Tag: Speeches

  • Jacqui Smith – 2026 Speech at the Parliamentary Reception for WorldSkills UK

    Jacqui Smith – 2026 Speech at the Parliamentary Reception for WorldSkills UK

    The speech made by Jacqui Smith, the Skills Minister, at Westminster on 19 October 2026.

    It’s a real pleasure and an honour to be here today and to be able to welcome colleagues and partners, employers, educators, family members and most importantly, Team UK here to Parliament.

    It’s a brilliant opportunity to celebrate your enormous success at WorldSkills Shanghai. When I met up with the team in advance of the welcoming ceremony in Shanghai, I could see a few nerves about what was to come.

    But overwhelmingly, what I felt was that you were an enormously well-prepared and ready to go group of people.

    And seeing you all walking out as part of that amazing opening ceremony was brilliant. I was very proud. You may have seen me standing up and clapping loudly and enthusiastically. It was a brilliant opening ceremony, wasn’t it? Notwithstanding being slightly spooked by the sight of those robots dancing with those ballerinas! Clearly the way of the future, and thank goodness that we’ve got you Peter and Pratham to take forward our robotic skills as well.

    You did so well, as a team. Simply earning a place in Team UK is a remarkable achievement and reflects years of hard work and dedication and resilience. In Shanghai you demonstrated the very best of UK technical and vocational education, competing against the world’s most talented young people and winning.

    This year’s competition was particularly significant because you, Team UK, delivered our best WorldSkills performance in almost a decade. And that’s testament to your talent and your determination and professionalism, and also to the strength of the UK’s skills system.

    Every competitor should be immensely proud, regardless of the medal or the result achieved, because success at WorldSkills is about excellence, growth, and representing your country on a global stage.

    As others have said though, I’d also like to recognise all of those people who helped you to make that possible. Your training managers and technical experts. The colleges, training providers and universities that are training and supporting you. The employers who invested in talent development. And I’m sure as well your families and friends who would have given you unwavering support for all those months and years when you were focused on what is necessary in order to achieve the sort of excellence that you have achieved.

    Medals are brilliant. But WorldSkills is about more than medals as well. It allows us to benchmark ourselves against the very best in the world. It helps us identify and adopt international best practice. It raises standards across education, training and industry throughout the UK. And the skills represented by Team UK are vital to our country’s future as well, helping to drive economic growth, supporting innovation and productivity, building the workforce that our industries need for the future. And by competing at this level, you’re also inspiring the next generation to pursue technical education, apprenticeships and skilled careers.

    You’ll have heard, I hope, the Prime Minister talking about how important it is that we provide the focus and the resource and the importance to technical and vocational education and you’re the manifestation of that.

    Shanghai also highlighted the importance of international collaboration and learning. And I’m pleased that we are going to be able to continue this collaboration with China following that recent visit. There’ll be a UK-China Education Summit on the 24 and 25 November 2026 in Beijing, to continue the ministerial dialogue that I began with my counterparts whilst in Beijing and Shanghai.

    International engagement of this kind help strengthen educational partnerships, share expertise, and create opportunities for future collaboration.

    As we celebrate today, I hope that every member of Team UK reflects on what you’ve achieved. You represented the United Kingdom with distinction. You demonstrated excellence on the world stage and you helped to secure Britain’s strongest WorldSkills result for nearly 10 years.

    So on behalf of the government, can I thank you for everything that you’ve achieved and for being outstanding ambassadors for UK skills. Congratulations once again to Team UK and you thoroughly deserve to enjoy today’s celebration. Thank you.

  • Ed Miliband – 2026 Statement on Israeli Government Opening Tenders for Settlement

    Ed Miliband – 2026 Statement on Israeli Government Opening Tenders for Settlement

    The statement made by Ed Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, on 19 October 2026.

    The decision by the Israeli Government to open tenders for settlements in E1 is a direct threat to the prospect of a two-state solution and has been widely condemned by the international community. Today is the deadline for bids for the E1 settlement tender.

    I want to be very clear with those considering engaging in the tendering process: we have created new powers allowing us to sanction individuals and companies involved in the construction of illegal settlements such as E1.

    We urge businesses and individuals not to proceed with bids for E1 construction tenders. They should be aware of legal and reputational consequences, including the risk of involving themselves in serious breaches of international law.

    This UK Government will not accept the continued displacement of Palestinians and the unlawful occupation that persists.

    That is why we committed to introduce legislation to ban goods imported from illegal settlements, and action on services that finance or facilitate them.

    The British people do not want to be supporting the construction of illegal settlements.

    This Government also condemns escalating settler violence in the West Bank, including recent attacks on officials from France, Belgium, Poland, and a Catholic Church representative, as well as a US journalist.

    We will not be bystanders in the destruction of the two-state solution.

  • Andy Burnham – 2026 Speech in Scotland

    Andy Burnham – 2026 Speech in Scotland

    The speech made by Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, in Motherwell, Scotland on 16 October 2026.

    It’s great to be with you. Thanks to the college, as Douglas says, for having us. 

    It’s good to be back in Scotland, to be here in Motherwell. 

    And I should say – I’m going to say this now, but I might regret it – the true north!

    Please don’t tell anyone in Manchester that I said that.

    You know I’ve created Number 10 North? Are you aware of that? Have you heard of that?

    I know here you’ll probably call it Number 10 South. 

    And then you’ve got now Number 10 South South. 

    So you’re going to have to have your own way now of describing it. 

    But it is brilliant to be here. 

    I was in Scotland for the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in the summer and, can I say, what a job Glasgow did in stepping forward to host it. Really grateful to them, did it brilliantly.  

    I’m actually here more than you might think. I sneak into Scotland without you knowing. I was here between Christmas and New Year last year for Hibs-Hearts and it has not escaped my notice that Motherwell are currently above the former in the SPL. 

    Although, well I think there are some Motherwell supporters here, surely. I hope there are. 

    I care about Scotland and I am coming today with a big offer and in search of common ground.

    When I walked into Downing Street in July, I said I wanted to do politics differently. Place-first not party-first. 

    Honestly, I meant it. I meant it and I arrive here in that spirit because people in Scotland, in my view, deserve better from politicians and politics, as they do all over the UK, to be honest.

    So that’s why I’m here. I’m here in that spirit because I want to show that politics can be better and we can work in a different way, place first, not party first. 

    And I want to say something so Scotland understands this. 

    I left Westminster in 2017 to become the first Mayor of Greater Manchester because I had come to see quite clearly how Westminster didn’t work for the North of England, North West of England as well. 

    My work on Hillsborough had brought me to the same conclusion that Scotland had reached many years before us.

    And I felt the same frustrations as Scotland, Scottish ministers, in my ten years as the mayor, because often the way we were treated wasn’t right, it wasn’t good enough. 

    So I want everyone in Scotland to know that my reason in going back to Westminster is not to carry on with the same old Westminster and Whitehall ways and go back to that, I’m going back to change all of that. That’s why I’m Prime Minister. 

    When I say I want good growth in every postcode, that means every single postcode in Scotland as well.

    And what that requires is giving more power to people and places everywhere to change more things for themselves.

    One of the most important examples of this that I have seen came not from Manchester but from somewhere not so far from here. 

    In August 2023, with the help of the ground-breaking Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, I visited FARE-Scotland at Bannatyne House in Easterhouse with the Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit.

    And we went because we’d heard all of the reports about what was happening, and the innovation that they were doing in Easterhouse. 

    Many of our communities had the same challenges – unfairly labelled and, you know, given a certain reputation – and that kind of hangs over. 

    But we had picked up on the stories that were coming out of things that were being done to turn people’s lives around. 

    So we went to see. 

    I had expected to spend two hours there talking about policing, drugs and violence.

    Instead, we only talked about empowerment and opportunity.

    The need to stop communities being labelled and defined by the negatives and instead to celebrate their positives and the assets that they’ve got.

    It was an amazing time. I’ll never forget it. 

    And also we talked about how to create personal pathways, very personal pathways, for each young person, individually tailored for them, working with local employers.

    And then to help those young people take those chances up to get them the right clothes so they didn’t feel out of place when they were going to those opportunities and those appointments, or those interviews, and have their travel covered as well. 

    It was something I’d never really heard explained in quite that way before. 

    It was true extra mile, bottom-up, person-centred support.

    Rooted in local values.

    Run by the local community and the people on the estate.

    And it worked.

    Well, why wouldn’t it work? It would work, wouldn’t it, if you run things like that. That’s how they should be done. 

    So I took everything I heard that day from Easterhouse and I took it back to Greater Manchester and I used it to pioneer what we called the Live Well model in Greater Manchester.

    It was all about moving away from top-down, tick box systems that no one trusts and sometimes can make people feel worse about themselves, not better, when they’ve interacted with that system. 

    It was about moving away from the often patronising approach of public services so powerfully described by Darren McGarvey in his book Poverty Safari. And if you haven’t read it, I would recommend it to you. 

    And it pointed towards a new approach based on trusting local communities, and let them sort things out for themselves, because they know the solutions that they need.  

    And lo and behold, just as Easterhouse had done, we began to achieve more for people than we could have imagined before through Live Well. 

    So I carry all of that learning with me into my time as Prime Minister, and I am really clear about the changes I want to see. 

    When I walked up Downing Street and into No10, I was determined to push power out of it – and into the hands of local people. That’s what this country needs, in my view, all over it. In all of the regions, in all of the nations. 

    To rewire the state, rewire it so that it works right across the UK, and every postcode is empowered to do more for itself. 

    So I will do that because in the past we saw too many people, too many places written off, powerless to fight the effects of deindustrialisation. 

    And I don’t think I need to say that in this room today, with the history that there is on this site with regards to the effects of deindustrialisation. 

    I don’t want anyone ever to be in the position again that this community was in 30 or so years ago. 

    And it’s the reason I wanted to come to Motherwell today.

    The story of this area and this town gets to the heart of why I believe we need to do things differently.

    You know, it’s important to talk to Pamela today as the local MP to understand that history, but also to understand how those challenges are still there, and we know they’re very real challenges, and we want to be able to empower people here to be able to do more, to soften the effects of those things, find new solutions.

    What you have here is a proud manufacturing past, and the apprentices who are with us today are obviously taking that tradition forward, and we’re proud of you, and we know you’ll go on to do great things. 

    But you’ve been let down. Certainly young people in all parts of the UK have been let down by political choices made far away from here. 

    By people often who have no clue, really, about what life is like here. 

    So that is basically the history. 

    You know, in the past, if you think about this area, if Britain was building something big the fair chance was the steel would have come from here. 

    You know, it was the heart of an industrial Britain. 

    And this college, I think I’m right in saying, is on the very site where Ravenscraig once stood. 

    And in my youth, if I go back to the 70s and 80s, you couldn’t not hear that name, Ravenscraig, on the news, such was its massive importance to the country. 

    When it closed, it wasn’t just a works that shut.

    It was a whole community which saw the pillars underneath it just taken away, collapse beneath it. 

    And that was a decision taken hundreds of miles away by people, without any real consequences for what that would mean for people here. 

    Taken by people who would never have to live with those consequences and see those consequences every day. 

    And more than thirty years on, I know that work is still ongoing to fill the Ravenscraig site, such is the hole that it left.  

    And I know that story myself, as well. 

    Because I represented a former mining community, Leigh in the old Lancashire coalfield, and I was the MP there for sixteen years from the early 2000s, just after the pits had shut in the 1990s.

