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Tag: Speeches

  • Anthony Beaumont-Dark – 1985 Speech on the Televising of the Commons

    Below is the text of the speech made by Anthony Beaumont-Dark, the then Conservative MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, in the House of Commons on 20 November 1985.

    I do not wish to repeat the many arguments already made, but it is interesting to note that, before this debate started, we were told that, like death and taxes, it was absolutely inevitable that the House would vote in favour of having television. Those hon. Members who are most experienced in the knowledge of the media spoke about the effects that the media can have. My hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) and my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton) were honest enough to say that, if they were outside this House, they would press for televising, but because they are Members they do not believe it would benefit this House.

    ​ In the great days, the high days and the tragic days of the war when Winston Churchill came back from wherever he had been, whether it was America or the Middle East, he said, “Before I do anything I must report to the House”. He said that in his memoirs. The Prime Minister of that day, as at any time, regarded reporting to the House as his most important task. We have been pushed by the media—we should be honest enough to admit it—into reading nearly everything about policy, irrespective of which party is in power, in the press, and sometimes weeks, if not months, before a statement is made here with all gravity. It is this House that must decide ultimately.

    It has been argued, I think rather pathetically, that we cannot get the problems of our areas across without television. It seems that yesterday’s debate on the Okehampton bypass would have captured peak time in Devon and Cornwall. That six-hour debate was important for the people in those counties, but how much time would the media have given it? If the television producers wanted to impress on us how good the debate was, we might have got 12 minutes. How much of the work that hon. Members have done for their constituents and their areas would have come over in that time? Precious little.

    I have sat through most of the debate. What we decide today is important. The House is not just a talking shop. It is a place where great decisions are meant to be made and debated. I contend that we should not admit the cameras, in spite of my natural shyness of the media. My hon. Friends the Members for Gravesham and for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) are shy of the media. However, nearly all the right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken against the televising of this House have a good relationship with the media. It is sometimes easier to catch the eye of the media than the eye of the occupant of the Chair and we are able to put over our views as we know that, as long as we are being interviewed live, we cannot be misquoted. One of the great things about live interviews is that one is in control. If we make a 20-minute speech here and only seven seconds of it is used in a news clip, that speech can be made to represent 15 views. That will happen. We must not always think of the media being in the hands of the kind, the good and the honest. It is not always so.

    Until we have sorted out the problems, the House would be wrong to give in to those who say that television is inevitable. I hope that we shall at least keep control of our House and of our destiny. To say that everybody wants television is to use the argument of tyrants and those who try to push and shove people into doing something that they know that they should not do. We are elected. We can be appointed and disappointed at any time. We do not need the media to push us into anything. We should vote for our conscience and the future of the House. In the end, we, not television and not radio, will answer to the people. We are the elected ones.

  • Roger Gale – 1985 Speech on the Televising of the Commons

    Below is the text of the speech made by Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet, in the House of Commons on 20 November 1985.

    For reasons that are fairly obvious, Mr. Speaker, I shall be brief. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Drake (Miss Fookes) for introducing this subject and for her generosity in agreeing to curtail her remarks at the end of the debate to allow some more of us to speak, although she knew that I at least would speak against her.

    The hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) said that he believed that the machinery of television should not be allowed to influence our decisions. I wish to comment as a television producer and director—I believe the only one in the House—on what the machinery will do to the House. It has been suggested that we could use a micro-camera. Those cameras are being developed, but they do not exist. It is suggested that it will be unnecessary to light the Chamber for television. However, for good colour television, the Chamber will have to be lighted.

    As an outside broadcast director, I know that we shall need four cameras. If we cannot hang them under the Gallery—at present, we cannot—we shall have to put them at each end of the Chamber. If we do so, we shall obtain extremely odd shots of those sitting on the Front Benches. If we light the Chamber from above, all the shadows will come down—any television lighting director could tell us this—and those sitting on the Front Benches will look extremely odd—[HON. MEMBERS: “They do already.”] It is tremendous, Mr. Speaker; all one needs to do is feed them a line. That would be even more the case if we appeared on television.

    There is no doubt that the technical necessity for television will change the Chamber. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton) said, in time, the technological developments may be such that miniaturised cameras may be possible, but at present no automatic remote control camera could respond swiftly enough to an hon. Member intervening in a speech.

    Mr. Austin Mitchell

    That is just not so.

    Mr. Gale

    The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) has intervened, as he so often does, from a sedentary position. He is wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong again.

    Mr. Mitchell

    The hon. Gentleman’s statement is incorrect. Those cameras already exist and will have been purchased by British broadcasters before we start the new Session next November.

    Mr. Gale

    I will not ask the hon. Gentleman what the response has been to those remote-controlled cameras, because I do not wish him to intervene again. Allow me to tell the Chamber, as a television director, that they do not react swiftly enough to record an intervention from another hon. Member. That is the technicality of it. The Chamber will have to be changed in structure. Holes for cameras will have to be cut in the back, and for colour contrast, lights will have to be put in. It is simply a technical fact that the Chamber will be hot. Hon. Members may choose to accept or reject that, but it is a fact.​

    Mr. Holt

    Will my hon. Friend give way?

    Mr. Gale

    No, I do not have time.

    The only reason advanced for introducing television to the Chamber is that, in some way, it will enhance democracy. How will it do that? All the work of the Chamber will not be transmitted. If we record all the work of the Chamber, edit it and then transmit some of it, that will be phenomenally expensive, because we are talking about many hours of television recording and editing for very little transmission. We have a choice. We either show all of it, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) said earlier, or we transmit some of it. If only some of it is transmitted then, with great respect to the hon. Members who have said otherwise, the editorial control will not be in the hands of this Chamber.

    As a producer and director of television, I am aware of the exact processes involved. At the end of all this, will it be worth it? The hon. Member for Great Grimsby quoted some inaccurate figures about the television viewing of the Lords. I will give the correct figures. Three debates were covered live on Channel 4 on 23 June, 20 March and 15 April. The average audience for those programmes was 439,000 and the maximum audience of 747,000 was for the first debate, and it obviously had curiosity value only. We are therefore talking about a maximum viewing figure at any one time of 747,000. Any producer or director faced with those figures at any reasonable time of day—those programmes were transmitted at peak time and broadcast live—would have his programme taken off. The late-night viewing figures went down to virtually nothing at all.

    We are talking about destroying the atmosphere of this Chamber and, if we are going to record it all, it will cost £2·5 million a year. That will be to transmit something and there is no evidence that anybody will watch it. Not one of the hon. Members who spoke in this debate has had a letter from anybody saying that he wished to watch it. There will be a minimal audience and no return. If we wish to introduce more democracy to the Chamber, we have the apparatus to do that in front of us. If we genuinely wish to take the British Parliament to the British people, the microphones are here, and we can dedicate a radio channel to do that. There are also microphones hanging in the other places that need to be heard, the Committee Rooms. We have the means for live broadcasts from this House and from the Committee Rooms.

    I will be standing with the chairman of the Back-Bench media committee at the entrance to the “No” Lobby trying to persuade hon. Members who have not heard the debate to go into that Lobby, because we both believe that televising of this House would be profoundly bad.

  • Colin Shepherd – 1985 Speech on the Televising of the Commons

    Below is the text of the speech made by Colin Shepherd, the then Conservative MP for Hereford, in the House of Commons on 20 November 1985.

    Having listened to the debate from the beginning to the present moment, I am grateful to have the opportunity to add a few words.

