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  • Geoffrey Howe – 1986 Statement on Yemen

    Below is the text of the statement made by Geoffrey Howe, the then Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, in the House of Commons on 21 January 1986.

    With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the action being taken to secure the safety of British subjects and others in the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.

    On 13 January fighting broke out in Aden. The ferocity of the fighting presented grave risks to the safety of British subjects. In those circumstances, and with the full agreement of Her Majesty the Queen, the royal yacht Britannia, which was just leaving the Red sea, was ordered to remain off Aden, and Her Majesty’s ships Newcastle and Jupiter, with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Brambleleaf, were ordered to Aden at full steam in case they were needed for an evacuation.

    The situation in the country continued to deteriorate and the level of fighting approached that of a civil war. After close consultation with the Russians and French, both in Aden and in capitals, it was agreed that evacuation was necessary and that, as far as possible, our efforts should be co-ordinated. On 17 January, Soviet merchant vessels lifted off from Aden about 1,000 people, mostly their own nationals. On the same day, the royal yacht took off 450 people, 38 of them British—44 nationalities altogether. Eighty-one French nationals were then transferred to a French ship, and the rest of the evacuees were taken on Britannia to Djibouti. The royal yacht then returned to the area and on 19 January lifted off a further 209 people from an area 35 miles from the capital. Eighteen of these were British. These have since arrived in Djibouti, ‘after transferring to HMS Jupiter. I am now very pleased to be able to add that Britannia has this morning picked up a further 15 British nationals from Little Aden. Britannia is maintaining close contact with the vessels of the other nations involved, and remains offshore nearby to take on board further parties of British and other foreign nationals as soon as conditions permit.

    So far, no British subjects have been hurt. However, a number of British subjects still remain in south Yemen and we are continuing to work out with other Governments the best ways of evacuating these widely scattered communities.

    On the evening of 17 January, when the embassy and residence had been rendered uninhabitable, the ambassador, Mr. Arthur Marshall, decided that he should withdraw all members of the embassy. At the end of the evacuation, he accompanied those on board to Djibouti but then returned on Britannia to the area, where he will remain with a member of his staff while the evacuation continues. Another member of his staff is on board HMS Newcastle.

    The success of the evacuation so far would not have been possible without the help given by a number of Governments, and in particular the Governments of Djibouti, the USSR and France. This has been a remarkable demonstration of what can be achieved through close international co-operation, and I take this opportunity to thank them warmly for their assistance.

    I should like to express my gratitude to all the staff of the Ministry of Defence and of the Diplomatic Service, at home and abroad, who have been involved in this operation. I should particularly like to thank our honorary ​ consul in Djibouti, Mr. Christopher Reddington. I know too that the whole House will join me in praising the calmness and efficiency of our ambassador in Aden, his staff, and their families throughout this difficult period.

    Their example has been matched by the fortitude of the British evacuees, who helped to organise the evacuation of hundreds of other nationals and who set an example of disciplined behaviour throughout.

    This is the first time that the royal yacht has been involved in a operation of this sort. It has received magnificent support from HM ships Newcastle and Jupiter, and Royal Fleet Auxiliary Brambleleaf, with its Merchant Navy crew. I should like to pay tribute to Rear-Admiral John Garnier and all the officers and crew involved for the courage and professionalism that they have shown in carrying out the operation in conditions of danger and difficulty. We can all be proud of them.

    Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East)

    We and the British people as a whole can be proud of this magnificent rescue. We rejoice that no British subjects have been injured or killed in spite of the ferocity of the fighting, and we join wholeheartedly with the Foreign Secretary in thanking and paying tribute to those of our people—the military, Admiral Garnier, the diplomatic staff, Mr. Marshall and those with him — who played and are playing such a wonderful part to ensure a successful outcome.

    The Foreign Secretary must be aware that the rescue amounts to probably the highest point of British-Soviet co-operation in a practical sphere since the end of the second world war. We hope that the spirit of good will will act as a precedent and will spill over into other fields of our bilateral relationships with the Soviet Union. However, the Soviet Union has learnt the cost, as have other peoples, including ourselves, the Israelis and the Americans, of unilateral intervention in a middle east country.

    I ask the Foreign Secretary, to report to the House in specific respects. Was the matter of the rescue raised in his discussions yesterday with Mr. Ryzhov, the Soviet Deputy Minister? On the best estimates available to him, how many Britons remain in South Yemen? Can he say how long it is expected that the royal yacht Britannia will remain close by and available for action? What is the Foreign Office reading of the position regarding who is in charge in South Yemen? Is it the Foreign Office view that the difference between the factions there is essentially on ideological lines, or is it more based on personal and tribal factors?

    Finally, are there any anxieties about the troubles in South Yemen spilling over into neighbouring territories, and possibly posing a threat to security in the region as a whole?

    Sir Geoffrey Howe

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for the kind way in which he has joined me in paying tribute to all those involved in the operation, and add my word of thanks to my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces for his support throughout.

    The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the degree of co-operation between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union on this occasion. One cannot presume from that high degree of co-operation that everything else will be handled in the same spirit, but I hope that it will not be the last occasion for improving relationships in this way. I was able to raise the matter with Mr. Ryzhov last ​ night, to thank him for the co-operation that had taken place, and to express the hope that it would continue in practical terms on the spot. It is worth reminding the House of what Admiral Garnier said this morning when he paid tribute to the fine atmosphere of international co-operation. He said that
    “the French, the Soviets and us are talking regularly, pooling our information, and everyone here is dedicated to the hope that we can get the remaining people off.”

    The hon. Gentleman asked precisely the questions which one would want to ask. It is not possible to be sure about the number of British subjects still left in the PDRY, but our inquiries suggest that the figure is likely to be about 40. Her Majesty has expressed her willingness for Britannia to remain for as long as there is a need for it to do so.

    It is not possible for me to offer any clear view on the outcome, because the situation is still very confusing, but it appears that the conflict arises from differences of a tribal kind rather than a political or ideological kind. So far, the problems have not spilt over into other neighbouring countries. If they did, it would naturally be a cause for concern. We are keeping in close touch with all those countries in the neighbourhood.

    Sir Antony Buck (Colchester, North)

    Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is refreshing to find the whole House able to unite in congratulating all those involved in this splendid operation? Does he agree that it has proved the utility of the royal yacht not only as a hospital ship on this occasion but as a facility which is extremely useful for us to have? It has proved itself in many other ways not only from an ideological point of view but as a fitting facility for the head of a great Commonwealth country?

    Sir Geoffrey Howe

    I agree with my hon. and learned, Friend’s first comments and with his tribute to the value of the royal yacht, with its particular suitability for an occasion of this kind and its value in a much wider representational capacity.

    Dr. David Owen (Plymouth, Devonport)

    I congratulate all those concerned, particularly the Soviet and French Governments. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that this shows the value of being able to deploy the Royal Navy east of Suez? In view of the announcement of the 7 per cent. real terms cut in the defence budget, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman use his influence to ensure that the Royal Navy surface ships are not cut back and that their present minimal numbers are fully maintained?

    Sir Geoffrey Howe

    I can well understand the right hon. Gentleman’s interest in this aspect. It illustrates the value of having this kind of capability available in so far as it is compatible with the continuing and difficult task of judging the pattern of priorities on defence expenditure more generally.

    Dr. John G. Blackburn (Dudley, West)

    Will my right hon. and learned Friend take note of early-day motions 322 and 323 which refer to Britannia? Will he send a signal to the admiral conveying the sentiments expressed in those early-day motions and pay a warm and generous tribute to the skipper and crew of the Diamond Princess, a British registered cargo ship which is reported to have saved some 600 people in the past 24 hours?​

    Sir Geoffrey Howe

    I shall certainly be willing to pay tribute to any vessels or individuals for the part that they have played, once that is established. I certainly join in the sentiments to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention in early-day motions 322 and 323. They pay a deserved tribute to those concerned in this rescue. I shall see that that tribute and my hon. Friend’s sentiments are conveyed to the rear admiral and those with him.

    Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North)

    I, too, associate myself with the splendid work that has been undertaken. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the faction fighting in Yemen is a sharp warning to the Cabinet not to allow their disagreements to get out of hand?

    Sir Geoffrey Howe

    The hon. Gentleman can always be relied upon to make an inaccurate observation on almost any occasion.

    Mr. John Stokes (Halesowen and Stourbridge)

    Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the whole nation looks with great pride and gratitude on the achievements of the Royal Navy during the past few days? It notes once again the usefulness of the royal yacht, with its supporting small ships. It should be grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary for the way in which he masterminded the whole business.

    Sir Geoffrey Howe

    I am even more than usually grateful to my hon. Friend for the generosity of his tribute. The actions and decisions of those on the spot deserve particular thanks on this occasion.

    Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

    Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that, as the rescue appears to have been a huge success, some of us are a bit curious about why the Prime Minister has not taken full advantage of it? Have arrangements been made to get her out there on the deck of Britannia with the television cameras?

    Perhaps the right hon. Lady could be seen shaking hands with the Soviets—perhaps a member of the KGB or even one of those who associate with the same group that has figured prominently in Jane’s Defence Weekly? What a wonderful picture would be painted!

    Sir Geoffrey Howe

    Only the hon. Gentleman would have used this occasion to illustrate his capacity to play the game of consequences in a profoundly inconsequential fashion.

    Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed)

    Some of the preceding comments look a little odd beside the enormous relief felt by those who experienced the rescue in extremely dangerous circumstances. Was not great courage shown by those in the Diplomatic Service who assisted in getting the evacuees to the beaches and by those in the small boats who came from Britannia to take them off the beaches? Did not the BBC overseas service also play an important and necessary part in the rescue?

    Sir Geoffrey Howe

    I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for returning our discussion to the proper note of seriousness and thankfulness. He was right to pay tribute to all those concerned and to the BBC world service, which has played an important communication role on this and other occasions.

    Mr. Harry Greenway (Ealing, North)

    Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that Britannia’s versatility on this occasion is impressive and welcome to a wide section of our community, which wants Britannia to play ​ a wider role when the Queen does not require her? Does my right hon. and learned Friend have other roles in mind for HMS Britannia?

    Sir Geoffrey Howe

    It would not be for me to specify other roles. I certainly endorse my hon. Friend’s comments. Britannia is particularly suitable for this type of role, because she is a non-combatant vessel designed to handle a large number of people and well equipped with the necessary boats.

    Mr. Andrew Faulds (Warley, East)

    May I add my congratulations on the successful operation in evacuating so many people from this unhappy territory? Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s desk yet had a chance to analyse the likelihood of whether the Administration likely to take over in PDRY will continue to welcome the opening to the West that the previous Administration were adopting?

    Sir Geoffrey Howe

    I think that it is too early to speculate on the nature of the Administration that may take over or on any difference in its direction. As I said, the dispute appears to arise more from personal and tribal conflicts of a traditional kind than from ideological variations.

    Mr. Peter Bruinvels (Leicester, East)

    Will my right hon. and learned Friend join me in congratulating the state of Djibouti on the speedy help it has rendered not only to the royal yacht Britannia but to the other ships that came in to take off so many people? Will he congratulate those people in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who so speedily commandeered the royal yacht? Will he expand on the relationship with the Soviet Union in this case, because obviously the co-operation was unusual?

    Sir Geoffrey Howe

    I do not think that my hon. Friend has exactly the right insight into the relationships between the Foreign Office and the royal yacht. I join with my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the Djibouti Government for their particularly helpful attitude in receiving and handling thousands of evacuees and assisting in their repatriation. We are particularly grateful to President Hassan Goulad Aptidon for his help. Contact on this matter has taken place sensibly and practically between the embassies on the spot and between Foreign Ministries at this end directed from Moscow and Paris. This is how one would have expected the operation to proceed. One hopes that it will afford an insight into the way in which matters will develop in other respects.

    Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood)

    We are all rightly proud of the courage and efficiency of those involved in the evacuation. Is not the Soviet Union likely to benefit from what has transpired because Mr. Ismail was allowed to return to Yemen as a conscious policy act on its part? Although there may be some short-term turbulence, perhaps even bloody turbulence, the Soviet Union’s influence in that part of the world could be enhanced rather than diminished.

    Sir Geoffrey Howe

    My hon. Friend’s speculation may well be right. However, it would take a relatively optimistic Soviet adviser to perceive any clearly cheerful conclusion from the circumstances in which hundreds of Soviet citizens have been evacuated.

  • Nicholas Ridley – 1986 Statement on the Channel Tunnel

    Below is the text of the statement made by Nicholas Ridley, the then Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 20 January 1986.

    With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the Channel fixed link.

    My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the President of France, meeting earlier today in Lille, announced the decision of the two Governments to take together the necessary steps to facilitate the construction of a fixed link across the Channel by the Channel Tunnel Group. Copies of the joint statement are being made available in the Vote Office.

    We will publish as soon as possible a White Paper that will give the full reasons for this decision. It will also chart the next steps to give effect to that decision, the treaty, the concession agreement and the legislation.

    The two Governments were faced with four proposals of outstanding quality which reflect great credit on the firms involved. It is remarkable that such keen competition could develop to provide and finance privately a project of this magnitude. The key factors that led the Government to select the Channel Tunnel Group were as follows.

    Eurobridge was eliminated largely on technical grounds. It is an imaginative and forward-looking proposal, but the technical risks make it too speculative for the two Governments to believe that it was likely to be financed and successfully completed.

