Tag: Jeremy Corbyn

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, at the Institute of Engineering Technology in London on 2 June 2016.

Today, we want to set out the positive case for remaining in Europe and for reforming Europe.

There are just three weeks to go until the referendum vote on 23 June but too much of the debate so far has been dominated by myth-making and prophecies of doom.

In the final stage of this referendum, as we get closer to what is expected by many to be a very tight vote, it does not help the debate over such a serious issue if the hype and histrionic claims continue or worse intensify. I believe the EU has the potential to deliver positive change for the people of Britain if there was a radical, reforming government to drive that agenda. Too often what has held back the EU is having to move at the pace of the slowest. Too often that has been the British government.

And let me say up front to anyone listening who is not already registered to vote – Please register – you have five days to do so. We appeal especially to young people who will live longest with the consequences of any vote.

Just over a week ago, George Osborne claimed that the British economy would enter a year-long recession if we voted to leave. This is the same George Osborne who predicted his austerity policies would close the deficit by 2015. That’s now scheduled for 2021.

It’s the same George Osborne who said the British economy would be “carried aloft by the march of the makers” yet the manufacturing sector has stagnated ever since, and manufacturing employment declined.

The biggest risk of recession in this country is from a Conservative Government that is failing, failing on the deficit, failing on the debt, failing to rebalance the economy and failing to boost productivity.

Two weeks ago, Boris Johnson claimed: “It is absurd that we are told that you cannot sell bananas in bunches of more than two or three bananas.”

No, what’s absurd is for a senior politician, a former Mayor of London, to say “Vote to Leave the EU, they’re after our bananas!”

The Leave side has concocted a number of myths about the evils of the EU. Many are, frankly, bananas.

So let’s remind ourselves of the positives it was EU regulation that improved the UK’s beaches which, if you go back 30 or 40 years, were in a terrible state .

Britain used to pump our untreated sewage straight into the sea. Just 25 years ago one in four British beaches were too dirty to swim in. Now 95 per cent of our beaches have a clean bill of health.

Three years ago the EU voted to restrict the use of some pesticides that are strongly linked to the decline of the bee population, essential for our biodiversity. The coalition Government lobbied against the restrictions but they passed.

Too often the British government has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into acting to protect our own environment. As we know, we have a Prime Minister who has lurched from ‘hug a huskie’ when he became Tory leader to, a decade on, ‘gas a badger’ and ‘poison the bees’.

When recent court judgement ordered the British Government to do more to tackle air pollution, it was the UK Supreme Court in London, acting to enforce EU standards. A recent study found that EU air quality regulations are saving 80,000 lives a year across Europe. It’s time this Government acted to save lives here too.

European Union targets have been vital in encouraging the adoption of renewable energy. Some countries like Germany and Denmark have embraced this change, invested and revolutionised their energy markets, creating new high skill jobs and leading technological advance.

Britain has dragged its heels so much for David Cameron’s rhetoric of “leading the greenest government ever”.

It is an EU directive that has stopped the mobile phone companies from ripping us off if we make or receive a call abroad. It was the collective strength of 28 countries representing 520 million people achieved that.

The European Convention on Human Rights, empowering citizens to hold the Government accountable has strengthened our rights as citizens and stopped the Government gagging free speech and a free press.

It was the Labour Government who wrote the Convention into UK law through the Human Rights Act of 1998.

Today senior figures in the Conservative Government are discussing repealing that Act which has ensured the state cannot violate people’s human rights.

It is because of those human rights in law that we had the inquest into Hillsborough, so that those families finally got justice after 27 years – and congratulations to them for their tenacity and their dignity.

And it’s worth reflecting that if this Government repealed the Human Rights Act, and opted out of the European Convention, it would join Europe’s only dictatorship Belarus as the only other country not to support these universal human rights.

On rights at work, Europe through the social chapter and other directives has delivered:

Over 26 million workers in Britain benefit from being entitled to 28 days of paid leave and a limit to how many hours they can be forced to work;

Over eight million part-time workers (over six million of whom are women) have equal rights with full-time colleagues,

Over one million temporary workers have the same rights as permanent workers,

340,000 women every year have guaranteed rights to take maternity leave.

And it’s important to understand the benefit of these gains. It means workers throughout Europe have decent rights at work. Meaning it’s harder to undercut terms and conditions across Europe.

Several Leave supporters have stated clearly they want to leave Europe to water down workers’ rights. To rip up the protections that protect work-life balance, that prevent discrimination and prevent exploitation and injustice.

That is why we say, the threat to the British people is not the European Union, it is a Conservative Government here in Britain, seeking to undermine the good things we have achieved in Europe and resisting changes that would benefit the ordinary people of Britain.

A vote to Leave means a Conservative Government would then be in charge of negotiating Britain’s exit. Everything they have done as a Government so far means we could not rely on them to protect the workplace rights that millions rely on. A Tory Brexit negotiation would be a disaster for the majority of people in Britain.

But that’s not to say we can be satisfied with the European Union as it is. We believe Europe can and must do far more to meet the needs of our people. That’s why when we make the case to remain, we also make the Labour case for reform.

A Labour government will protect the gains that have benefited our people, while energetically pushing for progressive reform in Europe, in alliance with our allies across the continent. A vision of a Europe of co-operation and solidarity.

We can reform to get a better deal for consumers;

To strengthen workers’ rights across Europe and prevent the undercutting of wages,

To meet the challenges posed by migration and the refugee crisis,

To end the pressure to privatise public services,

To democratise the EU’s institutions and bring them closer to people,

And for reforms to ensure we generate prosperity across Europe to the benefit of all.

Many people will be taking a European holiday in the coming months they will benefit from lower air fares and cheaper roaming charges on their mobile phones. But there are other areas where working with our political allies in Europe and the 27 other countries representing over 450 million people. We can use our collective negotiating power to stop corporations taking consumers to the cleaners.

A few weeks ago, I raised with the Prime Minister the need for reform of the Posting of Workers Directive to close a loophole that allows workers from one country to work in another and be paid less than local workers doing the same job. Although the instances are relatively few, such incidents undermine community cohesion by exploiting migrant workers and undercutting local workers.

His loophole only benefits unscrupulous employers seeking to drive down wages and Labour is pressuring the UK Government to back the proposals on the table to close this loophole.

It is not migrants that undercut wages, but unscrupulous employers. Migrant workers are often the victims of the worst exploitation, and it is our duty to close loopholes and strengthen enforcement of employment protection here in Britain and across Europe.

A couple of months ago, I held talks with the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who was elected on a clear anti-austerity platform to resolve his country’s financial crisis.

The way in which Greece was treated by its creditors, including the EU, shows that Europe has to develop fairer and more effective mechanisms to manage such crises for the future. No one benefits from enforcing unpayable debt with yet more destructive austerity and the ties of solidarity are undermined by such counter-productive action.

But although Greece has suffered from enforced austerity, the Greek President and the Greek people are clear that their country wants to stay within a reformed Europe.

That must be a Europe that works together to develop a strategy for renewed and shared growth, and for the gains of that growth to be shared more equally.

Many thousands of people have written to me, with their concerns about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (or T-TIP) the deal being negotiated, largely in secret, between the US and the EU.

Many people are concerned rightly, that it could open up public services to further privatisation – and make privatisation effectively irreversible. Others are concerned about any potential watering down of consumer rights, food safety standards, rights at work or environmental protections and the facility for corporations to sue national governments if regulations impinged on their profits.

I share those concerns.

A few weeks ago the French President, Francois Hollande, said he would veto the deal as it stands and to become law any deal would have to be ratified by each member state. So today we give this pledge, as it stands, we too would reject TTIP – and veto it in Government.

And there is a challenge to the Prime Minister, if it’s not good enough for France; it’s not good enough for Britain either.

David Cameron make clear now that if Britain votes to remain this month you will block any TTIP trade treaty that threatens our public services, our consumer and employment rights and that hands over power to giant corporations to override democratically elected governments.

The EU’s state aid rules, which limit the scope for governments to intervene to support our vital industries, also need to change. But so does how British governments interpret them. The steel crisis highlighted how Germany, Italy, France and Spain all did much better at protecting their steel industries.

They acted within EU state aid rules to support their industries, whether through taking a public stake, investing in research and development, providing loan guarantees or compensating for energy costs.

Nevertheless, the rules are too restrictive and national governments must have the powers to act to protect key industries.

We are committed to bringing the railways into public ownership. That is the democratic will of the public and of our party. That is why our MEPs are scrutinising the Fourth Rail Package currently being negotiated in the European Parliament to ensure that there is no obstacle to a fully socially owned rail network.

More widely, we need reform in Europe to ensure we put a stop to the drive to privatise and break up our public services and utilities. The experience of Britain’s many failed privatisations and the damage done by the outsourcing of our public services is an object lesson in why the pressure to continue this three-decades-old experiment has to be brought to an end. Here and across Europe.

When it comes to the refugee crisis, many European countries have made great efforts in response. Whether taking in large numbers of people fleeing persecution, or funding refugee camps in Lebanon and Turkey as Britain has done.

But collectively, as a continent we have failed, failed to co-ordinate our efforts, failed those countries like Greece and Italy that have seen desperate people land on their shores in unprecedented number. And, tragically, we have failed people who desperately need and deserve our help.

Labour is determined that this failure must never be allowed to happen again and that in future we co-ordinate our efforts as a continent.

On migration, we cannot deny the inevitable; we live in a smaller world. Most of us in Britain know someone who has studied, worked or retired abroad. We have reciprocal arrangements with the European Union. Our citizens, well over one million of them, live in other EU countries and EU citizens come to live and work here.

But it is not that simple, I’ve already talked about how some industries are affected by the undercutting of wages and the action that can be taken to tackle that. But some communities can change dramatically and rapidly and that can be disconcerting for some people. That doesn’t make them Little Englanders, xenophobes or racists. More people living in an area can put real pressure on local services like GPs surgeries, schools and housing.

This isn’t the fault of migrants. It’s a failure of government. The coalition government in 2010 abolished the Migrant Impact Fund; a national fund to manage the short term impacts of migration on local communities. By abolishing it, David Cameron’s Coalition undermined the proper preparation and investment that communities need to adapt.

We are clear, we would restore such a fund and it could be funded from unspent

We cannot and should not want to close the borders. Not for European citizens wanting to come here, tens of thousands of whom work in our NHS. And not for British citizens who want to take advantage of opportunities elsewhere in Europe.

But we do have to make sure that public services are able to sustain the communities we have here, part of that is through a Migrant Impact Fund, but partly too it is about reversing the damaging and unnecessary austerity policies that this government continues to impose on our communities and our country.

We, the Labour Party, are overwhelmingly for staying in, because we believe the European Union has brought investment, jobs and protection for workers, consumers and the environment.

But also because we recognise that our membership offers a crucial route to meeting the challenges we face in the 21st century, on climate change, on restraining the power of global corporations and ensuring they pay fair taxes, on tackling cyber-crime and terrorism, on ensuring trade is fair with protections for workers and consumers and in addressing refugee movements

Britain will be stronger if we co-operate with our neighbours in facing those challenges together.

Europe needs to change. Today, I’ve outlined some areas for progressive reform. But those changes can only be achieved by working with our allies.

There is an overwhelming case to remain and reform so that we build on the best that Europe has achieved.

But that will only happen if we elect a Labour Government, committed to engaging with our allies to deliver real improvements in the lives of the people of our country.

That is why we established the Labour In campaign, because we have a distinct agenda, a vision to make Britain better and fairer for everyone, by engaging with our neighbours.

So please use your vote on 23 June, to vote Remain and then campaign with us for the reforms we need.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, in London on 21 May 2016.

Thank you all for coming today to Labour’s inaugural State of the Economy Conference … Thank you to John and his Shadow Treasury Team for organising

Thanks in particular to Ha-Joon Chang … for his terrific speech on building a balanced and sustainable economy.

And to Sue Himmelweit, Paul Mason, Linda Yueh, Adam Marshall and Len McCluskey for their engaging discussions …

And thank you … most of all … to all of you who took part in the various workshops this afternoon … Debating some of the most important issues facing our economy and our society.

These discussions are invaluable.

It is only through active debate – like we’ve had today – between politicians and businesses … employers and employees … thinkers and educators … that we can build an economy for the future that delivers for all.

I’ve said before that we must change the way our party makes policy.

When politicians and their advisers sit round a table and devise policy … they rarely succeed in getting to grips with the real problems our country faces.

We need to involve more people in decision-making and consult far more widely outside politics.

I believe it’s essential to listen:

To the growing army of the self-employed … often struggling to make ends meet, and falling through the cracks in our social security system;

to entrepreneurs seeking to innovate and create wealth;

to trades unions who stand up for workers’ rights;

to our friends from progressive movements in countries across the world;

to academics; and

to business people shaping a more dynamic, responsive economy.

Only by engaging and debating these crucial issues … as we have done today … can we develop a comprehensive plan … to forge a new economy and the kind of Britain we want to live in.

I think we’ve come a long way already in the eight months since I became leader … John McDonnell, has started to lay out the framework of a new economics.

As John repeated today … an economy that allows people to flourish and prosper in the 21st century will be a very different kind of economy from that of the 1990s … let alone the economy of the 1940s or 1960s.

Building an economy for the future requires bold ambition … A New Economics … And that’s what today has been about.

Looking forward … And tackling – head on – the reforms necessary to build a fairer, more equal, more just society.

