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  • Theresa May – 2018 Speech at Women MPs of the World Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Prime Minister, at a reception of the Women MPs of the World conference on 7 November 2018.

    Good evening everyone, and a very warm welcome to Downing Street for what is a very special event.

    The women here tonight come from many nations, many cultures and many backgrounds. We have lived very different lives, we hold different political beliefs, but each of us have answered the unique calling that is public service. And we all have the privilege of serving our communities and our countries in our national legislatures.

    Here in the UK, women have been allowed to do that for just 100 years – later this month will see the centenary of the law being changed to allow women to stand for Parliament. A year from now we will also mark the 100th anniversary of Nancy Astor becoming the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons.

    Celebrating is something we should be doing this evening. Because today, 2018, we see more female members of parliaments and legislative assemblies around the world than there have ever been.

    And that is good news for all of the citizens we serve.

    More women in elected office means a greater voice speaking out on issues that affect women, certainly. It also means a greater focus on preventing gender-based violence, on girls’ education, on childcare and on women’s health.

    One of my proudest achievements as Home Secretary was passing the Modern Slavery Act, which makes a real difference in the fight to protect women and girls.

    And as Minister for Women and Equalities I was delighted to change the law on parental leave so that both parents are able to take on caring responsibilities for their child – something I’d long campaigned for in opposition.

    But the benefits of a more equal parliament are also felt more widely. After all, if half the population is systematically excluded from politics them you’re excluding half the talent.

    A parliament where women are a rare sight is a parliament working with one hand tied behind its back; a more representative parliament leads to better decision making, better politics and ultimately better government.

    So we should absolutely celebrate the progress that has been made, and the number of women who now have a place in their nation’s parliament. And we should remember that it has not come about by accident. It is the result of many years of effort by people around the world.

    That includes one of the women who has been instrumental in helping to deliver tomorrow’s conference, Harriet Harman MP.

    Harriet has been an MP for 36 years – she won’t mind me saying. She has spent much of that time battling to make Parliament a better, more accessible workplace for women. And although we certainly have our differences, Harriet, I want to thank you for all you have done –and continue to do – to support the cause of women in politics.

    In 2010 I took over from Harriet as Minister for Women and Equalities. And I want to thank the present Minister, Penny Mordaunt, for everything she has done in making tomorrow’s conference possible – and for everything she is doing, as Secretary of State for International Development, promoting women’s participation in politics at home and around the world.

    While we celebrate how far we have come, we should not lose sight of the fact that there is still a long way to go. Women make up half the world’s population but barely a quarter of its nationally elected representatives.

    If we want to see that improve in our lifetimes, then it’s not enough to simply stand by and wait for change to happen. We have to make it happen. And I’m absolutely committed to doing just that.

    Back in 2005, here in the UK, I co-founded an organisation called Women2Win, aimed at giving more women the tools and networks they need to be selected as candidates in my party.

    It’s not about positive discrimination, but creating a level playing field – and it’s making a real difference.

    When I first entered the Commons I was one of only 13 female MPs in my party. Today there are 67 of us, and I’m immensely proud at how many have benefited from the support of Women2Win’s.

    As a government, we are funding nationwide programmes aimed at getting more women and girls interested in politics here in the UK.

    And worldwide our Department for International Development is working to empower women in political life.

    In Sierra Leone we’ve worked with groups including the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to run a voter education campaign for women.

    In Nigeria, the Women in Politics programme has helped establish a Women’s Caucus in Abuja’s National Assembly.

    And in Pakistan, a UK-funded voter registration drive signed up more than 400,000 women ahead of this year’s general election.

    By doing so we’re helping to give women in the UK and around the world a greater voice – and we’re not alone in such efforts. From Ireland’s Inspire to India’s Girls Parliament, people and programmes are working to get more women and girls interested in politics, asking them to stand, and supporting them to win.

    Getting elected is only half the battle. We also have to make the system work once we are a part of it – and doing so in what is often a male-dominated and male-oriented environment is not always easy.

    So I hope that tomorrow’s conference, by giving you the opportunity to share ideas and insights, will enable you to learn from one another. Because, together, we can overcome challenges, and can get on with what we got into this business to do: contributing to society, responding to the needs of local constituents and making a real difference to people’s lives.

    It’s the ability to do that – to make a difference – that makes being an member of parliament the best job in the world. It’s a privilege we all enjoy, and one I’d like many more women and girls around the world to aspire to.

    In the words of the great British suffragist Millicent Fawcett, whose statue took its rightful place in Parliament Square this year, she said, “courage calls to courage everywhere”. So regardless of affiliation or ideology, let’s all work together, let’s learn from each other, let’s build the networks that will allow us to succeed.

    And let’s make sure women and girls know that whatever their views, whatever their party, whatever others may say, a woman’s place is in elected office.

  • Matt Hancock – 2018 Speech to the King’s Fund

    Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health, to the King’s Fund on 6 November 2018.

    I love my job. I get to see brilliant doctors and inspirational nurses, courageous paramedics and committed carers. I get to meet people who save lives each and every day.

    Yet, there were some perks to being Culture Secretary. You’d get to go to the Tate, the National, the Royal Opera House for work. You’d get to rub shoulders with the likes of Grayson Perry, Anthony Gormley and even the legendary Ronnie Wood.

    Although, when Ronnie offered me a little pick-me-up at the Brits, I was surprised, and mightily relieved, when he handed me a mini Babybel.

    “Minister caught in cheese scandal” isn’t quite a career ending headline.

    We know what the NHS does is life-saving. But what the arts and social activities do is life-enhancing. You might get by in a world without the arts, but it isn’t a world that any of us would choose to live in.

    As the great Chinese philosopher Confucius said: “Music produces a kind of pleasure, which human nature cannot do without.”

    And as the great Rolling Stones said: “I can’t get no, oh, no, no, no, I can’t get no satisfaction.”

    Music and the arts aren’t just the foods of love. They’re not just right in their own terms as the search for truth and expression of the human condition.

    We shouldn’t only value them for the role they play in bringing meaning and dignity to our lives. We should value the arts and social activities because they’re essential to our health and wellbeing.

    And that’s not me as a former Culture Secretary saying it. It’s scientifically proven. Access to the arts and social activities improves people’s mental and physical health. It makes us happier and healthier.

    So that’s what I want to talk about today: how we can harness the incredible power of the arts and social activities to improve the nation’s health and wellbeing.

    How the arts and social activities can help us move to more person-centred care and a focus on prevention as much as cure. And how social prescribing can shape our health and social care system in the future.

    First: the power of the arts and social activities.

    Now, I must pay tribute to Ed Vaizey for all his work in this field, and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing for their Creative Health report, which applied some much needed rigorous analysis to the research.

    And what they found is:

    the arts and social activities can help keep us well, aid our recovery, and support longer lives better lived

    the arts and social activities can help meet major challenges facing health and social care – ageing, loneliness, mental health, and other long-term conditions

    and, the arts and social activities can help save money for the NHS and social care system

    One project, a collaboration between the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Hull’s stroke recovery service, used music sessions to help people after they’d had a stroke.

    And what they found is through learning to play instruments, trying conducting, and eventually performing as part of an orchestra, nearly 90% of stroke patients felt better physically, with fewer dizzy spells and epileptic seizures, less anxiety, improved sleep, improved concentration and memory, better morale and more confidence.

    That was just one study. Others across the country have seen similar successes.

    In Lambeth, in south London, The Alchemy Project used dance as an early intervention against psychosis. The young people, who worked with dance experts, showed major improvements in concentration, communication, and wellbeing.

    In Gloucestershire, hospitals are now referring patients with lung conditions to singing sessions. Sounds counter-intuitive? But no. Singing helps people, even with chronic lung conditions.

    In my home county of Cheshire, Halton has now created a “Cultural Manifesto for Wellbeing”. Sounds grandiose, but it’s simple ideas like connecting school choirs to every local care home in the borough.

    Simple ideas like the Southbank Centre using working poets to run a poetry course for people with dementia and their families.

    Or the music therapy charity Nordoff Robbins, which helps children with autism communicate, people with dementia feel less anxious, and provided comfort to people facing terminal illness. Last year alone, they helped almost 8,000 people.

    So those are just some of the examples of how the arts have benefited health. And we must remember this is still a very new medical field. Social prescribing only really started about 5 years ago.

    Just the other day, Canada announced that it was going to start prescribing free museum visits to patients. Well, we’re lucky enough to have some of the world’s best museums for free, here in London.

    But we need to ensure that the people who may benefit most, are aware of what’s available and that they’re accessible.

    As Culture Secretary, one of the biggest challenges remains to change the perception of the arts as elitist or inaccessible, something I know is a personal priority for the new Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright.

    And, I think this is a challenge we also have to overcome with arts and health and social prescribing. The arts are for everyone. And what pleased me most about Lord Howarth’s work with the APPG, what had the biggest positive effect, the common theme running through all the creative fields from literature, to music, to art is: personal creativity.

    Taking part. Having a go. Dusting off forgotten skills. Or learning new ones.

    So social prescribing isn’t about prescribing tickets to Hamilton or seeing a Titian at the National Gallery, as fun as they both may be. It’s about what’s right for you. What fits.

    Don’t like opera? Fine. The doctor isn’t going to force you to sit through 17 hours of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Unless that doctor happens to be Michael Gove.

    It’s about what works for you. How you can participate in the arts to improve your health. It’s about moving from patient-centred care to person-centred care. Stopping people from becoming patients in the first place. Which is the second thing I want to talk about today.

    Right now, my department is working with the NHS to draw up a long-term plan for the future of our health and social care system.

    The reasons are twofold:

    we’re putting a record £20.5 billion extra a year into the NHS over the next 5 years, so we have to ensure we get the best possible return, and every penny of taxpayer’s money is well spent

    and, society is changing ‒ we’re living longer, our needs are becoming more complex, our expectations of public services are growing; at least 20% of GP consultations are now due to things like housing, employment and relationship breakdowns

    Now, those things may appear unrelated to health, but they’re not. It’s why yesterday I launched a new focus on prevention for our health and social care system. It’s one of my top 3 priorities, along with technology and workforce.

