UKPOL.CO.UK

Tag: Speeches

  • Liz Truss – 2019 Speech at Enterprise Nation

    Below is the text of the speech made by Liz Truss, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, on 27 February 2019.

    It is brilliant to be here this morning with such an amazing view.

    I do believe that we are fundamentally an enterprising nation and that is one of the many things that’s exciting about Britain.

    Sometimes to appreciate your own country you have to travel overseas. Recently I did a trip to Korea and Japan and they were saying to me, “How can we get the same kind of start-up culture that you have in Britain?”, “How can we attract that investment in early stage businesses? or “How can we have that energy that we see every time we come to London?”

    I think we’ve got to appreciate what we’ve got, and in the last year there’s been a 5% increase in business registrations.

    The momentum hasn’t stopped. What is also very interesting is the attitudes of generations that are under 21.

    They’re more likely to want to start up a business than previous generations and they’re doing it in droves, as we’ve seen an 85% increase in 18 to 24 year olds setting up businesses just in the last three years alone.

    I had a group of those businesses called ‘20 under 20’ in my office in the Treasury talking to them about when they’d start up their business what motivated them, and most of them said that it was at age 11 that they’d first thought of their idea. They struggled with some of the hurdles – like they couldn’t open bank accounts to other sorts bureaucratic difficulties – but they persisted and actually due to new technology, due to the availability of things like YouTube and podcasts to be able to get wider advice or to be able to network with a wider world – they ultimately had succeeded in their ambition. It is those ideas, and it is these people that drive progress in our country.

    In the 1960s we had an expression the ‘jet set’ because only the very rich could afford to travel round the world, but now thanks to new entrants it is a lot cheaper now and many more people can afford to travel. Or, what about supermarkets. I remember when getting pasta was exciting in the supermarket and now you can buy all kinds of things from fish sauce to won tons; you can get anything you want at your local Sainsbury’s, again that’s down to enterprise.

    Even the internet itself, where the derivation of that idea came from Britain and great people like Ada Lovelace or Tim Berners Lee. Quite often we hear negative things and of course there are harms that we need to deal with, but a recent survey showed that 82% in Britain had said the internet had made their lives better. None of us have to get bored waiting in a queue at the supermarket anymore, we can use our time much more productively. We are seeing all this progress and sometimes I think we take that progress for granted. But the reason we’ve got that progress is because of the individuals that come forward and there has never been a better system than the system of free enterprise for harnessing the ideas and dreams of individuals.

    For me it’s not just about economics. Of course, it is important that we get economic growth up. Of course, it is important that people that are able to afford to live better lives and that they are able to get better food for their children and get better opportunities. But starting businesses is also important for that sense of fulfilment and self-determination for individuals and that is one of the reasons that I do love meeting entrepreneurs, because you are people with dreams who want to bring those dreams to reality and there’s something really exciting about that.

    British start-ups are also an area where it doesn’t matter what your background is. It doesn’t matter where you’re from. It doesn’t matter what gender you are. If you’ve got a good enough idea, if you’re prepared to work hard enough; if you’re prepared to fulfil those ambitions; or if there’s somebody out there who wants to buy what you’ve got to offer, you can do that and you don’t have to be ticked off by a piece of government bureaucracy.

    I think that’s incredibly empowering and one of the areas that I’m very interested in the whole area of female entrepreneurship, because we do know there are fewer female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs. If we had as many female entrepreneurs as male entrepreneurs we’d have 1.2 million more businesses in this country, and I do see it as a source of empowerment, as a source of being able to take control of your own life and run your own life.

    So what can the government do about this? First of all I think we need to be positive. Emma mentioned Brexit and the Brexit vote. I believe we will get a deal. I believe we’re very close to getting a deal. It’s always darkest just before dawn and I think that is the situation we have at the moment, but there is a definitely a will and you can sense it across Parliament, and you can sense it across the country that people who have been debating this issue for two years.

    There are various permutations of exactly what we could do, but we want to get on with it. Leave the EU in an ordered way and in a way which provides the security and stability for everybody to carry on living their lives, but also so that we can carry on trading with the EU which is a vitally important market, as well as reach out further into other markets.

    I would point out that many overseas markets are already doing extremely well, and we’ve seen our exports rise across the world. What does the government do next? In my role as Chief Secretary to the Treasury I’m in charge of public finances. We currently spend a £800 billion a year as a government and this year will be the year of the Spending Review and that’s where we set our government budgets for 2020. I think that’s a massive opportunity for us as we leave the European Union to reform our economy and to look at how we spend public money, and if we are we spending it right to deliver the maximum possible opportunities for people across the country.

    First of all the challenge is to be able to keep taxes low. Often my number one job is saying ‘no’ to people who want to spend more money because I know that ultimately for every extra pound we spend that’s a pound we have to raise in tax, and we have been able to keep corporation tax at 19% which is the lowest in the G20. We’ve been able to lower business rates, particularly for those businesses on High Streets. I’m sure there are many people in this room who feel that there are issues still with tax. I certainly think there is a lot of room to simplify our tax system. I think it’s become over complicated. So those are some of the things we need to look at over the coming years.

    The second area to highlight is infrastructure. One of the decisions this Government has made is to spend more money on capital spending, investing in infrastructure like roads; the railway network, fibre and broadband rather than day to day spending. I think that’s important. But what we need to make sure is that we’re spending that capital money in the right way and I’m very interested in your feedback as small businesses. What would make the most difference for your business. Is it rail connectivity? Is it fibre connectivity? Where is it geographically?

    What would make the most difference to making your businesses more successful and in fact tomorrow I’m going to be in Felixstowe meeting businesses there and just hearing from the ground up about what it is that will make the difference in terms of capital investment.

    Of course skills are vitally important. We’ve got a program of education reform taking place we’re introducing new T levels. I was previously the Education Minister we introduced new GCSE and A-levels and those continue to be important.

    The second area I’d highlight is improving regulation and red tape. I think the government is always in danger of creating too much red tape. I’m interested in how we can simplify that landscape and how we can make it easier for businesses to engage. How we can flag up where there are bodies which maybe not intentionally, but quite often unintentionally, might be creating those problems. I think the biggest area I’d highlight of regulation is the planning system. We need to look at cities like Tokyo which have a more liberal planning system which make it easier for office spaces to be changed, for new houses to be built and we need to look at what we can do.

    One of the things we’ve just announced in the Budget is we’re conducting a consultation on the ability to build up.

    If you have a freestanding building you’ll be able to build up to five stories without getting planning permission, and that is the the type of innovation I think we’d need to see more of. We need to allow more spaces to be easily changed. We need to allow new land to be opened up both for housing and for office space and for manufacturing. Another subject close to my heart is childcare. Again I think there’s still more we need to do on simplifying the way we organise childcare. We spend £6 billion as a government per year on supporting childcare but I think those are areas we can do better.

    The final point I want to make before we go onto questions is championing new entrants. It’s always tempting for government to end up listening to the big players. You can often see that it is big companies will have large lobbying organisations, big legal departments and I’m very keen as a government that we try to make sure that we’re looking at how will everything we do affect new entrants. How will that affect the people that have not yet got into that market and part of that market.

    This means looking at things like business support. We spend over £20 billion on business support and that’s a combination of tax reliefs and other funding through things like LEP’s but also through special grants for particular sectors. I want to look at this through the lens of how we help new companies start up.

    And finally, I want to mention about the issue of women. We launched a report recently that showed the vast majority of all venture capital funding was going into all- male teams and I do think that that is a barrier that the government has highlighted and we want to see more venture capital firms open up and fund a wider variety of businesses, because there’s no doubt that if you’re well networked, if you are based in London and the Southeast or if you are male it is easier to get funding than if you’re not.

    We simply can’t afford, as we’re leaving the European Union, we’re seeking to become a more competitive country. We’re seeking to lead the world in enterprise. We simply cannot afford to ignore huge amounts of talent, and we can’t afford to ignore half the population or cities outside London. So the Government needs to make sure that we are not skewing the playing field against new entrants and ensure that those who fund businesses are also looking beyond the usual suspects.

  • Keith Williams – 2019 Bradshaw Address on the Railways

    Below is the text of the speech made by Keith Williams, the Independent Chair of the Williams Rail Review, on 26 February 2019.

    Introduction – the case for change

    It is a privilege to be here to deliver the 2019 George Bradshaw address and to such a distinguished audience – and to be given the opportunity to offer some preliminary thoughts on the Rail Review.

    First of all, it has been particularly pleasing to see the level of interest in the Review. I gather for many that the demand for tickets for this evening has been such that not everyone has been able to get a seat. In my last job I would have seen that as a yield management opportunity but I now see it as an overcrowding problem. But more of that later.

    I have been treated with every kind consideration since I started with the review only the very rare exception. Early on I was quizzed by one individual who asked: “what can someone from the airlines do for the rail industry”. Perhaps it was a rhetorical question. It could have been worse – given my background he might have asked more pertinently what can an accountant could do for the rail industry? So I’ll take what I can get.

    Well 5 months into the review I have learned that if the airline industry is like a game of chess, then today’s complexity in the rail industry is more like a Rubik’s Cube and (by the way) only 5.8% of the world’s population can solve a Rubik’s Cube.

    So why, you might ask, would anyone want to take on the job of sorting out the seemingly entrenched problems of this, the most complex of industries. Problems that have endured despite many separate rail reviews in recent years.

    The answer, I believe, is in a shared belief that we are at a crucial juncture where public trust crosses the industry’s ability to deal with change. I believe that for the railway to be successful it needs to put passengers at its heart. And in summary that is what I am going to talk to this evening.

    But first one opening comment. Whilst there have been multiple reviews over the last decade this is the first full-blown rail review to be supported by government for some considerable time – with a very clear commitment from the Transport Secretary and from Bernadette Kelly and the whole of the department’s executive to encourage myself, the expert panel and my team to bring in root and branch change. That is the context on which we are working.

    The case for change has been building

    The case for that change has of course been building.

    It is far too simplistic (I believe) to say that this is driven purely out of recent events – franchise difficulties, the timetable fiasco, recent studies into passenger trust or the tail off in passenger growth. They clearly don’t help the industry’s case but there are also longer-term catalysts for the review.

    On any measure there is a huge amount of determination within the industry to respond to recent events – and actions are already in hand in many cases.