    The choice between Channel Tunnel Group, Channel Expressway and EuroRoute was a more difficult one. They differ widely as to their technical characteristics, their impact on the environment, their effect upon shipping, and their vulnerability to terrorist attack—all factors in the decision. The invitation to promoters made it clear that any fixed link had to be financed, constructed and operated without support from public funds, and without Government guarantees against technical and commercial risks. It is thus for investors ultimately to determine whether a fixed link is built. The Governments had to try to select the scheme which offered the best prospects of attracting investors’ support.

    Both EuroRoute and Channel Expressway answer the popular desire to drive from one country to the other with the independence and freedom of a drive-through link, but both have large technical risks. CTG’s is a well-developed project, relying on well-proven technology and is both less risky and less expensive. It offers a fast and efficient rail shuttle service for road passengers and freight, with very frequent departures and no booking. It presents no problems to maritime traffic in the Channel, and is the least vulnerable to terrorist attack. Its environmental impact can be reduced to an acceptable level. The Government concluded that CTG was the best scheme to go forward to the market.

    The Government remain very much aware of the arguments that the public would like a drive-through link. In due course, the conditions may arise when a drive-through link would be viable. We have therefore secured an undertaking from the CTG that it will put forward by the year 2000 a proposal for a drive-through link to be undertaken as soon as its technical feasibility is assured, and economic circumstances and the growth of traffic allow it to be financed without undermining the return on ​ the original link. At a later stage, the Governments will be free to invite competitive bids for a further link coming into operation not before the year 2020.

    I expect the signature of the Anglo-French treaty to take place in February, and the concession agreement between the Governments and the Channel Tunnel Group to be concluded shortly thereafter. The legislation will then be introduced into this House as soon as possible. Construction could begin by summer 1987.

    Consultations in Kent have so far focused on the question of which scheme the Government should adopt. We must now concentrate upon making the chosen scheme as acceptable as possible. We will want to minimise the environmental impact, and to consider carefully the employment consequences of this development. We will be sympathetic if problems seem likely to arise in east Kent when the link opens some seven years from now.

    We must arrive at satisfactory arrangements with the promoters for the disposal of spoil and on other environmental matters, and we will ensure that the necessary road infrastructure is provided. The White Paper will deal with these questions.

    The Channel tunnel is a massive and difficult project. It will be a challenge to our engineers, our technicians and our financial institutions. Equally, I believe that it will be of great benefit to travellers and exporters alike in giving them cheaper, quicker and more reliable access to the continent of Europe.

    Mr. Robert Hughes (Aberdeen, North)

    In opting for the Channel Tunnel Group tender, the Government—against the instincts and prejudices of the Prime Minister—have chosen a fixed link which has the potential of matching Britain’s needs for an integrated transport policy. However, in rushing this decision through in such a tight time scale, the Secretary of State has broken his promise to Parliament on 9 December that he would publish a White Paper on the same day as the decision was announced. I suspect that this will not be the last of his broken promises.

    A number of questions must be answered. Exactly when will the White Paper be published? Will the Secretary of State fight in the Cabinet to get a debate in Government time before the treaty between Britain and France is signed? The right hon. Gentleman said that the White Paper would refer to the treaty and various other things. Will the right hon. Gentleman therefore answer this question precisely: will he fight in the Cabinet to get a debate in Government time?

    Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that no obstacles will be placed in the way of those most affected by the scheme and that their views will be thoroughly canvassed by the Select Committee? What guarantees can the right hon. Gentleman provide that the British share of construction costs will be spent on British goods and that British labour will be employed on the project? As we know that the French are keen to gain the maximum advantage from this fixed link and to have the maximum investment in SNCF, will the right hon. Gentleman produce an investment plan in conjunction with British Rail so that BR can maximise the opportunities which the link may offer?

    Will the right hon. Gentleman do what he can to establish customs clearance facilities in major regional centres in order to encourage the carriage of long-haul freight by British Rail? Will he ensure that the terminal ​ points from which passengers may travel are spread throughout the regions? Will the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that any public expenditure on infrastructure will he new money and will not be taken out of existing budgets?

    Now that the Government have taken the decision, it is their duty to ensure that any benefits are evenly spread throughout the country. The Government have a responsibility to the nation as a whole.

    Mr. Ridley

    I was not clear whether the hon. Gentleman was in favour of the link. It is curious that we have had such a grudging response to this statement on the day when the Leader of the Opposition has made a speech—I saw the Tape as I came in—calling for a massive programme to reverse the decline in the British economy.

    I shall publish a White Paper giving a mass of the information which the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) has sought and which other hon. Members will seek. The decision was taken only a day or two ago, so it seems right that I should postpone publication until full details of the decision can be included in the White Paper. I hope that the details will be published within a week or two, or shortly thereafter.

    The question of a debate is, of course, one for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to consider.

    The hon. Gentleman asked me to ensure that objectors to the scheme would have an opportunity to put their views. I confirm that they will be able to present their case as petitioners before the Select Committee in this House and in another place, if the Select Committee is prepared to give them status. I shall encourage the Select Committee to be as wide as possible in accepting petitioners.

    I can tell the hon. Gentleman-he might even be pleased to hear this—that I believe that a good deal has been done between the British and the French railways, and between those railways and the promoters, which will result in large-scale orders for rolling stock. I am certain that all those who are concerned on the British side will do their utmost to provide as many jobs as they can on this side of the Channel.

    We hope to site national customs controls as far as possible next to each other at the entry to the link of each direction of travel so that there will not be duplication or stopping for through passengers, but there still have to be customs and immigration controls.

    As to public spending on infrastructure, there will be new money, in the sense that this is a new project. However, whether or not a new link is built, there will still be a need to expand the road system to the channel ports because of the great increase in traffic that is taking place.

    Mr. Geoffrey Rippon (Hexham)

    As one of my right hon. Friend’s predecessors as Secretary of State for Transport who brought similar proposals before the House more than a decade ago, I congratulate him and welcome his conversion to the project. I express my appreciation at the success of his negotiations and promise my wholehearted support to the scheme.

    Mr. Ridley

    I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for those wise words. In mitigation of what he said about me, I should point out the small difference between his attempt to get his link constructed and mine, which is that on this occasion no taxpayers’ money will be involved.

    ​Mr. Stephen Ross (Isle of Wight)

    We welcome the decision that has been made today, and we are grateful for the fact that this project has been chosen and not one of the others.

    The right hon. Gentleman said of the chosen scheme: “Its environmental impact can be reduced to an acceptable level.” Does he agree that that can be done only if British Rail has adequate capital resources to make full use of the whole network, including the midlands, the north and Scotland? I realise that this is not in his hands, but will he try to persuade the Select Committee to hold hearings in Dover and Folkestone. This would be the right way forward, because people would be able to make their views heard.

    Mr. Ridley

    I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the support that he brings on behalf of the Liberal party for the decision that we have made to choose the Channel Tunnel Group. I am sure that that will be as welcome to Liberals throughout east Kent as it is to the Government. I congratulate him on his courageous support for what he knows to be right. Massive investment will be required by British Rail. A conventional-speed train system will need about £290 million, and a high-speed train system about £390 million, and there will be further investment in the shuttle rail equipment, which will be undertaken by the Channel Tunnel Group. Some large orders from the promoters and the railways are to come for this part of the project. It opens up great new opportunities for extending the railway system right from the north of our country into the farthest corners of Europe. I join the hon. Gentleman in hoping that the Select Committee on the hybrid Bill will be prepared to travel and hear evidence in the affected areas of Kent.

    Mr. Peter Rees (Dover)

    Will my right hon. Friend recognise that his statement will not allay the c’eep and legitimate concern in east Kent about the implications of a fixed link?

    Therefore, will he accept the need for close and continuing consultation with the local interests likely to be affected? Can he give the House any reassurance that there will be a proper and continuing role for the ferries and ports of Dover and Folkestone? Will he reassure the House that any extra economic activity generated by the fixed link will be retained in east Kent and not be drawn to north-west France?

    Mr. Ridley

    I should like to be as helpful as I can to my right hon. and learned Friend, who has done so much to represent to me the views and fears of his constituents—as has my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) who, as we all know, cannot speak for himself.

    My hon. and learned Friend has made clear, as has my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Rees), the views and fears of constituents on the south-east coast of Kent. As a result of their representations I have decided to set up a joint committee consisting of officials, local authority representatives of the area and the promoters. It will be chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, North-West (Mr. Mitchell), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, and it will go into all the points of local concern and difficulty, in the hope of improving the impact of the scheme on both the environment and the economics of the affected areas.

    I cannot accurately forecast the effect on the ferries to which my right hon. and learned Friend referred. ​ However, I believe that there will be a continuing role for them, even after the link has been opened. Dover has some of the longer distance routes, as well as short sea routes. The growth in traffic is expected to be very great, and I am sure that the ferries will have a share of it. I am also certain that many people will prefer to choose one mode of transport rather than another.

    When it is opened, I believe that this huge new artery will carry an immense number of passengers as well as a vast amount of trade between the continent and this country and that it will act as a magnet for new economic development and investment. If the planning policies of the local councils are right, there will be great opportunities for additional development in the east Kent area.

    Mr. Donald Stewart (Western Isles)

    Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some of us view this project as simply the biggest election bribe in history? It is clear that this decision has been arrived at without due consideration of its implications for Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom and of its effect upon the merchant service. Will the right hon. Gentleman hold up this project until a commission has fully investigated all these aspects?

    Mr. Ridley

    The link will greatly benefit constituents throughout the country, including those in Scotland. If goods can be sent to the continent more quickly, more cheaply and without the risk of delay, and if people can travel to the continent more quickly, more cheaply and without the risk of delay, that will aid the competitiveness and trade of the whole country. These are not Government funds which could be spent in other directions. A great deal of this money will be international money. A great deal of this capital will go only to projects which are chosen internationally. It will not be possible to direct it elsewhere.

    Mr. David Howell (Guildford)

    Will my right hon. Friend accept that the Government have made by far the best and most sensible choice by choosing the Channel Tunnel Group’s scheme from among the other fixed link options? Will he also accept that this is the only scheme that ensures that a substantial amount of the growth in traffic will still go to the ferry operators? Will he say a word about the plans for streamlining the handling of customs and immigration, in particular the possibility of on-train customs handling, since this would represent an important asset for the project?

    Mr. Ridley

    I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. I welcome his support because he, too, studied this matter in depth when he had my responsibilities. He is correct in saying that this choice means that the opportunities for continuing the ferry operations are great indeed, although it is difficult to be specific about the precise amount.

    My right hon. Friend asked about customs and immigration. We are working hard on this matter. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Treasury is still hoping to find ways to improve this service. For many reasons, we shall need both customs and immigration. The reasons include the prevention of disease through plants and animals being carried through the link. Controls will therefore be needed.

    I am anxious that a special arrangement should not be provided for the through trains which use the link which ​ would be competitively disadvantageous for the ferries or for any other forms of transport. To concentrate both the French and the English controls at the point of departure in each direction will mean at least that passengers are stopped only once, and that control acts only once.

    Mr. Gordon A. T. Bagier (Sunderland, South)

    In making the decision to have a fixed link, I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on following the guidance of the Select Committee on Transport. I only wish that he had done so on the occasion of the Bill dealing with buses.

    The courage of the Minister has been mentioned, so I congratulate him on taking the hazardous line of disagreeing with his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on her reported preference for another scheme. Will the Minister give an undertaking that when the White Paper is published he will make strong representations to his right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to ensure that it is debated and that a decision is taken by the House before the treaty with France is signed?

    Mr. Ridley

    I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The report of the Select Committee on Transport was most helpful. I am pleased that we have been able to agree with it entirely. The hon. Gentleman did a quick and expert job, and the Government are grateful to him.

    This has been a rather frustrating time for the press, because its members have been unable to discover what has been happening. Some hon. Members may have seen misleading statements in the press, which, I am happy to say, are untrue. The Government are united in their choice, and we agree with the French as well.

    Debates are a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, but there will be a Second Reading debate on the hybrid Bill.

    Sir Julian Ridsdale (Harwich)

    Is my right hon. Friend aware that his optimism about the future of the ferries is not shared by some of the ferry operators? Will he consider the matter carefully, to ensure that this decision has not sounded the death knell for the British merchant marine, which has served this country so well?

    Mr. Ridley

    Some ferry operators are more pessimistic than I have been this afternoon about the prospects. However, it will be seven or eight years before any link can be opened. During that time we expect a massive growth in traffic to the continent, which will result in extra business for the ferries. The extent of the business that they will retain is hard to predict, but I am not pessimistic about the prospects for my hon. Friend’s constituency.

    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich)

    As the transport unions have been especially careful to offer positive co-operation, will the Secretary of State suggest to the chairman of the Channel Tunnel Group that it is unhelpful to give the impression that he would be prepared to use non-union labour on a fixed link?

    Mr. Ridley

    Far be it from me to make suggestions to the chairman of the Channel Tunnel Group after we have made our decision and accepted the final proposals as modified. However, there may be some disagreement about what the hon. Lady has said. The customers using the link will place great reliance upon the fact that it will not be subject to strikes and interruption. The hon. Lady’s question is a strange one. To ask to ensure the possibility of unionised activity and strikes is to sound a warning note of the true face of the Labour party.​

    Mr. David Crouch (Canterbury)

    Is my right hon. Friend aware of how bitter the opposition is in east Kent to the proposition? Is he further aware that, although I give the proposition my support on national grounds, I am sorry that I am unable to carry my constituents with me? Will my right hon. Friend offer my constituents and the environmental societies more than a hybrid Bill as a means of registering their complaints? Will he offer them consultation with officers in his Department, so that they will feel that they are being heard and that something is being done about their complaints?