    It is now five hours since my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House talked about the motion being a leap in the dark. I have listened carefully, but I have not been able to adduce a shred of evidence why that leap in the dark should in any way lead to any light. I am not convinced that anyone who advocates that the leap should be taken knows where it is leading. As was said by the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) in his powerful remarks, we have a duty of stewardship in this institution. It is incorrect to lead off in a direction when that direction is unknown and the consequences are unforeseeable. The debate has not enlightened us in that direction; it is all supposition and emotion.

    During the summer I visited Canada. Not unnaturally, I took the opportunity of asking, whenever possible of whoever possible, for views of the broadcasting and televising of Parliament in that country. I visited three provincial Parliaments and spoke to Members of the federal Parliament. What I found in no way supported benign statements about the performance of television in the Canadian Parliament.

    The argument that has to be won by those who wish the motion to be passed is that the change is acceptable, quantifiable and manageable. There has been change in the House since broadcasting came in. It is not disputed that the House that is broadcast now is not the House that existed before broadcasting. That has been confirmed by several right hon. and hon. Members during the debate. Anyone who thinks that there has not been change and that there is not a different tempo when the House is being broadcast live has only to watch the point of order specialists leap to their feet when the little light is on in the Box in the corner.

    Of late the Canadian Parliament has had occasion to consider its televising of proceedings. The committee charged with doing that produced a substantial report, under the chairmanship of James McGrath. He visited the House last week with a delegation from Canada. I had an opportunity to talk to him. He said that he would not go back, but I caught a certain reluctance in him to face the position that he had reached when he could not see how to get back. His report says:

    “The evidence of the past eight years suggests that television has caused only a few changes. For example members now applaud rather than thump their desks to signify approval.”

    I gather that the public did not like members thumping their desks, so the members now applaud. Mr. McGrath said that someone then discovered the standing ovation, so now they have standing ovations all the time. The report also says:

    “Members also tend to move around the chamber to sit at the desks behind the person speaking. Attempts to counter the impression that a member is talking to an empty House are not really successful. No one is really fooled”—

    nevertheless it is done,

    “The game of musical chairs simply adds an artificial element that would be unnecessary if there were greater public understanding of the reasons why members are not always in their seats in the House of Commons.”

    The Canadian House has had television since 1977. It is remarkable that, after eight years of exposure, not one jot of further understanding has been achieved. So much for the thought that television will lead to the better understanding of this House. More needs to be done to achieve that, but in different ways.

    On my visit to Canada I spoke to an Opposition spokesman about the competitive element in securing television time. He said that he made a good point—rather like the points made by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours)—but without success because there was no television coverage. He did the same again—a good point, but no television coverage. The third time he said, “To hell with it. I am going all out for it.” He employed histrionics, shouted, waved his arms in the air and tore at his hair. He said, “I got my coverage coast-to-coast on the news.” The only trouble was that no one knew what he had said, and he did not feel very good about it. What a length to have to go to in order to secure television time. That goes against the reports we have heard about the idealism of the Canadian experience.

    While I was there, a fish in a big greasy parcel was thrown on the Prime Minister’s desk—[HON. MEMBERS: “A gift?”] Not a gift, and not very fresh, but it secured the attention of the television. The Member got his coverage. That may have been the practice before the Canadian House had television. That is what is meant when the report states that there has not been much change in the past eight years.

    I could not find a member of the public who was anything but indifferent or derogatory about television. I did not speak to 18 million Canadians, but, out of interest, I spoke to people in the street, shops and stores. I visited the Quebec Parliament. The Clerk at the Table, who has just retired after 22 years’ service, when asked for his views on the introduction of television, rolled his eyes to the ceiling, as only a French Canadian can, and said, “Ah, Monsieur”—

    Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North)

    English!

    Mr. Shepherd

    We were speaking in English, because my French is not good enough, and my Canadian is even worse. He said, “The members like it, but they no longer talk to the Parliament; they talk to their constituents.” We must beware of this constitutional matter, which relates to the stewardship point made by the right hon. Member for South Down. Burke said that he was a Member of Parliament first and a Member of Parliament for Bristol second. Members of Parliament here are supposed to address Parliament. There are other opportunities and avenues for addressing constituents. We must not be distracted from our work in addressing Parliament. Anything else is an abortion of what this place is—a forum for deliberation.

    I received a similar response about the televising of the American House of Representatives. Speeches no longer have relevance, because they are directed towards far-flung constituents. Let us not fall into that trap.

    Mr. Lawler

    I do not know whether my hon. Friend has read an article by a former Clerk of the House of Commons of Ottawa—a Mr. Fraser—who says:

    “What have been the results after the experience? In the main very positive indeed. The activities in the most important ‘room’ in Canada are being seen and assessed by an audience much greater than was contemplated by the most enthusiastic proponents of parliamentary broadcasting.”

    There is also evidence from the Speaker of the time, Mr. Jerome, who speaks favourably about the effects of televising the House.

    Mr. Shepherd

    I am aware of what I might call the Establishment comments. I was referring to the gentleman I came across who recounted his views. I also watched television while I was there, and saw no fair treatment of Ministers at the Dispatch Box. The Tory party in Canada has enough troubles at present without everyone having a field day at Ministers’ expense. When I watched the televised proceedings on the news, I did not see a balanced picture of what had happened in the House that afternoon, only the Minister in an acute state of discomfiture and the Opposition in a state of triumph. That may be the realistic position, but I could not see on television whether the Minister had had better moments before or after. I saw only the part where he was most discomfited. I had a profound distrust of what I was watching and wondered whether it was right.

    Mr. Marlow

    It was good entertainment though.

    Mr. Shepherd

    That is perfectly correct. Indeed, I thought that it had boiled down to entertainment only. Although the proceedings are broadcast the entire time that the House is sitting, it is open to news editors to select those parts that they wish to show for onward transmission.

    ​ I hope that the House realises that the case for change has not been made today, and that there are pitfalls. I end with the remarks of a robust housewife from Halifax, Nova Scotia, who took me figuratively by the lapels and said,

    “The House of Commons in Ottawa has not benefited at all from television. Do not let them do it to you”.

  • Bob Wareing – 1985 Speech on the Televising of the Commons

    Below is the text of the speech made by Bob Wareing, the then Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, in the House of Commons on 20 November 1985.

    More than 200 years ago, in 1783, the House of Commons expressed its concern, by a resolution, at what it called the “great presumption” of journalists in reporting its proceedings. It went on to declare that it was

    “a high indignity and notorious breach of privilege to print accounts of debates”.

    I heard echoes of that resolution in the speech of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell). In those days, it was even argued that printing reports of debates in the House would tend to make Members of Parliament accountable for what they said inside the House to people outside it. When I was elected in June 1983, that was my understanding, that I was accountable to the people outside the House.

    The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) talked about representative government and the fact that we make ourselves accountable by going to our constituencies. I believe that we should make ourselves accountable also by ensuring that our constituents know what we are doing and saying inside the House, and what work we are undertaking. That is not being done at present. The press, as has already been said, publishes little of what is done in this House. To a large extent, that is because, although television has become the medium of entertainment in this country, the so-called popular press has become a type of “comic cuts” medium.

    The House of Commons is harmed by not submitting itself to the most popular, modern and powerful medium of mass communication. If we are interested in allowing the outside world to know what is happening in the Chamber, we should be prepared to allow it to see on television what is happening.