    It broke my heart to see the old miners shuffling into my surgery every week carrying oxygen bottles still struggling to get compensation for the damage that was done to their lungs

    It pained me to drive past the wasteland around Bickershaw Colliery, one of the last pits to close in Leigh.

    Nobody asked Leigh what was going to come next either.

    No one in Whitehall went to Leigh and said, “Here’s what we’re going to do with transition”. Just gone. 

    And this is the way the UK has been run in our lifetimes, and it’s what needs to change.

    It took so much, this country, from Motherwell and its people in terms of the building of Britain. 

    And it took so much from Leigh in terms of the powering of Britain, and then just abandoned them when life moved on.

    So I am here today to spell out how I plan to do things differently as Prime Minister in all parts of the UK.

    Taking power out of the centre, and putting it into places like this, empowering people. 

    Because that to me  is just as important in Scotland as it is anywhere else in the UK.

    All of the nations that make up the UK, including Scotland, are too unequal internally. 

    Like in England, public transport in Scotland is way better in the capital of Scotland than it is in any other city or town in Scotland. 

    Or if you look at high streets. 

    If you go to Edinburgh today, you’ll see around one in twenty shops lying empty.

    But if you go to Dundee, it’s more likely one in five.

    Again, not an accident.

    It’s what happens when too many of the good jobs go.

    When the spending power reduces, and then obviously the high streets suffer and the shops go. 

    And people in Aberdeen are living through that now, and they’re very much on my mind, and I’ll have more to say about that in due course. 

    If you look at population in Scotland, there are places that haven’t grown like the rest of Scotland, where if you say in the West like Inverclyde, the working population has shrunk.

    And why? It’s because it’s what happens when young people can’t see a future for themselves in those areas, and then they move away to find it.

    And this one should really give us pause for thought: life expectancy.

    It’s wonderful to see the emphasis being put in this college, if I could say this to the principal, on brain health. 

    Really asking every student to think about health. 

    I think that’s such a powerful message that you’re sending. 

    But the truth is we need to do that because the health inequalities are still far too wide. 

    A man in East Renfrewshire can live, as I understand, on average seven years longer than a man in Glasgow, even though there is only ten miles between the two places. 

    It’s the same elsewhere, in all parts of the country. 

    You can just go a few miles and you can see the housing change, you can see the community change, and of course you can see then the health of the people is not what it should be. 

    And when people live in a country like that, where it doesn’t feel fair place to place, that’s what then creates the divides that people see, and then it damages people’s trust, and they don’t feel the country is fair to all people and to all places. 

    Because when you’ve watched the works go, when you’ve watched the jobs go, the high street become empty, and one government after another tell you that things will get better, why should anybody believe any of us?

    And it means we’ve got to change first. Politicians have to change. 

    Write a new script, do things very differently, because it’s not been working, what we’ve been doing. 

    We spend a lot of time focusing on the differences between Scotland and England.

    But what is perhaps more striking is how similar the problems in places across Scotland and England.  

    The same cost-of-living pressures and lack of good jobs.

    The same huge gaps between the regions.

    The same decline sometimes seen on the high streets. 

    And the same sense that where you live still has too much bearing on your life as a whole.

    And the issue was never the regions themselves. 

    They never lacked potential.

    Ambition…

    Talent…

    Drive.

    It’s just that the country, at a national level – UK level, Holyrood level – has not often shared the same ambitions of those places and empowered them to achieve those ambitions. 

    For decades, the centre sown in London has looked past too many places.

    And hasn’t trusted people in those places to make their own decisions about their future.

    And that centre has also refused to give up power when it’s been asked to do so. It’s kept hold of the power even when places across the country have been desperate for more ability to do more for themselves. 

    Twenty-seven years on, you led the way on devolution here in Scotland with the creation of the Scottish Parliament.

    And that was absolutely right.

    But devolution was never meant to stop there.

    It was never supposed to stop at the doors of the Scottish Parliament.

    Obviously, there’s huge progress to look back on. 

    Public control of water…

    Public ownership of rail…

    Free personal care…

    And these are all Issues very close to my own heart, and I applaud them…

    But they were always meant – as I understand it, because I was in Parliament, as Douglas said, at the time with him – always meant to be the start of something deeper.

    The foundations of a nation where communities had more of a say in their own future…

    And where the norm was always to push power out until it reached every person and every post code.

    Instead, we’ve ended up with the situation where Scotland, the most devolved nation in the UK, is itself one of the most centralised nations in Europe.

    And I don’t say that to score points.

    Genuinely, I don’t. 

    I say that because I believe we need to be honest about that if we really want to get growth in every post code, if we really want to renew every part of the United Kingdom. 

    That’s why one of the first things I did as Prime Minister was start shifting that power out of Westminster.

    And already we’re giving local leaders in England more power and control over transport…

    More say over skills and investment…

    More freedom to build an economy around the strengths of their communities.

    We’re finally making the centre work for people…

    Rather than asking them to work around us.

    And this is what I mean by devolution by default, and deep devolution. 

    Not swapping power from one parliament to another…

    But going deeper.

    Putting power down into the regions…

    Control back into the hands of the local people who know how to use it best.

    And as our English regions see the benefits…

    I want those same opportunities for Scotland and Scottish regions.

    The chance to stop looking back what was once here…

    And start looking forward to what’s coming next.

    And that does mean something different for both governments, the UK government and the Scottish government. 

    This is the heart of what I wanted to say to you today. 

    It means working together in a different way and backing places in a different way across Scotland, and giving them the necessary investment to bring forward a new vision for the reindustrialisation of Scotland that these young people who are with us today can feel hopeful about. 

    It is great that the Scottish government has this week agreed to match the UK government’s £10 million to create two defence technical excellence colleges, and Douglas informed me of that news today. 

    So there will be one in the east and one in the west. 

    That’s an example, I think, of how it should be done. 

    The UK government and the Scottish government making something bigger than it might otherwise have been if one of them had done it alone. 

    And credit to Douglas and John Swinney for working together on that. 

    It means Scots trained for well-paid, skilled jobs in a defence sector that already supports 12,000 jobs here in Scotland

    My government’s job is to do whatever we can to support more of those high ambitions in every part of Scotland.

    It’s why we’re backing Scottish shipbuilding.

    It’s why we’re working with the Scottish government to help secure new investment and new opportunities for the Grangemouth site. And we will keep working hard at that. 

    And it’s why we are committed to ensuring the next generation of energy jobs, created right here in Scotland.

    Because I know how much these industries matter to people.

    To workers.

    To their families.

    And to the communities they have built around them.

    It’s also why I am working on a new deal for food and farming at the EU-UK Summit on the 20th of November. 

    I am working closely with our EU partners in relation to that. Why? Because it would have hugely beneficial impacts on the food industry and farming here in Scotland.

    And it is why I want to see a change in public procurement across the UK and working with the devolved governments, the same there.

    When I was Mayor of Greater Manchester, I put buses back under public control, and it meant I had the ability to choose where the buses we bought were built, and I chose Scotland.

    I chose to back Scottish manufacturing. 

    I rejected the old Whitehall way of always going to find the cheapest contract anywhere in the world, because I recognised if you paid even a little more, it would still have circular benefits for British communities. 

    So I was determined that the buses on the roads of Greater Manchester today were built by Alexander Dennis in Falkirk. 

    And I did that because I knew it would sustain those communities. And Euan was there with me when we announced some of those contracts. 

    I want all public procurement in the UK to work like that, to follow the same approach and back a plan, a solid plan, to reindustrialise all of Britain. 

    But, from there, we have to allow our own regions to forge their own future, and that means Westminster and Holyrood learning to let go and make decisions about what comes next themselves.

    The good news is Scotland’s regions already have so many strengths to build on.

    In Dundee, you’ve got a world-leading video games industry.

    Across the Highlands and the Islands, you’re building a new space industry, with new launch sites emerging.

    In Edinburgh, a thriving fintech sector.

    The list goes on.

    Imagine what more places could achieve if they had greater control and investment to help those businesses grow.

    If the people who understood those industries best had more say over where the money went, and which opportunities they went after, they would be building more stronger technical education paths, education paths into their emerging sectors.

    We’ve already seen glimpses of what that can look like.

    An approach that puts local businesses, universities and councils in the driving seat has seen companies like Chemify turn groundbreaking research into real manufacturing jobs in Glasgow.

    And that’s the sort of thing I want to see so much more of.

    It’s why we’re putting a billion pounds into research and innovation across the UK in the coming years.

    But I don’t want all the decisions about where that money goes being made in Whitehall.

    We’re already giving English mayors more control over funding for local innovation.

    And I want to explore now how Scotland’s regions can have the same powers to decide where more of that research and development investment goes. 

    Because the people building these industries, they know where those industries can go in the future. 

    Our job isn’t to stand in their way…

    It’s to give them what they need to go after those opportunities.

    And there’s one more thing.

    Because none of this means very much if the people growing up in these communities don’t get the chance to take up the opportunities that come out of it.

    We can announce all the investment we like and all of the big numbers. 

    We can build factories…

    We can win contracts…

    We can create new businesses.

    But if a young person down the road growing up here can’t get the skills or support they need to work there…

    Then we haven’t got it right.

    And right now, too many young people are missing out.

    I mean, none of us feel comfortable about these statistics, and it’s the same in England, I’m not pointing the finger at Scotland. 

    But the fact is around one in six young people here are not in education, employment or training.

    It just isn’t right, is it? It isn’t good enough. 

    All of those young people experiencing that feeling of less hope and not having a sense of direction for the future. 

    I’ve been clear that care for people is at the heart of everything that I’m about and what my government will do.

    And I won’t have a country where we get comfortable with the idea of kids in their 20s just being there on benefits. 

    I won’t. I never will accept that some are just written off, given the feeling that they don’t matter or they’re not seen. 

    I don’t believe the answer is another scheme designed in the centre – another top-down scheme – and then kind of imposed on every community in the way that we’ve done it in the past. 

    It won’t work again. We’ve heard it before. 

    The review led by Alan Milburn is challenging us to look at this very differently.

    To build a system based on the Easterhouse principle of names not numbers.

    Build it from the bottom up. 

    Let communities build it. They know best. 

    And this is what I’m here to say. I think the time has come for deeper devolution in Scotland to empower all of the proud places across this wonderful nation, every single bit of it. 

    More power to do more, and that unlocks a feeling of positivity that you can do something to change the place where you live. 

    That’s what I want to see. More power to give people the support they need to access opportunities as they become available in new industries.

    And, crucially, treat them as an individual.

    I come back to that phrase, names not numbers.

    That’s what you can do when you work from the bottom up, as they did in Easterhouse. 

    You can just think about the person in front of you, not sometimes the “computer says no” approach where you just give them bad news. 

    Come at it a different way, see what they’ve got, and then help them unlock all of that potential.

    Don’t see them as a problem to be managed via a programme designed and implemented from Westminster or Holyrood. 

    Because the barriers a young person faces in Glasgow, they won’t necessarily be the same as someone growing up in the Highlands.

    And the opportunities in Dundee won’t be the same as those in Lanarkshire. That’s just a fact. 

    I want to work with the Scottish government and Scottish local government to join up colleges, employers, employment support and local services.

    And just like Scotland did in Easterhouse.

    And just like we did in Greater Manchester, let’s create a new way of supporting people. 

    That’s the vision everybody. I hope it resonates: a revitalised Scotland in a reindustrialised UK, where every region plays their part, and there are new paths for people in every post code across the UK.

    I want all areas of Scotland to be part of that and to feel the possibility that they can be part of that, to play their part. 

    And I open out a hand to the Scottish government, perhaps not in a way that people in my job have come and done in the past, but I do. 