    Mr. Ridley

    I am fully aware of the feelings in east Kent. My hon. Friend and I have visited the area and discussed the matter with local people. I share my hon. Friend’s view that there is still much apprehension. In response to this, we shall undertake a major consultative programme in the area and, in addition, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will chair a co-ordinating committee of the local authorities, the promoters and the Government as problems arise.

    The procedures of the hybrid Bill Committee will allow almost anyone who is affected to make representations, not just to the Committee in this House but to the Committee in another place. Those are full and proper arrangements for hearing local objections, and I confirm that the Government and the promoters will do what they can to adapt the scheme to local requirements.

    Mr. Bruce Millan (Glasgow, Govan)

    Is the Secretary of State aware that many of us are resolutely opposed to a Channel fixed link, whether this project or any other, for the reason which the right hon. Gentleman acknowledged in answer to a previous question, namely, that this will suck further economic activity into the south-east of England, which is the last place in Britain that needs such stimulus? This is just another project that will widen the north-south divide, and it will be bitterly opposed, especially in Scotland.

    Mr. Ridley

    My hon. Friends who represent Kent have expressed concern about the effect on Kent, although not in the sense that it will suck jobs from Scotland into Kent. I believe that the link will create some growth in jobs. The orders that will be placed for rolling stock and other manufactures will be of great benefit to the entire country. The fact that Scottish exports will be able to reach the continent more cheaply and more quickly should be recognised as a help to the competitiveness of the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents and, therefore, to their advantage.

    Sir Hector Monro (Dumfries)

    Will my right hon. Friend conduct careful consultations about conservation before producing a White Paper? Will he have discussions with the Nature Conservancy Council, which is the Government’s adviser, and which wishes to put strong points to him?

    Mr. Ridley

    We are always keen to take what action we can to assist in improving arrangements for conservation. My hon. Friend will know that geography dictates where the tunnel will come out and where the service area will have to be. It would be difficult to change that now.

    Mr. Roland Boyes (Houghton and Washington)

    Is the Secretary of State aware that I and the majority of my constituents completely oppose the building of the fixed ​ link? We live in an area of high unemployment, and we cannot understand why the Government can encourage the expenditure of billions of pounds on building a hole in the ground, instead of encouraging such expenditure on building structures above the ground. The construction of new schools, houses and hospitals would reduce unemployment in my area. This project will increase unemployment there.

    Mr. Ridley

    This is not Government cash which could be used to build schools, hospitals or other structures in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. It is international capital, which will go to projects only where investors believe they can earn a reward. It is far better that that capital should be used to build a Channel link than to build factories on the continent, which might make the competitiveness of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents even worse. I repeat that a most useful benefit to the north of England and Scotland will be the fact that goods will be transported more cheaply to their markets. Transport is an important factor in industrial costs, and anything that we can do to reduce transport costs will help industry.

    Sir John Wells (Maidstone)

    Is my right hon. Friend aware of the great opportunities that will be created for new employment in Kent, despite fears of early local unemployment on the ferries and elsewhere? Will he encourage Kent county council and the district authorities to grant planning permission, so that Kent may grow, with great prospects for our people? In north Kent unemployment is as high as it is anywhere in the country.

    Mr. Ridley

    I agree with my hon. Friend that there is great potential for further development arising from the link. However, such development must depend on the planning policies pursued by district councils. I have been in close touch with the chairman of Kent county council, who came to Lille with me early this morning. We have throughout discussed the problems and opportunities which the link presents. I undertake to keep in close touch with the Kent local authorities to ensure that every opportunity is taken to help.

    Mr. John Cartwright (Woolwich)

    Given the considerable public interest in having a drive-through link in addition to the rail tunnel, does the Secretary of State accept that the year 2000 seems a long way off? What steps will he take to encourage the CTG to tackle the technical problems involved well before that deadline, and how firmly committed are the French Government to the concept of a drive-through link at a future date?

    Mr. Ridley

    Both Governments would have liked to see a drive-through link, but the problems are fairly formidable, in the sense of a 5 or 6-kilometre stretch near the French coast where the strata are difficult and unknown. It will be of great assistance to drive the bored tunnels of the CTG through those strata, whet more information about the possibility of a bigger tunnel for a drive-through link can be gathered. There was always doubt about the ventilation system proposed by Channel Expressway. With further advances in that technology, and with the greater geological information that we hope to obtain, it may be possible to drive a bigger tunnel through at a later stage. The CTG’s undertaking, which will be spelt out and put into the White Paper, makes it possible to do that fairly soon, or, in default of that, for a further invitation to be made to promoters so that a drive-through link would come into existence by the year 2,020.

  • Lawrence Cunliffe – 1986 Speech on Opencast Mining

    Below is the text of the speech made by Lawrence Cunliffe, the then Labour MP for Leigh, in the House of Commons on 20 January 1986.

    First of all, may I place on record my gratitude to the Minister for responding so quickly to what is in essence an emergency debate. I apologise to the House on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis), who is ill with influenza and unable to be here. I managed to bridge the gap and I shall speak on opencast mining and the 10-year draft plan of the National Coal Board for the greater Manchester area.

    I have a special interest in this debate because I am the chairman of the miners’ parliamentary group and a member of the national executive of the National Union of Mineworkers. I am also the energy Whip of my party. I want it clearly understood that I shall be speaking first about the adverse effects opencast mining has had on the lives of ordinary people in the greater Manchester area for something like 150 years. I shall also speak about whether opencast mining has a useful part to play in the energy requirements of our nation.

    It is known that during the unfortunate period of strife and trauma that the mining industry recently endured, some people took the view that it would not have come about if the Government’s energy policy had fully taken into account that we have in coal an indigenous fuel with a potential of some 300 years’ supply. That could be used at the proper time for our energy requirements. It is a vital natural resource and should be safeguarded and used only when it is necessary to do so.

    The Minister will know that opencast mining was an emergency undertaking that complemented deep coal mining after the second world war. From about 1946–47 it found its place within our global target of coal production in the nationalised industry run by the National Coal Board.

    Opencast mining was never meant to be a substitute for deep coal mining. Unfortunately, it is now considered an asset, not in the sense that it is considered imperative that we get the coal, but in the sense that it is a cheap form of fuel that is quickly mined and, as we say, in the wagon, with the money in the bank in a few days or a few weeks. I am a former mining engineer and I know that eight to 10 years is required to sink a pit. Before it becomes economic and fruitful it needs a considerable amount of planning and deep coal mining is much more expensive than opencast mining.

    I do not believe—nor, at times, do the Government—that we have a rational national energy policy that considers all types of fuels in the context of global requirements. Thousands of ordinary householders are suffering because of this great intrusion into their lives which is causing, in their opinion and that of my colleagues, wholesale havoc and devastation. Visual amenities, repairs to services, local infrastructure—roads, sewers, and so on—and rural areas have been affected. Partly rural areas have been spoiled, as we noted during the long public inquiry on behalf of a Member of the other place. It was conceded at the end of the inquiry that the environmentalists were half right and that the applicant was right also.

    There is no doubt about the disturbance, noise, dirt and constant problems where opencast mining occurs in residential areas. I should like to make some suggestions which might mitigate some of the hardship suffered. Properties are sometimes affected by large schemes for as long as 15 years. That is an inordinate period during which householders have to put up with the problem. When they purchase their houses, they often do not dream that they will become the victim of such an environmental intrusion into their lives.

    I shall give a classic example of one development which affects three sides of my constituency—the Leigh, Atherton and Tyldesley townships. The project involves 11 years of excavation and five years reclamation. People at the end of the site, as are some of my constituents, expect to be adversely affected for 16 years, if the NCB’s targeted time scale is met. That is unreasonable. Through no fault of their own, my constituents are the victims of this cruel series of events.

    There is a 10-year plan which involves a strategy plan, based on identified sites and areas of search in the mining communities. The sites suggested in the draft mineral local plan for the greater Manchester area basically surround the perimeter of Wigan and adjoining authority areas and penetrate into greater Manchester. They do not include potential opencast sites that have already been identified. This means that the areas have been identified by the NCB opencast executive as “areas of current interest”, which is not quite the same as “identified sites”. Obviously, this causes extreme concern to the residents, and all the protection groups that have formed in that vast area of search.

    They are worried that, some 40 or 50 years afterwards, they could be landed with opencast mining for the next half century. I am being quite logical about this point, and I am not being speculative, because I know the area. Such a proposition would be a nightmare to ordinary people. There are examples in the area to show that this has happened before.

    One of the problems is that the weak substrata could be in residential areas. Neither the Government nor the local authorities have ever commissioned a proper, in-depth, independent geological survey of the areas built on such substrata. This evening I was looking at the history of a pit in my constituency, dealing with what happened there 198 years ago. I shall not bore the House with the details of what happened. However, one third of the pit is within the site about which we are talking, which will produce about 2 million tonnes of opencast coal within the next 16 years.

    The problem is that no one is responsible for seeing what could happen when an area that has been honeycombed for the past 200 years with 300 mineshafts within a radius of five miles is worked again. One of the problems is that no direct geological survey is made. It is possible that geological movements would be triggered off from the dozens of old mine workings.

    I understand the problems. The Minister came to help out in haste, and some of the blame lies with the Department of the Environment, and is not his responsibility. It is fair, sensible, and should be obligatory, that all those who apply—whether it is the National Coal Board or any private applicant—for permission to mine an area, should present to the authority an independent geological survey of the area. It will then be up to the local authority, the councillors of which will be briefed on the data available, to make its judgment on ​ an application. That would be a more fair and honest method. A judgment could be made more rationally and soundly. The NCB, which is the main applicant for planning permission to mine such areas, will then be responsible for those areas.

    The NCB always uses the phrase, “There is no evidence to suggest.” On the other hand, there has been no positive planning identification by the National Coal Board that allows it to say, hand on heart, that old mineworkings in that area will not cause disturbance.

    New arrangements were introduced in 1984. They are the subject of circular 3/84 from the Department of the Environment. It places opencast mining fairly and squarely within the planning system and all that flows from that. Compensation should be paid to those communities from whose area coal is removed. Financial recompense should be made to the communities that have borne the brunt of mining operations. I have already described the adverse effects of opencast coalmining, which are fully acknowledged in paragraph 20 of the Government circular. It says that local planning authorities will need to consider how best high standards of management and operation of sites might be achieved through measures agreed with the industry. It states that the agreements provided for in section 52 of the Coal Industry Act 1971 are to be enforced by means of the planning conditions. It is, however, clear that the possibility of securing compensation cannot be dealt with in that way.

    Therefore I implore the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy to consult the Department of the Environment and to suggest that, where mining takes place, an amount should be calculated, as compensation to the local authorities and to the areas and communities concerned, as a percentage of the value of recovered coal. I believe that that would be an honest criterion. If opencast mining must be imposed on the population in this area, compensation should be paid to them.

    The National Coal Board should agree in principle to accept its responsibility to help local communities. If such an agreement could be obtained, we would be on the first rung of the ladder towards the introduction of legislation to provide protection and some degree of recompense for the great environmental intrusions caused by opencast mining.

    I stress again that the extent of underground mining activities in areas such as these has been so great that much of it is unrecorded, while other records no longer exist. An area that had been subject to subsidence but which appeared to have been stabilised was considered by the planning authorities to be suitable as building land. Residential and other types of property now stand upon that land. These are worn-out areas. We are referring to areas which for 250 years have been subject to the kind of activities that I have described. It is only right, when our national energy resources are being planned, that relief of some kind should be provided. Either monetary relief or better planning conditions should be introduced to safeguard the interests and the environment of these communities. I commend to the House and the various Departments my suggestions about trying to help and to grant some kind of sustenance, especially to those who, unfortunately, have to suffer that type of ordeal.

    ​ I mentioned long periods of perhaps 15 or 20 years, but an average is about five to 10 years. Nevertheless, there are exceptional circumstances and I hope that the Minister will consider my arguments carefully.

  • Colin Moynihan – 1986 Speech on Special Constables

    Below is the text of the speech made by Colin Moynihan, the then Conservative MP for East Lewisham, in the House of Commons on 17 January 1986.

    The House will regret the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Mr. Conway). He had the good fortune to draw today’s Adjournment debate on the special constabulary. Regrettably, his younger child has fallen ill, and rightly, he is with his family. I am sure that all hon. Members will wish his baby a speedy recovery. My hon. Friend’s views on the subject are well known and respected by hon. Members. He is wholly committed to a growing role for the special constabulary, and seeks a clear sign of political will from his colleagues to support it in its present and future role to uphold law and order. Although it may be unusual, it is a mark of my respect for him and of the importance of the subject that I have chosen the same title for my Adjournment debate.

    The special constabulary receives all too little credit for the service it provides to both the public and the regular forces. It is a very British idea. Only recently it celebrated the passing of the Special Constables Act 1831, 155 years ago. We ask ordinary members of the public to give some practical help to the police, and we give them the same powers as regular officers. That sounds a concept fraught with dangers and difficulties, but it works.

