Tag: Speeches

Keir Starmer – 2023 Speech on Breaking down Barriers

The speech made by Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition, in Gillingham, Kent on 6 July 2023.

Thank you Bridget, and thanks for all your hard work on this mission. And thank you to everyone here at Mid Kent College for hosting us, for being here. It’s fantastic to be here to talk about a mission that so many of you have dedicated your lives to.

Now, one thing I learnt from my teachers is that persuasive argument depends on clear objectives. So let me say that this speech should demonstrate two things.

One, that Labour has a plan to tear down the barriers to opportunity that hold this country and its people back. And two, that I see this mission as our core purpose and my personal cause.

To fight – at every stage, for every child – the pernicious idea that background equals destiny.

That your circumstances, who you are, where you come from, who you know, might shape your life more than your talent, your effort and your enterprise.

Breaking that link, that’s what Labour is for. I’ve always felt that and it runs very deep for me.

I grew up in small town in Southern England. We had a semi-detached house, pebble-dashed – as I think I may have mentioned previously – with Mum, Dad, four kids, four dogs, and a blue Ford Cortina outside.

This was the 1970s, and I don’t plead poverty, not at all. This is just how life was, but I do look back now and think I’ve been on a journey.

To go from an ordinary working class background to leading the Crown Prosecution Service and now the Labour Party, I feel both privileged and proud.

But over the last year or so, I’ve been thinking more and more about it. Because there is more than a touch of the 1970s about our economic situation right now.

Like then, we face a cost-of-living crisis that gnaws away at our ability to move forward. So I think about what it felt like to get on during that period, and about the fact I did see plenty of people from my background go on to achieve their aspirations.

I don’t think I’m being too sentimental to say I grew up surrounded by hope. We took it for granted.

A sense that enterprise, hard-work and imagination would be rewarded in Britain, that – even in tough times – this would see us through, and that things would get better for families like ours.

My parents didn’t just believe this – it comforted them. It’s what everyone wants for their family.

More than a British value. It’s a story we still tell our children: “work hard and you can achieve anything. Work hard and you will get a fair chance in Britain”.

The question is, do we still believe it? Do you look around our country today and believe – with the certainty you deserve – that Britain will be better for you or your children? Because you should.

That’s something we should be able to trust, all of us. An unwritten contract, a bond of hope between citizen and country, generation and generation.

So I promise you this: whatever the obstacles to opportunity, wherever the barriers to hope, my Labour Government will tear them down.

And as with all our missions, we’ll do so spurred on by clear and measurable goals that we will change Britain, break the link between where you start in life and where you end up.

We can measure that. The earnings of our children should not be determined by those of their parents.

And make no mistake, from where we are now – that’s an ambitious target, but it’s also urgent.

This is the world of artificial intelligence, of technologies that stretch the boundaries of our imagination.

We’ve got to open our minds to meet that, turn our gaze towards our children’s future, and we’ve got to make sure we’re preparing them for life and work in their Britain.

As I said in Leith recently, the industries of tomorrow can come to our shores but the rest of the world is pushing forward as well. The race for the future is unforgiving, so we’ve got to move fast.

We must unlock the potential that is in every community, grow the talents of every child.

This means we’ve got to get to the bottom of a challenge with a long history, the roots of this are deep.

In part, it’s about security, and especially the diminishing access to affordable homes. When I think back to the 1970s and to the cost-of-living crisis we faced then, that pebble-dashed semi my parents owned, that was my springboard. It was the secure foundation that gave us stability, as the world beyond our front door became more uncertain.

It’s about community as well. For a long time now, too many people have had to leave theirs to find success, had to get out, to get on.

When talented young people start to leave a town, it becomes hard to break free from that dynamic. It’s a vicious cycle, it leads to communities – far too many in this country – where the only jobs on offer are low paid and insecure.

And insecurity is the enemy of opportunity. It places barriers, not just economic barriers, subtle barriers in the minds of working people, chips away at the stability of family life, the reservoirs of confidence that people from less privileged backgrounds need to get on.

I’m sorry to say it – but that’s what this cost-of-living crisis is doing right now, what the Tory mortgage bombshell is doing, what the total collapse of house-building is doing.

But look, there’s also something more pernicious here, a pervasive idea, a barrier in our collective mind that narrows our ambitions for working class children and says – sometimes with subtlety, sometimes to your face – this isn’t for you.

Some people call it the “class ceiling” – and that’s a good name for it. Yes, economic insecurity, structural and racial injustice are part of it, of course they are, but it’s also about a fundamental lack of respect, a snobbery that too often extends into adulthood, raising its ugly head when it comes to inequalities at work. In pay, promotions, and opportunities.

Take my dad. He was a tool-maker – and a good one – highly skilled, proud of his work. But back in the 1980s, the Tories made it quite clear people like him were not valued and that actually, they didn’t see the point of our country making things, that his skills were not part of their future. This hurt him.

Whenever anyone asked that old question “what do you do for a living” – I could see him visibly pull away. He felt looked down upon, disrespected. It chipped away at his esteem.

Now, I’m not going to pretend the Thatcher Government invented this kind of snobbery. In truth, it’s always been there, but what happened back then is that our economy fundamentally changed and the complacency – that we didn’t need to educate all our children because they could just leave school at 15 and get a good job in their community – that was exposed, almost overnight.

And this cultural bruise, it’s still with us – and we have to confront it. The last Labour Government had the best record on education in the history of our country – without question.

We expanded higher education, fundamentally raised school standards, gave millions of working class children – children of all backgrounds – the tools to thrive in a new knowledge economy.

But honestly? We didn’t tackle this, didn’t eradicate the snobbery that looks down on vocational education, didn’t drain the well of disrespect that this creates, and that cost us.

Because when economic success began to cluster in fewer communities, when the penalties for not going to university became more severe, that left us without a response, chasing the future, unable to prepare all our children for life and work in their Britain.

So these are the two fundamental questions we must now ask of our education system: are we keeping pace with the future, preparing all our children to face it?

And – are we prepared to confront the toxic divides that maintain the class ceiling?”

Hold them in your mind, because if they were a rumble of concern 13 years ago, they’re a deafening roar now.

Rishi Sunak has given up on education reform. He’s not interested in our children’s future. If you think that’s unfair, then let me remind you what happened during the pandemic. When he, as Chancellor, cancelled the national recovery plan, after our children – and working class children especially – gave up so much for the greater good.

So – for his Tory Party to turn around afterwards and repay their sacrifice with nothing, to sit there twiddling their thumbs as teachers leave in their droves, school buildings start to crumble and absenteeism goes through the roof – that’s shameful.

And this is what the Tories don’t get. Those two questions – remember them.

“Can we prepare all our children for the future”?

“Will we confront the divides that maintain the class ceiling”?

They’re one and the same. I’m serious, the sheep and goats mentality that’s always been there in English education, the “academic for my kids; vocational for your kids” snobbery – has no place in modern society, no connection to the jobs of the future.

No – for our children to succeed, they need a grounding in both. They need knowledge and skills, practical problem-solving and academic rigour, curiosity and a love of learning – that’s always been critical.

But now, as the future rushes towards us, we also need a greater emphasis on creativity, on resilience, on emotional intelligence and the ability to adapt.

Emphasis on all the attributes – to put it starkly – that make us human, that distinguish us from learning machines, make our communities and our lives so rich and rewarding.

Honestly – we’ve just got to get this into our heads. It isn’t the case that the status quo only fails children outside the academic route, without modernising education, we’re also failing the children who do go down that route, preparing them all for a world that is receding into the past.

So, just as I will bulldoze through planning laws to reignite the dream of home ownership, just as I will take the tough decisions necessary to win the race for the jobs of the future, rebuild the secure foundation opportunity depends upon: the safer streets; the cheaper clean electricity; the NHS fit for the future; and sustained growth in every community.

So too will I introduce a curriculum fit for the digital age. So too will I fight for vocational training to be respected as much as a university education. So too will I drag our education system into the future. And shatter the class ceiling.

So let me set out five areas where a reformed education system can be the game-changer. Five barriers that, taken together, we must tear down to prepare our children for the future.

Barrier one, the insecurity that right now is destabilising family life. Education is part of our response, part of the strong foundation our children need to get on. Most of all in the early years which we know, from all the evidence, are so crucial to lifelong flourishing.

Let me tell you about Osob, this is a constituent of mine from Camden. Osob starting attending a children’s centre when her son was 18 months old. At the time she was sleeping on her mum’s living room floor, suffering from depression and poverty.

Now thanks to the work of that children’s centre – kept open by a Labour council – she’s managed to get on her feet, a flat of her own, tailored support for her son – now diagnosed with autism – on his language development, and a place for him at nursery.

Osob is a parents champion in our community now – a life turned around. But now after the wreckage of the past 13 years, her story is becoming rarer and rarer.

Now, I won’t mince my words – rebuilding these services is going to be difficult, but we can start that journey with a clear target: to boost child development with half a million more children hitting their early learning targets by 2030.

And we will set out the first steps: thousands more health visitors in the community, expanding mental health access for new parents, and working with local authorities to boost capacity in our childcare system, raise standards in early education, stop the growing number of nurseries that right now are being forced to shut their doors for good.

Barrier two – confidence.

It sounds simple, but all the teachers here will know how important this is. In every class there are kids who have so much ability and talent, but who struggle to find within themselves the confidence to express it, the belief that their ideas matter, the voice to speak up.

This is a subtle and significant layer of the class ceiling – don’t doubt that. The inability to speak fluently is one of the biggest barriers to opportunity, and it’s also a massive challenge left behind by the pandemic, particularly in early language development.

Just think for a moment about how sad that is. Watching those first playful steps towards expression, that has to be one of the greatest joys of parenting – of life, even. But it must also be one of the greatest anxieties if your child is struggling.

So let’s take this on. Let’s raise the importance of speaking skills – ‘oracy’ as academics call it.

Because these skills are absolutely critical for our children’s future success.

First and foremost – for academic attainment. Talking through your ideas before putting them on the page, improves writing.

Structured classroom discussion – deepens thinking.

But it’s not just a skill for learning, it’s also a skill for life. Not just for the workplace, also for working out who you are – for overcoming shyness or disaffection, anxiety or doubt – or even just for opening up more to our friends and family.

We don’t do enough of that as a society, and I’m as guilty as anyone, but wouldn’t that be something precious for our children to aim for? I think so.

Confident speaking gives you a steely core, and an inner belief to make your case in any environment. Whether that’s persuading your mum to buy some new trainers, a sceptical public to hear your argument, or even your daughter to let-go of her iPhone. It’s not fool-proof.

But we do need to nurture it early, in the early years and in primary school. So today I can announce, we will give every primary school new funding – paid for by removing tax breaks on private schools – that will let them invest in world-class early language interventions, and help our children find their voice.

Barrier three – an outdated curriculum.

The mentality that cleaves to a comfort-zone. A conservatism that refuses to re-examine whether what we teach our children should keep pace with the world outside.

I say, in no uncertain terms, it should, because the race is on.

All around the world, the best in class are rethinking their curricula, and every one of them is putting greater creativity front and centre, including countries like Estonia and Singapore.

So today we start to catch-up.

We will update the ‘progress eight’ performance measure, and we will use it to get children studying a creative arts subject, or sport, until they are 16.

But we will also go further. We will weave oracy through a new national curriculum that finally closes the gap between learning and life, academic and practical, vocational skills, school and work. A curriculum that will finally crack the code on digital skills too. We’ve got to address this.

The old way – learning out of date IT, on 20 year old computers – doesn’t work.

But neither does the new fashion, that every kid should be a coder, when artificial intelligence will blow that future away.

The basic truth is this: to prepare our children for their future, we’ve got to use every opportunity, in every classroom, to nurture digital skills.

Ticking a “one subject, one lesson a week box” simply won’t work anymore, so the next Labour Government will review the national curriculum.

And today we set out the principles of our review: how we must deliver high standards for every child, how we must crack the code on digital skills – starting that journey early, in primary school, and how we need every young person, whatever their background, to see themselves in the curriculum.

With role models and stories that can inspire them to do great things.

Look, I know people have been arguing about this for a long time. I salute those teachers who over the past few years, have taken their subject and developed a rich curriculum, of flowing knowledge and deep conceptual understanding.

Let me be clear: Labour will build on that. But this debate about the relative importance of knowledge and skills, people outside the education world are baffled by it – and they’re right. Everyone with their feet on the ground in the real world knows you need both, and these old arguments, old practices, old divides – they’re holding our children back.

Most of all, on barrier four, this country’s attitude towards vocational education. Make no mistake, this is one with the deepest roots and we can’t rip them all out by ourselves.

This has to be a shared undertaking. It’s not just businesses, colleges and parents – it’s the whole of society. We’ve all been shaped by the class ceiling. We have to remove it, and there are steps we can take today.

First – a practical goal that will drive us forward, to give more people than ever access to the best quality post-19 training.

Next – a proper national skills plan, led by a new body, Skills England, that will work hand-in-glove with our industrial policy and make sure we can compete in the race for the jobs of the future.

And finally – a new growth and skills levy that doubles-down on apprenticeships, high quality apprenticeships, and that also looks again at the full breadth of formal training available, identifies the best options and gives businesses greater flexibility to invest in them.

Whether that’s the tech boot camps that can train AI experts in weeks, the technical courses that can prepare young people for the engineering jobs we need in clean energy, or the traineeships that can give kids a foot in the door in the first place.

Finally five – the soft bigotry of low expectations. An old barrier, but one that always needs more work.

Now, before anyone says it, I know that’s something Michael Gove said. I don’t agree with everything he did in education, clearly, but when he said that – it was an important strike against the class ceiling.

An acknowledgement that school standards are the most fundamental frontline in the battle for more opportunity.

And whatever else you thought about that period in education, the Tories simply don’t care anymore.

They’re not interested in raising school standards. How can they be when the number of teachers leaving the profession is at record highs, and when in parts of our country, adverts for a maths or science teacher get no applicants.

We’ve got to turn this around urgently. That’s why we’ll tackle the retention crisis by rewarding great new teachers who commit to a career in the classroom, why we’ll recruit more teachers in shortage subjects – over 6,500 more – and why to support high standards, we will reform Ofsted so that it works for parents and children once more.

Safeguarding reviews should happen every year, and parents deserve a clearer picture on how their children are being educated.