    We are living in the television age. Youngsters are brought up on television almost from birth. In many cases, people want entertainment. However, I argue with hon. Members when they say that people switch on the television set for entertainment only. Does anyone suggest that television was not performing in the public interest when a few months ago it showed the desperate plight of the people of Ethiopia? What a response that evoked from the British people. Do right hon. and hon. Members not believe that televising the proceedings of the House would evoke a response from the British people, and that they would not start to ask questions about what happens in Parliament, what our procedures are, why we do this, why we do that and why we should not do it another way?

    The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington fears that television may bring about changes and that we may suddenly modernise our proceedings. Many hon. Members will say, “Not before time.” The British people might realise that we live and work in an antiquated building and that our procedures are likewise antiquated.

    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman

    Does the hon. Gentleman accept that many hon. Members would accept television if it were on the Canadian model and the whole proceedings were televised? What representation of our work in this place, including work on Select and Standing Committees, does he imagine can be shown in approximately 12 minutes’ television coverage?

    Mr. Wareing

    I am glad that the hon. Lady made that point. Like her, and like the predecessor of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), Aneurin Bevan, I believe that there should be a special channel for the House of Commons.

    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman

    We are not to have that.

    Mr. Wareing

    No, but there is no reason why we should not work towards it in the period leading up to cable television. All that is being asked for in the motion is that we set up a Select Committee. We have never had a Select Committee to study the detail and problems of televising this Chamber.

    If we reject the motion, that will be perceived by the nation as Members of Parliament working in the same way and with the same aims for Parliament as our predecessors did in the 17th and 18th centuries when they barred the public from their representatives in Parliament.

    The Kilbrandon report stated:

    “People have tended to become disillusioned with Government—the general disenchantment may be largely attributable to a failure of communications.”

    I believe that to be the case. People have become alienated from Parliament. Parliament is modelled for them by what the so-called cynical popular press has manufactured. People who report in the Daily Telegraph, Private Eye and The Sun are there to tell the public not to be interested in politics. They are almost part of a press conspiracy to ensure that the people do not know what is happening in the House.

    When people get into the habit of switching on their television sets to watch the House of Commons, they will take an increasing interest in debates. They will want to know where Members are if they are not in the Chamber. The televising of the House of Commons will be an educative process. It will enable people to understand what happens in Parliament. They have already seen the debates in another place, and more and more people understand what happens there. I want them to be able to see what we are doing here and in Select Committees.

    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman

    The cameras will not be in the Select Committees.

    Mr. Wareing

    We do not know. The hon. Lady is intervening from a sedentary position. How delightful it would be to have that on television. The hon. Lady could make points to her constituents, but she does not want them to watch her on television. It will be a start if a Select Committee considers the matter in detail.

    Time after time important statements on Government policy are made from the Dispatch Box. The only opportunity that the public have of seeing Ministers questioned on those statements is when Ministers are ​ called to the television studios to be interviewed by Sir Robin Day, Alastair Burnet or Brian Walden. No matter how professional those interviewers may be at their art, none of them is a democratically elected representative of the people. My constituents and the constituents of every right hon. and hon. Member have a right to see their Members putting questions to Ministers.

    A great advantage of the House of Commons is that the grievances of individuals may be aired in the Chamber. Those grievances may reflect problems encountered by many others. We are preventing information from being put across to the electorate when we say that they cannot see those grievances being aired in the House of Commons, Ministers answering questions on statements or debates on major issues which affect their daily lives.

    The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight)—I am sorry she is not here at the moment—asked an important question about the cost of televising the House. The cost could be regained to a considerable extent by piping the proceedings live for a subscription to universities, clubs, newspaper offices and anybody who wants to see the House of Commons in action. The subscription would more than pay for a television Hansard. In time, it would pay for cable television channels.

    It is wrong for the broadcasting and television media to determine which politicians appear before the camera. A few weeks ago I was walking along a corridor in the building when I saw a gentleman walking towards me. I thought, “I recognise him. I am sure that I have seen him on television.” When he went past, I said to myself, “My God, that was the leader of the Liberal party, and I do not often see him in the House.”

    Let us modernise our proceedings by passing the motion to inquire and investigate. The House of Commons will be a more prestigious institution in our democratic society and will no longer be alienated from the people. It will modernise itself for its benefit and that of the British people.

  • Nigel Forman – 1985 Speech on the Televising of the Commons

    Below is the text of the speech made by Nigel Forman, the then Conservative MP for Carshalton and Wellington, in the House of Commons on 20 November 1985.

    I have had the benefit of listening to most of the debate, but I have the disadvantage, therefore, of not being able to say a great deal that is new. It is important for the House to focus on the terms of the motion and to note carefully that it invites the House to approve in principle the holding of an experiment on television broadcasting. The motion— ​ I am sure unwittingly—is somewhat misleading. Either we approve the principle of television coverage or we do not. The issue is as straightforward as that.

    I am against the proposal, for reasons upon which I shall touch. I would support the idea, if necessary, if we were initially to set up a Select Committee to investigate all the issues before there was any question of a decision in principle being taken. The idea of approving an experiment and then setting up a Select Committee to examine the consequences of the experiment is to take things in the wrong order. I was only partly reassured when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said that there might be an opportunity for a final decision at a subsequent stage.

    My reasons for opposing the principle can be stated simply. They closely resemble some of the arguments which have been advanced by some of my hon. Friends. I am sure that the evidence tells us that television has a tendency to distort, sensationalise and trivialise the events that it seeks to portray. If the House is not convinced of that argument, it must understand from the works of Mr. McLuhan and others that it has been demonstrated pretty clearly that television is qualitatively different from other media of mass communication. In many instances television personnel do not want to behave in a way that will have that result, but the outcome is inherent in the imperatives of the medium—for example, brevity and what producers call “good television”. There is a ratings war between the various television companies and the likelihood is that it will hot up.

    Television is a medium which serves to create impressions rather than conveying information. It encourages instant viewer response rather than mature and thoughtful reflection. Unlike newspapers, which allow the reader to turn back a page or to re-read a paragraph, or radio, which allows for real concentration and reflection, which is possible when we listen to something intently, television merely creates images and impressions. Whenever audience polls are conducted, when a representative cross-sample is asked whether it remembers one thing that anyone has said during a television programme, the responses show that the majority can remember nothing of the content. That goes for educated people as well as for those who have not had the good fortune to receive a reasonable education.

    If we want to convey serious and complicated ideas, television, which has many other strengths, is not the appropriate medium. However, we are trying to grapple with, discuss and convey serious and complicated ideas during the bulk of our proceedings.

    If television coverage of our proceedings in the Chamber were introduced, I believe that it would have far-reaching and unintended effects on our procedure. It would increase pressure for the prior organisation and manipulation of parliamentary debates. There is enough of that already, thanks to the usual channels. There is no doubt that it would lead us to copy the House of Representatives in the United States. Increasingly in that forum a representative can speak on the floor of the house only if he has an ex officio right to do so for a specified period. That procedure would work against anyone who saw a need, in the interest of his constituents, to filibuster. It would work also against the interests of spontaneity. I think that it would damage the quality of our debates in the Chamber.

    Such a tendency would increase the pressure for equal time for the parties, or for more equal time to reflect the balance of votes won in the country. We all know that this is an issue just below the horizon in the overall political debate, especially between the alliance parties and the Labour party in the present Parliament. This would merely result in an awkward twist to that problem. It would increase also the pressure for the timetabling and programming of what we do in this place and so work against the interests of individual parliamentary initiative and the sort of spontaneous combustion which, as the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) mentioned by implication, is such an essential part of our parliamentary work.