    The industry is not blind to the issues it faces yet has found it hard to address them. Customer satisfaction is declining and there is widespread lack of public trust. According to Which’s latest consumer insight tracker, only car dealers are more distrusted by customers than train travel.

    This is not new. Speakers who have addressed this audience over the years have called it out.

    As far back as the very first George Bradshaw address in 2011 Rick Haythornwaite spoke about the gap that existed between what the industry thought it was delivering and what the public thought of what was being offered. And last year Sir Peter Hendy spoke about the need for public confidence in the railway.

    This has for too long been a recurring theme and we have reached the point at which some uncomfortable truths need not only to be acknowledged but acted upon… that while the industry has achieved enormous success over the past decades:

    doubling passenger numbers

    running more trains than at any time in the railway’s history

    whilst delivering improvements in safety

    and seeing more money spent than ever on improving the railways

    that despite these successes we cannot ignore some harsh realities: that poor performance, fare hikes, disruptive industrial action and the failures to deliver key infrastructure projects on time or to budget have all contributed to a few dismal years for the railway.

    Whenever things went wrong in my previous job the press office would trot out how many billions we were spending on new aircraft or kit such as de-icing equipment – but try saying that was good news to the person stuck on the runway in a snow storm it pretty quickly would wear thin. It is a similar case here. When things go wrong I see protestations that the industry is spending billions on improving the railways – against what customers are experiencing daily it risks becoming another hollow statistic.

    And that’s a shame, because, unlike some competitor countries, we are spending more on the railway, in offering new services, purchasing new rolling stock, and renewing and enhancing the network. The May timetable change, for instance, was designed to offer thousands of new services, hundreds of new trains, and much improved critical infrastructure – but as a system we were unable to deliver on this investment. And the customer suffered.

    It is a hard truth that – despite everything that is being done and all the money that is being spent over time – the rail industry has lost sight of its customers – passengers and freight – and therefore lost public trust.

    Passenger focus

    I can’t emphasis the point on passengers enough. The railway is not run for engineers, nor shareholders, workers or politicians. At the end of the day it is run for passengers.

    During this initial period of engagement, the Review team has been told by passengers how the journey experience often baffles and sometimes alienates them. To replay some of what we have heard.

    What passengers want is a reliable service that gets them to where they are going when it says it will. They want to be treated as part of the railway, like customers. Communications are often poor, especially when things go wrong – and we should expect better from operating companies and Network Rail here. In the last few years, performance for many has gone backwards, when it should have gone forwards. Fares and ticketing are confusing. Most people want the basics sorted out.

    As part of this, we need to do more on making it easier for customers to access the compensation they are entitled to and improving accessibility for all users, including disabled people. I’ve asked the ORR to advise me on what more could be done by rail operators to improve this, and whether more regulatory powers are required to ensure that it happens. They will report back within the timescale of the Review recommending action to help transform compensation and accessibility across the network.

    Now, of course there’s a huge amount of work going on within the industry to respond to these complaints.

    For example, the Rail Delivery Group, our hosts this evening, published proposals on simplifying fares structures just last week.

    The department is consulting on an extension to Pay As You Go.

    There are improvements coming from the Glaister review into timetabling and I’ve been impressed with the customer focus that Andrew Haines is seeking at Network Rail having completed his 100 day plan.

    More of this is needed and the industry needs to fundamentally realign itself to its customers – passengers and freight. Passengers must be at the heart of the future of the railways or they will turn away.

    I know that none of this will sound new to many of you but it is important to have a common understanding of the start point if we are to have a successful rail review. If we can agree that there are symptoms which have led to the lack of public trust – then so too we can acknowledge that some medicine needs to be applied to bring the industry back to health.

    Tackling the fundamental causes

    My team and I have been listening for 5 months now – what have we learned?

    We have seen enormous passion and engagement and had the benefit of great wisdom and knowledge.

    But nothing has convinced me yet that today we have either a common vision or the capability across the industry to make the railway truly customer centric.

    I can see that worthy efforts to improve things for customers are all too often frustrated not because of lack of will but because no single organisation owns the problem, or is sufficiently incentivised to take responsibility to drive through change.

    I can see that there are many barriers which prevent the industry from improving and modernising its services for customers:

    fragmentation and short-termism

    lack of accountability, flexibility and joined-up thinking

    conflicting interests within the structure of the railway

    And the need for leadership throughout the system – where everyone knows their responsibilities and is held to task on performance.

    The success of the Review

    I’ve listened to customers and the industry across the country, from Wales and the North of England to Scotland, London and other English regions. I have learned a considerable amount and it is time for us to give you some indication as to what we believe is at the heart of the review.

    I see our role not just to tackle those recent problems that passengers have experienced but also to tackle the more fundamental underlying causes of those problems… the barriers that we have identified must be addressed if the railway is to meet the needs of both today’s and tomorrow’s customer.

    It is no longer helpful or relevant to see the industry purely in terms of ownership, being state run or privatised.

    Rather, my role is to realign the different parts of this fragmented industry so they face the same way with shared incentives, with risks (and rewards) sitting in the right places. Always with a singular focus on the customer.

    Key priorities – commercial model

    If that is what the review is seeking to achieve, today is a first opportunity to give you some of our thoughts on priorities: Looking firstly at the commercial models.

    Many of you have told me that the current rail model is no longer fit for purpose and that (while justifiably proud of what has been achieved) the industry no longer possesses the same ability or incentive to innovate at the pace at which customers expect – that what worked 20 or 25 years ago no longer works today and will not work in the future. That’s a huge concern in a fast changing world.

    I have heard a great deal about the franchising model which has been one of the innovations of the railway since the nineteen nineties – driving growth in passengers and benefits in services. But with this growth the needs of passengers have changed, whilst many of the basic elements of our rail system serving those needs has not kept pace. Too often the current system incentivises short term behaviours and inhibits reform.

    We are now in a different phase. Passenger growth can no longer be taken for granted and there is less certainty about how the economy is going to fare into the future.

    There has been less ability to deliver on innovation. The reputational risk for franchises has increased whilst at the same time returns are less than expected in some areas.

    These are hardly the conditions we need to develop a modern railway industry to attract future investment.

    Put bluntly franchising cannot continue in the way that it is today. It is no longer delivering clear benefits for either taxpayers or farepayers.

    The review will continue to examine what the best commercial model or models are for the future what they might be.

    Key priorities – affordability

    We will also face into the longer term issue of affordability. Passengers are no longer willing to pay more when their perception of service is getting worse.

    Today we are publishing the first in a series of papers which provide factual summaries of a number of key issues for the rail industry. This paper focuses on the role of the railway in Great Britain and on its costs and benefits.

    The paper highlights many of the benefits which rail travel brings – how it handles large volumes of commuter traffic, the role it plays in leisure travel, the benefits to business and the growth in freight. It also looks at such things as its environmental credentials.

    It also highlights the vast amounts of money that government has put into rail – reflecting the importance of rail to our country and the need for investment to maintain and enhance our railways. This investment was around half of taxpayer’s annual public spending on transport in the UK last year.

    Given this amount of spend I am clear that my findings will need to ensure that Britain’s railways are financially sustainable for both taxpayers and users.

    Key priorities – structure

    And finally a lot is said about the rail industry structure. I have left this to last because my own starting point in the review has always been to look at what rail should do and that the structure should follow.

    But what is true is that system – from Network Rail, the Department for Transport and the ORR, to train operating companies and their workforce – does not have the structure and clarity of accountability it needs to properly deliver.

    That’s reflected in Andrew Haines’s conclusion that there’s need for “radical change” at Network Rail.

    To boost performance. To bring track and train closer together. And increase devolution, with more localised management.

    It’s difficult to argue against these objectives. Most within the industry agree with them and they seem to be pointed in the right direction for both customer and taxpayer.

    But the question is how to achieve these objectives across a sector with very diverse needs?

    There is a general frustration within the industry that rules and regulations are holding back innovation and problem solving.

    And there is frustration on the public side that they have to specify more and more to get the best taxpayer outcomes.

    These are all issues which the review is examining in the context of an industry that’s no longer where it was 25 years ago.

    We need to recognise that there is unlikely to be a ‘one size fits all’ solution which will work for every part of the country and all types of passenger.

    That’s why we will continue to consider all potential answers.

    From new models of franchising to greater public control of contracts.

    To much more localised decision-making and integrated concessions, where those operating trains and managing infrastructure work together in genuine partnership, acting like a single business absolutely focused on customers.

    We will follow the evidence, and suggest the most practical measures to fix the system. But whatever we suggest needs to be taken in the context of creating clear accountabilities.

    All of this needs to start happening quickly, for the sake of customers.

    Maintaining the essentials

    But I’m clear that my challenge is doing that without losing the many positives of the Great British railways, what I call the essentials!

    Safety and Environment – the UK’s safety culture and record is second to none. It’s almost taken for granted by passengers and that’s a fantastic credit to everyone in the industry. But I’m determined to ensure that the rail network continues to make a major contribution to a cleaner UK transport sector.

    Freight – which makes a vital contribution to the UK economy not only by moving goods and materials, but also taking vast numbers of vehicles of the road network. The RDG estimates that rail freight secured over £1.7 billion of benefits for the country in 2016. If the future strategy for the railway doesn’t work for rail freight, it’s not the right strategy. Any future model must sustain opportunities for our important freight industry.

    Workforce – the industry has a dedicated and hardworking group of employees and I have met some of them. It’s a great benefit for the railways. I will be looking at how we can improve employee engagement in the Review, to get the best from these vital people at the heart of the system.

    But that will mean tackling some challenges, too. A modern industry needs a modern workforce, one that reflects the society it serves.

    I have been impressed by the recognition of the challenges which the industry faces in this respect- concerns about skill and about diversity – but we need more accurate information on these issues and we need a means of making things happen to build the workforce of the future.

    I am sure the DfT will want to quickly look at this and I have asked my team to assist. I also ask everyone here, from unions to operators, to help us in this endeavour.

    Concluding remarks

    So to conclude – the review’s task – indeed all our tasks is to prepare the railway to adapt to a fast changing world. Now it’s up to us to respond.

    Over the coming months we will continue our extensive engagement with the railway industry, with passengers, and with business. This will be followed by other evidence papers and a further call for evidence next month.

    I don’t pretend that the journey to become a customer focused railway is going to be easy and it will mean accepting trade-offs. Between capacity and reliability, for example; between more services and resilience; between cost and quality. Or simply accepting that not everything can be done at once.