Today we’ve discussed the state of the economy. And the sad truth is… the economy is in a bad state.

What’s clear is that this government is not creating the economy of the future we need … Six years ago George Osborne said austerity would wipe out the deficit and cut the debt.

That’s the wonderful thing about George Osborne’s five year plans … they’re always five years away.

What we have instead is an economy that works for the few, not for the many.

Inequality is rising … And food bank queues are growing.

We’ve seen an explosion of zero hour contracts … and a race to the bottom on pay, job security and workplace rights.

A gender pay gap that is still wedged at 19 per cent.

Despite George Osborne’s promises of a ‘March of the Makers’ … we have a government that won’t stand up for key strategic industries … like steel.

Instead, they sought to abdicate their responsibilities when it came to the crisis in the steel industry …

And it was only concerted pressure from the trade unions, from Labour MPs and from the steel communities that forced the government … kicking and screaming … into a change in position.

The security of home ownership is moving further and further away for so many people.

We have a government that … despite the growing economic consensus against austerity …. despite the fact the Prime Minister tells us we now have a ‘strong economy’ … is continuing to pursue spending cuts.

A government that is failing to invest in our public services … leading to a crisis in our NHS.

A government that is failing to invest in critical infrastructure.

A government that is failing to invest in the skills that our young people want … and our businesses need.

And let’s be clear. Austerity is a political choice not an economic necessity.

Even Iain Duncan Smith is now parroting our mantra … saying after the Budget that Osborne’s cuts were … “distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest”.

The Chancellor has utterly failed against every single one of its economic targets …

· They have failed to eradicate the deficit

· Failed to meet their target on the debt

· Failed to rebalance the economy

· Failed to address the productivity crisis

This government has consistently made the case for austerity … George Osborne has staked his economic credibility on his austerity economics … and they are failing to deliver.

But worst of all, this government does not seem to understand … that their cuts have consequences

… when you cut adult social care … it means isolation and a loss of dignity for older and disabled people… and it piles pressure onto an NHS that is already being overstretched

… when you saddle young people with more debt … you impede their ability to buy a home or start a family

… when you fail to build housing and tackle sky-high rents … then homelessness increases and the number of families in temporary accommodation increases.

… when you slash the budgets of local authorities … then leisure centres close … libraries close … children’s centres close

… when you close fire stations and cut firefighters … then response times increase and more people die in fires.

These are the very real consequences of the politics of austerity.

Being in opposition can be frustrating … but Labour has proved you can still have influence and make a difference.

We have forced the government to back down in a number of important areas … from tax credits to disability payments … and, most recently, to forced academisation.

Together as a country … we must continue to stand up against the Conservative six year record of mismanagement of the economy …and stand up for the vital services on which we all depend.

But what Labour stands for is far more than stopping the damage being done by this government.

We want to see a break with the failed economic orthodoxy that has gripped policy makers for a generation … And set out a clear vision for a Labour government … that will create an economy that works for all, not just the few.

We must be ambitious and bold to win the next election … and deliver the new economy that Britain needs.

… An economy that tackles the grotesque inequality that is holding people back.

… An economy that ensures every young person has the opportunities to maximise their talents … And that produces the high skilled, high value and secure jobs, they need.

… An economy that delivers new, more democratic forms of ownership.

… A zero-carbon economy that protects our environment.

… A balanced and broad-based economy … supported by investment and a proactive industrial strategy that devolves decision-making to where it needs to be.

We want to see a genuinely mixed economy of public and social enterprise … alongside a private sector with a long-term private business commitment … that will provide the decent pay, jobs, housing, schools, health and social care of the future.

An economy based on a new settlement with the corporate sector that, yes … involves both rights and responsibilities.

Labour will always seek to distribute the rewards of growth more fairly … But, to deliver that growth demands real change in the way the economy is run.

Change that puts the interests of the public, the workforce and the wider economy … ahead of short-term shareholder interest.

Wealth creation is a good thing: we all want greater prosperity.

But let us have a serious debate about how wealth is created … And how that wealth should be shared.

It is a co-operative process between workers, public investment and services, and, yes … often very innovative and creative individuals and businesses.

So if wealth creation is a shared process … then the proceeds must be shared too.

Technology is changing the way we work … Digital technology and robotics are transforming jobs and whole sectors of the economy.

Globalisation means that greater international trade is altering where jobs are based … and where workers are in demand.

Work for many has become insecure … and we want to change that because we believe that a happier, more secure workforce is a more productive workforce.

That’s why I was at Ecotricity in Stroud on Thursday … launching Workplace 2020 alongside our shadow Trade Union minister Ian Lavery … and our shadow Business Secretary Angela Eagle … to kickstart a national conversation about what the world of work should look like in 2020.

Only an economy that is run for all wealth creators … the technicians, entrepreneurs, designers, shopfloor workers, and the self-employed … and that puts them in the driving seat … is going to deliver prosperity for all.

John McDonnell talked this morning about rewriting the rules of the economy … Because the old rules have failed.

The old rules – Tory rules – have led to a lack of investment in our economy, which is failing our communities.

They’ve led to a government that has failed to tackle our unbalanced economy … They are failing to support key strategic industries … like our steel industry.

They have failed to invest in the infrastructure that communities across the country desperately need.

They have failed to invest in housing … The government says it aspires to build a million new homes … The reality however is that housebuilding has sunk to its lowest level since the 1920s.

They have failed to invest in developing the skills our young people deserve and our businesses need.

The old rules mean failing to invest in Britain’s future.

A Labour government will make different choices.

If we want to create the economy of the future … then government has a vital role to play in making the long-term, patient investments … that are the foundations of long-term prosperity.

We want to see the reindustrialisation of Britain for the digital age … That means putting public investment front and centre stage …. driven by a National Investment Bank as a motor of economic modernization … based on investment in infrastructure, transport, housing and the technologies of the future.

John also talked this morning about the need for greater democratisation and decentralisation.

This includes the contribution that co-operatives can make to our economy … to empower people to come together to take control of their own lives

This is the complete opposite of the Conservative devolution plans … passing responsibility without the support and resources to enable people to take control.

John has rightly talked about establishing a “right to own” for workers … to stop jobs and companies being treated like possessions on a Monopoly board … and to give workers the first refusal on taking over a company when it changes hands.

The New Economics is also about economic justice.

People expect companies that trade in this country … and people who live in this country … to pay their tax in this country … It funds our public services.

Aggressive tax avoidance and tax evasion are an attack on the NHS, on schools our care for elderly and disabled people and the social security system that prevents poverty, homelessness and destitution

So I’m very grateful to Professor Prem Sikka who is reviewing HMRC for us to ensure it has the resources it needs to tackle this endemic problem … and to our Labour MEPs who are leading the tax justice fight in Brussels.

I’m equally grateful to Danny Blanchflower for the work he’s doing to review the Monetary Policy Committee … and to Lord Kerslake who is reviewing the Treasury

The machinery of government overseeing the economy must be fit for the reality of today’s economy.

We believe that economic justice and economic credibility must go hand-in-hand … Which is why all our plans are underpinned by Labour’s Fiscal Credibility Rule … agreed following discussions with the world-leading economists on our Economic Advisory Council.

Our rule makes clear that we will ensure solid public finances … while rejecting the politically motivated austerity that is strangling investment … and choking prosperity.

We need a Labour government that will put investment, productivity and sustainable growth first … alongside a 21st century industrial policy.

That is how we will provide the economic security that the Tories are failing to deliver.

… Security and investment in jobs and skills.

… Security and investment in housing.

… Security and investment in our NHS and our schools.

… And, yes, security and investment in our public finances too.

We have the opportunity to build a fairer, more equal, more prosperous economy.

But we must be bold and ambitious in our approach.

It was the radical Labour government of 1945 that delivered so many of the social achievements of which we Labour members are so proud … the National Health Service, the welfare state, council housing, comprehensive education … institutions that were about the collective improvement of all.

And we must harness that radical spirit to build an economy for the 21st century.

This morning John laid out the framework developed over the last eight months … by which Labour can win the next election.

It is a bold and ambitious programme.

I don’t underestimate the scale of the task in front of us.

There is no point being in politics if you are not ambitious not for yourself but to make your community your country and our world a better and more just place.

And it’s a programme that we will continue to refine … With your help.

As I said at the start … we need to involve more people in decision-making … and consult far more widely outside politics.

It is essential that we continue a rich and diverse debate on these fundamental issues … To continue to build the New Economics from the ground up.

So I hope you will all continue to engage in these important discussions and to contribute to this debate … to continue building a platform for economic and social justice.

Thank you for your contributions today … and in the future.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 18 May 2016.

I am pleased that we have dispensed with the Outlawries Bill, which will ensure that we have civility and freedom of speech in this Chamber. I intend to adhere to the civility part of it; it is up to others to decide on the freedom of speech.

July will mark the centenary of the battle of the Somme, an episode of needless carnage and horror. This week marked the centenary of the Sykes-Picot agreement, in which Britain and France divided up the Ottoman empire into spheres of influence, arbitrarily establishing borders that have been the cause of many conflicts ever since. Those two events should remind us in this House of two things: first, the decisions that we take have consequences, and secondly, it is our armed forces that face the consequences of failed foreign and military policy. Our duty to our armed forces is to avoid the political mistakes that lead to their being sent unnecessarily into harm’s way. As the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) pointed out, the effects of war go on for the whole lifetime of those who take part in it.

By tradition, at the beginning of each parliamentary Session, we commemorate the Members of the House we have lost in the last year. In October, we lost Michael Meacher. He was, as all who met him knew, a decent, hard-working, passionate and profound man. He represented his constituency with diligence and distinction for 45 years. He was a brilliant Environment Minister, a lifelong campaigner against injustice and poverty, and a brilliant champion of the rights of this House and of Parliament. We remember Michael for all those things.

Harry Harpham sadly had only a few months to serve this House. He represented his constituency and the concerns of the steel industry in Sheffield with incredible diligence. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss), who now represents the constituency, told me at his passing:

“We have admired the bravery and courage he showed in his life, which was formed during the miners’ strike and carried him forward for the rest of his life.”

Harry and Michael were incredibly decent and honourable men who were absolutely dedicated to serving their communities and standing up for strong socialist principles. We commemorate them both.

I congratulate the mover and seconder of the Queen’s Speech motion. It is a job I have never had to do myself—it is one of those powers of patronage. First, I congratulate the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) on her excellent speech, which I attribute to the excellent training she received early in her career. It is possible that many members of her own party are unaware that sister Spelman, or comrade Spelman, was, like me, a full-time union official before entering Parliament. While industrial strife raged across the country during the early 1980s—I was part of it—[Hon. Members: “Was?”] They are just too fast, Mr Speaker. While that was happening, the right hon. Lady was travelling the whole country defending sugar beet workers from disreputable and exploitative bosses. At least, that is what I think the National Farmers Union was doing at that time. Alas, time changes things, and she and I now sing from a slightly different hymn sheet.

Talking of which, I understand that the right hon. Lady has been a stalwart of the parliamentary choir for many years. Perhaps she will find time to give me some singing lessons. Given her background, perhaps together we could sing “The Red Flag” as a duet. [An Hon. Member: “Or the national anthem.”] We will sing from the widest hymn sheet, don’t you worry.

The right hon. Lady has an excellent reputation for her outstanding work in international development, both in opposition and then in government. She steered her party—some might ungraciously say kicking and screaming—into delivering the pledge that 0.7% of our GDP would be spent on international aid. I pay a huge tribute to her for the way in which she championed the rights of women and young girls in the developing world. She stood up for their needs and their rights and ensured that our aid budget, correctly, went disproportionately to help them, and I thank her for that.

I think that underneath it all, the right hon. Lady is a bit of a closet radical, actually—so we will talk later. After some research, I can exclusively reveal to the House the roots of her radicalism. Her constituency includes the town of Dorridge, and the waters of Dorridge are very important. In the early 18th century—long before she was elected, I should add—her constituency was a nest of rebellion and sedition, led by a local landowner, George Frederick Muntz. A refugee, Muntz was one of the founders of the Birmingham Political Union, an organisation that was pivotal in the introduction of the 1832 Reform Act. The union later became part of the Chartist movement, to which we trace the origins of socialism in this country and the Labour party. Naturally, I hugely admire the Birmingham Political Union for what it did.

A member of the parliamentary choir, the right hon. Member for Meriden was in fine voice today, and I am sure the whole House will join me in thanking her for her speech.

I turn to the seconder of the Loyal Address, the hon. Member for Bracknell. Before joining the House, he worked as a doctor. Today, he has lanced the myth that doctors are bad communicators. In his maiden speech, he said:

“I am often asked why I…moved away from being a doctor to being a Member of Parliament. To my mind, people who come in here should want to make this country a better place.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 913.]

The hon. Gentleman and I come from absolutely opposite sides of the political spectrum, but we are both sincere in sharing the same goal: to make our country a better place for those who live here.

Researching the hon. Gentleman’s career, I thought I had uncovered yet more evidence of the deep fractures that exist within the Government today. I was informed that he was a leading member of an organisation known as the Grumblers. However, we have been into this in some detail, and further research indicated that this was not another group of malcontents on the Government Back Benches—that is already full—but a cricket club of which he would have us believe he is a leading light. I did not want to leave any of that research undone, so I approached the club to get a sense of the hon. Gentleman’s character before making today’s speech. [Laughter.] Yes, it’s definitely coming.