    Because I am long in my political career now, and I know enough now to know that tribal politics and point-scoring in the end doesn’t get you anywhere  

    Politicians like to do it, but the public can’t bear it because it just doesn’t work. 

    Problem-solving, not point-scoring is what I said when I walked up Downing Street and I mean it, and I’m going to stick to it. And you can all hold me to account on it. 

    I know progress has been made here over the last decade with the City Region Deals.

    But it is time to think about what comes next.

    And how we build on them for the next generation.

    We need to look at the resources and decision-making powers that sit at the regional level in Scotland so that no Scottish city regions are left behind.

    And I know the Scottish government has also announced a long-term programme for local government reform.

    But, if you ask me, we’ve got to move faster and we’ve got to do more. 

    Growth won’t wait. 

    And if we don’t move now, Scotland could lose out. 

    There is a risk that some of the towns and the cities become underpowered when some of the towns and cities of the North of England are going the other way and starting to power up, and I don’t want to see that as Prime Minister. 

    I want everywhere to do well. And I think everywhere can do well. 

    I do want good growth in every postcode here and the rest of the UK.

    And I want to work with the First Minister to deliver it. 

    Because, the fact is we won’t agree on everything and we’re not going to and we shouldn’t try because there are some things we will disagree on. 

    But that does not mean just because you can’t agree on everything it doesn’t mean you can’t agree on anything. 

    We can agree on some things, and I know that because I’ve worked with John over a long period of time as well. 

    In my mind, the real question is not whether we should try and work together… 

    The real question is why on earth we wouldn’t we?

    It would only be party politics that would stop that, and that’s not a good enough reason not to try and work together. 

    So today I want to make a serious and genuine offer to the Scottish Government.

    I want to move on from the old politics of conflict…

    To bring people together….

    Across governments and in Scotland… 

    Alongside Number 10 North….

    Or Number 10 South to you…

    And in the immediate months ahead, I want us to design a new model, together, of regional economic empowerment across all of Scotland. 

    One that puts control where it should be, in the hands of local people.

    And if it’s going to really mean something, it has to be thorough.

    At the UK-level, we are looking at how we can devolve innovation, enterprise and employability funding so that that can be used to be matched to the strengths of Scotland’s people and places to create new industries and jobs.

    And let me just be really specific about this.

    It goes back to what I said about that book, Poverty Safari. 

    Because I read that and it had a big impact on me. 

    You know, it makes people feel really remote, doesn’t it, from the powers that be and those making decisions? 

    So I’m going to be specific and make an offer today. 

    An offer of DWP devolution. 

    I want to offer Scotland a model of localised employment support, similar to the one in England but obviously shaped by Holyrood and one that’s right for Scotland, not repeating that. 

    Because that’s a classic example of where the UK government should work with the Scottish government. 

    If you want the best employment support, not a tick-box system, then it has to go deep. It has to go right down. In other words, it has to be based on the Easterhouse principle. Has to be. 

    Names not numbers. If it’s not based on that, it won’t work. It will just be repeating the same system in a different way. 

    But I want to give Scotland the power to take the Easterhouse model nationwide here 

    Not a project on one estate, but the way we support everybody, everywhere. 

    And we should absolutely explore how to give Scotland’s regions the ability to develop the skills, the transport systems and investment, the infrastructure, the housing, everything they need to make sure the areas here are set up to deliver their full potential.

    So in a couple of weeks, the National Economic Council will meet with the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales, and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and we will do that for the first time since I became Prime Minister to put that offer on the table and to see if we can work out a plan together.

    I think that feels different. I hope you sense that too as you hear me lay it out. 

    And my message to John is simple: 

    I want to push economic power out into the regions of Scotland. 

    Do you? Do you? 

    Because, if you do, let’s agree on it. Let’s agree a new process, working with Douglas and working with John’s team. Let’s agree on a new proposal that’s right for Scotland, and we work together on it. 

    Let’s have both of Scotland’s governments coming together with a joint ambition to push power out from the centre – from Westminster and Holyrood –  and put it into the hands of local people. 

    And together, let’s reindustrialise Scotland.

    Because I absolutely know that it can be done. 

    And I’ll finish on this point, you’ll be glad to hear. I’ve had a lot to say, and I wanted to say it directly so you understood fully where I am coming from. 

    Here’s the thing, how much time have we wasted – and I’m thinking about my visits as a politician to Scotland – how much time have we wasted just debating what differentiates us, rather than saying, right, what can we agree on and let’s talk about that, rather than talking about the other stuff. 

    And I think the time has come for that. 

    The country is not in a position to carry on putting politics before places and politics before people. 

    It’s not in a position. We can all see and feel that. 

    We need to build our prosperity everywhere. 

    We need to get the growth going everywhere. 

    And that’s the thing. If we get this right in this moment, we will all spend more time in the years ahead talking about the exciting things that are happening in all of the different places in Scotland, and less about politics and political dramas.

    And after all, isn’t that the best thing of all that politicians could do for the people, to stop you having to worry about politics and all of us talking about how we build a better future together?

    So thank you for listening, everybody. Thank you for letting me speak to you today. I am really taken by the fact that so many people are here, so many people are listening. 

    Is there a feeling that we make this a moment of change? Is that what people want? 

    And do you think you speak for people around Scotland? Does everyone want a moment of change? The two governments working together?

    Well, let’s do it then.

  • Miatta Fahnbulleh – 2026 Speech on the Future of our Energy System

    Miatta Fahnbulleh – 2026 Speech on the Future of our Energy System

    The speech made by Miatta Fahnbulleh, the Energy Minister, in London on 14 October 2026.

    Good afternoon.

    It is a pleasure to be here and I would like to say a huge thank you to Energy UK for bringing us all together.

    You have heard today about the choices facing our energy system.

    And I want to spend our time together talking about what it will take to build its future and the partnership between government and industry that will make this possible.

    That starts with recognising what the people in this room do. You keep the country powered. You invest in our infrastructure, develop our people and build the projects on which our future depends.

    You know what it takes to turn ambition into investment and investment into something people can see around them.

    And you continued to do that through years of economic and political uncertainty.

    So I just wanted to start by saying thank you to each and every one of you for everything you have done to get us to this point – and for the work I hope we will do together in the months and years ahead.

    And that work begins with our ambition as a government to deliver a 10-year plan for national renewal.

    One that unlocks growth in every single postcode.

    Reindustrialises parts of the country that have been held back.

    And ensures that people have the basics to live well.

    In a Britain that is confident, that is forward-looking and that is hopeful.

    And energy has an absolutely vital role to play in that.

    An everyday essential that we all rely on.

    But one that is increasingly unaffordable for too many families and too many businesses.

    In a system that is simply not working for them as consumers.

    Now look I know that this is not a reality that any of us can be happy with – and it is one we are absolutely determined to turn around as a government.

    And we have taken the next steps for the drive for homegrown clean power.

    We all know that one of the reasons we are seeing rising prices is because we are uniquely exposed to volatile global fossil fuel markets.

    Which means that conflicts miles away in Ukraine and now the Middle East reverberate deeply in people’s pockets.

    That’s why our ambition to deliver homegrown clean power is so important and is why we set it out when we came into government.

    Now I know there are a few raised eyebrows, but look the point wasn’t just about the target itself, but the confidence and momentum it would create in the system.

    And what we have delivered in partnership in just 2 years in pursuit of this mission has been incredibly impressive.

    £100 billion of private investment in clean power unlocked.

    Enough clean power consented to power over 20 million homes.

    189 terawatt hours of clean power delivered last year.

    And over the course of 2025, almost two-thirds of Britain’s electricity generation came from clean power.

    Huge progress – and we will continue to play our part to sustain this momentum.

    But we know the public doesn’t measure the success of our energy system in gigawatts.

    They measure it in bills and whether they can live comfortably.

    And by these measures, the framework within which you are being asked to deliver is not working.

    That is not a criticism of the businesses that have invested, built and innovated within it.

    It is a recognition that even the best companies cannot compensate for a system that lacks sufficient coordination and long-term direction.

    That is failing in its purpose of providing this essential good to the British people at a reasonable cost.

    So let’s be clear with how we got here.

    And look I often say, if you have a blank piece of paper, and you can design the energy system, would you design the system we have now? Probably not.

    So I think it is important we are honest about where Britain went wrong.

    The privatisation of the energy system changed more than the ownership of individual assets.

    Generation, transmission, distribution and retail were separated into different parts of the system.

    And those reforms changed the state’s relationship with the energy system.

    Government moved away from direct ownership and coordination.

    Responsibility was carved up, and farmed out across companies, regulators, network operators and public bodies.

    And when responsibility fragments, accountability weakens.

    Successive governments recognised that markets alone could not make every decision the country required.

    So, they introduced targets, created new regulation, new frameworks.

    And the cumulative effect of all these interventions was that central government and regulators ended up micromanaging the system, often with imperfect information.

    The result was neither free market, nor public direction. It was a system in which industry was often asked to deliver without the infrastructure, certainty or joined-up decision-making it needed.

    And crucially, the state never really left the energy system.

    Because it can’t.

    The idea that the state could be absent from providing a service as critical as energy was fundamentally flawed from the outset.

    The state cannot – it cannot – relinquish responsibility for keeping the lights on.

    For protecting consumers.

    For maintaining national security.

    Or for preparing the system for the future.

    So government returned through regulation, subsidy, contracts, targets and interventions.

    But it never resolved the fundamental question of how to make our energy system work for the families and businesses it is there to serve.

    And we are now living with the consequences of that.

    We have inherited an energy system that is too exposed to volatile global markets.

    We have projects ready to invest and businesses ready to expand, but can’t secure timely connections.

    We have renewable power available in a system that still pays generators to turn down their output because the network cannot always use or move that power efficiently.

    And we have families who want lower bills, but who are locked out from accessing cheaper electricity because they cannot upgrade their homes.

    When energy suppliers failed during the last energy crisis, 4 million households were affected and customers were left carrying £2.7 billion in costs.

    And look, these are not isolated problems.

    They show what happens when the system as a whole lacks sufficient coherence and accountability.

    A system can have ambitious targets.

    It can have willing investors.

    It can have viable projects.

    But if the networks cannot connect them, those ambitions remain on paper.

    If people do not see and feel the benefits of them, the system loses the confidence of the public.

    So the answer cannot simply be another layer of targets.

    That is why piecemeal reform is no longer enough.

    Stronger consumer protection matters. Of course it does.

    A more powerful and effective Ofgem matters. Of course it does. And we’re driving forwards with those reforms.

    But our ambition must be greater than making another adjustment to the model that we have.

    Our task is to make the whole system work coherently in the interest of the consumers that we serve.

    Now that requires us to be clear about the choices that are in front of us.

    There are some choices that will make sense for the state to step in.

    There are some choices where competition, private investment and innovation have a vital role to play.

    And there are those that should sit closer to communities, giving people the freedom and opportunity to shape the energy future of their places.

    But the choice is not a binary between state or market.

    That is a false choice.

    Many countries around the world, with far lower electricity prices than ours, combine public ownership with vibrant markets.

    So the real question is: who is best placed to do what?

    Where should government set the strategic direction and establish firm rules?

    Where should businesses have the operational freedom to compete, to innovate and deliver?

    And where should communities have the power to lead, participate and benefit?

    The purpose of reform should be to accelerate delivery, not to pause it.

    To give investors greater certainty, not less.

    And to replace accumulated uncertainty with clear responsibilities, freedom and accountability for the system to deliver.

    And this is precisely the purpose of Great British Energy.