    For years specials have been carrying out the duties asked of them without giving civil liberty activists the slightest cause for complaint. I suspect that those activists share the general public’s ignorance of the contribution and, even, the existence of the special constabulary. I share the views expressed in the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken), who said in a similar Adjournment debate—too much time has elapsed since we discussed the subject in detail—

    “My purpose in initiating the debate … is to call on the Government to expand, strengthen and revitalise the specials, so that they can be built up into an effective and well-trained police reserve with roots in their local communities. … The priorities for the specials are more training and more recruitment. Neither priority should be all that difficult to achieve, provided the political will exists, because there are such solid foundations to build on within the existing structure of the special constabulary.”—[Official Report, 31 July 1981; Vol. 9, c. 1410.]

    Those words are equally true today.

    I recognise and applaud the fact that the long decline in the number of special constables has been halted since those words were uttered. However, I find it hard to believe that only 15,000 or 16,000 men and women are willing to give a few hours a week to this important work when 45,000 were employed in 1964. Is enough being done to inform potential applicants, and to make the work attractive? I fear that the answers may be No. I am looking for answers to those questions from the Government Front Bench today. I seek an assurance from the Government that the specials are being taken seriously. I am confident that my hon. Friend the Minister will give me that assurance, but I hope that he will go on to describe the role within the police service that the Government seek for the special constabulary.

    Is enough being done to inform the public about the specials, and to encourage recruitment? If any hon. Member conducted a survey of his constituents he would find that the majority would not know of the existence of ​ the special constabulary. Even most of those who have heard of the specials will have little idea of what they do. Some constituents would be surprised and alarmed to discover that for a few hours every week their next-door neighbour or friend down the road had all the powers and privileges of a regular constable, and used them. They would be even more surprised to learn that special constables had existed for 155 years.

    Cannot we make greater inroads into that widespread ignorance? From time to time in the national newspapers I see advertisements for regular officers and for other voluntary national bodies, such as the Territorial Army. I cannot remember seeing any advertisement for the special constabulary. Yet that could be the subject matter, particularly for local newspapers. There are human interest stories that could be sensibly written up by such excellent local papers as the Lewisham Star, Mercury and the South London Press, to mention only those in my borough. I would welcome such an initiative.

    There is great difficulty in recruiting special constables, even in London. Catford has one divisional officer, one sub-divisional officer and 11 special constables, but it would need 40 to 50 officers. Lewisham has one divisional officer, one sub-divisional officer and only five special constables; it could do with about 30 to 40 constables. Divisional Officer Jenkins of Lewisham has given outstanding service to the force and to the country for about 21 years. He has a bar to his long service medal, which I understand means that he has served for a minimum of 19 years. He is competent, responsible and has great experience. He is much liked in the force and in the community that he serves, and I pay tribute to him and to his colleagues.

    Why do I say that human interest stories are involved? During the past year, Lewisham special constables, who work voluntarily, have done duty at Millwall, have patrolled regularly in pairs and have helped elderly folk. The sight of the policeman out of the panda car and on the beat is important in removing the fear of crime, which is larger than the incidence of crime, among the population, They also participated in Brave Defender, on the security side, patrolling Biggin Hill 24 hours a day for three to four days. Their role in ceremonials, including the Easter parade, is well known to all who follow their work in London, but I fear not to the majority of the population. I emphasise that the critical part of their work is the removal of the fear of crime by their presence on the streets, in the estates and especially among the elderly and responsible citizens, who like to see officers patrolling the streets on foot and who like to know their officers personally.

    There are other ways in which police forces could bring the existence of the special constabulary to the notice of local residents. I should be glad if my hon. Friend would say something about the methods used by forces and how successful they are. I should be interested to know what the Government do at national level to increase the size of the special constabulary.

    On the important subject of relations with regular officers, it is possible that the Government take specials seriously. It is possible that senior police officers are clearly aware of the value of special constables. But I wonder whether that view is shared all the way down the line in the police force? If we are to use the special constabulary to its full potential, we must be certain that there is no friction with regular officers. Specials must be ​ fully integrated into the force. I have heard it said that some regular officers do not view the efforts of the special constabulary as important. I have also heard of resistance from regular officers to the extension of the special’s work into more vital areas of police activity. But if there is a lack of trust between specials and regular officers elsewhere than in Lewisham and Catford, where it does not appear to be a problem, it will be difficult for the Government to make progress. There must be a clear understanding on both sides of the limits of the role of the special constabulary. Will my hon. Friend tell us whether there is a problem here? if so, what is he doing about it?

    I mentioned the extension of the specials’ work. Ordinary men and women will not wish to devote their spare time to the police service unless they get some reward. I am not talking about a financial reward, although I shall say something about that later. I am talking about gaining satisfaction from the work and feeling that they are making a contribution to the force. If we use specials only for the dull, undemanding tasks which regular officers do not wish to undertake, we cannot reasonably expect them to attract recruits or to keep them once they have been attracted. People will not be moved to apply by the prospect of standing in the rain every November to line the route for the Lord Mayor’s show. they will, understandably, decide that they have better things to do. Surely we can offer them better things within the special constabulary.

    One area where specials could play a useful role is in crime prevention. It is the soft end of policing, but it is just as important as the hard end—public order policing—for which specials are clearly not qualified.

    Much has been done recently to help people to help themselves. The specials have a foot in both camps. They are part of the community as well as part of the police force. Most are deployed in the area in which they live. If they are more involved in neighbourhood watch schemes in their area, other local residents might find it easier to identify with them and might be more ready to turn to them. People might find it easier to get into contact with a special constable who is also a local resident than with a beat constable who lives at the other end of the borough.

    I know that in London, and in my borough of Lewisham in particular, the Metropolitan police have made some progress in involving the special constabulary in crime prevention work. I should be interested to learn from my hon. Friend the Minister whether other forces have taken similar steps and whether more work could be done on the important neighbourhood watch schemes which have done so much good in terms of upholding law and order, certainly in London and, as I understand, throughout the country.

    If specials are to perform more duties in the mainstream of police work and if they are to do so in a way that attracts the respect of regular officers, they must be properly trained. They cannot just pick it up as they go along. They have important powers to exercise and they must be taught how to use them.

    I recognise that there are problems in providing training for part-time volunteers. It is difficult to plan a programme when one cannot be certain who will attend, and when, but the problems are not insuperable. Anyone who has a commitment to the police service—which every special must have—will be prepared to make the effort to ​ ensure that he is equipped to do the job properly. It is not unreasonable for the specials to give up the occasional weekend.

    It is in the specials’ interest not just to ensure that they can carry out the work with knowledge and confidence but to provide a wider and more fulfilling range of tasks. The training that they are given must not be superficial. The training given to regular officers is unsuitable for specials, but the courses that specials undertake must be just as professional. A member of the public will be upset when a constable misuses his powers whether he is a regular or a special. I seek an assurance that the special constabulary is being taken seriously.

    Earlier, I mentioned the need to provide a reward for the time that specials devote to the service. I was talking about a sense of personal satisfaction. Such a reward is most important to special constables. However, we should not assume that a financial reward in unnecessary. At the moment, specials receive various allowances but no remuneration. I know that the question of making some kind of payment, perhaps along the lines of the Territorial Army bounty, has been considered. I can see that there are arguments on both sides.

    I am interested in having more special constables. The only question that interests me is whether a payment would persuade more public-spirited members of the community to offer their spare time to help the police. As specials are not paid, I assume that the Government think that the answer to that question is no. They may be right, but the question still needs to be asked from time to time. It is important to many special constables. To some it may seem as though a lack of payment is a measure of the ‘value that the Government place on their work. I am sure that they are wrong, but I should be grateful for some light on the Government’s thinking.

    This is a secondary issue compared to that of job satisfaction, and I believe that the vast majority of special constables take the same view. However, we should note the benefits of a formal payment along the lines of the Territorial Army bounty.

    My hon. Friend may make a fair point about paying special constables—that even without payment forces are finding it possible to attract recruits. I leave aside the question whether a payment would attract more. I wish the House to consider the fact that without the promise of a financial reward, and at the cost of their spare time, men and women are prepared to offer their services to help the police with the heavy burden that they carry on our behalf.

    It is generally recognised that the prevention of crime and the maintenance of law and order are the responsibility not just of the police but of the community as a whole. There are people to whom this idea is not part of the small change of political debate on the police but a principle which they are prepared to put into practice.

    We do not hear much about them, and we probably fail to recognise them when we see them, but every time a police force is under pressure, we can be sure that ordinary men and women are being called from their homes to keep routine police work turning over while the regular officers are diverted to deal with the crisis, whatever it may be—an important sporting event. a royal visit or a riot. The men and women of the special constabulary all over the country deserve our gratitude for the contribution that they are making to the police service. More than this, they deserve our support.

    I am glad to have this opportunity to raise various questions with the Minister about the policies that the Government and the chief officers of police are pursuing. All right hon. and hon. Members can help the specials. All of us can do more to make the public more aware of the work that the special constabulary performs. We can all do more to encourage people to put their own spare time at the disposal of the police service. The police are more than ever under pressure and more than ever in need of our support. I sometimes hear people say that the police are too cut off from the public. Tell that to a special constable. There may be many suitable, public-spirited people who would be prepared to give practical assistance to the police service. Let us find them.

    I hope that my hon. Friend does not think that my recognition of the general responsibility of us all to help the special constabulary means that I do not acknowledge his particular responsibility. I do. I look forward to his replies to the questions that I have raised in this debate.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2019 Speech on the Causes of Crime

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, on 15 July 2019.

    Thank you Debbie.

    And thank you Javaun.

    Not only for that introduction, but for the inspiring work you do at City Hall.

    Let’s show Javaun our appreciation.

    —

    Thank you all for coming.

    And thank you to the Salmon Centre – who do brilliant work with young people – for hosting us today.

    Before I start, I’d also like to take this opportunity to mention several organisations and colleagues here today who are playing a vital role in our efforts to tackle violent crime.

    The NHS – from NHS England to UNISON’s London Ambulance service branch.

    Those from the sports world, such as:

    Football Beyond Borders. Fight for Peace. And Crystal Palace football club.

    Local government colleagues – from Councillors to youth workers.

    The voluntary sector, such as the Child Poverty Action Group and Barnardos.

    Faith leaders, representing London’s Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples.

    Those working directly with young people, such as Ignite Trust, Dwaynamics, New Horizon Youth Centre, and those working in schools.

    And, of course, the police.

    —

    I’d also like to mention the bereaved families who are present here this morning, as well as those campaigning on their behalf.

    I know it can be difficult to attend events like this.

    It can bring back distressing memories.

    But I want everyone to be a part of this conversation about how we tackle violent crime, and I’m grateful for you coming today.

    —

    As Mayor, the safety and security of London is my top priority.

    Not a day passes without worrying about violent crime and its impact on Londoners.

    And it’s been an extremely difficult time for our city:

    Families and communities torn apart by senseless violence.

    People feeling fearful for themselves and their loved ones.

    And parents left grieving at the needless murder of their children.

    You can’t help but share the heartbreak of the grief-stricken families you meet.

    Or the worries of the fearful communities you visit.

    But these emotions must drive us to do all we can to prevent more tragedy.

    And lead us to be honest about the true causes of violent crime.

    For how can we expect to tackle this scourge if we’re not willing to be honest about the nature of the task at hand?

    —

    The rise in violent crime across the country is a complex issue.

    One that’s been obscured by short-term thinking and political spin for far too long.

    This has prevented us from tackling the root causes head on.

    Well – it’s time to be honest.

    Honest about the scale of the problem.

    Honest about what’s actually happening away from the headlines.

    Honest about the role of families and communities.

    Honest about what the police can do – and what they can’t.

    Honest about what we can do from City Hall – and what we can’t.

    Honest about what the Government can – and should – be doing.

    And – ultimately – honest about what it will take – from all of us – to fix this problem for good.

    And this is what I want to talk about today.

    —

    I love my job.

    I’m privileged to spend my day making our city a better, fairer and more inclusive place for all.

    But it’s also a job where you live and breathe the major challenges of a complicated, global city.

    I often lay awake at night with an overwhelming sense of apprehension:

    How many Londoners will be victims of violence in the coming days?

    How many women will have to suffer sexual assault or domestic violence?

    How many families will be left grieving due to bloodshed on our streets?

    And what more can we do to bring this suffering to an end?

    —

    I believe it’s one of the responsibilities of my office to meet – if they want to – the relatives of those who’ve lost loved ones to violent crime.

    I don’t speak about this much.

    Because it’s personal.

    It’s private.

    But I think more of the stories of victims need to be heard if we’re going to be honest about this problem.

    And if we’re going to understand the true human cost of violent crime.

    —

    So – today – I have the blessing of some brave parents to talk about the children they lost.

    Malcolm Mide-Madariola was only 17 when he was knifed in the heart outside a tube station last year.

    Malcolm was a high achieving student.

    He passed his diploma in Business Studies with distinction.

    And he enjoyed playing football for his school.

    Malcom was also known for his generosity and kindness.

    For putting his family and friends before himself.

    And not for causing conflict, but for being a calming influence amongst his peers.

    That fateful afternoon – when Malcolm was brutally killed – he was standing up for a friend who was being threatened.

    —

    Dwayne Simpson – another young Londoner – was also stabbed to death.

    He lost his life in 2014.

    He was trying to defend a young boy who was being chased down the street.

    Dwayne didn’t have an easy start to life.

    And he received a criminal record for robbery at a young age.

    But when he came out of prison he turned his life around.

    He went to college, had a bright future, and secured funding to set up a local boxing club – now called Dwaynamics – to keep others away from criminal gangs.

    Due to the level of violence in his neighbourhood, Dwayne once told his mum that he didn’t know if he’d reach his 21st birthday.