The House will be eternally grateful for the words of Mr Anton Joiner, the chairman of the Old Grumblers cricket club, for his insightful and helpful response to my request. If I may quote from Mr Joiner’s letter, the House will be all the better informed. He wrote:

“Dear Sir,

We are glad you have established contact with our team, as we are desperately seeking recovery of several seasons’ overdue match fees by our hon. Friend. Please communicate our willingness to waive penalty interest in return for prompt payment.”

The letter goes on:

“In an undistinguished and tragically all too long career as a top order batsman, the good doctor managed an average of just 11.2 runs with the bat. His efforts with the ball yielded a solitary wicket—that of a French farmer’s wife during a tour match in Brittany in 2008.”

The hon. Gentleman’s generosity knew no bounds:

“As a Doctor, Mr Lee advised on numerous sporting injuries to club players. The misdiagnosis of many led to a string of unnecessary early retirements and an acute player availability crisis, from which the team has only recently recovered.

As Captain of the Old Grumblers Cricket Club, I rarely had to handle as obstinate and disruptive a character as the Doctor, who stubbornly refused to stand in any conventional field placement and very openly demonstrated a disdain for team sport, command structures… Presumably this led him to the logical career choice of Tory backbencher.”

The letter concludes:

“Please pass on my regards…and the attached invoice.”

I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman is a good sport as I understand that he is an equally distinguished rugby player, but those stories were beyond my research capabilities and must be saved for another occasion. I thank him for his more acceptable exploits in the House today.

The Opposition will judge the Government’s legislative programme against three tests. Will it deliver a more equal society, an economy that works for everyone and a society in which there is opportunity for all? Sadly, it appears that many proposals in the Queen’s Speech militate against those aims, as have the proposals in previous years. Still this Government do not seem to understand that cuts have consequences. When they cut adult social care, it has an impact on national health service accident and emergency departments. When they saddle young people with more debt, it impedes their ability to buy a home or start a family. When they fail to build housing and cap housing benefit, homelessness and the number of families in temporary accommodation increase. When they slash local authorities’ budgets, leisure centres, libraries and children’s centres close. When they close fire stations and cut firefighters’ jobs, response times increase and more people are in danger of dying in fires.

This austerity is a political choice, not an economic necessity. It is a wrong choice for our country, made by a Government with the wrong priorities. Women have been hit hardest by the cuts. More than 80% of cuts fall disproportionately on women. As the Women’s Budget Group has pointed out, all the cuts mean that opportunities for women are systematically reduced and diminished in our society. The Government are failing to deliver an economy that meets the needs and aspirations of the people who sent us here—a Government who are consistently failing to meet their own economic targets. They have failed on the deficit, failed on the debt, failed on productivity and failed to rebalance the economy.

Once again, the northern powerhouse was announced—if only the rhetoric matched the reality. In March we discovered that the northern powerhouse has 97% of its senior staff based in London—a northern powerhouse outsourced to the capital. For all the Chancellor’s rhetoric, there has been systematic under-investment in the north, and only 1% of projects in the Government’s infrastructure pipeline are currently in construction in the north-east.

Much could be said in a similar vein about housing. The Government claim to aspire to build 1 million new homes, but housebuilding has sunk to its lowest level since the 1920s. So out of touch are those on the Government Benches that they think that £450,000 is what people can afford for a starter home. The announcement again today about Britain’s digital infrastructure is welcome. Perhaps this time it will become a reality—I hope it does. Perhaps the Chancellor—sadly, he is not here today—is a convert to our fiscal rule. It is a rational rule, backed by leading economists, which allows for borrowing on capital spending.

I point out to the Prime Minister that whether on the northern powerhouse, building homes or investing in digital infrastructure, simply saying things does not make them happen. It takes commitment to fund them. This Government are failing to deliver even on their own proposals, although often that is for the better. The Prime Minister said two weeks ago:

“We are going to have academies for all, and it will be in the Queen’s Speech”.—[Official Report, 27 April 2016; Vol. 608, c. 1423.]

Just a fortnight later, there is no sign of that. Parents, governors, pupils, teachers and headteachers will be relieved to get final confirmation today that the wrong-headed proposals to impose forced academisation have finally been dumped.

The Government have been forced to back down on a number of issues in recent months: on tax credits, the Saudi prison deal, police cuts, cuts to personal independence payments for disabled people, the solar tax, the tampon tax, freedom of information, Sunday trading, and aspects of the Trade Union Bill and the Housing and Planning Act 2016. To call that “disarray” would be generous, and that is without discussing the resultant black hole in the Government’s finances.

Perhaps the most worrying proposal of all is the decision to try to redefine poverty and deprivation. Apparently, it is all about instability, addiction and debt—all things that can be blamed on individuals about whom Governments like to moralise. Well, no! It is about 1 million people in our country using food banks, record levels of in-work poverty and the fact that absolute child poverty, after housing costs, is up by half a million. Poverty is up in disabled households on the same basis. Homelessness has gone up every year since the Prime Minister took office, and 100,000 children spent last Christmas in temporary, insecure accommodation. The causes of that are cuts to welfare benefits, cuts to employment and support allowance, the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, wages being too low, insecure jobs, and housing—whether to rent or to buy—being too expensive. We will not tackle poverty by moving the goalposts. Poverty and inequality are collective failures of our society as a whole, not individual failures.

On current form, much of what Her Majesty announced today will not require her signature. I very much hope that the Government’s proposals announced today to consign into ever deeper debt those seeking to learn will be rejected.

I hope there will be a cross-party consensus on one element of the Government’s proposals—[Interruption.] The hon. Member of all people should understand what I am about to say. I am talking about the proposal to repeal the Human Rights Act, which was introduced at the very start of the Labour Government. It brought the European convention on human rights into British law, thus empowering British citizens and giving rights to everybody in our society. We will defend our Human Rights Act as we defend the human rights of everyone in this country, and indeed all those who benefit from the European convention on human rights.

I understand—this is quite bizarre—that the Home Secretary is the driving force behind tearing up the Human Rights Act and leaving the convention, which is strange because she has very strong European credentials. What it shows is this: whether we are in or out of the EU, the main obstacle holding back the people of this country is not the EU, but the Conservative Government—a Conservative Government who are displaying a very worrying authoritarian streak.

The primacy of the House of Commons is not in doubt. We are committed to replacing the House of Lords with a democratic Chamber, but we will scrutinise sceptically any proposals that seek to weaken the ability to hold the Government to account, as the other place rightly does. Democracy requires accountability for the decisions that are made.

The national health service is in record deficit, yet there is no legislation in the Queen’s Speech to improve it. Perhaps the Prime Minister can belatedly adopt the central medical principle of first doing no harm. Unfortunately, pending legislation will affect the NHS—the decision last year to cut nurses’ bursaries. Will the Prime Minister confirm that that decision will be put to the House and voted on in this Chamber? It is opposed by all the unions involved in the NHS and the royal colleges representing nurses and midwives.

The move to dissuade people from taking up nursing is all the more bizarre coming as it does at a time when the Government are planning to train nurses to take on more responsibilities from doctors.

We welcome the Government’s proposals to support driverless cars in our society, but can they address a Secretary of State for Health who appears to be asleep at the wheel in control of the NHS?

With regard to the sugar tax, we have made it clear previously that we will look favourably on proposals to tackle childhood obesity.

We welcome the Government’s U-turn on forced academisation.

Several hon. Members rose—

Jeremy Corbyn

I will continue my speech, if I may, Mr Speaker.

As with schools, we would like to see all Ministers being good or even outstanding, but they need the freedom to listen to the public and the people who understand services best, so we look forward to scrutinising the surviving proposals in the Government’s education Bill to ensure that they are better thought through. Just as we have opposed the increase in unqualified teachers in our classrooms, we hope that the Government will get to grips with the £800 million being spent annually on supply teachers because of the recruitment and retention crisis in schools. With school budgets scheduled—[Interruption.] We just agreed to behave with civility in this Chamber. Some Government Members have very short memories. [Interruption.]

Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)

On a point of order, Mr Speaker, am I not right in thinking that it is a customary courtesy in this House for people, though they do not have to, to give way in speeches that last over 20 minutes?

Mr Speaker

The essence of the hon. Gentleman’s point was encapsulated in that first sentence: customary, but it is not required. There is no obligation. Members may want the right hon. Gentleman to give way, but he is not obliged to do so. I gently say to the hon. Members for Winchester (Steve Brine) and for Sherwood (Mark Spencer) that they can have a go, but if the right hon. Gentleman does not want to give way they will not advance their cause by shouting. That, in itself, is uncivil, of which the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) is never guilty.

Jeremy Corbyn

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

School budgets are scheduled to receive their biggest real-terms cut since the 1970s. Education is actually quite important in our society. The Government can therefore ill afford to be spending so much on supply teachers. We have to move away from agency Britain. We will look at the proposals for a national funding formula that would encourage the Government to look, for example, at the school meals and breakfast policies that have been introduced in Labour Wales, which help young people in Wales.

We welcome moves to speed up adoption. That is in the interests of both children and those families committed to adoption, but the priority has to always be the welfare and safety of the child. But at a time when social services and children’s services are being slashed, we have to ask whether the funding will match that desire. We should also put on record—I am sure all of us can agree on this—our thanks to all those families who foster, adopt and give children the very best lives they possibly can. They are heroes in our society.

Students today are in more debt than ever. I make it clear to the Prime Minister that he will not get any support from the Labour Benches on raising tuition fees. The Government are penalising students, announcing the abolition of maintenance grants last year and now announcing that fees will be raised even further. This is a tax on learning—as the Chancellor of the Exchequer called it in 2003—from a Government that cut taxes on capital gains. What message does that send about the economy they want to create? It is that wealth generates more wealth with minimal tax—that and effort and hard work land you in a lifetime of debt, with no support while you make that effort. What an insult to the aspirations of young people wanting an education. We are deeply concerned too about the implications of a free market, free-for-all in higher education.

The Government have committed to more apprenticeships. We welcome that if it means more high quality apprenticeships and if it inspires young women to become engineers and young men to become carers. Apprenticeships give opportunities to every young person in our society. But they should not be seen by any employer as a means of circumventing paying a decent wage, while offering little training. We all hear too many cases of that.

We will scrutinise carefully proposals to give prison governors more freedom. It seems the policies of this Government have been to give greater freedoms to prisoners. That is the consequence of overcrowding prisons and cutting one third of dedicated prison officer positions. We welcome proposals to give greater time for education and reform and to reduce reoffending rates. When I was a member of the Justice Committee, I visited young offender institutions in Denmark and Norway. Their approach works. [Interruption.] The prison crisis is one that does not require laughter to solve its problems. The approach adopted in those two Scandinavian countries requires more funding and more staff, but it has a very good effect on reoffending rates.

There is, equally, an urgent need to invest in the care of prisoners suffering from mental health conditions. The alarming rise in the number of prison suicides in recent years means that two prisoners every week are taking their own lives, which is a truly horrifying statistic but only part of the disarray in our prisons. Last year, emergency services were called out 26,600 times, or every 20 minutes on average, to incidents in UK prisons. The tide of violent attacks in prisons is rising and has to be addressed. That is the House’s responsibility.

Many more of our public services are under threat. The Land Registry is threatened with privatisation—a move considered and then rejected in the last two Parliaments. Those Governments listened to the concerns of public and expert opinion. I hope and trust that this Government will consult and come to the same conclusion and that, rather than selling off the family silver, they will retain the Land Registry in public ownership and administration.
We are very clear that the BBC is a valued national institution, but its success is anathema to this ideological Government. Labour will continue to stand up for the licence fee payer and will fight any further Government attacks on the BBC and its independence. Whether it is the NHS, good and outstanding schools, the east coast main line in public operation or the BBC, the Government just cannot stand the threat of a good example of popular, successful public services. We will stand up for them against the Government.

The Opposition have long highlighted the injustice of the unequal funding allocations to local authorities. I hope that a local government finance Bill will provide an opportunity to address the disgraceful situation in which the poorest areas, mainly in the inner cities of this country, suffer by far the greatest cuts to expenditure. The cuts imposed on local authorities have had a devastating impact on services for both young and old. Just this week, despite the protestations of some local residents, Oxfordshire Council, the Prime Minister’s favourite county council, announced that it was closing half of its children’s centres. In the past five years, £4.5 billion has been cut from the adult social care budget, which has taken away dignity from elderly and disabled people. Again, the effects of those massive cuts in the adult social care budget fall disproportionately on women in our society.

We will scrutinise very carefully the devolution of business rates, which, if not handled correctly, has the potential to exacerbate inequalities between areas of this country. We have a deeply unbalanced economy, and we will oppose plans that widen regional inequalities, rather than narrow them.

On a positive note, we wholeheartedly welcome moves to devolve powers to re-regulate bus services, and we will look to expand those provisions more widely. Whole areas of the country, particularly in rural Britain, have no bus services at all, and they should be provided with them, particularly where people do not have access to their own cars.

We are very sceptical about competition in the water industry, which actually goes against the trend in much of the rest of Europe, which is of re-municipalising water and giving it back to communities—a Government committed to devolution might consider that, but this Government want competition. Perhaps we can have competition in reservoirs, pumping stations and mains pipes. We could even have three standpipes on every corner. Imagine the vision of Tory Britain: one for Evian, one for Perrier and one for Malvern water.

Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jeremy Corbyn

No, I will not give way. We have no objection—

Several hon. Members rose—

Mr Speaker

Order. I am well aware that there are Members who want to intervene, and it is perfectly reasonable of them to want to intervene. Equally, there is no obligation on the Leader of the Opposition to give way. [Interruption.] Order. Somebody mutters from a sedentary position, “Too long.” The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his opinion; I am telling the House what the factual position is, however uncomfortable, which is that the right hon. Gentleman is in order. What is not in order is for Members to shout and barrack, in total violation of what has been set out at the start of our proceedings. I urge Members who may be irritated to behave with dignity.

Jeremy Corbyn

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jeremy Corbyn

No, I am not going to give way.

We have no objection to reviewing the franchise with regard to overseas citizens, but I hope the Government will take this point seriously and will be minded not only to look at those who have lived abroad for several decades, but to look at 16 and 17-year-olds in this country—old enough to marry, old enough to work, old enough to join the Army and rightly allowed to vote in the Scottish referendum, but not able to vote in our elections. There is something perverse in a Government enfranchising thousands of people who have not lived in Britain for years when they are disfranchising hundreds of thousands of British residents through their individual voter registration plan. That is why, as part of the EU referendum campaign, many of us are spending a lot of time encouraging young people to ensure that they are registered to vote. It is their future that is at stake.

Everyone in this House understands the risks posed by terrorism. This city, London, has experienced it before, as have other cities here and around the world. We will of course support strong measures to give the police and security services the resources they need, but we will also support checks and balances to ensure that powers are used appropriately. We would welcome any proposals from the Government to reform the Prevent strategy and instead to emphasise the value of community-led work to prevent young people from being drawn into extremism in any form.

In foreign policy, we must put our promotion of human rights at the centre. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye and, worse, sell arms to those countries that abuse human rights either within or beyond their borders. I welcome the forthcoming visit of President Santos of Colombia and I look forward to meeting him to discuss human rights in what is hopefully on its way to becoming a post-conflict society.

The Government’s legislative programme spoke of “humanitarian challenges”. We are grateful to Lord Dubs for taking on the challenge of making the Government more humanitarian. Just a few weeks previously, this Prime Minister was referring to refugees fleeing persecution as “a bunch of migrants” and “a swarm”. I have to say this: those words were wrong. I hope the Prime Minister will think again about them and recognise, as everyone should, that refugees are simply human beings, just like any of us in this Chamber, who are trying to survive in a very dangerous and very cruel world. We need to solve their problems with humanity, not with that kind of language.

All parts of the House will have been heartened by the increased turnout in the elections for police and crime commissioners—particularly welcome in Cheshire, Gwent, Humberside and Leicestershire—and we welcome any moves that will give them the powers to improve accountability for their communities. Our police forces mostly do an excellent job, but the recent Hillsborough inquest and the results of it showed that they must never be above scrutiny, to ensure that they do their jobs properly.

We Opposition Members know that decent public services are necessary for a good society, but also that they depend on tax revenues. We welcome any measures designed properly to tackle tax avoidance and evasion, but this Government’s record on this subject is one of continuous failure. Just a month ago, the Prime Minister welcomed here EU proposals on country-by-country tax transparency, but on 26 April Conservative MEPs yet again voted against these same proposals. Did they not get the memo from the Prime Minister? That same Prime Minister continues to allow UK tax havens not to issue public registers of beneficial ownership and he opposes wholesale the introduction of beneficial ownership registers for offshore trusts. People expect companies that trade in this country and people who live in this country to pay their tax in this country—it funds our public services. Aggressive tax avoidance and tax evasion are an attack on our NHS, on our schools, on care for elderly and disabled people and on our social security system that prevents poverty, homelessness and destitution.

Mr Speaker, if you want to deliver a more equal society, an economy that works for everyone and a society in which there is opportunity for all, it takes an active Government, not the driverless car heading in the wrong direction that we have with the present Government.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 21 April 2016.

It is a pleasure to second the Humble Address. Many people across the country today will be wishing Her Majesty a very happy 90th birthday, and we on the Labour Benches send our warmest greetings to add to them. May I say, as a relatively young whippersnapper, that I am fully in favour of our country having leaders of a finer vintage?

Today, we are talking about a highly respected individual who is 90. Whatever differing views people across this country have about the institution, the vast majority share an opinion that Her Majesty has served this country, and has overwhelming support in doing so, with a clear sense of public service and public duty, as the Prime Minister has indicated.

Her Majesty has carried out that duty with great warmth. My dear friend Mildred Gordon, the former Member for Bow and Poplar, who recently died aged 92 and whose funeral is tomorrow, met the Queen at the opening of the docklands light railway. The Queen asked Mildred how she was getting on as a newly elected MP, and Mildred replied, with the devastating honesty with which she replied to everything, by saying that she felt she had very little power to help her constituents. The Queen took her on one side and said, with her customary wit:

“Once they find out you lot can’t help them, they all write to me”.

Her Majesty was born less than a month before the general strike. A first daughter, who would later unexpectedly become heir to the throne, she was born two years before all women in Britain got the vote, as the Prime Minister pointed out. Her childhood was during the mass poverty of the long slump of the 1930s and she had her teenage years during the brutal carnage of the second world war. At war’s end, she experienced people’s joy first hand, as the young princess walked through the streets of London; I am pleased that this morning Radio 4 replayed that very moving oral history of our time and lives—indeed, of before the time of most of us in the House.

Her Majesty became Queen at just 25, following the death of her father, and has reigned for nearly 64 years. She is the longest reigning monarch in our history. In that time, our country has become a better and more civilised place. We have enacted equality legislation, ended colonialism and created the national health service, the welfare state and the Open University. As Head of the Commonwealth, she has been a defender of that incredible multicultural global institution. We are all very grateful for the way in which she has stood up for the Commonwealth; she has visited every Commonwealth country, I think. The Prime Minister was quite right to draw attention to her historic visit to Ireland in 2011, and her speaking in the Irish language at the reception held for her in Dublin during that visit.

Today I am welcoming two nonagenarians from my constituency to Parliament. Both have a link with the celebrations that we are conducting today. They are Iris Monaghan and George Durack. Iris was born in what is now the Republic of Ireland, but was then part of Britain. She came to London in 1951, before the coronation, and was a Crown civil servant in the Inland Revenue. She has helped to collect taxes since 1951, keeping us all in the state to which we are accustomed.

George fought in the second world war, serving in the 1st Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, attached to the 7th Armoured Division. He had a daily close affinity with Her Majesty throughout his working life, as he worked for the Royal Mail, delivering Her Majesty’s head through letterboxes all over north London.

Yesterday, I was present at the graduation of a 91-year-old constituent who has just completed her third degree—a master’s no less—at Birkbeck, University of London. That proves that it is never too late to take up a new career and learn something else.

It is their generation—that of the Queen and of my parents—that defeated the horrors of fascism in Europe, endured the privations of the post-war era and built a more civilised and equal Britain. We have much to be grateful to them for.

On the day of her coronation in 1953, Her Majesty was driven through Upper Street in my borough. But her crowning achievement in Islington was to come some years later—you will enjoy this, Mr Speaker. In 2006, she was due to open the new Emirates Stadium in my constituency, but had to pull out due to an injury. Unfortunately, that is a fate that has afflicted far too many of Arsenal’s squad in subsequent years, so we must congratulate her on her prescience. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) was then leader of Islington Council. As the Queen could not attend the opening, the whole squad was invited to Buckingham Palace to meet her, and my hon. Friend accompanied them. We know that the Queen is absolutely above politics. She may be above football, too, but many locals harbour a quiet, secret view that she is actually privately a gooner.

In her reign, the Queen has seen off 12 Prime Ministers. I recently attended my first state dinner; she has received over 100 state visits, and, as the Prime Minister indicated, visited well over 100 countries on our behalf. I admire her energy and wish her well in her continuing and outstanding commitment to public life. I wish her a very happy 90th birthday.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, at the Senate House on 14 April 2016.

The people of this country face a historic choice on 23rd June whether to remain part of the European Union, or to leave. I welcome the fact that that decision is now in the hands of the British people. Indeed, I voted to support a referendum in the last Parliament.

The move to hold this referendum may have been more about managing divisions in the Conservative party. But it is now a crucial democratic opportunity for people to have their say on our country’s future, and the future of our continent as a whole.

The Labour Party is overwhelmingly for staying in because we believe the European Union has brought: investment, jobs and protection for workers, consumers and the environment, and offers the best chance of meeting the challenges we face in the 21st century. Labour is convinced that a vote to remain is in the best interests of the people of this country.

In the coming century, we face huge challenges, as a people, as a continent and as a global community. How to deal with climate change. How to address the overweening power of global corporations and ensure they pay fair taxes. How to tackle cyber-crime and terrorism. How to ensure we trade fairly and protect jobs and pay in an era of globalisation. How to address the causes of the huge refugee movements across the world, and how we adapt to a world where people everywhere move more frequently to live, work and retire.

All these issues are serious and pressing, and self-evidently require international co-operation. Collective international action through the European Union is clearly going to be vital to meeting these challenges. Britain will be stronger if we co-operate with our neighbours in facing them together.

As Portugal’s new Socialist Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, has said: ‘in the face of all these crises around us. We must not divide Europe – we must strengthen it.’

When the last referendum was held in 1975, Europe was divided by the Cold War, and what later became the EU was a much smaller, purely market-driven arrangement. Over the years I have been critical of many decisions taken by the EU, and I remain critical of its shortcomings; from its lack of democratic accountability to the institutional pressure to deregulate or privatise public services.

So Europe needs to change. But that change can only come from working with our allies in the EU. It’s perfectly possible to be critical and still be convinced we need to remain a member.

I’ve even had a few differences with the direction the Labour Party’s taken over the past few years but I have been sure that it was right to stay a member some might say I’ve even managed to do something about changing that direction.

In contrast to four decades ago, the EU of today brings together most of the countries of Europe and has developed important employment, environmental and consumer protections.

I have listened closely to the views of trade unions, environmental groups, human rights organisations and of course to Labour Party members and supporters, and fellow MPs. They are overwhelmingly convinced that we can best make a positive difference by remaining in Europe.

Britain needs to stay in the EU as the best framework for trade, manufacturing and cooperation in 21st century Europe. Tens of billion pounds-worth of investment and millions of jobs are linked to our relationship with the EU, the biggest market in the world.

EU membership has guaranteed working people vital employment rights, including four weeks’ paid holiday, maternity and paternity leave, protections for agency workers and health and safety in the workplace. Being in the EU has raised Britain’s environmental standards, from beaches to air quality, and protected consumers from rip-off charges.

But we also need to make the case for reform in Europe – the reform David Cameron’s Government has no interest in, but plenty of others across Europe do.

That means democratic reform to make the EU more accountable to its people. Economic reform to end to self-defeating austerity and put jobs and sustainable growth at the centre of European policy, labour market reform to strengthen and extend workers’ rights in a real social Europe. And new rights for governments and elected authorities to support public enterprise and halt the pressure to privatise services.

So the case I’m making is for ‘Remain – and Reform’ in Europe.

Today is the Global Day of Action for Fast Food Rights. In the US workers are demanding $15 an hour, in the UK £10 now. Labour is an internationalist party and socialists have understood from the earliest days of the labour movement that workers need to make common cause across national borders.

Working together in Europe has led to significant gains for workers here in Britain and Labour is determined to deliver further progressive reform in 2020 the democratic Europe of social justice and workers’ rights that people throughout our continent want to see.

But real reform will mean making progressive alliances across the EU – something that the Conservatives will never do.

Take the crisis in the steel industry. It’s a global problem and a challenge to many European governments. So why is it only the British Government that has failed so comprehensively to act to save steel production at home?

The European Commission proposed new tariffs on Chinese steel, but it was the UK Government that blocked these co-ordinated efforts to stop Chinese steel dumping.

Those proposals are still on the table. So today I ask David Cameron and George Osborne to to start sticking up for British steel and work with our willing European partners to secure its future.

There are certainly problems about EU state aid rules, which need reform. But if as the Leave side argues, it is the EU that is the main problem, how is that Germany, Italy, France and Spain have all done so much better at protecting their steel industries?

It is because those countries have acted within EU state aid rules to support their industries; whether through taking a public stake, investing in research and development, providing loan guarantees or compensating for energy costs.

It is not the EU that is the problem, but a Conservative Government here in Britain that doesn’t recognise the strategic importance of steel, for our economy and for the jobs and skills in those communities.

The Conservative Government has blocked action on Chinese steel dumping. It has cut investment in infrastructure that would have created demand for more steel and had no procurement strategy to support British steel.

A Labour government would have worked with our partners across Europe to stand up for steel production in Britain.

The European Union – 28 countries and 520 million people – could have made us stronger, by defending our steel industries together. The actions of the Conservative Government weakened us.

The jobs being created under this Government are too often low skill, low pay and insecure jobs. If we harnessed Europe’s potential we could be doing far more to defend high skill jobs in the steel industry.

And that goes for other employers of high skilled staff too – from Airbus to Nissan – they have made it clear that their choice to invest in Britain is strengthened by our membership of the European Union.

Of course the Conservatives are loyally committed to protecting one British industry in Europe – the tax avoidance industry.

