having completed his 100 day plan.

    More of this is needed and the industry needs to fundamentally realign itself to its customers – passengers and freight. Passengers must be at the heart of the future of the railways or they will turn away.

    I know that none of this will sound new to many of you but it is important to have a common understanding of the start point if we are to have a successful rail review. If we can agree that there are symptoms which have led to the lack of public trust – then so too we can acknowledge that some medicine needs to be applied to bring the industry back to health.

    Tackling the fundamental causes

    My team and I have been listening for 5 months now – what have we learned?

    We have seen enormous passion and engagement and had the benefit of great wisdom and knowledge.

    But nothing has convinced me yet that today we have either a common vision or the capability across the industry to make the railway truly customer centric.

    I can see that worthy efforts to improve things for customers are all too often frustrated not because of lack of will but because no single organisation owns the problem, or is sufficiently incentivised to take responsibility to drive through change.

    I can see that there are many barriers which prevent the industry from improving and modernising its services for customers:

    fragmentation and short-termism

    lack of accountability, flexibility and joined-up thinking

    conflicting interests within the structure of the railway

    And the need for leadership throughout the system – where everyone knows their responsibilities and is held to task on performance.

    The success of the Review

    I’ve listened to customers and the industry across the country, from Wales and the North of England to Scotland, London and other English regions. I have learned a considerable amount and it is time for us to give you some indication as to what we believe is at the heart of the review.

    I see our role not just to tackle those recent problems that passengers have experienced but also to tackle the more fundamental underlying causes of those problems… the barriers that we have identified must be addressed if the railway is to meet the needs of both today’s and tomorrow’s customer.

    It is no longer helpful or relevant to see the industry purely in terms of ownership, being state run or privatised.

    Rather, my role is to realign the different parts of this fragmented industry so they face the same way with shared incentives, with risks (and rewards) sitting in the right places. Always with a singular focus on the customer.

    Key priorities – commercial model

    If that is what the review is seeking to achieve, today is a first opportunity to give you some of our thoughts on priorities: Looking firstly at the commercial models.

    Many of you have told me that the current rail model is no longer fit for purpose and that (while justifiably proud of what has been achieved) the industry no longer possesses the same ability or incentive to innovate at the pace at which customers expect – that what worked 20 or 25 years ago no longer works today and will not work in the future. That’s a huge concern in a fast changing world.

    I have heard a great deal about the franchising model which has been one of the innovations of the railway since the nineteen nineties – driving growth in passengers and benefits in services. But with this growth the needs of passengers have changed, whilst many of the basic elements of our rail system serving those needs has not kept pace. Too often the current system incentivises short term behaviours and inhibits reform.

    We are now in a different phase. Passenger growth can no longer be taken for granted and there is less certainty about how the economy is going to fare into the future.

    There has been less ability to deliver on innovation. The reputational risk for franchises has increased whilst at the same time returns are less than expected in some areas.

    These are hardly the conditions we need to develop a modern railway industry to attract future investment.

    Put bluntly franchising cannot continue in the way that it is today. It is no longer delivering clear benefits for either taxpayers or farepayers.

    The review will continue to examine what the best commercial model or models are for the future what they might be.

    Key priorities – affordability

    We will also face into the longer term issue of affordability. Passengers are no longer willing to pay more when their perception of service is getting worse.

    Today we are publishing the first in a series of papers which provide factual summaries of a number of key issues for the rail industry. This paper focuses on the role of the railway in Great Britain and on its costs and benefits.

    The paper highlights many of the benefits which rail travel brings – how it handles large volumes of commuter traffic, the role it plays in leisure travel, the benefits to business and the growth in freight. It also looks at such things as its environmental credentials.

    It also highlights the vast amounts of money that government has put into rail – reflecting the importance of rail to our country and the need for investment to maintain and enhance our railways. This investment was around half of taxpayer’s annual public spending on transport in the UK last year.

    Given this amount of spend I am clear that my findings will need to ensure that Britain’s railways are financially sustainable for both taxpayers and users.

    Key priorities – structure

    And finally a lot is said about the rail industry structure. I have left this to last because my own starting point in the review has always been to look at what rail should do and that the structure should follow.

    But what is true is that system – from Network Rail, the Department for Transport and the ORR, to train operating companies and their workforce – does not have the structure and clarity of accountability it needs to properly deliver.

    That’s reflected in Andrew Haines’s conclusion that there’s need for “radical change” at Network Rail.

    To boost performance. To bring track and train closer together. And increase devolution, with more localised management.

