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Tag: Speeches

  • Archie Norman – 1997 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Archie Norman, the then Conservative MP for Tunbridge Wells, in the House of Commons on 3 July 1997.

    Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity to make my maiden speech on the important subject of the Budget. I congratulate Labour Members who have made their maiden speeches today and welcome their interest in the businesses in their constituencies, especially the highly profitable ones in Leamington Spa. I share their interest and that of the Chancellor in the business community, but perhaps in a more substantial way. I should declare that I am chairman of Asda—the largest private sector employer based in the north of England—a director of Railtrack and a former director of British Rail. That establishes my public sector credentials as well.
    I have tried to speak in the Chamber in previous debates, and I think this is about my 11th hour of taking assiduous notes. I have listened to many excellent maiden speeches and, as a result, my geography has been much improved. On this occasion, I do not intend to give the House a guided tour of my constituency, but I should like to speak about my predecessor, Sir Patrick Mayhew, who is now Lord Mayhew of Twysden.

    It is not difficult to pay tribute to Lord Mayhew. He was a distinguished Attorney-General and his contribution as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was remarkable. He undertook the role with an open mind, great objectivity, integrity, enthusiasm and relish, and he brought the prospect of lasting peace in Northern Ireland closer than at any time in the previous two decades. In the constituency and in the House. Sir Patrick was, in all respects, larger than life. He succeeded in making a contribution which was in many ways beyond politics. His halo still shines brightly in Tunbridge Wells and, as I am constantly reminded, he leaves large shoes to fill.

    Mine is a delightful constituency, situated in Kent in the heart of England. Its focal point is Royal Tunbridge Wells, a spa town which was famous in the 18th century for its royal visitors who, I suspect, were able to get there rather more quickly than today’s commuters. It has two major public finance initiative projects which are important to the local community and which were supported by the Conservative Government. The first is the long-awaited dualling of the A21, which is the main arterial route from London to Hastings. The second is a desperately needed new hospital because the Kent and Sussex hospital is divided into two parts and has outdated facilities. A PFI project for a new hospital is at an advanced stage.

    Regrettably, both projects have been called in for one of the new Government’s ubiquitous reviews. That means that, within two months of the election, my constituents fear that they may have to pay a steep price for a Labour Government. I hope that those fears are unjustified. The people of Tunbridge Wells are famous, apart from anything else, for the forthright expression of their views in national newspapers. They are vigorous letter writers, as the Minister will find out before long if our transport and health projects are not approved.

    My warning may be a little too late for the Chancellor. He will hear from many home owners in Tunbridge Wells and especially from those whose incomes are less than £15,000 a year. The majority of those who benefit from MIRAS are in that income range, and their incomes have been cut as a result of the Chancellor’s action.

    Many of my constituents are retired or saving for retirement and their pension funds will be hit by the changes to advance corporation tax. The abolition of tax relief on private medical insurance affects many of my constituents who are in nursing homes and many people in the insurance industry. It is short-sighted, mean-spirited and economically insignificant and can only add to the pressure on the health service. It is greatly regretted by my constituents. My ambition is to rebrand my constituents “Contented from Tunbridge Wells”, but I fear that the Government have done little in their first few months to help me to achieve that aim.

    Two of the Chancellor’s main themes were business and employment. Unlike many Labour Members, I believe that experience in business, enterprise and industry is good for the Government and for the House. I am proud of my record in business and of the companies that I served. I welcome the Chancellor’s intention to be business-friendly, and I also welcome the promotion of people with business experience to the Government. The appointment of the Paymaster General and of David Simon, the former chairman of British Petroleum, are a welcome recognition of the contribution that business can make to the policy and process of government. I am glad to see that my friend Howard Davies has been given a leading role in the Securities and Investments Board. It is good to see a former McKinsey man in gainful employment in public services. Hopefully, he will not be the last.

    It was reported at the weekend in, I think, The Sunday Times that Martin Taylor had turned down a ministerial job. Of course, BP and Barclays are among Britain’s 10 largest companies: Asda is about the 50th. Perhaps as the Chancellor works his way down the list I will eventually receive a call. My badge from my shopkeeping days reads, “Happy to help”, which has always been my motto, but, of course, I cannot be certain that my help would be the sort that the Chancellor has in mind.