    Because if we want to get prevention right, we must move to person-centred care. And this is how we do it:

    by giving people the knowledge, skills and confidence to take responsibility for their own health

    by using new digital technologies to help people make informed decisions, work with healthcare professionals, to choose the services they need, when they need them

    So, I see social prescribing as fundamental to prevention. And I see prevention as fundamental to the future of the NHS.

    For too long we’ve been fostering a culture that’s popping pills and Prozac, when what we should be doing is more prevention and perspiration.

    Social prescribing can help us combat over-medicalising people. Of dishing out drugs when it isn’t what’s best for the patient. And it won’t solve their problem.

    Social prescribing is a tool that doctors can use to help them, help patients and help the NHS cut waste.

    It’s the Goldilocks approach to medication: the right amount at the right time. No more, no less.

    So under my vision for prevention, I see social prescribing growing in importance, becoming an indispensable tool for GPs, just like a thermometer or a stethoscope may be seen today.

    And, together with a greater focus on diet, exercise, stopping smoking and excessive alcohol consumption, and greater mental health support, how we move to more person-centred care, and build a health and social care system for the future.

    So, finally, let me turn to the social prescribing ideas that we’re looking at together with the Arts Council and DCMS.

    First, social prescribing through libraries. There are nearly 3,000 libraries in England. Many of them already do great work in helping people become better informed patients so they can better manage their own health.

    What we’re looking at is if more libraries can offer health services, and if we can expand the existing health services libraries already offer.

    Norfolk’s Healthy Libraries Initiative is a great example of libraries being used for stop smoking and healthy living sessions.

    But if we can connect even more libraries to GP surgeries and primary and community care services, and increase training for librarians on social prescription referrals, then we could reach even more people, and make libraries even more vital and valued to their local communities.

    So things like: dance classes for elderly people, choirs for loneliness and mental health reading groups. Using our libraries and librarians to intervene earlier and improve public health.

    Second, we’re looking at how music can help people with dementia. How it can reduce the need for medication. How it can reduce agitation and combative behaviour. How it can reduce the need for restraints and help people with dementia, and their families, cope better with symptoms.

    And I must pay tribute to the pioneering work of the charity Playlist for Life. Their work creating personal playlists for people with dementia led to a 60% reduction in the need for psychotropic medication at one care home.

    This is the kind of cheap, easy-to-use social prescription that I’m fully behind. Because dementia is one of the major health challenges we face for the future. The number of people with dementia is set to rise from 850,000 today to more than a million in less than a decade. Personal playlists could offer a simple solution to this growing problem.

    And third, we will create a National Academy for Social Prescribing to be the champion of, build the research base, and set out the benefits of social prescribing across the board, from the arts to physical exercise, to nutritional advice and community classes. A resource which GPs and other frontline health workers can draw on for guidance and expertise. Where they can learn what works, and what’s available in their communities.

    Because social prescription reduces over subscription of drugs. It can lead to the same or better outcomes for patients without popping pills. And it saves the NHS money, because many of these social cures are cheaper or free.

    Now, drug companies may not like that. And you can bet this multi-billion pound industry will use every tool at their disposal to lobby for the status quo and convince us drugs are better than free social cures. That’s why we need a National Academy for Social Prescribing to be a champion for non-drug treatments. And it’s the role of the state to sponsor the treatments that are often cheaper, better for patients, and better for society.

    Now, I remain open to any idea. I’m not wedded to any one model. What’s most important is what’s proven to work. And my department will work with NHS trusts, providers, staff and with colleagues from DCMS and Arts Council England, so we can share our expertise and learn from each other.

    Social prescription is about making better use of what we already have. About making the arts and social activities more accessible.

    We’re the country of Shakespeare, The Beatles, Harry Potter and Harry Kane’s right foot.

    But we’re also a country of community choirs, reading circles and the Bury St Edmond’s Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society, which you’ll find in my wonderful constituency of West Suffolk.

    People coming together. Taking part in arts and social activities, getting involved in something that’s good for our health and good for society.

    Arts, social activities and health in action. Life saving, life enhancing, making life worth living. So let’s work together to make it happen.

  • Prince Charles – 2018 Commonwealth Speech

    Below is the text of the speech made by Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, in Accra, Ghana, on 5 November 2018.

    Mr. President, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

    It gives me particular pleasure to be able to speak to all of you this morning and apart from anything else to be back in Ghana after all these years. My wife and I have had the most special time in the country here over the past few days and we have been so deeply touched by the wonderfully warm welcome we have received wherever we have been. In fact so warm it’s taking some time for my blood to thin.

    And I can scarcely believe that so much time has passed since I first set foot in this fascinating land back in 1977 when, believe it or not, I was only twenty-eight years old and Ghana, too, was young, having just completed her first two decades of independence.

    Although I am afraid it has taken me far too long to return, I can assure you that I have been following Ghana’s story closely and, like so many other people, I have been profoundly impressed by the remarkable course that Ghana has taken.

    Over these past years, your country, ladies and gentlemen torment if I may say so, has become an example to other nations. It has given its citizens stability and security, with strong democratic institutions, free and fair elections and the peaceful transition of power, in a vibrant multi-party, multi-faith democracy. At the same time, Ghana’s civil society has thrived and its N.G.O.s, its trades unions and professional associations are now among the most active and engaged in the region. I know, too, that Ghana’s traditional leaders – some of whom, including the Asantehene and Okyenhene, I have had the great pleasure of meeting again on this visit – continue to have a vital and influential voice in your national discourse.

    Underpinning all of this, it seems to me, are Ghana’s deeply-held values of tolerance and inclusion which are embedded in your traditional culture and enshrined in your constitutional protection of free speech and freedom of religious expression. While, elsewhere, diversity has fuelled division and conflict, in Ghana it has been an enduring source of strength and national pride.

    Ghana has also become a force for good in the world. For over fifty years she has made a much-valued contribution to United Nations Peace-keeping operations, with Ghanaian armed servicemen and women, police officers and civilians making a vital difference to the maintenance of international peace and security and helping to create the conditions for sustainable development in countries stricken by conflict.

    Here, Mr. President, if I may, I would like to take the opportunity to pay a special tribute to the memory of that proud son of Ghana, Mr. Kofi Annan, whose recent loss has been so keenly felt by people throughout this country and indeed across the World. I had the particular pleasure of meeting Mr. Annan on numerous occasions, and have the greatest respect for his moral conviction, his strong sense of justice and his quiet determination to confront the world’s most urgent challenges. He will long be remembered by all those who knew him, and by countless others whose lives he touched.

    Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, the histories of our two nations are, I know, closely intertwined, and while today we enjoy shared opportunity, we can never forget that our past has sometimes borne witness to tragedy and loss and, at times, profound injustice. At Osu Castle on Saturday, it was especially important to me – as indeed it was on my first visit there forty-one years ago – that I should acknowledge the most painful chapter of Ghana’s relations with the nations of Europe, including the United Kingdom. The appalling atrocity of the slave trade, and the unimaginable suffering it caused, left an indelible stain on the history of our world.

    While Britain can be proud that it later led the way in the abolition of this shameful trade, we have a shared responsibility to ensure that the abject horror of slavery is never forgotten, that we abhor the existence of modern slavery and that we robustly promote and defend the values which today make it incomprehensible, to most of us, that human beings could ever treat each other with such utter inhumanity.

    At other points in our history, our two nations have suffered and toiled alongside each other. At the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery on Friday afternoon, I was honoured to join you, Mr. President, in remembering the bravery and sacrifice of troops from Ghana, and from across West Africa, who made such a vital contribution in the First and Second World Wars. In the First World War alone, a staggering 200,000 soldiers from West Africa supported the Allied effort and 30,000 of them lost their lives. During the Second World War, some 65,000 Ghanaians served in the Royal West African Frontier Force, in operational theatres stretching from East Africa to modern day Burma. I need hardly say, therefore, how special it was for my wife and I to meet some of those surviving veterans during this visit.

    Now as we mark the Centenary next month of the end of the First World War, it is so very important that we remember all those who fought – wherever they came from and wherever they served – and that we honour the immense sacrifice that so many of them made.

    Today, Ladies and Gentlemen, the United Kingdom and Ghana enjoy a dynamic partnership of equals, anchored in our shared experience but looking to a shared future. We share the same language, the same legal system, the same values – and a strong trading relationship that is worth over one billion dollars.

    You will not be surprised to hear that I have been very pleased to see, over these past few days, the many ways in which the United Kingdom has been helping to make a difference in Ghana whether through the private, government or N.G.O. sectors. But this is a two-way relationship, and the influence of Ghana, and of people of Ghanaian heritage, in the United Kingdom is extensive and vital too – whether in the arts, fashion, music, technology, business, academia or, of course, sport.

    There is, it seems to me, no greater example and demonstration of the bond between our two countries than the 250,000 men and women of Ghanaian descent who live in the United Kingdom and make such an indispensable contribution to our society and our economy.

    Many of these tremendously successful individuals are both British and Ghanaian and play active roles in the lives of both our countries. They act as a bridge between us, across which travel the ideas, creativity and talent that fuel our shared prosperity and help shape our identity.

    Shortly before we set off on this Tour, my wife and I were delighted to host a Reception, at St. James’s Palace in London, to celebrate the contribution to British life of the West African diaspora communities in the United Kingdom. We were joined by many famous faces and leaders in their fields, but also by nurses, police officers, armed forces personnel, teachers and other men and women who make such an indescribable difference to our country.

    These diaspora communities – as with the British Asian communities, or those whose roots are in the Caribbean – are one of our contemporary society’s greatest assets – and one in which I have nothing but the most enormous pride. They offer a powerful demonstration of Britain’s place within our remarkable Commonwealth family, of the shared opportunities it represents, and of everything that binds us together in a changing world.

    Next year of course we will celebrate the Commonwealth’s seventieth birthday. The Commonwealth, therefore, is just a few months younger than I am myself and has lasted a great deal better – as you can probably see for yourself ladies and gentlemen – and therefore so has been a fundamental feature of my life for as long as I can remember. Over these seven decades, the Commonwealth has built upon its firm foundation of shared experience and common values to strive for a more prosperous and more secure future for the 2.4 billion people who call the Commonwealth home. The past seventy years have brought global change on an unprecedented scale, with challenges and opportunities that could never have been anticipated in 1949. All the while, the Commonwealth has been a constant – a common point of reference by which its members have navigated the ever-changing tides of an uncertain world.