Not a one word judgment – a whole dashboard. This is the formula.

Effective accountability, high quality teaching, a curriculum that prepares you for life and work. That’s what Labour will deliver – high standards for all of our children.

S0, five barriers we can tear down, a new plan for a new future. The road to respect and shattering the class ceiling.

You know, in Somers Town in my constituency – one of the poorest areas of London – kids can look out their window, down at Kings Cross and Granary Square, and see out there a glittering world of opportunity: construction everywhere, global technology firms, a whole new city being built just a mile away.

But one that can feel so distant to them, almost another world.

I want them to imagine themselves there and for that to feel natural. Whatever their race, whatever their background, to think they belong, that success belongs to them.

That in this country your circumstances don’t hold you back, and that you don’t have to change who you are, just to get on.

This isn’t a zero-sum game. If we grow the talents of every person in our country – that benefits everyone.

Think about it. The sharp elbows, the ladder-pulling, the all-consuming fear of failure – it all springs from the same well as my dad’s feelings of disrespect.

A rational response to the rungs of opportunity moving further and further apart, but an inequality that exhausts people and this country, and unravels the obligations we hold towards each other.

This is what my political project – my mission – is about, because if we do shatter the class ceiling, that’s the prize.

A nation once again, a community.

A country where we share a stake in every child, not just our own.

A Britain with its future back, united, moving forward, standing tall.

That delivers security, backs aspiration, opportunity for all, and believes – truly believes – that the future will be better for its children.

Thank you very much.

July 28, 2023
Michael Gove – 2023 Speech on the Long Term Plan for Housing

The speech made by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on 24 July 2023.

Introduction

We shape buildings, Winston Churchill argued, and then they shape us.

The quality of the homes that we live in, the physical nature of our neighbourhoods, the design of our communities, determines so much. Our health, our happiness, our prosperity, our productivity – all depend on where we live.

That is why housing policy – the building of new homes, the stewardship of existing properties, the planning of our towns, the fundamental landscape of our lives – requires long-term thinking. And a long-term plan.

In the months that I have been in this role we have been developing, and implementing, just such a plan.

Today I want to outline the ambitions that plan embodies. And the critical next steps that we need to take, over the years to come, to build a better Britain.

A Britain with many more homes – an assured path to home ownership – and homes in the right places.

Our long-term plan has 10 principles.

The regeneration and renaissance of the hearts of 20 of our most important towns and cities.

Supercharging Europe’s science capital.

Building beautiful – and making architecture great again.

Building great public services into the heart of every community.

Communities taking back control of their future.

Greener homes, greener landscapes and green belt protection.

A new deal for tenants and landlords.

Ensuring that every home is safe, decent and warm.

Liberating leaseholders.

And extending ownership to a new generation.

Our long-term plan for housing comes at a critical moment for the housing market.

We have a record of delivery.

We have built more homes over our time in office than Labour did under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

In this Parliament we have delivered the highest number of new homes in a year for 3 decades, and we’ve ensured the highest number of first time buyers in 2 decades. And we will meet our manifesto target of delivering 1 million new homes in this Parliament.

Not only that but our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme is delivering well over a hundred thousand affordable homes – and we are scaling up to deliver tens of thousands of new homes specifically for social rent.

But we know that there are immediate challenges to future growth. Across the developed world, there are economic pressures.

And there is therefore a need for radical action to unlock the supply of new homes.

In every western country inflation is a barrier to building.

Inflation has pushed up the price of materials, it has required interest rates to rise, it has squeezed access to credit and, with tight labour markets across the West, construction has everywhere become more difficult. But construction is more necessary than ever.

So tackling inflation is critical to the implementation of our plan.

The steps the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have taken to control public spending and borrowing, and our broader fiscal and monetary strategy, are working. Inflation is coming down.

But we need to maintain that discipline.

And underpinning our long-term plan for economic recovery is a long-term plan for housing.

Regeneration of 20 places

And the first, and most important, component of that plan is our programme of urban regeneration and a new inner city renaissance.

Renaissance – because we want to ensure our cities have all the ingredients for success that we identified in our Levelling-Up White Paper last year as the Medici model.

Beautiful homes, flourishing public spaces, cultural jewels, safe and orderly streets, space for trees and nature, centres of educational excellence, dynamic new businesses and excellent public services.

In our White Paper we committed to the regeneration of 20 places across England as the core of our long-term plan for housing. And today I want to say more about how we are implementing our ambitions.

We are unequivocally, unapologetically and intensively concentrating our biggest efforts in the hearts of our cities. Because that is the right thing to do economically, environmentally and culturally.

As my colleague Neil O’Brien argued in his landmark study for the think tank Onward on housing – Green, Pleasant and Affordable – cities are where the demand for housing is greatest. It is better for the environment, the economy, for productivity and well-being if we use all of the levers that we have to promote urban regeneration – rather than swallowing up virgin land.

That is why we will enable brownfield development rather than green belt erosion, sustainable growth rather than suburban sprawl.

So the economic and environmental imperatives all point towards a move away from a land-hungry destruction of natural habitats in favour of a much more efficient regeneration of our cities.

And in the UK we have been markedly inefficient in this regard. Inefficient in how we use land.

In recent years the rates of housebuilding in rural areas have been greater than in urban areas. And in our cities, especially those outside London, the population densities are much lower than in comparable competitor Western nations.

We occupy more land with fewer people.

That approach has not only been inefficient in planning terms – it’s cost us in productivity.

Failing to densify our inner cities means lower growth – with a 10% increase in our cities’ population potentially unlocking a £20 billion increase in UK GDP.

Failing to densify means longer commutes, a longer wait for a plumber or ambulance, and more vehicle journeys leading to congestion and pollution. At present, only 40% of people living in our great cities can get into the city centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared to over two thirds of the population in comparable European cities.

And we would not only be more productive, we would have an enhanced quality of life. People living and working in close proximity to one another is a key feature of the most creative, productive and attractive cities in the world and in particular a feature of the most attractive parts of those cities.

The heart of Gaudi’s Barcelona, the Haussmann-designed centre of Paris, the Nash terraces of Regent’s Park, the apartment blocks of Pimlico, Marylebone and Knightsbridge, Edinburgh’s New Town, the Upper West side of Manhattan or the centres of Boston or Austin, Texas – all are districts where what economists call the agglomeration effect – the mixing of talent and opportunity which sparks innovation and growth – is marked.

Densification of our inner cities would not just enhance economic efficiency and free up leisure time – it would also help with climate change. Denser cities on the American eastern seaboard emit 50% less carbon than the suburban and exurban areas near them.

That’s why we have been developing and implementing policies explicitly designed to support urban regeneration.

We have given the metro mayors more powers, and resource, to build homes in our cities. We’ve allocated an extra £250 million to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and to the West Midlands.

And we have shifted government funding to support housing delivery already – the money needed to assemble and then to remediate the land on which the private sector can then build – and this week a further £1 billion will be launched to make brownfield land fit for development in our cities and towns, including landmark investments in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.

In addition the new Infrastructure Levy which we are legislating for in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will further incentivise that brownfield development.

Developers aiming to build on greenfield sites will have to pay more – to provide for the new affordable housing and the infrastructure necessary in areas where there just aren’t the roads, GP surgeries, the schools and shops already in place.

By contrast, in urban areas where the infrastructure already exists – and indeed in London, where school rolls are falling in the heart of the city – densification and growth can ensure existing public services thrive and remain sustainable.

And to make it cheaper for development to deliver more affordable housing, more schools and hospitals – when it’s right for the community – our Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will eliminate the “hope value” that landowners and property speculators try to extract from any sale.

And we are already supporting gentle densification of existing areas of housing through our proposals for ‘street votes’ – where local communities can collectively decide to extend their homes to capture more value and to create more space for new householders or bigger families.

We are also consulting on new and expanded Permitted Development Rights to maximise the potential of existing buildings for new homes.

And as I look forward to publishing the updated National Planning Policy Framework a little bit later this year, we are looking at how we can support more development on small sites –

To support more upward construction with existing beautiful street design.

And we want to see agreed development and plans go ahead on locally agreed sites.

We are then also tackling – at source – some of the reasons that have held back investment in the flats and the apartment blocks that help urban regeneration and densification.

In the aftermath of the Grenfell fire, the market for many properties in our cities froze because of the fire-safety issues which had gone unaddressed for years. That meant that householders were in the terrible position where they could not sell their homes until they had a commitment that remediation would be undertaken.

We took decisive steps to unfreeze the market, to protect leaseholders, to get developers to pay for that remediation and to prompt lenders to start offering mortgages on those properties once more.

And today we are taking further steps by opening our new Cladding Safety Scheme – and also providing much-desired clarity to builders that 18m will be the threshold that we will introduce for new buildings requiring second staircases.

And of course there will be transitional arrangements in place to make sure that there is no disruption to housing supply.

All of these building safety measures have got a vital sector of our urban housing market moving again – and that lays the ground for the further expansion we now need.

Because we know that there have, recently, been successful examples of the sort of urban regeneration that I’ve been envisaging. The wonderful King’s Cross redevelopment in London where we are today, the transformation of central Manchester, the riverside development in Newcastle.

But as I’ve explained, we must now go much further.

While some local leaders have set the pace in building homes in urban areas – with Andy Street in the West Midlands exceeding the numbers assessed as necessary for his authority – delivery elsewhere is behind where we need to be.

London has a particularly poor record. The London Plan identified capacity for around 52,000 new homes annually – but in recent years London has been building as few as 30,000 homes a year.

The mayor’s failure on housing, like his failure on crime and his failure on transport, undermines the vitality and attractiveness of our capital.

And that holds back the whole country. I support the mayoral model. But I also will not hesitate to act in the national interest when politicians fail.

The number of homes we need in London is only likely to rise beyond the 52,000 there is already provision for in the plan – but these homes are not being delivered. And the failure to turbocharge the redevelopment of inner city London is putting further pressure on the suburbs. If just 5% of the capital’s built-up area had the density of Maida Vale, it could host an additional 1.2 million people without the need to expand outwards.

That is why we now need in London to emulate the ambitious approach that Margaret Thatcher and Michael Heseltine took to London Docklands.

We are planning to intervene, using all the arms of government, to assemble land, provide infrastructure, set design principles, masterplan over many square miles and bring in the most ambitious players in the private sector, to transform landscapes which are ripe for renewal.

Our ambition in London is a Docklands 2.0 – an eastward extension along the Thames of the original Heseltine vision. Taking in the regeneration of Charlton Riverside and Thamesmead in the south, and the area around Beckton and Silvertown to the north, tens of thousands of new homes can be created. Beautiful, well-connected homes and new landscaped parkland are integral to our vision – all sympathetic to London’s best traditions.

We will look at how we can ensure better transport connections from east to west, to crowd in local and private investment, and we will build on the best evidence on how and where to invest ourselves in the future.

Making sure we unlock all the potential of London’s urban centre – while also preserving the precious low-rise and richly green character of its suburbs such as Barnet and Bromley – is critical to the nation’s future success.

And because it is a mission of national importance, I want to work with the Mayor to ensure we have a London Plan – a housing and development blueprint for the capital – worthy of the task.

We can do it together. The Dockland 2.0 sites we have identified – and of course the new homes and investment we will also bring to Old Oak Common – are in line with the GLA’s own ambitions. But we owe it to Londoners, and to the nation’s economic well-being, to get this right. To regenerate inner and East London, while protecting the character of family life in the suburbs and our green spaces. Which is why I reserve the right to step in to reshape the London Plan if necessary and consider every tool in our armoury – including development corporations.

And London will of course also see the benefits of this government’s decision to allow the Affordable Homes Programme to be directed towards regeneration for the first time – with up to £1 billion available in London alone – as part of a transformative reform that will change how we level up communities across the country.

Because while London is the world’s most attractive capital for new investment, and a national asset beyond price, the country will only succeed if our other cities also secure the investment needed to raise their productivity faster. That is why, in our programme of 20 city-centre renewals, the Midlands, and particularly the North of England, are our future focus.

In Leeds we will – over the next decade – bring comprehensive regeneration to the city centre, working with the local authority to build new homes in areas such as the South Bank, the Innovation Arc and Mabgate.

We will work with the Department for Transport to unlock wider development on the land which is currently being safeguarded for transport projects – and we will also progress work on a mass transit system, providing better links within the city, and between Leeds, Bradford, and indeed Kirklees, through our £96 billion Integrated Rail Plan.

And we will continue to support the rapid regeneration of Manchester with £150 million to unlock brownfield land, and a trailblazing £400 million devolved housing investment. We also have a new partnership with Great British Railways that will turbocharge travel on the newly integrated Bee Network, rolling out in full by 2030. We want to provide the modern homes and the rapid transport system that Manchester needs.

It’s not just in Leeds and Manchester. In Sheffield and Wolverhampton we are already active, with £160 million of investment unlocking homes and wider regeneration – including the City Learning Quarter in Wolverhampton, where I will be later today and Castlegate in Sheffield.

In the months ahead we will be working with other great cities to ensure we have the development vehicles and the ambition necessary for further regeneration.

And in each case we want to use the planning and tax levers provided by our new Investment Zones to help drive activity, and we will work with the metro mayors to align the new housing we envisage with the wider economic development that they are helping to drive.

And we will also ensure that new homes are built in line with the best urbanist principles of gentle densification. That means new urban quarters of terraced houses and thoughtful apartment blocks – the Haussmannian-style transformation of urban space.

And this programme will make vividly real the vision in our Levelling Up White Paper – ensuring that cities outside London which are rich in talent but do not enjoy the same level of productivity as cities in other jurisdictions get the rich mix of financial, human, cultural and social capital which will drive growth.

And it’s not just Manchester and Leeds, Sheffield and Wolverhampton, and existing great cities where we see opportunities opening in the North. Barrow in Cumbria is the home of engineering excellence, the site of significant new investment over the next four decades, and of course it will be building the submarines of the future through the historic AUKUS deal.

We want Barrow to be a new powerhouse for the North – extending beyond its current boundaries with thousands of new homes and space for new businesses to benefit from the scientific and technical expertise already clustered there. The Cabinet Secretary will be in Barrow later this week, with an elite civil service team, to meet with local leaders and the superb local MP Simon Fell, to scope out the room for significant further expansion and investment.