    If television were to be introduced, it would create a minefield of editorial disputes between the media men and the politicians. We only fool ourselves if we think otherwise. There would be disputes over the selection of the material to be emphasised in what must necessarily be short television programmes. There would be disputes over alleged trivialisation and sensationalism of the issues in the interests of grabbing and maintaining the public’s interest. No producer will hold on to a public affairs programme for very long in the face of commercial imperatives—all television has these imperatives behind it in various forms—if he does not obtain the necessary ratings. There would be disputes over the allocation of screen time between the parties. There is enough argument now about party political broadcasts and the carve-up of time that is involved. That argument would be extended to parliamentary proceedings.

    The minority parties would argue for more equal time on the strength of their share of the popular vote. The official Opposition would argue their corner on the basis of their time-honoured position in the House. The governing party would argue its corner on the strength of its electoral victory and its parliamentary majority. In other words, there would be a minefield of potential editorial difficulty.

    If the House were to control these editorial issues, I suspect that many members of the media would soon lose interest in the idea altogether. It would be a price that they would not be prepared to pay, and it would be contrary to one of their basic assumptions. That is an assumption to which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has already drawn our attention. If television producers were to have the last word, that could be the cause of endless suspicion and resentment between this place and the media world. I do not think that we need that. We need creative tension between the fourth estate and the House but we do not want the mutual recrimination and suspicion that might be generated if producers were to have the last word in this matter.

    Mr. Shore

    Why does the hon. Gentleman think that the difficulties which he has aptly described will be greater with the introduction of television cameras than they have been during the past seven years of broadcasting in the House?

    Mr. Forman

    The main reason why the difficulties would be greater stems from my first argument about the qualitative difference of television from other media of mass communication. All the evidence shows that the impressions and images that television is capable of creating—this happens sometimes unwittingly—are ​ infinitely more powerful, and therefore potentially more damaging, than anything which is broadcast over the radio or printed in the columns of the press. For that reason, I suggest that right hon. and hon. Members would become infinitely more concerned about the consequences.

    My final major reason for being opposed to the motion is that the very idea of televising the House, if carried forward, might in the long run further undermine the representative principle which is still the basis of our parliamentary democracy. We are all supposed to stand in a vital intermediate position between the mass electorate and Her Majesty’s Government of the day. We can choose to act as filters, or as megaphones, of public concern. We are elected to the House to debate seriously, to reflect on the issues and to reach our conclusions by vote.

    We would not be able to discharge those responsibilities properly if we moved inexorably with the televising of our proceedings to a form of direct and instant appeal to what would be the court of public opinion. At the end of that road lies a sort of Orwellian push-button democracy which would have a heavy bias against public understanding and be wide open to cynical attempts at media manipulation, whether by politicians or by producers.

    During the debate, two main points have been put by the proponents of the motion. They must be answered. The first is that somehow the public has a right to know and that, with the availability of modern television technology, we should fulfil that right. The answer to that fundamental point is that the public can exercise its right to know at present in a number of ways—people can sit in the Strangers Gallery, as they are doing today, and they can watch television reports of our debates and proceedings on the “9 o’Clock News” and “News at Ten”.

    Another argument is that, all the time the public is supposed to come here to listen to us. That may be convenient from one point of view, but it is a fundamental part of our duty as politicians to be in our constituencies as often as possible to communicate with the people who returned us to this place and with the people who did not vote for us. The old-fashioned arts of public persuasion, communication, public meetings and use of the local press and media generally are all too easily glossed over on the assumption that all that matters is that these dreadful instruments should come into the heart of our proceedings.

    The second major argument is that televising our proceedings would revive public interest in the working of our parliamentary democracy at a time when it is said to be flagging. Yet, on the contrary, there are obvious reasons why public interest in the Chamber and the workings of our parliamentary democracy may he flagging, and they have nothing to do with television. I offer the House a few headline suggestions as to those reasons. There are the deadlines imposed for printing in Fleet street, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Haffer) said. There are the entertainment imperatives of the television programmes. Above all, there is the fact that most of our debates are organised along party lines with Whips and largely predetermined party votes. If what was “said” in argument—as was the case in the middle of the 19th century, in the halcyon days of this Chamber—was to determine and influence the outcome of the vote at the end of a debate, one thing is sure: there would be far fuller regular attendance in the Chamber; people would listen to the arguments and would occasionally be persuaded by them; and there would be a much more favourable public impression of our proceedings.

    I oppose the motion because the case for televising our proceedings has not been made out conclusively, and certainly not in relation to televising this Chamber’s proceedings. If the motion were passed and we were to proceed to televise, let us by all means begin by following the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart). He pointed out that there is discretion in these matters in the United States Senate and, in contrast to the House of Representatives, cameras are allowed in to the special committees, which are analogous to our Select Committees. If we want a real-life experiment with broadcasting in the Palace of Westminster, let us try that. But let us keep it out of this Chamber until we are all more certain of the overwhelming benefits.

  • Dale Campbell-Savours – 1985 Speech on the Televising of the Commons

    Below is the text of the speech made by Dale Campbell-Savours, the then Labour MP for Workington, in the House of Commons on 20 November 1985.

    I was elected to this House in the 1979 general election. On the first day that I came here, instead of going to claim my locker and desk, my first action was to walk into the Chamber, stand at the Bar and ponder over where I would sit for the period that I would spend in Parliament.

    I decided to sit in the seat that I now occupy, and I have sat here ever since. I chose this seat because I wanted to occupy a position from which I could oversee the Government Dispatch Box. I had heard repeatedly over the years arguments deployed, for example, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) and the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) to the effect that the House of Commons, and in particular this Chamber, was all-important.

    I had been told that any new Member had all sorts of opportunities open to him to represent his electorate, such as making direct representations to Ministers and their Departments and by correspondence. However, a good and effective Member of Parliament, I was informed, should concentrate on using this Chamber and ensure that the focus of his attention was the Government Dispatch Box. I remain convinced that that is the crucial point on which we should concentrate our debates.

    I rapidly learned that, though Members of Parliament, we are tradesmen in the sense that we have a craft. Our craft is to know how to use this Chamber and its procedures and to intervene in debates in a way that has impact. We must argue our case, but most of all we must be able to press Ministers at the Dispatch Box on important issues.

    I have learnt over the years that, if pressed in the right way, a Minister at the Dispatch Box will respond. Indeed, Ministers have been known when speaking from the Dispatch Box to change their position, having become aware of the hostility from the Floor of the House towards what they were proposing. Ministers have had to return to their Departments and complain to their civil servants about the nature of briefing material, which they felt was inadequate to deal with the level of opposition by Opposition Members.

    I oppose the televising of our proceedings for a simple reason, and I tell that story of my coming into Parliament as the background to that reason. It is that, in the practice of our craft, we in this Chamber must sometimes do things that are ugly, and the public will not wish to see them. ​ They are practices which some would describe as lacking in decorum, although they are crucial to the way we conduct ourselves in the Chamber.

