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Tag: John Denham

  • John Denham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    John Denham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Denham on 2015-01-13.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many students started a level 5 apprenticeship in (a) 2013-14, (b) 2012-13 and (c) 2011-12 in each parliamentary constituency.

    Nick Boles

    Information on the number of Higher Apprenticeship starts in England by Level and Parliamentary Constituency is attached.

    Although level 4 and 5 apprenticeships were available in all three years, level 6 and 7 apprenticeships were only enabled by legislation from April 2013. Official apprenticeship data provides complete information for government-funded apprenticeships and this shows that there were no starts on the four available level 6 apprenticeships during the 2013/14 academic year.

  • John Denham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    John Denham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Denham on 2014-06-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of the number of former BAE staff at the Portsmouth shipyard who have been recruited by overseas ship-builders.

    Michael Fallon

    The local taskforce is working to secure positive outcomes for all staff leaving BAE in Portsmouth. It is too early to draw conclusions.

    We recognise the importance of manufacturing and engineering skills to the economy: these will be vital to building the Solent area’s strengths in marine and maritime. BIS is working closely with industry, Job Centre Plus, and Portsmouth Council to support those employees impacted by BAE’s decision to close its shipyard in Portsmouth.

    The Southampton & Portsmouth City Deal announced a £1 million DWP Rapid Response Service that will support those recently made redundant. Government and local industry will invest £3m in a Marine and Maritime Employer Ownership for skills Programme, responding to the immediate skills needs in small and medium sized enterprises in the advanced manufacturing sector.

    Additionally the existing UK wide Talent Retention Solution is available to help match skilled workers to engineering jobs in the UK and is currently advertising 693vacancies in the south of England on its website[1].

    [1] Active TRS vacancies listed on 18 June 2014.

  • John Denham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    John Denham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Denham on 2014-06-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what discussions he has had with BAE Systems about delaying the closure of the Portsmouth shipyard until the results of the Scottish referendum are known.

    Dr Andrew Murrison

    No discussions have been held with BAE Systems about delaying the closure of Portsmouth shipyard pending the results of the Scottish referendum.

    The Government is clear that Scotland benefits from being part of the UK and the UK benefits from having Scotland within it. The Government is not making plans for independence as we are confident that the people of Scotland will vote to remain within the United Kingdom in the referendum.

  • John Denham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    John Denham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Denham on 2014-06-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers have had action taken against them under Teachers’ Standards for (a) undermining fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and (b) failing to ensure that personal beliefs are not expressed in ways which exploit pupils’ vulnerability or might lead them to break the law in the last two years.

    Mr David Laws

    The National College for Teaching and Leadership has prohibited two teachers following professional conduct hearings where the allegations relate to behaviours outlined in the question.

  • John Denham – 1992 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made in the House of Commons by John Denham on 20 May 1992.

    While offering you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my congratulations on your new post, may I also thank you for the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this historic debate? Looking around the Chamber, I suspect that I will set a record as the new Labour Member to have sat the longest time in one sitting before making a maiden speech. I only hope that, by the end of it, no one will feel that few have sat for so long to say so little.

    We have heard some good maiden speeches tonight. I was especially interested in the speech of the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Milligan), who represents the constituency next door to mine. Last week, he wrote to the Boundary Commission suggesting that the ward of Woolston in Southampton be transferred from the Eastleigh constituency to my constituency. It is an extremely strongly Labour-voting ward. Whilst the transfer would therefore have the deplorable effect of ensuring that the hon. Member for Eastleigh remains the Member for that constituency for as long as his party selects him to do so, it would also have the admirable effect of achieving the same result for me in my constituency. That seems to provide a basis for a long-lasting partnership between the two of us.

    I am interested in election results. My majority might be described as wafer-thin. I replace the only person to break Labour’s line of electoral successes in the constituency since the second world war. Chris Chope was above all a conviction Thatcherite politician. When he told the press that he cried when Margaret Thatcher lost the leadership of the Conservative party, he restated his political position in a memorable way. He also confounded some of us by finally revealing the issue on which he could show such deep human emotion.

    It is debatable whether Chris Chope’s resolve to drive a six-lane motorway deep through a beautiful Hampshire down finally cost him his seat, but the determination with which he set about the task was certainly typical of him. I do not want to seem ungenerous. In the constituency, Chris Chope will be thanked by many hundreds of families for his work on the Housing Defects Act 1984. There are many pre-cast reinforced concrete homes in the constituency. Secondly, although a member of the Tory Right, he never attempted to play what is euphemistically known as the race card in my constituency. By refusing to use poison for political advantage he contributed to the fact that, although racism is definitely serious and present in the constituency, it is by no means as bad as it is in many other multiracial parts of the country.