Because making the most of our science strengths is vital to Britain’s future. And of course the establishment of the new Department of Science, Innovation and Technology under Michelle Donelan, the new AI task force under Ian Hogarth, and the amazing life science breakthroughs that enabled the Vaccine Taskforce’s work during Covid – all of these are examples of how we lead the world in science, and all are essential to our future prosperity and well-being.

Supercharging Europe’s science capital

And we know that we have wonderful sites of scientific innovation across the country – in the West Midlands, in Liverpool, and in the North East – but of course nowhere is more central to our scientific leadership than Cambridge.

Cambridge has been one of the intellectual centres of the world for eight centuries – the home of Newton, Widdowson, Rutherford, Crick, Watson, Franklin, Venki Ramakrishnan and Richard Henderson – the birthplace of generations of innovation. But Cambridge’s future potential has been circumscribed by a lack of new space for lab capacity and research activity. And also by the constraints on new housing which have priced new graduates out of the market and have also made attracting and retaining talent harder.

While Cambridge’s growth has been held back, its rivals abroad have benefited. In 2021, Boston had 6 million square feet of lab space under development; in an average year, Cambridge and Oxford together managed just 300,000 square.

In Cambridge today, you have to wait almost a year for the next available lab space: that is no way to incubate the dynamic technological innovators that we sorely need.

So this government will now start to write the next, expansive, chapter in Cambridge’s story of scientific endeavour.

We are going to develop a vision for Cambridge, a vision that will involve growing beautiful integrated neighbourhoods and healthy communities while supercharging innovation and protecting green spaces.

I am delighted today to be able to appoint Peter Freeman – the Chair of Homes England and one of the country’s foremost delivery experts when it comes to new development – to lead this effort; under a Cambridge Delivery Group, backed by £5 million, to start this scoping work.

In concert with national and local partners, Peter will be charged with crafting the detailed vision for Cambridge’s future.

What it means for housing and for businesses – including those technology and life sciences firms.

What it means for transport, critically what it means for water supply and for public services.

And just as importantly what a new vision can offer for healthy living, for green spaces and for cultural institutions.

I have asked Peter to advise me on what the right long-term delivery vehicle needs to look like as well, because I do not underestimate the scale of the task, and just as the Olympics succeeded thanks to the right leadership and structure, so too will delivery of this vision require the expertise, focus and momentum of a dedicated, freestanding organisation.

One that can develop the masterplan, enforce high quality design standards, acquire land, approve planning and work with developers.

It will be for Peter and his new team to take forward the vision for Cambridge, but I want to take a moment to paint a picture of the kind of evolution that we want to see in the city by 2040 – so that the scale of our intent is clear.

First, imagine a major new quarter for the city, built in a way that is in-keeping with the beauty of the historic centre.

One shaped by the principles of high-quality design, urban beauty and human-scale streetscapes – emulating the scale and quality of neighbourhoods such as Clifton in Bristol or Marylebone in London, and with a high proportion of affordable homes and other properties set aside for key workers and young academics.

Then connect that new quarter to the rest of the city with a sustainable transport network that sees current congestion becoming a thing of the past, drawing on Cambridge’s existing strengths in promoting cycling and walking – allowing for faster and easier travel in and around the city, including to science and business parks.

Then think about expanding existing commercial infrastructure so that the constraints that businesses currently face, including on lab capacity, are removed – supporting more jobs and more growth.

Next: turn your mind’s eye to how the environment might look in which those living and working in Cambridge will spend their evenings and weekends – adding to Parker’s Piece, Jesus Green and the Botanic Garden a substantial new green space that rivals not just the Royal Parks of the capital but the best urban parks in the world.

And in the wider region, we could support some of our most remarkable nature reserves, such as Wicken Fen, with what could become a new National Park. Finally, we can envisage new centres for culture – perhaps a natural history museum, or a genuinely world-class concert hall – proudly taking their place alongside some of Cambridge’s existing institutions such as the Fitzwilliam and the Scott Polar.

That is the kind of Cambridge that I want to see come 2040. And under Peter’s leadership, the hard work to deliver against that ambition starts today.

Building beautiful and making architecture great again

But to achieve success in this vision of Cambridge – like everywhere else – we need homes that are accepted and wanted by their local communities. And core to that acceptance must be a new philosophy of community-led housing that is beautifully designed to match local character, has local input, and respects the local environment.

That’s why we have established a powerful new body to drive building beautifully. The Office for Place – which will find its home in Stoke-on-Trent. This new body, led by the brilliant urbanist Nick Boys-Smith, will ensure that new places are created in accordance with the very best design principles. That we are place making and not just house building.

For the first time, communities will be enabled to demand from developers what they find beautiful, and banish what they find ugly.

And we will support the thoughtful stewardship and repurposing of existing buildings.

As my department has demonstrated, it is both right environmentally and aesthetically to protect and preserve existing beautiful buildings and make it easier for their use to change and evolve.

Communities taking back control of their future

And we know that communities will welcome development when it is beautiful. I saw for myself in Poundbury the support that exists for the right sort of major development if it is properly master-planned and well-designed.

And that is why I am so glad that the spirit of Poundbury is animating new garden towns and villages across the country – like the outstanding Welborne development in Hampshire, championed by my colleague Suella Braverman.

Six thousand new homes delivered to a design blueprint shaped by the landscape architect Kim Wilkie and the aesthetic genius Ben Pentreath. It provides a model for the future. More garden towns and villages built on similar lines, master-planned to be communities that anyone would aspire to live in – that is critical to our future.

And we will go further to empower communities to build beautiful in the places that they already love – supporting people to build homes themselves by scaling up the role of community land trusts and also making more resource available to support custom and self-built homes.

We will also support communities to ensure that the beautiful new homes they want are delivered rapidly. Through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, we are simplifying and speeding up the process of updating local plans.

But of course in order to do that, that means investing in quality planning. So today we are more than doubling our funding to bust planning backlogs with over £24 million of additional investment.

And also we are creating a new “supersquad” of expert planners, backed by £13 million of new funding, to unblock major housing and infrastructure developments. This team will first land in Cambridge to turbocharge development that contributes to our vision for the city, but it will also look at sites across our 8 Investment Zones in England, to help provide high quality homes which complement the high-quality jobs that are being created.

Ensuring every home is safe, decent, and warm

As you can see, we believe in speed and scale. Speed and scale matter. But our pursuit of quantity must not involve, as I have always stressed, any compromise on quality.

Too often in the past we have met housing targets but in the wrong way – ignoring the need for beautiful and well-constructed homes.

Many of the homes that were built at speed, and on a significant scale in the fifties and sixties were brutalist blocks or soulless estates. Many are now unsafe, poorly insulated and prone to damp and mould, and are also alienating environments rather than loved neighbourhoods.

We must learn the lessons from past failures as we build for the future. We must ensure that new builds are of the highest quality and also that renovation work proceeds apace in our existing housing stock, so that everyone can have a safe, decent and warm home that meets their family’s needs.

So for new build homes we will roll out new design codes, and later this year we will consult on a universal Future Homes Standard – to deliver comfortable homes built to be zero-carbon: warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

And we will continue of course to improve life for those in existing homes. We have reduced the number of non-decent homes by 2.5 million since 2010. But we must go further.

We will now more rigorously hold social landlords to account for providing quality homes for their tenants and renovating the stock they have. Because the tragic death of Awaab Ishak demonstrated that we need to act and we in central government we need to regulate more robustly.

Just last week our Social Housing Regulation Bill became law – and that requires social landlords to respond to serious hazards like damp and mould within new strict time limits. And of course we will penalise those social landlords who fail to make homes decent – with new unlimited fines for failing landlords, and the removal of house-building subsidies where social landlords are not keeping their existing stock in good repair.

And of course we will update the Decent Homes Standard and apply it to private rented homes for the first time – tackling the fifth of homes which still do not meet basic standards of inhabitability.

A new deal for landlords and tenants

Through all of these interventions we recognise that a house is not just an asset to be traded but a home to be loved. Countries around the world have always recognised that thoughtful, focused, regulation is vital to ensure that everyone involved in the housing market benefits.

That is why of course we have introduced legislation in the private rented sector to deliver a fairer deal for both landlords and tenants.

For tenants, we will implement our manifesto commitment to end ‘no fault’ evictions – protecting those currently afraid to ask their landlord for basic repairs, for fear of losing their home.

And we will also help landlords deal with tenants who abuse their position – expanding landlords’ ability to evict anti-social tenants, or those who wilfully refuse to pay rent. And a new Ombudsman will provide quicker, cheaper redress, alongside reformed court processes which ensure landlords can get their properties back quickly when they need them back.

Liberating leaseholders

Action again to get our housing market to work.

But making the housing market work better will also require fundamental reforms to leasehold law. We want to ensure that those who have paid for their home by acquiring a leasehold can finally truly own their own home by becoming free of an outdated feudal regime which has been holding them back.

So we will continue action on exploitative ground rents, expand leaseholder’ ability to enfranchise – and to take back control from distant freeholders we will reduce punitive legal service charges, reduce insurance costs – and improve transparency.

All in new legislation to be in the King’s Speech.

Extending ownership to a new generation

And of course this new legislation, these changes to leasehold law will mean that true home ownership is extended to millions more. But it is also critical to our long-term housing plan to get many more people on a sustainable path to home ownership.

Most recently of course we have backed existing buyers facing hardship. The Chancellor has worked with lenders to help owners facing temporary difficulties to stay in their homes, and he has extended mortgage interest support to help those who are most vulnerable and who need a helping hand.

But through backing British first-time buyers across the country through the tax and planning system we are also planning to extend the ladder of opportunity to many more – by prioritising first time buyers for homes over those with multiple properties, over those seeking to convert family homes into holiday lets, and over speculative buyers who have been seeking to invest only to inflate property prices.

We have helped already over three quarters of a million people to buy their first home since 2010 – through programmes including Help to Buy, Right to Buy and shared ownership and we will go further later this year.

Conclusion

All of the steps we are taking – on ownership, on leasehold reform, on decency, on beauty, on simplifying planning procedures, expanding planning capacity, and on regenerating and reviving our inner cities – are the components of a long term plan for safe, decent, warm and beautiful homes for all.

In the weeks and months ahead we will be saying more, and delivering more.

The comprehensive, and coherent, nature of our plan demonstrates a seriousness of intent in improving the supply of new homes – rather than an approach that returns to the failures of the past to encourage urban sprawl, to ignore environmental imperatives, to omit the need for new infrastructure, to avoid the rigorous work of thoughtful master-planning, to neglect the need for urban regeneration, to duck the leadership required to think big, and to forget the importance of beauty and community.

These are policies that would encourage resistance to development, not incentivise it. They would weaken communities not strengthen them, and they would see the biggest economic prizes elude our grasp.

That is why we are committed to a better way.

Acting at every level – with a vision of national renewal – hundreds of thousands of new homes built from Barrow in Furness to Barking Riverside, Wolverhampton to West Yorkshire. Beautiful new neighbourhoods and thoughtfully-landscaped new quarters in our historic cities – proving to the world that the energy and ambition of our Victorian ancestors has now been superseded by a matchless modern spirit of endeavour.

This is a plan to build a better Britain – and It is a plan we are determined to deliver.

Thank you.

July 26, 2023
Therese Coffey – 2023 Speech on the 25 Year Environment Plan

The speech made by Therese Coffey, the Environment Secretary, at the Mappin Pavilion at ZSL on 19 July 2023.

Well, I should say thank you very much, first of all, Matthew for allowing us to be here. I’m also very grateful to the Prime Minister. I think people try and say that the Prime Minister is not interested in nature, far from it. He’s very interested in our environment. I remember when I was first in Defra as an environment minister and he was in local government, we worked together on the litter strategy, we talked about how these sorts of things affect people’s lives, about how they respect their local environment, and extending that, of course, through his support for all our things like the development of the Local Nature Recovery Strategies, as well as representing one of our most rural constituencies in the country. I think it’s critical to remind ourselves of what he did say in Egypt last year, when he talked about tackling climate – that you can only tackle climate if you also help restore nature.

So I want to assure everybody here, that this is very much still the government’s environmental improvement plan, and that we continue to go from strength to strength I believe in that regard. If I think back just over six months ago, back in chilly January, it was sunny, the sun came out to greet us at the inspiring Camley Street Natural Park in the heart of London, just down the road as I launched that plan. Here we are today in the middle of one of the most splendid parts of our capital of our country. And as Matthew has pointed out, this isn’t just a place to come and see. It’s a place that is constantly thinking about nature around the world. And that is why the extent of what Defra does – in partnership here in the United Kingdom, across Europe and indeed around the world – is really important for our global future.

Defra is at the heart of what we are trying to do and I think what is really important, it’s our Defra family, but also today, here we’ve got a really wide range of people, people who care about birds, people who are dealing with farms, people who are looking after other aspects of wildlife. And they all are part of this tapestry, this picture, this plan to make sure that we as a Conservative government leave the environment in a better state than we inherited it. I’ve been Member of Parliament for thirteen years now and this is my second time in Defra. I’ve said this before, but my years as a member of parliament for Suffolk Coastal felt like the perfect apprenticeship for being a Defra minister, because the part of the world that I’m blessed to represent is rightly famous for its farming, and for its precious habitats on land and offshore. My love for coastal and blue habitats is something that continues to grow. And coming back into parliament, I’m really keen to push all the work that we’re doing with the blue planet fund and indeed what we can do domestically.

I think we’ve shown that in a number of ways already, by designating formally our first three highly protected marine areas which is going to be good for the conservation of fish but it’s also great for what we can do in terms of protecting a precious environment. That’s where we see the interplay between nature, our seagrass, protection of seahorses, marine conservation zones, and how that all helps in protecting our planet. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m mad for mangroves, but sadly we just simply cannot have any in this country. But I’m happy to support them around the world. Indeed, one of the things that I’ve been particularly working on recently is and what more we can do to stimulate our salt marsh, which is our version of mangroves. And I hope that we can continue to develop that. Since 2016, I guess I got my first taste. Within a month, I think I was off to the CITES conference in Johannesburg, and then going to Kruger seeing the different things of what we were doing in terms of that element. This is also an important element of how the Environmental Improvement Plan must play a part in preserving nature, but also working with people and communities in order to make sure that they work together. That’s been the beauty of it.