    And it will take time to implement, balancing local input and requirements, against those of maintaining a national network.

    We must resist the urge to promise all things to all people or to let ideology get in the way of practical, intelligent and creative solutions.

    I’ve been very impressed by the commitment and ambition of many who have contributed to the Review. There’s real hunger for change within the industry as well as outside. We will continue listening to what you have to say and learn from your insight and experience.

    Then in the autumn we will bring everything together and alongside government, recommend change through a white paper. It will be the culmination of the biggest review of the railway for generations.

    Now, I mentioned at the beginning that solving today’s problems in rail is a bit like being presented with a Rubik’s Cube. However, if you go onto the web you will find numerous algorithms by which one can solve a Rubik’s Cube in 6 or 7 simple steps. So, I am encouraged by everything I have seen and everyone I have spoken to – from the department, all of you in industry here today and the trade unions – that we will jointly devise these algorithms for the railway.

    Thank you for listening.

  • Theresa May – 2019 Statement on Brexit

    Below is the text of the statement made by Theresa May, the Prime Minister, to the House of Commons on 26 February 2019.

    With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s work to secure a Withdrawal Agreement that can command the support of this House.

    A fortnight ago I committed to come back before the House today if the Government had not by now secured a majority for a Withdrawal Agreement and a Political Declaration.

    In the two weeks since, my Rt Hon Friends the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the Attorney General and I have been engaging in focused discussions with the EU to find a way forward that will work for both sides. We are making good progress in that work.

    I had a constructive meeting with President Juncker in Brussels last week, to take stock of the work done by our respective teams.

    We discussed the legal changes that are required to guarantee that the Northern Ireland backstop cannot endure indefinitely.

    On the Political Declaration, we discussed what additions or changes can be made to increase confidence in the focus and ambition of both sides in delivering the future partnership we envisage as soon as possible – and the Secretary of State is following this up with Michel Barnier.

    I also had a number of positive meetings at the EU-League of Arab States Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, including with President Donald Tusk.

    I have now spoken to the leaders of every single EU member state to explain the UK’s position.

    And the UK and EU teams are continuing their work and we agreed to review progress again in the coming days.

    As part of these discussions, the UK and EU have agreed to consider a joint work stream to develop alternative arrangements to ensure the absence of a hard border in Northern Ireland.

    This work will be done in parallel with the future relationship negotiations and is without prejudice to them.

    Our aim is to ensure that, even if the full future relationship is not in place by the end of the implementation period, the backstop is not needed because we have a set of alternative arrangements ready to go.

    I want to thank my Hon and Rt Hon friends for their contribution to this work and reaffirm that we are seized of the need to progress that work as quickly as possible.

    President Juncker has already agreed that the EU will give priority to this work. And the Government expects that this will be an important strand of the next phase.

    The Secretary of State for Exiting the EU will be having further discussions with Michel Barnier and we will announce details ahead of the Meaningful Vote.

    We will also be setting up domestic structures to support this work, including ensuring we can take advice from external experts involved in customs processes around the world, from businesses who trade with the EU and beyond – and, of course, from colleagues across the House.

    This will all be supported by civil service resource as well as funding for the Government to help develop, test and pilot proposals which can form part of these alternative arrangements.

    Mr Speaker, I know what this House needs in order to support a Withdrawal Agreement.

    The EU knows what is needed.

    And I am working hard to deliver it.

    As well as changes to the backstop, we are also working across a number of other areas to build support for the Withdrawal Agreement and to give the House confidence in the future relationship that the UK and EU will go on to negotiate.

    This includes ensuring that leaving the EU will not lead to any lowering of standards in relation to workers’ rights, environmental protections or health and safety.

    Taking back control cannot mean giving up our control of these standards, especially when UK Governments of all parties have proudly pursued policies that exceed the minimums set by the EU, from Labour giving British workers more annual leave to the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats giving all employees the right to request flexible working. Not only would giving up control go against the spirit of the referendum result—it would also mean accepting new EU laws automatically, even if they were to reduce workers’ rights or change them in a way that was not right for us.

    Not only would giving up control go against the spirit of the referendum result, it would also mean accepting new EU laws automatically, even if they were to reduce workers’ rights or change them in a way that was not right for us.

    Instead, and in the interests of building support across the House, we are prepared to commit to giving Parliament a vote on whether it wishes to follow suit whenever the EU standards in areas such as workers’ rights and health and safety are judged to have been strengthened.

    The Government will consult with businesses and trade Unions as it looks at new EU legislation and decides how the UK should respond.

    We will legislate to give our commitments on both non-regression and future developments force in UK law.

    And following further cross-party talks, we will shortly be bringing forward detailed proposals to ensure that as we leave the EU, we not only protect workers’ rights, but continue to enhance them.

    Mr Speaker, as the government committed to the House last week, we are today publishing the paper assessing our readiness for No Deal.

    I believe that if we have to, we will ultimately make a success of a No Deal.

    But this paper provides an honest assessment of the very serious challenges it would bring in the short-term – and further reinforces why the best way for this House to honour the referendum result is to leave with a deal.

    As I committed to the House, the Government will today table an amendable motion for debate tomorrow.

    But I know Members across the House are genuinely worried that time is running out, that if the Government doesn’t come back with a further meaningful vote or it loses that vote, Parliament won’t have time to make its voice heard on the next steps. I know too that members across the House are deeply concerned by the effect of the current uncertainty on businesses.

    So today I want to reassure the House by making three further commitments.

    First, we will hold a second Meaningful Vote by Tuesday 12 March at the latest.

    Second, if the Government has not won a Meaningful Vote by Tuesday 12 March then it will – in addition to its obligations to table a neutral, amendable motion under section 13 of the EU Withdrawal Act – table a motion to be voted on by Wednesday 13 March at the latest, asking this House if it supports leaving the EU without a Withdrawal Agreement and a framework for a future relationship on 29 March.

    So the United Kingdom will only leave without a deal on 29 March if there is explicit consent in this House for that outcome.

    Third, if the House, having rejected leaving with the deal negotiated with the EU, then rejects leaving on 29 March without a withdrawal agreement and future framework, the Government will, on 14 March, bring forward a motion on whether Parliament wants to seek a short limited extension to Article 50 – and if the House votes for an extension, seek to agree that extension approved by the House with the EU, and bring forward the necessary legislation to change the exit date commensurate with that extension.

    These commitments all fit the timescale set out in the Private Members Bill in the name of the Rt Hon Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford.

    They are commitments I am making as Prime Minister and I will stick by them, as I have previous commitments to make statements and table amendable motions by specific dates.

    Let me be clear, I do not want to see Article 50 extended. Our absolute focus should be on working to get a deal and leaving on 29 March.

    An extension beyond the end of June would mean the UK taking part in the European Parliament elections. What kind of message would that send to the more than 17 million people who voted to leave the EU nearly three years ago now? And the House should be clear that a short extension – not beyond the end of June – would almost certainly have to be a one-off. If we had not taken part in the European Parliament elections, it would be extremely difficult to extend again, so it would create a much sharper cliff edge in a few months’ time.

    An extension cannot take no deal off the table. The only way to do that is to revoke Article 50, which I shall not do, or agree a deal.

    Now, I have been clear throughout this process that my aim is to bring the country back together.

    This House can only do that by implementing the decision of the British people.

    The Government is determined to do so in a way that commands the support of this House.

    But just as government requires the support of this House in delivering the vote of the British people, so the House should respect the proper functions of the Government.

    Tying the Government’s hands by seeking to commandeer the order paper would have far-reaching implications for the way in which the United Kingdom is governed and the balance of powers and responsibilities in our democratic institutions.

    And it would offer no solution to the challenge of finding a deal which this House can support.

    Neither would seeking an extension to Article 50 now make getting a deal any easier.

    Ultimately the choices we face would remain unchanged – leave with a deal, leave with no deal, or have no Brexit.

    So when it comes to that motion tomorrow, the House needs to come together, as we did on 29 January, and send a clear message that there is a stable majority in favour of leaving the EU with a deal.

    A number of Hon and Rt Hon Members have understandably raised the rights of EU citizens living in the UK.

    As I set out last September, following the Salzburg Summit – even in the event of no deal, the rights of the three million EU citizens living in the UK will be protected.

    That is our guarantee to them.

    They are our friends, our neighbours, our colleagues. We want them to stay.

    But a separate agreement for citizens’ rights is something the EU have been clear they do not have the legal authority for.

    If it is not done in a Withdrawal Agreement, these issues become a matter member states unless the EU were to agree a new mandate to take this forward.

    At the very start of this process the UK sought to separate out this issue, but that was something which the EU has been consistent on.

    However, my Right Hon Friend the Foreign Secretary has written to all of his counterparts and we are holding further urgent discussions with member states to seek assurances on the rights of UK citizens.

    I urge all EU countries to make this guarantee and end the uncertainty for these citizens.

    I hope that the government’s efforts can give the House – and EU Citizens here in the UK – the reassurances they need and deserve.

    Mr Speaker, for some Hon and Rt Hon Members, taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union is the culmination of a long and sincerely fought campaign.

    For others, leaving the EU goes against much that they have stood for and fought for with equal sincerity for just as long.

    But Parliament gave the choice to the people. In doing so we told them we would honour their decision. That remains the resolve of this side of the House, but last night we learned that it is no longer the commitment of the Leader of the Opposition. He has gone back on his promise to respect the referendum result and now wants to hold a divisive second referendum that would take our country right back to square one. Anybody who voted Labour at the last election because they thought he would deliver Brexit will rightly be appalled.

    Mr Speaker, that remains the resolve of this side of the House.

    This House voted to trigger Article 50, and this House has a responsibility to deliver on the result.

    The very credibility of our democracy is at stake.

    By leaving the EU with a deal, we can move our country forward.

    Even with the uncertainty we face today, we have more people in work than ever before, wages growing at their fastest rate for a decade and debt falling as a share of the economy.

    If we can leave with a deal, end the uncertainty and move on beyond Brexit, we can do so much more to deliver real economic progress to every part of country.

    So I hope tomorrow this House can show that…

    …with legally binding changes on the backstop…

    …commitments to protect workers’ rights and the environment…

    …an enhanced role for Parliament in the next phase of negotiations…

    …and a determination to address the wider concerns of those who voted to leave…

    …we will have a deal that this House can support.

    And in doing so, that we send a clear message: That this House is resolved to honour the result of the referendum and leave the European Union with a deal.