    Giving the state the ability to do more than regulate industry and its decisions again.

    Instead, creating the capability to invest directly.

    Develop projects, build partnerships and take a longer view.

    Entering parts of the market where the strategic value is high, even when the immediate commercial incentives aren’t obvious.

    Ensuring that more of the value created by Britain’s natural resources is retained for the benefit of the British people.

    Ensuring the public have a direct stake in the energy assets that will shape our economic future.

    And we can already see what practical public investment means.

    Take the Sizewell C nuclear power station for example. My department is the primary public shareholder, alongside private consortium partners.

    Taxpayers will see up to £18 billion in net consumer benefits and we’ll reduce overall electricity system costs by roughly £2 billion per year compared to other routes to net zero.

    Lower costs.

    Good jobs, buoyant supply chains, greater security.

    Great British Energy working alongside private investors.

    Building capability in technologies and supply chains where Britain has a strategic interest.

    And helping shape markets rather than merely responding to them.

    The same principle underpins Great British Grid that the Prime Minister announced at conference.

    We cannot, we cannot deliver cheaper power if viable projects remain stuck in a queue.

    We cannot electrify industry if businesses cannot get the connections they need.

    And we cannot build a more secure energy system if generation, networks and demand are planned as separate challenges.

    Great British Grid is about acknowledging what industry has been telling us – projects cannot be delivered at the required scale unless network planning, connections and investment are treated as a strategic national priority.

    Great British Grid will provide additional public investment and dedicated leadership, working alongside existing network operators and private investors.

    It will enable the vital grid upgrades needed after decades of underinvestment, helping to reduce constraint costs and meet rising electricity demand.

    This is the shift that we want to see from fragmentation to coordination.

    But of course, of course, the number one test for reforming our energy system must be whether it benefits people. And that is the ultimate test we will apply in everything we do as a department.

    Whether families and businesses can afford the energy they use.

    Now there are short-term reliefs that we must provide to give people some breathing room. And we know that and we understand that particularly in the current context.

    That’s why one of the first thing’s the Prime Minister did when he came into office was to cut VAT on energy bills, building on the £150 off the costs of energy bills that we did in the Budget last year. 

    And the expansion of the £150 Warm Home Discount to over 6 million families.

    So we know we need to do our part to give people breathing room.

    But this cannot be a substitute for the big changes we need to deliver in the energy system to drive down energy costs for good. And we are very clear as a government this is our responsibility and this is the moment we must grip this.

    Now I have given you a top-down view as you will expect.

    But I am really clear these reforms cannot simply be mandated from Whitehall.

    They will be delivered hand in hand with the people, places and communities that must see the benefits.

    When communities host the infrastructure that powers Britain’s future, they should share fairly in the rewards.

    Places shouldn’t host the transition. They should have a stake in it.

    So we will back local energy, support greater community participation and put a fairer relationship between clean-energy infrastructure and the communities hosting it.

    Through Great British Energy, which will support over 1,000 community and local energy projects by 2030.

    We will pave the way for communities to own more of the renewable energy projects built in their area and share more directly in the benefits of the clean power transition.

    And vitally we will put our communities at the centre of delivering the Warm Homes Plan.

    Devolving funding so regional and local government can play a critical role in co-ordinating and accelerating the pace of home and building upgrades that we absolutely need to see over the course of the next decade.

    So that we can insulate, solar, clean heat and smart technology street by street, state by state, community by community.

    So that people can directly benefit from the drive towards electrification.

    There’s a lot of work that I know we need to do together.

    There will be those who say you should slow down.

    That the answer is to build less.

    To reform less.

    To relinquish control.

    To blindly place our faith in the established way of doing things.

    But I believe that we must seize the opportunity of this moment as we must make this transition.

    And to do that, we’ve got to be ambitious.

    And we can only do that with clear strategic direction from government.

    With certainty, opportunity and autonomy for industry in the right parts of the system.

    And a stronger voice for communities.

    The need for the energy transition is real and urgent. And for those that question that, I simply say look at the summer we’ve just had. Record heatwaves, droughts, wildfires. They are an indication that climate change is there and we have got to do our part to respond to it.

    And in this transition which is accelerating every day in the UK and all around the world.

    The UK’s net zero economy now generates around £105 billion in Gross Value Added and supports 1.1 million full-time equivalent jobs, spanning energy, manufacturing, construction, engineering and professional services.

    Oil and gas will of course remain part of our energy mix for decades to come.

    And we will bring these vital communities with us as we move towards mass electrification and renewable power.

    Because the UK must be a leader for making the transition work for all people.

    And all of you here today are world leaders.

    You are the backbone of the energy system that we must build and of the future economy that we must build.

    So what we do and what that looks like, we must do in partnership. And that brings some questions, what do we want the end goal to look like?

    More control over the sources of our power, the level of our bills, the infrastructure that forms the bones of our economy?

    Or less?

    Do we want more certainty for businesses to invest? Or do we want less?

    Or remaining overexposed every time a crisis overseas shakes fossil fuel markets, is that the reality that we want? Or less?

    These are the big questions that we’ll be asking all of you and of ourselves.

    But for me we are really clear there’s an absolute imperative for government to grip this.

    There is an absolute imperative for the state to provide direction.

    To build public capability.

    To invest where the national interest demands it.

    And to create the conditions in which we collectively make to ensure businesses can invest, can build the infrastructure that we need, and can get us to an energy system that does the very simple job of ensuring this essential good – not a luxury – a basic that everyone needs, is provided to people at a cost that is affordable.

    And look, the commitment that you have from me is, from my department and from all of government is to do everything that we can to work in partnership to get there. We will play our part because the stakes are far too high.

    But I hope you are all willing to go on this journey with us.

    And to work in partnership to deliver the energy future that I believe we can.

    Thank you.

  • Martin McCluskey – 2026 Speech on Carbon capture and the renewal of British industry

    Martin McCluskey – 2026 Speech on Carbon capture and the renewal of British industry

    The speech made by Martin McCluskey, the Minister for Local Energy and Jobs, in London on 13 October 2026.

    Thank you, Olivia [Powis], for that introduction.

    I’m really pleased to join you this afternoon as the new minister responsible for carbon capture, utilisation and storage.

    In July, the Prime Minister asked me to continue in the department in a new role, as Olivia said, as Minister for Local Energy and Jobs. The idea behind this brief is simple.

    Energy has always been a critical sector for our country – employing tens of thousands of people, driving and contributing to the country’s economy.

    And with the country now firmly in the midst of the energy transition, my focus is on making sure that every single community feels the benefit and that people across the country can grab the opportunities of the transition with both hands.

    What I say about this job is that it isn’t a job that deals in the abstract. This is about people and places. And that’s why it’s at the heart of the Prime Minister’s agenda for reindustrialisation.

    This sector underpins so many communities in the UK and for decades, industrial decline has dismantled the people and places at the heart of it.

    As we transition our economy from fossil fuels to clean homegrown power, we have to be clear what this is about…

    …maintaining our independence, reducing our reliance on dictators and petrostates, rebuilding our industrial strength…

    …creating good jobs and restoring opportunity in every part of the country.

    And ultimately, building a world-leading British economy that is fit for the challenges of the future.

    And I see CCUS playing a key role in that.

    Your sector enables some of our most strategically important sectors, including cement, chemicals, refining and low-carbon power generation…

    …to remain competitive in an increasingly carbon-constrained global economy.

    It helps decarbonise existing industries, safeguard foundational sectors, and create the conditions for new low-carbon products and services to emerge.

    The engineering expertise, project-delivery capability, offshore infrastructure and technical skills developed over decades in the North Sea are directly transferable to carbon capture, transport and storage.

    From decarbonised cement to future low-carbon industrial products, CCUS is opening up opportunities across our industrial heartlands and ensuring they have a stake in the industries of the future.

    At the same time, it creates new markets and supply chains, attracting private investment into our industrial heartlands.

    CCUS is not just an industry in its own right. It is an enabler of wider industrial growth.

    That is the central argument I want to make today.

    Carbon capture is not an end in itself.

    The pipelines, capture plants and storage sites – they matter.

    But ultimately, they matter because of what they allow us to do, and the industries they enable.

    To protect existing industries looking to decarbonise.

    To make products in Britain that the world needs.

    And, most importantly, to create good jobs and restore opportunity in communities right across the country.

    That, in my mind, is the real prize before us.

    When we talk about reindustrialisation, it can sometimes sound like quite an abstract idea.

    A word that might be more comfortable and belong in an economic strategy or a government report.

    But it describes and reflects the reality, the lived experience of millions of people in this country.

    That too many places have been left behind for too long, with opportunities cut off and people moving away from their homes, or abroad, to find decent jobs.

    Young people grow up in communities that they love.

    Their families and friends are there.

    Their roots are there.

    But when it comes to the point of building a career, too often they feel they have little choice but to leave.

    Not because they necessarily want to go, but because the secure jobs, training opportunities and well-paid careers are no longer available close to home.

    And when that happens, a community does not simply lose one worker.

    It loses skills. It loses spending power. It loses people who might have started businesses, raised families or contributed to local life.

    Over time, that changes how a place sees itself.

    Because meaningful work is about more than just a wage packet.

    It gives people purpose, it gives people independence.

    It allows them to plan for the future.

    It gives families security, it gives young people something to aim for.

    When generations of people see industries close, investment disappears and opportunities move elsewhere.

    And the damage is not just economic.

    It damages confidence. It weakens the sense that the future belongs to them.

    It frays at the social fabric of a place.

    We have seen this in the past in former mining communities.

    We have seen it in our great manufacturing towns.

    We have seen it in communities built around steel, around chemicals, oil and gas, and engineering.

    I have the privilege of representing in parliament a shipbuilding community.

    But I’m from the first generation in my family that didn’t work in the yards or the trades associated with them.

    Why? Because the jobs just aren’t there anymore.

    At the end of the 1950s, around 10,000 people in my community worked in shipyards.

    Now that number is about to fall below 200.

    And when the decline set in through the 1970s and through the 1980s, the new jobs that were promised materialised in the form of call centres and semiconductor manufacturers, but then most of them disappeared in the ‘90s and the noughties.

    What the government is now focussed on is how we undo that damage.

    These places powered this country.

    They created Britain’s wealth.

    They created the skills, the expertise and the industrial capacity on which our national success was built.

    But too many were left without a serious plan when the industries around them declined.

    Government stood back. Investment moved elsewhere. And people were told that this was simply the way that the economy worked.

    This government does not accept that.

    We have a responsibility to shape the economy.

    To work with industry.

    To invest strategically in the long-term and build the infrastructure businesses need.

    And to ensure that economic change happens with communities, rather than happening to them.

    That the places we are proud to call home can be given new life, designed by the people who know them best.

    That is why, to my mind, reindustrialisation matters.

    It is not about recreating the economy of the past.

    It is about building the industries of the future in the places that have the skills, experience and ambition to lead them.

    That thinking is at the heart of my job as Minister for Local Energy and Jobs.

    The 2 parts of that title belong together.

    Local energy.

    And local jobs.

    Because the clean energy transition will only succeed if people can see how it improves their lives.

    If they see good jobs being created. If they see investment arriving in their communities. If local businesses win contracts.

    If young people get apprenticeships. And if communities have a real stake in the economic change taking place around them.

    My job is not simply to support projects. It is to ensure those projects support people and places.

    That means strengthening local supply chains, enabling engineering firms to win new contracts, invest in new capabilities and grow for the long term.

    It means making sure experienced workers know that the skills they have gained over decades will be needed in the industries we are building today.