We need to go even further in how our Environmental Land Management Schemes are working together, working with local communities working with our farmers, who I call the original Friends of the Earth, in order to make sure that we have that interplay. You can see that here in the UK, but also it’s absolutely critical in what we do in many of our international programmes. So tackling illegal wildlife trade around the world was one of my priorities then and making progress on clean air. Using precious finite natural resources more sustainably and designing waste out of our systems, tackling flooding and so much more. Of course, we set out our vision on the 25 Year Environment Plan for that plan for a quarter century, and we are publishing the last of our progress report specifically on that plan today. Now in one of my first speeches as Environment Secretary, I said, I was determined that nature would no longer be the Cinderella of the story any longer in terms of our broader elements and what we’re trying to do to save our planet, because it’s never been clearer that we do rely on nature for everything – for our economic prosperity, our food security, and wellbeing. And nature is at the core of our communities which is why we are committed to leaving it in a better state. I think it’s fair to say when I came into the department, it felt like I had a tough hand and people might remember I was told when I would walk in, you’re going to break the law on Monday by not having these targets ready. It’s great to see Dame Glenys here, by the way. But nevertheless, it was a department that was really fighting hard to deliver multiple elements of what we were trying to do to improve the environment, as well as those legal deadlines. But we had those legal deadlines and we met the one for the Environmental Improvement Plan, thanks to the three massive pieces of legislation that we introduced in the years after Brexit.

These were the Agriculture Act, the Fisheries Act, and of course, the absolutely world leading Environment Act. But we should all rightly be proud of what the United Kingdom has delivered in the last six months since we published our Environmental Improvement Plan, working closely with many of you as our delivery partners, and I know that you want to do more, and I want you to do more. I want us to do that in a collaborative way. But also look at what we’ve achieved since over perhaps a decade. If I think that plastic packaging recycling is up by nearly twenty percentage points in a decade, annual sales of single use plastic carrier bags down by 1.62 billion since 2016. That’s a reduction of 77% and counting, with more bans on the most littered single use items coming later this year. And on air quality, we should also recognise we’ve seen real improvements, including a 73% fall in sulphur dioxide emissions since 2010 and our new plan sets out the next phase of action right across pollutants. We’ve enhanced over ten thousand miles of rivers in the last seven years with much loved species like seals returning to our estuaries. There’s less cadmium and mercury in the water environment. Phosphorus is down 80% and ammonia by 85% in our rivers, compared to 1990 when water companies were privatised. The biggest environmental infrastructure investment from the water sector ever will now help us target action for protected nature sites as part of the new Plan for Water, which is designed to make polluters pay to sort out their mess, and have the clean and plentiful water that we need for people, for farmers and wildlife alike. That’s why we’ve created and restored over a quarter of a million hectares of priority habitats since 2010. That’s an area the size of Dorset, and 28% of the UK now designated as protected areas.

But even beyond protected sites, we’re investing £268 million to create and restore habitats in the last financial year. We’ve also made a positive boost for nature mandatory for all new developments as we build homes across the country. Now in the last planting season alone, we’ve put well over three thousand hectares under canopy. That’s a new record and I understand it is about four million new trees, up 40% on the previous year. We will also extend the public forest estate providing even more woodland and it’s great to see William Worsley here today as well.

So a few weeks ago, I was delighted to announce the new £25 million Species Survival Fund to support thousands more wonderful species, water voles, lapwings all the like by creating connecting and restoring habitats like grasslands, woodlands and wetlands, and the 48 local authorities are being funded to work closely with local communities, landowners and experts and those recovery strategies will map out the areas where our efforts can achieve the greatest impact. Already our schemes supported more than 450 species backed by a five fold increase to £10 million a year for Natural England’s dedicated programme. So with our new duty on public authorities to help conserve and enhance biodiversity, for the first time nature is now absolutely embedded in the heart of decisions that government will take. That is there for the long haul and it is guided by the Environmental principles that we have set out.

As I say, this is thinking about what we’re doing at home but of course our role is around the world as well. So whether it’s our world renowned Darwin Programmes that have been supporting species and communities, pangolins, snow leopards, St. Helena’s rare Cloud Forest, to some of the most important seabird colonies in the world on Gulf Island. We’ve been doing that across 140 countries since 1992. And our £100 million Biodiverse Landscapes Funds is working on some of the world’s most important biomes from the Lower Mekong to the mighty Kavango Zambezi where five countries are working together across the River Basin. We created over one hundred marine protected areas in the last decade and taking us to 178 MPAs, covering 40% of English waters. And I’ve already mentioned the three new highly protected marine areas. Alongside the brilliant blue belts that protect an area of ocean greater than India over the UK overseas territories, from the South Sandwich Islands to Tristan da Cunha. We’re pouring that expertise and experience into the Blue Planet Fund, including support for the vast trans boundary collaboration, protecting over 500 square kilometres of the eastern tropical Pacific. That first made headlines in Glasgow at COP26. That was thanks to a historic collaboration between Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Costa Rica.

And having led the UK delegation to the conference in Montreal, where our brilliant UK team helped to get a new global nature agreement over the line, we continue to co-lead. And that is a critical way of making sure that this isn’t just about the north, telling the global south how to protect nature when they’ve got a lot more of it than we have. This is about supporting the global ambitions of coalition committed to making sure we secure the action and the finance needed to bring it to life, to bring it to life around the world. Whether that was our global summit at Lancaster house, the very kind reception undertaken by the King at Buckingham Palace. Engagement with the financial sector, we had various receptions at Number 10 and in the city, and launching with our French friends, a new initiative on high integrity, biodiversity credit markets in the recent summit that President Macron hosted. Frankly, I challenge you to find a comparable country anywhere in the world that has done as much as we have domestically and internationally.

One of the things that I’m really clear on is that we need to make sure that we continue that activity. Of course, other people’s minds might turn to the election next year, but we’ve got to keep our eye on the prize and what we can do for the long term. That is why our 25 Year Environmental Plan that we’ve updated is absolutely critical to that. As I said, we talked about biodiversity net gain, that should be in place by November, so that every development puts 10% back more into nature.

Now, one of the things that Defra ministers have been doing a lot of very recently is not necessarily going to zoos, or some of the other activities. But actually we’ve been going around the country to our agriculture shows. And while Trudy, Rebecca and I have just had a little bit of a treat, seeing mummy sloth with a little baby sloth. Or indeed seeing the Sumatran tigers and our other ministers, Lord Benyon and Minister Spencer are undertaking parliamentary activity so they’re mad jealous of our experience. But we have been going around the country and speaking to farmers, because I’m very conscious that the change of the transition that we are seeing with Environmental Land Management schemes is a big one. And it needs to succeed. And of course, farmers will listen to other farmers. That’s why it’s great. Three of our ministers are farmers, and the other two of us we represent very rural constituencies. We know these communities, we know the decisions that they’re considering.

That is why it’s important that we continue to listen to the people who look after 70% of our land in this country, and why we work with them to make it work. Because if we don’t then nature will lose out and we cannot afford for that to happen. Going to Groundswell it used to be like the Woodstock or the Glastonbury of farming, it’s now gone very mainstream, but that’s great because we want what we do to be mainstream, and we will want to bring more farmers with us as we go. I can assure you will like Countryside Stewardship Plus when we put out the details later this year, and a further round of landscape recovery as well as more grants and partnerships, getting cutting edge kit out of labs and into the fields where farmers can really put it to the test.

But their bottom line will always be about producing food. It’s critical that the health and welfare of the animals they tender is top notch and also for the natural environment on which they depend, as well as us too. We will continue. we are undertaking all the work necessary to bring in our due diligence obligations on forest risk commodities, protecting global forests, we will publish the map and the framework about our 30 by 30 commitment. And we will continue to say more about what we’re going to do to restore our vital blue habitats. I’ve already said that I’m passionate about aspects of this, I’m going to do G20 next week in India, in Chennai, and will continue to promote this as being absolutely critical. And I think I’ve got the treat of going to the world’s second largest mangrove forest. I can’t tell you how excited I am. But we need to keep that journey going and that’s why we’ll go to UNGA, we will go to COP28, we’re getting the global environment assembly, we’re seeing the launch next month as well of the fund to accompany the CBD. And we will continue to not just think about the world but to deliver our Environmental Improvement Plan, to deliver the plan for water, and we will not let up on those who harm our environments, who pollute. And we’re relentless in driving improved performance from water companies. Because I expect this better, the public expects better.

While there are many other things I could list, and I’m sure Matthew will give me a list of the things that I haven’t mentioned, one of the things I’m also want to stress is that I will ensure we invest properly in science, and research and evidence that is absolutely vital, to make sure that we continue to understand the measures that we do and the impact that they have. This isn’t about trying to fiddle around with the numbers. This is about making sure future generations have an environment, thinking of our climate changing right around us. Forty plus degrees only 100 miles away in France, while we’ve got rain in July. But nevertheless, it’s why we have to adapt. It’s why we have to be agile. It’s why nature itself adapts. And that’s why we need to continue to make sure we have our focus on this precious Earth. This precious planet. And it’s great we’ve got precious people here who are going to help us deliver. Thank you very much.

July 26, 2023
Jeremy Quin – 2023 Speech on Skills, Efficiency and Technology in the Civil Service

The speech made by Jeremy Quin, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, at Old Queen Street in Westminster, London on 19 July 2023.

I am pleased to announce that a total of £4.4 billion savings were delivered by the central government functions in the financial year 2021/22. These are split between audited cashable (£3.4 billion) and non-cashable (£1 billion). The Cabinet Office has now published this on GOV.UK.

This wasn’t a one-off event. In the year prior to that, the central government Function Teams also delivered £3.4 billion worth of audited savings. This means around £8bn of cashable and non-cashable savings were delivered in the last 2 years. We have achieved this by thinking differently and driving success.

The components of these savings vary year in year out – this year for example over £1 billion of savings were delivered by identifying and correcting fraudulently claimed Universal Credit (UC). This is an area post our establishment of the Public Sector Fraud Authority which is likely to grow further.

I am delighted that to take this work further the Treasury are releasing today a Government Efficiency Framework, ensuring consistent reporting of efficiencies across the whole of Government and reporting processes to track delivery and drive continuous improvement.

Another step along the remorseless but critical path of delivering improved productivity across the civil service.

Our modernisation work is not limited to the services delivered by central government.

UK’s public bodies which play a vital role in delivery but whose independence of action can risk them becoming divorced from a culture of continuing improvement are subject to reviews and improvement.

To date, 71 of the initial 125 public body reviews have been launched covering over 90% of ALB expenditure.

Most of the largest ALBs will be reviewed in the next 18 months, benefitting from experienced teams and the active support of ALB boards: completed reviews have recommended actions to improve governance, capability and use of resources to deliver the best possible value for the taxpayer.

REFORMING PROCUREMENT

As a Government we provide services. We spend, across the Public Sector, £300bn annually on procurement, and we deliver enhancements to our national infrastructure.

After a substantial effort we are now within weeks of the Procurement Bill clearing both houses. In a rare example of Government adopting the refreshing motto of “Keep it Simple Stupid” it cuts down the 350 different procurement regulations founded on EU Procurement, to create one simple rulebook.

It will help set the framework of an ever more outcomes-based approach to procurement so that we can buy goods and services: don’t tell the market exactly how to build a bridge, engage with them on how we can best cross the water. You may be amazed by what you discover.

STRONGER PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR BETTER SERVICES

On which subject we know that better infrastructure delivers better productivity.

Over the last two years the government’s major projects portfolio has doubled in size to oversee nearly 250 programmes, with a whole life cost of nearly £800bn.

Bringing more projects into the central portfolio has created better central oversight and investment, enabling more transparency and closer scrutiny. 89% of those projects now have a green or amber delivery confidence, up from 64% in 2020.

So, this rigorous focus on efficiency, on improving procurement and better project management is delivering the foundation to improve our productivity and enhance our public services.

When Francis introduced the functions it amounted to a revolutionary step – the Victorian departmental silo model being complimented by a lattice of cross-departmental experts with which most in the commercial sector will be familiar. 12 years on they continue to flourish, they continue to deliver and the GEF will make their job easier and their results even more transparent.

BUILDING A MODERN CIVIL SERVICE: PLACES, PEOPLE, PROCESS AND PROGRAMME ASSESSMENT

Functions delivering is but one aspect of the Declaration to which we as ministers and civil servants are committed.

To continue the process of reform we need to be open to the views and experiences of those outside the public sector who recognise the extraordinary opportunities it provides and want to add their talents to the many we employ.

We need to ensure that they are supported in a modern workplace environment making the most of the myriad opportunities of data and AI.

And we need to help them to focus their time and their energy on what works.

First on People.

For too long, policy making and the leadership of the Civil Service has been too London-centric. That’s why we committed to relocating 22,000 Civil Service roles out of London by 2030.

This year we have crossed a major milestone having relocated over 12,000 roles outside of London and the South East…

That is more than half of our total commitment in just the first three years of the programme and more than 75% of our ambition to relocate 15,000 roles by 2025.

We’re also well on our way to the target of 50% UK based SCS outside London, with 30% now based outside the capital.

We’ve launched multiple departmental second headquarters including Cabinet Office’s second headquarters in Glasgow. The Cabinet Office is not alone in looking to Scotland – nearly 20% of the roles moved out of London have been relocated to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with additional government hubs in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.

We have also launched a major policy campus in Sheffield, creating the largest centre of policy making outside London.

The benefits of this to levelling up, to VFM and to strengthening our Union are important, obvious and are rightly regularly praised.

I want however to be selfish – I see the benefits in simple terms – the opportunity it provides to recruit brilliant civil servants – many of whom I have met in Scotland and Wales, the North and South West into our teams.

I believe we will find further scope to enhance Places for Growth – including by focussing on our Arms Length bodies.

But we need to do more beyond PfG to broaden our base of talent.

Above all we need to be an employer that welcomes new blood at every stage of someone’s career.

Just 1 in 5 new entrants to the Senior Civil Service are currently external. I want to ensure that every potential recruit who wants to bring their expertise to bear in the public interest can feel able to apply to do so. And I want us to be able to harness that talent where we know it will add value.

That’s why last year we cemented a much stronger requirement for all Senior Civil Service roles to be advertised externally, a move recommended by Policy Exchange.

It’s no longer possible to hold an internal recruitment competition for a senior civil servant role without explicit Ministerial approval.

Whilst this change is already making a difference, we can and should do more.

It is not enough simply to advertise a job externally..

