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  • Boris Johnson – 2021 Comments on the G7 and the Environment

    Boris Johnson – 2021 Comments on the G7 and the Environment

    The comments made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 12 June 2021.

    Protecting our planet is the most important thing we as leaders can do for our people. There is a direct relationship between reducing emissions, restoring nature, creating jobs and ensuring long-term economic growth.

    As democratic nations we have a responsibility to help developing countries reap the benefits of clean growth through a fair and transparent system. The G7 has an unprecedented opportunity to drive a global Green Industrial Revolution, with the potential to transform the way we live.

  • Boris Johnson – 2012 Comments about the Routemaster Bus

    Boris Johnson – 2012 Comments about the Routemaster Bus

    The comments made by Boris Johnson in his book “The Spirit of London”.

    When Transport for London announced in 2005 that they were finally going to banish the Routemaster buses, a great cry of lamentation went up over the city. It was as though the ravens were to be evicted from the Tower. Newspaper petitions were got up, learned pamphlets were written in defence of a machine that was already pretty ancient.

    The last Routemaster had left the Chiswick production line in 1968, and those still left on the streets throbbed and heaved through the traffic like wounded battle elephants. They had no air-conditioning, and Brussels had condemned the bus as an insult to contemporary health and safety standards.

    But they were loved. They not only stood for London in the twentieth century.

    You only had to show a glimpse of one in a film to establish where you were. They were the only splash of colour in the grey of the post-war world, and they kept their chic for the next fifty years, and for one fundamental reason. They were the last bus on London’s streets to be built by Londoners, for Londoners, in London, and with specific regard to the needs of London passengers.

    The Routemaster story began in 1947, the year Britain was also meditating such popular revolutions as the NHS. Wartime bus production in Chiswick had been given over to the manufacture of Handley Page Halifax bombers, and memos began to circulate wondering whether there was anything that could be learned from that experience. It was decided that there was. In fact it was decided, in a rare post-war burst of confidence, that London Transport was going to use everything they had learned over the years about buses and their passengers to create a masterbus. It took years of research, design and planning – indeed it took the Russians less long to put Sputnik in space – but by 1956 the bus was ready. They copied the riveted aluminium fuselage of the wartime planes to create a bus that could be assembled and taken apart like Lego.

    There was a special new cubby hole where the conductor could stand, out of the way of passengers hopping on and off via the open platform. It had a heating system – a big advance for the times; the wheels had their own independent suspension; and there was a fully automatic gearbox for a smoother ride. Mainly, though, it was a masterpiece of urban design.

    …………..

    Buses were in increasing competition with private cars, whose numbers doubled in London between 1945 and 1960. The trolley buses – clean and green and popular – were (sadly) taken off the streets to make way for the car; and the Routemaster was meant to be the replacement for the trolley buses.

    It was a great success. They built 2,875 of them between 1954 and 1968, and there were so many vacancies for crew that London Transport actively recruited for drivers and conductors in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad. Yes, the Routemaster bus played a part in the Caribbean immigration that was to transform and diversify London. On they chugged through the 1970s and 1980s, and even if there were only 600 left by the 1990s, they were still landmarks of the city, each of them, as Travis Elborough has put it, a burly red diesel-powered Beefeater that stood for London.

    If there was one thing that doomed them to their final execution in 2005, it was the government’s fatal 1960s decision to pour money into British Leyland buses – in the hope of keeping that doomed business alive – instead of investing in the development of London’s own bus.

    The result is that the machines on the streets today have lorry engines and lorry gearboxes, and would be frankly more suited to carrying 32 tonnes of gravel than a complement of passengers. It is therefore only fitting that the New Bus For London has been designed as a bus for the streets of the city, with clean, green technology; and it restores the Routemaster’s hop-on hop-off platform that was so essential to its appeal.

  • Boris Johnson – 2021 Comments on the Welsh Plan

    Boris Johnson – 2021 Comments on the Welsh Plan

    The comments made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 20 May 2021.

    Just as the economic heft of the UK provided the resources to get all four of its constituent parts through the worst of the pandemic – and acquire the vaccines that will ultimately bring it to an end – so that strength in numbers will help Wales become fairer, greener and more prosperous as we build back better from Coronavirus.