The most telling revelation about our Prime Minister has not been about his own tax affair, but that in 2013 he personally intervened with the European Commission President to undermine an EU drive to reveal the beneficiaries of offshore trusts, and even now, in the wake of the Panama Papers, he still won’t act.

And on six different occasions since the beginning of last year Conservative MEPs have voted down attempts to take action against tax dodging.

Labour has allies across Europe prepared to take on this global network of the corrupt and we will work with them to clamp down on those determined to suck wealth out of our economies and the pockets of our people.

On Tuesday, the EU announced a step forward on country-by-country reporting. We believe we can go further. But even this modest measure was opposed by Conservative MEPs last December.

Left to themselves, it is clear what the main Vote Leave vision is for Britain to be the safe haven of choice for the ill-gotten gains of every dodgy oligarch, dictator or rogue corporation.

They believe this tiny global elite is what matters, not the rest of us, who they dismiss as “low achievers”.

Some argue that we need to leave the EU because the single market’s rules are driving deregulation and privatisation. They certainly need reform. But it was not the EU that privatised our railways. It was the Conservative Government of John Major and many of our rail routes are now run by other European nations’ publicly owned rail companies. They haven’t made the mistake of asset stripping their own countries.

Labour is committed to bringing rail back into public ownership in 2020. And that is why Labour MEPs are opposing any element of the fourth rail package, currently before the European Parliament, that might make that more difficult.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is also a huge cause for concern, but we defeated a similar proposal before in Europe, together when it was called the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, back in 1998.

Labour MEPs are rightly opposing the Investor-State Dispute Mechanism opposing any attempt to enforce privatisation on our public services, to reduce consumer rights, workplace protections or environmental standards.

The free market enthusiasts in the Leave campaign would put all those protections at risk. Labour is building alliances to safeguard them.

We must also put human rights at the centre of our trade agreements, not as an optional add-on. We already have allies across Europe to do that. And the EU is vital for promoting human rights at home. As a result of EU directives and regulations, disabled people are protected from discrimination. Lifts, cars and buses need to be accessible, as does sea and air travel.

And it was the Labour Government that signed the Human Rights Act into UK law that transferred power from government – not to Brussels – but to individual citizens.

Climate change is the greatest threat that humanity faces this century. And Britain cannot tackle it alone. We could have the best policies possible but unless we act together internationally, it is worthless. Labour brought in the Climate Change Act, John Prescott played a key role in getting the Kyoto Protocols agreed. Labour has led the debate within Europe.

But despite David Cameron pledging to lead the greenest Government ever, Britain still lags far behind most of Europe in terms of renewable energy production. We have much to learn from what Germany has done in particular.

The Conservative Government has cut subsidies for solar power while increasing subsidies for diesel. It has cut regulatory burdens on fracking yet increased regulations on onshore wind. They say one thing, but do another.

Again, it has been regulations agreed in Europe that have improved Britain’s beaches and waterways and that are forcing us to tackle the scandal of air pollution which will kill 500,000 people in Britain by 2025, unless we act.

Working together in the European Union is vital for tackling climate change and vital in protecting the environment we share.

No doubt debate about EU membership in the next couple of months will focus strongly on jobs and migration. We live in an increasingly globalised world. Many of us will study, work or even retire abroad at some point in our lives.

Free movement has created opportunities for British people. There are nearly three-quarters of a million British people living in Spain and over two million living in the EU as a whole.

Learning abroad and working abroad, increases the opportunities and skills of British people and migration brings benefits as well as challenges at home.

But it’s only if there is government action to train enough skilled workers to stop the exploitation of migrant labour to undercut wages and invest in local services and housing in areas of rapid population growth that they will be felt across the country.

And this Government has done nothing of the sort. Instead, its failure to train enough skilled workers means we have become reliant on migration to keep our economy functioning.

This is especially true of our NHS which depends on migrant nurses and doctors to fill vacancies. This Government has failed to invest in training, and its abolition of nurses’ bursaries, and its decision to pick a fight with junior doctors is likely to make those shortages worse.

As a former representative of NHS workers, I value our NHS and admire the dedication of all its staff. It is Labour’s proudest creation. But right now, it would be in even greater crisis if many on the Leave side had their way. Some of whom have argued against the NHS and free healthcare on demand in principle.

And of course it is EU regulations that that underpin many rights at work, like holiday entitlement, maternity leave, rights to take breaks and limits to how many hours we can work, and that have helped to improve protection for agency workers.

The Tories and UKIP are on record as saying they would like to cut back EU-guaranteed workplace rights if they could.

A Labour government would instead strengthen rights at work making common cause with our allies to raise employment standards throughout Europe, to stop the undercutting of wages and conditions by unscrupulous employers, to strengthen the protection of every worker in Europe.

Just imagine what the Tories would do to workers’ rights here in Britain if we voted to leave the EU in June. They’d dump rights on equal pay, working time, annual leave, for agency workers, and on maternity pay as fast as they could get away with it. It would be a bonfire of rights that Labour governments secured within the EU.

Not only that, it wouldn’t be a Labour government negotiating a better settlement for working people with the EU. It would be a Tory government, quite possibly led by Boris Johnson and backed by Nigel Farage, that would negotiate the worst of all worlds: a free market free-for-all shorn of rights and protections.

It is sometimes easier to blame the EU, or worse to blame foreigners, than to face up to our own problems. At the head of which right now is a Conservative Government that is failing the people of Britain.

There is nothing remotely patriotic about selling off our country and our national assets to the highest bidder. Or in handing control of our economy to City hedge-funds and tax-dodging corporations based in offshore tax havens.

There is a strong socialist case for staying in the European Union. Just as there is also a powerful socialist case for reform and progressive change in Europe.

That is why we need a Labour government, to stand up – at the European level – for industries and communities in Britain, to back public ownership and public services, to protect and extend workers’ rights and to work with our allies to make both Britain and Europe work better for working people.

Many people are still weighing up how they will vote in this referendum. And I appeal to everyone, especially young people – who will live longest with the consequences – to make sure you are registered to vote. And vote to keep Britain in Europe this June. This is about your future.

By working together across our continent, we can develop our economies protect social and human rights, tackle climate change and clamp down on tax dodgers.

You cannot build a better world unless you engage with the world, build allies and deliver change. The EU, warts and all, has proved itself to be a crucial international framework to do that.

That is why I will be am backing Britain to remain in Europe and I hope you will too.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn in the House of Commons on 11 April 2016.

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement—it is absolutely a master class in the art of distraction. I am sure that he will join me in welcoming the outstanding journalism that went into exposing the scandal of destructive global tax avoidance that was revealed by ​the Panama papers. Those papers have driven home what many people have increasingly felt: that there is now one rule for the super-rich, and another for the rest. I am honestly not sure that the Prime Minister fully appreciates the anger that is out there over this injustice. How can it be right that street cleaners, teaching assistants and nurses work and pay their taxes, yet some at the top think that the rules simply do not apply to them?

What has been revealed in the past week goes far beyond what the Prime Minister has called his “private matters”, and today he needs to answer six questions to the House, and—perhaps equally importantly—to the public as a whole. First, why did he choose not to declare his offshore tax haven investment in the House of Commons Register of Members’ Financial Interests, given that there is a requirement to

“provide information of any pecuniary interest”

that might reasonably be thought to influence a Member’s actions? The Prime Minister said that he thinks he mishandled the events of the past week. Does he now realise how he mishandled his own non-declaration six years ago, when he decided not to register an offshore tax haven investment from which he has personally benefited?

Secondly, can he clarify to the House and to the public that when he sold his stake in Blairmore Holdings in 2010, he also disposed of another offshore investment at that time? In particular, were any of the £72,000 of shares that he sold held in offshore tax havens?

The “Ministerial Code” states that

“Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise,”

and that all Ministers

“must provide…a full list…of all interests which might be thought to give rise to a conflict,”

including close family interests. So did the Prime Minister provide the permanent secretary with an account of his offshore interests and if not, did he not realise that he had a clear obligation to do so, when part of his personal wealth was tied up in offshore tax havens and he was now making policy decisions that had a direct bearing on their operation? For example, in 2013 the Prime Minister wrote to the President of the European Council opposing central public registers of beneficial ownership of offshore trusts. So, thirdly, does the Prime Minister now accept that transparency of beneficial ownership must be extended to offshore trusts?

The Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca registered more than 100,000 secret firms in the British Virgin Islands. It is a scandal that UK overseas territories registered over half the shell companies set up by Mossack Fonseca. The truth is that the UK is at the heart of the global tax avoidance industry. It is a national scandal and it has got to end. Last year, this Government opposed the EU Tax Commissioner Pierre Moscovici’s blacklist of 30 un-co-operative tax havens. That blacklist included the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands. So my fourth question is: will the Prime Minister now stop blocking European Commission plans for a blacklist of tax havens? It turns out that Lord Blencathra, the former Conservative Home Office Minister, was ​absolutely right when he wrote to the Cayman Islands Government in 2014 to reassure them that our Prime Minister was making a “purely political gesture” about cracking down on tax havens at the G8. It was designed, he said, to be

“a false initiative which will divert other member states from pursuing their agenda.”

Last June, Treasury officials lobbied Brussels not to take action against Bermuda’s tax secrecy. According to the European Union’s transparency register, the tech giant Google has no fewer than 10 employees lobbying Brussels. Bermuda is the tax haven favoured by Google to channel billions in profits. Conservative MEPs have been instructed on six occasions since the beginning of last year to vote against action to clamp down on aggressive tax avoidance. This is a party incapable of taking serious, internationally co-ordinated action to tackle tax dodging. Across the country and on the Opposition side of the House, there is a thirst for decisive action against global tax avoidance scams that suck revenues out of our public services, while ordinary taxpayers have to foot the bill. It undermines public trust in business, politics and public life. It can and must be brought to an end.

We welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement today about new measures to make companies liable for employees who facilitate tax cheating, but it is also too little, too late. In fact, it was announced by the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury a year ago. People want a Government who act on behalf of those who pay their taxes, not those who dodge their taxes in offshore tax havens. Yesterday, my hon Friend the shadow Chancellor set out a clear plan for transparency. He is a Member of this House who has spent all his time in Parliament exposing tax havens and tax avoidance. His paper included a call for an immediate public inquiry into the Panama papers revelations to establish the harm done to our tax revenues and to bring forward serious proposals for reform.

I say gently to the Prime Minister that a tax taskforce reporting to the Chancellor and the Home Secretary, both members of a party funded by donors implicated in the Panama leaks, will be neither independent nor credible. So will the Prime Minister back a credible and independent public inquiry into the abuses revealed by the leaks?

Our task transparency plan called for a specialised tax enforcement unit to be properly resourced, which is key. Since 2010, there have been only 11 prosecutions over offshore tax evasion—a situation that the Public Accounts Committee described as “woefully inadequate”. Having slashed resources and cut 14,000 staff since 2010, will the Prime Minister today guarantee that resourcing to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will increase in this Parliament?

We support real action to end the abuses that allow the wealthy to dodge the rules that the rest of us have to follow. We need to ensure that trust and fairness are restored to our tax system and our politics and to end the sense and the reality that there is one rule for the richest and another for everybody else. The Prime Minister has attacked tax dodging as immoral, but he clearly failed to give a full account of his own involvement in offshore tax havens until this week and to take essential action to clean up the system, while at the same time ​blocking wider efforts to do so. There are clear steps that can be taken to bring tax havens and tax dodging under control—[Interruption.]

Mr Speaker

Order. There is a Minister standing at the Bar shrieking in an absurd manner. He must calm himself and either take a medicament if required or leave the Chamber.

Jeremy Corbyn

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I suggest that the Prime Minister’s record, particularly over the past week, shows that the public no longer have the trust in him to deal with these matters. Do he and Conservative Members realise why people are so angry? We have gone through six years—yes, six years—of crushing austerity, with families lining up at food banks to feed their children, disabled people losing their benefits, elderly care cut and slashed and living standards going down. Much of that could have been avoided if our country had not been ripped off by the super-rich refusing to pay their taxes.

Let me say this to the Prime Minister: ordinary people in the country will simply not stand for this any more: they want real justice; they want the wealthy to pay their share of tax just as they have to pay when they work hard all the time.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, at the British Chambers of Commerce Conference on 3 March 2016.

Decision Time: New Politics, New Economy, New Britain?

I’d like to thank John Longworth, your director general, for that introduction, and Dr Adam Marshall, who is chairing the conference.

It’s an honour to be asked to speak to you especially on the subject of a ‘New Politics, New Economy, New Britain’.

Because those are almost exactly the three main pillars of the platform I was elected to lead the Labour party on, I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

But those three pillars are the foundations of everything we do.

The first is about a new kind of politics: that aims to democratise our public life from the ground up, giving people a real say in their communities and workplaces breaking open the closed circle of Westminster and Whitehall.

The second pillar is for a new economics: one that puts investment, productivity and sustainable growth first, instead of a self-defeating austerity aimed at shrinking the state for an economy fit for the 21st century that works for everyone, where prosperity is shared.

Our third pillar is about a new relationship with the rest of the world: one based on trade, co-operation, human rights and conflict resolution, where war is a last resort.

Today I want to set out today how that agenda can work for you and the tens of thousands of businesses you represent across the country.

To shape that new economy we need to work together. It is only through effective co-operation between government and business, state and markets, public and private, education and enterprise. That we can build an economy for the future that delivers for all.

It’s that spirit of cooperation that drives the work of local chambers of commerce across the country.