    Tragically, he never did.

    —

    There are so many more stories I could tell you.

    I don’t want any more parents, like Malcom’s, Dwayne’s or others, to have to go through the grief of losing a child in this way.

    Young victims struck down in the prime of their lives.

    So much talent wasted.

    And so much potential lost.

    It’s painful stories like these that explain why I never allow myself to forget the time I spend with grieving relatives.

    Because it motivates me every single day to ensure that other families don’t have to go through this kind of pain and anguish.

    —

    I mentioned earlier that if we’re truly going to tackle this problem – which we must – we have to start with honesty.

    And honesty starts with looking at the facts.

    Violent crime in our city is clearly far, far too high.

    But how did we get here?

    Contrary to what some would have you believe; violent crime didn’t start rising in London the day I became Mayor in 2016.

    In truth, it’s been rising since 2014.

    With Serious Youth Violence rising from 2012.

    And the root causes go back even further than that.

    We should also be clear that this is not just a London problem.

    In fact, it’s been increasing at a higher rate in cities and regions across the country…

    …which is why violent crime has been on the front pages of local papers in the likes of Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol, as well as London.

    —

    We should also be honest about the fact that our relentless focus on this problem in London since 2016 has started to make a difference.

    As the Met Commissioner, Cressida Dick, has confirmed – the situation is slowly improving.

    Serious incidents involving young Londoners is down by nearly 20 per cent compared to last year.

    And the number of homicides in the first six months of 2019 is 24 per cent lower than the same period a year ago.

    I don’t say any of this because I’m complacent.

    Far from it.

    Every single act of violence is one too many.

    And we clearly have a long way to go.

    Something which is intensely highlighted whenever we experience days of horrific, lethal violence on our streets.

    But if we’re going to continue to learn the right lessons, it’s critical that we’re honest and open when our approach is starting to show results.

    And to challenge the narrative that ‘nothing is being done’. Because it is.

    —

    We also need to be honest about who the victims and perpetrators are.

    Here in London, one of the most diverse cities in the world, young black men make up 11 per cent of London’s youth population.

    Young black Londoners are over represented – as both victims and offenders.

    But it’s important to remember that the vast, vast majority of young Black Londoners make a positive contribution to our city – and 99 per cent are not involved in serious youth violence in any way.

    In other cities, like Glasgow, where the demographics are very different, it’s young white men who are more likely to be the perpetrators, as well as the victims, of violent crime.

    That’s because it’s not skin colour that determines your chances of being a victim or a perpetrator, but many other environmental factors – which I will come to later – such as disproportionate rates of poverty, unemployment and school exclusions.

    But this issue of disproportiality is impacting the wider black community, including those not directly involved – such as innocent Londoners like Malcolm, Dwayne and their families.

    This is something we must both acknowledge and seek to address.

    Not only in relation to youth violence, but more broadly.

    This means proactively tackling the barriers and inequality that black Londoners face.

    From housing and poverty to education and the work place.

    —

    And – lastly – we must also be honest about the fact that youth violent crime is being fuelled by the drug trade.

    This means that as well as doing more to arrest and charge the criminals who are distributing and selling drugs, we must make people aware that taking drugs at middle-class parties is contributing to the bloodshed on our streets.

    Londoners must realise that there’s no such thing as a victimless crime.

    —

    So what’s the solution?

    It seems like a cliché now, but I fundamentally believe that the mantra of the last Labour government still holds true:

    “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”.

    This means working to tackle the underlying causes at the same time as understanding that the police will always have a huge, and vital, role to play.

    I want to put on the record – once again – my thanks to the brave men and women of the Met Police who are doing an incredible job under extremely difficult circumstances.

    As Mayor, I’ll continue to support our overstretched and under-resourced police to do everything they can to stem the bloodshed.

    And I’ll continue to defend the tactics they’re successfully using to drive down violence:

    Knife sweeps to get weapons of the streets.

    Intelligence-led drug raids and arrests.

    Highly visible policing in the areas worst affected.

    And targeted, intelligence-led Stop and Search.

    I know as well as anyone the negative impact that indiscriminate Stop and Search can have on communities.

    Done badly, it really can make it harder to tackle crime by pitting communities against the police and by discouraging key witnesses from reporting crime.

    Growing up in south London, I lost track of the number of times I was stopped and searched for what appeared to be for no other reason than the colour of my skin.

    And one of the things I remember being told as a teenager by my late dad was:

    “Always be respectful to the police. Never answer back. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t give them an excuse.”

    I know this experience has been shared by many black and Asian Londoners – regardless of their background or where they live.

    When I was a human rights lawyer, I was active in highlighting the disproportionate use of Stop and Search and – let’s face it – some examples of downright discrimination.

    But – since I’ve been Mayor – working with the police – we’ve been acting to end the very worst practices of Stop and Search.

    As part of this, we’ve rolled out Body Worn Cameras so that both the police and communities can have more confidence in their interactions.

    What we’ve found is that when it’s done professionally, properly and with evidence – Stop and Search can be effective in taking drugs and weapons off our streets, and therefore a vital tool we must use.

    So, again, I want to be honest – Stop and Search has increased under my Mayoralty.

    But that’s not to say it’s a panacea – in any way

    Despite what the candidates for the next Prime Minister want you to believe, we will never be able to solve this problem with Stop and Search alone.

    —

    Another contentious issue is the number of police officers on our streets.

    There are some who criticise me for talking about police cuts in response to violent crime.

    They say that it’s somehow dodging responsibility or passing the buck.

    But it’s the truth.

    And as I’ve said today, we can’t tackle violent crime unless we’re honest about every aspect of it.

    Over 800 million pounds has already been stripped from the Met’s budgets since 2010.

    This is a total disgrace – and has created a huge amount of damage.

    You don’t have to take my word for it:

    The Home Office has acknowledged the link between police cuts and violent crime.

    Senior officers around the country have bravely spoken out for years.

    Even the Home Secretary has now said that police cuts have gone too far.

    And both Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson have finally acknowledged the same.

    It makes me so angry that for years the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and other Cabinet Ministers refused to admit what was clear for everyone else to see.

    And even angrier that – despite some warm words – the Government is still refusing to reverse all the cuts made since 2010.

    —

    I’m doing all I can to fill some of the financial black hole:

    Investing a record amount from City Hall.

    Helping to set up a new dedicated Violent Crime Taskforce.

    And ensuring we have nearly 300 police officers focused on the areas worst affected, working alongside their colleagues.

    But – I have to be honest – I have one arm tied behind my back.

    Because the overwhelming majority of police funding comes from the Government.

    And I have no means of making up the gap.

    That’s why we desperately need the Government to reverse all the cuts and to put more police officers on the streets.

    And – on behalf of Londoners – I’ll continue to push the next Prime Minister to deliver on his promises to do just that.

    —

    But while the Conservative candidates are trying to sound tough on crime – despite their record of supporting massive cuts – the truth is they’re desperately weak on addressing the underlying causes.

    The formula I mentioned earlier – “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” – requires both elements to happen.

    Being honest about violent crime means admitting that we can’t just arrest our way out of the problem.

    And it means admitting that there are certain environmental factors that can lead people to become more likely to commit crime.

    No one is born violent.

    Or born a criminal.

    But the truth is there is a complex and interrelated set of factors at play in people’s lives, homes and communities, which can alter the likelihood of someone taking the wrong road.

    These involve deep-rooted and engrained social and economic factors.

    Factors like the rise of child poverty.

    Like family breakdown and poor mental health.

    Like the lack of youth services across London.

    Like the negative impact of new forms of communication and social media.

    Like the link between drugs, gangs and violence – often involving organised criminal networks that span the globe, with operations the size of large companies.

    And like the fact that investment in public services and programmes designed to tackle these engrained problems have been decimated by a decade of austerity…

    This has removed the glue that holds our communities together, which previously prevented many people from slipping out of the system and into a life of crime.

    —

    The depressing reality is that many young people coming of age now have only known austerity throughout their formative years.

    Their parents had insecure work and insecure housing.

    The help that used to exist for such parents – through programmes like Sure Start – has all but disappeared.

    Many of them were excluded from school and left to fend for themselves without any support.

    Their youth centres were closed down.

    And they’ve seen their job opportunities narrowed, and their aspirations curtailed.

    There is clearly a link between this perfect storm of cuts and regressive policies and the rise of violent crime since 2014, and serious youth violence since 2012.

    And, today, I’m releasing stark new analysis from City Hall, which truly lays bare the full extent of the relationship between serious youth violence and a whole range of socio-economic factors.

    It confirms that the areas of London with the highest rate of youth violence have:

    Higher rates of poverty and deprivation.

    A higher proportion of children in care.

    And lower levels of ‘positive life satisfaction’ amongst young Londoners.

    Yet there are still some who say that to acknowledge this link between poverty, deprivation and crime is somehow to excuse criminality and to let the criminals off the hook.

    I say this is dangerous rubbish.

    Not to do so is simply dishonest – and, unforgivably, allows violent crime to continue for another generation without addressing the underlying causes.

    The truth is:

    If we allow children to be brought up in deprived conditions.

    If we accept high rates of school exclusions.

    If we fail to tackle domestic and sexual violence.

    If we leave people in bad housing with a lack of employment and training opportunities.

    And if we decimate the very public services designed to support those most in need – as this Government has systematically done – then crime is much more likely to flourish.

    This is not to say that everyone growing up in these environments becomes a criminal.

    Or that we shouldn’t deal very toughly with those who break the law.

    Far from it.

    There is never any excuse for criminality – whatsoever.

    But any sensible society understands that it’s in our own interest to remove the conditions that allow criminality to thrive.

    We have to face the reality that:

    with hope at rock bottom,

    an absence of positive opportunities,

    and a worrying lack of worth being placed on people’s lives…

    …turning to criminality and gangs has become an all too easy route to satisfy the lure of gaining respect and money – however misguided that is.

    Gangs and violence is often the only sense of identity and belonging many young people know.

    And new and evolving forms of social media are being used to glorify violence and goad rivals.

    —

    Earlier, I spoke about the actions the Met police is taking on violent crime.

    Well – we’re also doing some innovative work from City Hall to tackle the underlying causes.

    We’ve established the Young Londoners Fund and a range of youth and community initiatives.

    From the Culture Seeds programme to Sports Unite – which are providing new opportunities for young people.

    This includes plans to:

    Invest in projects during the summer holidays for thousands of young people at risk of becoming involved in crime.

    And funding initiatives to identify young people being exploited by county-lines drug trafficking, and then helping them to turn their lives around.

    —

    We’ve also established the new Violence Reduction Unit.

    The VRU is working to reduce all forms of violence – including violence against women and girls – using what’s described as a public health approach.

    This is about using police enforcement first to contain and stop the spread of violent crime.

    And then tackling the root causes to prevent it from happening in the first place.

    This means intervening at critical moments in a young person’s life when they’re experiencing things that could increase the chance of them getting involved in violence.

    These adverse childhood experiences – as they are known – can be very varied.

    Take exposure to violence:

    A young person who’s been a victim of violence is much more likely to go on to commit violent crimes themselves.

    And according to the Met Police, 72 per cent of homicide suspects were previously victims of knife crime.

    That’s why – with the right intervention and support – we can prevent young people from taking the wrong road.

    To achieve this goal, we’re bringing together specialists from the NHS, the police, local government, probation and community organisations to understand the underlying causes of violent crime and to be ready to intervene when needed.

    We’re also getting better at sharing information between agencies and co-ordinating interventions.

    —

    There’s no doubt we have a big task ahead.

    But we’re not starting with a blank piece of paper.

    We’re building on the public health approach set out in my Knife Crime Strategy two years ago.

    And we’re constantly learning from the successful implementation of a public health approach in Glasgow and other cities around the world – and adapting them in London.

    We’re also drawing on the excellent community practice already taking place in London – including by charities, councils and community groups here today.

    That’s why the first priority of the new director of the VRU, Lib Peck – who I’m pleased is here this morning – has been to listen to the Londoners most affected by violent crime.

    She’s looking at how we can use our resources to empower local communities to tackle the problem, rather than imposing a top-down approach.

    Our aim is to:

    Re-build trust between communities and agencies that can help.

    Join forces in spotting the risk factors in young Londoners that might lead to criminal behaviour.

    And then to focus our attention on what can actually make a difference before it’s too late.

    And, today, after much consultation with communities, I’m pleased to announce several projects that the VRU will be funding as part of this work.

    This includes:

    Creating a programme to reduce school exclusions.

    Providing support to young people affected by domestic violence.

    Supporting programmes for vulnerable parents to help create stronger families.

    Training youth workers.

    And establishing a Youth Action Group that will inform the VRU programme and advise City Hall.

    —

    I know from my own life story the positive impact these kinds of programmes can have.

    Because I’ve seen how many young Londoners from deprived and disadvantaged communities often face key crossroads in their lives.

    And without the necessary support for them and their families at these crucial moments, they can take decisions and paths that not only harm their own future, but negatively impact the rest of society.

    Growing up on a council estate in South London, I saw first-hand how this can happen.

    I’ve witnessed these key moments in people’s lives.

    Some of my school friends were given opportunities to develop and gain confidence through family and community programmes, sport and other activities – whether it was boxing in the local club in Earlsfield or playing football at the weekends.

    Whereas others – with just as much potential – didn’t have the same positive influences in their lives, and were sucked into a life of crime and criminal gangs.