    And it means giving businesses confidence that Britain is serious about the infrastructure, skills and long-term certainty that industrial investment requires.

    It also builds on strengths we already have.

    That’s why CCUS is not only critical to achieving net zero.

    It is central to this government’s reindustrialisation agenda.

    And the clusters are proving that we can deliver it.

    The most important thing about CCUS is not simply the carbon it captures. It is about what that infrastructure makes possible.

    When we talk about pipelines and storage networks, we should also talk about the industries that can connect to them.

    Cement works. Refineries. Chemical plants. Low-carbon power generation. Energy-from-waste facilities.

    Take just one industry, cement.

    The project at Padeswood is not simply carbon capture attached to a cement works. It will be the UK’s first carbon capture-enabled cement plant, securing the future of a vital foundation industry.

    It is about protecting an important industrial site, the workers who depend on it and the supply chains built around it.

    But it’s also about creating a new generation of low-carbon construction materials and positioning British businesses to serve future markets.

    Or take refining and chemicals.

    Carbon capture offers a route to reduce their emissions while keeping production and skilled employment in Britain.

    The alternative cannot be to close British industry, import the same products from elsewhere and pretend the emissions have disappeared.

    That would not be decarbonisation. It would be deindustrialisation by another name.

    That is why I see CCUS not simply as environmental infrastructure, but as economic infrastructure.

    And we are making great strides in building that infrastructure.

    Working with industry, government has secured 5 Final Investment Decisions.

    In the East Coast Cluster, the Northern Endurance Partnership and Net Zero Teesside Power are helping to build a new low-carbon industrial heartland, supporting around 3,000 jobs during construction while delivering secure, flexible low-carbon power.

    In the North West and in North Wales, as part of HyNet, Liverpool Bay CCS is now supporting over 1,400 jobs.

    In the same cluster, as I mentioned a moment ago, Padeswood is securing the future of a vital foundation industry.

    And Protos will be the UK’s first carbon capture-enabled energy-from-waste facility, demonstrating British innovation in action.

    These competitions will help maximise the use of infrastructure already under construction, attract further private investment, develop supply chains, and strengthen Teesside’s position as a leading hub for clean industrial growth.

    Projects in the East Coast Cluster have announced over £2 billion of supply-chain contracts awarded to more than 260 UK suppliers to date.

    They have also announced investment of over £1 million in local skills development, with 175 local young people in training.

    That is what reindustrialisation looks like in practice.

    Combined, Padeswood and Protos will support over 600 jobs.

    The real value of a cluster is the ecosystem that can grow around it, and we are building the foundations of new industrial economies.

    And this opportunity reaches beyond the first 2 clusters.

    Two Teesside-based competitions are running this year to support expansion.

    We will be setting out the next steps soon, so that industry has the clarity you need, taking into account the readiness of additional store capacity along the East Coast.

    We are funding the development of CCUS infrastructure in the Humber region as part of the Viking cluster.

    We are supporting the development of Acorn CCS, which is important to Scotland’s carbon capture infrastructure.

    It will help strengthen industrial competitiveness, attract private capital, and ensure Scotland can play a leading role in the UK’s growing carbon-management industry.

    Together, this industry and these projects are already supporting around 5,500 jobs in the UK.

    And I want to hear from you. I want to hear from all of you.

    To hear what is working, hear where the challenges are, and to support the work you are doing.

    It begins with government and industry working together to maintain investor confidence, attract new investment and drive down costs as we deliver this first wave of projects.

    At the same time, you have a part to play in this as well.

    Showing how these projects create real economic growth, and support domestic supply chains, and, ultimately, provide value for money.

    This is how the clean energy mission delivers not only decarbonisation, but reindustrialisation and economic growth.

    And sets us up to be an economy that can resist the effects of wars and crises overseas that we do not control.

    But it is no secret that we are operating in a challenging fiscal environment, and this government remains committed to meeting its fiscal rules.

    So I owe you today to level with you, the next phase of the CCUS programme will be in the context of broader difficult decisions on funding.

    We must ensure that public investment is targeted where it can deliver the greatest value, while continuing to build confidence in the long-term future of the sector.

    That may mean making decisions about priorities, sequencing and pace, and recognising that progress will not always happen everywhere at once.

    But this will also mean opportunity. As we move beyond first-of-a-kind projects, we are developing policies that offer industry and private investment greater leadership and flexibility: simplifying access to networks, enabling non-pipeline connections, and allowing international transfers of CO2.

    And the Prime Minister has been clear that UK projects must deliver for UK plc and UK workers.

    So as the CCUS sector grows, the requirement for government subsidy will need to reduce if it is to be sustainable for the long term.

    But let me be totally clear, my overriding message to you today is that the government wants a strong CCUS sector in this country.

    That it is an important sector for the UK’s future, and we will continue to engage closely with industry as we continue to deliver the programme.

    That is why one of the first things I did after the reshuffle and taking this job was get a meeting in the diary with the CCSA.

    And I will be out visiting the clusters soon.

    And one thing I can do for you is make this transition more visible.

    Showing off what this sector has already achieved, that the energy transition can deliver real opportunity for our communities and our country.

    The government is in delivery mode, 2.5 years after the election.

    And I want to see how this industry is boosting local economies, and I want people to know about those successes.

    So please don’t be shy in coming forward and telling me about those successes.

    The government wants a strong carbon capture industry in Britain.

    To restore a sense of worth to our communities, to rebuild our industrial base, to lay the foundations for the future.

    And behind every strategy document, investment decision, every statistic, is a person who is proud of their community and wants to build a decent life.

    And we are serving them too.

    So, my message today is a simple one.

    Success will not be measured only by how much carbon we capture.

    It will be measured by what we build, and the message we send as we do.

    That the transition to clean energy is not a threat to British industry.

    It can be the beginning of its renewal.

    That is why this government is backing carbon capture and storage.

    So, in closing, I want to thank you all for your work so far, and I’m looking forward to we all we can achieve together in the months and years ahead.

    Thank you.

  • Ed Miliband – 2026 Speech on the Global Financial System

    Ed Miliband – 2026 Speech on the Global Financial System

    The speech made by Ed Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, in Bangkok on 14 October 2026.

    So, look, I come to this event very conscious that I’m sharing a panel with people who know much more about these issues than I do. What am I trying to do in my remarks before you get onto the real experts on the panel?

    I want to try and offer political leadership on the part of the UK on these issues, and to explain why I believe political leadership on the part of the UK is right, is necessary, and I believe can make a difference, particularly over the coming year as we approach our G20 presidency. And this is my argument today.

    First, I come to these issues, to these challenges, believing that the UK’s foreign policy must confront issues of debt development and climate, for reasons of both values and interests, and I want to explain what I mean by that.

    Second, I want to take inspiration from past UK leadership, but I want to recognise that today’s agenda in 2026 is very different from the challenges we confronted 20 years ago.

    And third, I want to set out some thoughts about how the UK wants to take these issues forward. But first, the case for action.

    In my first week as foreign secretary, I confirmed I would serve as Governor to the World Bank, and I believe I’m the first ever British Foreign Secretary to attend the annual meetings in this role.

    Why did I decide to do this? Because the issues of climate, development, and debt matter profoundly to me. I know from my experience working on climate for nearly two decades that the countries that have done least to cause the climate crisis face its most extreme effects. And if 20 years ago we talked about the climate crisis as a theoretical future threat, we now know it is a present-day reality for many countries, including our own.

    But it is small island states and many other developing countries for whom this crisis is existential. And I also know that for many, this vulnerability on climate breakdown is now piled on top of high levels of debt servicing and the urgent need for poverty reduction.

    Now, this is a values case for action, but I believe it is also matched by our national interest as the UK, because in the interconnected world we live in, the opportunities and challenges we confront are collective. We can all benefit from prosperity and growth across the world. Emerging markets can help our economic gains for themselves but also help spur global growth.

    And it is true of the challenges we face as well. Climate is a national security issue, and this is one of the things I’m emphasising in my role as Foreign Secretary, but these are national security issues that cross borders.

    This is a collective action problem because issues of global food security, energy security, migration will affect Britain if we do not tackle them.
    And the same is true on debt, development, and fragility. A foreign policy, in my view, that ignores the root causes of conflict in the world is one that is wholly inadequate to genuinely defending our security.

     So that’s the first part of my remarks. Why I am here, and I’m determined the UK plays a leading role. Second, I take inspiration from the past and what UK leadership, working with others has achieved.

     I was an advisor in the Treasury in the 2000s working with Gordon [Brown] and Shriti [Vadera] on Development and Debt in the run up to Gleneagles in 2005, the biggest debt relief intervention for a generation. I even remember being phoned and shouted out by Bob Geldof, although at the end of the conversation he made clear that he thought I was Ed Balls, my colleague.

    But now that action from two decades ago, as well as what was done in the HIPC [Heavily Indebted Poor Countries] Initiative in the 1990s, continues to make a difference.

    But the world is different, and I cite these examples not to say we rerun the past, but also to say how are things different and how we must rise to the level of ambition of the previous era. So, how has our thinking changed?

    I think I think first of all, we know that this must be a partnership of equals as we think about tackling these questions, not a rich world dispensing help to poorer countries. And we also know, and this is something that Shriti has very much emphasized in her work, of the opportunities for growth in emerging economies.

    This is an opportunity story, not just a deficit and challenges story, and I think this is a very, very important part of the picture that we are painting.

    We also, though, have to acknowledge the profound moment of challenge that we face as a world, even more than 20 years ago. When foreign secretaries come to events like this, they get a [diplomatic] telegram, as we call it, a Diptel. In my case, from Vel Gnanendran, our representative on the World Bank board, and as Vel pointed out in his Diptel, we have a world where there is more conflict than at any time since the Second World War.

    We see rising food and fuel prices as a result of the Iran War, which comes on top of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which came on top of COVID, and we see climate damage hitting developing countries as we brace ourselves for the worst El Nino on record.

    That is quite a portfolio of challenges, a perfect storm of challenges, and at the same time, we see greater fiscal strain in richer countries. ODA spending continues to play a critical and valuable role in the UK’s work, but in common with others, it is reduced. I say all this about the world having changed and about the challenges, so we get the solutions for today and the future right.

    And I want to emphasise this point: the same issues as 20 years ago persist about the fundamental failings. This is the title, in a way, of today’s event: the failings of the global financial system and indeed of the global order to properly serve developing countries, and that includes the imbalances of power we see between Global North and Global South.

    The manifestations of this imbalance, the nature of the challenges may have changed, but the injustice hasn’t, and that’s why we’re determined to bring the same level of ambition as we did back then.

    Third, then this is the third part of my remarks. This takes me to what do we do about it, and this is incredibly important. It’s easy to commentate on the world, but the point of political leadership is not to commentate; it is to act.

    One of my predecessors from some time ago, Lord Carrington, used to say – I’m told, I wasn’t around at the time – at the end of meetings at the Foreign Office, ‘and so’. In other words, ‘and so, what are we going to do’? And we’re not short of insightful proposals from successive G20 presidencies, from coalitions such as the Bridgetown Initiative (I was with [Prime Minister of Barbados] Mia Mottley earlier on today), President Macron’s ‘four Ps’, and the important Accra Reset.

    But how do we translate it into action?

    I said earlier that next year the UK takes the chair of the G20, and I wanted to use this moment to lay out some ideas today around areas we can take action: around debt, around investment, around resilience, and around fragility. And I’ll say something briefly about each of them.

    First, on debt, the debt problem may have changed, but its impact, if anything, is worse than 20 years ago.