    Thirdly, from the moment that Chris Chope entered the House to the moment he left it he was a politician who stood up consistently and forthrightly for the values in which he believed. As far as I know, he never tried to shift with the tides of changing public opinion. That is probably what he would most like me to say about his time in the House.

    While waiting to make my maiden speech, I could hardly say that I felt at home, but at times I felt a sense of deja vu. As far as I can remember, my first involvement in a national political campaign was during the referendum on Europe. I voted no, but as time went by, as transnational companies came to dominate our economy more than ever before, as the financial system was deregulated more than we had ever thought possible in the 1970s, and as our economy became more integrated with that of Europe, as Europe became real and inevitable, there were times when I wondered what had happened to the ghost of the “no” campaign of the 1970s. Had it, like a traditional ghost, been doomed to wander the corridors and rooms of a venerable palace? Sitting here tonight, while my eyes closed occasionally and while I listened to the voices around me, I could hear the ghosts of that campaign. I believe that such ghosts are better exorcised than reincarnated.

    I represent a large part of the great city of Southampton. There are few cities in this country which have been so shaped by the world at large and which have done so much to shape the world at large. My city’s history is international, cosmopolitan, ambitious and courageous. The banks of the Rivers Itchen and Test, which flow through and past my constituency, have over the centuries been invaded, raided and bombed. Troops have left the port of Southampton to go to many conflicts—English archers to Agincourt and allied troops to the Normandy beaches among them.

    In its time, the Saxon port of Hamwic was a rival to Viking York in the wealth and extent of its trade links, even then reaching deep into the heart of modern Russia. The Pilgrim Fathers left from Southampton—not Plymouth, as Plymouth’s tourist board sometimes claims—on their historic voyage to America.

    In the 19th and 20th centuries, the development of the modern port once again put Southampton at the heart of an international network of trade and of people. From the Huguenot weavers onwards, people have come to my city from all parts of the world and all parts of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland to make Southampton the place that it is today. Because of that history, the international world and the European world hold few fears for Southampton today. It is a great European city and will grow as a great European city. A city council report, which was debated today while I was here, stated: Southampton must stand for quality, equality and opportunity as a leading cosmopolitan city in Europe. If any right hon. or hon. Members are at a loose end in the recess next week. I invite them to Southampton and to the international trade fair which opens next week. Visitors will be struck by the commitment, vision, participation and strong partnerships for success in Europe which exist in the city.

    After all, what is the significance of hundreds of schoolchildren and older students participating in educational exchanges, or of pensioners attending the recent European pensioners’ parliament in Strasbourg? What is the significance of a chamber of commerce forging strong links with other chambers of commerce in Rouen, Le Havre, Barcelona and elsewhere, or of trade unions regularly meeting their colleagues in Germany, France and Spain?

    What is the significance of traffic engineers collaborating with colleagues in Greece and Germany on the problems of urban congestion, or of the university, the institute of higher education and the technical college with literally hundreds of academic and training links? What is the significance of a city council whose ties with Le Havre and Rems-Muir-Kreiss are not tea parties but the real basis of economic collaboration and of co-operation in training, research and culture?

    I suggest that the significance is that Europe, in a city such as Southampton, is not an abstract entity to be dissected in an academic way as some hon. Members have done today. Instead, it is a living reality. All the links that I have mentioned, and many others, are part of a real commitment on the part of the city to make Europe work.

    My city has a breadth of vision of Europe. It is a vision that includes the understanding that Europe, above all, must be for people. Those of us who live in a great European city, one that is already organically tied to Europe in every part of its daily economic life, know that economic success is only half the challenge.

    I have constituents who ask questions about Europe. Pensioners ask whether there will be a European future for them or whether they will always be the most shabbily treated pensioners in Europe. Parents ask whether their children have a European children’s future or whether they will always have less chance of child care and nursery education than children in most other European countries. Young people ask whether they will have a European future here or on the continent without the quality of education and training that other young Europeans enjoy.

    Those who ask those questions do not do so because they do not want to be part of Europe. They want to be full partners in Europe in every way, in a Europe for people and not in a Europe with 11 players and the United Kingdom on the substitutes’ bench. In Southampton there is participation, commitment, vision and partnership.