    Ghana has played an active and influential role in the Commonwealth ever since becoming, in 1957, the first newly independent African country to join. President Kwame Nkrumah, of whom I have vivid memories of meeting when he visited the U.K. in the 1960’s, played a key role in the forced withdrawal of apartheid South Africa from the Commonwealth in 1961 and, later, was instrumental in the establishment of the Commonwealth Secretariat in 1965.

    Today, Ghana continues to play an influential role. At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London in April, during which I had the great pleasure of sitting next to you, Mr. President, at The Queen’s Banquet, Ghana lent its voice to commitments, among other things, on education, gender equality, clean oceans, cyber security and more.

    I know, Mr. President, that you share my determination that the Commonwealth should strive for renewed relevance in the lives of its citizens and should draw upon its unparalleled networks of professional expertise to offer practical solutions to some of the most pressing challenges of our time, many of which are increasingly deep-seated and deeply integrated.

    No issue is more pressing, it seems to me, than that of climate change.The recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which provided stark and alarming evidence that even 1.5 degrees of warming will mean catastrophic damage to the planet’s ecosystems, sent a clear signal that we must all surely heed. The impact of such alarmingly dangerous climate change is, of course, a really major risk multiplier for it exacerbates the increasing fragility of the world’s natural capital, on which we are all totally dependent and the resilience of which has been substantially undermined by decades of over-exploitation.

    I am afraid, Ladies and Gentlemen, that the impacts of climate change global warming are already being felt by far too many Commonwealth citizens, not least through the devastation that is wrought, ever more frequently, by the terrifying hurricanes and cyclones to which our small island states, in particular, are so horrifyingly vulnerable. In November last year I visited the Caribbean islands of Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and the British Virgin Islands, after previously visiting Malaysia Singapore and Indonesia, to show my support to those communities as they struggled with the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria; and earlier this year, I visited Vanuatu, in the Pacific, to see how they were recovering from Cyclone Pam, which wreaked havoc across that archipelago. Although, in each of these island states, I encountered a strength of spirit and resilience that was profoundly humbling, with the existential threat of climate-induced catastrophe growing ever more real, one has to wonder what the future holds.

    I know, of course, that the effects of climate change are being felt every day by people across this continent as well, with increasingly erratic weather patterns representing a growing threat to food security and triggering the mass migration of millions of people. It is profoundly worrying, for instance, that Lake Chad is today just one tenth the size it was only a few decades ago – a catastrophic shrinkage which, combined with the Southward spread of the Sahara desert, is displacing whole populations and fuelling bitter conflict.

    With such different parts of the Commonwealth, thousands and thousands of miles apart, facing such depressingly similar challenges, there is, it seems to me, tremendous potential for the Commonwealth to share best practice and co-ordinate its response to these kinds of disasters. Earlier this year in Darwin, in Australia’s Northern Territory, I visited the highly impressive National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, which deploys world-class medical teams and facilities in rapid response to disasters overseas, on behalf of the Australian Government. To my mind, at least, it offered a compelling example of the sort of co-ordinated response that could be replicated elsewhere in the Commonwealth to offer practical assistance to people in their times of greatest need.

    Although, tragically, it is essential that we prepare for the effects of climate-induced disasters in this way, we must, at the same time, work together to tackle the underlying causes – which surely means, among other things, establishing a proper price for carbon and addressing the global problem of perverse subsidy regimes and the continuing lack of the “polluter pays” principle. In addressing the fundamental and most pressing challenges that our planet faces, I have long felt – for what it is worth – that this can be done, at least in part, by developing a truly circular economy in which we design products so that little or nothing is wasted in recycling and put in place the planning systems, infrastructure and incentives to ensure that every effort is made to minimise our environmental impact.

    It is becoming evident that not following such an approach has disastrous consequences, as is witnessed by the fact that 8 million tonnes of plastic enter the Ocean every year, that soon there will be one tonne of plastic for every three tonnes of fish in the sea, and that the dead zones in the Ocean, now numbering over 400, are continuing to grow. Given this, ladies and gentlemen surely, surely we must find a way to protect and conserve our ocean and develop a truly sustainable circular approach to the Blue Economy, as we must to the rest of our economic activities? Such an approach will not only protect our eco-systems but will also generate new jobs and will stimulate economic growth.

    Now I know you agree, Mr. President, that Ghana can play a vital role in all of this, helping to lead the way in Africa and, indeed, in the Commonwealth at large. In this regard, I was delighted to see that Ghana has joined the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Blue Ocean Economy, which is co-chaired by the Prime Minister of Norway and the President of Palau, with the World Resources Institute, of which I recently became Patron, providing the Secretariat.

    I am utterly convinced of the potential for the Commonwealth to be part of the solution to these challenges and the Commonwealth Clean Oceans Alliance, announced at this year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London, is an important example of how it can do so. The Alliance brings together Commonwealth countries around a commitment to preventing plastic entering the marine environment. A key part of the Alliance is the Global Plastics Action Partnership, established by the World Economic Forum and World Resources Institute, as a global public-private delivery mechanism to tackle the terrible plastic pollution of our rivers, deltas and oceans. I am delighted, therefore, that Ghana has been included among the first three country beneficiaries, alongside Indonesia and Vanuatu.

    In the same way that taking an integrated approach to Ocean issues – resolving the problems of wastage, plastics, over-fishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and the absence of adequate Marine Protected Areas, is vital to protect the Ocean’s health, so too, it seems to me, is an integrated landscape approach to the rural economy in order to protect our ecological, social and economic security. And, in this regard, I can only applaud Ghana’s leadership on the Cocoa and Forest Initiative, the inaugural meeting of which I was happy to host, with my then International Sustainability Unit in London last year, and am shortly to attend a follow-up meeting after I’ve finished this speech. As I am sure you are more aware than ever, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are entering the era of a ‘triple threat’ – that is to say one where the effects of climate change, rapid urbanisation, unsustainable population growth and natural resource depletion are compounding to make the perfect storm.

    It is already beyond most people’s comprehension that in the last twenty-five years the number of people living in towns and cities has almost doubled. But by the year 2050, the world’s urban population is projected to increase by an additional 2.3 billion people – which in context is the total current population of the Commonwealth.

    Even more concerning is that on current trends, this doubling of the world’s urban population would result in a tripling of the world’s urban footprint – placing enormous strains on ecosystems and directly challenging the carbon reduction strategies that are so vital in the context of climate change. Across the Commonwealth the impact of these frightening trends is, as I’ve said, only, too evident, with urban sprawl and informal settlement dislocating millions of people from basic services and jobs.

    Recent studies show that in the Commonwealth urban growth will be greatest in the places with least professional resource to plan for it – which is critical if it is to be sustainable. Invariably, current tools and policies for planning urban settlements are just not rapid enough to get ahead of the rate of urban development.

    And unless our growing towns and cities are planned, even at the most basic level, to protect main arterial routes, farmland and natural ecosystems, then we will not realise the potential benefits of economic growth and the opportunity that sustainably planned urban expansion can undoubtedly deliver. My own Foundation therefore has been working with the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, the Commonwealth Association of Planners and Commonwealth Association of Architects to develop an online toolkit that will help shape growth in secondary cities, where most of the projected urbanisation is expected to occur.

    Given the challenges in the Commonwealth to address this rapid urbanisation – across sub-Saharan Africa, India and through to the small Island States – there is also a huge opportunity through the diversity of the Commonwealth to share tools, techniques and best practice for planning walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income human settlements that can play such a vital role in the reduction of poverty, mitigation of the impacts of climate change and reversing damage to finite ecosystems.

    There are, it seems to me, Ladies and Gentlemen, so many ways in which the Commonwealth can draw on its unparalleled store of talent and professional expertise, and sheer diversity of experience, to find solutions to the enormous challenges we face, and seize the opportunities from which we can all benefit. An astonishing sixty per cent of the Commonwealth’s two billion citizens are now under the age of thirty – the potential, therefore, is immense, but so are the risks – especially from unemployment and alienation, we therefore need to empower young people through personal development programmes, skills-training and assistance with business enterprise development. In all of this lies tremendous opportunity for the people of this continent.

    Every young person, in Ghana just as in the U.K., has the potential to make a difference in their communities and to their country. Helping young people to unlock their potential is something to which I know you are committed, Mr. President. In the United Kingdom I set up my Prince’s Trust some forty-two years ago and, since then, it has helped nearly a million young people to get into jobs, education and training or to start their own enterprise and to create brighter futures for themselves and those around them. Now, through Prince’s Trust International, we are taking the experience and expertise that my Trust has built up since 1976 and, with local partners, are helping to change young lives in other parts of the world. I am therefore delighted to be able to announce that Prince’s Trust International is now looking to bring their programmes to Africa for the first time, starting here in Ghana. It will, I hope, offer a further connection between our countries, in some small way, at least, whereby we can contribute to your priority, Mr. President, of fuelling youth employment and diversified economic growth.

    Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.

    It is clear to me that the Commonwealth remains as vital today, as it has ever been. It brings us together, building bridges between our governments and our people, and offering the practical means to work together for a better future. In such an uncertain and changing world, none of us can know what kind of a planet our grandchildren, and great grandchildren, will inhabit, but the Commonwealth, it seems to me, offers us a vital mechanism to help ensure that it is not poisoned and polluted and that its vitality is not compromised.

    Therefore, we owe it to them – and to every one of our 2.3 billion fellow Commonwealth citizens – to renew and strengthen the partnerships between us, and use them to give life to the aspirations of each generation. I have nothing but the greatest confidence that Ghana will play an essential part in that, just as it always has, and that the bonds between our countries will remain strong and indispensable to us all.

    Thank you ladies and gentlemen.

  • Theresa May – 2018 Speech at MS Society Reception

    Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Prime Minister, at an MS Society Reception held at 10 Downing Street in London on 5 November 2018.

    It is wonderful to welcome you all to 10 Downing Street today to celebrate the MS Society and the amazing work that you do in so many different ways, as has just been outlined. The work you do to raise money to fund research into new treatments, to support people who are living with MS, raising public awareness of the condition. I think one of the key issues is people understanding what MS is about and the effect it has and campaigning to stop MS.