    Debt servicing costs are at a 25-year high in sub-Saharan Africa. Over three and a half times more is spent on debt servicing than on education. And this is in part because the Global South is paying the price for rising interest rates in wealthier countries, and the Rockefeller report shows this very well.

    Many of these countries’ debt may be sustainable over the longer term, but the short-term repayments are crippling. And while many are not defaulting on their payments, they are being forced, if you like, to default on the lives of future prospects of future generations. So we need a new deal on debt, a deal that supports countries to repay over longer time horizons and, crucially, refinancing with better rates to give developing countries precious fiscal space.

    And we’re right to talk about the private sector. And I was at an event this morning, obviously, it’s a theme of the Annual Meetings, but we can’t ignore the issue of fiscal space.

    I do want to acknowledge the work the World Bank has already done on these issues, but we need all of the [multilateral development banks] MDBs to go further, as well as debtor countries delivering their end of the bargain through economic reform.

    Now, there is a small number of countries, and again, this was pointed out in the Rockefeller report, that need deeper relief.  And this deal must also deliver faster debt restructuring through the G20 Common Framework, and we’ve got to improve the debt architecture in the longer term, so we don’t find ourselves in this position again, including ensuring that debt restructuring can’t be blocked by a single private lender.

    But I think it is also the case, and I know there is debate about this, that we can make progress on this agenda through the full implementation of the review of Capital Adequacy Frameworks.

    We know that some MDBs are not even making full use of the headroom they already have to provide greater funding. So using their balance sheets, and this could release 10s of billions or even more fiscal space.

    There was a Standard and Poor’s report recently, which suggested hundreds of billions of fiscal space could be opened up by leveraging the balance sheets of the of the MDBs.

    I also want to just say, in this context tackling the issue of dirty money is also crucial. Africa alone loses an estimated $90 billion each year in illicit capital flows, outstripping both aid and foreign direct investment. As a global financial centre, the UK has a responsibility to play our part, and we’re going to convene an international summit in 2027 on illicit finance.

    And we will also continue to back partner countries’ own efforts to raise higher domestic revenues and to secure the international tax revenues they are owed.

    So that’s the first point that I want to make on debt. Second, we know we can’t only focus on debt and public investment. We know it’s part of the story, but not the only story.

    And this is the point about private capital. And I do think this is an inspiring agenda. And I do want to acknowledge what Ajay has done at the World Bank, as Shriti pointed out this morning at a panel discussion, trebling the amount that has been released in terms of private capital leverage through the World Bank. We know global savings are worth hundreds of trillions of dollars. We know that capital stays overwhelmingly in rich countries. Even a fraction of it would make a huge difference to lower-income countries.

    Now, the UK government has brought together pension funds, insurance companies, commercial banks, and others through our EMDE [Emerging Markets and Developing Economies] Investor Task Force, and this has highlighted the possibilities: how the multilateral development banks and bilateral development finance institutions need to overhaul the way they work to vastly improve their ability to crowd in the private sector by sharing risk and building the pipeline of opportunities.

    And there’s a really interesting aspect to this, which is that the private sector seems to overestimate the risk of investments in developing countries, because last week the MDBs published data on their investments, and that shows the returns, not just the risks, that investors can expect in emerging markets.

    Individually, the MDBs are doing good work, but collectively they can go much further, including by creating asset classes that attract far greater volumes of capital, and by deepening domestic capital markets. So that’s something about the private capital and the difference it can make.

    Third, I want to make a point about resilience, because we can make headway on fiscal space, and we can make headway on investment, and yet still see gains wiped out by repeated climate shocks and natural disasters.

    And this is something that we cannot ignore. Maybe it could have been ignored 20 years ago, but it can’t be ignored in the world we live in in 2026.

    Extreme heat, floods, droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires. You all know it in the audience, destroying livelihoods, displacing populations.

    I’m doing an event tomorrow with the Nepalese finance minister, precisely about this question, and we know what happened in Nepal only very recently.

    Now, of course we need to carry on our work to reduce emissions. But, and it’s really important to say this: adaptation and resilience on its own can’t address this problem if we don’t address mitigation and emissions. But we also know that many climate change effects are already locked in, so we need a fundamental shift from financing disaster response after the fact to investing in preparedness and resilience before the crisis hits.

    And we have to make resilience central to creating a financial system that works for all.

    That means better data, better early warning, and better infrastructure that can withstand or recover quickly from shocks.  But – and this is the key point I want to make – we also need finance teed up in advance of crises, so that governments get rapid support. Currently, only 2% of crisis finance is prearranged, despite, and you might think, well, how can it be pre-arranged, despite 35% of shocks being predictable.

    Time is of the essence to save lives, limit costs, and limit damage. And we know that pre-arranged finance, including insurance, works. It enabled rapid payouts of over $600 million to help Jamaica get back on its feet after Hurricane Melissa. It paid out drought insurance in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. We need to make these approaches the norm.

    And we need much stronger private sector take-up of so-called pause clauses to countries hit by major shocks to defer debt payments.

    The last point I want to make is on fragile states. This is gloomy, I’m afraid.

    This decade could be the first in more than a generation without meaningful progress in reducing extreme poverty, which blights the life chances of over 800 million people.

    Previously, ending extreme poverty was not simply a phrase; it was within reach. But that progress has not only stalled; it is being reversed. And this picture is inextricably linked to conflict and fragility, countries where power politics work directly against development and where the consequences of instability transcend borders and cross continents. Places like Sudan and Afghanistan, where we must confront the drivers of conflict and target our efforts accordingly, including working with women and girls who so often pay the heaviest price.

    Now, the reason I make this point is we can’t simply say that because a government is failing its people, we will do so as well. So, I welcome the World Bank’s new strategy for improving its work in these difficult contexts and urge it to be fully implemented. But the entire international system needs to change in relation to fragility. The MDBs, IMF, and UN should work together from the outset in ways that build on local leadership. And the MDBs must take action to end the wasteful duplication of their processes.

    Every unnecessary delay means jobs not created, schools not rebuilt, and communities left vulnerable.

    So this is just a summary of some of the ideas we have for our G20 presidency. We want to see action on debt, private sector mobilisation, resilience, and on fragile states. And this is work I will take forward with my colleague and friend, the Chancellor John Healey.

    I think it’s important also, though, to acknowledge that we can only shape our ideas with you in this room, with partners across the Global south, and with others, including civil society and others, mobilising for change. I’m not one of those politicians who believes that politics should be left to politicians. Politics is about everybody. It’s about popular movements. It’s about campaigners. It’s about policy advocates. It’s about the whole range of civil society.

    Let me then end finally, though, with this thought.

    So I said earlier that there was a perfect storm of challenges facing the world, the biggest set of challenges since 1945. But in case we are daunted by the challenges, I think we should think of the spirit of that generation that rebuilt the world anew after 1945.

    My parents were part of that generation. They were refugees from the Nazis. They saw the world rebuilt after World War II, the UN, the Bretton Woods institutions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All of those had their flaws, but I make this point because I think I think it’s so important for us to remember as we face these challenges in our generation. That generation faced absolutely enormous challenges, but they didn’t lower their sights; they raised them.

    They raised their sights, and they built the world anew, as I said. And I think what’s so important in the era that we live in, and I think our prime minister is a fantastic exemplar of this, is this same spirit of boldness should call us today, in this generation, to build the world anew and to defend our values of solidarity, justice, and equality.

    And together, Global South and Global North. We should all take that spirit forward in the work we do in the months and years ahead. And on behalf of the UK Government, I pledge that we will play our part, working with others in that spirit. Thank you so much, everybody.

  • Emma Hardy – 2026 Comments on the Flood and Drought Taskforce

    Emma Hardy – 2026 Comments on the Flood and Drought Taskforce

    The comments made by Emma Hardy, the Floods Minister, on 11 October 2026.

    We’re facing extreme weather, with flood and drought intertwined, but the government is taking decisive action.

    We’re taking a smarter, more joined-up approach to manage the nation’s water and set up our new Flood and Drought Resilience Taskforce. This will put communities and businesses at the heart of our work and will make sure the UK is ready for whatever the weather brings next.

    We are also backing that ambition with historic investment, including £4.2 billion for existing and new flood defences that will protect even more people in the years ahead.

  • Andy Burnham – 2026 Speech at the Innovation Nation Summit

    Andy Burnham – 2026 Speech at the Innovation Nation Summit

    The speech made by Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, in Manchester on 9 October 2026.

    It’s good to be back on home turf and I’m sorry for the shock that Manchester-based members of the audience are feeling at seeing me in person in a tie.

    So, I’m going to start by saying something that I used to say every week between the years of 2007 and 2010, when I was in his cabinet. Gordon is right. In every cabinet meeting. Very loyal. A very proud member, I might say. But life has taught me that he so often is.

    And I think many people will know that, David Sainsbury and others, we all know that. I’m pleased actually that I’ve got a member of my cabinet here today, the Business Secretary, who is part of that Greater Manchester team that is increasingly making its presence felt on the national stage and the AI Minister Kanishka Narayan. We’re really pleased to be here with you all.

    Gordon is right. Britain can be the world’s leading innovation nation. We are an innovation nation. But I today set the national goal to be the world’s leading innovation nation.

    The good news is I think we’re already close. We’ve got multiple strengths and assets that Gordon’s mentioned, but this is a moment to challenge ourselves to go further. It’s what the country needs. I said this last week in Liverpool. We need to draw a line on a decade of too much drift, face forward, get a real sense of direction, purpose, hope in our hearts, knowing where we’re going. That’s what the country needs. It’s what I’m trying to bring, and I hope it’s beginning to be felt in all of the regions and nations of the UK. I think we can go further and I want to say a few things today about how.

    The first thing though is just to question what is it to be an innovation nation and particularly to become the world’s leading. I would say this, it would mean having a globally significant cluster in every region and nation, every single one. And within those clusters, a globally significant company in every region and nation on the scale that Gordon was just describing. And from that, having opportunity, investment, growth and good jobs, fairly distributed across all parts of the UK as part of a new intentional national drive to re-industrialise the UK in the 21st century as an innovation-led, research-driven economy.

    Re-industrialisation, that is a serious part of this mission and re-industrialisation that is felt by all people in all places. We can do it and we can be the nation in the next 10 years that as Gordon says, does find the cure for cancer or does make the breakthrough on dementia or indeed on nuclear fusion.

    To anyone who says we can’t be that I say we did it before, so why not?

    As Gordon said, this is the city where Ernest Rutherford in 1917, over a 100 years ago, first split the atom. So why can’t we be the place that makes nuclear fusion a commercial possibility. After all, the Dalton Nuclear Institute is literally a stone’s throw from where we are now, and it is world leading.

    Innovation is a tradition in Britain. It is part of us. Ada Lovelace imagined what a computer could be in the 19th century, and this was before one even existed. And then Alan Turing laid down the blueprint for the world’s first programmable computer. And then he moved here to Manchester when that very machine was built here in 1948.

    Tim Berners-Lee, as Gordon said, then put the world on the web. And more, if you think about life sciences, the millions of lives saved by Alexander Fleming and Edward Jenner, the electric motor, the jet engines and the telephone, all of these things, British inventions, Britain, a nation of inventors then and now.

    The important thing is just to be clear about the assets that we have right now because they are to be found in every single region and every single nation of the UK.

    An expanding creative sector in the Liverpool city region. It is unbelievable how many things you will watch tonight on Netflix or whatever that are filmed in the city of Liverpool. It really is an amazing UK strength.