    It’s difficult to argue against these objectives. Most within the industry agree with them and they seem to be pointed in the right direction for both customer and taxpayer.

    But the question is how to achieve these objectives across a sector with very diverse needs?

    There is a general frustration within the industry that rules and regulations are holding back innovation and problem solving.

    And there is frustration on the public side that they have to specify more and more to get the best taxpayer outcomes.

    These are all issues which the review is examining in the context of an industry that’s no longer where it was 25 years ago.

    We need to recognise that there is unlikely to be a ‘one size fits all’ solution which will work for every part of the country and all types of passenger.

    That’s why we will continue to consider all potential answers.

    From new models of franchising to greater public control of contracts.

    To much more localised decision-making and integrated concessions, where those operating trains and managing infrastructure work together in genuine partnership, acting like a single business absolutely focused on customers.

    We will follow the evidence, and suggest the most practical measures to fix the system. But whatever we suggest needs to be taken in the context of creating clear accountabilities.

    All of this needs to start happening quickly, for the sake of customers.

    Maintaining the essentials

    But I’m clear that my challenge is doing that without losing the many positives of the Great British railways, what I call the essentials!

    Safety and Environment – the UK’s safety culture and record is second to none. It’s almost taken for granted by passengers and that’s a fantastic credit to everyone in the industry. But I’m determined to ensure that the rail network continues to make a major contribution to a cleaner UK transport sector.

    Freight – which makes a vital contribution to the UK economy not only by moving goods and materials, but also taking vast numbers of vehicles of the road network. The RDG estimates that rail freight secured over £1.7 billion of benefits for the country in 2016. If the future strategy for the railway doesn’t work for rail freight, it’s not the right strategy. Any future model must sustain opportunities for our important freight industry.

    Workforce – the industry has a dedicated and hardworking group of employees and I have met some of them. It’s a great benefit for the railways. I will be looking at how we can improve employee engagement in the Review, to get the best from these vital people at the heart of the system.

    But that will mean tackling some challenges, too. A modern industry needs a modern workforce, one that reflects the society it serves.

    I have been impressed by the recognition of the challenges which the industry faces in this respect- concerns about skill and about diversity – but we need more accurate information on these issues and we need a means of making things happen to build the workforce of the future.

    I am sure the DfT will want to quickly look at this and I have asked my team to assist. I also ask everyone here, from unions to operators, to help us in this endeavour.

    Concluding remarks

    So to conclude – the review’s task – indeed all our tasks is to prepare the railway to adapt to a fast changing world. Now it’s up to us to respond.

    Over the coming months we will continue our extensive engagement with the railway industry, with passengers, and with business. This will be followed by other evidence papers and a further call for evidence next month.

    I don’t pretend that the journey to become a customer focused railway is going to be easy and it will mean accepting trade-offs. Between capacity and reliability, for example; between more services and resilience; between cost and quality. Or simply accepting that not everything can be done at once.

    And it will take time to implement, balancing local input and requirements, against those of maintaining a national network.

    We must resist the urge to promise all things to all people or to let ideology get in the way of practical, intelligent and creative solutions.

    I’ve been very impressed by the commitment and ambition of many who have contributed to the Review. There’s real hunger for change within the industry as well as outside. We will continue listening to what you have to say and learn from your insight and experience.

    Then in the autumn we will bring everything together and alongside government, recommend change through a white paper. It will be the culmination of the biggest review of the railway for generations.

    Now, I mentioned at the beginning that solving today’s problems in rail is a bit like being presented with a Rubik’s Cube. However, if you go onto the web you will find numerous algorithms by which one can solve a Rubik’s Cube in 6 or 7 simple steps. So, I am encouraged by everything I have seen and everyone I have spoken to – from the department, all of you in industry here today and the trade unions – that we will jointly devise these algorithms for the railway.

    Thank you for listening.

  • Theresa May – 2019 Statement on Brexit

    Below is the text of the statement made by Theresa May, the Prime Minister, to the House of Commons on 26 February 2019.

    With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s work to secure a Withdrawal Agreement that can command the support of this House.

    A fortnight ago I committed to come back before the House today if the Government had not by now secured a majority for a Withdrawal Agreement and a Political Declaration.

    In the two weeks since, my Rt Hon Friends the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the Attorney General and I have been engaging in focused discussions with the EU to find a way forward that will work for both sides. We are making good progress in that work.

    I had a constructive meeting with President Juncker in Brussels last week, to take stock of the work done by our respective teams.