    None of that would be possible without the tireless dedication of MS Society volunteers – and I am delighted that we have so many of you here today.

    I also want to thank all those who raise money and provide care for those with MS.

    I know just how vital that support can be because my own mother lived with MS.

    Just the other day I received a touching letter from a nurse – Nicki Murray – who helped to support my mother when I was younger.

    The way Nicki remembered my mother after all these years speaks volumes of the extraordinary care and compassion of our health workers.

    I’d like to thank them all for everything that they do for us.

    From my mother’s experience, I know how incredibly tough living with MS can be.

    You all know it changes lives profoundly.

    The shock of a diagnosis. The fear of a relapse. The anxiety over what might be ahead – and how that might affect your family and loved ones.

    And of course many volunteers and supporters first get involved with the Society precisely because they saw a loved one go through it.

    Indeed, we’ve just heard that the first branch was founded 65 years ago by a husband who watched his wife live with MS, and was frustrated by the lack of treatment and support available.

    The situation today is unrecognisable from where we were then, or even 25 years ago – not just in terms of care and support but in terms of treatment too.

    We know infinitely more about how to manage symptoms. More treatment options are available than ever before, particularly for relapsing forms of the condition. And the pipeline of treatments has never been stronger.

    I think we are now at a crucial point.

    Your ‘STOP MS’ campaign reflects your ambition for us to make the next research breakthrough. And I want you to know that you have an ally in this government.

    Earlier this year I announced the single largest cash commitment to our public services ever made by a peacetime Government – an £84 billion five year deal for our NHS.

    In return, the NHS will produce a long-term plan to ensure that investment makes a difference on the front-line, including to people living with MS.

    But of course the real breakthroughs will come in the laboratory.

    We are already putting £7 billion of new public funding into science, research and innovation – the largest increase for 40 years.

    And more broadly, across our whole economy, we have set the most ambitious goal for total research and development investment in our history – making it up to 2.4% of our economy – with government and the private sector working together to meet it.

    Those investments will pay real dividends in the years ahead. I know that the MS Society is working closely with the National Institute for Health Research on a number of promising treatments – I want that close partnership to continue.

    You’ve achieved a huge amount as a Society and as a wider MS community over many years.

    Thank you all for that you have done.

    Now you rightly have your eyes set on the greatest prize – stopping MS and bringing an end to the pain and suffering it causes to so many people.

    So thank you for all that you have done and let’s work together to make that, stopping MS, a reality.

  • Jeremy Wright – 2018 Speech at Society of Editors

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Wright, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, on 5 November 2018.

    Good morning.

    Appearing at the Society of Editors is a challenging prospect for most politicians.

    But I was keen to come here today both to celebrate our press and to contribute to this critical debate about its future.

    Today’s theme is ‘The Trust Factor and how to fund it’, and every day in my role I see the importance of trust in our communities.

    And I see the vital work that all the different elements of our civil society do to reinforce it.

    Our press has a level of trust and freedom that is rightly envied and respected across the world.

    But a free and trusted press must also be a sustainable press.

    A benefit of the digital revolution is that so many people from around the world can now see your content.

    But I recognise there is a real problem in converting that interest into revenue.

    And the strength and sustainability of our press is something that should concern us all.

    Especially when we look at this in a global context.

    Across the world, we are seeing journalists under threat and state sponsored disinformation drowning out the free and open press.

    And the risks of a diminished press are very real. A less informed public, a democratic deficit and less of a spotlight on vital public institutions. Institutions like the courts.

    In my previous role as Attorney General, I was always impressed by the diligence of the journalists who informed the public about complex and challenging cases.

    And the careful way in which they, most of the time, combined accurate reporting with respect for the law so everyone is able to get the fair trial they deserve.

    It is a good example of the importance of a healthy and sustainable free press.

    A Press that gives people not just what they want to read but what they ought to read, makes our society is stronger.

    And helping you to deliver that is one of my big priorities in my new role as Secretary of State at DCMS.

    Cairncross Review

    As many of you know the Government has set up a Review under Dame Frances Cairncross in recognition of the pressing need to sustain high quality news.

    Thank you for your engagement with it, whether it’s through our expert panel or through sharing your views in the consultation. We are on course to publish the review early next year.

    Now, this is an independent review and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to speculate on or pre-judge its findings.

    But it is clear that the days of print sales and print advertising meeting the costs of producing quality journalism are largely behind us.

    And that the trend for consumers to seek news content online will not be reversed, but will, if anything accelerate.

    But I am confident that the review will show there are ways for quality journalism to go from strength to strength in the digital era.

    It is undeniable that the digital revolution has led to a world in which the value of quality content is not sufficiently rewarded.

    This means an understandable but harmful trend towards cheaper to produce content, which endangers the investigative journalism that needs time and resources to do well.

    There is an urgent need to turn this around. On the one hand, I firmly believe that technology is a force for good and that social media platforms have brought great opportunities.

    But many of these platforms are powered by the sharing of news, and it is vital that the producers of this news are recognised and rewarded.

    I have urged Dame Frances to look carefully at this point.

    Of course, whilst I believe the Cairncross Review will be an important step in setting out a new future for our quality press, it will not be a silver bullet. Nor will it produce one single model for every publisher to follow.

    And so it is important that we all look at what is within our gift to change, as we strive to strengthen our free press and democratic engagement.

    Representation

    The government is thinking long and hard how to support a vibrant press industry in the years ahead.

    But the press must also look at itself. Not only in terms of testing new business models, but in terms of remaining relevant to our discourse as a society in representing and reflecting the communities that you serve.

    In Edinburgh I spoke of how our Public Service Broadcasters are national institutions, and today as I speak to another group of institutions that are vital to the fabric of our nation, my message is the same. The transfer of trust from generation to generation can no longer be taken for granted. But neither is it unachievable.

    The shift to online presents opportunities to engage new audiences. And proper representation is vital to winning and maintaining their trust.

    That means greater ethnic and gender diversity and greater diversity in the background of those who work in the press industry, and drawing on the talents of more of the country’s geography.

    We are currently in Manchester, where the BBC and ITV now produce much of their output.

    And whilst it will of course be disappointing for this great city that it was not announced as the new home for Channel 4’s National Headquarters, I must congratulate Leeds, and indeed Glasgow and Bristol for securing new Channel 4 creative hubs.

    And I congratulate Channel 4 for seeing the value of getting beyond the capital and using the creativity that can be found in all parts and communities of the UK and I am delighted that they have committed to commission more content outside London too.

    Proper representation can be achieved in a variety of ways. And I would urge you, just as you ask probing questions of others, to ask probing questions about the make up of your own organisations.

    Not simply because it is the right thing to do, but because it makes good business sense.

    A more representative press is more likely to reach more people.

    Investigative journalism

    And there are some areas in which we should all want more people to read what you produce.

    And finally I want to touch on an area in which I think our press is the best in the world – the exceptional quality of investigative journalism.

    Some of this has been through traditional sources, like the Guardian and Channel 4’s excellent work on Cambridge Analytica.

    Standing side by side with first class investigative journalism online.

    Like BBC Africa’s excellent online investigation into the killing of civilians by soldiers in Cameroon, which went viral worldwide on Twitter, showing there is still appetite for dogged and forensic investigative journalism.

    It has been encouraging to see new outlets like Buzzfeed working with traditional media to break headline hitting stories, and I am sure we will see more of these in the coming years.

    I really wanted to come here today and applaud the importance of what you do.

    British journalists regularly produce stories that drive major changes for the better in politics and society more broadly.

    And you have been sharing your investigative skills with others too. There has been some excellent work on media literacy by publications represented in this room, helping young people to develop the critical thinking skills they need.

    These initiatives are so important, especially in an era where disinformation is prevalent, and often commercially lucrative.

    Thank you for this work, and the Government is looking at how we can complement it to help people of all ages separate fact from fiction.

    Because high quality investigative journalism holds our institutions to account and makes our country, and public life, a much better place.

    And it’s the kind of journalism that can and must be part of the antidote to so called ‘fake news’.

    Conclusion

    So, at a time when trust is in short supply, our media is as important as it has ever been.

    The fight against disinformation and the sustainability of our press are two sides of the same coin.

    You help guarantee a society with rigour and accuracy at its core. And you do excellent work. We might not always like what you write about us. But your right to report and publish freely is critically important for us all.

    Thank you very much and I’m looking forward to taking your questions.

  • Theresa May – 2018 Statement at Norwegian Parliament

    Below is the text of the statement made by Theresa May, the Prime Minister, at the Norwegian Parliament on 30 October 2018.

    Thank you very much Prime Minister and it is a great pleasure to be here in Norway – this is my first visit to Norway as Prime Minister.

    I’m delighted to have been able to attend the Northern Future Forum – thank you for hosting it and thank you for focusing our thinking on the important subject of how innovation and technology can improve healthcare, and how we can, the Nordic and Baltic countries and the UK can cooperate more in this area to the benefit of all our citizens.

    As you say, the UK and Norway have a strong and long-standing bilateral relationship. A very strong relationship across a great many issues, and I look forward to building on that in the future.

    I look forward to talking to you about how we can enhance our future trade relationship, and how we can work together on issues like security and defence, and on the many other issues you have listed where we share our thinking and have worked together in the past.

    And we want to build on that cooperation when we leave the European Union.

    Thank you for the comments you have just made and the commitment you have made to UK citizens here in Norway and I make the same commitment to Norwegian citizens living in the UK.

    We hope of course to be able to come to a satisfactory conclusion of the current negotiations in relation to this matter.

    In the event of no deal, we would look to be able to have an agreement for EEA and EFTA countries, but whatever happens, we confirm that people from with EEA EFTA countries, Norwegian citizens and those others who are living in the UK who have made their life choice to be in the UK will be able to stay in the UK. We want them to stay, they are part of our community, they are part of our country and we welcome the contribution that they make.

    I look forward to the talks we are going to have today, and also look forward to the opportunity to address what I believe is the 70th session of the Nordic Council.

  • Sajid Javid – 2018 Speech to APCC and NPCC Joint Summit

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, to the APCC and NPCC Joint Summit held on 31 October 2018.

    It gives me great pleasure to be here today at the APCC and NPCC Partnership Summit.

    Let me just start by saying a thank you.