    Then if you look to South Yorkshire, the outstanding advanced manufacturing research centre that is doing so much to lift productivity in South Yorkshire.

    One of the continent’s largest fintech sectors in Edinburgh, Europe’s gaming capital in Dundee, a global hub for photonics in Glasgow, clean energy in Newcastle, space research in Leicester, the future home of the UK’s biggest electric vehicle battery plant in Somerset, a global automotive engineering research and testing centre in Warwickshire, the frontier of quantum research in Oxford, 100 billion chip design company headquartered in Cambridge, a leading cyber cluster in Belfast, thousands of jobs in compound semiconductors in South Wales. You can tell I’ve become Prime Minister because I’ve not mentioned Greater Manchester once in this list, but I will now, Greater Manchester. The biggest UK AI cluster by headcount outside of London and the South East.

    And then look at what is happening in London. There are so many strengths. The creative industries, obviously, but research, fintech, AI, our capital city is at the top of its game and can go further. So it’s proof isn’t it? We’ve got world-class strength in every region and as Gordon said every region needs now to punch its full weight and make its presence felt on the world stage as a home of innovation.

    All of those clusters are underpinned by world-class universities, many represented in this room today and we thank you for what you are doing to drive the innovation economy in the UK. It isn’t said enough, I will say it today, without you we just couldn’t have done it.

    I know as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, I’m obviously looking to Vice Chancellor of Manchester University when I say this but I know there are others in the room. We could not have done what we did here in the last 10 or more years without having the universities right with us, and I mean right with us, developing the thinking, the ambition for what we could be, and I know that applies elsewhere as well.

    The university assets we have in this country are perhaps our strongest base when it comes to being a world leader in innovation. As Gordon said, 16 in the top 100, all of them conducting world leading research and spinning out a stream of startups.

    We mentioned those London-based scientific institutions, but very shortly, the UK Biobank, a true global resource, will soon complete its move to the Manchester Science Park here. Life sciences in this part of the world about to take a major step forward, bringing cutting edge robotics and leading research into cancer dementia and heart disease to the fore.

    Behind all of it, the government is investing over 80 billion in research and innovation in this spending review.

    So, we’ve got the assets, we’ve got the talent, we’ve got the ideas and the ambition, but here’s the crux of it. Here is where we’re falling short. We are not making the most of them yet. And this is our collective challenge, everybody. This is what we must fix, and this is what today is about.

    Being an innovation nation is thinking more about what we are all doing in our different places. It’s when you combine it all together that we’ve become more than the sum of our parts in innovation and this is what the next decade has to be about.

    We can all see the world in the way that it’s changing and some of the challenges that it’s presenting to us. I’ve certainly felt that in my first two months as Prime Minister. They are huge challenges.

    In Germany yesterday talking to Chancellor Mertz, we have to face them with our partners as well and our partners in Europe. We won’t rise to these challenges if we don’t think like that, networking as people ever are. It is the way we make Britain and the people of this great country safer, healthier and more resilient in the 21st century that is going to test us in so many ways.

    We can’t do it any other way, and we need to think like that and set out a clear plan and a shared purpose and path for where we go next together and I hope that comes from today.

    For me it does always begin with place as Gordon said. If we want to unlock the potential of people in all places, we do need to give more power for them to do more for themselves. And I have set up Number 10 North for precisely that purpose, to take power out of Whitehall and rewire an over-centralised country and create the optimum conditions for innovation on the ground in all parts of the UK.

    And it’s great today to have the Cabinet Secretary, Antonia Romeo with us, and also Caroline Simpson, former Chief Executive of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority here today, Caroline leading the team at Number 10 North, both of them recognising that more power in the hands of people in our places is what will make the difference. That is when you see the fusion of public, private, academic sectors around place-based strengths.

    That is how it happens. I saw it happen here, I know it can happen elsewhere, but when you have a Cabinet Secretary committed to civil service report, leading that change, evolving power, working with Number 10 North. This is when it gets exciting, everybody. And this is what I want, what has happened here and the powers that we have here available to all parts of the UK. And that is what we are going to deliver.

    Because the key thing is when you have that, you have the ability to change the game and set new ambitions, you have the chance to improve the liveability of places. And that’s what we have tried to do here.

    And I know Steve, my colleague in Liverpool, who’s doing exactly the same, as are the other mayors. You can then attract talent to live in these great cities that perhaps wouldn’t have come here before. That is a really important part. of it. And that is what has been happening here and elsewhere in the last decade.

    So, when you are able to take more control over your destiny, and this place first in England to do it, what then happens is the crucial thing. You can set a new ambition. And that’s what we did, working with our colleagues in the private sector, Chris has been a huge driving force, as you all know here, and others who helped come together with us, our business leaders, in the city region with our vice-chancellors, then with the politicians, set a joint ambition and that’s what we did.

    And the thing we’ve got to be honest about is when we had a country that was largely run from Whitehall, it didn’t have ambitions for its big city regions like this. It wouldn’t be able to articulate them if they’d been asked to say what was the ambition for the leaders, what was the ambition for Birmingham, it just didn’t have one. But when you give people power, they then will say that ambition and they will back their places and then those places start to move.

    It’s like what Gordon said about putting a man on the moon. If you create a situation where people have the power to set a mission, it’s unbelievable and then people start to feel part of it and start to come towards it. And that is the joy of my life to see that happen here when I was the Mayor of Redmond and it’s still happening now under Bev Craig.

    And that’s what I want everybody to be able to do, all parts of the country, to set new ambitions for themselves. And you can see the results when it happens.

    For the first time, having set our ambition, we then worked with Theresa May’s government, actually, and I’m really pleased to see Greg Clarke in the audience today, because Greg led here a very important process which was the local industrial strategy process and that still underpins modern Greater Manchester and actually allowed us to develop our thinking around five clusters because that is where we got to.

    We obviously had the original creative media cluster at Media City, Life Sciences on the Oxford Road and the UK Biobank that is as I said going to go up several levels.

    Digital, cyber and AI across the city centre, our third cluster. And we have the emerging advanced materials and manufacturing cluster at Atom Valley, in the North East of Greater Manchester and Clean Energy at Carrington, five clusters and that came from that work and we thank you Greg for that.

    All built from the bottom up and this is the important point that everyone in Whitehall needs to understand and I think they’re getting the message now. It comes from the bottom up, that’s how growth is, it has to come that way. And it’s when you combine the different things together that then you weave it into something that becomes powerful and compelling.

    Business, academia, local government working in lockstep with high ambition. That’s what we want everywhere. And I want personally to see everywhere taking a step forward in that direction very shortly.

    I want all areas to have a good growth fund, on the model that has been established here. A single investment pot drawn from public sources which can then attract private capital and decisions can be made quickly and made jointly and we will say more at the budget about how that will be achieved.

    As part of that commitment I want to announce three specific measures today.

    First, we will devolve local innovation partnerships funds to established mayors from 2028. Now this is significant. I’m going to explain this because this is the first step towards devolving dedicated innovation funding to local leaders. So, a very significant announcement.

    Second, we will build on our existing industrial strategy at a national level by identifying the clusters around the UK with the potential to become truly world leading and with UKRI, commit one billion pounds over the next four years to back these clusters and these places.

    So that is working with UK Research and Innovation to take a more place-based approach to innovation is something the mayors have long called for and it’s about to happen.

    And thirdly, picking up on what Gordon was saying, I want to see more collaboration between clusters in a way Britain has never managed before.

    Lou Caldwell chaired the business board here in Greater Manchester and she pioneered the partnership between Greater Manchester and Cambridge which has really already started to open new thinking and we’re really proud that that has really taken root.

    You know Cambridge, home of incredible health research. When you connect that health research to a city region nearer 3 million people with a digital care record, you immediately see how the potential for clinical trials is totally transformed.

    And on the back of that we’ve seen Liverpool and Oxford sign a new partnership. Imperial and Warwick, doing the same. We want to see more of it, a more collaborative UK. If you think of that Edinburgh FinTech sector or gaming in Dundee, partnering them with counterparts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. That’s the way I think the UK will start to punch above its weight and that’s what we’ve got to do, partnering complementary clusters around the UK.

    So that’s the third element of this. If we do these things in this way, Number 10 North will lay the foundations for the innovation nation.

    But given the fierceness of competition globally, the Chancellor and I know we need to do more to back British investors, British inventors, entrepreneurs, and businesses.

    Our people will always be our most important asset. I believe everyone should have the opportunity to go as far as their talents will take them.

    It does need to start in schools, and we will reshape the education system so that it is innovation ready, 21st century ready and that does mean basing it on parity between academic and technical so that there is a path for everybody into the innovation economy.

    It can’t be about supercharging a part of the economy and everybody else feeling shut out. We need to give paths to everybody into the emerging innovation economy.

    And from there we need to provide quality pathways towards work experience working with our employers, work placements, apprenticeships, solving Britain’s skills deficit in a re-industrialised economy.

    What we also recognise is of the 100 fastest growing companies in the UK last year, more than half were founded by people who came to Britain.

    And let me just say for a moment, we thank them for coming here. We welcome them here. We need the brightest and the best from across the world, researchers, academics, entrepreneurs to keep choosing here. And it’s why we will have an international outlook in everything that we do, building closer ties with Europe and making sure that we have that outlook in everything that we do, not too much of the division that we’ve seen in the last decade.

    This is time to network here and around the world and that is what we will do.

    I also know we need our innovators to be able to move freely between companies and start their own without constraint.

    I believe some businesses have gone too far in their use of restrictive practices such as non-compete clauses.

    A few I know shared by many in this room and across the sector. Non-compete clauses stop workers from joining a rival organisation or indeed setting up one of their own after they have left their role and I think that’s a drag on innovation and prevents the best really being energised and bringing that dynamism to the economy.

    So, we are looking at changing this. They are often held back and unpaid during the time they have to sit out on the sidelines, and it does, as I say, stunt innovation and traps workers.

    So, I can confirm today we will legislate to make sure that non-compete clauses will no longer be a barrier to hiring for our most promising startups and scaling firms.

    Call it, if you like, the Bosman ruling for the innovation sector, but I think it’s much needed and long overdue.

    And we will ensure, by the way, that workers in the foundational economy, the everyday economy, are not prevented from moving jobs too.

    We will also bring forward options to address the wider use of restrictive practices. Everyone needs talent to succeed. Everyone needs investment to grow. We are in Britain very good at financing companies early on. The problem is that when our companies are ready to scale, the money too often comes from abroad or not at all. And before long, that company will head to where that investment came.

    We have, I believe, been too relaxed as a country about this arrangement. How many innovations, how many inventions can you think of that began here and then were scaled up somewhere else around the world?

    This is part of our national story, which we should not be proud, and we should commit to change today.

    Over the last two years the government has sought to increase domestic investment in UK assets through the creation of a national wealth fund and reforms made to the local government pension scheme, but we will go further and ensure more UK pension capital is invested specifically in British-based, high-growth companies.

    With talent and capital, you also need somewhere to sell. We are the fifth largest economy in the world, yet alone our market is simply not big enough for one of our startups to grow into a global giant. And this is why our trade deals with the US, India, and others matter, why closer relations with the European Union matter.

    You all heard me talk before about the power of public procurement to re-industrialise Britain, and this applies just as much to our shipyards and steelworks as it does to our start-ups, and we will make British public procurement work harder.

    We will work with our trade unions too, represented in this audience today with Jay McKenna from the TUC.

    We will make sure that we get good jobs by using social value procurement too.

    We’ve got a great example of that on the River Mersey with Camel Laird or the former Camel Laird site and what has been happening there.