    Yesterday, the director of the chamber of commerce wrote to me as follows: A significant ingredient in our future economic development is the close partnership existing between the Chamber and the City Council. It is a Labour city council that is at the heart of Southampton’s European drive. It is not doing everything and controlling everything, but it is shaping, guiding, focusing, supporting, providing an infrastructure, opening up the waterfront, investing in science parks and providing services which are at the core of a successful united effort in Europe. As I have said, it is a Labour city council.

    I must contrast the mood and achievement in Southampton with much of what I have heard in the House and with the Government’s record. The Government’s commitment is shallow. The bottom line is that nothing shall be done to promote Britain’s interests in Europe which can possibly conflict with the interests of the Conservative party in Britain.

    There is narrow participation in a Europe for business perhaps, but not for a Europe for people. There is myopic vision in which the options seem to be, “Take it if you like it; leave it if you don’t.” There is no understanding of grasping Europe and using it as the opportunity that it really is. There has been a rejection of partnership. The Government have turned their back on the proper role of elected government at local, national, regional and European levels in shaping a Europe for all their people.

    There is not time to dwell on the details of the many Divisions which lie ahead, tomorrow and in the coming weeks, and it might not be proper to do so in a maiden speech. I know, however, that the message which goes from the House must be that what Southampton is doing is right. Any message going from the House which questions what a city like Southampton is doing to be a great European city will be a great and bitter disappointment to the thousands of my constituents who are building a new Europe and a great European city.

  • John Denham – 2011 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Denham to the Labour Party Conference on 26th September 2011.

    Conference.

    Last week, in Birmingham, Vince Cable gave the Lib Dems what’s been described as the most depressing speech by a Cabinet minister in modern political history.

    I haven’t come to Liverpool to spread doom and gloom.

    You’re not Lib Dems. You haven’t come here to wallow in it.

    There’s no easy way forward.

    The deficit must be dealt with.

    World markets are in turmoil.

    The world we face is so fiercely competitive it will be harder than ever before to pay our way and build a better future for young people.

    But we know there is a way forward for Britain and its families.

    But first I have got a message for Vince Cable and the rest of the Tory-led Government.

    If you’re depressed, stop making things worse.

    Stop saying you will tax the banks and get them lending.

    When you know you’re cutting their taxes and they’re cutting their lending.

    You tripled university fees, scrapped the RDAs, slashed support for business. And you haven’t even paid out a penny from the Regional Growth Fund, 14 months since you launched it.

    You cut too far and too fast.

    Turned the entire department of growth into the department of stagnation.

    No wonder you’re depressed.

    Last week you said that 50 companies are going to get a hot line to ministers.

    It’s not 50 companies who need a hot line to ministers.

    It’s the entire British economy!

    I went to Bombardier in Derby. I asked three young apprentices about their future.

    One said “I want to go as far as I can. Mr Walton” – that’s Colin Walton the MD – “Mr Walton used to be an apprentice once.”

    That was the promise of Britain.

    Hard work taking you as far as your talent would allow.

    Each generation doing better than their parents.

    But Philip Hammond gave the Thameslink contract to Germany.

    Those young ambitions hang by a thread.

    You may be wondering why ministers won’t reopen the contract?

    It’s not because of the finer points of EU competition law.

    It’s because, in their heart of hearts, they think government should just stand by and watch.

    Stand by and watch while wages fall, jobs go, and companies suffer.

    But I tell you, Conference, in difficult times governments can’t just stand by and watch.

    Governments can shape the choices companies make; they can encourage investment in critical parts of the economy; they can use procurement to foster skills, innovation and new markets; they can create the transparency that brings fair pay.

    Governments can shape markets by the competition rules they set, the institutions they create for finance research and technology – and by their vision for the future.

    Conference, we can make the changes Britain needs; to build a different and stronger economy; in which good companies grow; and rewards are fairly shared.

    We say:

    If you’ve got a business idea; you work all hours; you make a go of it; make a million; we’ll cheer you all the way.

    But we won’t if you’re the director of a failing company who takes a million you don’t deserve.

    It’s not our job to run companies, but what Government does makes a difference to the way business leaders run their companies.

    In the economy we want, we will say the company that invests long-term is better for Britain than the one that just wants a quick buck.

    We will say the company with fair pay at every level is better for Britain than one with obscene rewards at the top and poverty pay at the bottom

    We will say the company that innovates is better for Britain than the company that sits back and exploits its monopoly.

    We will say the company that trains is better for Britain than one that just says someone else could do your job for less.