    It is not long since the Secretary of State for Health described people like me as stinking, thieving, lousy, incompetent scum. Even as I read the words I find them amazing. One of the great strengths of the House is that hon. Members are able to speak freely, and the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to his view, but I hope that there is a little truth in the last part of his epithet because my dictionary defines scum as matter which rises to the top in an otherwise murky liquid. The right hon. Gentleman’s words were, in the main, different from the more honeyed prose that we have heard from the Labour party in the past two years. Its business manifesto states that a Labour Government would create a dynamic and supportive environment in which business can prosper and thrive. We hope that they will succeed in that endeavour, although it will be hard to better the achievement of the Conservative Government in the past 18 years, during which period there has been a comprehensive managerial revolution in the way in which we manage and employ people, create success and invite investment into the United Kingdom. To date, the words from the Government have been friendly, but the substance, I fear, has been increasingly hostile.

    The Chancellor said that this is a Budget for investment and to secure our future. Business people are, in the main, practical, and we will wonder quite what he means. Our economy’s future depends on competitiveness and profit and, so far, the balance sheet does not look too good. To start with, business people will wonder whether it is logical for a Government, who make much of the need for investment in infrastructure, transport and the waterworks, to reduce the prospect of further investment with a windfall tax.

    The Chancellor said that the tax will not affect investment, employment or the cost of services. In fact, it clearly will. It takes investment cash from those companies, and it defies belief to suppose that obliging utilities to gear up and take on more debt will have no effect on investment. Surely we are all financially literate enough in this day and age to understand that taxing more means investing less. Stage two, we fear, may be regulation to force the investment, which the Government have made less attractive, by other means.

    Business people will wonder also where the logic is in Labour’s plans for the proceeds of the tax. They are to be used, apparently, to subsidise wages to create temporary jobs, but permanent jobs will be threatened as wage costs will be driven up with the introduction of a minimum wage. Those of us with experience of employing people and of being employed do not need to be the principal of the London business school to know that a minimum wage will mean fewer jobs. It will hit the most vulnerable people in society—in many respects, those whom the welfare-to-work programme is supposed to help, including the unskilled in particular, the handicapped, the young, the old and, yes, single mothers who work part time.

    There is a piece of hypocrisy floating around that the minimum wage is a form of competitiveness—that it will even up the competitive field between employers who exploit employees by paying less and those who do not. The reality is that big business will not be affected by the minimum wage, but small business will. The companies affected will not be large and profitable; they will be the corner shop, the local pub, the small hairdresser and those that we need to support most.

    Business people will wonder also how opting into the social chapter will help our competitiveness. I was curious and interested to hear the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Plaskitt) say that businesses in Leamington Spa were not concerned. That is not my experience. Many small businesses throughout the UK are in favour of a free-trading Europe, but wholly opposed to further regulation in the form of the social chapter. New regulations in the form of works councils, supervisory boards and paternity requirements can bring us only closer to a European model of inflexibility and ossification.

    Business people will wonder also how taxing pension contributions by limiting tax relief on advance corporation tax can do other than raise the cost of employment. It is irrelevant for the Chancellor to justify that measure by claiming, as he did yesterday: Many pension funds are in substantial surplus”.—[Official Report, 2 July 1997; Vol. 297, c. 306.] If they are in surplus, that is a consequence of the funds that have been injected and of their investment performance. Those companies with surplus funds are taking advantage of that by improving their profits through a pension holiday. By definition, eliminating the scope for pension holidays means reducing those profits. It follows that, if those pension funds are in deficit in future, the money to fund them will have to come out of corporate profits. The £5.4 billion that this measure will raise has to come from somewhere. The cost of the Budget is in company profits and individual savings. That is corporation tax by another name for companies and a savings tax by another name for pensions.

    It would be churlish of me not to welcome the cut in corporation tax, particularly for small businesses, many of which will benefit in my constituency, but the balance sheet for businesses in the first eight weeks of this Government is in the red—a small cut in their tax bill for a large slice of their pensions and a large increase in pension contributions.

    After this Budget, business people will ask whether we have a Government who mean what they say about business, or a Government for whom business was simply a nice idea and who simply said what the electorate hoped they would. The Chancellor’s grand words about investment and long-termism belie a fundamental shift in Government tone and policy—a shift towards a belief that it is Governments who create jobs and shape the economy. The question that business people will be asking is whether new Labour means a new form of socialism—not the ownership socialism of the past, but the regulatory socialism of continental Europe.

    The assumption behind the Budget appears to be that the Government can engineer investment, whereas, in the business world, we know that subsidised investment is often the worst form of investment. The other assumption is that the Government can engineer and create jobs, whereas, in the business world, we know that subsidised jobs are often of the poorest quality and temporary.

    It is not my intention to be unreasonably contentious, The Chancellor’s aspiration to improve competitiveness and long-termism is, of course, one which we share. It is the means that we contest. This Budget is not a people’s Budget, as the people will have to pay more tax. It is not a Budget for competitiveness or for enterprise. It is a Budget of taxation to enable a Labour Government to pursue political policies that involve spending more of the “people’s money” on their well-meaning, but perhaps ill-judged, projects.