    And I commend this statement to the House.

  • Mark Field – 2019 Speech at RUSI

    Below is the text of the speech made by Mark Field, the Minister for Asia, on 25 February 2019.

    Good afternoon everyone. RUSI is best-known for bringing together the world’s top minds to find answers to the questions we are all asking. This event is a good example.

    In today’s increasingly fractious and unpredictable world, one of those questions is whether the existing system of global rules and norms, which governs everything from international law and regional security to trade, immigration and health, is fit for purpose.

    I look forward to reading about the conclusions reached here today. In the meantime, I should like to offer a British Government perspective.

    Many of you will be aware that the International Court of Justice has this afternoon released an Advisory Opinion in relation to the British Indian Ocean Territory. This not a judgment against the UK, but an Advisory Opinion for the UN General Assembly. Of course, we will look at the detail closely. But the defence facilities on the British Indian Ocean Territory help to keep people here in Britain and around the world safe.

    That is why we have maintained our sovereignty of the islands. We will continue to seek a bilateral solution to what is a bilateral dispute with Mauritius.

    We are in no doubt that the Rules-Based International System, as it is often cumbersomely referred to, has been a significant force for good, particularly since the tragedy of the twentieth century’s two World Wars.

    It has increased states’ ability to resolve their differences peacefully, and provided a framework for the greatest sustained rise in prosperity which mankind has ever enjoyed.

    But we recognise that the system is coming under pressure from a number of quarters.

    The first, and perhaps most immediately obvious challenge, comes when states deliberately breach their international obligations.

    Russia has committed some of the most egregious recent violations.

    Among other things, it has illegally annexed Crimea, used a chemical weapon to lethal effect in Salisbury, and continued to prop up a murderous Syrian regime, which has itself flouted international law by unleashing chemical weapons on its own citizens.

    The second challenge is less tangible but equally potent, and it comes from new technologies. These are posing challenges to the system in two quite different ways:

    First, new technologies are exposing gaps in the rules, such as on artificial intelligence, or challenging us to be clearer on how they apply, such as in space.

    Second, they are enabling states to do things that would be unacceptable with conventional methods. Cyber is a particularly good example.

    Malicious cyber activity has no respect for international boundaries and attacks are getting bigger, bolder and more serious all the time.

    The objectives seem to vary – from mindless vandalism to concerted attempts to undermine democracies or steal commercial information.

    For example, China has used cyber-attacks to acquire commercial secrets, in direct contravention of its bilateral and G20 commitments. We made public our concerns about this with a coalition of over a dozen countries.

    The UK continues to advocate for a free, open, peaceful and secure cyberspace.

    Last year, our Attorney General set out for the first time our views on how the world should approach cyberspace. It would be governed by the same international law, agreed norms and principles of responsible State behaviour that apply in the real world.

    This was incidentally a view that had already been endorsed by the UN General Assembly in 2015.

    Unfortunately, China and Russia continue to undermine this ambition, by pressing for greater international regulation in cyberspace, in particular by launching parallel initiatives that seek to bind and constrain people with new, unnecessary rules, as well as exporting their own ideologies and infrastructure which will constrain the freedom of users to enjoy the benefits provided by a free and open internet.

    So it is clear that challenges to the international system are arising both from states and from new technologies.

    In many states, including in the west, a third form of challenge to the international system has arisen through the election of governments that do not instinctively support it.

    As a result, we see greater suspicion of the multilateral system, or at the very least a questioning approach. Tackling this doubt, and making the case for effective multilateralism, is the responsibility of all those who believe in the opportunities that co-operation brings.

    The final source of pressure on the system that I want to highlight today is the shifting balance of global power. When the current system was established, largely in the wake of WW2, the world was a very different place. Since then there has been a steady eastwards shift of economic power.

    In the last forty years alone, China’s share of the global economy has grown from just 2% to 15%. By 2030, China is set to overtake the United States as the world’s biggest economy.

    By 2050, the economies of China and India could exceed those of the entire G7 – the so-called leading industrialised economies.

    Understandably, China and other rising powers wish to adapt the system so that it better suits their interests.

    So it is clear that, for a variety of reasons, the rules based system is at the very least being called into question, and at worst is under direct threat.

    At the same time, the scale and significance of the global challenges we face is greater than ever. Many of these challenges – from conflict to organised crime and from cyber-attacks to illegal migration – are not contained by borders and will not be solved unless the international community can work together.

    Nowhere is this cross-border challenge more important or obvious than climate change.

    Even within the next 30 years, rising seas could make some coastal areas uninhabitable. Many of our Commonwealth partners are already feeling the effects.

    We should be glad that no other country has followed the US in withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. But we still need urgently to raise our global ambition if we are to honour the spirit of our commitments and match the risk we all face.

    I think we should be in no doubt: now, more than ever, we need a global system of rules and cooperation that we can all buy in to.

    How should the UK respond?

    First, we need to defend the principle of multilateralism; the idea that international agreements, norms, and institutions are essential to tackling critical global problems.

    Our commitment to doing so is why – to give but one example – ships from the Royal Navy join those of many other nations to uphold the rules that allow maritime trade to flourish, most notably the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, whether through counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, or by reinforcing freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

    However, I should not for a moment suggest that the international system in its current form is perfect. So, second, we need to reform some of the most important global institutions – the UN, WTO, NATO and global human rights and justice mechanisms – so that they remain relevant and retain global trust. If they are not delivering for ordinary people then they are fundamentally failing.

    In the UN Security Council, we shall continue to challenge our colleagues on the Council, and ourselves, to ensure that this vital body shows the leadership the world needs.

    In response to the shift in global power, we are listening carefully and have said clearly we are open to change. In that vein, we have already been outspoken in our support for India, Japan, Brazil and Germany taking a permanent seat on the Security Council, alongside permanent African membership.

    We have actively supported reform of the Bretton Woods institutions – WB, IMF – to reflect growth of the Chinese and Indian economies.

    In Geneva we remain committed to supporting the Human Rights Council, as the best tool the international community has to promote human rights and address impunity. We welcome the Council’s action on Burma, and Syria. But it could do more: collectively we must use the Council better to respond more firmly and more rapidly to serious and deteriorating situations, especially when there is risk of future conflict.

    In The Hague, the record of the International Criminal Court remains poor. We are working closely with our partners to find paths to reform.

    The United States, among other nations, has made clear that the WTO is not working. We believe that China, as the world’s largest goods trader, has an important role to play in the necessary debate on WTO reform, and we played an important role in increasing China’s voting weight in the World Bank last year.

    We share some American concerns over Chinese trade practice, but we believe any action to remedy this must be WTO compliant. We want the WTO to defend free trade and a level playing field as a route to economic growth for all.

    To conclude – the challenges to the international system are diverse, but the global threats we face are significant.

    The Rules-Based International System is still the best means we have to respond to these threats, but it needs to reform and adapt if it is to remain effective and relevant.

    We are determined to help shape this change and to stand up for shared interests and values.

    This means fighting to strengthen and defend the values that matter to us most: human rights, peaceful resolution of disputes and the rule of law.

    It means using all our influence as a permanent member of the Security Council, the G7 and the G20, a leading member of NATO and the Commonwealth, a major development and humanitarian donor, and a champion of human rights.

    It means working with like-minded international partners to ensure that the Rules-Based International System remains a force for good in the 21st Century and beyond.

    Ladies and gentlemen, that is what we are committed to do.

  • Victoria Atkins – 2019 Speech on Modern Slavery

    Below is the text of the speech made by Victoria Atkins, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability, Paris Supply Chains conference on 22 February 2019.

    Welcome everybody, I am absolutely delighted to be here and thank you so much to the Ambassador to the British Embassy for hosting today’s event and it is a very fitting time in terms of the UK and its battle against modern slavery and human trafficking to hold an event this month because this month marks a milestone in the UK’s fight against human trafficking.

    This month marks the 15th anniversary of the Morecambe Bay disaster.

    In one night, more than 20 people drowned when they were cut off by the tide, while picking cockles off the Lancashire coast in the North West of England .

    The workers were Chinese nationals, trafficked into the UK in shipping containers.

    By the time they realised that the sea water was rising, it was pitch black, and extremely cold. They could not speak English, and were unfamiliar with the area, or the tidal patterns on the treacherous mud flats.

    For each pound of cockles that they picked, they received less than 9 pence.

    The disaster was a wake up call to many that forced labour, human trafficking, and slavery are not evils of the past.

    They are with us today, and their victims are hidden in plain sight.

    In England, Morecambe Bay is known as a nature reserve and holiday resort.

    The fact 20 people could be trafficked there from the other side of the world and forced to work – with no one noticing until it was too late – brought home to us all the awful reality of slavery and human trafficking in the 21st Century.

    Globally an estimated 40.3 million people are victims of modern slavery and human trafficking, including some 16 million in forced labour in the private sector.

    Overall, labour generates $150 billion in illicit profits annually.

    No sector is immune. Workers in labour intensive industries like manufacturing, agriculture, construction and manufacturing are particularly vulnerable to abuse.

    And as we gather in Paris ahead of fashion week, we must remember that the textiles sector, with its complex global supply chains, is also a susceptible trade.

    The industry faces significant risks, but also with clear opportunities for innovation to improve the lives of workers.

    Since the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh in 2013, which killed over 1,000 workers, much of this work has accelerated, but there remains a tot to do.

    We know that women – who make up 75% of the workforce in fashion supply chains – are particularly at risk.

    That is why the UK is investing in programmes to improve protections for female textile workers.

    The Department for International Development’s Work in Freedom initiative has now reached half a million female textile workers in India and Jordan.

    Through our gender equality at the Workplace project we are partnering with brands including Marks & Spencer, SuperDry and Levis to promote worker’s rights and tackle forced labour and sexual violence in the Indian garment sector.

    This project has now benefitted more than 14,000 women.

    We should take a moment to recognise the good work fashion companies are doing as well.

    Many are already changing their purchasing practices to reduce pressures on their supply chain that can lead to exploitation.

    Companies like H&M have developed a Fair Wage strategy and commissioned the Ethical Trade Initiative to review their work and publish the findings.

    We’re also seeing new innovations that are helping to accelerate progress and I’m delighted that we have the Open Apparel Registry here today.

    Tools like their transparency map are crucial in enabling collaboration between different brands to identify risks in the supply chain.