    We discussed the legal changes that are required to guarantee that the Northern Ireland backstop cannot endure indefinitely.

    On the Political Declaration, we discussed what additions or changes can be made to increase confidence in the focus and ambition of both sides in delivering the future partnership we envisage as soon as possible – and the Secretary of State is following this up with Michel Barnier.

    I also had a number of positive meetings at the EU-League of Arab States Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, including with President Donald Tusk.

    I have now spoken to the leaders of every single EU member state to explain the UK’s position.

    And the UK and EU teams are continuing their work and we agreed to review progress again in the coming days.

    As part of these discussions, the UK and EU have agreed to consider a joint work stream to develop alternative arrangements to ensure the absence of a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    This work will be done in parallel with the future relationship negotiations and is without prejudice to them.

    Our aim is to ensure that, even if the full future relationship is not in place by the end of the implementation period, the backstop is not needed because we have a set of alternative arrangements ready to go.

    I want to thank my Hon and Rt Hon friends for their contribution to this work and reaffirm that we are seized of the need to progress that work as quickly as possible.

    President Juncker has already agreed that the EU will give priority to this work. And the Government expects that this will be an important strand of the next phase.

    The Secretary of State for Exiting the EU will be having further discussions with Michel Barnier and we will announce details ahead of the Meaningful Vote.

    We will also be setting up domestic structures to support this work, including ensuring we can take advice from external experts involved in customs processes around the world, from businesses who trade with the EU and beyond – and, of course, from colleagues across the House.

    This will all be supported by civil service resource as well as funding for the Government to help develop, test and pilot proposals which can form part of these alternative arrangements.

    Mr Speaker, I know what this House needs in order to support a Withdrawal Agreement.

    The EU knows what is needed.

    And I am working hard to deliver it.

    As well as changes to the backstop, we are also working across a number of other areas to build support for the Withdrawal Agreement and to give the House confidence in the future relationship that the UK and EU will go on to negotiate.

    This includes ensuring that leaving the EU will not lead to any lowering of standards in relation to workers’ rights, environmental protections or health and safety.

    Taking back control cannot mean giving up our control of these standards, especially when UK Governments of all parties have proudly pursued policies that exceed the minimums set by the EU, from Labour giving British workers more annual leave to the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats giving all employees the right to request flexible working. Not only would giving up control go against the spirit of the referendum result—it would also mean accepting new EU laws automatically, even if they were to reduce workers’ rights or change them in a way that was not right for us.

    Not only would giving up control go against the spirit of the referendum result, it would also mean accepting new EU laws automatically, even if they were to reduce workers’ rights or change them in a way that was not right for us.

    Instead, and in the interests of building support across the House, we are prepared to commit to giving Parliament a vote on whether it wishes to follow suit whenever the EU standards in areas such as workers’ rights and health and safety are judged to have been strengthened.

    The Government will consult with businesses and trade Unions as it looks at new EU legislation and decides how the UK should respond.

    We will legislate to give our commitments on both non-regression and future developments force in UK law.

    And following further cross-party talks, we will shortly be bringing forward detailed proposals to ensure that as we leave the EU, we not only protect workers’ rights, but continue to enhance them.

    Mr Speaker, as the government committed to the House last week, we are today publishing the paper assessing our readiness for No Deal.

    I believe that if we have to, we will ultimately make a success of a No Deal.

    But this paper provides an honest assessment of the very serious challenges it would bring in the short-term – and further reinforces why the best way for this House to honour the referendum result is to leave with a deal.

    As I committed to the House, the Government will today table an amendable motion for debate tomorrow.

    But I know Members across the House are genuinely worried that time is running out, that if the Government doesn’t come back with a further meaningful vote or it loses that vote, Parliament won’t have time to make its voice heard on the next steps. I know too that members across the House are deeply concerned by the effect of the current uncertainty on businesses.

    So today I want to reassure the House by making three further commitments.

    First, we will hold a second Meaningful Vote by Tuesday 12 March at the latest.

    Second, if the Government has not won a Meaningful Vote by Tuesday 12 March then it will – in addition to its obligations to table a neutral, amendable motion under section 13 of the EU Withdrawal Act – table a motion to be voted on by Wednesday 13 March at the latest, asking this House if it supports leaving the EU without a Withdrawal Agreement and a framework for a future relationship on 29 March.

    So the United Kingdom will only leave without a deal on 29 March if there is explicit consent in this House for that outcome.