    It is not a good Budget for business, for middle Britain or for my constituents in Tunbridge Wells. The business world is pragmatic, not ideological. Most business men operate in their commercial interests and in those of their shareholders and employees. We judge people by what they deliver, not by what they say. As far as we can, we call a spade a spade. Substance triumphs over style, decisions over reviews, and we will hold the Chancellor to account for his promises. Today, the jury may still be out, but the first signs for business and enterprise are ominous—very ominous indeed.

  • Dadabhai Naoroji – 1893 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Dadabhai Naoroji, the then Liberal MP for Finsbury Central, in the House of Commons on 28 February 1893.

    MR. NAOROJI (Finsbury, Central) said he did not wish to go into the question of the merits of monometallism and bimetallism. He wished merely to refer to the chief argument of bimetallists, which was that France had stood by bimetallism for 70 years, and had thereby introduced a fixed ratio between gold and silver. The question now was whether the bimetallism of France had been the cause of keeping the ratio between gold and silver steady, or whether it was not the fact that the ratio of gold and silver was not steady even when the system of bimetallism existed in France. He would ask if bimetallism had steadied that ratio why had it been broken up, and why had France given it up?

    When bimetallism existed in France there had been no universal consent between France and the other nations of the world, and why was that universal consent required now if bimetallism had any virtue in it? His contention was that when the time came that the ratio between gold and silver had become steadier they might have bimetallism or not, for it would come to the same thing. But India was the subject on which he wished to address the House principally. It had been said over and over again in the course of the Debate by one side that India had been largely benefited by the fall in exchange, and by the other side that India had been injured by the fall in exchange. It was difficult to arrive at a conclusion as to which side to believe, for each side had said it had official authority for its assertion. Instead of making general statements of that kind he would lay before the House a simple ordinary trade transaction from which they would be able to judge how far the difference in the two currencies in England and India, and the rise and fall in exchange, affected India. But in considering the subject they should always remember that India was in an unfortunate economic condition.

    They should consider India in two aspects—both as a self-governing country, like China independent of outside political influences, and as a country under foreign domination, with many important forces influencing her for evil and for good. Let them first take India as situated like China or any other self-governing country that had a silver currency.

    As far as trade and commerce between two independent countries were concerned it made no difference what currency existed in those countries. He would illustrate that by a simple trade transaction. A trader in India had to sell a hundred bales of cotton which cost him R.10,000. He sent the cotton to an agent in England to sell with directions to forward him the net proceeds of the sale. When the exchange stood at par rate of 2s. a rupee the trader had in calculating his profits to take that into consideration, as well as freight and insurance, and he would know exactly that he had to get a certain price, say 6d., for his cotton, in order to get his original R. 10,000 back and a profit of say another R.1,000. But suppose the rupee stood at 1s. instead of 2s. in exchange. In that case the trader would get only 3d. per pound instead of 6d. per pound for his cotton to cover his R.11,000. As exchange fell prices fell with it proportionately in England, and all the talk about India getting immense quantities of silver when there was a fall in exchange was simply absurd. The Manchester manufacturer was not such a fool as to pay 6d. per pound for cotton in England when by sending a telegram to Bombay he would be able to get the same cotton for 3d. per pound.

    His contention was, that whether there were two separate currencies in the two separate countries or not it had no weight or effect on the one country or the other, commercially, and in any case the Indian trader in the business transaction he had mentioned got back the money he had invested and in ordinary circumstances a profit of 10 per cent. In these controversies there was always a reference to prices. It was said that on such and such an occasion prices were high, and that on such another occasion prices were low. That was a very fallacious test, because the ultimate prices of commodities were not the result of one particular force, but the result of many forces, such as supply and demand, exchange, cost of production, &c. He was exceedingly thankful to those hon. Members who had shown so much sympathy towards India, but somehow or other the argument was always on the side for which it served its purpose. India was at one time exceedingly poor, and at another time exceedingly prosperous. But whatever the state of India might be, the system of exchange had nothing to do with it. Then take India, as it was, under foreign domination. It was true that India, under her peculiar circumstances, felt the pinch. India had to remit £16,000,000 sterling to this country every year. This year, or perhaps next year, it would unfortunately be £19,000,000, because for several years the India Office had got capital paid by Railway Companies in England, and did not require to draw their bills in India to that extent.