St Helen’s chamber, for example, helps to train young entrepreneurs, equipping them with skills through the St Helen’s business school, and helping to make sure local business and enterprises have the information and workforce they need to grow and prosper.

Many accredited chambers of commerce across the UK are working to bridge the gap between work and education.

And I hope to be visiting more of your local chambers, including in Greater Manchester and the North East, in the months to come.

Our shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has started to lay out the framework of a new economics.

As John has said many times, an economy that allows people to flourish and prosper in the 21st century will be a very different kind of economy from that of the 1990s, let alone the economy of the 1940s or 1960s.

What’s clear is that this government is not creating the economy of the future we need. Six years ago George Osborne said austerity would wipe out the deficit and cut the debt.

That didn’t happen. Instead, recovery only got going once the chancellor took the brakes off and pumped up housing credit to get through the general election.

Osborne’s recovery is a house built on sand. But what Labour now stands for is far more than stopping the damage being done by this government.

We want to see a break with the failed economic orthodoxy that has gripped policy makers for a generation.

The idea that speculative finance would deliver for all that manufacturing could be run down and our strategic assets sold off that the 1980s catechism of deregulation, privatisation and low taxes on the well-off would produce balanced, high investment and productivity growth has been shown to be for the birds.

That model of how to run an economy is broken crashed and burned in 2008 and not just in Britain.

The results have been a lop-sided economy the rapid growth of insecure, low-paid jobs, sluggish private investment declining productivity and stagnating or falling incomes for the majority.

Labour’s alternative will put investment first. We will only borrow to invest over the business cycle.

We will put public investment in science, technology and the green industries of the future front and center stage.

Only by driving up investment will we achieve the higher productivity we need to guarantee rising living standards for all.

We want to see the reindustrialisation of Britain for the digital age driven by a national investment bank as a motor of economic modernization based on investment in infrastructure, transport, housing and technology. That provides a solid return.

I want to change the way our party makes policy.

When politicians and advisers sit round a table and devise policy, they rarely succeed in getting to grips with the real problems our country faces.

We need to involve more people in decision-making and consult far more widely outside politics.

I believe it’s essential to listen:

To the growing army of the self-employed, often struggling to make ends meet, and falling through the cracks in our social security system;

– to entrepreneurs seeking to innovate and create wealth;

– to business people shaping a more dynamic, responsive economy.

Only by engaging can we develop a comprehensive plan to forge a new economy and the kind of Britain we want to see.

That is why John McDonnell is touring the country with a range of speakers discussing what the economy should look like in 2020, and why he and our shadow business secretary Angela Eagle are drawing on the ideas of advisers such as the Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz to help shape our policies for the future.

We want to see a genuinely mixed economy of public and social enterprise along with long-term private business commitment that will provide the decent pay, jobs, housing, schools, health and social care of the future.

An economy based on a new settlement with the corporate sector that, yes, involves both rights and responsibilities.

Labour will always seek to distribute the rewards of growth more fairly. But, to deliver that growth demands real change in the way the economy is run.

Change that puts the interests of the public, the workforce and the wider economy ahead of short-term shareholder interest.

Only an economy that is run for wealth creators – the technicians, entrepreneurs, designers, shopfloor workers, and the self-employed – and puts in them in the driving seat… is going to deliver prosperity for all.

Wealth creation is a collective process between workers, public investment and services, and creative individuals and businesses.

It cannot be based on a race to the bottom in pay and job insecurity, or the subsidy of low wages with in-work benefits. That’s why we’re in favour of a real living wage and stronger trade unions.

That will not only benefit employees, but help prevent good employers being undercut. As the evidence shows, collective bargaining boosts productivity as well as protecting workers.

George Osborne and Sajid Javid think the solution to the problems businesses and workers face is to cut back government.

But it wasn’t government that was the problem in 2008, when the banking sector drove the economy to the point of collapse.

The political consensus at that time was to opt for ‘light touch regulation’ of finance – and sit back and collect the tax revenues.

But you cannot base a decent social policy on an unsustainable economic policy.

And we cannot outsource economic policy to the City of London. That has not served our economy well, and it has not served business well.

The way that banks in Britain have treated small and medium-sized enterprises in particular has been a textbook failure.

The banking sector has to be reformed. Finance must support the economy and not be an extractive industry that treats consumers, entrepreneurs and businesses as cash cows.

We need a new ecology of finance. That means encouraging credit unions and small business support.

We need a national investment bank at the heart of economic policy to target investment on key public and economic priorities, not just for quick returns.

And we need to reform the major banks so that they serve the wider economy, not just themselves. That includes; using the public stakes in banks such as RBS to drive lending and investment and rebuild supply chains.

For some politicians, the state is only a burden, to be reduced or removed.

But we see a crucial role for the strategic state to create the conditions for people and businesses to thrive and deliver prosperity that is stable and shared.

Look at some of the problems facing Britain today:

The NHS is in crisis – there are record deficits in NHS trusts, and they come from two key mistakes by government.

First, there is the legacy of PFI debt – an inefficient way of delivering necessary investment.

The last Labour government lacked the confidence to make the argument to borrow to invest, and so it did what banks thought they could get away with before the crash, an off-the-books accountancy wheeze.

In both cases, putting debt off the books did not work it came right back onto the books and helped trigger crisis.

Secondly, we have not trained enough nurses and doctors – and the problem is becoming more acute.

It means the NHS is spending £4 billion on agency staff to fill gaps.

It also means we are reliant on importing nurses and doctors from abroad.

The Government argues migration must be reduced, but then fails to fund training leaving us reliant on migrant labour to fill skills gaps.

But the education and skills training gap goes far wider.

Across the country, this is the one issue local business people most often raise with me.

Yet this government has cut college funding and slashed the adult education budget.

On the one hand; there are university graduates unable to find a graduate-level job. While large numbers of unemployed workers are unable to acquire the skills they need to work.

And on the other; businesses in all regions are struggling to recruit workers with the right skills.

As the BCC’s own Businesses and Education survey found 88 per cent of businesses think school leavers are unprepared for the workplace.

That’s why I have been campaigning for lifelong learning; for a national education service to support workers throughout their lives in re-training and re-skilling.

We will be consulting with the education sector and employers about how we can renew skills throughout our lives.

And I want you to participate in that process.

Apprenticeships have a crucial role to play and we must do more invest in vocational education and training.

But some apprenticeships are clearly too low quality and look rather more like attempts to avoid paying the minimum wage;

Secondly, the Government’s apprenticeship levy, hasn’t been properly thought through. The policy risks being simply, an additional tax on businesses, so that the Government can meet its arbitrary target.

Apprenticeships should be about quality training for employees, to acquire the skills they need to help businesses grow and become more productive.

Then there is the problem of infrastructure. Think about the creaking, underfunded infrastructure our country relies on.

In a recent survey the CBI found that two-thirds of businesses are concerned about the slow pace of infrastructure delivery.

The Centre for Economics and Business ranks the UK thirteenth on the value of its infrastructure, behind every other G7 country bar Canada.

Enterprise and innovation cannot flourish when our roads and railways, ports and airports are lagging behind our competitors.

But infrastructure means the digital economy as well.

Our digital and communications market, as Ofcom recognised last week, is simply not working.

Chile, Estonia and Iceland all have a higher percentage of premises connected to fibre-optic broadband.

Businesses simply cannot expand, particularly in rural areas, without improvements to our digital economy.

The evidence is clear that only the public sector and public investment can guarantee the super-fast broadband network in every part of Britain the essential low-cost connections people and businesses need in a 21st century economy.

As it is, government foot-dragging and ideological dithering is holding digital Britain back.

Finally, we lag alarmingly behind the rest of Europe on renewable energy.

The transition to a carbon-free economy is essential because of the climate crisis but it’s also a massive opportunity for investment and growth.

Yet Britain sits on the sidelines with some of the lowest production and use of renewables in the G7.

It requires a strategic government to lead.

If the state retreats and shirks its responsibility to provide the conditions for growth, rebalancing the economy will remain a pipedream.

The Chancellor has already slashed public investment in infrastructure by over £20bn in real terms since the last year of the Labour government.

And it is scheduled to fall by nearly £5bn more by 2018-19.

Borrowing to invest in infrastructure makes economic sense.

It helps businesses to grow and, as the OECD argues, will pay for itself.

And as the OECD recommends, Labour will commit to spending at least 3.5 per cent of our GDP in infrastructure investment while the Tories will spend less than half that.

We should be laying the foundations for a modern economy now.

That applies not only within states but between states too; climate change, the refugee crisis, raising standards for workers and consumers and dealing with the minority of companies that seek to avoid their taxes

These are all issues that can only be resolved by working with our partners in Europe, not ditching them.

This is why we are campaigning to remain in the EU because we believe, like 60 per cent of businesses the BCC surveyed, that the EU is the best framework for trade and cooperation in the 21st century.

But our failure to invest and our determination to sell off assets have left us with a current account balance that is forecast to be the worst of all the G7 countries this year.

Britain should not be selling off our nation’s assets to pay our way in the world. You can’t survive for long paying the rent by flogging the furniture.

Britain needs to be exporting high-tech, innovative products to the world not standing by and watching our exports stagnate or shrink.

We cannot be satisfied that our growth is currently driven by low-interest rates, record low oil prices, property and debt. Those factors cannot be sustained indefinitely.

All these economic problems are connected. Lack of access to finance constrains export growth. A failure to invest in our digital economy stifles productivity growth. A dearth of skills holds back innovation.

In the twenty-first century the role of Government is to understand these connections and make policy to fit.

You may not like everything we say or do. But when it comes to the big decisions on the economy, infrastructure, skills and investment, we are natural allies. Labour is committed to what is needed for business to expand and succeed.

We expect business to put more back into the economy but we will do more to give the economy a stronger future.

And if we’re going to shape a New Britain, it can only be done through cooperation; between public and private, state and market, government and entrepreneurs and workforce and employers.

It is that spirit and practice of cooperation, which drives the great work of local chambers of commerce throughout Britain.

Thank you.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, in Llandudno on Saturday 20 February 2016.

It is a pleasure to be back in Llandudno in a Labour Wales where our party has been making a difference for the past 17 years.

Let me run through just some of what you’ve achieved what Labour in Wales has achieved:

A health service free from unnecessary top-down reorganisations and privatisation where your hospitals are not struggling with record deficits due to the legacy of PFI

You in Wales funded investment on the books and this is delivering.

The Tories are desperate to run down the NHS in Wales. But the record tells a different story.

· The NHS in Wales is treating more people than ever before and 90% say they received good treatment

· Free prescriptions for all

· A new treatment fund being setup for life threatening illnesses

· On cancer waiting times, Wales is doing better than England and cancer survival rates in Wales are improving faster than anywhere in Britain

· You’ve protected the social care budget which has been slashed in England putting an increased burden on the NHS in England terrible for the people affected, and a false economy too.

· And in Wales, you didn’t pick a fight with hard-working dedicated junior doctors there are good industrial relations in Wales no strikes provoked and no operations cancelled unnecessarily

We strongly support the doctors who don’t want patient safety to be put at risk.

Last week I had the privilege of spending a couple of hours with a group of junior doctors.

Let’s be clear, they are not “junior” they are dedicated, highly qualified people on whom we all depend.

They are alarmed at the direction the NHS is taking.

As a parting gift they gave me this book “How to dismantle the NHS in 10 easy steps” which starts with an internal market and ends with an aim of introducing universal private health insurance.

Quite bluntly our NHS is ours to keep forever.

Labour cares and it invests in care.

As Nye Bevan said: “Illness is a misfortune, the cost of which should be shared by the community”.

The Welsh Labour and in particular the Welsh Minister Mark Drayford.

In Wales you have built an education system that has just delivered the best ever GCSE results where new schools are being built where primary school pupils get a free breakfast where the poorest college students still get the education maintenance allowance (EMA) that was so cruelly scrapped by the Tories.

And where Welsh students aren’t shackled by mountainous debt and where grants are being maintained.

It is shocking that English students leave university with an average £22,000 more in debt than Welsh students that is a shocking burden that shackles young people as they start in life. It is no surprise that home ownership has collapsed

Then there’s Jobs Growth Wales which has helped 15,000 young people into work and the Young Entrepreneurs Bursary that has helped young people to setup over 400 businesses in Wales and your plans to deliver 100,000 quality apprenticeships.

We have invested in young people – in their education and their skills – and by doing so we are investing in our future.

I visit colleges and universities all over Britain and I have to say I was really impressed with the Bay Campus at Swansea and the support given by the Welsh government to this development and it is already reaping the benefits of high tech jobs in the area.

The Tories are not investing in young people but cutting their opportunities weighing them down with debt limiting their life chances we all know this is not fair Labour in Wales proves there is an alternative.

There is so much that the UK Labour Party can learn from Labour in Wales and we will.

I want to pay tribute to First Minister Carwyn Jones thank you for all you have achieved for Welsh Labour and the people of Wales and thank you too to all our Labour Assembly Members.

You do a great job.

I also want to pay tribute to Nia Griffith our shadow secretary of state for Wales her input at shadow cabinet and in the House of Commons means the voice of Welsh Labour is heard and respected in Westminster.

In an age in which politics is treated with cynicism what an inspiring record of hope and achievement Labour in Wales has delivered.

And you’re delivering despite the fact the Tories have cut your budget by more than £1 billion.