    As Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability, I am proud that the UK is a world-leader in tackling modern slavery and human trafficking.

    In 2015, we introduced the Modern Slavery Act to tackle slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour, and human trafficking.

    The act gives law enforcement agencies the tools to deal with offenders and provides enhanced protection for victims.

    And, of particular relevance to this conference, the UK is the first country to require businesses to report on how they are preventing forced labour in their global supply chains.

    Under the landmark ‘transparency in supply chains’ provision in the Modern Slavery Act we have seen thousands of transparency statements published.

    And I am pleased to announce that today we have appointed Sara Thornton as the UK’s new Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, to lead our work and help the UK eradicate modern slavery and human trafficking.

    Ms Thornton is one of the most senior police officers in the country and brings her wealth of expertise, experience and independence in seeking justice for victims of crime.

    Effectively tackling forced labour requires leadership not just at home, but internationally as well.

    At the UN General assembly in September last year, the UK launched the ‘Principles to Combat Human Trafficking in Global Supply Chains’, with the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

    These principles commit governments to implementing a range of measures that help address modern slavery and human trafficking in global supply chains.

    And, as we meet in Paris, I am proud that the French government stands alongside us in their determination to eliminate human trafficking and labour exploitation.

    Here, there is a legal requirement for companies to publish their mechanisms to identify, assess and mitigate exploitation risks.

    And, since legislation was introduced on both sides of the Channel, we have seen businesses:

    ensure transparency their supply chains
    start to map suppliers beyond tier one
    identify high-risk areas and introduce tailored steps to support the most vulnerable workers

    This is a significant achievement, and today’s panels will seek to build on this progress.

    Because, we want to see businesses make year-on-year progress. Whether they are already industry-leading in their approach, or mapping their supply chains for the first time.

    We also want to see more businesses supporting their suppliers to introduce key protections for workers, from the implementation of the Employer Pays Principle to tackle exploitative recruitment fees, to the global brands we have seen sign up to IndustriALL’s ACT initiative.

    Legislation, alongside growing consumer awareness, has transformed business culture.

    Across all industries, senior business leaders are engaging with the fight against forced labour for the first time.

    But we cannot be complacent.

    Businesses need to be more vigilant than ever to understand their risks, undertake targeted interventions and measure progress.

    They are not alone. The scale of the challenge means that it can only be tackled by government, business and civil society working together.

    In November, the Prime Minister announced a joint agreement with the fashion sector in the UK to work together to eradicate forced labour in their supply chains.

    And crucially, at last year’s G20 summit, she committed to publishing a statement on the steps the UK government is taking to eliminate exploitation in our own supply chains.

    Fundamentally, though, the reach of government extends only so far.

    It is up to individual businesses to take steps to eliminate forced labour in their own supply chain.

    There is a moral – and commercial – imperative to ensure that products are made by people living in freedom, working with dignity, and earning a fair wage

    Consumers care about how their products are made, and more so in the fashion industry than many others.

    There is a growing number of responsible investors who want to make sure the right protections are in place.

    By being here today you have shown that, like us, you want to improve your approach.

    I ask you all to take what you learn today and share it with your suppliers, your clients and your competitors.

    The British government will do everything in our power to eliminate the scourge of modern slavery and human trafficking.

    We remain resolute in our commitment to strengthen our response to this threat and improve protections for the most vulnerable workers across the globe.

    I welcome the determination and work of our friends and allies in Europe and across the world

    With our European friends, we are acting in defence of the values that we as nations hold dear.

    Nothing will change that.

    We will remain as committed to the eradication of modern slavery and human trafficking as we are today.

    Together, we can build a future where forced labour and exploitation are, truly, a thing of the past.

    Merci Beaucoup.

  • Theresa May – 2019 Statement in Sharm el-Sheikh

    Below is the text of the statement made by Theresa May, the Prime Minister, on 25 February 2019.

    I would like to begin by thanking President Sisi and the Egyptian people for their warm hospitality over the past two days, and for hosting the first ever meeting between the EU and the League of Arab States.

    We have come together to address the challenges we face head on, so that we can deliver prosperity and security for all of our countries.

    I have had constructive discussions with King Salman of Saudi Arabia, the Amir of Kuwait, Prime Minister Hariri of Lebanon and others, on issues such as migration, the crises in Yemen and Syria, instability in Libya, the evolving threat from Daesh, and the Middle East Peace Process. The fortunes of our regions have long been intertwined. A stable, peaceful Arab region matters to Europe, and the UK is fully committed to continue working on this with our allies both now and after we leave the EU.

    Of course, I’ve also had the opportunity to discuss Brexit while I’ve been here. I held good meetings with President Tusk, Prime Minister Conte, Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Rutte, President Juncker and the Taoiseach.

    There is still more work to do, and my team will be in Brussels tomorrow working on the legally binding assurances that the UK Parliament needs in relation to the backstop.

    But what I have sensed in all of my conversations with my fellow leaders both here in Sharm el-Sheikh and in recent days is a real determination to find a way through which allows the UK to leave the EU in a smooth and orderly way with a deal.

  • Siobhain McDonagh – 2019 Speech on St Helier and St George’s Hospitals

    Below is the text of the speech made by Siobhain McDonagh, the Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden, in the House of Commons on 19 February 2019.

    Let me start by putting on record my respect and admiration for every single doctor, nurse, clinician and staff member at both St Helier and St George’s hospitals for their outstanding service and dedication to the health and welfare of my constituents. These remarkable individuals go above and beyond, despite facing extraordinarily testing circumstances—nine years of austerity have left our treasured NHS desperately short of staff, services and supplies.

    For my constituents, however, the biggest threat to our local hospitals is far closer to home. It is in the wild west of south-west London’s NHS, which is once again pursuing desperate attempts to close all acute services, including the major A&E unit and the consultant-led maternity units at St Helier hospital. The impact that that would have on St George’s hospital, would, I believe, be devastating.

    This evening I want to outline the reality behind the latest threat to St Helier, branded “Improving Healthcare Together 2020-2030”. I want to challenge every foundation on which that programme has been built, and I want to appeal to the Minister to step in before we see the decomposition of health services that are vital to my constituents. However, I want to start with some history.

    For nearly two decades, the NHS in south-west London has pursued several irresponsible attempts to close the acute health services at St Helier hospital, on the border of my constituency, and move them to leafy, wealthy Belmont in Sutton. Under different titles and brands, and in the guise of countless NHS-funded marketing consultants, the proposal is on repeat, and an estimated £50 million has been wasted on almost identical consultations and programmes. Each one starts afresh, portraying to the public a neutral outlook when it is being decided where acute health services should be placed in south-west London.

    The Minister may remember that, back in 2015, secret proposals to close St Helier and build a new super-hospital in Sutton were overheard by a BBC reporter on a train, which brought those plans to an embarrassing end. Fast-forward to 2017 and the programme was repeated, this time entitled “Epsom and St Helier 2020-2030”, and once again professing to assess the pros and cons of where to base acute health services. The public support expressed by chief executive Daniel Elkeles, the man running the programme, for moving the services to Sutton somewhat clouded the neutrality of the process.

    Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)

    Does the hon. Lady not agree that the proposal that immediately preceded this was to close facilities at St Helier and move them to St George’s in Tooting, which was universally unpopular? The proposal that is now on the table, on which I certainly hope there will be a public consultation, refers to one of three sites, and includes a reference to locating a new facility at St Helier hospital.

    Siobhain McDonagh

    My recollection of that particular consultation was that that was really the scorched earth strategy of deciding that St Helier and Epsom were going to close and St George’s would take the strain. I ​thank God that that never happened, because we could be in an extraordinarily difficult position had it ever happened.

    I might sound cynical when I talk about the NHS and its bias against my constituency and against services being at St Helier Hospital, but I have been here several times before. A freedom of information request revealed that those running the programme only distributed consultation documents to targeted areas around their preferred site and to just a handful of roads in my constituency. But my constituents care passionately about their local health services and will not be ignored, and 6,000 local residents responded to the programme by calling for St Helier to retain all its services on its current site.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. I sought her permission to intervene beforehand because I am always very interested in health issues, and I am here to support her as well. Centralising the health service means that the ill and the vulnerable and pregnant women are expected to travel for miles to get medical assistance. That is totally absurd. Surely the health of the patient must always be put first and foremost.

    Siobhain McDonagh

    I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but it is about not just distance travelled but who is travelling that distance: do they have access to a car, or do they have public transport? The NHS constitution requires that equalities legislation is taken into account, particularly looking at disadvantaged people who are in poor health and how they access services, because they access services differently.

    As I said, my constituents care passionately about local health services, and when they responded to the consultation 6,000 of them sent in cards explaining how they felt and saying that they wanted St Helier to retain all its services on its current site. Can you imagine the anger when I found out that their responses had been discounted by the programme? Why? Because they were not on the official documentation—the same documentation that had been disseminated in those targeted letterboxes far away from my constituency.

    To the public, the trust portrayed a neutral stance whereby a suitable site across south-west London would be selected for their acute services. To the stakeholders in Belmont, it confessed its desire to move the services to their wealthy area, and to mine, it pretended that the consultation would genuinely seek the views of the public. But as my mum always says, much gets more. I would like to put on record that while I fundamentally disagree with the desire to take services away from my constituents, I do recognise Mr Elkeles’ hard work and dedication in leading St Helier Hospital.

    We now fast-forward to the present day and the latest brand, “Improving Healthcare Together 2020-2030”, a programme built upon the unstable and unscrupulous foundation of its predecessors and that once again considers the pros and cons of moving St Helier Hospital’s acute services 7 miles west to Epsom or south to leafy Belmont in Sutton. The programme was launched last summer—they always choose the summer—undertaking an initial public engagement that is expected to transition to a public consultation this coming summer. But just 837 people responded to the public engagement, and ​that is including hundreds of NHS staff and 169 comments on Twitter or Facebook. That is an utterly abysmal response considering the £2.2 million of taxpayers’ money squandered on the programme already. Does the Minister agree that this is a complete misuse of taxpayer funds at a time when our NHS is under such overwhelming pressure?