Currently, the ‘street to seat’ recruitment process can take as long as 80 days, if not longer and that’s before vetting…

If we are fishing in a competitive pool for talent, trying to persuade those with much to give to turn their back on other opportunities and follow the rewarding path of public service, we need to get real about how we perform as recruiters.

We must ensure that every aspect of civil service recruitment, from how we advertise, to how we recognise external expertise, to how we select and onboard recruits, supports good candidates.

So, we are asking departments and professions to trial alternative recruitment approaches.

They will experiment with running recruitment campaigns with simplified job adverts, ridding them of Whitehall speak…

And they will speed up recruitment, with a focus on cutting the bureaucracy that puts off or times out brilliant candidates…

And to help speed up onboarding, we are improving our vetting system. UK Security Vetting are recruiting new staff and improving processes and systems to bring KPIs up to the levels we need to see. We are determined to deliver a radical overhaul of policy, process and systems.

EMBRACING DIGITAL AND AI

Growing our talent pool is great but our civil servants need the tools to finish the job. A revolution is underway in digital and AI and our civil servants must be part of it: taxpayers will, rightly, demand the same ease of access to services and support that will become second nature in the private sector.

We need to be better at utilising the digital talent we already have within the Civil Service and in stressing its importance.

This September, our government-wide initiative ‘One Big Thing’ will be launched:. The focus for 2023 is data-upskilling. It will engage every single civil servant – that’s half a million training days on data this autumn. This shows our determination to build knowledge and deliver.

Over the next two years we are rolling out two new digital platforms to enable us to understand, develop and utilise the skills of our workforce and help staff move more easily between departments.

The Government Skills Campus will provide a single platform across Government with better access to the learning civil servants need. It will use skills data to intelligently drive the right content to learners and provide the skills data needed to inform workforce planning.

Another new platform will then enable all civil servants to move from one department to another – at pace and without friction. Not only will this save money – approximately £100m over the next 5 years – it means it will be easier to move the people with the right skills and experience to the right roles in government. Placing colleagues in more satisfying roles and gleaning the benefits of targeted experience.

Digital and data innovations like these are the defining tools of the 21st Century but they can only be effective when senior leaders understand them. I am delighted that we are on track to exceed our ambition for 50% of Fast Stream hires for 2023 to have a STEM subject background. But we cannot wait decades as they progress….

Through the Digital Excellence Programme we will be equipping government leaders with these skills, starting with 3,000 senior leaders this year.

We can offer digital technicians the most extraordinary opportunities to put their talents to the test in delivering solutions which matter to people day in day out. I know how competitive that talent pool is but what better way to invest in your staff than to give them the opportunity of taking on some of the most fascinating challenges.

To enhance our secondment programme we are developing a specific Digital Secondments pilot with our digital team in the Central Digital and Data Office.

I know that there are people from the best tech firms in the country who believe in public service…

Who want to help with the biggest challenges facing society today…

So we will create a pathway for them to join the civil service through a secondment and empower them to drive real tangible change….

DRIVING IMPROVEMENTS IN DIGITAL PROCESS

We must attract and retain the best in digital talent so that we can harness the power of digital, data and technology in order to deliver most efficiently and effectively for the public.

Our groundbreaking Roadmap for Digital and Data, encompasses 21 ambitious commitments to be achieved by 2025.

Among these commitments, we have pledged to elevate 50 of the government’s top services to a “Great” standard and we are introducing One Login, a vital new system that will allow citizens to access all central Government services effortlessly using a single account.

We need to ensure that GOV.UK, with over 1m visits a day and over 29bn page views since 2012 provides a service equal what we would expect to see in the public service.

That’s why we’ve established a team to lead on digital service transformation across government. This team identified the opportunities, blockers and support to improve services.

That’s also why 32 organisations in government have adopted the same pay framework to drive recruitment and retention of digital professionals, saving taxpayer money by reducing reliance on contractors and managed services.

Recent months have seen huge developments in Artificial Intelligence technology, presenting, if developed appropriately, clear opportunities for government. Our ambition is to use AI confidently and responsibly, where it matters most, to improve public services and boost productivity.

Our central team of digital and technology experts is creating a practical framework to put this technology to work across the civil service, solving problems of privacy, ethics and security, and bringing insights and best practice from industry.

I am excited to announce that following last year’s pilot the incubator for Automation and Innovation, known as i.AI, will become a permanent civil service team focussed on some of our most important and intractable challenges.

And right at the heart of government, the Number 10 Innovation Fellowships program is bringing in AI experts from industry and academia to help solve problems in public service delivery using AI and automation.

We are already creating a Data Marketplace to break down barriers to sharing data inside government. But we also know the potential for government data to drive value and innovation in the economy. Therefore, as recommended by the Vallance review, our ambition is to make the marketplace available to third parties outside government, such as businesses and researchers. By 2025 our aim is to do just that.

We will launch and scale a cross government digital apprenticeship programme to support recruitment and development of 500 new DDaT professionals this financial year.

STRONGER ASSESSMENT OF PUBLIC PROGRAMMES

It’s an old adage that the only mistake you can make is by not learning from it…

That is why since the Declaration on Government Reform we established the Evaluation Task Force to improve Government programme evaluation: to better inform decisions on whether programmes should be continued, expanded, modified or stopped.

I learned, to my exasperation as Minister for Defence procurement, that while I was desperately securing cash to back brilliant innovative ideas, without rigorous Ministerial testing others could quietly languish long after it became apparent they weren’t fit for purpose.

In innovation a failure is when the project is allowed to continue when all hope is lost – fail fast, reinvest.

The same must be true of policy.

We need evaluation baked in from the outset in everything we do.

Yes this can identify where policy, whisper it not, doesn’t deliver. It can happen. Where it does, let’s act not hide. A productive public sector is not one which is too shy to accept that not everything works. In the commercial world it’s known, recognised, embraced. We need to lose our hang ups.

But we can and must learn from our successes

The DLUHC supporting families evaluation showed not only the impact of the policy in reducing adult and juvenile custodial sentences, but was robust enough to know that for every pound we spent on the programme, it delivered £2.28 of economic benefits and £1.52 of financial benefits.

The Task Force has provided advice on 211 evaluations across government, covering £115bn of spending.

On the basis that only idiots learn from their own mistakes, the wise from other peoples’….

I am delighted to announce that the Evaluation Task Force is launching the Evaluation Registry, which will provide, for the first time, a single online focus for evaluations across government.

The Evaluation Registry has been built from the ground-up to be best-in-class in driving evidence based policy making. When it launches, it will be one of the biggest stores of information on social policy evaluations in the world, containing over 2000 evaluations from the outset.

It will be available to all government departments this year and in the future supported by funds worth over £50m for evaluations to generate new evidence in critical areas of policy making.

CONCLUSION: BRILLIANT PUBLIC SERVICE

So let’s get back to our fictional Sir Arnold.

Were he to return to our screens today he would I hope be disquieted by the notion that a new recruit may start their career, progress their career and end their career as a Permanent Secretary without necessarily ever working within 10 miles of Peter Jones.

What’s more, talent is not only arriving directly into the upper echelons of the SCS, it’s being actively pursued and welcomed.

We are embracing the opportunities of digital and AI and what that will mean for making us more efficient and improving the services we deliver.

July 26, 2023
Alex Chalk – 2023 Speech at the Lord Mayor of London’s Dinner for HM Judges

The speech made by Alex Chalk, the Secretary of State for Justice, at the Mansion House in London on 18 July 2023.

My Lord Mayor, Lady Mayoress, my Lord Chief Justice, members of His Majesty’s judiciary, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you, Lord Chief Justice for your kind words. It is of course a special honour to be speaking to you as Lord Chancellor. But can we all please spare a thought for at least three of your number here who led me at the Bar and are now feeling really, really old…

So much has happened for all of us in the last decade. In 2013, I was at the Bar at 6KBW College Hill. It was a different time entirely; as a busy practitioner I confess I didn’t always pore over every dissenting Court of Appeal judgment; unaccountably, I find them absolutely compelling today.

And it was in 2013 that I was selected as the Conservative candidate for Cheltenham. It wasn’t going terribly well. Door after door was opened by people who said they knew who I was, but added that although I was better than my brother, they weren’t going to vote for David Miliband either. When I fed that back to HQ they came up with what they assured me was a brilliant plan. They would send down the then-Mayor of London to boost my profile. Even then, I was aware that this could be a high-risk strategy.

I thank Lord Burnett for his speech.

The Lord Chief Justice has shown himself ready to serve in so many ways. He attended a Commonwealth conference in 2022. On the second night the hosts announced that the judges would be called to dance by rank, starting with Chief Justices, and starting with England & Wales.

My source tells me that Lord Burnett did not hesitate to get to his feet, to the delight of the hundreds watching on. His Private Secretary still has the footage available in, I am told, clear contravention of a judicial order. There will be an auction at the end of the evening.

Few in peacetime have been tested as Lord Burnett was. He showed leadership to help keep the courts open during Covid, in a judgement that was vindicated. He has promoted transparency, in particular broadcasting of sentencing remarks in the Crown Court. He has increased engagement with the public and students. And he has championed modernisation, digitisation, diversity and recruitment.

MPs and peers of all parties hold him in the highest regard. Parliament, his profession and indeed the nation owe him a debt of gratitude and wish him well for whatever comes next.

I want also to thank those of you who sat during the pandemic.

You did so despite the fact that many of you, I’m sure, will have come under pressure from concerned friends and family not to come into court, not to put yourselves at risk. ‘Why you?’ they will have said; to which the only answer was that fate put you there, at that unique moment of jeopardy for our justice system and yours was the task to do.

Thank you for all you did. Covid has a long tail when it comes to the courts, and plainly there are still significant pressures as the system heals – from family law (public and private) to the employment tribunal. But let us remember that those pressures would have been immeasurably greater without your efforts.

I want to turn to some other points, and I’m pleased to say that No.10 were so delighted that I was attending this event that they even helped me draft this part of speech. So, turning to our five priorities…

I recently visited Japan for the G7 Justice Ministers Conference. It was immediately clear just how strong the relationship is between the UK and Japan, and the importance that is attached by that country and indeed the ASEAN countries (from Malaysia to Singapore) to our playing our part in the Indo-Pacific.

Now, that importance isn’t wholly or even mainly underpinned by the strong and growing military and industrial alliance through our collaboration with Japan on the Global Combat Air Programme – important though that is. Instead, absolutely at the heart of our offer to the Indo-Pacific and indeed to the world is our strong legal capabilities and tradition of upholding the rule of law – as demonstrated by Japan’s enthusiasm to single out the UK to sign a memorandum of cooperation on law and justice, including on our legal sectors.

Because it is well understood internationally that our country has historically contributed a great deal, perhaps more than any other, to the development of private international law through the Hague Conventions, with their network of jurisdiction and mutual enforcement arrangements. It is also acknowledged that the UK has the biggest legal sector in Europe, second only worldwide to the United States, a sector that continues to thrive.

And our international counterparts recognise that our common law system enjoys an endless potential for modernisation to respond to the latest trends, technologies and dispute flashpoints. The common law is ancient, yes, and yet relentlessly contemporary.

Against that backdrop, we will of course assert this advantage, we will press for strengthened cooperation and exchange in legal services. That will help grow our economy and generate extraordinary opportunities for young people from this jurisdiction to go as far as their talents will take them – promoting the social mobility agenda which brought me into politics. Thank you to the judiciary, the Bar Council and the Law Society for what you are doing to support this endeavour.

But in truth it’s about more than that. Despite the undoubted commercial opportunities, we will prioritise this agenda because every time we advance a PIL agreement, every time we improve access to a foreign legal market, every time we secure that exchange event between lawyers we strengthen the international rules-based order. In the Indo-Pacific and in the wider world, we must recognise that the argument for the rule of law is far from settled. That part of the world, as well as being the crucible of global economic growth over the coming decades, is also the crucible of competing visions. It is in some ways the epicentre of a global contest. And in that contest, free societies have to demonstrate that the rule of law matters – and ultimately it makes societies safer, and citizens freer and better off.

So we will continue to speak up for the rule of law. We will make clear in the context of Russia’s unlawful full-scale invasion of Ukraine that might is not always right, that the international rules-based order counts for something, and that there are consequences for those who violate recognised borders.

And we are putting resources behind our words. Quite apart from being the second largest provider of military support to Ukraine after the US, we have delivered war crimes investigation training to Ukrainian police on behalf of the ICC, we have provided training for Ukrainian judges led, by Sir Howard Morrison KC, and allocated additional funding to support ICC investigations.

But as well as advocating the rule of law abroad, we must show focus and vigilance to maintain it here at home. Although deep-rooted in our society, it must never be taken for granted. It requires care and effort to keep it in good health – particularly in an era of social media and disinformation which throws up new, dystopian misinformed challenges.

So, the starting-point is to make the case for why it matters – to bring it to life in terms that are accessible to all. In my swearing-in speech I stated that the rule of law, independence of the judiciary and access to justice aren’t quaint, obscure notions to pay lip-service to – but the essential building blocks of a safe, fair and prosperous society – as relevant today as in any year of the modern era.

And what access to justice and independence of the judiciary mean in practice is walking out of court as an advocate or litigant having lost, and knowing deep down that despite your disappointment you have been heard by judges of formidable intellect and unimpeachable integrity. And you have had a full and fair hearing. That is inestimably precious.

So what must we do to nurture it?

Well, in the first place, show respect to its key custodians. The Government is pleased to have been able to accept in full the PRB pay recommendations, including the Senior Salaries Review Body recommendation. In doing so, the Government is sending I hope a clear message about its deep regard for the judiciary, and the value attached to the essential work that you do.

Second, I believe very strongly that we must invest in the infrastructure of the courts estate. The physical condition of the buildings that discharge justice matters. It is difficult to uphold the dignity and authority of the law, important by the way to promote the small matter of compliance with court orders, when there is a bucket catching drips in the corner of the room.

It is equally difficult as a practitioner to feel proud of the profession you have worked hard to join as you open your case to the jury in Isleworth (as I did in the past) and know that all anyone is thinking about is the overwhelming smell of damp in the carpets. (Those have been replaced by the way).