    A sedentary intervention, or even a series of them, in the speech of a Minister can have the effect of pressing him so much that he may modify his position. That can happen at the Dispatch Box or in subsequent debate. Those pressures may be crucial. However, if the public saw those pressures being applied—I say that irrespective of Government and from whichever Benches they are applied; hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Government Front Bench below the Gangway have applied pressure on their own Ministers—and saw us applying our craft in such an ugly way, it might incur their wrath. That could happen if such ugliness were displayed on the television screens of the nation.

    An example of that occurred some years ago, I am told, before I arrived here. I gather that the present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster occupied a seat on the Opposition Front Bench below the Gangway for five years and that he was known affectionately as the Chingford skinhead. I am told that he was a most effective opponent of the then Labour Government. Indeed, I have been informed that some Labour Ministers feared him—[Interruption.] Former Labour Ministers admit that he was a formidable opponent in opposition.

    Today, some of my hon. Friends who occupy seats on the Opposition Front Bench below the Gangway are equally vociferous and effective in their opposition to the Government, as are some hon. Gentlemen who occupy seats on the Government Front Bench below the Gangway. They know that they are effective when they challenge their own Ministers.

    Can hon. Members afford to let their constituents see them practising their ugly craft? [Interruption.] Yes, it is ugly. On occasions it may be considered acceptable, but some people, without understanding the nature of sedentary interventions, may believe that they lack decorum. However, if such action has the effect of modifying a Minister’s approach, let alone changing Government policy, the hon. Member adopting it has been effective.

    If the television cameras are allowed in, some of my hon. Friends who sit on the Opposition Front Bench below the Gangway—and some hon. Gentlemen who sit on the Government Front Bench below the Gangway and who, without the cameras, are courageous enough to criticise their own Ministers—may feel constrained in their attitude—[HON. MEMBERS: “No.”] It is all very well for hon. Members to say no, but I am laying down my marker in the belief that the intrusion of the cameras will constrain hon. Members in the way they practise their craft. I rest my case on that, and time will tell whether what I have said is correct.

  • Mark Carney – 2019 Mansion House Speech

    Below is the text of the speech made by Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, at the Mansion House in London on 20 June 2019.

    Text of speech (.pdf)

    [the text is currently only available as a .PDF]

  • John Glen – 2019 Speech at CityUK Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Glen, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, on 18 June 2019.

    Thank you, Mark [Mark Tucker, Chairman CityUK].

    It’s a privilege to deliver the opening speech at your annual conference.

    I hope you will indulge me today if I take a more personal approach to my remarks.

    Because I’d like to share with you some of the things I’ve learnt while I’ve been in the role.

    You see, as of last week, I’ve clocked up more than 17 months in this job.

    That might not sound impressive – but it makes me the longest serving Economic Secretary since 2010.

    And measured against the average lifespan of a Brexit Secretary it seems like an eternity.

    That said, it won’t have escaped your attention that change is once again in the air.

    Very soon, we will have a new Prime Minister, who will no doubt pick his own ministerial team.

    I don’t know if, when or where I’ll move, if I’ll have any job.

    I just want to be very clear I will do all that I can to support the City while I remain in the job.

    This morning I’d like to share some of the priorities I have adopted while in post.

    And whatever happens in the next few weeks, this government will always be committed to supporting and enabling the City to maintain and strengthen its world-leading position.

    Listening to the City

    The first and most important lesson is the need to listen.

    During my tenure, I’ve done my utmost to hear as many views as possible across the length and breadth of the sector about the challenges and opportunities of the future.

    I’ve heard from investment banks about the difficulties caused by low levels of activity in capital markets…and the pressures they face to cut costs while also introducing new technologies to the trading floor, with all that entails in terms of governance and control.

    Insurance companies have told me about the new pricing models that are coming to the fore in response to consumer concerns over value-for-money.

    FinTechs tell me about the global competition they encounter in seeking to recruit world class computer programmers and data scientists.

    Asset managers tell me about their ambition to cement the UK’s place as a global leader in sustainable and responsible investment and leave ourselves well placed in growing markets beyond the EU.

    I could go on…

    Whatever your challenges – whatever your ambitions – the government must continue to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of success.

    But there is one other thing the City has told me consistently over the past few months.

    It stands head-and-shoulders above all other concerns.

    It is, of course, the need to bring the Brexit impasse to a swift and satisfactory resolution.

    I am clear that we must do whatever is required to ensure the City remains a competitive place to do business.

    I know the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, will set out his own thoughts on how we can build on the strengths of our financial services sector when he speaks at Mansion House on Thursday. I’ll be there too…

    The City’s historic and enduring strengths didn’t come about by chance. And they can never be taken for granted, whatever the political or macroeconomic context.

    You probably don’t need me to remind you that the financial services sector contributed £75 billion in taxes during the last financial year.

    We’ve got to have a clear plan to maintain the City’s place at the centre of the global financial system.

    And this must be an overriding imperative of whoever becomes Prime Minister.

    It would be a tragedy if we lost our competitive advantage by accident, through complacency or lack of decisive action where needed.

    Learning the lessons of the financial crash

    But listening must be a two-way process.

    The City must also recognise the government’s broader obligations to society.

    So just as I have sought to understand your concerns, I haven’t shied away from confronting the sector with uncomfortable truths either.

    When I came into post in January 2018, I was struck by the extent to which the financial crash still cast a shadow over the City.

    That’s why I’ve placed a significant portion of my time seeking to repair trust between consumers and the financial services sector…

    …making it possible for small businesses to seek redress…

    …and working with regulators to help free mortgage prisoners.

    I know the great majority of institutions and firms within the Square Mile continue to work hard to rebuild consumer confidence.

    But we can never go back to how things were, and we can never take people’s trust for granted again.

    The key lesson for me has been the importance of striking the right balance between risk and regulation.

    It’s not easy.

    In fact, it’s probably the hardest part of being City Minister.

    Occasionally I see a high profile commercial failure making headlines; inevitably it always generates calls for more regulation.

    And it begs the question – how far do we go to keep the City safe?

    Because my worry is that if you ratchet up the cost of regulation, you will drive our FinTechs and start-ups overseas, along with all the promise and opportunity they represent.

    And I don’t believe you can have an enterprising, dynamic and competitive environment without a degree of risk.

    Few great entrepreneurs follow a linear path. Risk is a spur for competition. It’s what pushes us forward.

    My view is that so long as we guard against systemic risk – and safeguard consumers – we should do our utmost to create the space for enterprise and innovation to thrive.

    Financial Inclusion

    Safeguarding consumers leads me to the third point I want to raise.

    If the financial crash and subsequent recovery taught me anything, it’s that the task of earning people’s faith in our financial system is an unending one.

    People should be confident that the right products and services will be there for them at the key moments of their lives.

    Those services also need to be there for the whole of society: for the elderly, the vulnerable, the young, and the less well-off.

    Because if our financial system only works for the wealthy, or the comfortable, then it’s not really working at all.

    The solution isn’t top-down legislation. Or government compelling lenders to act against their commercial instincts.

    The solution is to ensure the market is big and broad enough to meet all the varied needs within society.

    The financial choices that most of us probably take for granted must be available to people whatever their circumstances.

    Consumers deserve the power and freedom to make the best choice of them and their family. With products and services that are affordable, appropriate and sustainable.

    I think we can look back on significant progress in recent times…

    …capping pay-day loans and rent-to-own schemes to protect the most vulnerable from being exploited…

    … interventions on doorstep lending, catalogue credit and overdrafts…

    …working to support and develop credit unions and community lenders and boost the supply of affordable credit…

    …and launching an integrated Money and Pensions Service to provide joined-up guidance and support to consumers.