    By working together we can bring faster internet connections, more reliable mobile signals and better transport connections. We can create good, skilled, well-paid jobs from Menai Bridge to Machynlleth to Merthyr Tydfil and we can help Wales play its part in building a net-zero economy with everything from the Holyhead Hydrogen Hub to vast floating windfarms in the Celtic Sea.

  • Boris Johnson – 2021 Statement on Covid-19

    Boris Johnson – 2021 Statement on Covid-19

    The statement made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 14 May 2021.

    Good afternoon. Throughout this pandemic we’ve tried to keep people abreast of the last information as soon as we get it.

    And since I spoke to you last Monday, we’ve seen further clusters of the B.1.617.2, the variant first observed in India, we’ve seen it especially in Bolton, Blackburn with Darwen and some other parts of the country.

    At this stage there are some important unknowns.

    We believe this variant is more transmissible than the previous one – in other words it passes more easily from person to person – but we don’t know by how much.

    I am told that if it’s only marginally more transmissible, we can continue more or less as planned.

    But if the virus is significantly more transmissible, we are likely to face some hard choices.

    We are going to be learning a lot more in the coming days and weeks about that.

    The good news is that so far we have no evidence to suggest our vaccines will be less effective in protecting people against severe illness and hospitalisation.

    So that means we are in a different position from the last time we face a new variant before Christmas because of the scale of our vaccine roll-out, which PHE estimates has already saved almost 12,000 lives and prevented over 33,000 people from being hospitalised.

    So I believe we should trust in our vaccines to protect the public whilst monitoring the situation very closely.

    Because the race between our vaccination programme and the virus may be about to become a great deal tighter.

    And it’s more important than ever therefore that people get the additional protection of a second dose.

    So following advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation,

    we will accelerate remaining second doses to the over 50s and those clinically vulnerable right across the country so they are just eight weeks after the first dose, and if you are in this group the NHS will be in touch with you.

    We will also prioritise first doses for anyone eligible who has not yet come forwards, including the over 40s – and I urge anyone in those groups to come forwards as soon as you can.

    At this stage, there is no evidence of increased cases translating into unmanageable pressures on the NHS even in Bolton – and infections, deaths and hospitalisations nationally remain at their lowest levels since last Summer.

    So – and this is a balanced decision – I do not believe on present evidence that we need to delay our roadmap, and we will proceed with our plan to move to step 3 in England from Monday.

    But I have to level with you that this could be a serious disruption to our progress and could make it more difficult to move to step 4 in June, and I must again stress we will do whatever it takes to keep the public safe.

    Our surveillance and data gathering is now so advanced, that if there was a danger of the NHS coming under unsustainable pressure, we would see the signs in the data very early on and could react in good time, and that gives us the confidence to continue moving forwards for now.

    But I urge everyone to exercise the greatest caution because the choices we each make in the coming days will have a material effect on the road ahead.

    To those living in Bolton and Blackburn,

    I am very sorry that you are once again suffering from this virus.

    I know how hard it has been for you, having been in a form of national or local lockdown for longer than almost everywhere else.

    But now it is more vital than ever that you play your part in stopping the spread.

    We will not be preventing businesses from reopening on Monday, but we will be asking you to do your bit.

    Take the vaccine when you can.

    Get your free, twice-weekly rapid tests.

    If you do test positive, you must self-isolate – and we’ll provide financial support, to help to those on low incomes to help them do so.

    And as we move away from living our lives by government rules and as we learn to live with this virus, then, as I said on Monday, we need to make our own decisions about how best to protect ourselves and our loved ones – informed by the risks.

    And for those living in Bolton and other affected areas, there is now a greater risk from this new variant so I urge you to be extra cautious.

    Our best chance of suppressing this variant is to clamp down on it where it is and we will be throwing everything we can at this task.

    Colonel Russ Miller – Commander of the North West Region – will be deployed to support local leaders in managing the response on the ground.

    There will be surge testing, with mobile testing units, and the army will be on the streets handing out tests.

    And there will targeted new activity in Bolton and Blackburn to accelerate vaccine take-up among eligible cohorts – including longer opening hours at vaccination sites.