    I’ll never forget a visit to a prison when I was Shadow Justice Secretary.

    As I was walking around I heard one of the inmates shouting – “Sadiq” from behind a caged barrier.

    I looked over, and it was an old school friend.

    I remember that he was intelligent with potential to succeed, but, for a whole host of reasons, he’d taken some wrong turns in life and ended up in prison.

    There are no excuses for the crimes he committed.

    But I’m in no doubt that with the right support structure and opportunities growing up – his story – like so many others across London – could have been very, very different.

    —

    So our approach amounts to a fundamentally different way of doing things to tackle violent crime in London.

    With more funding from City Hall than ever before.

    Greater collaboration with other public services and communities.

    And a more focused and evidence-based approach to addressing the underlying causes.

    But to be honest – we simply cannot do it on our own.

    So my message to the Government – and the new Prime Minister – is this:

    It’s time to acknowledge that this is a national problem that requires an urgent national solution.

    No more scratching around the edges.

    We need the Prime Minister to drive the implementation of a proper national strategy to:

    Tackle poverty and inequality.

    To support the most deprived communities in our country, and those who have been left behind.

    To invest in youth services and opportunities for young people.

    And to support our police with the long-term increase in funding they desperately need.

    —

    So, let me end by saying this:

    The sad reality is the violence we’re seeing on our streets today is an appalling side-effect of increasing inequality and alienation caused by years of austerity and neglect.

    The lesson we must all learn is that you can’t cut public services, preventative measures and ignore the most vulnerable people in our country at the same time as keeping crime low.

    These things are fundamentally incompatible.

    What we’re seeing is a reflection of what happens following a nine-year experiment to shrink the state.

    The most depressing part of all of this is that our city – our nation – is being robbed of young people with so much potential.

    And – if we don’t change our approach as a country – we risk another generation taking similar paths to violence.

    The first step for the Government must be to stop viewing this problem in isolation, and to start being honest about the challenge we face.

    The next Prime Minister can’t continue to turn a blind eye to despair and the human cost of austerity.

    Of course, the police must be tough on crime.

    But we can’t expect them to bring down poverty and inequality too.

    This is not their job.

    It’s clear we need a strategy which is both tough on violence and tough on its causes.

    This is what we’re doing in London.

    But we need the Government to follow suit – we need their help.

    We’ve taken this approach as a country before – with success – and it’s possible to do so again.

    This means investing in young people.

    Investing in families.

    Investing in communities.

    And investing in our country so that we can expand opportunity for all.

    Thank you.

  • Jo Swinson – 2019 Speech on Becoming Liberal Democrat Leader

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jo Swinson, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, on 22 July 2019.

    Thank you all so much.

    I am delighted, honoured, absolutely over the moon to stand before you as the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

    And as the first woman to lead our party.

    I joined this party when I was 17. And over the last twenty-two years, through all the ups and downs, the Liberal Democrats have felt like a family to me.

    Conferences, campaigns. By-elections from Brent to Brecon.

    Twelve years as an MP, three years as a Minister.

    Losing my seat. Winning it back again. And now standing here, as your leader.

    Ready, for the fight of our lives. You have put your trust in me not only to lead our party but also to lead and grow the bigger, open, liberal movement that our country so desperately needs.

    There are those out there who think liberalism has had its day, that it is somehow “obsolete”.

    But when I think of all the amazing people I met on the campaign trail and when I look around this room, I can feel the energy, the passion and the determination to fight for our values. Liberalism is alive and thriving.

    In the face of nationalism, populism, the catastrophe of Brexit.

    The two old parties have failed.

    Our party has been clear on Brexit from day one.

    We believe the UK’s best future is as members of the European Union, and that’s why, as your leader, I will do whatever it takes to Stop Brexit.

    It’s the Liberal Democrats who can lead the renewal our country needs. Together, we can build a better future.

    So, thank you for joining me – whether you are a lifelong Lib Dem or you have joined us for the first time today.

    I couldn’t have won this race without the love and support of Duncan, and my mum, or without the pure joy that Andrew and Gabriel bring me. And not a day went by on the campaign that I didn’t think about my dad. He’d have loved today.

    I want to thank my incredible campaign team and the many, many volunteers who have helped us over the last few weeks and months. And I want to thank my team in Westminster and in East Dunbartonshire.

    This is your victory too – it simply wouldn’t have been possible without all of you.

    We all know that running elections is a challenging business, so thank you to the returning officer and the staff at HQ who helped this election run smoothly – not least while fighting two Parliamentary by-elections!

    And I also want to thank Ed.

    Campaigns are hard. Constant scrutiny. Constant pressure. Endless travel. Endless hustings! So much time away from loved ones. I know Ed and I have both felt this, as we have toured the country from Aberdeen to Plymouth, and everywhere in between.

    Ed has carried himself with grace throughout – and never lost his passion, nor his sense of humour.

    I have a huge amount of respect for Ed – he was an exceptional minister in Government, and his environmental record is second to none. We have worked together for years and we agree on most things – which, I admit, may not have always made it the most exciting contest. Ed is a friend, and I am proud that we have both run clean campaigns, focused on the issues that really matter.

    Ed is a great talent for our party, and I can assure you that he will be absolutely central to our team.

    When I decided to stand for the leadership, I did so thinking the challenge facing our party would be a very different one. We were stubbornly on around 8% in the polls. New parties were springing up, courting Lib Dem votes. It seemed that the first task I would face as leader would be to ensure our very survival.

    But what a turnaround!

    Our best set of local elections ever. More MEPs than ever before. Opinion polls that put us in first or second place.

    The Liberal Democrats are winning again.

    For that, I pay tribute to my two most immediate predecessors: Tim for taking that brave decision in the wake of the referendum to say unequivocally that we are the party of Remain.

    And Vince for your leadership that has brought about our revival, for being the voice of reason in these unreasonable times. Vince, you have served our party and our country with distinction for decades. From your sage warnings before the financial crash, to your work rebuilding our economy as Business Secretary, you have been a constant source of wisdom. And as Leader of our party you have led a transformation in our fortunes. Thank you so much.

    I know that I have some pretty big shoes to fill – whether that’s Vince’s ballroom shoes, or Ming Campbell’s Olympic running spikes.

    Or Nick Clegg, who put the country first at a time of national crisis and showed that Liberal Democrats can make a real difference when we take power and put our principles into practice.

    Paddy Ashdown, who took us from an asterisk in the opinion polls to a credible political force. And Charles Kennedy, who was shouted down in Parliament for his principled opposition to the Iraq war, and whose sincerity endeared him to millions.

    And how much we all miss both Paddy and Charles today.

    When Theresa May called the general election in 2017, I knew in a heartbeat I had to stand and win East Dunbartonshire again.

    People had expressed their shock about the division and nastiness unleashed by the 2016 referendum, but sadly, I had seen it already.

    In 2014, Scotland’s independence referendum heralded a new politics, and not in a good way.

    Sandra, one of my local members, had a brick thrown through her window, which displayed a pro-UK poster. On the campaign trail, an elderly woman pulled up her coat sleeve to show the pro-UK campaign sticker on the inside of her wrist – such was her fear of wearing it on her jacket. A mob of hundreds outside the BBC, demanding Nick Robinson be sacked. Twitter trolls, fake news, demonising journalists, we saw it in Scotland first.

    And since then, that harsh, hostile politics has become the new normal.

    On 24 June 2016, I woke to that awful news that Leave had won the referendum. I turned on the TV and saw Nigel Farage, smiling smugly out of the screen, and I’ll never forget what he said – he boasted that they had won ‘without a bullet being fired’.

    I just felt sick. Just eight days earlier, Jo Cox had been shot and stabbed to death, just for standing up for what she believed in. Crass, insensitive. Farage just didn’t care. But we should not be surprised. This is the man who stood in front of that Breaking Point poster, deliberately designed to stoke division, fear and hatred in our communities.

    And I felt so gutted about the result. Not about the specifics of this or that EU institution. This was about who we are as a country. It feels like our liberal values are under attack.

    We champion freedom – but Brexit will mean the next generation is less free to live, work and love across Europe.

    We value openness – but Britain is in retreat, pulling up the drawbridge.

    We cherish equality, so that every individual can thrive: whoever they are, whatever their background, however they worship. But this is threatened too – that shocking picture of those gay women, bloodied, attacked on a bus. And the rise in Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, in the heart of British politics.

    Of course this is not confined to the UK.

    Trump’s attack last week on four members of Congress, all women of colour, started with him deploying the textbook racist ‘go home’ message. By the end of the week, we saw thousands of people whipped into fervour at a rally, chanting “Send her back”.

    Simply sickening, chilling. Echoes of a history we must not repeat.

    Ilhan Omar is a strong woman. She will not be cowed. But my heart breaks: for every immigrant who feels less safe, for every little girl of colour who feels afraid, for every person who feels less welcome in their own country.

    And I rage when Boris Johnson is more interested in sucking up to Donald Trump, than standing up for British values of decency, equality, and respect.

    Tomorrow, we expect Boris Johnson will take the keys to Number 10 – but he has shown time and time again that he isn’t fit to be Prime Minister.

    Boris Johnson has only ever cared about Boris Johnson. Just ask Sir Kim Darroch or Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

    Whether it is throwing people under the bus or writing a lie on the side of one: Britain deserves better than Boris Johnson.

    And as for Corbyn’s Labour, I’ll make this quick. Any party that can’t decide where it stands on the biggest issue facing our country in generations, doesn’t deserve my time, and doesn’t deserve your vote.

    We need a Prime Minister who will rise to the challenges we face, not hide away from them.

    So I stand before you today, not as just as the leader of the Liberal Democrats, but as a candidate for Prime Minister.

    There is no limit to my ambition for our party and for our movement.

    I am ready to take our party into a general election and win it.

    And, if we want to be the party of government, we need to speak to the whole country, no matter how people voted three years ago.

    We need to reach communities from Norfolk to Newport, St Ives to Shetland, Gloucester to Gateshead.

    We need to start by being frank about what is going wrong – because the system we have isn’t working for people or for our planet.

    If you work hard and play by the rules, you should expect to earn a good wage, have a roof over your head and food on the table – that’s the social contract, and in the UK today it is fundamentally broken.

    We have families where both parents are working full-time on the so-called National Living Wage but who can’t provide the basics for their children – I’m talking about food, school uniforms, a warm home.

    And a planet that is at breaking point. We are the last generation who can act to stop catastrophic climate change, and yet the government is failing to take the urgent action we need.

    In the face of these challenges, it shouldn’t surprise us that people are attracted to the simple soundbites of Farage and Johnson – no matter how divisive, no matter how far removed from reality.

    If we want to defeat nationalism and populism, we need to give people an alternative vision for a richer, greener, safer and more loving country.

    Because when all that Farage and Johnson can offer is hate, we should give people hope.

    And our liberal movement to take on nationalism and populism must be inclusive.

    At one hustings, someone accused me of being a feminist first, and a liberal second.

    I answered how can you be a liberal, if you are not a feminist?

    You are not a liberal, if you do not recognise and unpick the structural inequalities in society that hold so many people back.

    As liberals, we want every individual to achieve their potential – and we are kidding ourselves if we think our society is a meritocracy.

    So I say to you, if you are tired of a politics that doesn’t include people like you, whether that’s because of your gender, disability or the colour of your skin, your accent, age, or who you love – then join us.

    This is a historic moment for our party. A moment of change.

    And the urgency of this moment in our country’s history needs us to think and act even bigger.

    Whether it’s Brexit or the climate crisis, we don’t have the luxury to wait fifteen or twenty years for us to rebuild our seats in Parliament.

    We need to work with others, in whatever form or shape, to keep growing that liberal movement, that force we need in British politics to take on nationalism and populism, and to deliver the future our children deserve.

    This is the time for working together, not the time for tribalism.

    And my message to MPs in other parties, who share our values is this:

    If you believe our country deserves better, that we can stop Brexit, that we can stop Johnson, Farage and Corbyn, then work with us, join us. My door is always open.

    And to everyone watching this right now.

    If you think that our country is headed in the wrong direction and you want to change that, you need to act too.

    Shouting at the television is not enough. You need to join us.

    If you want an economy that works for people and for our planet.

    If you want to build a richer, greener and safer future.

    If you want to keep our family of nations united.

    The answer is simple. Come, join us. Let’s do this. Let’s do this together.

    Let’s change politics so that we can transform our country.

  • Robert Buckland – 2019 Speech at Swearing-In Ceremony

    Below is the text of the speech made by Robert Buckland, the Lord Chancellor, on 30 July 2019.

    Mr Attorney, I’d like to thank the Lord Chief Justice for what I was going to say was a generous welcome, a frank one is more accurate! But I genuinely very much look forward to working with him and indeed other members of the Bench here present and other judicial colleagues. I’d also like to thank my predecessor, David Gauke, a mere solicitor, for his deep commitment to supporting the judiciary and the rule of law.

    It is with the deepest sense of pride that I appear before you as Lord Chancellor. Many of us in this court will be familiar with the long and ancient history of the office, stretching back as it does to before the Norman Conquest. The names of some of the office holders echo down the generations: Becket, Wolsey, Thomas More, Francis Bacon. The names of others are, shall we say, somewhat more notorious, but we’ll draw a veil of charity over that.