Poor maintenance impacts capacity of course – but it also corrodes morale. And we need that morale, not least to unwind the pressures Covid created. It is only by sustaining and growing pride in the justice system and pride in the legal profession that we will continue to retain the practitioners we need and attract the brightest and the best to join. Every improvement in infrastructure sends out a ripple of confidence, through robing rooms, chambers and into university lecture theatres; and it enhances the overall attractiveness of the profession. Notwithstanding the £185m spent on court maintenance in the last two years, and the extra £38m in the last financial year for redecorations and deep cleans, we can go further. It’s a point I raised on my first day in office. I have prioritised it since, and I look forward to being able to say a little more in due course.

Third, we must be vigilant in clamping down on those who would misuse our courts, absorbing capacity with bogus lawsuits cynically designed to intimidate journalists and campaigners, and stifle freedom of speech. So I am pleased that we have acted through amendments to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill to create an early dismissal process in respect of spurious SLAPPS which are connected to financial fraud and corruption – the overwhelming majority of actions.

Fourth, we should take every opportunity to promote access to justice. And let me say that legal aid plays an important role in delivering that. So I am pleased that we have published our response to the Legal Aid Means Test Review, which when fully implemented will lead to over six million more people falling within the scope of legal aid.

All this we do and more. As a junior minister in the department, I devised ELSA (Early Legal Support and Advice) as the umbrella term for a suite of proposals to improve access to justice. Politics is the art of the possible, and we won’t get everything done overnight. But I will give it my all.

Fifth, we must abandon for good the outdated complacency that assumes all those who rise to positions of responsibility in our country are experts (or at least experienced) in the inner workings of our constitution. We should dismiss what has come to feel like a conspiracy of romantic hopes that through their education and wider upbringing people somehow acquire osmotically an understanding of the balance of our constitution, the conventions that secure it and – yes – the boundaries.

And yet, this is something that as a society we devote little or no effort to. Despite the fact that new legal practitioners receive ethics training as part of their preparation for practice, for those entering public life there is no such guidance or investment at all. There should be.

And so, with a general election due in the next 18 months, preparations should be made to ensure that Members of the next Parliament and the people they work alongside, are given the assistance and information they require. As the President of the Supreme Court noted earlier this month, and I agree, maintaining the rule of law is a joint responsibility of Parliament and the courts. Far from being a contest for power between the two, we have a shared commitment and we should support each other in delivering it.

And in that spirit we must work together to support the parliamentarians of the future. Precisely how that support is framed will be a matter for discussion and careful thought. But it shouldn’t be put off.

Finally this. I know there are real pressures in the system. I have referred to them already. I know that despite the Magistrates’ Court snapping back fast, the caseload in the Crown Court is high.

That is in part a function of the fact that we didn’t abandon jury trials, even when some suggested we should. That was manifestly the right decision. Because jury trials remain the lamp of our liberties, and the ultimate guarantors of fair trials which enjoy the public’s confidence. But we have to recognise that this had a consequence, and the sheer volume now is at least in part the price we pay for principle.

We will do all we can to help. We have removed the cap on sitting days for two years in a row, ensuring the Crown Court can sit at maximum capacity. We have passed the PCSC Act so that remote hearings can continue, where appropriate. 24 Nightingale courtrooms have been extended beyond March 2023 to provide additional capacity. We expect criminal legal aid spending will increase by approximately £141m per year in a steady state.

We are recruiting up to 1,000 judges across jurisdictions. And we have raised the statutory mandatory retirement age to 75 for judicial office holders, estimated to retain an additional 400 judges and tribunal members.

But I am acutely conscious that it is you and the practitioners that you see in your courts and tribunals that will do more than anyone else to bear down on these volumes, and do so in a way that delivers justice.

So I want to thank you for what you have done, but all that you will do. It is not easy I realise.

We use the adjective ‘world-beating’ sparingly these days. But excessive diffidence is to be avoided too. It is entirely reasonable to point out that we have a judiciary that rightly enjoys enormous respect globally – and not just for the quality of its dance moves. In terms of sheer intellectual horsepower and fundamental fairness it stands out.

And it is underpinned by unswerving professionalism. To serve in our courts, as judge or practitioner, is to follow a vocation – to know that you are part of something extraordinarily precious, something far more important than any one of us. And it means all of us, whether judge, practitioner or Lord Chancellor are united by a common desire to serve, and leave the system of justice in our country stronger for our having been here. That is what you might call, my ‘overriding objective’.

Thank you for your attention. Let me close by offering a toast to our hosts – to the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress.

Thank you.

July 26, 2023
Lucy Frazer – 2023 Speech at the Onward Think Tank

The speech made by Lucy Frazer, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, on 19 July 2023.

Thank you Onward for hosting today’s event

It’s an event dedicated to young people.

I’d like to start by thanking those organisations in the room that spend their time supporting young people.

Groups like The National Youth Agency and UK Youth, working with colleagues right across the sector to support the youth workforce.

The National Citizen Service Trust, our DCMS Youth ALB.

The Back Youth Alliance putting young people’s voices at the heart of their vision.

The Youth Endowment Fund, the Youth Futures Foundation and the George Williams College, helping shape an evidence-based approach to working with young people.

What I want to focus on today is why it is so important that we invest in maximising the potential of young people across the country.

And I wanted to start with a story.

It’s a story about maximising that potential.

A story about a remarkable woman.

Called Yetta Frazer.

Who was my grandmother.

She had the most enormous amount of self belief, determination and focus.

And became the first female barrister in Leicester.

She would remind me, every time I saw her of a quote from Robert Browning.

“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for”.

This was translated as.

Life is full of opportunities.

Think big,

Be ambitious,

Believe in yourself.

I was lucky to have her.

Because she instilled those values in me.

They are essential core conservative values.

Everybody has potential.

Everybody can fulfil it.

They may need a step on the way. And if they need it, or want it, we will give it to them.

They may not, and if they don’t, and can do it on their own, we won’t stand in the way of. success or tell them what they should be doing or how they should be doing it.

We will support all young people to maximise their potential.

And that’s what I want to talk to you about.

The potential of everyone across our country.

And how we help them fulfil it.

And I want to start with what we have already done.

Because we have invested heavily in supporting young people across government.

And we have done it in a conservative way.

That is, thoughtful consideration of how and where money ought to be spent.

Based on evidence about what makes the most difference.

So there is DfE funding for education. The highest on record.

Including free school meals and the holiday activity and food programme.

Home Office funding for the youth endowment fund on programmes which prevent children being exploited and getting involved in serious violence.

MoJ funding on youth justice, to support every council to catch and prevent youth offending earlier than ever.

DWP funding for the kickstart scheme which provided a vital leg up in the world of work for young people who needed it,

As well as their boosted Youth Hubs and Youth Employability coaches who help address barriers to employment.

DHSC help, including mental health support teams in schools and increasing access to community health services.

DLUHC funding local authorities to level up opportunities and preventing significant risks for young people such as youth homelessness.

And here in DCMS, we have been leading from the front, with the National Youth Guarantee.

A landmark programme backed by over half a billion in funding, to broaden the horizons of young people right across the country.

And we are already seeing results.

Over £100 million of the Youth Investment Fund has gone out of the door, giving thousands more young people access to opportunities in their community.

Supporting young people is not the job of one department.

It is the job of every government department.

And today I want to focus on what we are doing in DCMS and what more we can do.

Because I want to ensure that every young person has more opportunities than their parents.

And I’m going to explain it in three short ways, which I think will be familiar to all of you.

Everywhere in the country people should have

Someone to talk to,

Something to do,

Somewhere to go.

Turning first to “someone to talk to”.

As I said, I was lucky.

I had supportive parents and a trailblazing role model of a grandmother.

And I know millions of people across the country are just as lucky as me.

Others find supportive individuals on their journey.

Some people find teachers.

My grandfather was a headmaster and I remember a few years after I had been elected as an MP, I received an email out of the blue from one of his former pupils,

This former pupil, now an adult, wrote to me and said:

“Your grandfather was one of the most inspirational people in my entire life”.

” Although he was a scientist, he recognised in me a youthful artist and did everything he could to set me on the path and with the aims that have shaped my career.

” He had a huge part in shaping who I have become.

” My career has been as a costume designer in film and theatre.

” Dr Hyman Frazer joins Harold Pinter, Ridley Scott, and Franco Zeffirelli in having had a major influence in my development as an artist and a person.

” But in fact your grandfather was the first of those influencers”

So some young people find some support themselves outside of the family.

But some young people have no-one.

And that’s why we need mentors and role models.

They could be youth workers,

Guide leaders, sports team coaches, music teachers.

They could be trusted adults found in youth centres.

I know some of you are directly training and providing mentors.

At DCMS, we too are already providing some funding individually – through our bursaries for youth workers, with our Million Hours Fund.

Through NCS we are supporting the One Million Mentors scheme and working with the Youth Endowment Fund, providing mentors to help young people in Leicester at risk of exclusion to stay in school.

I want every young person to have a rock of some kind, someone they can turn to, if they don’t already have that.

And we will set out in due course how we can grow the work we are doing to achieve that.

Second, turning to “Something to do.”

Young people need something to belong to.

Something constructive on which to spend their time and feel part of.

That is why we have delivered improvements to over 3,300 grassroots football facilities up and down the UK, and a third of our target of 3,000 renovated tennis courts.

Earlier this month, we announced school holiday activities in antisocial behaviour hotspot areas, with more to come.

We’ve also announced a number of initiatives to support young people on their career paths, like our Discover Creative Careers programme.

Through the National Youth Guarantee, we have created multiple opportunities for young people to join scouts, guides, and take part in the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme.

Thousands of young people have signed up to the new NCS programme which provides more activities which give young people real skills, teach them resilience and build their confidence.

We will continue to build on the National Youth Guarantee and explore other opportunities for young people, with more ways to build their confidence, resilience, employment and life skills.

And finally “somewhere to go”.

We have already announced the first 43 organisations across the country to receive Youth Investment Fund grants,

Which we will be continuing to roll out to level up areas and increase the number of young people accessing those spaces.

We also want to look further at which places are ones we can develop to support young people which may include looking at the use of our schools and community buildings more broadly.

Our policies are and will be evidence-based.

As everyone in this room, who works so hard in such an important sector, knows these types of support change lives.

Put those on the wrong path, onto the right one.

And for others unlock opportunities to enrich the lives of every young person.

Turning to the evidence, I have no doubt that you all know. that mentoring can have a significant impact on the development, of social emotional skills, reduces the risk of entering into the justice system and adds months of academic progress.

In fact, the Youth Endowment Foundation estimates that mentoring can reduce youth violence by 21%.

And the value of sport, uniform groups and youth employment is more than just doing the activity.

It is the sense of belonging and the new social network that is gained.

The evidence shows that these pro-social connections and feelings of belonging are key to social mobility.

Robert Putnam summarises the evidence like this:

‘The influence of peers …has been shown on teens’ academic achievement, educational aspirations, college going, misbehaviour, drug use, truancy, and depression … High standards and aspirations tend to be contagious – as do low standards and aspirations.’

Raj Chetty’s landmark study on social mobility found that social connection with those of different income and race, and membership of clubs and societies were 2 of the top 5 drivers of social mobility.

We want to create positive experiences for young people, and something they can belong to, a sports team, a youth group, a summer programme.

That’s why all the work you are doing is so vital to our young people’s future.

And we will continue to develop policy to expand these young people’s horizons in this way.

Someone to talk to, something to do, somewhere to go.

These should not just be the preserve of the kids of pushy parents or tiger moms, but available to every young person everywhere.

I’d like to end with a thought. It’s a positive thought.

Often it is said we don’t understand people if we haven’t had their experience.

You can’t help someone in poverty or without work, someone who has been in the justice system, unless you too know what that feels like.

But if that means that those who have had a positive experience cannot bring that to the table to improve the lives of others.

I profoundly disagree.

To know what it is like to be supported.

To have experienced that sense of belonging.

To have learnt from the values of those you trust, and seen first hand the importance of passing those to others.

To truly understand these positives can be powerful and valuable.

We should believe in all young people, and want for them, at least what we have had for ourselves.

If we don’t believe in young people and what they can achieve. Nor will they.

I believe in levelling up. Not levelling down.

And believe that we can give our young people a better life and more opportunities than we had ourselves.

I believe we can achieve this together.

As Yetta would have said otherwise ‘what’s a heaven for’.

That’s what today is about.

Supporting young people is not just the preserve of Government, we all have a role to play.

That includes the youth sector, local authorities, schools, parents, and the private sector.

So I want to hear from all of you, and I want us to work together to deliver even more for young people in the coming months.

July 26, 2023
Robert Jenrick – 2023 Statement on the Illegal Migration Bill

The statement made by Robert Jenrick, the Minister for Immigration, in the House of Commons on 17 July 2023.

This House sent back to the House of Lords its 20 amendments to the Bill, many of which simply drove a coach and horses through the fabric of the legislation. We brought forward reasonable amendments where it was sensible to do so and it is disappointing, to say the least, the some of those have been rejected. I welcome the fact that the 20 issues that we debated last week have now been whittled down to nine, but the issue now before us is whether the clearly expressed views of this House, the elected Chamber—not just in the votes last week, but throughout the earlier passage of the Bill—should prevail.

We believe that inaction is not an option, that we must stop the boats and that the Bill is a key part of our plan to do just that. The message and the means must be absolutely clear and unambiguous: if people come to the UK illegally, they will not be able to stay here. Instead, they will be detained and returned to their home country or removed to a safe third country. There is simply no point in passing legislation that does not deliver a credible deterrent or provide the means to back it up with effective and swift enforcement powers.

We cannot accept amendments that provide for exceptions, qualifications and loopholes that would simply perpetuate the current cycle of delays and endless late and repeated legal challenges to removal. I listened carefully to the debate in the other place, but no new arguments were forthcoming and certainly no credible alternatives were provided.

Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)

I thoroughly endorse what my right hon. Friend says. This is a matter of extreme national interest, as is reflected in the votes of constituents throughout the country. They feel very strongly about these matters. Does he not agree that it is time for their lordships to take note of the fact that the British people want this legislation to go through? They want progress, given the extreme difficulties this is presenting to the British people.

Robert Jenrick

I strongly endorse my hon. Friend’s comments. This is an issue of the highest importance to the people we serve in this place. Of course there is a legitimate role for the other place in scrutinising legislation, but now is the time to move forward and pass this law to enable us to stop the boats.

Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)

I wonder whether my right hon. Friend has noted the remarks of Lord Clarke, who is not a particularly vicious right-wing creature. He said this Bill is entirely necessary and that we have to get on with it.