    But we need to do more to build trust and restore a sense of fairness.

    In the coming months, I will be working with community lenders to design a pilot scheme for no-interest loans, as well as ensure the success of the prize-linked savings scheme.

    And I also look to mainstream financial services to play a greater role.

    Banks in particular must realise that public expectations are growing.

    And across the political spectrum, there is an appetite to find radical solutions to the challenges of affordability, inclusion and access.

    So, for example, when the last bank closes in a community we expect the sector to find new ways to meet local needs, be it through a Post Office or perhaps even a Shared Banking Hub.

    And as new technologies come to the fore – not least the advent of Open Banking – we have an obligation to ensure the benefits are felt across society, being accessible to all.

    These issues won’t go away – government, industry and regulators must work cooperatively and intelligently to find solutions.

    Skills and talent

    And this brings me to the fourth and final thing I’ve learnt that I wish to highlight today, which is about the men and women who work in financial services.

    The UK will never be able to compete with the likes of China or India when it comes to the size of our workforce.

    Our strength is the quality and depth of expertise found within the financial services sector, in the Square Mile and across the country. It always has been, and it always will be.

    So we need to ensure that the City continues to be a place where people are proud to work. Where they feel they are doing something worthwhile: not just making some people richer, but strengthening society and enabling all strata of society to have confidence in their future financial provision.

    I believe that financial services can be a force for good –

    I have seen how FinTech can help helping renters secure a mortgage – for example Credit Ladder and Bud who are helping people to get their rental payments recognised towards getting a mortgage – or support older people to enjoy their retirement.

    And then there’s London’s emerging position as a global centre for green and sustainable finance.

    It gives us the means to transition to a low carbon economy without turning the clock back.

    Turning the challenge of climate change into a spur for technological, economic and social progress.

    The Prime Minister’s commitment to achieve zero net emissions by 2050 only makes us more determined.

    It brings the work Sir Roger Gifford and others have been doing to establish the Green Finance Institute into focus.

    And it adds new impetus to the government’s own Green Finance Strategy, which will be published very shortly.

    Green Finance is just one example. I could equally have mentioned Islamic Finance. Or Cyber-Insurance. Or Insurance-Linked Securities.

    All of these opportunities play to the City’s strengths.

    As we step out from the EU, I believe our country still has what it takes to tread a bold and confident path in the world.

    But this will only be possible if our immigration system enables the City to access the global talent it needs to innovate and grow.

    You’ve told me this time-and-again: and I will continue to press your case in Whitehall.

    In return, I challenge you to ensure financial services remains a career that will take people as far as their talents will allow.

    This means redoubling your efforts to increase the number of women in senior management roles across the sector.

    More than 300 organisations, collectively employing over 800,000 employees, have already signed the Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter.

    But warm words are not enough – meaningful and sustained leadership at all levels within firms is required to bring about lasting change.

    Not just for women, but for all employees, whoever they are and wherever they’ve come from.

    Conclusion

    Let me draw to a close.

    Over the past 17 months, I’ve sought to be a strong voice for financial services in government.

    Standing up for your contribution to our economy.

    Working to help secure and sustain London’s place at the centre of the global financial system.

    And helping to open new markets of the future to UK businesses.

    In this job, I’ve travelled to Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Italy, Portugal, Austria and Sweden.

    In the past month, we held the second UK-US Financial Regulatory Working Group.

    And in the last few weeks, I’ve welcomed delegations from Hong Kong and China – the latter just this Monday.

    In all my conversations with our global friends there is a recurrent view.

    While there are many other European financial hubs, each with their individual strengths, none of them can match all that London has to offer.

    And if they believe in our future, then so should we.

    Everything I have seen in the past 17 months gives me reason to be confident.

    The path ahead is clear.

    Together, we must continue to find that all-important balance between risk and regulation.

    Together, we must work to ensure the economy addresses the varied needs of our changing society.

    And together, we must nurture and access efficiently the markets of the future, not least by remaining open to the best in global talent and skill.

    If we do all these things well, we cannot fail to succeed.

    Thank you for the privilege to be able to speak today and to serve you in government.

  • Damian Hinds – 2019 Speech at Wellington College

    Below is the text which was planned to be made by Damian Hinds at Wellington College on 20 July 2019. The speech was made by Lord Agnew as Hinds was unable to make the event.

    It’s great to be here at Wellington College and also to be the warm-up act for Amanda, our HMCT. I want to thank you Amanda for the important work that you and Ofsted do. For your personal commitment to educational rigour.

    I know you’ve already heard from some excellent speakers today and that this festival is always a fantastic opportunity to debate the big ideas when it comes to education.

    It’s a privilege to be surrounded by those who share a passion for this subject. Events like this are essential in bring together the big thinkers in our education system.

    At times like this, with so much uncertainty in the air it’s important that we all take the time to reflect on where we are going.

    By its nature, education is about the long term. At its heart, the work that all of you do is about shaping the minds of the next generation. A great education is fundamental to success – the individual success of all those who study, whatever their age and success for our country.

    A great education system can, and should, be geared towards tackling the big, long term challenges our country faces.

    One of these great, generational challenges is productivity. It’s not an abstract concept. We should care about productivity because it decides not just the size of our economy but our quality of life. Higher productivity means more fulfilling, higher paying jobs. It means new investment, leading to greater prosperity.

    Productivity matters because it’s about people being able to fulfil their potential. Economically, we can’t afford to waste the talents of young people held back by the circumstances of their birth. This is why social mobility has always been critical to my vision for education and inseparable from the goal of raising productivity.

    But when it comes to productivity, we lag behind. Badly. Our key competitors such as Germany, France and the US – all produce over 25% more per hour than the UK. This didn’t happen overnight. The productivity gap with our European competitors opened up in late 1960s, and earlier still the US.

    Just as the gap has been around for some time, the gap won’t be closed unless we take the long term view. To fix Britain’s productivity we need a major upgrade in the nation’s skills. That should start with an honest assessment of where we are.

    Across the UK as a whole we have a large number of people who either never progressed beyond GCSEs or gained low level vocational qualifications. 65% of our working population have completed upper secondary education (that’s Level 3). When you consider that the equivalent in Germany is 87%, its clear we have our work cut out.

    The answer lies in our schools and our colleges. As part of the review of the national curriculum which began in 2011, we benchmarked our curriculum against those of high performing jurisdictions and found that they set higher expectations without compromising curriculum breadth.

    We reformed the national curriculum in 2014, and then GCSEs qualifications, so that we set world-class standards across all subjects. We’ve removed hundreds of pointless and unproductive qualifications.

    When you look at how productivity differs between places in the UK, the picture is stark.

    According to the CBI the most productive area of the country is almost three times more productive than the least. Educational attainment is the single most important driver of those differences.

    Of course the gap between Britain and Germany, or between one region of the UK and another, isn’t a reflection of the innate talents of our young people.

    Instead it’s a challenge to us all to ensure that our system is delivering the opportunities for education and training across the whole country.

    We have made progress. The industrial strategy sets out a plan to invest in the three engines of productivity – individuals, innovation and infrastructure. Through our Opportunity Areas programme we’re investing £72m in some of the places with the biggest challenges, to make sure our efforts are focused on eliminating the productivity gap between different parts of the country.

    In order to transform Britain’s productivity and set our young people up for the future, the goal of building a world class education system drives everything we aim to do at the DfE.