    And to everyone across the whole country, wherever you live, please get tested twice a week for free, get a jab if you are eligible, remember hands, face, space and fresh air observe social distancing from those you do not know, and if you are seeing loved ones think really carefully about the risk to them especially if they have not had that second dose – or it hasn’t yet had the time to take full effect.

    I want us to trust people to be responsible and to do the right thing.

    That’s the way to live with this virus, while protecting our NHS and restoring our freedoms.

    And it’s very clear now we are going to have to live with this new variant of the virus as well for some time.

    So let’s work together – and let’s exercise caution and common sense.

  • Boris Johnson – 2021 Comments on Education for Girls

    Boris Johnson – 2021 Comments on Education for Girls

    The comments made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 12 May 2021.

    Supporting girls to get 12 years of quality education is one of the smartest investments we can make as the world recovers from Covid-19. Otherwise we risk creating a lost pandemic generation.

    Across the world there is a vast untapped resource – girls whose education has been cut short or denied altogether, who could be leading efforts to pull their communities out of poverty.

    I’m going to be working throughout the UK’s G7 presidency to ensure leaders invest in those girls and boost children’s life chances around the world.

  • Boris Johnson – 2021 Speech on the Queen’s Address

    Boris Johnson – 2021 Speech on the Queen’s Address

    The speech made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 11 May 2021.

    In a matter of five months this country has inoculated more than 35 million people—two thirds of the adult population—with the biggest and fastest programme of mass vaccination in British history, which has helped us to take step after decisive step on our road map to freedom. As life comes back to our great towns and cities, like some speeded-up Walt Disney film about the return of spring to the tundra, we can feel the pent-up energy of the UK economy—the suppressed fizz, like a pressurised keg of beer about to be cautiously broached in an indoor setting on Monday.

    I know how hard pubs, restaurants and other businesses have worked to get ready and about everything they have been through, and I thank them, as I thank the whole British people. I can tell them that the Government have been using this time to work flat out to ensure that we can not just bounce back but bounce forward, because this Government will not settle for going back to the way things were. The people of this country have shown, by their amazing response to covid, that we can do better than that, and the people of this country deserve better than that.

    The purpose of the Queen’s Speech is to take this country forward with superb infrastructure—worth £640 billion, I can tell the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer)—and with a new focus on skills, technology and gigabit broadband. By fighting crime and being tough on crime, by investing in our great public services, above all our NHS, and by helping millions of people to realise the dream of home ownership, we intend to unite and level up across the whole of our United Kingdom, because we one nation Conservatives understand—

    Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab) rose—

    Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab) rose—

    The Prime Minister

    In a moment.

    We understand this crucial point: we find flair, imagination, enthusiasm and genius distributed evenly throughout this country, while opportunity is not. We mean to change that, because it is not just a moral and social disgrace, but an economic mistake and a criminal waste of talent. Although we cannot for one moment minimise the damage that covid has done—the loss of learning, the NHS backlogs, the court delays and the massive fiscal consequences—we must use this opportunity to achieve a national recovery so that jabs, jabs, jabs becomes jobs, jobs, jobs. That is our plan. We will address the decades-old problems that have held us back, and transform the whole United Kingdom into a stronger, fairer, greener and healthier nation. That is the central aim of the Queen’s Speech.

    Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con) rose—

    The Prime Minister

    I give way with pleasure to my colleague.

    Felicity Buchan

    Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Conservative party believes in opportunity and equality of opportunity, and that the legislative mandate we have set out today seeks to achieve that, particularly through the skills revolution, which will turbo-charge our economic recovery?

    The Prime Minister

    Yes, indeed. One man who I know believes passionately in opportunity and skills is my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Shailesh Vara), who proposed so well the Loyal Address.

    Christian Matheson rose—

    Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab) rose—

    The Prime Minister

    No, no, no.

    My hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire is a kindly man and a lawyer, but unlike some other lawyers in this House he is tough on crime. In fact, he is so tough that when three thugs were so rash as to attack him in Covent Garden, he transformed himself like Hong Kong Phooey and floored all three with moves that have earned him—I can tell the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras—not just a black belt but a Blue Peter badge.