I also wonder whether my right hon. Friend has looked at today’s remarks by Lord Heseltine.

Lord Clarke and Lord Heseltine seem to have come up with a sensible option. We should go ahead with this Bill. We have to have much better European co-operation and, really, we have to build a wall around Europe. [Interruption.] And we have to do much more—this is what the Opposition might like—in terms of a Marshall plan to try to remove the conditions of sheer misery that cause people to want to leave these countries in the first place.

Robert Jenrick

I read the remarks of the noble Lord Clarke, and I entirely agree with his point, which is that, having listened to the totality of the debate in the House of Lords, he had not heard a single credible alternative to the Government’s plan. For that reason alone, it is important to support the Government.

I also agree with Lord Clarke’s broader point that this policy should not be the totality of our response to this challenge. Deterrence is an essential part of the plan, but we also need to work closely with our partners in Europe and further upstream. One initiative that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I have sought to pursue in recent months is to ensure that the United Kingdom is a strategic partner to each and every country that shares our determination to tackle this issue, from Turkey and Tunisia to France and Belgium.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. I believe that the Bill should go through, as we have to do something about the deaths in the channel, which is an important moral purpose.

I bring my right hon. Friend back to Lord Randall’s amendment on modern slavery. We agree quite a lot on this issue, and the Government have said that they will do stuff in guidance, so Lord Randall has taken the words spoken by my right hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box and put them on the face of the Bill—this amendment does exactly what my right hon. Friend promised the Government would do in guidance. The Government have not issued the guidance in detail, which is why the amendment was made. Why would we vote against the amendment today when my right hon. Friend’s words and prescriptions are now on the face of the Bill?

Robert Jenrick

First, the Lords amendment on modern slavery goes further by making the scheme, as we see it, much more difficult to establish. There are a number of reasons but, in particular, we think the complexity of the issue requires it to be provided for in statutory guidance rather than on the face of the Bill, in line with my assurances made on the Floor of the House. One of those assurances is particularly challenging to put in statutory guidance—where an incident has taken place in the United Kingdom, rather than an individual being trafficked here—and that is the point Lord Randall helpfully tried to bring forward.

We are clear that the process I have set out should be set out in statutory guidance, because the wording of the amendment is open to abuse by those looking to exploit loopholes. Those arriving in small boats would seek to argue that they have been trafficked into the UK and that the 30-day grace period should apply to them, on the basis that they qualify as soon as they reach UK territorial waters. The proposed provision is, for that reason, operationally impossible and serves only to create another loophole that would render the swift removal we seek impossible or impractical. The statutory guidance can better describe and qualify this commitment, by making it clear that the exploitation must have occurred once the person had spent a period of time within the UK and not immediately they get off the small boat in Kent. For that reason, we consider it better to place this on a statutory footing as guidance rather than putting it in the Bill.

Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

The Democratic Unionist party is concerned about the trafficking of children and young people. My question is a simple one. We see economic migrants who are fit and healthy but none the less make that journey, and we see those who have had to leave their country because they have been persecuted, discriminated against or been subjected to brutal violence, or because their family members have been murdered. My party and I want to be assured that those who flee persecution have protection within this law, because we do not see that they do.

Robert Jenrick

We believe that they do, because at the heart of this scheme is the principle that if an individual comes to the UK illegally on a small boat, they will be removed back home if it is safe to do that—if they are going to a safe home country such as Albania. In determining that the country is safe, for example, as in the case of Albania, we would have sought specific assurances from it, if required. Alternatively, they will be removed to a safe third country, such as Rwanda, where, again we would have sought sufficient assurances that an individual would be well-treated there. As the hon. Gentleman can see in the courts at the moment, those assurances will be tested. So it is not the intention of the UK Government to expose any genuine victim of persecution to difficulties by removing them either back home and, in the process, enabling their refoulement, or to a country in which they would be unsafe. We want to establish a significant deterrent to stop people coming here in the first place, bearing in mind that the overwhelming majority of the individuals we are talking about who would be caught by the Bill were already in a place of safety. They were in France, which is clearly a safe country that has a fully functioning asylum system.

Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)

Let me take the right hon. Gentleman back to the criticism he was making of the other place, because if the elected House is about to break international law, it is entirely fitting that the other place should try to prevent that from happening. The Minister has stood at the Dispatch Box telling us that this Bill is about deterrence, whereas the Home Office’s own impact assessment has said:

“The Bill is a novel and untested scheme, and it is therefore uncertain what level of deterrence impact it will have.”

As a raft of children’s charities have pointed out, once routine child detention was ended in 2011 there was no proportional increase in children claiming asylum. So will he come clean and accept that this Bill absolutely will have the effect, even if it does not have the intention, of meaning that people trying to escape persecution will not be able to come here, because there are not sufficient safe and legal routes?

Robert Jenrick

I am not sure exactly what the hon. Lady’s question was. If it was about access to safe and legal routes, let me be clear, as I have in numerous debates on this topic, that since 2015 the UK has welcomed more than 500,000 individuals here—it is nearer to 550,000 now—for humanitarian purposes. That is a very large number. The last statistics I saw showed that we were behind only the United States, Canada and Sweden on our global United Nations-managed safe and legal routes, and we were one of the world’s biggest countries for resettlement schemes. That is a very proud record. The greatest inhibitor today to the UK doing more on safe and legal routes is the number of people coming across the channel illegally on small boats, taking up capacity in our asylum and immigration system. She knows that only too well, because we have discussed on a number of occasions one of the most concerning symptoms of this issue, which is unaccompanied children who are having to stay in a Home Office-procured hotel near to her constituency because local authorities do not have capacity to flow those individuals into safe and loving foster care as quickly as we would wish. That issue is exactly emblematic of the problem that we are trying to fix. If we can stop the small boats, we can do more, as a country, and be an even greater force for good in the world.

Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)

Will the Minister set out how my constituent will be protected? He is Albanian and has been subjected to modern slavery by gangs from Albania. He has three bullet holes in his body and, if he returns, perhaps those gangs will give him more. How will he be protected?

Robert Jenrick

The existing arrangement that we have secured with Albania—incidentally, Albania is a signatory to the European convention against trafficking — enables us to safely return somebody home to Albania, with specific assurances to prevent them being retrafficked to the United Kingdom and to enable them to be supported appropriately upon arrival.

On the broader issue of modern slavery, the Bill makes a number of important protections when we establish the scheme. If they are party to a law enforcement investigation, their removal from the country will be stayed. We have said that we will bring forward statutory guidance, giving them a 30-day period, allied to the period set out in ECAT, to come forward and work with law enforcement, which is extendable if that enforcement activity goes on for some time. We would then only remove that person either back home to a safe country, such as Albania, or to a country, such as Rwanda, where we have put in place appropriate procedures to ensure that that Government, in turn, looks after them.

I point the hon. Lady to the judgment in the Court of Appeal that made some criticisms of the Government’s approach, but did not say that the arrangements in Rwanda with respect to modern slaves were inappropriate; it supported the Government in that regard. We will clearly put in place appropriate procedures to ensure that victims, such as the one she refers to, are properly supported.

Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)

Many opponents of the Bill seem to support uncapped safe and legal routes. The reality of that would be that potentially over 1 million people could get the ability to come here. Does the Minister agree that those proposing that should be open and honest about it, and explain what the dramatic consequences would be for public services and community cohesion in this country?

Robert Jenrick

I completely agree. Anyone who feels that this country has sufficient resource to welcome significant further numbers of individuals at the present time, should look at the inbox of the Minister for Immigration. It is full of emails and letters from members of the public, local authorities and Members of Parliament, on both sides of the House, complaining that they do not want to see further dispersal accommodation and worrying about GP surgery appointments, pressure on local public services and further hotels. I understand all those concerns, which is why we need an honest debate about the issue.

That is why, at the heart of the Bill, there is not only a tough deterrent position for new illegal entrants, but a consultation on safe and legal routes, where we specifically ask local authorities, “What is your true capacity?” If we bring forward further safe and legal routes, they will be rooted in capacity in local authorities, so that those individuals are not destined to be in hotels for months or years, but go straight to housing and support in local authorities. That must be the right way for us to live up to our international obligations, rather than the present situation that, all too often, is performative here, and then there are major problems down the road.

Let me reply to issues other than modern slavery in the amendments before us. On the issue of detention, we believe that a necessary part of the scheme, provided for in the Bill, is that there are strong powers. Where those subject to removal are not detained, the prospects of being able to effect removal are significantly reduced, given the likelihood of a person absconding, especially towards the end of the process.

We have made changes to the provision for pregnant women, which I am pleased have been accepted by the Lords, and unaccompanied children, but it is necessary for the powers to cover family groups, as to do otherwise would introduce a gaping hole in the scheme, as adult migrants and the most disgusting people smugglers would seek to profit from migrants and look to co-opt unaccompanied children to bogus family groups to avoid detention. That not only prevents the removal of the adults, but presents a very real safeguarding risk to children.

On unaccompanied children, we stand by the amendments agreed by the House last week. They provided a clear differentiation between the arrangements for the detention of adults and those for the detention of unaccompanied children. The amendments agreed by this House provide for judicial oversight after eight days’ detention where that detention is for the purpose of removal.

On the standards of accommodation, I have been clear that unaccompanied children, including those whose age is disputed, will be detained only in age-appropriate accommodation, and that existing secondary legislation—the Detention Centre Rules 2001—sets out important principles governing the standards of such accommodation.

Last week, some Members asked whether unaccompanied children would also receive age-appropriate care while in detention. The answer to that is an emphatic yes. The operating standards for immigration removal centres contain provisions around the treatment of children, including requirements on the education and play facilities that must be provided for children.

Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)

I thank my right hon. Friend for making it clear that, if there is any doubt about the age of an unaccompanied child, they will be treated as a child. I also thank him for saying that, if a child is detained, it will be in an age-appropriate centre. However, on the issue of what is age-appropriate, I will just say that I have looked at the operating standards to which he referred. It is an 82-page document. It has no mention of unaccompanied children. It talks about who looks after the locks and hinges and where the tools and the ladders are to be stored, but there is nothing about how we keep these children happy, healthy and safe from harm. I point him instead to the guidance for children’s care homes and ask him gently if we could update the rules on detention centres to make sure that they look more like the rules we have for safeguarding children in care homes.

Robert Jenrick

My right hon. Friend makes a number of important points. The guidance is very detailed, but I am sure that it would benefit from updating. Therefore, the points that she has made and that other right hon. and hon. Members have made in the past will be noted by Home Office officials. As we operationalise this policy, we will be careful to take those into consideration. We are all united in our belief that those young people who are in our care need to be treated appropriately.

Let me turn now to the Lords amendment on modern slavery—I hope that I have answered the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). This seeks to enshrine in the Bill some of the assurances that I provided in my remarks last week in respect of people who are exploited in the UK. However, for the reason that I have just described, we think that that is better done through statutory guidance. In fact, it would be impractical, if not impossible, to do it through the Bill.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith

The point that my right hon. Friend made earlier is that, somehow, those people will be able to get into the UK and make a false claim. However, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 already provides for that, so anyone found to have made a false claim will be disqualified, and disqualified quite quickly. The critical thing is to prosecute the traffickers. That way, we can stop them trafficking more people on the boats. My worry is that this provision will put off many people from giving evidence and co-operating with the police for fear that they may still be overridden and sent abroad while they are doing it and then be picked up by the traffickers. Does he give any credence to the fear that this may end up reducing the number of prosecutions of traffickers as a result?

Robert Jenrick

I understand my right hon. Friend’s position, and it is right that he is vocalising it, but we do not believe that what he says is likely. The provision that we have made in the statutory guidance that I have announced will give an individual 30 days from the positive reasonable grounds decision to confirm that they will co-operate with an investigation in relation to their exploitation. That should give them a period of time to recover, to come forward and to work with law-enforcement. That is a period of time aligned with the provisions of ECAT, so we rely on the decision of the drafters of ECAT to choose 30 days rather than another, potentially longer, period. That is an extendable period, so where a person continues to co-operate with such an investigation, they will continue to be entitled to the support and the protections of the national referral mechanism for a longer period.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith

I just want to make it clear that under the new regulations, the Secretary of State can still feasibly decide that, even if someone is co-operating, they do not need to remain in the UK for that. That is the critical bit: they live under the fear that they can be moved somewhere else to give that evidence. Does the Minister not agree that that will put a lot of people off giving evidence?

Robert Jenrick

I hope that that is not borne out. It is worth remembering that we will not remove anyone to a country in which they would be endangered. We would be removing that person either back to their home country, if we consider it safe to do so, usually because the country is an ECAT signatory and has provisions in place, or to a safe third country such as Rwanda, where once again we will have put in place significant provisions to support the individual. I hope that that provides those individuals with the confidence to come forward and work with law enforcement to bring the traffickers to book.

Vicky Ford

I am particularly interested in the arrival of unaccompanied children in this country, because obviously the Minister has tightened up the eight-day period for them on exit. I believe that he just agreed with me that the standards for age-appropriate accommodation in detention centres need to be updated to look more like those for children’s homes. Is he prepared to concede that no unaccompanied child should be put in such a detention centre until that update of the rules has been undertaken?

Robert Jenrick

I understand the point that my right hon. Friend makes, but I am not sure that that is necessary, because the Detention Centre Rules 2001 are very explicit in the high standards expected. They set the overall standard, and underlying them will no doubt be further guidance and support for individuals who are working within the system. If there is work to be done on the latter point, we should do that and take account of her views and those of others who are expert in this field, but the Detention Centre Rules are very explicit in setting high overarching standards for this form of accommodation. That is exactly what we would seek to live up to; in fact, it would be unlawful if the Government did not.

Vicky Ford

In a children’s home, we would expect there to be the right to access a social worker and advocacy, and for the child to have the care that they particularly need. We would expect Ofsted to oversee that, not prison inspectors.

Robert Jenrick

I am grateful for those points. Social workers will clearly be at the heart of all this work, as they are today. Every setting in which young people are housed by the Home Office, whether it be an unaccompanied asylum-seeking children hotel, which we mentioned earlier, or another facility, has a strong contingent of qualified social workers who support those young people. I am certain that social workers will be at the heart of developing the policy and then, in time, operationalising it.