    This is why we’ve focused on school autonomy and trusted leaders to run their schools, because that’s how you raise standards

    It’s why we’ve focused on teacher retention. This includes our Recruitment and Retention Strategy. This provides a commitment to develop world class training and development together with strong career pathways.

    It’s why we are committed to reducing the workload of teachers and supporting school leaders to create the right culture in their schools.

    We know that more schools are taking action to tackle workload. We have seen over 150,000 collective downloads of our workload reduction toolkit in less than 18 months.

    We are working with Ofsted to simplify the accountability system. The new Ofsted framework will have an active focus on reducing teacher workload.

    An education system can only ever be as good as its teachers and its leaders. We are very lucky to have some of the very best. They, indeed you, are the fulcrum of the system

    We have been rigorous about the curriculum so that young people are prepared for adult life; reforming GCSEs and introducing the EBacc. We will continue to pursue the manifesto target of 75% EBacc entry at GCSEs.

    These are subjects which form part of the compulsory curriculum in many of the highest performing countries internationally, at least up to 15 or 16.

    We have focused relentlessly on social mobility and disadvantage. Narrowing the gap between children from well off families and their less well-off peers so that every young person has the opportunity to make the most of their talents.

    We have made progress. I could stand in front of you and reel off more statistics on how far we’ve come. But I want, instead, to talk about where I think we need to go from here. Not in the short term but the long term, so we can confidently continue to build the world class education system our country needs.

    To do that we must be ambitious for the future of our schools and colleges, not just for the next year but for the next generation.

    That requires a vision for how we continue to raise school standards. How we ensure that we have the very best teachers for our children and how we will fix technical education. We owe it to the next generation to confront the big choices, not to duck them.

    Yes it’s true that we live in a time of uncertainty, at home and abroad, but that uncertainty makes it more urgent, not less.

    I want to reassert our long-term vision for an education system that achieves these goals, and the challenges we must overcome in order to get there.

    Part of the reason we’ve made such progress since 2010 is that we know what works: school autonomy, great teachers, and a rigorous curriculum.

    That is why we want to see us finishing the reforms we began in 2010. That means continuing to be ambitious about academisation by growing the best trusts, where teachers and leaders are already making an extraordinary difference to the lives of children. We must do that in the parts of the country where the need for those teachers and leaders is greatest.

    Our ambition remains for all schools to be academies, working in partnerships in great school trusts. This year we hit the milestone of 50% of pupils taught in academies.

    Looking to the long term; 10 years from now, we want to see the vast majority of schools becoming academies and joining strong academy chains.

    To achieve this we will build on the experience of previous capacity funds for academy trusts. We will shortly be announcing a fund that will boost the growth of our strongest academy trusts allowing them to support a greater number of schools across the country.

    The fund will increase the capacity of academy trusts to grow partnerships that support the development of teachers and leaders and the education of children. We have learnt from earlier growth funds what works best and we intend to build on this.

    The fund will support smaller school trusts that wish to merge into existing or new academy groups, and providing high-potential academy trusts with funding to meet the challenges they face as they grow.

    Local authorities have an important role to play and we are committed to working with them to consider how this will evolve as we move towards the vast majority of schools becoming academies.

    This will include exploring how they might support the growth of academy trusts in their areas. As we think about the future, we must take a long-term view of how to attract more high calibre teachers into the profession.

    We won’t get the teachers we need unless we focus on creating the right conditions for them to excel. There is clearly a strong case to explore reform of teacher pay to ensure that the money schools spend on pay is targeted where it will have the biggest impact on recruitment and retention.

    We must be bold about the offer that we make to new teachers. We recently announced the Early Career Framework – in itself the most significant reform to teaching since it became a graduate profession.

    We will build on this by introducing a new, rigorous core content framework for Initial Teacher Training to align with the Early Career Framework.

    Taken together, this will create an entitlement for new teachers to 3 years of structured training and development, backed by the best available research.

    In doing so we aim to ensure that people enter teaching in a manner that reflects its position as one of the most important professions in our society.

    Alongside this we will deliver the other commitments in the Recruitment and Retention strategy, including the expansion of flexible working and more diverse career pathways.

    We know that our economy has evolved in its ability to accommodate flexible working and we need to help the schools system do more to support teachers who want this.

    We must be relentless in ensuring that our reforms are always improving the odds for young people. Where you end up in life shouldn’t be determined by where you start, and yet many disadvantaged young people lose out by not having a parent or guardian who is ‘in the know’ about what to study.

    Central to a world class system in the long term is ensuring that children are setting themselves up for success with their subject choices, which is why EBacc is so important.

    Participation in creative subjects such as music and the arts is vital, particularly up to Key Stage 3. The DfE is committed to supporting both participation and progression – most notably in music.

    Alongside this it is vital that we ensure that pupils are encouraged to study the core academic subjects at GCSE – English, maths, science (including computing), foreign languages, history and geography.

    Schools previously entered many more pupils in these subjects. In 2000, three quarters [76%] of pupils entered a language GCSE. By 2011, however, the proportion of pupils entering science, a foreign language and geography GCSEs had fallen to less than a quarter.

    These subjects are essential if young people are to succeed in the knowledge economy, particularly if they are considering a good university. They are also at the heart of a well-rounded education.

    Since our reforms began in 2010 we have seen entry levels for science increase dramatically from 63% in 2010 to 95% in 2018.

    The proportion of those taking history or geography has increased from 48% to 78%. The proportion of pupils taking the EBacc combination of subjects as a whole increased to 38% in 2018. But we need to go much further.

    In particular, we want to focus on languages. While we have seen a rise in the number of pupils taking at least one language from 40% in 2010 to 46%, there remains much more to do.

    It is vital that children should be given the opportunity to learn languages to prepare them for a world that is more connected than ever. It’s why almost three-quarters of parents and carers [73%] said they would advise their child to take a foreign language GCSE.

    As part of a long term approach to education we will keep up the focus on language curriculum programmes and continue to recruit and train more MFL teachers.

    We would like to work with schools to do more to strengthen opportunities for more children to learn a foreign language.

    Our Free School programme has led the way in deploying a rigorous knowledge rich curriculum with over 400 now open and many more in the pipeline.

    We all know that digital skills will be become increasingly critical, whatever career path a young person chooses. That is why we reformed the computer science GCSE, with input from leading industry experts, to equip pupils with the knowledge and skills they will need for the high-tech jobs of the future.

    Computer science will become an essential skill in the digital era and already leads to a wide range of careers. We want to see more pupils, including girls, follow this path.

    To support this, we launched the National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE) in November 2018, backed by £84 million of government funding to ensure pupils are better prepared for further study and employment in digital roles.

    To deliver on these promises, schools and colleges need to have the resources to support the development of healthy, happy children.

    From my conversations with heads and colleges principals – I have heard first-hand about the pressures you face.

    You will have heard the Secretary of State promise that he would back teachers to have the resources they need and would make the strongest possible case for investment in our schools and colleges. The Secretary of State has asked me to make that commitment to you again today.

    It must be right that in a world class education system, there can be no people or places left behind. We must look again at how we can be bolder in supporting the schools facing some of the greatest challenges, in our plans to help schools tackle behaviour and attendance and for the future of our successful Opportunity Areas programme.

    As the Secretary of State set out in his speech on Monday, in all our reforms we must bring to bear a new focus on Children in Need and recognise the changing face of disadvantage.