    These are the choices the best companies in Britain are already making.

    But some are not.

    Look at all the scams – from payment protection insurance to fuel bills no one understands, from hidden credit card charges to insurance referrals.

    They’ve all got one thing in common.

    There are people at the top who knew it was wrong.

    But they didn’t think it was their responsibility to stop it.

    But when prices are rising and wages are falling people can’t afford to be ripped off. It’s got to stop.

    So I’ve asked former Chief Executive of the National Consumer Council, Ed Mayo, to lead our investigation into how we can end the corporate cultures that con consumers.

    Conference, business has real concern about regulation. And the worst is regulation that holds good companies back, but doesn’t hinder the bad.

    So be very clear.

    We’ll tackle the bad.

    We’ll back the good.

    Griffon Hoverworks in my Southampton constituency sells the world’s best hovercraft – a British invention – to 40 countries around the world.

    There are thousands of British companies like that.

    In engineering, and in film, theatre and the arts;

    In life sciences and in architecture;

    In advanced manufacturing and in computer games;

    In fashion and in law and in IT;

    In finance yes, and green technologies.

    Companies run by people as bright and as inventive as any British people have ever been.

    But there are not enough of them.

    They aren’t big enough.

    And too often they get taken over before they grow.

    We will only pay our way in the world if those companies grow and prosper.

    And we will only pay our way if the world’s biggest companies also want to have a stake in Britain’s future.

    They don’t want government telling them how to run their business. But they don’t want government just to stand by and watch either.

    Ministers wasted a year on a growth plan so useless it’s already being re-written.

    So I’ll tell you what they should do now.

    Back Ed Balls’ five point plan for economic growth.

    Cut VAT and get the economy moving.

    Tax bank bonuses to build houses, create jobs for young people and back fast growing small business.

    Don’t stand by and watch.

    Do it now.

    Small businesses are hurting. If you can’t get banks lending, don’t just stand by and watch. Get the Green Investment Bank going now, reform the banks the public owns, and like Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and me, look at the case for a national investment bank.

    Listen to the CBI and unlock investment in greening and renewing the infrastructure for a new economy.

    Don’t just stand by and watch.

    Do it now.

    Get business round the table and agree where Britain will take on the world. Show how we will deliver the technologies, the capabilities, the skills to do it. Give them the confidence to invest.

    Don’t just stand by and watch.

    Do it now.

    Back Labour’s plans to cap fees and then tell every university in every region to concentrate on getting skills, technology and research to British business.

    And Vince – one more thing, when you celebrated the one bit of really good news all year – the investments in Nissan, BMW and JLR – didn’t you notice that in every one trade unions were full partners in that success; why not say that instead of just union bashing?

    Conference, when Ed Miliband asked me and the Shadow Business Team – Gareth, Gordon, Nia, Ian, Chi, Chuka, Tony and Wilf – he said get out and listen to thousands of businesses across Britain.

    Everything I’ve said today comes from things British business has said to us.

    From oil in Aberdeen to renewables in Wrexham.

    Chambers of Commerce in Norwich to car makers in Sunderland.

    Manufacturers in Leeds to bioscience in London.

    Hi-tech start-ups in Cambridge to banks in Birmingham.

    And it’s because of what they told us, not what we told them, that I can tell you that British business, working with Labour, can build a better future for Britain, can build a country where the promise of Britain is honoured once more.

  • John Denham – 2010 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Denham, the Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, to the 2010 Labour Party conference.

    Conference,

    John Denham,

    New Generation. SAGA section.

    I want to thank all the Labour Councillors.

    Labour changed Britain for the better, and every one of you was part of that story.

    Labour councillors aren’t supporters on the touchline of a Labour Government.

    You’re real players; you’ve got real passion, real commitment, real power and real responsibility.

    And you’re going to be challenged like never before.

    There are 4500 Labour councillors today.

    We can make sure there will be a lot more soon.

    Actually there can’t be many more here in Manchester.

    Manchester would be a Conservative free zone already – if their only Lib Dem hadn’t just joined the Tories

    Nothing new there then.

    The Lib Dems wanted a conference in a Lib Dem City.

    By the time they got there Liverpool was Labour.

    But look; it’s going to be tough. Being a Labour councillor won’t be a job for the faint-hearted.

    The Coalition is going to slash spending far faster, far harder – and far more unfairly – than this country needs or can stand.

    People are going to be asking us to look after their interests in the worst possible circumstances; against all the odds.

    We’re no use to anyone if we hang our heads in despair or defeat.