But perhaps your greatest achievement won’t bear fruit until this summer your football team in international competition for the first time since 1958

And, speaking as an Arsenal fan, watching the magnificent Aaron Ramsey in your red shirt will mean I have split loyalties this year.

All eyes will be on Europe this summer not just for football, but for political reasons too.

The EU referendum is now likely to take place in June and Labour will be campaigning for Britain to stay in.

You in Wales know the benefits of our EU membership it has helped deliver jobs, growth and investment here in Wales as much as any part of the UK.

It is due to the role Labour has played in Europe that we have delivered rights at work rights to minimum paid leave rights for agency workers paid maternity and paternity leave equal pay and anti-discrimination laws and protection for the workforce when companies change ownership.

And it was Labour – our excellent MEPs in partnership with trade unions that made sure Cameron’s attempt to diminish workers’ rights was kept off his EU negotiations agenda.

We will be running the Labour In for Britain campaign because our case for being in Europe is about delivering a better Britain for workers and consumers.

“Despite the fanfare, the deal that David Cameron has made in Brussels on Britain’s relationship with the EU is a sideshow, and the changes he has negotiated are largely irrelevant to the problems most British people face and the decision we must now make.

His priorities in these negotiations have been to appease his opponents in the Conservative party.

He has done nothing to promote secure jobs, protect our steel industry, or stop the spread of low pay and the undercutting of wages in Britain.

Labour’s priorities for reform in the EU would be different, and David Cameron’s deal is a missed opportunity to make the real changes we need.

We will be campaigning to keep Britain in Europe in the coming referendum, regardless of David Cameron’s tinkering, because it brings investment, jobs and protection for British workers and consumers.

Labour believes the EU is a vital framework for European trade and cooperation in the 21st century, and that a vote to remain in Europe is in the best interests of our people.”

We want progressive change in Europe to make the EU work for working people.

That includes the strengthening of workers’ rights. Putting jobs and sustainable growth at the heart of EU economic policy. Democratisation and greater accountability of EU institutions and a halt to the pressure to privatise public services.

Cameron’s deal will do nothing to address those issues.

His “emergency brake” on migrants’ in-work benefits is largely irrelevant too. There is no evidence that it will act as a brake on inward migration.

And taking benefits off low paid migrants won’t put a penny in the pockets of workers in Britain or stop the undercutting of UK wages through the exploitation of migrant workers.

The issue the Tories do not address is the low wages and the way employers systematically undercut industry wide agreements.

We will be standing up to the xenophobia of UKIP attacking Europe or demonising immigrants doesn’t increase anyone’s pay, it doesn’t build a single home, it doesn’t treat a single patient, provide a single child with a free school breakfast.

Theirs is a vision of despair a mantra of hate and fear and Labour will never pander to it.

The NHS in Wales and the NHS in England both know the value of those thousands of migrant nurses and doctors dedicated to our NHS and anyone who has been treated by any of our magnificent NHS staff knows that commitment.

But while Labour in Wales is working together with people to improve lives the actions of the Tory government in Westminster act against that at every turn.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that tax and benefit changes in the last five years have left the average Welsh household £560 a year worse off. When the Tories get in power that is what they do. Tax cuts for the few, the super-rich and big business public service cuts and welfare cuts for the many.

We have gratuitous inequality in this country the average pay of the top chief executives compared with the average worker has risen from 47 times in 1998

to 183 times last year.

For too many people in the UK who aren’t the super-rich elite and there are quite a few of them, life is wracked by insecurity, at work and at home, and the Tories are making it worse.

Labour believes that we only succeed if we all succeed together.

The impact of this insecurity on people’s lives can be huge, it affects people’s physical and mental health.

I want to pay tribute to Luciana Berger, the shadow minister for mental health, who has campaigned relentlessly to ensure the rhetoric of ‘parity of esteem’ is matched by reality.

The Tories have no plan for the economy, no strategy for industry and no wish to make the economy work for everyone.

They stood by as the steel industry got into trouble as jobs were lost and communities suffered like in Port Talbot.

Across Europe, other countries took action the Tories stood by and let jobs go.

We have met with our European counterparts on this and I raised it with the Chinese President action is possible if you care.

The Tories have failed to invest in modernising the economy, we are way behind other countries on our digital infrastructure, our transport, our energy system and our housing.

Just this week, the OECD has downgraded its UK growth forecasts and told George Osborne it’s time to stop the austerity and invest in our country’s future.

This confirms what our shadow chancellor John McDonnell and I have been saying since September, the Tories’ austerity is political choice not an economic necessity their cuts are both brutal and unnecessary

In 2010 they said that their ‘long-term economic’ plan would sort all this out that the deficit would be eradicated by now.

Their long-term plan has turned far longer than they imagined but subject to short-term revision when it fails again and again. It is a blueprint in deepest Tory blue to shrink the state, to shrink people’s security, stability and opportunity.

Low pay and job insecurity are holding people back meaning too many families are struggling to make ends meet every month to pay the rent or the mortgage.

A good job and a good home should be a source of security. For too many people their job and their home are a source not of security but of anxiety.

Six million workers now paid less than the living wage in low pay Tory Britain.

And what is the Tory response to this crisis? To weaken trade unions, the most effective way in which people stand up for better pay.

And instead of backing the real living wage they’re bringing in a phoney living wage, lower of course and young workers are locked out from even this modest increase.

There is a housing crisis. Under David Cameron, home ownership is down, rents are up, evictions are up, and homelessness is up.

And what is the Tory response? The lowest rate of housebuilding since the 1920s. And to force councils to sell off council housing at a time when it has never been more vital. I know Labour in Wales is consulting in whether to scrap the right to buy because we need more not fewer council homes.

When Labour’s Teresa Pearce put an amendment to the Housing Bill to ensure that homes for rent must be fit for human habitation the Tories voted against it

And they don’t believe that the private rented sector needs to be regulated.

Whether it’s the crisis of low pay or the housing crisis it is Labour offering solutions. Labour councils making a real difference in communities and a Labour government making a difference in Wales.

It was a great Labour politician that described what Labour does.

We build security, we build the institutions of fairness and we build them “In Place of Fear”.

We are the party of social justice and of environmental justice.

When it comes to rip-off energy bills it is Labour councils that are setting up energy companies – like Robin Hood Energy in Nottingham – to get a better deal for residents and to tackle climate change.

We can reduce bills for people and we can tackle climate change. There is no contradiction.

That is why 70 Labour councils have committed to eliminate all carbon emissions by 2050 – including major cities like Edinburgh, Manchester, Newcastle, and Liverpool and here in Wales in Swansea, Torfaen and Caerphilly.

And Labour in Wales has set out a clear energy policy, Energy Wales: A Low Carbon Transition and is supporting decentralised energy production through the Local Energy Service.

What have the Tories done?

They continue to fail to invest in renewable energy cut subsidies for the nascent solar industry, but increased them for fracking and for diesel generators.

On low pay on housing on energy and the environment the Tories just stand by, Labour is standing up.

The message for the elections this May is clear. Labour is the best protection for your community against the onslaught of Tory cuts.

We must expose all the Tory failures: class sizes up hospital waiting lists up homelessness up evictions up queues at food banks up child poverty up while services like social care, on which communities rely, are cut.

They have failed to rebuild and rebalance the economy they are hoping that rising household debt will keep the economy afloat. We know how that turned out last time.

Having Labour on your side is the best protection for your community whether that’s a Labour mayor or a Labour council or a Labour government, like here in Wales.

Communities are paying the price for this government cutting corners in public services funding as the winter floods show.

If the Tories had continued our investment in flood defences had kept on the senior staff employed to make decisions in these emergencies and had protected the emergency services who responded to save lives and homes during those difficult days and weeks we would not have seen the level of destruction and flood damage that caused such anguish to so many people as their homes were damaged and their belongings ruined.

Transport infrastructure is absolutely crucial to industrial development and growth. I praise the Welsh government in its support in re-opening and improving valley railway lines, the plans for the improved metro links in the south west of Wales and the crucial need to improve the North Wales line and road links.

The most beautiful railway line I have ever travelled on is the mid wales and coastal route. Growing up in Shropshire, my heart sang when I reached Machylnneth.

And I’m coming back to Wales many times, but I will be back soon to deliver the Kier Hardy memorial address in Aberdare.

Labour offers a much-needed alternative to this false economy.

We have already challenged them and won on many important issues:

1. We forced them to take a U-turn on cuts to working tax credits meaning 3 million families will no longer be hit this April with a £1,000 cut to their family income

2. We made them backtrack on plans to further cut police numbers in their Autumn statement

3. And we stood against the horrendous proposal that the UK would run Saudi Arabia’s prison system for them

Labour is standing up, not standing by.

We let people down last May all the horrors that the Tories are inflicting now are because Labour didn’t win.

Since then the membership of our party has doubled.

I was elected Leader because people want a new kind of politics; honest, straight-talking, forward-thinking.

Our party is one of social justice every child deserves a good education every student the option to study at college or university everyone deserves a decent and secure home to live in nobody should ever be left destitute the grotesque levels of inequality are unjustifiable and must go.

We are living through an era of the most grotesque deepening inequality in Britain and the West.

In the USA this debate is now at last dominating much of the politics of the primary campaign as we are ensuring it dominates politics in this country.

The cynics say that inevitably the next generation will be worse of that this, I say this is not inevitable and not necessary as socialist our duty is to expand the wealth but crucially to share it so the next generation is better off than this one, and our grandchildren will be better off than our children.

It is the collective that delivers for us all.

We are united in our determination to take on the Tories and to fight for the better country that Labour can deliver as you have delivered in Wales.

You have a great record here in Wales and a great plan to deliver a better future.

Together, we will deliver it and continue delivering for the people of Wales.

Dioch.

Thank you.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn in the House of Commons on 1 June 2015.

I congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on your re-election as Speaker of the House. I also put on record my deep thanks to the people of Islington North for electing me to Parliament for the eighth time and for their support. I pledge to represent them on all issues, and I hope that in this Parliament we begin to see some justice for them, particularly on issues relating to housing and to the poverty levels that are sadly so rife and serious in much of inner-city Britain.

This debate is on the sections of the Queen’s Speech covering international affairs, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), particularly for the latter part of his speech in which he pointed out the issues facing the globe. The wars of the future will largely be about resources, water, food and food security. We have to face up to global inequality and the widening chasm between the wealth of the minority in the wealthiest countries and the poverty of the majority in the poorest countries of the world. If we are complaining about refugee flows at the present time—awful as the conditions from which those people are escaping are, and tragic as the deaths in the Mediterranean, the Andaman sea and elsewhere are—the situation will get worse as global inequality becomes greater, particularly on issues of food and environmental security. We have to be far more serious about how we approach inequality.

The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and I have a slightly different view of the way in which the world should be run, as I think he would be the first to acknowledge. Is he, and anyone else who proposes this measure, really serious in saying that the most important thing facing Britain is not only to get up to spending 2% of gross national income on defence but, in some cases, to consider going above that level and to insist that every other NATO country does the same? We would then have a built-in accelerator of arms expenditure in a world that is already a very dangerous place. Can we not think of a way of solving the world’s problems other than more weapons and more wars, and more disasters that follow from them? Can we not pursue a serious agenda for peace?

I heard on the radio this morning that the US Defence Secretary is very concerned about Britain’s position in the world and that we might be becoming a laggard—he wants us to boost our expenditure. Presumably, the US is giving the same message everywhere else, so that it can carry on influencing NATO policies, including in Europe, while building up its military might all over the Asia-Pacific region, which in turn encourages China to do exactly the same, just as NATO expansion eastwards has been paralleled by increasing Russian expenditure. Surely we need a world dedicated to disarmament and rolling down the security threat rather than increasing it. I see a huge danger developing in the current military thinking.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) made a point about Labour’s strategic defence review, which largely included a foreign policy review. I agree that we do not just need a strategic defence review; we need a serious foreign policy review to apprise ourselves as to what our position and status in the world actually is. We once had an empire, but we no longer have one—that might be news to some Government Members, but I can let them know it in the confidence of this Chamber. Our influence in the world ought to be for good, peace, human rights, environmental protection and narrowing global inequality. We might delude ourselves that the rest of the world love us—they do not. They think we have a predilection towards arms, intervention and wars, as we did in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

Let us think about what influence in the world is about. Last week or the week before, I was in New York for the last two days of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference. It was a desperately sad occasion, as Britain and the other permanent members of the Security Council lined up together to protect their expenditure on and the holding of nuclear weapons. They did not do anything positive to bring about a good resolution of that conference, and no good resolution has come out of it. A conference on a weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the middle east, first called for more than a decade ago, still has not happened. Because it has not happened, encouragement is given to proliferation by other wealthy countries in the region that could afford to buy nuclear technology and develop it. Why is the UK not helpful on this issue? Why do we not accept that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) pointed out, the non-proliferation treaty is the most supported treaty anywhere in the world?

That treaty has reduced the spread of nuclear weapons. It has not completely eliminated it, as India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel have nuclear weapons outside that treaty, but the countries that gave up nuclear weapons have some clout in the world. The respect with which South Africa was listened to at the conference because it is the most industrialised country to have specifically given up nuclear weapons was interesting. Abdul Minty, its representative at the conference, was treated with enormous respect. He pointed out that the conferences on the humanitarian effects of war held in Vienna, Mexico and Norway had all shown exactly how dangerous nuclear weapons are. So why are we proposing to spend £100 billion replacing the Trident nuclear missile system when we could be doing something far more useful in the world?