    This is about more than just the future of St Helier Hospital. My constituents tell me that if St Helier Hospital were to lose its acute services, they would turn not to Epsom or Sutton but east to Croydon University Hospital or north to St George’s. That is a completely terrifying prospect. Before Christmas, my constituent, Marian, was left queueing outside St George’s Hospital with her left leg badly infected, because the A&E was full. And that was the calm before the storm, with St George’s A&E facing its busiest ever week just a fortnight ago. We all remember the winter crisis last year, but the first full week of February this year was 16% higher than last year’s equivalent, with a simply staggering 600-plus visits every single day. This is a hospital that already relies on St Helier as its safety valve. The maternity unit at St George’s had to close temporarily in 2014 and 2015, directing women who were already in labour to St Helier Hospital.

    That is why a letter sent in November from the chair of the St George’s trust to those running the programme is completely astonishing. In the letter, the chair expresses her concern that

    “there is no formal requirement to take account of the impact on other providers”

    when deciding where to relocate acute health services across south-west London. It is hard to put into words just how dangerous that disregard is. I should like to pause briefly to thank the chief executive of St George’s Hospital, Jacqueline Totterdell, for her hard work and tenacity in steering one of London’s largest hospitals at a time of such difficulty.

    St George’s is a hospital already under immense pressure. The plumbing, ventilation and drainage facilities are at breaking point, leading to a bid for £34 million of emergency capital from the Treasury. Does the Minister agree that a recent outflow of sewage in the hospital A&E is a clear sign that such emergency funding is justified and, more importantly, urgent? How busy does she think the same A&E would be if the local NHS were to get its way and move St Helier’s major A&E to wealthy, leafy Belmont? Will she step in today and require any proposal to reconfigure health services to wholeheartedly take into account the impact that such a decision would have on all other nearby health providers?

    Merton Council recognises the devastating impact that these proposals could have, and I would like to put on record my thanks to leader of Merton Council, Stephen Alambritis, the cabinet member for social care, Councillor Tobin Byers, and the director of community and housing, Ms Hannah Doody, for their unflinching support. It is so disappointing that those at Sutton Council can stand so idly by.

    By law, when deciding where acute services should be based across a catchment area of this size, it is fundamental that the level of deprivation and local health needs are accurately understood and thoroughly assessed. So I read from cover to cover the deprivation and equality analysis produced by a range of external consultancy ​services as part of their £1.5 million programme fee. At a time when the NHS is so strapped for cash, it is extraordinary that my local NHS seems to have carte blanche to employ so many consultants on such extraordinary rates. But even I was absolutely astounded by the monumental gaps in the analysis that these consultants have delivered.

    In the pieces of analysis on deprivation and equality, areas that rely on St Helier Hospital are either absent from the documents or actively described as falling outside the catchment area. Take Pollards Hill in my constituency, an area that would be considered deprived in comparison with much of Sutton or Epsom. Wide Way Medical Centre is the largest GP surgery there, and it directs 34% of its patients to St Helier Hospital, but Pollards Hill is deemed to be outside St Helier’s catchment area. Why does this matter? Because if areas that rely on St Helier Hospital are not even considered in the analysis, how can the potential impact of moving acute services from the hospital be adequately assessed? Pollard’s Hill is not alone. The report does not mention Lavender Fields despite almost a fifth of Colliers Wood surgery patients and Mitcham family practice patients being directed or referred to St Helier from the ward.

    I urgently brought the gaps in the analysis to the attention of those operating the programme and Jane Cummings, the NHS’s chief nursing officer. I was pleased that everyone agreed that such significant analysis shortfalls would be addressed and rectified.

    Paul Scully

    The hon. Lady is being generous in giving way. Does she agree that Colliers Wood is pretty much smack-bang next to St George’s and that the proposal on which last year’s public engagement was based was that 85% of current patients would still be treated in their current hospital, whether St Helier, the proposed Sutton site or Epsom?

    Siobhain McDonagh

    There is no reason why the hon. Gentleman should know this, so I am not trying to be tricky, but Colliers Wood surgery is the title of a split-site GP surgery. One site is on Lavender Avenue off Western Road—the hon. Gentleman probably knows Western Road from driving up and down it a lot—in the heart of one of the most deprived areas in my constituency, and many people there go to St Helier hospital. The idea that we could remove an A&E and a maternity unit and keep what is left is complete nonsense, because all the blood and testing facilities and all the talented doctors and nurses simply would not stay there. Chase Farm Hospital, which is in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan), is a wonderful example of such a situation, and Members may want to have a look at it.

    I pointed out that areas in my constituency and large surgeries had not been included in the analysis, and I was promised that they would be. However, months have passed, and the process has proceeded unscathed, with no indication of when such significant gaps will be remedied.

    The icing on the cake came in December when three behind-closed-doors workshops based on the deficient evidence were run by the programme. They were designed​ “to inform the Governing Bodies decision making process about how the community and professionals ranked each of the three potential sites for acute hospital services”.

    Let me be clear: hand-picked professionals and members of the public used incomplete evidence to rank Sutton as the preferred site for acute services. The Minister will not be surprised to hear that more participants in the workshops were from Sutton than from Merton or Epsom. How can a fair, balanced and rounded opinion be accrued from workshops based on flawed evidence and disputable criteria and with an unrepresentative group of people? For the findings to be used in any capacity in the decision-making process would be completely unacceptable.

    Of course, I understand that figures and analysis can always be skewed in one direction or another. Someone wanting to disguise the 76.5-year life expectancy of men in Mitcham West in my constituency could include the 84.4-year average in Wimbledon Park and classify the figures by the borough of Merton as a whole. They could count cancer rates, stroke rates, mortality rates by borough rather than by ward or lower super output area. They could ignore deprived parts of the catchment area and proceed full steam ahead with the programme.

    When will the gaps in the analysis be completed? When will taxpayers’ money stop being splurged on flawed and biased consultations? When will the madness end? Here is the reality: there are over twice as many people with bad or very bad health within a mile of St Helier than there are living within a mile of the Sutton site, and almost four times the number within a mile of Epsom. Around St Helier, the local population is significantly larger, with considerably more dependent children and more elderly people. Furthermore, the population local to St Helier is far more reliant on public transport, with residents statistically less likely to have access to a car.

    Despite all that, when I secured—I can hardly believe it myself—£267 million from the Department of Health and the Treasury under both the Labour Government and the coalition Government to rebuild St Helier Hospital, guess what happened? The local NHS sent the money back. Can the Minister confirm whether the hospital will again receive its funding this time round?

    It is time for some accountability and for the Government to step in before even more money is wasted and the future of both St Helier and St George’s is thrown into jeopardy. Leave these vital services where they are most needed: at St Helier Hospital, on its current site.

  • Luke Hall – 2019 Speech on Horse Tethering

    Below is the text of the speech made by Luke Hall, the Conservative MP for Thornbury and Yate, in the House of Commons on 20 February 2019.

    I am delighted to have secured this Adjournment debate on the practice of the long-term tethering of horses. Tethering is the practice of attaching horses to a stake in the ground using a collar, or sometimes just a piece of rope around the neck, that is then fastened to a chain. The animal that once defined our great nation is now being left at risk of neglect, cruelty and abuse because of loopholes in the very legislation that was written to protect them. This debate follows the Break the Chain campaign run by the excellent HorseWorld trust, a leading equine rescue charity in the south-west, just next door to my constituency. The Break the Chain campaign aims to amend the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to include restrictions on the tethering of horses.

    Traditionally, tethering has been used as a short-term method of keeping horses, but it has transformed into a method of retaining horses without having to purchase land, by using public or private grassland, often by the side of busy roads, for grazing. Because the tethered animal can be moved quickly, it is easy for people to tether a horse on land that does not belong to them and then move the animal before the authorities can identify the landowner or the owner of the animal. This results in it being virtually impossible to monitor the welfare of these animals, leaving around 3,500 horses in a state of potentially compromised welfare with little or no chance of intervention from charities.

    There are a number of reasons why there has been such a large public response to the public campaign. In my constituency and the constituencies that surround it in the west of England, there is a big problem with tethering. There have been incidents where horses tethered by the roadside have been visible from the council offices in Yate, but despite this being a clear breach of the Animal Welfare Act, it could not be acted upon because the law does not state explicitly that tethering is a welfare concern. Unfortunately, because these horses are not protected by law, most cases of tethered horses that HorseWorld gets called to do not end well. The horses are simply moved before the Control of Horses Act 2015 can take effect. One incident saw a tethered horse break free near a large shopping centre at Cribbs Causeway in south Gloucestershire, next to a major road. By the time the horse was rescued and able to be seen by a vet, the injuries that it had sustained, most likely from having been hit by a car, meant that it had to be put down.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this important subject to the Adjournment debate tonight. The British Horse Society is on record as stating that although many horses will thrive on a diet consisting only of grass, it is vital that tethered horses are moved regularly to ensure a constant supply of fresh food, and that during the winter months or at any other time when grass is scarce, additional work and feeding needs to be carried out. Tethering is clearly not a long-term solution for any horse, and this has to be looked at. Does he agree that the change to the legislation that the Minister has a chance to bring in would be a way of addressing the issue?​

    Luke Hall

    It is a genuine pleasure be intervened on by the hon. Gentleman in an Adjournment debate, and he is absolutely right. I will come on to some examples of how long-term tethering has been detrimental and caused death to animals in a number of cases. The nature of tethering means that it does not require large amounts of land, so horses can end up tethered in inner-city locations. A pony in south Bristol spent years tied to a tree on a grass verge and was harassed by local children and frequently escaped on to roads. The reality is that that was not a one-off.

    Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)

    Do the majority of such incidents involve horses or ponies owned by Travellers who are just moving through?

    Luke Hall

    That can often be the case. If we are looking to change the legislation, we must ensure that we stamp out tethering and animal welfare abuses regardless of who owns the animal, but my hon. Friend is right to highlight that point.

    As I said, such incidents are a regular occurrence. In 2016, a pony was found tethered among fly-tipped rubbish. It was so badly tangled up in a discarded bicycle that it could not even stand. This pony, which had a life-threatening injury, was lost to the authorities after the owner simply moved it and tethered it in another location before they could arrive. Sadly, just before Christmas last year, a member of the public came across a pony that had been tethered in a wooded area. The tether had become tangled around the surrounding trees and, in a desperate effort to break free, the one-year-old pony had strangled himself and lay dead in the mud at the end of his tether. It is therefore clear that the practice desperately requires stricter regulation.