    Third, if the House, having rejected leaving with the deal negotiated with the EU, then rejects leaving on 29 March without a withdrawal agreement and future framework, the Government will, on 14 March, bring forward a motion on whether Parliament wants to seek a short limited extension to Article 50 – and if the House votes for an extension, seek to agree that extension approved by the House with the EU, and bring forward the necessary legislation to change the exit date commensurate with that extension.

    These commitments all fit the timescale set out in the Private Members Bill in the name of the Rt Hon Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford.

    They are commitments I am making as Prime Minister and I will stick by them, as I have previous commitments to make statements and table amendable motions by specific dates.

    Let me be clear, I do not want to see Article 50 extended. Our absolute focus should be on working to get a deal and leaving on 29 March.

    An extension beyond the end of June would mean the UK taking part in the European Parliament elections. What kind of message would that send to the more than 17 million people who voted to leave the EU nearly three years ago now? And the House should be clear that a short extension – not beyond the end of June – would almost certainly have to be a one-off. If we had not taken part in the European Parliament elections, it would be extremely difficult to extend again, so it would create a much sharper cliff edge in a few months’ time.

    An extension cannot take no deal off the table. The only way to do that is to revoke Article 50, which I shall not do, or agree a deal.

    Now, I have been clear throughout this process that my aim is to bring the country back together.

    This House can only do that by implementing the decision of the British people.

    The Government is determined to do so in a way that commands the support of this House.

    But just as government requires the support of this House in delivering the vote of the British people, so the House should respect the proper functions of the Government.

    Tying the Government’s hands by seeking to commandeer the order paper would have far-reaching implications for the way in which the United Kingdom is governed and the balance of powers and responsibilities in our democratic institutions.

    And it would offer no solution to the challenge of finding a deal which this House can support.

    Neither would seeking an extension to Article 50 now make getting a deal any easier.

    Ultimately the choices we face would remain unchanged – leave with a deal, leave with no deal, or have no Brexit.

    So when it comes to that motion tomorrow, the House needs to come together, as we did on 29 January, and send a clear message that there is a stable majority in favour of leaving the EU with a deal.

    A number of Hon and Rt Hon Members have understandably raised the rights of EU citizens living in the UK.

    As I set out last September, following the Salzburg Summit – even in the event of no deal, the rights of the three million EU citizens living in the UK will be protected.

    That is our guarantee to them.

    They are our friends, our neighbours, our colleagues. We want them to stay.

    But a separate agreement for citizens’ rights is something the EU have been clear they do not have the legal authority for.

    If it is not done in a Withdrawal Agreement, these issues become a matter member states unless the EU were to agree a new mandate to take this forward.

    At the very start of this process the UK sought to separate out this issue, but that was something which the EU has been consistent on.

    However, my Right Hon Friend the Foreign Secretary has written to all of his counterparts and we are holding further urgent discussions with member states to seek assurances on the rights of UK citizens.

    I urge all EU countries to make this guarantee and end the uncertainty for these citizens.

    I hope that the government’s efforts can give the House – and EU Citizens here in the UK – the reassurances they need and deserve.

    Mr Speaker, for some Hon and Rt Hon Members, taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union is the culmination of a long and sincerely fought campaign.

    For others, leaving the EU goes against much that they have stood for and fought for with equal sincerity for just as long.

    But Parliament gave the choice to the people. In doing so we told them we would honour their decision. That remains the resolve of this side of the House, but last night we learned that it is no longer the commitment of the Leader of the Opposition. He has gone back on his promise to respect the referendum result and now wants to hold a divisive second referendum that would take our country right back to square one. Anybody who voted Labour at the last election because they thought he would deliver Brexit will rightly be appalled.

    Mr Speaker, that remains the resolve of this side of the House.

    This House voted to trigger Article 50, and this House has a responsibility to deliver on the result.

    The very credibility of our democracy is at stake.

    By leaving the EU with a deal, we can move our country forward.

    Even with the uncertainty we face today, we have more people in work than ever before, wages growing at their fastest rate for a decade and debt falling as a share of the economy.

    If we can leave with a deal, end the uncertainty and move on beyond Brexit, we can do so much more to deliver real economic progress to every part of country.

    So I hope tomorrow this House can show that…

    …with legally binding changes on the backstop…

    …commitments to protect workers’ rights and the environment…

    …an enhanced role for Parliament in the next phase of negotiations…

    …and a determination to address the wider concerns of those who voted to leave…

    …we will have a deal that this House can support.

    And in doing so, that we send a clear message: That this House is resolved to honour the result of the referendum and leave the European Union with a deal.

    And I commend this statement to the House.