    Peter Kyle

    Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    The Prime Minister

    No.

    My hon. Friend has served in many distinguished political roles and can be proud of his campaigns on behalf of sufferers from breast cancer, on behalf of homeowners who surprise nocturnal intruders with cricket bats and, as he said, on behalf of the Cambridgeshire village of Stilton, where the eponymous cheese originated and where, he claimed, local cheesemakers were forbidden from calling the cheese of Stilton “Stilton cheese”—a bizarre prohibition that he blamed on Brussels.

    That is understandable, although I have yet to discover whether he was altogether right about that and whether he has actually solved the problem by getting Brexit done. I think you will agree, Mr Speaker, that he spoke with pungency and maturity—he spoke for Stilton—and he made a speech in the best traditions of this House.

    He was ably seconded by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher), a palaeontologist, a biologist and—as the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras said—a former safari guide. She knows that in any pride of lions, it is the male who tends to occupy the position of titular, nominal authority, while the most dangerous beast, the prize hunter of the pack, is in fact the lioness. That is a point that I am sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman bears in mind as he contemplates his right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), the deputy leader, shadow First Secretary of State, shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and shadow Secretary of State for the Future of Work—though the more titles he feeds her, the hungrier, I fear, she is likely to become. Judging by her excellent speech, my hon. Friend has a long and successful career ahead of her as we work together to deliver for South Ribble, and for everywhere else in Lancashire and the whole United Kingdom.

    However, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, we are all poorer for the absence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham. During her long career in the House, Dame Cheryl Gillan introduced what became the Autism Act, which helped many vulnerable people, and served as Secretary of State for Wales. She always stood up for her constituents, including by securing important concessions on HS2 on their behalf. Cheryl was both an effective and an extremely popular Member of this House, and she was my Whip for many years. She was kindly, protective, and supernaturally well informed about my whereabouts. I am sure I speak for the whole House when I say that we will miss her deeply. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

    I also know that Cheryl was a one nation believer in the Conservatives as the party of hope, change and opportunity, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire has just said. She therefore would have been as thrilled and proud as I am to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) to her place and congratulate her on her victory, and to thank everyone who has placed their trust in this Government, many thousands of them for the first time in their and their family’s history. Across this country, Conservative councillors were elected in areas that my party has seldom had the honour of representing, alongside Conservative mayors, Conservative London Assembly members, Conservative police and crime commissioners—70% of whom are now Conservatives, reflecting the importance we place on fighting crime—and Conservative Members of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd.

    Labour’s response to these events is best summed up by the outgoing Labour leader of Amber Valley Borough Council, who said these immortal words:

    “The voters have let us down. I hope they don’t live to regret it.”

    There you go, Mr Speaker: yet again, Labour’s bonkers solution in the face of any electoral setback is to wish they could dissolve the electorate and call for another one, while we get on with our work, taking forward our programme of change and regeneration filled with obligation towards those we serve, who have every right to hold us to account with the wisdom and common sense that the British people have always exemplified. We will get on with safeguarding the health of the nation, pressing on full tilt with our vaccination programme until the job is done and our people are as safe as science can make them. We will accelerate the recovery of our public services from the crisis of the past year, investing in our NHS and introducing vital reforms, making it easier for the different arms of the health and care system to work together to provide the best service by means of the health and care Bill. I can tell the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras and his colleagues that later this year, we will bring forward proposals on adult social care, so that every person receives the dignity and security they deserve in old age.

    Several hon. Members rose—

    The Prime Minister

    I give way to the hon. Lady with pleasure.

    Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)

    A cross-party Select Committee report concluded that the Government should not be in the business of profiting from miners’ pensions, but £4.4 billion has been taken out of the mineworkers’ pension scheme. Given that the Prime Minister made a commitment on this issue during the general election, will he deliver on that promise now and implement the recommendations of the cross-party Select Committee report?

    The Prime Minister

    I am happy to study that report, but it is this party and this Government who stick up for people across all walks of life: they stick up for pensioners and they stick up for the low-paid. It was very interesting to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman talk about the living wage, but who introduced the living wage? It was the Conservatives. Who raised it by record sums? It was this one-nation Conservative Government.