    HorseWorld, the charity that started the campaign, was spurred into action by the alarming case of a mare that gave birth to her foal while she was tethered. Unable to protect her foal from the other horses who roamed free in the same field, the mare became seriously distressed. Of course, protection of the young is one of our most basic instincts. Research into tethered horses in Wales, where tethering is rife, showed that 10% of tethered horses had young foals. Those are just a few examples of the horrors associated with long-term tethering but, because tethering is not restricted by law, people can tether horses unchecked beyond the reach of the law, resulting in tethered horses reaching despicable stages of neglect before they can be rescued.

    I want to touch on the current regulations and legislation surrounding equine welfare and explain why they are not protecting tethered horses in practice. The Minister may refer to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ code of practice, which acts as a guide to safely tethering horses, but the code is not being adhered to in reality, as demonstrated by an investigation conducted in south Wales in 2014 by the excellent University of Bristol’s veterinary school, which gave five main conclusions.

    First, the code of practice states that water should be made available on a regular basis in a spill-proof container, but the research concluded that up to 90% of animals were not given water regularly. Secondly, the code states that animals should, as a minimum, have shelter from the sun and wind and that the area should be well drained in the event of heavy rain, but the research tells us that no shelter was provided in over 80% of cases. ​Thirdly, animals should be given the freedom to exercise off the tether for a reasonable period at least once a day. In reality, however, less than 3% of horses spent more than five minutes a day off the tether, and no one would argue that five minutes is a reasonable amount of time. Fourthly, according to the code of practice, the tethering site should not contain anything that might injure the animal, but the reality is that sites contained potential hazards in 50% of cases. Fifthly, the code states that tethered horses require a high level of supervision, with inspections

    “no less frequently than every 6 hours”.

    However, it was found that only a third of horses were visited that regularly. While we have a code of practice, it is clearly not being adhered to, and the fact that an individual can move an animal before they ever reach the stage of being prosecuted renders the code of practice redundant.

    Bob Stewart

    If a horse is tethered and left, the area around the tether will soon have no grass and will become muddy if it is wet, hugely damaging the horse. That is one of the other problems of tethering.

    Luke Hall

    My hon. Friend is right about damage to the environment, and I urge colleagues to look at some of the photos of horses that have been treated so badly. I mentioned the pony in south Bristol that was tied to a tree, and the surrounding area was a small stretch of grass between a pavement and the road. Yes, there was huge damage to the local environment, but there was damage to the pony, too.

    The code of practice informs us that tethering is not a suitable long-term method of managing horses, as does the RSPCA, the British Horse Society, World Horse Welfare and Redwings, but absolutely nothing can be done legally to prevent someone from tethering a horse for its whole life.

    Further, long-term tethering directly infringes the five freedoms set out by the Animal Welfare Act 2006: the need for a suitable environment; the need for a suitable diet; the need to be able to exhibit normal behaviour patterns; the need to be housed with, or apart from, other animals; and the need to be protected from pain, suffering, injury and disease.

    A tethered horse is not free to express natural behaviours. A horse that is free to roam will, on average, walk or run 10.6 miles a day, and the reality is that a tethered horse can come nowhere near that. As my many colleagues who keep horses can attest to, horses are flight animals. A horse’s most basic instinct is to flee from danger, which tethering does not allow. Tethering restricts a horse’s most natural behaviour.

    Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)

    I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. A large number of my constituents who have seen horses tethered locally have contacted me to express their concern about these issues.

    Luke Hall

    I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. We are seeing horses being tethered all across the country, potentially leaving them open to neglect, cruelty and abuse, and potentially posing a danger to the people around them, too.​

    Tethering is not deemed enough of a breach of the Animal Welfare Act to allow horse charities to intervene. A tethered horse also does not have the freedom to interact with its own species, as the Act says it should. Leaving horses isolated has been shown to increase stress levels and stress-related hormones, which can cause them to display stereotypical behaviours that cause physical and psychological harm.

    Stereotypical behaviours are strongly linked to isolated horses; stabled horses tend to perform behaviours that engage with the stable around them, such as crib biting or weaving. Horses that are tethered long term have a total lack of environmental stimuli, so they are much more likely to develop stereotypical behaviours such as pacing or self-mutilation. This clearly raises questions about the clarity of the existing legislation and regulations on the grounds for removing a horse from a tether and on the capacity of law enforcers to act.

    Long-term tethering is in direct conflict with legislation, yet in many instances authorities have not felt that the Animal Welfare Act is strong enough grounds to rescue horses, despite the obvious suffering. It is therefore my belief, and the belief of the charity that initiated this campaign, that the Act needs to be amended to state explicitly what constitutes inappropriate tethering.

    One of the reasons why this is such an emotive subject is the location of tethered horses. As I said earlier, the main purpose of long-term tethering is free grazing, so horses end up on any strip of grass available, with the roadside, grass verges and even the middle of roundabouts, as we have seen in south Gloucestershire, being popular choices. It goes without saying that this is not remotely appropriate. Horses are easily spooked by traffic, and if the tether were to fail, there would be a loose horse on the road.

    Advances in equine and animal science mean that we are much more able to understand what constitutes poor welfare, but our laws have not caught up with that deeper understanding. When I met HorseWorld staff, who are so passionate about what they do, I was told about a pregnant mare that escaped her tether and got on to a busy A road, where she narrowly avoided being hit by a lorry. Police had to attend the scene to monitor the horse until HorseWorld could assemble a team at 3 am. If the tethering laws were stricter, the lives of the mare and her unborn foal would not have been risked, a lorry driver would not have had to make an emergency stop on a main road and numerous hours of police time would not have been wasted.

    That leads me on to my second point, which has been raised by other equine welfare charities in a number of reports: only appointed animal welfare officers or police constables have the authority to seize an animal. However, councils are in no way mandated to employ an animal welfare officer, so many choose not to do so. Our understanding is that as many as 40% of councils do not employ an animal welfare officer. In these areas, the police are the only organisation that has the power to rescue an animal from a situation where its welfare is compromised. I therefore ask the Minister to update us on what steps he is taking to gain a deeper understanding of the depth of the problem. The result of this situation is that police time is being spent attending horse rescues, which often just involves hours spent holding a horse at the side of the road when it had got on to the road. Only a police constable, once contacted, can authorise a ​charity to remove a horse. It is clear from written parliamentary questions I have tabled that the Government have no idea about the amount of police time that is spent dealing with these incidents. Clearly, police time can be better spent in the community. Having clarity over who should be dealing with equine welfare complaints will reduce the time that it takes to deal with them and will save the lives of animals. The councils that do employ animal welfare officers need to ensure that they are trained to handle horses. That could easily be achieved by collaborating with voluntary organisations.

    Let me now address what needs to change. In the past, DEFRA Ministers have said that the current legislation appropriately meets the needs of tethered horses. The 19,000 people who signed a petition to get the tethered horses rescued from Rovers Way in Cardiff would disagree. The 12,000 people who have emailed their MPs about getting tethering laws tightened would disagree. I also think that all the experts who have been in touch with me and the voluntary organisations calling for stricter laws on tethering would also disagree.

    There are therefore four changes that I would like to see incorporated into the 2006 Act to improve the lives of horses. The first is that there should be a 24-hour legal limit on how long horses can be tethered for. That is important, because DEFRA’s code of practice states that long-term tethering is inappropriate. That needs to be clarified, backed up and given status in law. The second is that there needs to be a complete ban on tethering horses on the roadside or in dangerous locations. The third is that if a tether is someone’s only method of keeping an animal, they should not be allowed to keep that animal. The fourth is to make it a mandatory duty for local councils to employ an animal welfare officer or to ensure that arrangements are in place with neighbouring authorities to ensure that those officers are in place.

    There is currently too much room for interpretation within the legislation. It needs to be clear-cut that long-term tethering infringes on equine welfare, leaving horses at risk of harm and suffering. We need to give the relevant authorities the means and confidence to rescue horses that desperately need protection. We need to step up and take action to protect these most majestic and iconic animals. Making these changes will protect thousands of horses across our country. Minister, please help us and break the chain.

  • John Bercow – 2019 Statement on PC Keith Palmer

    Below is the text of the statement made by John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, on 21 February 2019.

    I have a short statement to make about PC Keith Palmer, who tragically died on 22 March 2017. PC Palmer was nothing short of a hero, in the way in which he ran towards danger to ensure the safety of us all on that day. He paid the ultimate price for doing the job that he loved, and we owe him a profound debt of gratitude for his bravery. Yesterday afternoon, the Police Memorial Trust placed a permanent memorial to PC Palmer at Carriage Gates. Not only will it serve as a lasting tribute to his dedication and courage, but it will ensure that visitors to Parliament never forget his sacrifice and heroism.

  • David Mundell – 2019 Speech on Devolution

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Mundell, the Secretary of State for Scotland, on 21 February 2019.

    Ladies and gentlemen.

    On August 7, 1885, the Conservative Prime Minister Lord Salisbury wrote to the Duke of Richmond to offer him the newly-created post of Scottish Secretary.

    He said the work ‘is not heavy’ but warned that expectations were high.

    He went on to suggest ‘the effulgence of two dukedoms and the best salmon river in Scotland’ would go a long way to meeting those expectations.

    Thankfully, the qualifications for the job have changed since then.

    I can boast neither a splendid dukedom nor a salmon river.

    I can, however, attest that expectations remain high. So perhaps not everything has changed.

    This year marks 20 years since devolution and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament.

    I believe this is a good moment to take stock.

    It is a good moment to consider what Scotland’s expectations are today, from a system which gives us two parliaments and two governments.

    I don’t intend to provide a detailed chronology of devolution, and certainly not a history of the office of Secretary of State for Scotland.

    The key developments over the past 20 years are familiar to us.

    A referendum in 1997, the Act in 1998 and a parliament up and running barely six months later.

    A further Scotland Act in 2012 gave Holyrood the power to set a Scottish rate of income tax, replace Stamp Duty and borrow more money.

    And in 2016 an even more wide-ranging Scotland Act was passed, creating significant new income tax powers and transferring responsibility for a large swathe of welfare provision.

    So rather than dwell on the detail, I want to consider how devolution works, how it can be strengthened as we leave the EU, and how relations between our two governments must adapt and develop in future.

    But first, let me declare an interest.

    I am a passionate supporter of devolution. I was proud to be elected as an MSP in that first intake in May 1999.

    As an MP and, by then, a minister in the Scotland Office, I played my part in delivering the 2012 Act. As Secretary of State for Scotland, it was an immense privilege to take the 2016 Act through Parliament.