    Thank you to all of you Police and Crime Commissioners, friends who could not make it today, for all the work that you do.

    Some of you may know that before I came into politics, I was in business.

    I travelled the world. I visited many countries on the continent.

    Policing people would very often say – and perfectly understandably – you, people in Britain, we have the best police in the world.

    They say that because we do have the best police in the world. And that is recognised by everyone.

    And that starts with leadership – that means you, so thank you for what you do and how you do it.

    You will always have my admiration and my support for what you do.

    Now, one thing I can say about becoming Home Secretary, is that it is indeed a very sharp learning curve.

    When I took up the job, I thought policing was an area that I knew a little bit about, something I would understand quite quickly.

    But one thing that I realised is that it’s an area of course that every Home Secretary takes very seriously.

    And that’s because public safety is the number one priority of the government, and the public need to be able to rely on a resilient and effective police service.

    But what I’ve learnt since taking on the job, is that crime is changing faster than we could ever have anticipated.

    As crime changes, so do the demands on police.

    Previously under-reported crimes such as sexual abuse, domestic abuse, modern slavery – these are being reported to the police more than ever before.

    In the last 5 years, we have seen the number of recorded child sexual offences, for example, increase by more than 200%.

    It was when I visited the National Crime Agency’s Child Exploitation Online Protection Command, that the full horror of the scale of child sexual abuse was really brought home to me.

    The National Crime Agency estimates there are some 80,000 people in the UK at present that are committing some kind of sexual threat to children online.

    And the NCA also believes this is a conservative estimate.

    I know that investigating these types of crimes – it doesn’t just take a lot of resources, they are not just complex – but it can also be a very harrowing experience for officers that are involved.

    Then of course there’s other forms of online crime.

    You’re now more likely to be the victim of crime online than offline.

    I welcome, for example, the work of the Police and Crime Commissioners from Cleveland, Durham and Northumbria, who have been working together to help prevent the elderly and vulnerable from becoming victims of online crime.

    There’s of course also been a worrying and unacceptable recent rise in serious violent crime and it’s something that the government is determined to work with you to crack down on.

    Then there’s of course the risk from terrorism which has also escalated and evolved, with the threat level to the UK from international terrorism currently being set as ‘severe’.

    We know also that the police are being asked to respond to hostile state activity, and of course top of my mind is the deadly nerve agent attack that took place earlier this year.

    The police response of course was exemplary, but it wasn’t without risk.

    How can we forget what happened to Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey for instance?

    So what is clear is that the challenges that the police are facing have changed and are continuing to change.

    Yet, when crime changes, we do expect our forces to adapt, while also covering everything else that they usually cover – the burglaries and murders, all the things people also care very much about, as well as dealing with these increases in these more complex crimes.

    So today I want to talk to you about what more you can perhaps do – as leaders in policing – to tackle modern day crime and to respond to the changing crime landscape.

    As well as to talk about what we – the Home Office, and more broadly in government – can do to support you.

    First of all, I know that you are feeling stretched.

    I recognise that demand has risen and that you’re grappling with your budgets.

    And I want to do something about it.

    While resources are not the whole answer, they are of course a vital part of it.

    That’s why we’re now investing over £1 billion more in policing than we did three years ago, including money raised through council tax.

    You will have also been pleased to hear from the Chancellor on a couple of issues this Monday.

    First is the increase in funding for counter-terrorism policing for 2019-20, an increase of £160 million.

    But also a commitment from the Chancellor that he and I will be working together to ensure that the police have the resources that they need for 2019/20 in time for the police settlement which is due in December.

    The Chancellor has also promised that, for example, mental health services will receive an additional £2 billion a year.

    I hope that this money will also make a big difference to police forces.

    Because I know that all too often, you’ve been asked to step in and deal with mental health issues, mental health crises when in fact, of course, we should be looking to the NHS.

    And I’ve also been very clear – I’ve just talked about 2019-20 but I want to look further – and I’ve been very clear since I’ve been Home Secretary, that when it comes to the Spending Review next year, my priority will be policing.

    But if we are to make the case for more funding, then this does have to go hand-in-hand with further reforms and to look and see what more we can do together to improve policing.

    Because we all know, and I said a moment ago, that money is not the only issue, it’s not all about resources.

    That’s why I’m also making sure, for example, that police have the right powers.

    One of these powers, for instance, is Stop and Search.

    I want officers to feel confident, I want them to feel trusted and supported when they are using Stop and Search, and I will be looking at ways to reduce bureaucracy and increase efficiency in the use of this power.

    I’m also committed to making sure that police get the right protection.

    That’s why this government supported a new law which doubles the maximum prison sentence for assaults against emergency workers from six to 12 months.

    This Act comes into effect next month.

    Finally, I’m supporting plans to improve wellbeing across all levels in the police.

    We’ve already pledged £7.5m for a new national police welfare service.

    And I was pleased to announce at the Police Superintendents’ Conference that £400,000 of this money will fund the proposal by Chief Constable Andy Rhodes and the College of Policing to get wellbeing buses outside local police stations.

    These will offer information and support to anyone that needs it.

    But all of this is just a snapshot of some of the work I’m doing at the Home Office alongside your teams, to try and help in different ways.

    But I want to turn now to what I think you can do to improve policing and what my vision for policing is looking ahead.

    Because we all know that not all forces are where they need to be.

    Some could be more effective.

    The most recent inspectorate report on effectiveness for instance, judged that a significant minority of local forces were struggling to manage demand and were unable to give the public the service that they were expecting.

    In some cases, they said there are changes taking place, but they are too slow, especially when they are compared with other forces who seem to make same changes at a much faster rate.

    They said standards are inconsistent.

    That innovation hadn’t spread widely enough.

    Some forces are far behind where they need to be in seizing the opportunities in terms of how they use data and how they work in the digital age.

    These problems cannot all be blamed on funding levels.

    The inspectorate is clear that there is considerable scope for improvement in how police leadership anticipates and manages demand.

    As leaders in policing, as the experts, I look to you and look at how you can take a long hard look at what your forces need and are you asking the right questions to make them more effective.

    And today I thought I’d share with you four areas that as leaders I think you could be focusing on – perhaps a little more in some cases – to make your forces even more effective than they already are.

    Firstly, more needs to be done to increase the capacity for police.

    Extra investment will help, of course – and I’m pleased that some of you have started recruiting again.

    Capability gaps need to be plugged.

    Where we can help we will.

    For example, when the inspectorate highlighted national gaps in detectives and relevant cyber expertise within forces, we responded by funding Police Now to develop a new national detective programme.

    We’ve also committed £50 million over the next year to boost cyber capabilities within law enforcement.

    But as PCCs and Chiefs, you also have a very important part to play.

    That’s why I welcome the inclusion of Force Management Statements.

    Let’s use these to be smarter in anticipating and managing demand.

    We need to make sure that most of our officers spend most of their time on core policing and providing a better service to the public.

    The best forces are already doing just that.

    Secondly, there needs to be more support for frontline officers.

    That’s a message you’ve been telling me loud and clear – and I’m listening.

    We know that the most important assets in our police system are human, and that for our police to be productive and as effective as they should be, officers need to be fully engaged and they need to feel very positive about their work.

    That’s why I’m supporting a range of measures – some of which I described earlier – to support officer physical and mental health and wellbeing.

    We’ve also launched our Frontline Review to hear what frontline officers and staff really think.

    I’m really pleased with the level of engagement so far.

    But the work on this doesn’t start and end with the government.

    In fact, you are instrumental in ensuring your teams have their say on what matters to them.

    You can also help to make sure your staff have access to the best training opportunities, and that your forces are supportive environments.

    I know that many Chief Constables are doing just that, providing excellent support to frontline officers.

    For example, Chief Constable Kier Pritchard in Wiltshire made sure that officers affected by the Salisbury incident received the support they needed.

    He also encouraged staff to come forward by being open and vocal about the trauma support he had received himself during this difficult time.

    You also have the power to build forces which better reflect the communities they serve by increasing diversity.

    Forces including Bedfordshire, West Midlands and Greater Manchester have already been leading the way.

    Thirdly, we need to build a smarter and better police system which is more collaborative, more innovative, more tech-savvy and less fragmented.

    We have 43 different forces and all too often it can feel like each has a different way of working and that there is sometimes a lack of join-up.

    Together, we can change this.

    The College of Policing is critical in building better standards of collaboration.

    Collaboration is important to make smart use of better resources.

    So I’m pleased to see we have two Police, Fire and Crime Commissioners in Essex and Staffordshire, and more to follow, who are well placed to drive even greater collaboration between police and fire.

    We also have joint dog units and shared major crime and road policing teams.

    And furthermore, tomorrow we’ll be publishing our new Serious and Organised Crime Strategy which promotes collaboration between Regional Organised Crime Units, the National Crime Agency and local forces.

    All of this is the sort of work that I would like to see more of and I will be working with you all on in the coming months.

    Finally and most importantly, I think there needs to be more of an emphasis on crime prevention.

    You’ve told us that the police system is becoming too reactive and not prioritising prevention as much as you would like to see.

    The 2017 inspectorate report stated that too many forces did not see crime prevention as a priority and some did not have a plan.

    We should remind ourselves of Sir Robert Peel’s words back in 1829 about the objectives of policing.

    He said “it should be understood at the outset that the object to be obtained is the prevention of crime”.

    His words, of course, are still very relevant today.

    I’m pleased to say there has already been some fantastic collaborative work on prevention.

    For example, we all worked together – the government, police, industry, civil society groups and other partners – to develop a comprehensive action plan to prevent moped crime here in the capital.

    Thanks to this, moped crime is down by a half since its peak in July 2017.

    You’ll now be using the same methods to tackle vehicle crime all over the country.

    Prevention is also a part of our approach to tackling serious violent crime.

    And I encourage you as leaders to work with us to get our police system prioritising crime prevention wherever you can.

    I’ve spoken quite a bit about the important role that I think you can play in future policing.

    I truly believe that good leadership can make a real difference.

    People voted for you in elections and they supported your careers all the way to the top.

    Now I want you to press on with making the changes needed to make our police system more effective.

    This government will help and support you all the way.

    I believe everything I’ve said today is consistent with your vision 2025.

    We need a fresh look at resources.

    We need more proactive crime prevention.