    The whole evil arising from the fall in exchange was this: that the disease already existed in India, and that fall in exchange came in and complicated it. If the disease of excessive European Services did not exist it would not be the slightest consequence whether the exchange was 6d. or 1s., or 2s. or 4s. the rupee. The position was, therefore, this: India had to send from her “scanty subsistence” a quantity of produce to this country equal to the value of £19,000,000 in gold. As gold had risen, India had to send more produce in proportion to the rise in gold, no matter what the currency was — silver, or copper, or anything. The sympathies of those who wished well to India in the course of the Debate were therefore a little misdirected. The remedy for the evils from which India was suffering did not lie in introducing bimetallism, or changing the currency into gold or restricting the silver currency, but in reducing the expenses of the excessive European Services to reasonable limits.

    After a hundred years of British administration—an administration that had been highly paid and praised— an administration consisting of the same class of men as occupied the two Front Benches, India had not progressed, and while England had progressed in wealth by leaps and bounds—from about £10 in the beginning of the century to £40 per head—India produced now only the wretched amount of £2 per head per annum. He appealed to the House, therefore, to carefully consider the case of India. He knew that Britain did not want India to suffer—he was sure that if the House knew how to remedy the evil they would do justice to India, but he wished to point out that bimetallism and the other artificial devices that had been put forward were simply useless, and that India would get no relief from them whatever. On the contrary, much mischief would be the result. With regard to the meeting of the Conference again, he thought it would be useless.

    In 1866, when Overend, Gurney, and Company failed, when many of the East India banks broke or were shaken to their foundations, and Bombay was in ruins, entirely on account of the fall in the price of cotton, no man in his senses tried to save this or that merchant, and raise the price of cotton somehow or other. The storm raged and ran its course. Many a well-known name passed into oblivion, but in a year or two no one thought anything more about it; cotton came in as usual from the interior, new men came into the field, and all the ruin was forgotten. The mischief was done in the present instance by the United States.

    There was a commercial disturbance, coming from demonetisation in Germany, or the excessive production of silver in America; just as storms arise in the physical world. The United States undertook the absurd feat of trying to stop it, and keep up the price of silver, and the result was that the more it was stemmed the greater force it acquired. Twenty years of suffering had been due entirely to this one mistake. The Indian people would be the greatest sufferers, but the storm must take its course. They could no more stop it than they could order gravitation to become non-existent, or make water run upward. Silver would go on falling until it had reached its proper bottom; the Indian and Chinese currencies would remain; there would be silver-using and gold-using countries, and the amount of silver that would come into operation would be useful in one way or another.

    On the one hand they were told that it was law that had made all this confusion, and the very same gentlemen who told them so would rush to the same law again to produce an artificial and worse condition of affairs. They must allow laws, commercial, physical, moral, or political, to be governed by nature. If they tried to stop the storm, the result would be far more disastrous. Conferences might meet, but they would not reach any conclusion except some artificial device which would merely cause more mischief. It was said that France was anxious for bimetallism and laid the blame of her not adopting it on England. But when France and the other Latin nations had bimetallism silver took its own course, and there was no use laying the blame on England now. He was of opinion that England must stick to the sound scientific principle of currency that she had adopted. Nor should she allow the currency of India to be tampered with. He thanked the House for the favourable hearing accorded to him, and hoped that before any step was taken to change the currency system either of this country or of India they would think once, twice, and three times.

  • Stephen Barclay – 2017 Speech at FT Investment Management Summit

    Below is the text of the speech made by Stephen Barclay, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, to the FT Investment Management Summit on 28 September 2017.

    The UK is currently the best place in the world for asset management.

    That’s not my bias talking, as someone who’s worked in the City and is now the industry’s leading advocate in government.

    It was the assessment of the Global Financial Centres Index just last month – ranking London top for asset management activity, ahead of both New York and Hong Kong.

    So today I will speak about what the government has done to support that reputation, and what the government will do to preserve and enhance it going forward.

    We’ve got the largest asset management industry in Europe here, with around £8 trillion in assets under management – more than France, Germany and Italy combined.

    Globally, there are $69 trillion in assets under management and 7% growth over the last 12 months. This presents the UK with a great opportunity to use our proven strengths to gain an increasing share of this business.

    And the UK asset management industry is truly global.

    Just five years ago, UK firms managed £790 billion on behalf of non-EU investors. Today, that figure has surpassed £1 trillion.

    But there are huge opportunities for further growth, with the UK poised to capitalise on developments in emerging markets.

    In China, there are already £6 trillion in assets under management and that figure is growing at over 10% per year.

    In India, there are £1.8 trillion in AuM.

    And around 83% of all Masala bonds are listed in the UK, which is worth £1.8 billion.

    While in South America, the opportunities in Brazil with £900 billion in AuM are well known.