    Two decades on from the first Scotland Act, Holyrood has become one of the most powerful devolved parliaments in the world. Power and accountability are better balanced than ever before. And, to borrow a word bandied more frequently by my political opponents, devolution has a stronger mandate than ever before.

    The vote in 1997 was re-affirmed by our decision in 2014 to remain part of the UK. And in the 2017 general election there was overwhelming support for devolutionist parties:

    …Support for a strong Scottish Parliament within the UK.

    …Where the UK’s strengths – our internal market, our global reach – are Scotland’s strengths.

    …Where decisions affecting only Scotland are taken at Holyrood by MSPs…

    …But where decisions affecting the whole UK are taken at Westminster by MPs, including, of course, 59 MPs from Scotland.

    Devolution is about striking a balance and I believe the balance now achieved is a good one.

    Today, the fiercest debates at Holyrood are about tax decisions; about how to raise money as much as how to spend it. That accountability has to be a good thing.

    I do not support the Scottish Government’s decisions on income tax, making Scotland the most highly taxed part of the UK. I’m not impressed by the idea of taxing people £500 to park at work.

    But I support Holyrood’s power to make these choices, the accountability it brings and the debate it provokes.

    And as the Scottish Government begins to use new welfare powers in the years ahead I look forward to the debate at Holyrood focusing on the difficult decisions that will entail.

    That, then, is my starting point.

    Devolution has proved itself flexible and responsive – a ‘process not an event’ as Donald Dewar said back in 1999. After 20 years I believe the settlement is strong. And I believe the principles that lie behind it are more widely accepted than ever.

    I reject completely the argument put forward by opponents of devolution that it has been crushed by Brexit:

    …That the settlement has been undermined by the return of powers from Brussels.

    …Even, that Holyrood has been victim of a pernicious ‘power grab’.

    Let me tackle these myths head on.

    They rest on two misunderstandings – about the 1998 Scotland Act itself and about one of the early conventions that supports it, the Sewel Convention, which says the UK Parliament will not normally pass legislation in a devolved area without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.

    Firstly, it has been claimed that devolution is broken because the UK’s EU Withdrawal Act 2018 was passed despite legislative consent being withheld by the Scottish Parliament.

    It was claimed that the Sewel Convention was breached or, if it hadn’t been breached, it was not fit for purpose and must be changed.

    Lord Sewel himself answered the first point, judging clearly that the Convention was adhered to.

    And the Scottish Government’s own Brexit minister said “these are not normal times”.

    In fact, the Sewel Convention remains an essential element in the devolution settlement.

    The UK Government continues to seek legislative consent for Bills that interact with devolution.

    We work with the Scottish Government clause by clause in an effort to reach agreement.

    I was pleased the Scottish Government agreed to recommend consent for our Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill – legislation which will allow the UK Government to continue to fund healthcare for Scots who have retired to or are working in the EU.

    I hope consent for other Brexit-related Bills will also be forthcoming – despite the Scottish Government’s stated position to oppose them.

    As things stand, the EU Withdrawal Act is the only piece of legislation in 20 years to be passed at Westminster after consent was withheld at Holyrood.

    I believe that is a sign of Sewel’s success and not its failure.

    The second myth is that of the ‘power grab’.

    Now, to listen to the rhetoric coming from some of my political opponents, you could be forgiven for thinking that Holyrood is being stripped of a whole raft of powers it currently exercises.

    It is complete fantasy; an invented grievance.

    The reality is that more than 100 powers previously exercised in Brussels will transfer to Edinburgh.

    These will transfer directly to the Scottish Parliament on the day we leave the EU.

    Some powers will be exercised within new UK-wide frameworks, where the UK Government and devolved administrations agree to do so.

    They are in areas such as animal health and welfare, food labelling, and chemical and pesticide regulations. Areas where the UK Government and the devolved administrations have already agreed it makes sense to take a UK approach.

    Progress towards establishing these arrangements between the UK and Scottish Governments has been good, as our latest report to Parliament on the issue makes absolutely clear.

    To characterise this process as a ‘power grab’ is nonsense. Holyrood is losing none of its existing powers and is gaining significant new powers as a result of Brexit.

    What these myths amount to is an attempt to undermine devolution – to sweep away the ’98 settlement – by people who do not support devolution because they want independence. We should not be surprised by that.

    We should remain deeply suspicious when opponents of devolution try to present themselves as its champions and protectors.

    Now, to be clear, I’m not arguing devolution is perfect or that it should be frozen in time. Devolution’s adaptability is a strength and will remain so in future.

    The 2016 powers are already having a positive effect at Holyrood and Brexit will bring further responsibility.

    It will also raise fresh questions about intergovernmental relations – how our governments work together.

    As we leave the EU, I believe these questions – more so than powers – will become pressing.

    In the years ahead, our two governments – and the devolved administrations elsewhere in the UK – will need to work more closely than ever before.

    We will need to manage our new UK regulatory frameworks. We will need structures that work – that respect devolution and encourage collaboration.

    I’m pleased to say that work on this is underway.

    Last year a Joint Ministerial Committee, chaired by the Prime Minister and attended by the First Minister, agreed to commission a review of intergovernmental relations. I’m confident this work can point the way to improved joint working. Not least because we have a lot to build upon.

    Sometimes, Scottish Government ministers claim that relations between the UK and Scottish governments are at their lowest ebb. This is simply not true.

    (In my experience, they were at their rockiest in 2014, as the Scottish Government’s former Permanent Secretary, Sir Peter Housden, confirmed.)

    To date there have been 16 meetings of the JMC (EN), a ministerial forum specially created to shape our approach to leaving the EU, with meetings scheduled monthly. This is a crucial mechanism by which we engage with the DAs. The set of principles that will guide the development of UK frameworks were forged in the JMC (EN).

    Behind the scenes, officials from the two governments are working well together on Brexit-related legislation and Brexit preparations on a daily basis.

    Earlier this year, the Prime Minister took the decision to invite the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales to attend meetings of a key new cabinet sub-committee co-ordinating Brexit preparations.

    In addition, our review of intergovernmental relations will look at the principles which should underpin our working relationships; at the machinery of devolution – whether we need new forums or new JMC bodies; and at how we should resolve disputes in future.

    It is very much a live issue.

    I’m pleased that Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster are conducting their own inquiry into intergovernmental relations:

    …even if, so far at least, it seems to have focused on calls for the role Secretary of State for Scotland to be abolished.

    As you can imagine, I am looking forward to presenting an alternative perspective when I give evidence in due course.

    I actually believe the Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland will become more, not less, important, as we enter the post-Brexit devolution world and a more complex era of intergovernmental relations.

    The role of promoting the work of the UK Government in Scotland, and giving voice to Scottish concerns around the Cabinet table, will be more critical than ever.

    The reasons for that are clear.

    Just as Holyrood will need to adapt to the wealth of new powers at its disposal, so the UK Government will have to consider its changing role in the new landscape:

    …The UK Government must and will remain prominent in Scotland.

    …The UK Government must and will remain central to Scotland’s story.

    We must continually re-affirm our support for devolution and demonstrate our contribution to the lives of those represented by our MPs.

    Failure to do so would be a failure to deliver on the result of two referendums – the 1997 vote in favour of a Scottish Parliament and 2014 decision to reject independence.

    When our opponents try to talk the UK down we should remind them of the things Scots value:

    …The pooling and sharing of resources which support our public services;

    …The finest armed forces in the world. Including a Royal Navy filling the Clyde’s order book until 2030.

    …Pensions they can rely upon.

    …A record on international aid that any country in the world should be proud of.

    The list goes on.

    But the UK Government can and should be doing even more.

    In an important speech in Glasgow, the Prime Minister called a halt to what she described as a process of ‘devolve and forget’.

    …The idea that because health, say, or education, or culture in Scotland are devolved to the Scottish Government, the UK Government no longer cares about them.

    The Prime Minister was very clear. As Prime Minister for the whole of the UK, she said the educational attainment of 10-year-olds in Dundee was as important to her as that of their peers in Doncaster.

    Predictably, this was deliberately misinterpreted in some quarters as another kind of power grab. It was nothing of sort. It was an appeal for more collaboration, for better joint working, for learning from each other. In other words, for more effective devolution.

    I believe she was right to assert the UK Government’s interest in all parts of people’s lives in Scotland.

    And I believe now is the time to build on that. We are already seeing this happen in the UK Government’s £1billion-plus Growth Deal programme in Scotland.

    UK investment is mostly spent in the reserved sphere, on things like research and development. But not exclusively so. Cultural projects, such as Edinburgh’s exciting new concert hall development or Stirling’s national tartan centre, will also benefit from UK Government investment.

    There are already examples of areas where devolved policy areas interact with reserved matters – in foreign trade, for example – where the Scottish Government’s agency Scottish Development International works alongside the UK Government’s Department for International Trade.

    Or, in overseas aid, where Scottish Government support for projects in Malawi augments the UK effort.

    Going forward, I want to see Scotland’s two governments working closely together for the benefit of people in Scotland.

    The UK Shared Prosperity Fund – which will fill the space left by EU structural funds post-Brexit – should provide an opportunity for both governments to collaborate on transformational projects across Scotland, from the Borders to the Highlands and Islands.

    Scotland would be ill-served if one government could not add to the work being done by another. The time is right for this. Scots expect their two governments to work together and politicians on all sides accept the need to work together.

    Twenty years on, devolution is indeed the settled will of the people of Scotland.

    The settlement has proved itself adaptable and is strong.

    Our system of two governments and two parliaments has held up to scrutiny – endorsed by one and then a second referendum.

    The people who claim Brexit has broken devolution are the people who WANT Brexit to break devolution;

    …Who see Brexit not in terms of securing the right deal for Scotland but as an opportunity to tear Scotland out of the UK.

    …A position, of course, that has been rejected by not one but two referendums.

    I do not believe Brexit will damage devolution.

    I want it to strengthen devolution, and I believe that can and will happen.

    Leaving the EU will bring new powers to Holyrood and new responsibilities to the Scottish Government.

    But the UK Government is also being challenged to adapt to the new, post-Brexit era of devolution.

    I’m confident we WILL meet the challenge;

    …That we WILL foster a relationship of mutual respect between Westminster and Holyrood.

    …That we WILL find ourselves using new ways to improve the daily lives of those we serve.

    We’ll do it because, like the majority of Scots, we believe in devolution. And we have a duty to deliver all that it offers for Scotland.