    Several hon. Members rose—

    The Prime Minister

    No, no.

    We will get on with our work. We will build on the expertise and originality of our scientists who have allowed Britain to contribute more to the global struggle against covid than any other comparable country, providing an object lesson in the value of British life sciences. We are determined to harness the concentration of knowledge and excellence in this country to secure Britain’s place as a science superpower, so we will invest nearly £15 billion in research and development this year alone. The Queen’s Speech includes a Bill to create an advanced research and invention agency charged with backing scientific discovery in new ways and ensuring that the breakthroughs of the future happen here in the UK, as they have so repeatedly done in the past. With those breakthroughs will come jobs, opportunities and new enterprises in fields that we can, at present, scarcely imagine. It is our levelling-up mission to spread those jobs across the UK.

    Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)

    On behalf of bereaved families across the country, will the Prime Minister tell the House whether, during this Session of Parliament, he will set up the public inquiry into the Government’s handling of covid that he promised me in this House last June?

    The Prime Minister

    I can certainly say that we will do that within this Session—yes, absolutely. I have made that clear before. It is essential that we have a full, proper public inquiry into the covid pandemic, and I have been clear about that with the House.

    Chris Bryant

    Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister

    No, thank you.

    We will establish a new UK infrastructure bank headquartered in Leeds, with £40 billion to invest as part of the greatest renewal of British national infrastructure since the Victorian age. We will ensure that the British people derive maximum benefit from the £300 billion of their money that the Government spend every year on public procurement by creating a wholly new system, consolidating 350 separate regulations into one regime, so that public investment can be even more effective as an instrument for levelling up the country.

    We will use the sovereignty that we regain from the European Union to establish at least eight freeports, including in Teesside. Now that we are free of EU state aid rules, the Queen’s Speech proposes a new national subsidy system—

    Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con) rose—

    Chris Bryant

    Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister

    I will give way in a minute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie).

    The Queen’s Speech proposes a new national subsidy system, allowing the Government of the devolved Administrations to spur the creation of jobs and businesses.

    Virginia Crosbie

    My right hon. Friend is most gracious. Brexit has created huge opportunities in the form of freeports. Does he agree that freeports in places such as Anglesey will turbocharge the economy and give us thousands of jobs, investment and opportunity across the UK in places where it is desperately needed?

    The Prime Minister

    My hon. Friend is completely right. Anglesey could have no more powerful or effective champion than her not just on the matter of freeports, but on nuclear power as well, which she was probably also going to mention.

    Chris Bryant

    Will the Prime Minister give way?

    The Prime Minister

    No, I will not take an intervention from the hon. Gentleman just yet.

    We will use the powers that we have recovered from the EU to strengthen our borders and reform the asylum system, cracking down on the criminal gangs that profit from trafficking in human beings, by ensuring that, for the first time, the fact of whether people have entered the UK legally or illegally will have an impact on their asylum claim. At the same time, we will uphold Britain’s great tradition of providing a haven for those facing persecution and repression, opening our arms to our friends the British nationals in Hong Kong safe in the knowledge that our Government have recaptured overall power to control our borders.

    As the compassionate one-nation Conservative Government, we know that crime falls disproportionately on the poorest and the most deprived parts of our country and our communities. That is why the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in the Queen’s Speech will end the outrageous injustice—the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras voted against this—of serious sexual and violent offenders being automatically released halfway through a standard sentence of between four and seven years. The Bill will support our police with new powers to deal with highly disruptive protests and—

    Several hon. Members rose—

    The Prime Minister

    If the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) opposes that, he can let me know. Perhaps he would like to tell me.

    Peter Kyle

    Perhaps the Prime Minister can answer this. In the last three Tory manifestos and every humble Address since 2016, his Government have promised a victims Bill. It is in the Humble Address again, and we are grateful for that. Will he assure us that it will be delivered this year? It has not been published, and there are no details of what will be in it. We hear rumours that it will just put a code of conduct on to statute, but will he promise that he will take the Labour approach of going much further, empowering victims, giving rights to victims that are enforceable by law, and that there will be consequences for those in the criminal justice system who do not uphold them? Will he promise that?