    We need to more police capacity.

    We need to better support frontline officers.

    You have my full support and you always will.

    Thank you.

  • Matt Hancock – 2018 Speech to Royal College of Nursing

    Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, at the Royal College of Nursing on 31 October 2018.

    There’s a reason nurses are so close to the nation’s heart: because you are there for us when we need you.

    And there’s a reason nurses are so close to my heart. My grandmother was a nurse. She was there when the NHS was born. And she remained a nurse until she died.

    For we all know you never stop being a nurse. Not when you leave work. Not when you’re at home. Not when you retire. You’re the one who looks after your family’s health.

    You’re a nurse because you have the commitment that has shaped this noblest of professions since Florence Nightingale: compassion, cool heads, caring for others no matter how bad the situation, no matter how bleak the prognosis.

    Today, I want to talk about our support for nurses, how we need more nurses, and how we’ve got a plan to make that happen.

    But as well as that, I want to address one question head on: how could anyone hit a nurse?

    It beggars belief that anyone could even think of attacking a nurse, or a doctor, or paramedic, or emergency worker of any kind, as they go about their jobs of public service. Any attack on a nurse, or an emergency worker, is an attack too many.

    And I know I am not alone. There is overwhelming public support for the Assaults on Emergency Workers Act we have brought into law.

    It is absolutely right that anyone who assaults an emergency worker faces tougher penalties and longer prison sentences. Because an assault on you is an assault on us ‒ and we will not tolerate it.

    So, today I want to talk about how we can tackle violence against nurses and our NHS staff. But it’s not the only thing I want to talk about. Because I believe that increasing violence, bullying and harassment against our NHS staff is just one symptom of a system in need of change. A system I am determined to improve.

    So let us ask: how are we going to tackle violence against NHS staff?

    Now, I must pay tribute to Chris Bryant for all his work on bringing about this new legislation. The support for his Private Members’ Bill, from every part of the House of Commons, shows what an important and unifying issue this is.

    And I must pay tribute to all the work the RCN has done in calling for this legislation, and then helping us to shape it so that all nurses delivering NHS care, wherever they work and whoever they work for, are protected by this new law. It was the right thing to do. We listened to you, and we did it.

    But legislation is just the start, so today I am launching the first ever NHS violence reduction strategy to protect our NHS workforce against deliberate violence and aggression from patients and the public.

    I have made it my personal mission to ensure NHS staff feel safe and secure at work and the new strategy, created together with the Social Partnership Forum, will take a zero-tolerance approach to attacks and assaults against our staff.

    I want my department to work with the NHS, police forces, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Social Partnership Forum and the RCN to ensure this strategy succeeds so the new law works for you. So you can easily report any incident, so every incident is taken seriously and investigated fully, and so the ‒ often difficult ‒ process of giving evidence doesn’t create more work for you.

    The NHS has a duty of care to its patients and its staff. So the CQC will scrutinise NHS trusts’ violence reduction plans as part of their inspection regime. This isn’t about penalising people, but identifying which trusts need support to reduce violence against staff, whether that’s by better building design or improved procedures.

    Along with more effective and quicker prosecutions, greater scrutiny and accountability, we’re also looking at how we can get better data ‒ and how we can make better use of that data to identify high-risk jobs and areas.

    So, we’re working with NHS providers to develop a new way of recording assaults and other incidents of abuse or harassment. That way we can better understand the scale of the problem and the solutions we need to devise, because a ‘one size fits all’ approach isn’t going to solve this.

    We know that while paramedics may face the greatest danger from drunk young men at kicking-out time on a Friday or Saturday night, that isn’t true for a nurse in a mental health trust where most violent incidents occur between 10 and 11 in the morning. Or in the acute sector, where those most likely to be responsible for assaults are aged 75 or over.

    We also know that many assaults are carried out by people with dementia, brain injuries or other mental health issues. So prosecution isn’t always appropriate or in the best interests of patients or staff.

    But together with more effective prosecution and better data, we also need to improve staff training and staff support. The current training in de-escalation and conflict resolution will be reviewed and revised.

    And, we’re listening to you about the type of support you need. Since launching the #TalkHealthCare public platform in September we have received many new ideas about how we can improve the work environment.

    I would urge anyone who has not done so already to share your ideas: your voice will be heard and acted on.

    We must work together to solve this, and make the NHS live up to the promise I know it can be: the best place to work in the world.

    Tackling violence alone won’t do that. That brings me to nursing numbers and morale, which we all know are inextricably linked, but let me take each in turn.

    Numbers. Simply put: we need more. And that means more permanent nurses, not more agency workers.

    We need a long-term solution that provides the full benefits of NHS employment and makes financial sense for NHS employers.

    To create a steady stream of talent we increased the number of training places available for nurses and doctors. There are now more than 52,000 nurses in training, and we have made more funding available to increase the number of training places available to universities.

    Now, I know some have been looking back to the old bursary model, but it was in effect a cap on the numbers of people who could enter the profession each year. The latest figures show there were more applications than available places this year.

    But we know there is more work to do with universities to get the right people on to the right courses, and to open up the profession to people from all backgrounds, and ensure they get the support they need to complete their training so they can serve in our NHS.

    That is something we will specifically address in the long-term plan for the NHS, but we are also taking action in the short term.

    We’re helping providers to recruit from abroad by removing doctors and nurses from the cap on tier 2 visas. That’s good for the NHS and good for the country.

    Health Education England’s ‘earn, learn, return’ schemes are helping overseas nurses come to the UK, contribute to the NHS and take back what they’ve learned to help their communities.

    And, this isn’t just about recruiting more, it’s about holding on to the excellent and experienced people we already have by making their working lives easier and more fulfilling.

    Because we can’t go back, we must go forward. I want to work with you on what measures we can take now to get more people into the wonderful profession of nursing.

    So we will listen to you; we will work with you. This will involve new money, new ideas, and new ways of working.

    The budget allocated £20 billion more each year to the NHS, and repairs and patching up the old system isn’t going to cut it. Not if we’re to meet the unprecedented challenge of an ageing society. Not if we’re to harness the game-changing potential promised by artificial intelligence and genomics.

    It’s time to trade in the family car for a newer model ‒ one that’s got room for everyone. But one that’s safer, better and more efficient.

    I want you to come with me on this journey because out of my top 3 priorities – tech, prevention, workforce – workforce is the most important.

    That means ensuring you feel recognised and valued. That your concerns are addressed and your voices heard.

    Morale matters, which is the final thing I want to talk about.

    It matters not only because it’s better for you to feel happy and fulfilled at work. It matters because it’s better for patients too. Both in terms of the treatment they receive and their outcomes.

    So, it’s not right that nearly 4 in 10 of you reported feeling unwell due to work-related stress last year. And it’s not right that more than half of you said you came into work sick because you felt under pressure to do so.

    I want this to change. As well as the numbers, it means getting the small things right:

    ensuring you have adequate time for rest and recovery
    that there’s somewhere you can go to, someone you can talk to, if you need help
    that we have the best, most up-to-date technology available to cut your workload and make your lives easier
    These are all things I am pushing for. And I want you to push me, and my department, if you feel we need to do more.

    But, I also have a challenge for you. Something we have failed to address ‒ something vital not just for morale, but that underpins the universal treatment principle on which the NHS was founded: we, must tackle racial inequality within the nursing profession.

    Too many black and ethnic minority nurses find it too hard to progress in their careers. Too many black and ethnic minority nurses are paid less than their white counterparts. And too many nurses encounter bias or discrimination because of the colour of their skin, or where they come from.

    This is indefensible. It runs counter to the values of the NHS we love, and it must change.

    I believe in equality of opportunity and embracing diversity with every fibre of my being. I believe in it, not just because of fairness and because it’s the right thing to do, but because of the benefits it brings.

    And the data proves it. The Workforce Race Equality Standard numbers show that progress on tackling racial equality has a positive impact for all staff.

    Research by Professor Michael West shows that the experience of black and ethnic minority ethnic staff is a good barometer of the climate of respect and care for all staff within the NHS.

    We see it in some of the best trusts. By making continuous improvements for BME staff, trusts have seen similar improvements for their entire workforce.

    Those are the benefits of racial equality, of embracing diversity rather than merely tolerating it. Those are the changes I want to see, and my challenge to you.

    I will work with you to tackle violence. I will work with you to increase nursing numbers. I will work with you to improve morale and give you all the support that you need.

    Let us work together to build a nursing profession, and an NHS in which we can all take pride.

  • Jeremy Hunt – 2018 Speech at Policy Exchange

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, at Policy Exchange on 31 October 2018.

    In 1826, my predecessor Foreign Secretary George Canning described the global balance of power as a “standard perpetually varying, as civilisation advances, and as new nations spring up and take their place among established political communities”.

    This was an era when South American countries were seizing independence from Spain and Portugal. The New World was beginning to upset the balance of the Old and Canning saw an opportunity for Britain. An opportunity to rethink British diplomacy, to seek new allies across the Atlantic, and thwart old foes France and Spain.

    Canning had his own bed in the Foreign Office and when not lying in it complaining about his gout, he ordered British emissaries to sign trade agreements with Mexico and Colombia.

    Times have changed. I have no bed in the Foreign Office and I am happy to inform you that I don’t have gout either. Well, at least not yet.

    But this country is at a pivotal, historic moment. The global balance of power is shifting once more and Post-Brexit, our place within it as well.

    And whilst at the same time our democratic values are arguably under greater threat than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, I want to argue today that we can use our influence, our reach and power to defend our values by becoming an invisible chain that links the world’s democracies.

    Why we should reassess our global role

    With the backdrop of Brexit, there is no doubt that our role has to change.

    It is a legal and structural change it will have a profound impact on our foreign policy and whilst our commitment to European security remains unbreakable, the nature of our relationship with our closest neighbours will naturally change and we need to ensure this is a change for the better, not the worse.

    But it isn’t just Brexit that’s causing change, other events are even more significant. Let’s just take 3 examples:

    First: the rise of China and the Asian powerhouse economies. Their growth alters the balance of power with all the speed Canning foretold.

    In 1980, China comprised just 2% of the world economy. Today its 15%. By 2030, China is set to overtake the United States as the biggest economy in the world. By 2050, the combined economies of China and India will exceed the GDPs of the entire G7 – the US, UK, Japan, France, Germany, Canada and Italy – put together.