    But there are also emerging opportunities in other countries such as Argentina, Chile, Peru and Columbia.

    Having this specialism here in the UK brings a lot of tangible benefits for people.

    Obviously, there are the tax revenues this sector brings in. Which is particularly pertinent from government’s perspective.

    But there are also the jobs it provides – over 90,000 all in all – not just in London, but in cities across the UK, like Edinburgh, Leeds and Bristol.

    There are the funds it manages that allow British savers to plan for their future.

    The finance it offers to our businesses to help them grow.

    The investment it can bring to our big infrastructure projects.

    And there’s the essential liquidity it provides to our financial markets.

    All in all, the asset management sector makes an enormous contribution to our economy as a whole – supporting British success in ways many people outside of the sector under appreciate.

    I want to be clear that the government understands the strategic importance of the UK asset management sector and, alongside insurance, it is an industry with truly global reach.

    That’s why we’re keen to keep the UK as the premier global location for asset management.

    Now I know we’ve heard people questioning whether that will remain the case after Brexit.

    I want to tackle that head on – I get that what the industry needs most is certainty and clarity around Brexit – and I want to reassure you that we’re working hard to get that as soon as possible.

    This is a government that will keep taking action to support you in the work you do. And we have taken action.

    When my colleague, Sajid Javid, was City Minister, we abolished Schedule 19, which acted as a proxy for the principal stamp duty reserve tax charge.

    This charge was previously seen as a major deterrent to domiciling funds in the UK and its abolition enhanced the competitiveness of the UK funds industry considerably.

    And now – assets managed in UK funds on behalf of UK investors have reached £1 trillion. A 13% increase in the past year alone.

    We worked with the FCA to cut fund authorisation time in half to a maximum of 3 months.

    We introduced the Private Fund Limited Partnership to reduce the administrative burdens for funds operating as a limited partnership.

    We overhauled how we do our overseas marketing and promotion – working with the sector to make the most of global opportunities to market the UK’s strengths.

    I was in Brazil myself for the Economic and Financial Dialogue earlier in the summer, and had the chance to discuss the significant opportunities that exist to further promote investment and capital flows between our two markets.

    These are opportunities that we’re determined to realise, whether that’s attracting Brazilian pension funds to the UK or enabling UK firms to do more business in Brazil.

    The Department of International Trade is also working to promote UK industry abroad and encouraging overseas firms to set up in the UK through the “one-stop-shop” approach adopted in 2013.

    That’s just an illustration –there’s much we’ve done to support this industry.

    And with your expertise, the UK’s economies of scale, the strong network of ancillary services, and our high-standard regulation, asset management has flourished here.

    So what we’re going to do as we manage our exit from the EU, is not let that go. Quite the opposite – I am determined to use the challenge posed by Brexit as a spur to capitalise on the underlying global reach of the sector.

    It is a central priority of the Treasury that the asset management sector thrives after the UK withdraws from the EU.

    Part of that work will include continuing to strongly support the global delegation model for portfolio management, in partnership with other countries that share our views on this issue.

    I know that a number of you are concerned about this, going forward.

    But I see the delegation model as an integral component of the asset management industry – not just for the UK, but for the US, Asia and the rest of Europe. And I know Megan Butler spoke about these points earlier today.

    It benefits everyone within the value chain, allowing firms to harness specialist expertise, promote efficient capital allocation and operate on a truly global basis.

    And this enables UK asset managers to sit at the heart of global investment allocation – turning the cumulative capital of millions of savers into investment beyond the UK.

    So I would like to reassure you that the government understands your concerns and is looking to preserve this global activity.

    And that is in the interests of Europe as well – a restricted delegation model would cause fragmentation and prompt funds located in Europe leave the continent for other financial centres such as New York or Hong Kong.

    But whether Brexit had happened or not, we would have still wanted to look at what more we could do to proactively enhance our competitiveness in this field.

    Brexit unlocks a renewed urgency for the government to turn its attention to the sector.

    Of course, some of you will have ideas for tax reform, and I am always happy to listen to those, especially where this unlocks growth.

    But beyond tax, there are four main areas I’ll be looking at.

    Firstly, I want to consider how we can ensure that the UK retains its status as a jurisdiction with gold standard regulation, in particular how we ensure simplicity in our regulatory approach.

    Because a robust and resilient regulatory framework provides the foundation for the growth and innovation that will be key to us moving forward.

    Secondly, I’ll be exploring FinTech solutions within the asset management industry.

    There’s huge potential in this area – for example, reducing investor charges through disintermediation or improving direct-to-consumer investments.