    Our campaign – supported by CampaignEngineRoom.org.uk – will bring us all together – the people who use public services with the people who provide them…

    From village to village, town to town, city to city.

    We’ll make Labour’s case in every election from next May to the General Election.

    But we also know that marching round the town hall saying ‘no cuts’ – it isn’t going to be enough when we run the Town Hall.

    What I know;

    What you know;

    Is that we’ve always found a way to show that Labour values make a difference even in the hardest times.

    We won’t be able to protect everything we care about; but we’ll defend the most important things.

    We won’t be able keep everything the way it is; so we’ll find better ways of doing things.

    We all know we’d have had to face some tough decisions.

    But we wouldn’t be doing what they are doing.

    I mean, look at Eric Pickles.

    Alright, don’t look at Eric Pickles.

    There’s no excuse, Eric, for putting the biggest cuts on the communities that are hardest pressed.

    It’s no good telling people they’ve got more say, when you’re telling them how often bins should be emptied o r street parties organised.

    It’s no good telling people they’ve got more say, when you’re letting Michael Gove waste £200m of their money on cancelled schools.

    It’s no good telling people they’ve got more say, when you’re wasting a fortune on a top down reorganisation of the NHS.

    We don’t want elected sheriffs riding off into the sunset with police budgets in their saddlebags, when it’s working closely with councils that brought down anti-social behaviour.

    It’s not good telling local people they’ve got more say when, instead of bringing local services together, you are pulling them apart.

    You’re not just cutting too fast and too deep; you’re throwing people’s money down the drain.

    And when every penny of local taxpayers’ money has to work harder than ever before, there’s no excuse for that.

    Frankly, Conference, it’s a dog’s breakfast of muddle and waste.

    And this is the mess they call the Big Society.

    Conference, when David Cameron talks about people relying too much on the state and not doing enough for themselves, you’d think we were all sat at home waiting for the council to come round and do the dishes.

    I’m sure, that like me, you live in a community of extraordinary generosity, where thousands of people help their neighbours and their communities with countless acts of thoughtfulness every day.

    We don’t have to choose between state and society.

    I know a group in Southampton who befriend lonely older people.

    They don’t bathe them, they don’t clothe them or give them medication.

    It’s the public services – the carers, the nurses, the financial support which make it possible for them to live at home in comfort.

    But it’s the volunteer friends who shop with them, go to the theatre with them, have cup of tea and a conversation with them.

    Who give time that, frankly, no state could ever give – who make their lives not just comfortable but rich.

    The best of public service; the best of personal giving.

    But take the public service away, and personal giving can’t fill the gap.

    Conference, we claim no monopoly on generosity, but our party and our members have given birth to countless organisations of change – environmental groups and neighbourhood watches, coops and housing associations, residents’ organisations and community centres.

    Our party and our members know the difference between a really big society, a good society; and a narrow and mean society.

    And that’s why we will make a difference over the next few years.

    Despite the challenges, despite the Coalition cuts, despite the Coalition chaos, we will win the argument that the deficit is no excuse to destroy a good society.

    Despite the challenges, despite the coalition cuts, despite the coalition c haos we will win local elections up and down this country.

    And despite the challenges, despite the coalition cuts, despite the coalition chaos, this new generation: our members, our councillors are ready to show that being Labour, thinking Labour, voting Labour makes a difference that really counts.

  • John Denham – 2009 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Denham, the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, to the 2009 Labour Party conference.

    You can’t say you weren’t warned.

    When David Cameron said Tory Councils show what a Tory Government would look like he meant it.

    They are hard to get rid of’ the Tory Leader of Hammersmith and Fulham moans about his council tenants

    Put up charges until people can’t afford to pay, says the Leader of Wandsworth.

    Oppose ‘free swimming, free buses’, says the Leader of Southampton

    Make people pay taxes – and then make them pay again just to get a decent service, says Barnet Council.

    Privatise for dogma. Block new homes, block new jobs and block green power.

    Look at Cameron’s Councils to see what a Cameron government would be like.

    People like that would never have created SureStart, free swimming, pensioner bus passes, decent homes, apprenticeships, better schools.

    These people are different to us. They have different values, different priorities, a different view of what makes the world tick.

    Of course, every Labour Council leapt at the chance of free swimming for kids and pensioners. And of course over 60 Tory councils did not.

    I’m proud of Labour’s record – your record – serving local people. You fought for decent public services under a Conservative Government; you’ve delivered them under a Labour Government.