    The Prime Minister

    We will not only stick up for victims for the first time, which Labour failed to do in all its years in office, just as it failed to do anything at all about social care—Labour Members berate the Government about social care, but they did nothing at all during 13 years in office. We will take the interests of victims to heart, and we will address that matter. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will also support our proposals to increase sentences for serious sexual and violent offenders, which he voted against. I hope that Labour will also support our proposal to double the maximum sentence for assaults on emergency workers.

    We will work to improve our neighbourhoods by making them safer, and we will help people to achieve the dream of home ownership—not just with 95% mortgages, but by modernising the planning system, most of which remains unchanged since the 1940s. We will introduce a lifetime skills guarantee, as several of my colleagues have already pointed out, allowing anyone to train and retrain and acquire new expertise whenever they wish.

    Christian Matheson rose—

    The Prime Minister

    If the hon. Gentleman wants to dispute the merits of that proposal, let him do so now.

    Christian Matheson

    I am grateful to the Prime Minister for giving way. He is lauding the merits of home ownership, but what is the point in it when some homeowners and leaseholders are trapped because the Government refuse to help them with any kind of fire safety measures for things were not their fault in the first place?

    The Prime Minister

    We have put £5 billion into supporting homeowners who face the problems of cladding in buildings over 18 metres, and we are supporting leaseholders at every level. This is a massive problem, which the Government are undertaking to deal with using all our resources. However, if the hon. Gentleman is now saying that the Labour party is in favour of home ownership, that it is the first time I have heard of it. Labour is resolutely opposed to measures that allow people to own their own homes, and they have been ever since I have been in politics. That is one of the crucial differences between them and us. I had hoped that the hon. Gentleman was going to support our measures to allow people to train and retrain and acquire new skills.

    Everything we do will be done as one United Kingdom, combining the genius of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland—joined together by blood and family tradition and history in the most successful political, economic and social union the world has ever known. In all its centuries, the Union has seldom proved its worth more emphatically than during this pandemic, when the United Kingdom—the fifth-biggest economy in the world—had the power to invest over £407 billion to protect jobs and livelihoods and businesses everywhere in these islands, including one in three jobs in Scotland, safeguarded by the combined resources of Her Majesty’s Treasury under my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.

    Now, as we build back better, greener and fairer, we shall benefit as one United Kingdom from the free trade agreements that we have regained the power to sign, opening up new markets across the world. Only last week, I agreed an enhanced trade partnership with the Prime Minister of India, covering a billion pounds of trade and investment and creating more than 6,500 jobs across the UK.

    As one United Kingdom, we will be a force for good in the world, leading the campaigns at next month’s G7 summit in Cornwall for global vaccination, education for girls and action on climate change. As one United Kingdom, we will host the UN climate change conference in Glasgow and help to rally ever more countries to follow our example and pledge to achieve net zero by 2050.

    As one United Kingdom, we will continue with ever-greater intensity to connect talent with opportunity, mobilising the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the British people to achieve their full potential at last. It is an enormous task, made more difficult by the pandemic and yet more urgent, but it is the right task for this country now. I know the country can achieve it, and this Queen’s Speech provides us with the essential tools to do it. I commend the Queen’s Speech to the House.

  • Boris Johnson – 2021 Comments on Revolutionising Skills

    Boris Johnson – 2021 Comments on Revolutionising Skills

    The comments made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 11 May 2021.

    These new laws are the rocket fuel that we need to level up this country and ensure equal opportunities for all. We know that having the right skills and training is the route to better, well-paid jobs.

    I’m revolutionising the system so we can move past the outdated notion that there is only one route up the career ladder, and ensure that everyone has the opportunity to retrain or upskill at any point in their lives.

  • Boris Johnson – 2021 Statement on Covid-19

    Boris Johnson – 2021 Statement on Covid-19

    The statement made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 10 May 2021.

    Good afternoon,

    I want to begin by thanking everyone again for your patience and for the sacrifices you’ve been making – businesses, pubs and restaurants that have been waiting to welcome customers back through their doors grandparents who have gone for months without seeing their grandchildren, weddings postponed, funerals sadly constrained, and religious festivals – such as Eid – yet again facing restrictions.