Their lordships have attempted but failed to smooth the rough edges of their wrecking amendments on legal proceedings, but we need be in no doubt that they are still wrecking amendments. They would tie every removal up in knots and never-ending legal proceedings. It is still the case that Lords amendment 1B would incorporate the various conventions listed in the amendment into our domestic law. An amendment shoehorned into the Bill is not the right place to make such a significant constitutional change. It is therefore right that we continue to reject it.

Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)

Will the Minister give way?

Robert Jenrick

I will not, because I need to close my remarks; this is a short debate.

Lords amendment 9B continues to undermine a core component of the Bill: that asylum and relevant human rights claims are declared inadmissible. The Lords amendment would simply encourage illegal migrants to game the system and drag things out for as long as possible, in the hope that they would become eligible for asylum here.

Lords amendment 23B brings us back to the issue of the removal of LGBT people to certain countries. The Government are a strong defender of LGBT rights across the globe. There is no question of sending a national of one of the countries listed in the amendment back to their home country if they fear persecution based on their sexuality. The Bill is equally clear that if an LGBT person were to be issued with a removal notice to a country where they fear persecution on such grounds, or indeed on any other grounds, they could make a serious harm suspensive claim and they would not be removed—

Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)

Will the Minister give way?

Robert Jenrick

I will not, because I need to bring my remarks to a close now. They would not be removed until that claim and any appeal had been determined. As I said previously, the concerns underpinning the amendments are misplaced and the protections needed are already in the Bill.

On safe and legal routes, Lords amendment 102B brings us to the question of when new such routes come into operation. The amendment again seeks to enshrine a date in the Bill itself. I have now said at the Dispatch Box on two occasions that we aim to implement any proposed new routes as soon as is practical, and in any event by the end of 2024. I have made that commitment on behalf of the Government and, that being the case, there is simply no need for the amendment. We should not delay the enactment of this Bill over such a non-issue.

Lords amendment 103B, tabled by the Opposition, relates to the National Crime Agency. Again, it is a non-issue and the amendment is either performative or born out of ignorance and a lack of grasp of the detail. The NCA’s functions already cover tackling organised immigration crime, and men and women in that service work day in, day out to do just that. There is no need to change the statute underlying the organisation.

Finally, we have Lords amendment 107B, which was put forward by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This country’s proud record of providing a safe haven for more than half a million people since 2015 is the greatest evidence that we need that the UK is already taking a leading international role in tackling the refugee crisis. This Government are working tirelessly with international and domestic partners to tackle human trafficking, and continue to support overseas programmes. We will work with international partners and bring forward proposals for additional safe and legal routes where necessary.

However well-intentioned, this amendment remains unnecessary. As I said to his grace the Archbishop, if the Church wishes to play a further role in resettlement, it could join our community sponsorship scheme—an ongoing and global safe and legal route that, as far as I am aware, the Church of England is not currently engaged with.

This elected House voted to give the Bill a Second and Third Reading. Last Tuesday, it voted no fewer than 17 times in succession to reject the Lords amendments and an 18th time to endorse the Government’s amendments in lieu relating to the detention of unaccompanied children. It is time for the clear view of the elected House to prevail. I invite all right hon. and hon. Members to stand with the Government in upholding the will of the democratically elected Commons, to support the Government motions and to get on with securing our borders and stopping the boats.

July 26, 2023
Peter Bottomley – 2023 Speech on Higher Education

The speech made by Sir Peter Bottomley, the Father of the House, in the Commons on 17 July 2023.

I thank the Secretary of State. Those of us with long memories know that we either ration places by number or we give people choice. If she is giving people the choice of being able to discriminate between the courses and universities on offer, I congratulate her, as I do especially on the lifetime learning and the degree apprenticeship expansion, which has already happened, with more to come.

However, can I also speak up for those who either got fourth-class degrees or failed to take a degree at all, including two of the three Governors of the Bank of England who went to King’s and who came out without a degree? Rabi Tagore left university, and many other poets, painters, teachers or ministers of religion—whether rabbis, imams or ministers in the Christian Church—do not show up highly on the earnings scale, but they might show up highly in their contributions to society. Can my right hon. Friend please make sure that she does not let an algorithm rate colleges, courses or universities?

Gillian Keegan

I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks, and I very much agree that this is about choice—the lifelong loan entitlement, degree apprenticeships and all of the other choices—and about people understanding that there are many different routes to success in life. We have asked the Office for Students to look at earnings, because I realise that is difficult and that some jobs will not earn people more. However, for his information, five years after graduating from some courses, people are earning less than £18,000. That is less than the minimum wage, and it is not acceptable.

July 26, 2023
Bridget Phillipson – 2023 Speech on Higher Education

The speech made by Bridget Phillipson, the Shadow Secretary of State for Education, in the House of Commons on 17 July 2023.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement.

Today’s statement tells us several stories about this Government. It tells a story about their priorities: why universities, and why now? It tells a story about their analysis: what they think is wrong and what they think is not. It tells a story about their competence: why these changes, when their own regulator has used a different approach for so long? It tells a story about their prejudice, about why they continue to reinforce a binary choice for young people: either academic or vocational, university or apprenticeship. Above all, it tells a story about values—about the choice to put caps on the aspirations and ambitions of our young people; about Ministers for whom opportunity is for their children, but not for other people’s children; about a Government whose only big idea for our world-leading universities is to put up fresh barriers to opportunity, anxious to keep young people in their place. It tells you everything you need to know about the Tories that this is their priority for our young people.

This is the Tories’ priority when we are in the middle of an urgent crisis in this country; when families are struggling to make ends meet; when patients are facing the biggest waiting lists in NHS history; when children are going to school in buildings that Ministers themselves acknowledge are “very likely” to collapse; and when a spiral of low productivity, low growth, and low wages under the Tories is holding Britain back. It is because the Prime Minister is weak and he is in hock to his Back Benchers that we are not seeing action on those important priorities. Instead, after more than 13 years in power, the Government have shown what they really think of our universities, which are famous across the world, are core to so many of our regional economies and were essential to our pandemic response: that they are not a public good, but a political battleground.

The Government’s concept of a successful university course, based on earnings, is not just narrow but limiting. I ask the Secretary of State briefly to consider the case of the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak). The Prime Minister has a degree in politics from one of our leading universities, yet his Government lost control of almost 50 councils this year, he was the second choice of his own party, and now he is on track to fail to deliver on the pledges he set himself publicly. Does the Secretary of State believe that the Prime Minister’s degree was in any sense a high-value course?

Let us be clear what today’s announcement is really about. Many of our most successful newer universities—the fruits of the determination of successive Governments, Labour and Conservative, to spread opportunity in this country—often draw more students from their local communities. Many of those areas are far from London, far from existing concentrations of graduate jobs. Many of those students come from backgrounds where few in their family, if any, will have had the chance to go to university. Many of those young people benefit from extra support when they arrive at university to ensure they succeed. We on the Labour Benches welcome the success of those universities in widening participation and welcoming more young people into higher education, yet today, the Secretary of State is telling those young people—including those excited to be finishing their studies this year—that this Government believe their hard work counts for nothing. Can the Secretary of State be absolutely clear with the House, and tell us which of those universities’ courses she considers to be of low value?

The Secretary of State is keen to trumpet her party’s record on apprenticeships, but let me set out what this Government’s record really is. Since 2015-16, apprenticeship starts among under-19s have dropped by 41%, and apprentice achievements in that age group are down by 57%. Since the Secretary of State entered this place, the number of young people achieving an apprenticeship at any level has more than halved, failing a generation of young people desperate to take on an apprenticeship.

Lastly and most importantly, the values that this Government have set out today are clear: the Conservatives are saying to England’s young people that opportunity is not for them and that choice is not for them. The bizarre irony of a Conservative Government seeking to restrict freedom and restrict choices seems entirely lost on them. Labour will shatter the class ceiling. We will ensure that young people believe that opportunity is for them. Labour is the party of opportunity, aspiration and freedom. Let us be clear, too, that young people want to go to university not merely to get on financially, but for the chance to join the pursuit of learning, to explore ideas and undertake research that benefits us all. That chance and that opportunity matter too. Our children deserve better. They deserve a Government whose most important mission will be to break down the barriers to opportunity and to build a country where background is no barrier. They deserve a Labour Government.

Gillian Keegan

As usual, the hon. Lady has more words than actions. None of those actions was put in place either in Wales, where Labour is running the education system, or in the UK when it was running it in England. We have always made the deliberate choice of quality over quantity, and this is a story of a consistent drive for quality, whether that is through my right hon. Friend the Schools Minister having driven up school standards, so that we are the best in the west for reading and fourth best in the world, or through childcare, revolutionising the apprenticeship system—none of that existed before we put it in place—and technical education and higher education.

I was an other people’s child: I was that kid who left school at 16, who went to a failing comprehensive school in Knowsley. I relied on the business, and the college and the university that I went to. I did not know their brand images and I knew absolutely nobody who had ever been there. I put my trust in that company, and luckily it did me very well. Not all universities and not all courses have the trusted brand image of Oxford and Cambridge, which I think is where the hon. Lady went, along with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I have worked with many leaders all over the world in my many years in business, and the Prime Minister is a world-class leader.

On apprenticeships, it is a case of quality always over quantity. What we found, and this is why I introduced the quality standards, is that, yes, the numbers were higher, but many of the people did not realise they were on an apprenticeship, many of the apprenticeships lasted less than 12 months and for many of them there was zero off-the-job training. They were apprenticeships in name only, which is what the Labour party will be when it comes to standards for education.

July 26, 2023
Gillian Keegan – 2023 Statement on Higher Education

The statement made by Gillian Keegan, the Secretary of State for Education, in the House of Commons on 17 July 2023.

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to announce the publication of the Government’s higher education reform consultation response. This country is one of the best in the world for studying in higher education, boasting four of the world’s top 10 universities. For most, higher education is a sound investment, with graduates expected to earn on average £100,000 more over their lifetime than those who do not go to university.

However, there are still pockets of higher education provision where the promise that university education will be worthwhile does not hold true and where an unacceptable number of students do not finish their studies or find a good job after graduating. That cannot continue. It is not fair to taxpayers who subsidise that education, but most of all it is not fair to those students who are being sold a promise of a better tomorrow, only to be disappointed and end up paying far into the future for a degree that did not offer them good value.

We want to make sure that students are charged a fair price for their studies and that a university education offers a good return. Our reforms are aimed at achieving that objective. That is why the Government launched the consultation in 2022, to seek views on policies based on recommendations made by Sir Philip Augar and his independent panel. The consultation ended in May 2022, and the Department for Education has been considering the responses received. I am now able to set out the programme of reforms that we are taking forward.

I believe that the traditional degree continues to hold great value, but it is not the only higher education pathway. Over the past 13 years, we have made substantial reforms to ensure that the traditional route is not the only pathway to a good career. Higher technical qualifications massively enhance students’ skills and career prospects, and deserve parity of esteem with undergraduate degrees. We have seen a growth in degree-level apprenticeships, with over 188,000 students enrolling since their introduction in 2014. I have asked the Office for Students to establish a £40 million competitive degree apprenticeships fund to drive forward capacity-building projects to broaden access to degree apprenticeships over the next two years.

That drive to encourage skills is why we are also investing up to £115 million to help providers deliver higher technical education. In March, we set out detailed information on how the lifelong learning entitlement will transform the way in which individuals can undertake post-18 education, and we continue to support that transformation through the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill, which is currently passing through the other place. We anticipate that that funding, coupled with the introduction of the LLE from 2025, will help to incentivise the take-up of higher technical education, filling vital skills gaps across the country.

Each of those reforms has had one simple premise: that we are educating people with the skills that will enable them to have a long and fulfilling career. I believe that we should have the same expectation for higher education: it should prepare students for life by giving them the right skills and knowledge to get well-paid jobs. With the advent of the LLE, it is neither fair nor right for students to use potentially three quarters of their lifelong loan entitlement for a university degree that does not offer them good returns. That would constrain their future ability to learn, earn and retrain. We must shrink the parts of the sector that do not deliver value, and ensure that students and taxpayers are getting value for money given their considerable investment.

Data shows that there were 66 providers from which fewer than 60% of graduates progressed to high-skilled employment or further study fifteen months after graduating. That is not acceptable. I will therefore issue statutory guidance to the OfS setting out that it should impose recruitment limits on provision that does not meet its rigorous quality requirements for positive student outcomes, to help to constrain the size and growth of courses that do not deliver for students. We will also ask the OfS to consider how it can incorporate graduate earnings into its quality regime. We recognise that many factors can influence graduate earnings, but students have a right to expect that their investment in higher education will improve their career prospects, and we should rightly scrutinise courses that appear to offer limited added value to students on the metric that matters most to many.

We will work with the OfS to consider franchising arrangements in the sector. All organisations that deliver higher education must be held to robust standards. I am concerned about some indications that franchising is acting as a potential route for low quality to seep into the higher education system, and I am absolutely clear that lead providers have a responsibility to ensure that franchised provision is of the same quality as directly delivered provision. If we find examples of undesirable practices, we will not hesitate to act further on franchising.

As I have said, we will ensure that students are charged a fair price for their studies. That is why we are also reducing to £5,760 the fees for classroom-based foundation year courses such as business studies and social sciences, in line with the highest standard funding rate for access to HE diplomas. Recently we have seen an explosion in the growth of many such courses, but limited evidence that they are in the best interests of students. We are not reducing the fee limits for high-cost, strategically important subjects such as veterinary sciences and medicine, but we want to ensure that foundation years are not used to add to the bottom line of institutions at the expense of those who study them. We will continue to monitor closely the growth of foundation year provision, and we will not hesitate to introduce further restrictions or reductions. I want providers to consider whether those courses add value for students, and to phase out that provision in favour of a broad range of tertiary options with the advent of the LLE.

Our aim is that everyone who wants to benefit from higher education has the opportunity to do so. That is why we will not proceed at this time with a minimum requirement of academic attainment to access student finance—although we will keep that option under review. I am confident that the sector will respond with the ambition and focused collaboration required to deliver this package of reforms. I extend my wholehearted thanks to those in the sector for their responses to the consultation.

This package of reforms represents the next step in tackling low-quality higher education, but it will not be the last step. The Government will not shy away from further action if required, and will consider all levers available to us if these quality reforms do not result in the improvements we seek. Our higher education system is admired across many countries, and these measures will ensure that it continues to be. I commend this statement to the House.

July 26, 2023