    I am one of as yet very few people from Wales to have had the honour of wearing these robes. The most recent of my compatriots was Lord Elwyn Jones, appointed in 1974. As the Lord Chief Justice referred to, we share several similarities. First, he was, like me, born and raised in Llanelli, and second, he practised at the Bar, sat as a Recorder and was a Law Officer too. Finally, and perhaps most strikingly, Elwyn Jones took office in a minority Government at a time of great political uncertainty. He did go on however to serve as Lord Chancellor for five years, so let us see whether the similarities end there.

    When preparing for this ceremony it was reassuring to recall that I have had some practice – after all, I have borne direct witness, when I was Solicitor General, to four of my predecessors being sworn-in!

    Like them, I am before you today, and I have sworn an Oath that I will defend the independence of the judiciary and respect the rule of law. It is the safeguard of fairness and freedom in our society, providing for important principles like equality under the law and access to justice. And for me, this has far more than formal relevance.

    Indeed, I realise that this is the first time I have appeared in this Court from this side of the bench. It has been my privilege, first of all as junior counsel and then as a Law Officer of the Crown, to have appeared here from counsel’s row addressing a succession of appellate benches over the past 25 years or so. So for me, the law and its practice have dominated my adult life – I have lived it, which is why today is not just a political pinnacle, but a legal one for me too.

    What led me here? As a criminal barrister, I learnt about the power of advocacy; of giving those whose liberty was on the line a voice and ensuring that they were treated equally under the law, addressing hundreds of juries, prosecuting and defending in thousands of cases on the circuit and here in London too. The Wales circuit, the greatest circuit in the known world.

    As a Recorder in a Crown Court, I saw the benefit, but also the difficulty, in delivering justice effective and efficiently – which is why I take a particular interest in our courts and tribunals reform agenda.

    And, after election to Parliament by the people of South Swindon, which I have the honour to represent, and as the Solicitor General for nearly five years, I saw the importance of the separation of the branches of the State and the role of the law officers in ensuring that the Government respects and upholds the rule of law.

    The judiciary, as one of these branches, is rightly independent. Judges must be free to give their judgments without fear or favour. And as Lord Chancellor, I will endeavour to be sure-footed and steadfast in my solemn Oath to defend that hard-won independence.

    You, the judiciary, bring huge knowledge, experience and expertise to the judgments you make. I know that these can often be challenging and complex cases. And I want to thank you for the dedication and careful diligence with which you approach those decisions.

    This year we mark some important anniversaries. Today is exactly 70 years since the coming into force of the 1949 Legal Aid and Advice Act. Legal aid being provided for the first time in a structured way in certain cases in our higher courts, before the system further evolved to embrace a wider category of case. Having practised predominantly in cases involving criminal legal aid, I remain firmly of the belief that as far as possible the right support must be provided for those who need it, particularly where actions of the state directly affect the liberty, livelihood or welfare of the individual.

    And in that spirit, I believe deeply in the benefits of public legal education, something I focused on during my time as Solicitor General and something, I know, my Lord Chief Justice, you too are keen to promote.

    And as we mark the centenary of the Act of Parliament that enabled women to become lawyers for the very first time, we can be encouraged by the fact that more than half of trainee solicitors and barristers entering the professions are now women. That is great progress, but we still need to see more diversity, in all its forms, throughout the ranks of the professions and in the judiciary. And I will do all I can to promote this agenda in my time as Lord Chancellor.

    The evolution and endurance of this great office of state remind us where we have come from – how our rights and opportunities have evolved alongside an endurance of the essential principles upon which our justice system and society rely. The foundations of those institutions, I believe, are fundamentally strong and the roots of the principles and values we hold dear are deep.

    And I will work hard to maintain our international reputation for excellence we have when it comes to our legal services and our judiciary.

    Here at home, I want people to have confidence in a justice system that is fair, open and accessible, that protects victims and makes our streets safer – a justice system of which we can all be proud and whose values will and must endure.

  • Boris Johnson – 2019 Speech at the Manchester Science and Industry Museum

    Below is the text of the speech made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 27 July 2019.

    Good morning everyone and thank you for joining me here in Manchester – in the heart of the world’s first industrial city.

    A city whose confidence and whose extraordinary future we can see in the changing fabric of the urban landscape, the mighty towers of Deansgate Square, last week’s extraordinary International Festival in Manchester.

    We can see it in the Christie, the hospital where the future of cancer treatment will be written at the vast new Paterson building, with new therapies saving the lives of people around the world for generations to come.

    This is not and has never been a city for negativity or navel-gazing.

    Indeed when the University of Manchester’s Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov said they were planning to extract a single-atom-thick crystallites from bulk graphite – I hope I’ve got that right – to give us the super-light super-strong wonder that is Graphene…

    I imagine that there were people who had no idea what difference it could make to their lives – and frankly people in this audience who have no idea,

    Yet today, we stand on the cusp of the Graphene age, with applications in everything from de-icing of aircraft wings to life-saving medicine.

    Their story of those pioneers is told here at the Science and Industry Museum, and it is one of the countless tales of Mancunian pioneers.

    Because time and again, when the cynics say something cannot be done – Mancunians find a way to get on and do it.

    And the centre of Manchester – like the centre of London – is a wonder of the world.

    But just a few miles away from here the story is very different.

    Towns with famous names, proud histories, fine civic buildings where unfortunately the stereotypical story of the last few decades has been long term decline.

    Endemic health problems. Generational unemployment. Down-at-heel high streets.

    The story has been, for young people growing up there of hopelessness, or the hope that one day they’ll get out and never come back.

    And in so far as that story is true and sometimes it is, the crucial point is it isn’t really the fault of the places and it certainly isn’t the fault of the people growing up there – they haven’t failed.

    No, it is we, us the politicians, the politics, that has failed.

    Time and again they have voted for change, but for too long politicians have failed to deliver on what is needed.

    Our plan now, this new Government I am leading, is to unite our country and level up.

    And I want to explain now what I mean by that.

    Now I am absolutely not here to tell you, Mr Mayor, that London has all the answers.

    Or that everywhere should be like London, or indeed like Manchester.

    Each place in our country has a unique heritage, a unique character, and a unique future.

    And indeed I recognise that when the British people voted to leave the European Union, they were not just voting against Brussels – they were voting against London too, and against all concentrations of power in remote centres.

    So I’m not here to say that Manchester or London are the template for other places.

    But I do believe there are lessons to be learnt from the success of cities like these.

    I remember London in the 1970s – how it was stuck in post-war gloom and doom.

    Between 1951 and 1981 the population actually declined – it went down 20 per cent it was so miserable.

    Yet, over the last twenty years, the capital of our country has been utterly transformed.

    London is today one of the world’s leading global cities (second only to Manchester!) – with the largest concentration of tech companies, artists, financial services, top class restaurants and all the rest of it.

    We can see the same thing happening now in this incredible city.

    So today I want to set out what I think are the basic ingredients of success for the UK, and for the places we call home: our cities or our towns, our coastal communities and rural areas.

    There are four things I think we need to get right.

    First is basic liveability. The streets need to be safe. There need to be enough affordable homes. There need to be jobs that pay good wages. There need to be great public services supporting families and helping the most vulnerable.

    Second thing – connections. That means great broadband everywhere, and it means transport. Inspiration and innovation, cross fertilisation between people, literally and figuratively, cannot take place unless people can bump into each other, compete collaborate invent and innovate.

    We need to literally and spiritually unite Britain, and that means boosting growth and bringing our regions together.

    The third thing that places need is culture. People love Manchester because of the fantastic arts and entertainment here, the football and music, the heritage and the creative industries that make it such a lively, wonderful place to live and work.

    We need to help places everywhere to strengthen their cultural and creative infrastructure, the gathering places that give a community its life.

    And finally, the fourth thing – places need power and a sense of responsibility, accountability.

    Taking back control doesn’t just apply to Westminster regaining sovereignty from the EU. It means our cities and counties and towns becoming more self-governing.

    It means people taking more responsibility for their own communities. London and Manchester have boomed partly because they have had Mayors – some better than others, I would say, but all with the power to speak for their cities, to bang heads together, to get things done.

    These are the lessons from London and Manchester. Liveability. Connectivity. Culture. And power.

    And the first condition of liveability is of course making our streets safer.

    Because recorded crime here in the North West is up 42 per cent. I think it’s time we got that down, and we will.

    Yesterday I met twenty new officers in Birmingham who are graduating after 15 weeks training. They will now join our brave and formidable police men and women who will be putting their lives on the line for our safety.

    But you want more of these policemen and women on our streets – and so do I.

    That is why I have committed to an extra 20,000 police officers over the next three years.

    Their recruitment will begin in earnest within weeks.

    And a new national policing board chaired by our dynamic new Home Secretary will hold the police to account for meeting this target.

    We will also give the police greater ability to use stop and search in order to drive a reduction in the violent crime that plagues our communities.

    But there is no point in arresting, charging and convicting criminals if we do not then give them the sentences they deserve.

    In fact the number of offenders with more than 50 previous convictions who were convicted but spared jail rose from 1,299 in 2007 to 3,196 in 2018.

    So we need to restore the public’s faith in our criminal justice system, by ensuring that people who repeatedly commit crimes are punished properly,

    and that means those that are guilty of the most serious violent and sexual offences are required to serve a custodial sentence that reflects the severity of their offence.

    And it is only by making the streets safer than you can create the neighbourhoods that people want to live.

    One of the biggest divides in our country is between those who can afford their own home and those who cannot.

    This is a long-term problem which all governments have failed to fix.

    So we will review everything – including planning regulations, stamp duty, housing zones, as well as the efficacy of existing Government initiatives.

    And, we will also emphasise the need, the duty, to build beautiful homes that people actually want to live in, and being sensitive to local concerns.

    And then of course to get great, great neighbourhoods, safe streets, allow people to own their own homes – we need great public services to make that possible.

    Which is why I have committed to delivering the funding promised to the NHS by the previous government in June 2018 and to ensure this vital money goes to frontline services as soon as possible.

    This will include urgent funding for 20 hospital upgrades and winter readiness.

    And proposals drastically to reduce waiting times for GP appointments.

    The NHS represents a sacred promise between the state and its citizens. A promise that says we will protect and support one another when we are at our most vulnerable and weakest.

    And the same should go for the other great service of wellbeing; particularly social care.

    Yet many people who have worked hard all their lives have had to struggle with the financial burden of care in their final years and been forced to sell their homes.

    The British people cannot understand why the health service is able to provide the same care for everyone, regardless of income,

    And yet the social care system cripples those with savings.

    For too long, I think politicians have simply kicked this can down the road. I want you to know, that can-kicking stops now.

    So I have promised to find a long term solution to social care once and for all.

    And that is what we will do – with a clear plan that will give every older person the dignity and security they deserve.

    At the same time, we will give every child the world class education they deserve.

    Which is why we will increase the minimum level of per pupil funding in primary and secondary schools and return education funding to previous levels by the end of this parliament.

    And we cannot afford any longer the chronic under-funding of our brilliant FE colleges, which do so much to support young people’s skills and our economy.

    We have a world class university sector; in fact it is one of the biggest concentrations of higher education anywhere in Europe right here in this city – why should we not aspire to the same status for our further education institutions, to allow people to express their talents?

    If you’re going to allow people to express their talents properly, then you need proper connectivity. It is absolutely crucial.

    Because if you are someone with a bright idea, or you are running a fantastic business, but you can’t get the connectivity you need and instead spend an eternity staring at that pizza wheel circle of doom on your computer screen – then you won’t be able to get your idea off the ground, you won’t be able to grow your business, and you won’t be able to find customers.

    And you can have all the talent in the world

    but if you are a young kid in a deprived town, with intermittent transport, and you can’t get to the places where the jobs are then you won’t have the opportunities you deserve.

    But people are able to meet each other, and compete with each other, challenge each other, spark off each other – around the water cooler or elsewhere –

    That’s when we get the explosion, or flash of creativity and innovation.

    That is what we are going to make that happen – not just here but across the country.

    First we’re going to invest in fibre roll-out and indeed we have just completed the build of a large fibre cable between Manchester and York alongside the Trans-Pennine railway route.

    This interconnects the Manchester and Leeds Internet Exchanges and strengthens the internet infrastructure for the Northern Powerhouse.

    I am delighted to see Jake Berry, sitting in the Cabinet, expressing this Government’s commitment to the Northern Powerhouse.

    And just now, before coming here, I met Barry White – at the Pomona site – part of a huge stretch of new tramline that will link up to Northern Powerhouse Rail.

    I want to be the Prime Minister who does with Northern Powerhouse Rail what we did for Crossrail in London.

    And today I am going to deliver on my commitment to that vision with a pledge to fund the Leeds to Manchester route.

    I want to stress it will be up to local people to decide what comes next, as far as I’m concerned that’s just the beginning of our commitment and our investment. We want to see this whole thing run.

    I have tasked officials to accelerate their work on these plans so that we are ready to do a deal in the autumn.

    It is the right thing to do, it’s time we put some substance into the idea of the Northern Powerhouse Rail, and that’s why we are here this morning.

    We want to inject some pace into this so that we can unlock jobs and boost growth.

    But I know people can’t wait and they want to see change faster. They want change now. It takes a while to build a railway, believe me.

    They want reliable, everyday services – so that the 18-year-old in Rochdale just starting out as an apprentice knows that they can get into Manchester for 8 o’clock each morning.

    So that people can get out and about in the evening, for a drink and a meal – boosting local businesses and growth.

    Services within cities, not just between cities. Services that mean people don’t have to drive. Services that don’t just give up at the end of the working day.

    So I am going to improve – with your help – the local services which people use every day. And I want that to start now with improvements that can happen in the short term.