    And I want to thank you because your efforts have so visibly paid off giving us the time to vaccinate more than two thirds of all adults across the UK with more than one third – nearly 18 million people – also receiving their second dose – and thereby unquestionably saving many lives.

    So it is precisely because of your efforts, that I can confirm today we have met our four tests for further easing the lockdown in England.

    Chris will run through the details in a minute, but with deaths and hospitalisations at their lowest levels since last July, and the UK’s four Chief Medical Officers today agreeing a reduction in the alert level, the data now support moving to step 3 in England from next Monday 17th May.

    This means the Rule of Six or two households that has applied outdoors, will now apply indoors and the limit for outdoor meetings will increase to 30.

    From next Monday you will be able to sit inside a pub and inside a restaurant.

    You’ll be able to go to the cinema and children will be able to use indoor play areas.

    We’re re-opening hostels, hotels, and B&Bs.

    We’ll re-open the doors of our theatres, concert halls and business conference centres and unlock the turnstiles of our sports stadia, subject to capacity limits.

    And from next week everyone will be able to travel within Britain and stay overnight, meaning schools will also be able to organise trips with overnight stays.

    We will no longer require face coverings in classrooms – or for students in communal areas in secondary schools and colleges.

    All remaining University students will be able to return to in-person teaching, where they should be tested twice a week.

    We will increase the number of named visitors for those in care homes from two to five, and residents will have greater freedoms to leave their home without having to isolate on their return.

    This unlocking amounts to a very considerable step on the road back to normality and I am confident we will be able to go further.

    Subject to the impact of step 3 on the data, we remain on track to move to step 4 on 21st June and to give businesses more time to prepare, we’ll be saying more later this month about exactly what the world will look like and what role there could be – if any – for certification and social distancing.

    And today we are taking a step towards that moment when we learn to live responsibly with Covid – when we cease eventually to rely on detailed government edicts, and make our own decisions – based on the best scientific advice – about how to protect our families and those around us.

    So from next Monday we are updating the guidance on close contact between friends and family, setting out the risks for everyone to make their own choices.

    This does not mean we can suddenly throw caution to the winds.

    In fact, more than a year into this pandemic, we all know that close contact, such as hugging, is a direct way of transmitting this disease.

    So I urge you to think about the vulnerability of your loved ones – whether they have had a vaccine, one or two doses, and whether there has been time for that vaccine to take effect.

    Remember outdoors is always safer than indoors. And if you are meeting indoors, remember to open a window and let in the fresh air.

    Keep getting tested regularly, even if you don’t have symptoms, so you don’t spread the virus without knowing it. And whatever you decide, I must ask that you continue to follow social distancing when not with friends and family including in workplaces, shops, pubs, restaurants and other settings.

    We only have to look at the very sad situation in other countries to see the lethal potential of this virusband we must continue to fight the spread of variants here in the UK.

    While we have no evidence yet to believe these variants are completely vaccine resistant, we must remain vigilant.

    So please remember hands, face, space and fresh air.

    And as we mark Mental Health Awareness week, perhaps also take a moment to check in on friends and family and see how they are doing after all that we have been through together, or if you are struggling yourself, get the support you need.

    Today we are announcing the single biggest step on our roadmap and it will allow us to do many of the things we’ve yearned to do for a long time. So let’s protect these gains by continuing to exercise caution and common sense.

  • Boris Johnson – 2021 Letter to Nicola Sturgeon

    Boris Johnson – 2021 Letter to Nicola Sturgeon

    The letter from Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, to Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, on 8 May 2021.

    Text of letter (in .pdf format)

  • Boris Johnson – 2021 Comments on the Queen’s Speech

    Boris Johnson – 2021 Comments on the Queen’s Speech

    The comments made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 8 May 2021.

    The impact of the pandemic on people’s lives has been unique in our history.

    My Government is still focussed on beating this disease, saving lives and livelihoods and rolling out vaccines, but I am also determined that we look forward and get on with fulfilling the promises we have made to the British people.

    Not only will we address the legacies of the pandemic, we will go further to unite and level up the country, fight crime and create opportunities up and down the country for businesses and families to build brighter futures.