    Power always follows money so we must not underestimate the profound impact this will have.

    Secondly there is a growing threat to democracy and democratic values. It’s now clear that the spread of democracy has slowed, gradually come to a halt, in some respects even gone into reverse.

    We may be suffering what the scholar Larry Diamond described as “a democratic recession”. Last year, according to Freedom House, 71 countries suffered “net declines in political rights and civil liberties” and this is a reversal of what seemed like the inevitable onward march of democracy and democratic values after the lifting of the Iron Curtain.

    It is of more than symbolic importance that by 2030, for the first time in our lifetimes the world’s largest economy will not be a democracy and then we have to factor in something else, the growing threats to the long-established, rules-based international order.

    It is not just within countries that we see change taking place. The interaction between countries is changing too.

    Having a rules-based international order has made us more prosperous and successful than ever before in the history of humanity. But it is now openly questioned.

    Chemical weapons have been used to lethal effect in Syria and for the first time in our history, they have been used on the streets of Britain too.

    Free trade is under threat with the World Trade Organisation facing the most severe challenge in its history. If new trade barriers were to appear after Brexit, that would make things even worse.

    The international order that has existed since 1945 was, in large measure, a creation of Britain and its allies.

    At its heart was a simple credo: namely that the best way to create stability was to build a system where might is not automatically right, and one where every country, large or small, lives under the protection and security of the UN Charter.

    By and large, it succeeded: for the first time in history, the bleak vision of Thucydides, that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”, was no longer always automatically valid. The United Kingdom with its Empire declining and the United States in its ascendancy determined to find a better way. And through a pattern of alliances and multilateral organisations, that vision came into plain sight.

    But today that system is under threat. A new order is rising alongside the old. The democratic values that once bound us together are threatened. The post-war international order that we built to defend them is being questioned. And people are turning to its architects and asking: “what now?”

    In Britain, we’ve got to ask ourselves the same: what’s our plan? What’s our role? How can we strengthen and defend our way of life and the values we believe in?

    Britain’s future role

    To start, we must build on the strengths that are rooted in our national character.

    We are the home of parliamentary democracy. We have a profound belief in this country’s institutions that allow the peaceful transfer of political power.

    As an outward-looking, seafaring nation, we have long known how to build alliances in every corner of the globe. As a country endowed with the best universities, scientists, engineers, artists and authors – alongside, of course, the world’s language – we have immense reserves of soft power.

    We have kept our promise to spend 0.7% of national income on overseas aid, giving this country the third biggest development budget in the world and our history has also created special bonds with the most powerful democracy, the United States, and the world’s largest democracy, India.

    We have the closest of relationships with other parts of the English-speaking world, from Ireland to Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

    The success of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting this year in London, one of the biggest ever gatherings of its kind, also shows the enduring strength of our friendships within the world’s most important north-south alliance.

    Our network of friendships is unparalleled. But it’s underpinned by something more than shared history, shared language or shared culture.

    Those friendships are underpinned by the values – democracy, the rule of law, separation of powers, respect for individual civil and political rights, a belief in free trade – bind us. And when those values are under threat, Britain’s role – I would argue – is to defend them.

    Which is why to do so, we must become an invisible chain linking the world’s democracies.

    And we can have confidence that such an approach will work because alliances built on shared values are always more durable than those based on transactional convenience.

    We must remember that the impressive progress of modern history has happened not by accident but by design. Its continued success can’t be taken for granted. So it is up to us to strengthen our resolve, make the most of our unique position and forge an unbreakable chain that will hold those vital values that link our countries.

    Raising our diplomatic game

    So how do we do this?

    First, we must reinvigorate and expand British diplomacy. In the past you may have heard of retrenchment and retreat. Not any more.

    Today, I am announcing the biggest expansion of Britain’s diplomatic network for a generation, including 12 new Posts and nearly 1,000 more personnel.

    I can confirm that by the end of next year, we will open six new High Commissions in Lesotho, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), the Bahamas, Tonga, Samoa, and Vanuatu.

    We will base new Resident Commissioners in Antigua & Barbuda, Grenada, and St Vincent & the Grenadines (nice job for someone).

    We will upgrade the British Office in Chad to a full Embassy and establish a new British mission to the headquarters of the Association of South-East Asian Nations in Jakarta.

    Thereafter, we will open new British embassies in Djibouti and Niger.

    By the end of 2020, we will send 335 more British diplomats overseas, and reinforce the Foreign Office in London with another 328 personnel. We will hire another 329 locally-engaged staff in our embassies around the world.

    In total, our network will gain 992 extra people, meaning we are represented in 160 countries – of the 192 countries of the UN, that’s the same as France and only marginally less than United States and China.

    At the same time, we will also strengthen our skills and expertise.

    Over the next 5 years we will build on William Hague’s far-sighted decision to reopen the Foreign Office Language School by increasing the number of languages taught from 50 to 70. The 20 new languages will vary from the Central Asian tongues of Kazakh and Kyrgyz, to Shona in Zimbabwe and Gujarati in India.

    Within the next 10 years, we will double the number of British diplomats who speak a foreign language in the country where they serve from 500 at present, to 1,000, meaning that getting on for half of our overseas postings will be staffed by linguists.

    We will also broaden the pool of talent we tap into for our Ambassadors.

    As we regain control of our trade policy, it makes sense to open up applications to external candidates, so that 1 or 2 positions every year might be filled by people with important experience from outside the civil service, especially the world of commerce.

    The strength of our network is its professionalism, and that’s what I think has given us what I believe is the finest diplomatic service in the world. But we must never close our eyes to the approaches and skills of other industries.

    I am sure there are experienced, multi-lingual businesspeople who would welcome the chance to enter the service of their country at this critical time and the Foreign Office of the future will welcome them to some of our key Ambassadorial posts.

    We will also ensure that those who champion Britain abroad better represent the country they serve.

    So this year we launched a new university outreach programme, visiting every part of Britain, to encourage applications from under-represented groups. This includes not just women and BAME candidates, but also those from backgrounds that have not traditionally felt comfortable applying for a career in the service.

    Finally, a small but I think important detail, is something that indicates how I intend our diplomacy to develop. When I arrived, we had secure phone connections in my office to the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. I have now added Japan, France and Germany to the list.

    It means a lot more technology in my office than in Canning’s day – but also allows for the strengthening of important alliances that he would have thoroughly approved.

    Diplomacy with a purpose

    Taken together, this amounts to a considerable investment in our service, its capacity and its future. Adding links to the chain that will allow us to play our part in uniting those countries who share our values.

    Now we must use that network to get to work.

    First, we must redouble our efforts to defend the rules-based international order. To do that, we need multilateral organisations that are fit for purpose. Reforming out-dated and bureaucratic structures is the best way to make sure the institutions they serve do not collapse.

    That means delivering UN reform, as advocated by UN Secretary General Guterres.

    It means fairer burden-sharing in NATO, which continues to be the bedrock of European security.

    It means WTO reform, so that we succeed in warding off the dangerous temptations of protectionism.

    It means reforming the World Bank, so its governance reflects the changing balance of the global economy.

    And it means reforming the structures of the Commonwealth, so there is proper accountability for the Secretariat and a more effective decision-making process.

    To strengthen that invisible chain between the democracies, we must also ensure we are better at acting in concert when we face real and present threats.

    That was shown to great effect after the nerve agent attack in Salisbury. Then, far from buckling in the face of Russian aggression, 28 democracies came together and expelled 153 Russian spies. The biggest coordinated expulsion in the history of diplomacy.

    When we act in concert, we are strong. When we act together, the price for transgression becomes too high for the perpetrator.

    But this nimbleness of response often eludes us. So I want our fine diplomats to find a way to do this more effectively. And that means going beyond traditional diplomacy focused on other governments and creating new partnerships, including with the private sector.

    Nor is it solely when we face security threats that we should strengthen the chains that connect like-minded countries.

    We must be better at standing together to defend the values we share. Whether that is: the prevention of sexual violence in conflict, the struggle against the illegal wildlife trade, or threats to freedom of expression.

    Because access to fair and accurate information is also something we should remember is the lifeblood of democracy.

    For that reason – and prompted in no small part by the tragic killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi – I am placing the resources of the Foreign Office behind the cause of media freedom. This campaign will be marked by a major international conference on media freedom that I will host in London next year.

    And finally, as we strengthen our diplomatic efforts, we must never forget the importance of speaking from a position of strength.

    Soft power matters but it is immensely more effective when backed up by hard power. In the last resort, we need to be able to call on our fine armed forces, whose importance was recognised by new funding in the Budget this week.

    So we will continue to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence, and we will replace our independent nuclear deterrent. And we will continue to call on others in NATO to play their part too.

    Conclusion

    Almost 200 years on, Canning’s law still holds: new nations rise and the global order changes. The apparently inevitable progress of democracy since the fall of the Berlin Wall is no more.

    Like Canning we must seize the opportunities that present themselves within the tumult. We must work to strengthen and defend our values across the globe.

    And as we face our post-Brexit future, Britain has a role to play. It is one that we are uniquely suited to deliver. Remembering our responsibilities. Not overstating our strength, but not understating it either. Because right now our history, our networks and our unique combination of soft and hard power gives us a real ability to shape the course of history in line with our values.

    So let’s play our part helping to build that invisible chain between those who share our values. And make it as strong and resilient as it needs to be as new nations rise and the world order is challenged anew.

  • David Gauke – 2018 Speech on Prisons

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Gauke, the Secretary of State for Justice, at the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and the National Police Chiefs Council at the 2018 Partnership Summit on 1 November 2018.

    Introduction

    It’s a great pleasure to be here – I’m grateful to the Association and Council for inviting me to speak to you today.

    I want to start by saying thank you.

    Thank you for everything you and your teams do every day to reduce and prevent crime, to keep people safe – and feeling safe – in their communities.

    Your work, your dedication, your sense of public duty, is part of the reason the police continues to be one of the most trusted professions in our country.

    As the son of a police officer, I understand some of the difficulties and challenges that go with the job. Growing up, I soon learned about how the police had to put themselves in physical danger, had to drop everything in order to respond to an emergency, had to take responsibility when things got difficult. And the sense that society as a whole did not – could not – fully appreciate the nature of the role. So thank you.