    That means buses. I know a lot about buses, believe me. I love buses. I helped to invent a new type of bus, very beautiful that it is.

    I will begin as a matter of urgency the transformation of local bus services – starting here today in Manchester.

    I will work with the Mayor of Greater Manchester on his plans to deliver a London style bus system in the area under powers we gave to him – you Andy – in the Bus Services Act.

    I want higher frequency, low-emission or zero-emission buses, more bus priority corridors, a network that’s easier to understand and use.

    I want local partnerships between the private sector, which operates the buses, and a public body, which coordinates them.

    In London – where they have all these things – bus passenger journeys have risen by 97 per cent in 25 years.

    In other metropolitan areas – where they do not – it has fallen by 34 per cent over the same period.

    I think we can see the first results, here in Greater Manchester, within a few months.

    And I want the same for any other part of the country where local leaders want to do it.

    Good bus connections, good transport connectivity, is also vital to so many of the towns that feel left behind.

    We are also going to start answering the pleas of some of our left behind towns,

    And this might come as a surprise to some, but not everyone wants to live in one of our country’s great cities.

    Too many places – towns and coastal communities – that don’t feel they are getting benefits from the grown we are seeing elsewhere in the UK economy.

    Now I reject the ridiculous idea that everybody’s ambition is to get on their bikes and move to the city.

    Our post-industrial towns have a proud, great heritage – but an even greater future. Their best years lie ahead of them.

    So we are going to put proper money into the places that need it.

    We will start by ensuring there is investment from central government – by bringing forward plans on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund – and we have growth deals as well for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

    And we’re now going to have a £3.6 billion Towns Fund supporting an initial 100 towns. So that they will get the improved transport and improved broadband connectivity that they need.

    They’ll also get help with that vital social and cultural infrastructure, from libraries and art centres to parks and youth services: the institutions that bring communities together, and give places new energy and new life.

    Finally, of course, there is an even more radical shift that we need to make now to deliver this and I have seen myself the changes that you can bring about in towns and cities and regions, when local people have more of a say over their own destinies. A say over their own destinies.

    And I do not believe that, when the people of the United Kingdom voted to take back control, they did so in order for that control to be hoarded in Westminster.

    So we are going to give greater powers to council leaders and to communities.

    We are going to level up the powers offered to mayors so that more people can benefit from the kind of local government structures seen in London and here in Manchester.

    We are going to give more communities a greater say over changes to transport, housing, public services and infrastructure that will benefit their areas and drive local growth.

    And in doing so, we will see to it that every part of this country sees the benefits of the potentially massive opportunity that will come from Brexit.

    Over the last three years, we have tended to treat Brexit like some impending adverse weather event.

    I campaigned to leave the EU because I believed it was a chance to change the direction of the UK and make us the best country in the world to live.

    Leaving the EU is a massive economic opportunity – to do the things we’ve not been allowed to do for decades, to rid ourselves of bureaucratic red tape, create jobs, untangle the creativity and innovation for which Britain is famous.

    And we do not need to wait to start preparing to seize the benefits of that project.

    So we will begin right away to create the free ports that will generate thousands of high-skilled jobs – and revitalise some of the poorest parts of our country.

    We will begin right away on working to change the tax rules to provide extra incentives to invest in capital and research

    We will double down on our investment in R&D, we will accelerate the talks on those free trade deals

    And prepare an economic package to boost British business and lengthen this country’s lead as the number one destination in Europe for overseas investment.

    At the same time we will unite and level up across our country – as I say, with infrastructure, better education and with technology.

    And in so doing, making our whole nation not just an alright kind of place to live, or a better-than-average place to live but the greatest place on earth. The greatest place to live, to raise a family, to send your kids to school, a great place to start a business, to invest and to have a life –

    And where better than Manchester, where better than the Science and Industry Museum, to set out our ambition for doing so.

    Here today we can look back at centuries of progress, the inventions, ideas and breakthroughs that came out of Manchester, came out of the North, came out of the United Kingdom and shaped the world we know today.

    I just want you to imagine, if we were to reconvene here 30, 40, 50 or more years hence, what treasures this museum might hold then.

    I’m absolutely certain there will be displays celebrating the dawn of a new age of electric vehicles, not just cars or buses, but electric planes, made possible with battery technology being developed now in the UK.

    You will see tributes and dioramas commemorating the men and women who use new gene therapies to cure the incurable and achieve the impossible.

    Here in Manchester, home of the world’s first passenger railway, with Stephenson’s rocket behind me, we should remember that there were people back then who thought that the whole project should be abandoned as a danger to public health, because the speeds that were being proposed would be intolerable for the human body.

    So I can imagine in the future of this wonderful museum there will exhibits recording not only the breakthroughs in bioscience, here in Manchester and elsewhere that allow the UK to lead the world in producing genetically modified crops – blight-resistance potatoes will feed the world.

    But also a memorial to the sceptics and doubters, complete with bioengineered edible paper, with which they were forced to eat their words.

    I don’t blame the doubters and the sceptics, but all I will say, is that the evidence is behind us, there’s Stephenson’s rocket behind us, we’re sending rockets into space – we will expand our space programme as well.

    I don’t blame the doubters and the sceptics, it’s a natural human instinct, but time and again, they have been proved wrong.

    I think they will be proved wrong again.

    If we unite our country, with better education, better infrastructure, with an emphasis on new technology, then this really can be a new golden age for the UK.

    Time and again Manchester has shown the UK that anything is possible. Time and again this extraordinary country has delivered the same message to the world. That’s what we are going to do once more.

  • Boris Johnson – 2019 Speech on Becoming Prime Minister

    Below is the text of the speech made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, at Downing Street in London on 24 July 2019.

    Good afternoon.

    I have just been to see Her Majesty the Queen who has invited me to form a government and I have accepted. I pay tribute to the fortitude and patience of my predecessor and her deep sense of public service.

    But in spite of all her efforts it has become clear that there are pessimists at home and abroad who think that after three years of indecision that this country has become a prisoner to the old arguments of 2016 and that in this home of democracy we are incapable of honouring a basic democratic mandate and so I am standing before you today to tell you the British people that those critics are wrong.

    The doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters – they are going to get it wrong again. The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts because we are going to restore trust in our democracy and we are going to fulfil the repeated promises of parliament to the people and come out of the EU on October 31 no ifs or buts and we will do a new deal, a better deal that will maximise the opportunities of Brexit while allowing us to develop a new and exciting partnership with the rest of Europe based on free trade and mutual support. I have every confidence that in 99 days’ time we will have cracked it, but you know what – we aren’t going to wait 99 days – because the British people have had enough of waiting, the time has come to act, to take decisions, to give strong leadership and to change this country for the better and though the Queen has just honoured me with this extraordinary office of state.

    My job is to serve you, the people because if there is one point we politicians need to remember it is that the people are our bosses. My job is to make your streets safer – and we are going to begin with another 20,000 police on the streets and we start recruiting forthwith.

    My job is to make sure you don’t have to wait 3 weeks to see your GP and we start work this week with 20 new hospital upgrades, and ensuring that money for the NHS really does get to the front line. My job is to protect you or your parents or grandparents from the fear of having to sell your home to pay for the costs of care and so I am announcing now – on the steps of Downing Street – that we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared to give every older person the dignity and security they deserve. My job is to make sure your kids get a superb education, wherever they are in the country and that’s why we have already announced that we are going to level up per pupil funding in primary and secondary schools and that is the work that begins immediately behind that black door and though I am today building a great team of men and women I will take personal responsibility for the change I want to see.

    Never mind the backstop – the buck stops here and I will tell you something else about my job. It is to be Prime Minister of the whole United Kingdom and that means uniting our country, answering at last the plea of the forgotten people and the left behind towns by physically and literally renewing the ties that bind us together, so that with safer streets and better education and fantastic new road and rail infrastructure and full fibre broadband, we level up across Britain with higher wages, and a higher living wage, and higher productivity, we close the opportunity gap, giving millions of young people the chance to own their own homes and giving business the confidence to invest across the UK.

    Because it is time we unleashed the productive power not just of London and the South East, but of every corner of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the awesome foursome that are incarnated in that red white and blue flag, who together are so much more than the sum of their parts and whose brand and political personality is admired and even loved around the world for our inventiveness, for our humour, for our universities, our scientists, our armed forces, our diplomacy for the equalities on which we insist – whether race or gender or LGBT or the right of every girl in the world to 12 years of quality education and for the values we stand for around the world.

    Everyone knows the values that flag represents. It stands for freedom and free speech and habeas corpus and the rule of law and above all it stands for democracy and that is why we will come out of the EU on October 31, because in the end Brexit was a fundamental decision by the British people that they wanted their laws made by people that they can elect and they can remove from office and we must now respect that decision and create a new partnership with our European friends – as warm and as close and as affectionate as possible and the first step is to repeat unequivocally our guarantee to the 3.2 m EU nationals now living and working among us and I say directly to you – thank you for your contribution to our society, thank you for your patience and I can assure you that under this government you will get the absolute certainty of the rights to live and remain.

    And next I say to our friends in Ireland, and in Brussels and around the EU. I am convinced that we can do a deal without checks at the Irish border, because we refuse under any circumstances to have such checks and yet without that anti-democratic backstop and it is of course vital at the same time that we prepare for the remote possibility that Brussels refuses any further to negotiate and we are forced to come out with no deal, not because we want that outcome – of course not – but because it is only common sense to prepare and let me stress that there is a vital sense in which those preparations cannot be wasted and that is because under any circumstances we will need to get ready at some point in the near future to come out of the EU customs union and out of regulatory control fully determined at last to take advantage of Brexit because that is the course on which this country is now set with high hearts and growing confidence we will now accelerate the work of getting ready and the ports will be ready and the banks will be ready and the factories will be ready and business will be ready and the hospitals will be ready and our amazing food and farming sector will be ready and waiting to continue selling ever more not just here but around the world and don’t forget that in the event of a no deal outcome we will have the extra lubrication of the £39 billion.

    Whatever deal we do we will prepare this autumn for an economic package to boost British business and to lengthen this country’s lead as the number one destination in this continent for overseas investment and to all those who continue to prophesy disaster I say yes – there will be difficulties though I believe that with energy and application they will be far less serious than some have claimed but if there is one thing that has really sapped the confidence of business over the last three years it is not the decisions we have taken it is our refusal to take decisions and to all those who say we cannot be ready.

    I say do not underestimate this country.

    Do not underestimate our powers of organisation and our determination because we know the enormous strengths of this economy in life sciences, in tech, in academia, in music, the arts, culture, financial services, it is here in Britain that we are using gene therapy, for the first time, to treat the most common form of blindness, here in Britain that we are leading the world in the battery technology that will help cut CO2 and tackle climate change and produce green jobs for the next generation and as we prepare for a post-Brexit future it is time we looked not at the risks but at the opportunities that are upon us so let us begin work now to create freeports that will drive growth and thousands of high-skilled jobs in left behind areas.

    Let’s start now to liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti genetic modification rules and let’s develop the blight-resistant crops that will feed the world, let’s get going now on our own position navigation and timing satellite and earth observation systems – UK assets orbiting in space with all the long term strategic and commercial benefits for this country.

    Let’s change the tax rules to provide extra incentives to invest in capital and research and let’s promote the welfare of animals that has always been so close to the hearts of the British people and yes, let’s start now on those free trade deals because it is free trade that has done more than anything else to lift billions out of poverty all this and more we can do now and only now, at this extraordinary moment in our history and after three years of unfounded self-doubt it is time to change the record to recover our natural and historic role as an enterprising, outward-looking and truly global Britain, generous in temper and engaged with the world.

    No one in the last few centuries has succeeded in betting against the pluck and nerve and ambition of this country and they will not succeed today. We in this government will work flat out to give this country the leadership it deserves and that work begins now.

    Thank you very much

  • Kelly Tolhurst – 2019 Statement on Furniture and Furnishings Fire Safety

    Below is the text of the statement made by Kelly Tolhurst, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2019.

    Today, I will publish the Government response to our consultation on updating the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988, which set fire resistance requirements for cover materials and fillings used to make domestic upholstered furniture.

    The review aimed to ensure that our legislative framework maintains fire safety for consumers, reflects technological advances in furniture manufacturing practices, and facilitates a reduction in the use of hazardous flame-retardant chemicals as a means of making furniture fire resistant.

    The consultation sought views on proposals to amend the testing regime. It also sought views on proposals for clarifying and amending the scope of the regulations, strengthening the traceability requirements to bring furniture into line with other product sectors, updating labelling rules, and extending the time period for trading standards to institute legal proceedings.

    The Government are committed to protecting consumers from all safety risks, but we will not compromise on fire safety. During the course of the review, to ensure the highest standards, we sought the views of chief scientific advisers from relevant Departments across Government.

    The Government will now develop a new approach to address the different sources and chemical risks posed by fire to upholstered furniture and furnishings. It will focus on safety outcomes (such as reduced risk of ignition, reduced risk of fire spread) and will be underpinned by a set of essential safety requirements which all upholstered furniture placed on the market must meet.

    This approach is consistent with that taken for other consumer products. The (new) legislation will be supported by British Standards which will be developed by the British Standards Institution in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders, including industry, fire-safety experts and consumer representatives.

    This new approach will continue to ensure that manufacturers place only safe products on the UK market. I will consult on the detail of this new approach in due course. In the meantime, the existing regulations will continue to apply.