    I want to see so much more of that across the UK. British public procurement driving re-industrialisation but also giving good secure jobs to people in all places. And that will be a very big theme.

    So, this is how we use our resources better to support British business and retain sovereign manufacturing capability and technology. A government on your side not in the way. That’s what we want to be.

    I know it’s not always felt like that. Our Regulatory Innovation Office is changing it. New sandboxing powers will allow us to suspend rules temporarily, giving innovators the space to test out ideas more freely.

    It means you can develop new technology more quickly and bring new medicines for instance to patients faster.

    We cannot speak about innovation today without mentioning AI.

    Of course, it is a foundational technology that would underpin all of the sectoral strengths of the United Kingdom, and we need to have a mentality of building out the AI sector everywhere to support a research driven innovation led economy everywhere.

    As you know Britain takes the presidency of the G20 next year and I have promised to demonstrate our renewed confidence as a country by putting AI top of the G20 agenda.

    We do need to take an AI for good approach first and foremost because it can unlock everything that we’re talking about today, but at the same time be clear-sighted about the risks it may pose.

    And just as Gordon did in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008, convening the world around a set of principles and standards to safeguard the global economy, so Britain will do it again, using the high level of trust that we have from many countries to develop a global set, a global code of standards and principles to support an AI for good approach, but at the same time making sure that we guard against any risks it may pose.

    This could be a major moment as the G20 comes to Manchester for the Leaders’ Summit next year, a huge opportunity for investment and I hope you will work with me to unlock it right around the country.

    Even if we get all of this right, it is still a fact that business and those who build companies want to see a reward. And those who back them expect to see a return.

    If the UK wants to build global companies, we need to be globally competitive. To do that, we cannot have Britain’s startups simply sell up.

    So, one of our biggest challenges is breaking through our own ceiling.

    Too often our best ideas are developed and scaled overseas, as I said, with it the jobs, technology and investment that goes with them.

    So, I know there is more to do to fix that, specifically on tax, to encourage people to stay and scale.

    And if we do that, we know the UK can become home to trillion-pound companies in the future, as Gordon was saying, who employ thousands of people, pay taxes and invest in local communities.

    Obviously, we will be able to develop that thinking as we go forward from here.

    So, I want to finish by where Gordon ended his remarks in that concept of an idea galvanizing everybody and then bringing progress forward.

    When we were speaking about this event, we talked about how an innovation nation comes to life around some of those big missions that we might set ourselves. But what is it that we’re ultimately reaching for here?

    I mentioned jobs and apprenticeships and investment opportunities and obviously people having higher living standards, growth productivity, all of those things are important.

    But the main thing, and let’s not today forget this, it’s about human progress at the end of the day. That’s what innovation can most bring, in the 21st century, making sure that everywhere we can see and feel human progress. And I think there’s areas where we need to go further. And I want to learn from something I did when I was here as Mayor.

    I was advised when I came in 10 years ago that we could within a decade end all youth transmissions of HIV in the Greater Manchester, I should say in a generation.

    It was part of the Fast Track Cities initiative, a call to arms to improve screening, education, testing, and get life-saving antivirals to the most vulnerable in our city and region. I’ll be honest, I felt sceptical about it all the time. I was worried about making a commitment that we could end new transmissions of HIV in greater amounts within a generation.

    I look back at it, and I castigate myself for the caution because the progress has been incredible.

    When you do put out a challenge and you ask people to pull together. It’s amazing actually what happens and the progress that we’ve achieved on it means we’ve achieved our fast-track HIV goals as a sitting region.

    And I learned from that and then start to think well how do then we apply that thinking more nationally.

    So, what we need to do is draw from our past and start to set new goals for the future.

    I think we are a global leader in life sciences, and we should be proud of that status. We all remember what happened during the pandemic. Britain was at the forefront of the development of the vaccine.

    We have successfully added years to life in so many ways, but I look at a challenge that is particularly personal to me right now.

    We have nearly a million people living with dementia in Britain and I cannot stand before you today and say that we know enough about it because honestly, we don’t.

    When people get a diagnosis, what are they told? But even before a diagnosis, do we all know enough individually about what we might do now to change our lifestyle to reduce the risk of dementia in later life. I don’t think we do, do we?

    This is the issue, I would say, or one of the issues in the 21stcentury, but we’re still in a position where we are not facing it fully.

    Cancer has made a huge drive in terms of what we know and what we can do, and we need to see the same now around dementia.

    Cancer was the 20th century focus and look what’s been achieved and we need to keep that going. But we need to convene people in the same way because I do know three things from personal experience.

    First, I know of its cruelty as a disease and what it does not just to the person but the people around that person. It’s devastating, absolutely devastating and I know many of you know that too.

    I also know, secondly, that we don’t know enough about it. As I said before, it’s quite shocking actually when you are in that experience and you start to try and find out more. I know amazing work being done by the Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK, but still, we don’t know enough about it, nowhere near enough.

    But thirdly, and more positively, there is extraordinary work underway to find out more and to stop it.

    The Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme was set up by a previous Conservative government. Part of that programme includes the Barbara Alliance, a brilliant organisation which carries out some remarkable work in the search for new dementia treatments by increasing the number of participants in clinical trials.

    Today I’m very pleased to announce 33 million pounds of government investment to support those life changing efforts. And with thanks to additional industry funding, it means a total of 48 million will now go to speed up the development of dementia treatments.

    I can also confirm today that the Health Data Research Service, a 600 million investment by this government and the Wellcome Trust, will select dementia as one of their first priorities.

    And this is a move that I hope will make the UK the leading nation in dementia research. I want Britain to be the country that makes the breakthrough and delivers the cure for dementia the world has been waiting for.

    And I say it knowing we can do it. Absolutely confident that we can. When this country pulls together, there is nothing that we can do. We are unbeatable.

    I mentioned the vaccine, the Oxford vaccine, but also there are so many other things that we can point to for Britain to take pride in and then from that start believing in ourselves again.

    We have everything we need to succeed. We’ve got the finest minds working at the most prestigious universities, the most innovative companies and clusters producing some of the most advanced technologies.

    We are doing so much right, but we can do so much more. We have good opportunities now in all of our nations and regions to deliver something that I’ve set as a mission as Prime Minister, good growth in every postcode.

    Let’s really focus on that and bring innovation to all parts of the UK as well. We can grow our companies into global giants. We can extend the chain of human achievement. We can be the world’s innovation nation.

    Thank you very much.

  • Kirsty McNeill – 2026 Speech at the Institute of International and European Affairs

    Kirsty McNeill – 2026 Speech at the Institute of International and European Affairs

    The speech made by Kirsty McNeill, the Foreign Office Minister, in Dublin on 8 October 2026.

    Thank you Orlaigh and the IIEA for hosting us today.   

    I’d also like to thank the Irish Government, and the European Union, for inviting me to join today’s meeting of development ministers – the first time the UK has sat around that table since Brexit.   

    Before coming here, I met Neale Richmond and we reflected on the strength of the relationship between the UK and Ireland.  

    As nearest neighbours, we share common interests. But more importantly, we share common values – a belief in democracy, multilateralism, the rule of law, and standing up for those most in need.  

    Those values matter more than ever, because we are living through a period of profound uncertainty.  

    Conflict is driving humanitarian crises across the world. In Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, too many places, the level of suffering is immense.  

    If you switch on the news today, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world is becoming a darker and darker place.  

    But being here in Ireland is a reminder that darker days need not lie ahead.  

    This country has a long history of refusing to accept that cruelty is inevitable.  

    I travelled here today from Scotland. More than thirteen hundred years ago, the Abbot of Iona made the same journey for a gathering he had convened on this island to establish the Cáin Adomnáin  – the Law of the Innocents.  

    Often described as Europe’s first human rights treaty, it sought to protect women, children and other non-combatants from violence. It reflected a shared belief that even in war there are rules, and that those not involved should be protected.  

    Of course, warfare has changed enormously since then.  

    Today’s conflicts are often more urban, more prolonged, and more complex.  

    Yet some things have remained the same. Women and children still too often bear the brunt. Human beings still find new ways to turn all our ingenuity into new ways to inflict harm on one another.  

    And yet it is also the case that we have never lost the capacity to come together and agree norms and rules to protect life.  

    Right from the days of the Law of the Innocents to the Geneva Conventions, the Mine Ban Treaty to the Arms Trade Treaty – each generation has tried to draw a line and say there are limits we will not cross.  

    That is a tradition we must all hold on to.   

    Because development, humanitarian action and conflict prevention all begin with the belief that every human life should be cherished.  

    And that brings me to my second point: we don’t just share a common humanity – we also share common challenges to that humanity.  

    Whether it is climate change, access to decent work, whether food is affordable and accessible – the issues facing the young people in the Global South and the Global North differ in degree and not nature.  

    That’s why I am determined that in how I do my job we will think of development not as something that happens ‘over there’ and not ‘over here’. But as the process of ensuring that more and more of us are safe and have enough – enough to live well, and with dignity.  

    That applies in Europe just as much as it does in Africa, Asia or anywhere else.  

    It’s one reason I was struck by what Taoiseach Micheál Martin said during a UN General Assembly event we were both at last month – when he talked about Ireland’s long-standing commitment to tackling hunger and malnutrition, rooted in its values and experience.  

    It reflected an understanding that solidarity begins by recognising ourselves in the experience of others.  

    That also helps explain why both Ireland and the UK continue to believe so strongly in international development – but also in doing development differently.  

    For the UK, that means adopting a modern approach to development grounded in investment, stronger systems and local leadership – and rooted in shared solidarity and mutual interest.  

    I’ll be thinking a lot about this as we prepare for the UK’s G20 Presidency next year.  

    And that same spirit of shared solidarity brings me to the future of Europe’s role in the world – and the UK’s place within it.  

    The UK Government is committed to building a closer, more ambitious relationship with our European partners because as the Prime Minister said at the Labour Party Conference, Brexit has done more harm than good.  

    So we are committed to reconnecting with our friends, allies and closest neighbours. My presence around the table of EU development ministers today is part of that.  

    As I said, this is the first time the UK has been invited to this format since we left the EU, and we want to build on the discussions today and do so quickly.  

    We’ve also restarted formal development discussions with the European Commission, our teams in Brussels are working together more closely, and we’re looking forward to the second UK-EU Summit later this year.   

    These are all important steps. But they are part of something bigger. A belief in solidarity across the continent we each call home and then onwards, ties of solidarity that tie the peoples of this continent to others around the world.  

    There is so much that the UK and EU agree on. Not least our resolve to tackle poverty and injustice, respond to humanitarian crises, reform the international system, and build more resilient communities.  

    At a moment when some are stepping back from international cooperation, we are stepping forward.  

    That is why I am pleased to be in Dublin today. And that is why today is just the start.

  • Yvette Cooper – 2026 Comments on Professor Fonagy’s Review

    Yvette Cooper – 2026 Comments on Professor Fonagy’s Review

    The comments made by Yvette Cooper, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, on 9 October 2026.

    Professor Fonagy’s review has shown the importance of early intervention to address mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions and the huge distress these can cause. It is clear that mental health services need to change to focus more on the early support young people need to stay in education or work or keep their lives on track. We will set out our response in a new mental health strategy in the coming months, building on the new mental health services we are already providing in schools and in the community.

    Based on the review findings, we will also take action to strengthen the oversight of mental health and neurodevelopmental services, and make all diagnostic assessments for ADHD and autism CQC-regulated, so people can be confident that assessments are high quality and that the NHS is not being overcharged by independent or private providers.