I do not have much time, so I shall briefly cover the other points I want to mention. I have talked about intervention and wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and I ask the Foreign Secretary or, as he is not in his place, the Foreign Office to reply. When are we going to see the Chilcot report published? When are we going to know the truth of the Iraq war? This is the third Parliament since there was, tragically, a vote to go to war in Iraq, and we need to learn the lessons. We need to learn the lessons of the abuses of human rights in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya and of the tragedy of the victims of war—all the wars—who have fled, tried to find a place of safety and been greeted with brutal intolerance in many of the places in which they have arrived. There is a refugee crisis around the world that has to be addressed very quickly.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton talked about the situation in Palestine. Some of those people dying in the Mediterranean are Palestinians; they are the ones who have managed to get out of Gaza or the west bank. There must be serious concern that, after all the horrors that have happened in Gaza—I have been there a number of times—there is still no real rebuilding going on. What message does that send to the poor and unemployed young people of Gaza? They sit amidst the rubble of their existence, watching the rest of the world on their television screens or computers. Surely, real pressure must be put on both Israel and Egypt to lift the blockade of Gaza so at least the rebuilding can take place and there can be some sort of process there for the future.

I want to draw the Foreign Secretary’s attention to two specific cases. I was on an all-party delegation to the USA—it was a very strange delegation because it included the right hon. Members for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and me—to plead the case of Shaker Aamer. It was with some interest that we were received by Senator John McCain who realised that there truly was a breadth of agreement on Shaker Aamer if the four of us could enter his office, as we did the offices of Senator Feinstein and a number of other senators, and make the point that this House of Commons voted with no opposition that we should press for the return of Shaker Aamer to this country.

Shaker Aamer has been in Guantanamo Bay since 2001. He was sold to bounty hunters in 2001, brutally treated in Bagram airbase, and taken by a rendition process to Guantanamo Bay. He has been there on hunger strike and been making other forms of protest ever since. He has never been charged, never been prosecuted and never been through any legal process. He has twice been cleared for release by President Bush and later by President Obama. He has never seen his 13-year-old son whom I had the pleasure to meet when he came to Parliament. I also met him last Friday evening at a meeting in Battersea, at which we called for his father’s return and release. The meeting was also attended by the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison). Will the Foreign Office undertake to follow up our visit with real vigour and press the Obama Administration to name the date when Shaker Aamer will be able to come home and join his family in this country? That is the least it can do at the present time.

The other case involves my constituent, Andargachew Tsige, who was an opposition figure from Ethiopia. He was kidnapped at Sana’a airport in Yemen and taken to Addis Ababa and has been in prison ever since. He was tried in absentia, sentenced to death and is on death row in an Ethiopian prison. He could not have been extradited there because of the death penalty. No extradition process was ever sought or followed. He is an entirely peaceful person who wants to see peace, democracy and development in Ethiopia. I know that he has been visited by the British ambassador on a couple of occasions. I hope that the Foreign Office will be able to inform me that it is making real progress on his release.

We live in a time when there are serious human rights abuses all around the world. I have been an officer of the all-party human rights group ever since I was first elected to this House. The abuse of human rights is legion all around the world; we know that because we all take up many, many such cases. If we as a country leave the European convention on human rights, which is the human rights system in Europe, what message will that send to the rest of the world—that we do not care about human rights and that we do not think they are important? How could we proselytise against human rights abuses or call on countries to improve their human rights process if we are walking away from the international process ourselves? We need a world of peace, not of war. We need a world of human rights and justice, not of injustice and imprisonment. We achieve those things not by greater militarisation but by trying to promote peace, human rights and justice all over the world.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, to the Fabian New Year Conference on 16 January 2016.

The absence of fairness and the wish for more of it is what drives us into political activity. We want a fair treatment for all, a fairer society and a fairer world.

Fairness is easily to claim but hard to deliver. David Cameron makes the argument that cuts are fair because it is not fair to burden future generations with debt.

Superficially, a very compelling argument but how is cutting investment in, and opportunities for, tomorrow’s generation fair? It’s not. It’s deeply unfair.

And today’s young people are already paying the price:

The maintenance grant is being abolished – John McDonnell recently joined a demo against that – and nurses’ bursaries are being cut – Heidi Alexander joined the demo about that last week – housing is becoming less affordable whether as a renter or a buyer.

David Cameron is burdening today’s young adults with more debt than ever. Shackling them with a lifelong fetter on their ability to live independently, to rent or buy their own home, to start a family.

They don’t believe it’s fair but many people believe the economic crash means cuts have to be made. Not fair, but necessary.

That is our failure. Our failure to offer a convincing alternative to people who already agreed with us that it isn’t fair. How was it that we couldn’t make a convincing case that fairness was necessary?

Investing in our future, investment in new infrastructure, industries and jobs is guaranteeing fairness. Investing in housing, new railways, new digital infrastructure creates jobs, creates a social and economic return. Cutting investment, as this government has done, cuts opportunity and cuts fairness.

Fairness isn’t just an abstract morality that we claim; it is something we together – as Labour – have delivered over decades in Britain.

Labour governments only became possible when everyone had the vote; men and women, working class as well as the propertied classes. It was the labour movement, the trade unions, the Suffragettes and our Party that campaigned for that to happen.

Universal suffrage is inherently fair and we used its electoral force to create a fairer Britain.

Like Tony Benn said “Democracy transferred power from the wallet to the ballot. What people couldn’t afford for themselves, they could vote for instead”.

We are the party that created the institutions that built a fairer and more equal Britain: we founded the NHS established the safety net of social security we implemented comprehensive education we built council housing we created the Open University we instituted the Human Rights Act and the Equalities Act and the minimum wage.

And we are the party founded by trade unions – the organisations that deliver fairness in the workplace.

Anyone can wrap their policies in the language of ‘fairness’, it is only Labour that has delivered fairness through institutions and laws.

Today the Britain built by Labour fairness is under attack and we have to find new ways to institutionalise fairness in British society again.

Now, the very basis on which those victories were secured – the vote – is under attack.

Having narrowly won the general election, the Tories are now trying to rig the system to keep themselves in power, and weaken opposition both inside and outside parliament.

Late last year they drove through a new voter registration scheme that will slash the number of young and inner-city voters. And later this Parliament they will cut the number of parliamentary seats. The Conservatives are gerrymandering the electoral system to benefit themselves.

By directly attacking Labour’s funding through their trade union bill and by cutting public Short money support for opposition parties’ research, they are deliberately setting out to constrain democratic accountability.

Add to that their “gagging law”, which prevents charities, unions and thinktanks from taking part in political debate near election time.

Their threats to use the BBC’s charter renewal to hack away at its independence;

Their packing of the House of Lords with Tory peers; their moves to restrict the powers of local councils, it all adds up to a serious attack on democratic rights and freedoms.

Theirs is the party funded by hedge funds backed by a press owned by multi-millionaire or even billionaire tax avoiders

Their concept of fairness is of a very different order to ours. Fairness for only a few is not fairness, but privilege.

Hidden among the fake concern for ‘balancing the books’, is the same hoary old Tory ideology – to shrink the state, to shrink fairness.

Look at the floods – flood defence schemes up and down the country cut back because of a political ideology that says the state must be shrunk.

I saw the consequences of that. I met the families who had lost their personal possessions: their photos, children’s toys, family pets – in homes that now have the foul stench of sewage-polluted floodwater.

I met too with the councils who told us about flood defence schemes cancelled or left unfunded. I met with Environment Agency staff who complained about the cuts to their staffing. I met with Fire & Rescue Service personnel whose numbers have been cut and who still don’t have the statutory responsibility for floods that would mean they had the equipment and kit to better respond.

Just because the Tories are running the state into the ground, don’t think it’s our public services that are the problem.

This is the same Tory strategy – they did it with the railways – underfund it, make cuts, run the service down, then offer up privatisation as the solution.

Cynical dishonest and unfair.

It’s not just public services though they see only a limited role for the state because they want fairness limited too.

Their laissez-faire attitude to the steel industry could let a downturn become a death spiral in that sector. While other governments across Europe acted to protect their industry, the Tories let ours close, let jobs go, let communities suffer.

That is not the Labour way I’ve raised the issue with the Prime Minister, discussed it with the Chinese President and Chinese ministers and diplomats Labour brought together industry, unions, MPs and communities to try to find a solution.

I visited people in Scunthorpe they are proud of being a steel town, want to work and know how vital that industry is to their town’s prosperity.

Look across Europe and the support was there – in some cases they took their plants into public ownership to protect vital industry they offered schemes to help with energy costs and they have an industrial strategy and procurement strategies. They don’t let whole regions sink into decline.

Across Europe too – other countries’ investment in renewable energy leaves Britain languishing as one of the dirtiest, most polluting countries on this continent. This government is failing to invest in our future energy sources – its reckless negligence has seen the UK solar industry diminished.

But what is even more unfair is the inheritance it leaves our children – a polluted environment and a country without long-term energy security. That too is not the Labour way.

We are determined to build alliances across Europe for progressive reform to ensure the EU always works in people’s interests.

Labour backs Britain’s continued EU membership as the best framework for trade and co-operation in the 21st-century along with the protection of human rights through the European Convention.

But we need to make EU decision-making more accountable to its people put jobs and growth at the heart of European policy strengthen workers’ rights in a real social Europe, and end the pressure to privatise services.

Most of all, we want a Europe of solidarity that works together to address climate change that doesn’t pull the drawbridge up on free movement that acts together to tackle the refugee crisis, and the causes of refugees – and deals with disgraceful situation in Calais.

That’s the Europe that is possible and that Labour must work to deliver. I met last month with our sister parties to start to build those working relationships.

A fairer society – whether in Europe or in Britain – can only be built by working together and by enshrining fairness through institutions and laws.

This is about transforming our principles into practical policies – what Labour has always done when it has been successful.

It is guided by this practical fairness that Labour must move forward together.

I want to set out some of the ideas under discussion – policies to institutionalise fairness in Britain again:

We are committed to a publicly owned railway, to bring down fares and to get investment in a modern railway – which would be governed not remotely from Whitehall, but by passengers, rail workers and politicians, local and national.

To democratic control of energy, not as an end in itself, but to bring down costs and to transition to carbon-free energy. Do you know half of German energy suppliers are owned by local authorities, communities and small businesses? There are now over 180 German towns and cities taking over their local electricity grids, selling themselves cleaner, and cheaper, electricity they increasingly produce for themselves That is something we as Labour should want to emulate – and the most innovative Labour councils are starting to do so.

To integrate health and social care recognising that if you cut social care – as this government has done – then that has a negative impact on the NHS with fewer beds available and longer waits at A&E. If we fund prevention fairly through an integrated strategy, we can save money in the long run without undermining fairness.

Creating a lifelong education service, so that opportunity is available to all throughout our lives recognising that in the modern era we need to be able to re-train and re-skill our workforce as technology evolves, and industries change. Again this is in sharp contrast to this government’s unfair slashing of college funding and the adult education budget.

Universal childcare – so that we build on the great Labour legacy of Sure Start and the 15 hours free childcare that has supported so many young parents into work and provided high quality childcare so that all children have the best start in life.

In workplaces too we must ensure that fairness is hardwired the scandal of SportsDirect has shocked people. So as well as repealing the Tory Trade Union Act when it becomes law, we need a set of rights for all workers from day one to stop exploitation. It was Beatrice Webb who coined the term ‘collective bargaining’ – recognising that together we bargain, alone we beg.

But we need to go beyond that and ensure that everyone benefits when companies succeed. One proposal is pay ratios between top and bottom so that the rewards don’t just accrue to those at the top of the G7 nations only the US has greater income inequality than the UK pay inequality on this scale is neither necessary nor inevitable.

Another proposal would be to bar or restrict companies from distributing dividends until they pay all their workers the living wage. Only profitable employers will be paying dividends, if they depend on cheap labour for those profits then I think there is a question over whether that is a business model to which we should be turning a blind eye.

Too much of the proceeds of growth have accumulated to those at the top. Not only is this unfair, it actually holds back growth – as OECD research has found. A more equal society is not only fairer, it does better in terms of economic stability and wealth creation.

And a large-scale housebuilding programme – recognising the housing crisis that has been so recklessly exacerbated by this government we need homes that are for families not for investment portfolios. Our country cannot succeed unless everyone can live together in our towns and cities – the cleaner and the city trader the carer and the chief executive a new generation of council housing delivered by councils able to borrow prudentially.

These are all only suggestions. You – Labour Party members, affiliates and supporters – in this Hall and beyond. You will decide what our policies are policy made by small cliques in small rooms often only brings small returns.

The passion to change things, to make things better, is what drives us all. Labour needs to hear from all those fired by that passion.

Ed Miliband expanded the vote to elect the Leader – empowering members and supporters. I want to do the same with our policy-making. We all have ideas; we all have a vision for a fairer Britain and a fairer world.

Labour will be stronger and more in touch with our communities when it hears from its greatest strength our members, supporters and affiliates.

Our party is changing our membership has doubled since that defeat in May our party is in a process of regenerating – a difficult process of adjustment for us all at times – but a huge opportunity to breathe life into all sections of the party and draw on the collective wisdom of all.

Only Labour can offer a vision of a fairer Britain. Let’s work together to create and deliver that fairer Britain.

Thank you.