    The justice system

    We talk a lot – and hear a lot – about ‘the justice system’. That system is in fact a web of connected and interacting agencies, organisations and professions.

    What happens in one part of the system can have a direct impact on another – and there is much we can share and learn from each other in different parts of that system.

    That’s why partnerships and collaboration, as exemplified by this summit, are so important if we are to rise to the modern-day challenges facing policing and justice.

    One of the main challenges is the changing nature of crime. The technology and innovation that is transforming our lives for the better is also creating opportunities for criminals. I will come, in a moment, to some of the particular threats we face in our prisons.

    But these new developments can frustrate our collective ability to ensure that justice is done – particularly when those crimes are complex, highly organised, and use methods that simply were not around 10 or even 5 years ago.

    So it is important that we continue to work together to tackle the emerging, as well as the enduring, challenges head on; to find smarter and more joined-up ways of working.

    Justice devolution: role of Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC’s)

    The need for that kind of approach is one of the reasons this government is proud to have played a role in establishing the offices of democratically-elected Police and Crime Commissioners across the country.

    The unique nature of your role allows you to view crime across the whole justice system in a way that is also rooted in your local area, as I see in Hertfordshire so often.

    In meeting many of you, what has struck me is your passion for, understanding of, and dedication to, your local areas and the people who live there.

    That’s exactly what these posts are all about – helping to deliver local results that are accountable to local communities.

    A really important role you have is around delivering victim and witness services – it’s a role I know you care a lot about and are ambitious for.

    For example, we’re seeing some PCCs take steps to improve monitoring of compliance with the Victims Code, as well as some PCCs developing innovative approaches to delivering services for victims.

    Take for example the work of Northumbria and Cambridgeshire who have developed single points of contact for victims and are bringing services together to reduce the need for victims to go through the ordeal of re-telling their story.

    I know other PCCs are taking a similar direction too.

    I’d like to thank the APCC and the NPCC for working closely with the Ministry of Justice on our recent Victims Strategy – and now helping us to deliver on the commitments in the Strategy.

    For example, we’re working with you on improving the information sent to victims and I know the NPCC lead for victims and witnesses, Assistant Chief Constable Emma Barnett, has set up a cross-agency group to look at the commitment in the strategy around simplifying the justice experience of victims.

    I know all PCC areas have also been working closely with us to make sure the right support is in place in the event of a major crime incident such as a terrorist attack. This will ensure that wherever a crime occurs, and wherever the victims and families live, they will be referred to the support they need.

    These are good examples of the work you do to bring together local partners and ensure the justice system as a whole meets the needs of communities. It’s why we committed in our manifesto to strengthen and enhance the office of PCCs.

    Both the Ministry of Justice and Home Office are already working very closely with you – and we’re making good progress in some important areas.

    The work we’re doing in cities like Manchester and London is showing what can be done, and I will be taking a very close interest in the results.

    Emerging data from places like Manchester shows that a whole system approach is associated with a 40% reduction in adult women being handed immediate custodial sentences, compared to a reduction of just 3% across England and Wales.

    Any future changes will, of course, need to be considered carefully and some areas are rightly out of bounds – the role of PCCs needs to respect judicial and prosecutorial independence, for example.

    But I think it is absolutely right that we look at areas where an enhanced role for PCCs could improve the justice system.

    To that end, we’re also working closely with you following our recent consultation on the future of probation and the expanded role that PCCs can play.

    I had the pleasure of meeting with a cross-party group of PCCs to discuss some of our proposals, and we have committed to further engagement over the coming months as we develop and refine our ideas.

    Tackling crime in prisons is tackling crime on our streets

    When we look at overall justice outcomes, I think it’s important to look at the strategic position prisons have in terms of crime.

    I believe prisons have emerged as a new front line in the fight against crime.

    The fact is, new technology and sophisticated approaches mean that prison walls alone are no longer effective in stopping crime – inside or outside of prison.

    Offenders who commit crime in prison have a disruptive, and often, devastating impact on the prospects of those who are trying to turn their lives around and who see prison as a pivotal turning-point in their lives.

    But the impact of that crime not only affects prison staff and fellow prisoners, but reaches far beyond the prison gate. While offenders are rightly separated from society, prisons exist within communities.

    There is a direct link between crime on the wings and landings and crime in our towns and cities. Ensuring there is less crime in our prisons means less crime in communities.

    Crime is being fuelled by organised gangs and networks who see prisons as a highly lucrative and literally captive market to push drugs like Spice, as well as mobile phones and other contraband into prisons. This creates a thriving illicit economy within a prison.

    As a result, we are seeing high levels of violence as individuals and groups vie for control of this internal market and enforce drug debts. Not to mention the effect the drugs themselves have in terms of violence. The availability of illicit mobile phones means more prisoners are committing online fraud and money laundering; harassing, extorting and threatening members of the public and grooming and victimising innocent people on social media – all from inside prison.

    Of course, if you’re a victim of crime, you don’t necessarily care about the type of criminal network behind it, or that it was committed from inside a prison. You see it as a crime – and you want justice to be done and for it not to happen to someone else.

    Whether a crime is committed on a prison landing or in the street, in a cell or in a shop – it is a crime. One of the primary purposes of prison is the protection of the public. We cannot allow our prisons to become incubators of crime. That puts prison officers and prisoners at risk, undermines rehabilitation and ultimately makes our streets less safe.

    Joint approaches to disrupting crime in prison

    That’s why we have been taking measures to make our prisons safer, crack down on the criminal gangs exploiting our prisons and we have been denying prisoners the space and means to prey on innocent – and often vulnerable – members of the public.

    As announced in the Budget on Monday, we will spend an extra £30 million this financial year, on top of the £40 million we announced over the summer, to further improve decency, safety and security in prisons.

    The Budget also provided funding for a new prison at Glen Parva in Leicestershire that will help us towards delivering on our commitment to building up to 10,000 new decent prison places.

    But as well as investment, creating safer prisons relies on multiple agencies working together in a coordinated way.

    Let me give you a specific example.

    Earlier this year, a highly dangerous criminal with significant influence in an East Midlands prison came to the attention of the Prison Service’s Serious and Organised Crime Unit and the police.

    During his time in prison, he was involved in the trade of drugs, assaulted prison staff and prisoners and was frequently found with improvised weapons.

    Collaboration between the prison and police made the difference here: it meant that we were able to seize illegal mobile phones which disrupted his criminal activity and resulted in charges being brought and his sentence extended.

    With this sort of joint work between police and the prison, he will find it a much tougher place to continue criminality.

    And last year, it was also through a joint operation by prison intelligence officers and police that, together, we broke up a major organised crime gang that used drones to smuggle £1.2 million worth of drugs, weapons and mobile phones into prisons across the UK.

    In the last few weeks, more joint operational work has led to a further 15 members of this gang receiving prison sentences of up to 10 years.

    I want to build on these successes by following and targeting the money behind the gangs.

    The Financial Investigations Unit I announced last month will track and seize the money that criminal kingpins use to deal drugs in prison – with police from the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit embedded within it, bringing their expertise and powers.

    And today, the government has announced its updated Serious and Organised Crime Strategy, which sets out how we will relentlessly disrupt the activities of high priority offenders, whether they are being investigated by the police, or managed by prisons or probation.

    Approaches to dealing with crime in prison

    It is right that we focus on this kind of intelligence-led and joint approach. But when crime does occur, we should be clear about how it will be dealt with and that those responsible are brought to justice.

    One of the most despicable crimes we see in prisons are attacks on prison officers. Over the last 3 years there has been a 59% increase in assaults on prison staff.

    That is shocking and sickening.

    Let me be clear: an attack on a prison officer – or a police officer, or an ambulance worker, on NHS staff, fire officers or other emergency workers – is an attack on all of us.

    That’s why I’m pleased we’ve changed the law and doubled the maximum sentence for attacking an emergency worker, including prison officers.

    This will send a clear message that assaults on those who serve and protect the public will not be tolerated and they will feel the full force of the law.

    Alongside changes to the law, we are taking steps to make the fullest use of the powers available to your forces, the CPS and the courts.

    When a prison officer is attacked, the suspected perpetrator may well be moved to another prison later and as a result another police force.

    This can cause delays and disruption to an investigation so, through close joint working between police and prisons, a new Memorandum of Understanding will make sure that police forces provide mutual assistance to each other when interviewing prisoner suspects.

    Over the last few months we have been working with the police and CPS to revise and re-issue the cross-agency protocol on how crimes in prison should be handled. The updated protocol will set the standard for how we tackle crimes committed in prison in the future.

    We are also investing in the training prison officers receive so they are able to collect and catalogue the evidence that is so crucial to prosecuting crimes in prison successfully.

    Collaborative models

    These are important practical measures, but we must also look more fundamentally at the models for policing our prisons.

    I know there are a number of operating models already being used by some police forces, including having a single point of contact for the prison or dedicated investigative officers. As a result, there is some really encouraging work going in some parts of the country.

    I want to particularly highlight the new unit set up within Greater Manchester Police. The unit is made up of police officers and detectives, supported by two lawyers from the CPS, who are dedicated solely to investigating crimes that take place inside HMP Manchester.

    Of course, this approach won’t be right in every area. There needs to be a tailored approach to cutting crime in prisons. But as you look at your own responses, I know you will come up with new and innovative ways of doing it that can then be replicated in other areas across the country.

    Conclusion

    Tackling this new frontier of crime in prisons doesn’t just keep prison officers and prisoners safe from harm, it keeps all of us safer – in the short term and the long term. It is vital for rehabilitation and to give those offenders who want to turn their back on crime the best chance possible to do so. But we will only be successful if we continue to embrace a spirit of collaboration that has been the hallmark of the successes we have already seen.

    I would like to take the opportunity to re-affirm my commitment to working with you in that spirit on tackling crime from within prison, but also as we strive for better outcomes across the criminal justice system.

    As PCCs continue to cement their place in the justice system, I am proud of the role this government has played in establishing and supporting them and I am confident that there is an even greater role for you to play in the future. I look forward to exploring the possibilities with you.

    In closing, let me reiterate my thanks – not just for the work you are doing with us at the Ministry of Justice but the work you do every day to protect the public from crime.