    More than this when times are tight, it’s Labour in Government – national and local – that makes every taxpayers pound work as hard as it can.

    George Osborne says Tory councils save money.

    They do.

    Just not as much as Labour councils.

    Last year all councils made value for money savings of a staggering £1.7bn. And Labour Councils saved twice as much as Tory Councils, putting the money back into frontline services and £100 off the Band D Council Tax.

    Councils like Labour Hackney who haven’t increased Council Tax for the last four years but have improved the services they provide.

    We couldn’t improve services and save money if local public servants weren’t prepared to work hard, to accept change and be realistic about pay. So thank you.

    It’s not always easy.

    And I know you do this because you care about the people you serve

    And you deserve a fair deal.

    The average pay of local government workers has gone up by £6,000 in seven years. The average pay of the chief execs has gone up by £40,000.

    And nine chief execs get paid an average of £212,00 a year.

    Don’t get me wrong. These are not bad people. Most have given their own lifetime of public service.

    But we all know.

    It’s just all got out of hand.

    And it’s just got to stop.

    I don’t want to see the pay or the pensions of local public servants dragged down by public anger at the excess of a few.

    I’m not joining the clamour of Clegg and Cameron to slash your pensions. The average local government pension is less than £4,500 a year.

    But, I do want to limit the pension entitlements of the very highest earners.

    With every council publishing details of high paid posts, their pay, pensions, bonuses and allowances.

    I will tackle the boomerang bosses who walk away with huge payouts, straight into their next job.

    At the same time I’m giving the go ahead today for another £500m of equal pay awards.

    And asking pension providers how we can keep more low paid members in the scheme.

    And I can do all this while capping the burden of new costs falling on Council Taxpayers.

    And do this because, if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be fair.

    Common sense fairness is in the DNA of the British people.

    And in hard times fairness matters more than ever.

    Let’s acknowledge.

    There are people,

    People who have voted for us in the past.

    Who are asking whether Britain’s fair today…

    They’ve seen a lot a change.

    Communities have changed.

    The world of work has changed.

    In the last year everything – life, work, homes, incomes – have changed.

    And become more difficult.

    For all we have done – to build up the health service, improve schools, raise incomes with tax credits, invest in building and construction – they want to know that we are still on their side.

    And for a fair deal.

    And if this party does not speak for them – in every street, in every community – then we have no purpose.

    That’s why they wanted to hear Alistair’s promise on bankers bonuses.

    Why I will make sure Yvette Cooper’s Future Jobs Fund makes a difference every  community.

    Why I’ll work with Alan Johnson make sure the public can question how the police tackle anti-social behaviour.

    It’s why John Healey is insisting that every single new public housing development employs apprenticeships.

    And why I’m investing more money, from the levy on migration, to stop unscrupulous employers of foreign workers undercutting the minimum wage; or putting lives at risk at work.

    If people know we are dealing with these issues, they’ll know we are speaking up for them.

    And I want to make sure, in every community, in every corner of this country, people know we are on their side. No favours. No privileges. No special interest groups. Just fairness.

    And together, we will reject the extremists, the separatists, the people – wherever they come from – who would pull this country apart; not build it up.

    Conference, there will be challenges in the coming years.

    Money will be tight. But people still have a right to decent services they rely on.

    How do we do it? The answer is local leadership, strong leadership, Labour leadership.

    I’ve proposed the biggest shift in power to local people and local communities in 30 years.

    Labour believes people have the right to a personal service. The right to shape where you live. The right to elect a councillor who can come back to you on every public service in your area.

    Councils being able to challenge how every pound is spent whether by the council the health service or the police.

    Driving out any waste and duplication. Making every taxpayers pound work as hard as it can.

    Not like Cameron’s Councils. Which won’t check standards because there will be no standards.

    Where you live, not what you need, matters most. With their prejudice, their dogma, the unfairness, their opposition to jobs and homes and their rush to cut services and make people pay twice.

    And I’ll tell you something.

    This Labour government funds communities in every part of the country. Whatever the shade of the local council. Of course we do.

    But I’m getting sick and tired of Cameron’s Councils who take Labour investment, claim the credit, for the new home, the new schools and the new play areas and have the cheeck to say it isn’t enough – and all the time they are working for a Tory Government that will take it all away.

    It’s about time they were honest with the people about their real plans.

    But that may be too much to ask so we’ll do it for them.

    We’ll tell the truth about Cameron’s councils on every doorstep, in every street and in every community.

    They’ve said one thing and done another for too long.