    Alongside this, we must find ways to work with heads and principals to support schools in making every pound count in the classroom.

    There are many lessons to take from the 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. But a clear lesson is that we must turn our attention to making all parts of the country engines of productivity and places where there are plenty of high quality, well paid jobs.

    The most productive parts of the country benefit from a virtuous circle, where strong schools with great teachers lead to strong skills with investment following behind as the skilled workforce is in place.

    That is why – to create that virtuous circle everywhere – we want to do more to incentivise the best teachers and leaders to work in parts of the country and the schools where they are most needed. We want the best Trusts to expand into areas that some would describe as being “left behind”.

    But we have no chance of providing the next generation with the skills to succeed if we do not get serious about investing in technical education.

    Which is why we will continue to pursue the reforms of technical education, including the delivery of T-levels and the NRS, which have already been announced.

    Colleges are the critical infrastructure of the Industrial Strategy. Last month the Prime Minister was right to say that we have fallen behind our competitor nations when it comes to technical education as successive government have failed to give FE colleges the support they need.

    The Post 18 review argued compellingly for much greater investment in further education – both talented teachers and the essential infrastructure, such as buildings and equipment, that underpins the sector. Working in partnership

    We are clear on where we want the schools system to go, but we plan to listen to your advice on how to get there.

    We want to work with teachers, governors and school and college leaders to turn this vision into reality, just as we worked with you to produce our teacher R&R strategy

    Now is the time to think big, not small. Long-term not short term. To ensure that we can fix the generational challenge of productivity and that our world class education system continues to improve and be available to all children.

  • John Glen – 2019 Speech at RMB Global Cities Dialogue

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Glen, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, to the RMB Global Cities Dialogue on 18 June 2019.

    It’s a pleasure to be asked to say a few words about the opportunities that lie ahead for RMB as a global currency.

    But first I think it’s worth spending a moment taking stock of this wonderful building and its surroundings.

    The Roman foundations beneath us – a temple to the Persian god Mithras – remind us that London has always been a bridging point between different cultures; open to people and ideas from across the world.

    The majestic views of St Paul’s reflect the City’s resilience. Over the centuries, the Square Mile has endured peace and war, fire and plague, boom and bust, each time emerging stronger than before.

    And with its striking combination of sandstone and glass – and its energy efficient design – Bloomberg’s new headquarters is a sign of the innovation and ambition that characterise the City today.

    Openness, resilience, innovation…these are the time-honoured qualities that make London a leading centre for financial services.

    These same strengths are accelerating us toward a position of leadership across the markets of the future, from FinTech and cyber-insurance to Islamic finance and green investment.

    And our growing partnership with China is absolutely part of the City’s ambitions for the future too.

    The RMB Opportunity

    In his visit to Beijing in April, the Chancellor, Phillip Hammond, spoke of the UK as the natural economic partner for China.

    He outlined how we have the legal and technical expertise, and the capacity in our capital markets, to help deliver the Belt and Road Initiative.

    In the same way, my message to you today is that we also have the transformative strengths that are necessary to help RMB fulfil its potential to be a leading currency in the global market.

    Because despite China’s incredible growth in recent times, we have yet to see an equally dramatic use of RMB.

    RMB is only the 5th most used payments currency globally, sitting at just under 2% of the global total, as opposed to the US dollar at around 40%.

    But this is now changing.

    In 2016, we saw the addition of RMB to the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights. Since then, many countries have added the RMB to their mix of reserve currencies, including the UK.

    The increasing use of RMB in trade has helped to popularise the currency, and initiatives like the Greater Bay Area and the Belt and Road are likely to further this trend.

    The inclusion of RMB products in global indices is boosting opportunities for global investors and increasing exposure to the China market. This recognises the strides China has made in terms of market opening and transparency.

    Here in London, we approach this opportunity from a position of strength.

    The UK has been at the forefront of supporting Chinese efforts to open their markets over many years.

    London is already home to the world’s largest foreign exchange market and is the leading RMB trading and investment centre outside of China.

    Around 36% of RMB transactions are carried out in the UK, compared with about 6% each in France and Singapore – and we’re even ahead of Hong Kong.

    The UK has also been home to many ‘firsts’ in RMB products.

    In 2012, HSBC issued the first RMB-denominated bond outside of Greater China, and they chose to do it here in London.

    In 2014, IFC issued the first RMB-denominated green bond: again, it was here in London.

    And in the same year, the UK government issued an RMB 3 billion sovereign Dim Sum Bond, becoming the first western country to do so.

    The UK market monitoring group, a partnership between the City of London and People’s Bank of China, is now tracking these developments.

    Their publication – the London RMB Business Quarterly – contributes to our understanding of the London offshore RMB market, providing recent data, policies and commentaries from market participants.

    And it gives investors a way of keeping their finger on the pulse.

    Next Steps

    It was my enormous privilege to welcome Vice Premier Hu Chunhua to the UK for yesterday’s Economic and Financial Dialogue.

    This was the 10th such dialogue between our two countries. Through this enduring relationship we have sought to maintain London’s position as a centre for RMB trading and investment, and further our shared efforts to tap its potential.

    Yesterday morning, I was pleased to join the Chancellor at the London Stock Exchange to witness the launch of the new London-Shanghai Stock Connect, which included the start of trading in Huatai Securities.

    This initiative links the UK and Chinese markets together and means that, for the first time, any foreign company will be able to list in mainland China.

    It is also the first time that international investors will be able to access China A-shares from outside of Greater China, and through international trading and settlement practices.

    And it is the first time that investors will be able to trade across London and Chinese time zones.

    Together, our two countries are now looking to deepen and broaden this connectivity.

    Yesterday the EFD announced that the UK and China will accelerate plans to explore a UK-China Bond Connect.

    We also secured agreement from the Chinese to undertake a feasibility study into extending their trading hours to help facilitate bond trading across our time zones.

    I am confident that the London market will play its part by continuing to foster innovation in RMB products and services, and support the continued internationalisation of the currency.

    Reform and openness

    It will be important to see continued developments in China’s financial reform and openness too.

    China has made great progress in recent years.

    Following announcements in 2017 to deepen access to China’s financial markets for foreign investors, an important set of measures have been released.

    This includes the removal of restrictions on ownership stakes, together with onerous regulatory requirements.

    In securities and mutual-fund management joint ventures, foreign firms are now able to take 51% stakes, with the promise of full control by 2020.

    In insurance, foreign companies can now also take 51% stakes in joint ventures and onerous requirements on operating history have similarly been removed.

    And encouragingly China has promised further opening to come, along with continued progress on exchange rate reform and capital account convertibility.

    The UK welcomes these breakthroughs and supports their continued implementation to enable greater foreign participation.

    Conclusion

    Let me draw this together.

    The man behind this building and so many others in the City, Norman Foster, once said that it would be impossible to be an architect without also being an optimist.

    And today, we too have good reason to be optimistic.

    As the internationalisation of RMB progresses, we can build on solid foundations.

    London’s enduring qualities of resilience, innovation and openness are alive-and-kicking.

    The City is already the leading destination for RMB trading and investment.

    And with the tenth UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue successfully concluded, the path before us is now one of growing partnership and opportunity.

    I look to the City to continue to bring your innovation and ambition to bear as the RMB market develops.

    I have every confidence that we can unlock the potential that RMB represents.

    And I look forward to working with you, and with our friends in China and around the world, to make this so.

    Thank you.