    As Europe’s largest centre for asset management and with the FCA’s world-class regulatory hub for the development of FinTech business, the UK is uniquely placed to take advantage of FinTech trends.

    Whether it is through innovative robo-advice models, helping consumers invest wisely or blockchain solutions to reduce back office costs.

    Thirdly, I’ll be considering how we can generate an environment that stimulates innovation within the sector.

    There are already a number of initiatives that asset managers can capitalise on – patient capital and green finance are just two examples.

    So far this year, $79 billion worth of green bonds have been issued across the globe and the market is expected to reach $150 billion by the end of the year – demonstrating the importance of this growth market.

    And I’m leading a Green Finance Taskforce with BEIS to make sure that government responds to this opportunity with cross-Whitehall collaboration and industry engagement at the most senior ministerial level.

    All in all, I want to ensure that government is engaged with the sector through these initiatives, and assess what further changes we can make to create a growth environment for asset management.

    And finally, skills.

    You don’t stay best in the world unless you can attract or develop the best talent in the world.

    That’s why I want to work with the industry to make sure we’re doing all we can to get that through. We are in close discussions with the Home Office to reassure, as the Prime Minister has made clear, that we want to attract the brightest and best.

    And with the Department for Education we are looking at ways to maximise the opportunities that the apprenticeship levy brings. So from next year firms will be able to pass on up 10% of funds to other firms in their supply chains. And it means bringing in scale – by 2019-20 the annual spend on apprenticeships in England will reach £2.45 billion, double what it was in 2010-11.

    So there are clear growth opportunities for the sector.

    And that extends beyond the UK, to our engagement with overseas markets across the globe – from Asia to South America – both through our existing Economic and Financial Dialogues and through new contact with emerging markets such as in Latin America.

    Both to ensure we are making the most of the opportunities to grow on the global stage, while also attracting more overseas asset managers, and international capital, to the UK – further developing our unique, diverse, and global financial services cluster.

    As part of the change in gear in government, I am delighted to announce that I am establishing an Asset Management Taskforce to look at how we stay ahead.

    This Taskforce will bring together CEOs within the UK asset management industry and senior representatives from investor groups and the FCA.

    It will be a forum to discuss how government, industry and the regulator can work collaboratively to stay competitive and deliver for investors.

    And it has come about in response to an industry request. After discussing the issues facing UK asset managers with CEO’s across the industry, there is a clear need for a discussion forum like this.

    So, you can rest assured that the government is listening and that it has delivered on this ask.

    It will help identify concrete steps that we can take to reinforce the UK’s position as a global centre for asset management.

    And this is what I intend for it to deliver:

    ideas that government, industry and the regulator can consider to ensure a thriving asset management industry that can respond effectively to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, and make the best of global trading opportunities
    mechanisms by which industry can improve its offer to domestic savers
    a means of enhancing the sector’s contributions to the UK economy through investment and stewardship

    In conclusion, I am in no doubt of the importance of the asset management sector to UK Financial Services.

    There are clearly huge opportunities for growth in global markets. Brexit must act as a spur to accelerate our response to these global opportunities, not a distraction.

    And we will continue to drive support for the global delegation model, which is key to the interests of our European partners as well as an important element of the industry in the US and elsewhere.

    I look forward to working with you in the weeks ahead.

    Thank you.

  • Michael Fallon – 2017 Speech at Faslane

    Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Fallon, the Secretary of State for Defence, on 29 September 2017.

    It is a huge pleasure to welcome Permanent and Military Representatives of NATO to Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde.

    Our nation’s commitment to the Alliance – the bedrock of our defence – remains absolute.

    In the past year alone we’ve increased our NATO efforts: policing Black Sea skies, leading half of its maritime missions and upping our efforts to mentor Afghan officers. And today, our Prime Minister is in Estonia visiting the 800 UK troops who, supported by our French and Danish allies, are leading NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence providing vital reassurance to our Eastern European allies.

    But there’s no greater illustration of our commitment to NATO which, after all, remains a nuclear alliance than our investment in the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent submarine force. And today, we mark the milestone of its 350th patrol at its home base.

    So, before I continue, I would like to thank our brave submariners and our submarine enterprise as a whole. For almost 50 years their efforts and those of their forebears have kept us safe every hour of every day. They remain the ultimate guarantors of our security.

    And this event offers us a unique opportunity to remind ourselves why our nuclear programme remains so significant.

    Protect Our People

    First, it’s about protecting our people. Our nuclear deterrent remains our only defence against the most extreme threats to our way of life.

    Those threats are intensifying whether they come from North Korea’s latest nuclear testing setting off a hydrogen bomb, launching ballistic missiles and reinforcing her reckless defiance of the international community. Or Russia, which not content with aggression in Ukraine and Crimea, has over the last few years repeatedly ramped up its nuclear rhetoric and in its latest exercise involving some 50,000 troops massed on the borders of Eastern Europe will also test nuclear capable ballistic missiles.

    Now the UK remains firmly committed to the long term goal of a world without nuclear weapons. As Secretary of State, I reduced the number of deployed warheads on each submarine from 48 to 40 and the number of operationally available warheads to no more than 120. Just as we remain committed to reducing our overall stockpile of nuclear warheads to no more than 180 by the mid-2020s.

    Yet, at the same time, we remain realistic. The total number of nuclear weapons in the world did not suddenly fall. Much as we would love to live in a world without nuclear weapons. We cannot uninvent them.

    Our deterrent ensures our adversaries are left in no doubt that the benefits of any attack will be vastly outweighed by the consequences.

    No credible alternative exists. And we see no reason to change our posture.

    Protect Our Alliance But this brings me back to the point at which I started. Our nuclear deterrent isn’t just essential for our security. it’s essential for NATO’s security as well. It forms one of the Alliance’s key centres of decision making that complicates the calculations of our adversaries.

    What is more, many nations, represented here today signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in the late 1960s, safe in the knowledge they were covered by NATO’s nuclear umbrella including the United Kingdom deterrent. Not only did that deal help halt the nuclear arms race at the time, it has helped to cut the world’s nuclear stockpile by 85%.

    It is no coincidence there hasn’t been a major conflict involving nuclear powered states since the end of the Second World War.

    Protect Our Future

    Finally, our independent deterrent is a promise to protect our future. We don’t know what threats lie around the corner.

    Yet by giving the next generation every means necessary – from the conventional though to the nuclear – to deal with whatever comes round the corner.

    We are strengthening their hand ensuring that they will have the means to deter potential threats into the 2040s, 2050s, 2060s and beyond.

    That is why today we’re building four Dreadnought class submarines which will enter service in the early 2030’s.

    That is why we’re continuing to spend £1.3 billion over the next three years on facilities here at Faslane. And that is why we are building on the incredible advanced manufacturing skills found across Scotland to transform this base into a Royal Navy submarine centre of specialisation a base for all UK submarines providing 6,800 jobs now and 8,200 in the future.

    Conclusion

    So I hope you find your visit instructive and informative.

    You can rely on the UK to remain not just 100 per cent committed to our NATO alliance but 100 per cent committed to our deterrent – a message Parliament confirmed overwhelmingly last year when it voted to maintain CASD. At the same time, we can never be complacent.

    As we look towards next year’s NATO summit and beyond we must not just ensure the Alliance’s political and military leaders continue recognising the importance of nuclear capabilities as NATO adapts and modernise but continues to make the case about the importance of nuclear weapons to a new generation.

    Our national safety the strength of our Alliance and the security of the world depends on it.

  • Theresa May – 2017 Address to British Troops in Estonia

    Below is the text of the address made by Theresa May, the Prime Minister, at Tapa Military Base in Estonia on 29 September 2017.

    I’m delighted to be here today and to have this opportunity to pay tribute to all of you for the work you are doing in this vital NATO mission to protect the security of the Alliance’s Eastern flank.

    Russia’s continued aggression represents a growing danger to our friends here in Estonia – as well as in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. And our response must be clear and unequivocal.

    That is why this mission that you are carrying out is so important. By stepping up NATO’s deterrence and defence posture, you are showing that we are equipped to respond to any threat we face. You are showing that we are ready to do so. And you are showing – through our actions as well as our words – that our collective commitment to NATO’s Article 5 remains as strong as ever. And that an attack on any one of our NATO allies, would be treated an attack on us all.

    So I am proud that over 800 British servicemen and women are here leading a multinational effort, together with their French and Danish partners, and working alongside their Estonian hosts – and that this British deployment is one of the largest we have made to Eastern Europe in recent times.

    For when a nation like Russia deliberately violates the rules based international order that we have worked so hard to create, we must come together with our allies to defend that international system – and the liberal values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law by which we stand.

    I am clear that Britain will always stand with our allies in defence of these values.

    From the fight against Daesh in Iraq and Syria to our commitment to meet the target of spending 2 per cent of our GDP on defence, we have been at the forefront of the NATO alliance and that is exactly where we will remain.

    And while we are leaving the European Union, as I have said many times, we are not leaving Europe. So the United Kingdom is unconditionally committed to maintaining Europe’s security. And we will continue to offer aid and assistance to EU member states that are the victims of armed aggression, terrorism and natural or manmade disasters.

    Our resolve to draw on the full weight of our military, intelligence, diplomatic and development resources, to lead international action, with our partners, on the issues that affect the security and prosperity of our peoples is unchanged.

    And our determination to defend the stability, security and prosperity of our European neighbours and friends remains steadfast.

    But these commitments are only possible because of the work that you are doing.

    It is your work across differences in language, culture and technology that has brought together an international combat-ready battlegroup able to defend the Baltic region by responding to the full range of threats that might exist.

    It is your part in the current series of major multinational NATO exercises that is helping to provide deterrence and demonstrate our military capability to counter those who would threaten us.

    It is your deployment – in the British case, the fielding of a combined arms battlegroup – that is reassuring our European partners of the scale and scope of our commitment to their security.

    And beyond your military contribution, the work you are doing in communities across Estonia is deepening the friendship between our countries and our peoples – and showing you to be some of the finest ambassadors we have.

    As with all our brilliant servicemen and women – and I know I speak for President Macron, Prime Minister Ratas and Prime Minister Rasmussen too when I say this: our countries have nothing but the deepest admiration for everything you have achieved and the exceptional courage and professionalism that you have demonstrated in achieving it.

    Away from your families for months at a time, the sacrifices you make, the expertise that you bring and that sense of service that you embody is what gives meaning to the commitments we make and the values that we stand for.

    So as many of you move on shortly to new deployments, I hope you will do so with an incredible sense of pride.

    And to the British servicemen and women in particular, let me say a heartfelt thank you, on behalf of our whole country, for all that you have done here in Estonia, for the security of this region, for the commitments of this Alliance and for the defence of the values and the way of life that we all hold dear.

  • Theresa May – 2017 Speech at 20th Anniversary of Bank of England Independence

    Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Prime Minister, in London on 27 September 2017.

    Thank you, Governor, for that introduction.

    As one who began her professional life at the Bank of England some forty years ago, it is a great pleasure to address this conference today.

    When I first started working for the Bank, back in 1977, it was a very different institution from the one we see today. Central banking then was a profession shrouded in secrecy.

    The spirit of that time is captured in a story which the former Governor Mervyn King tells.

    When Lord King first joined the Bank of England, he asked Paul Volcker, the eminent Chairman of the Federal Reserve under Presidents Carter and Reagan, what quality a central banker should seek to embody: ‘mystique’ was his reply.

    Much has changed in the years since, and for the better.

    You, Governor, have contributed to that improvement, through the reforms you have led at the Bank of England. Today, openness and transparency are defining characteristics of a modern central bank.

    20 years of independence

    And this conference celebrates an important milestone in the evolution of this institution: the granting of operational independence.

    The newly elected Labour Government decided shortly after the 1997 general election that they would do what successive Governors, and indeed some Conservative Chancellors, had long talked about: give the Bank responsibility for setting the official short-term interest rate.

    As a newly-elected MP at that time, I remember those debates well. Looking back on them now, after 20 years in which independent monetary policymaking has become the norm around the world, the disagreements which then divided the House of Commons on the issue seem rather academic.

    The successful adoption of inflation targeting in 1992 had already taken much of the political heat out of rate setting.

    And fears that the absence of a formal dual mandate to protect employment as well as target inflation might put jobs at risk have proved unfounded.

    I would like to pay tribute to you, Governor, to your predecessors Lord King of Lothbury and the late Lord George, and to all the members who have served on the Monetary Policy Committee over the last two decades.

    You have been a dedicated group of public servants, motivated to serve the public interest and to discharge the responsibility which Parliament has given you to the best of your ability. There is much to be proud of over the last twenty years.

    Whatever the debates at the time, there was never any real disagreement about what the central aim of monetary policy should be – to eliminate the high inflation which had bedevilled the British economy for decades.

    From the start of inflation targeting in 1992, and operational independence in 1997, that is what the Bank has helped to achieve.

    As it has in other countries, central bank independence has helped improve credibility and accountability, has successfully anchored inflation expectations and has contributed to low and stable inflation.

    The results have been impressive.

    Since independence, UK inflation has been much more stable than it was in the previous twenty years, when it fluctuated from 1% to 22%.

    We know that high inflation hurts ordinary people, and that low and stable inflation benefits households and businesses.

    The fact that inflation of 22% sounds outlandish to us today is a tribute to your success.

    Ten years on from financial crisis

    But as we reflect on the undoubted successes of the last twenty years, we cannot do so with any complacency. Yes, inflation targeting and operational independence contributed to a period of steady growth, low and stable inflation, and general expansion in the ten years after 1997.

    But problems were developing which would later become apparent during the financial crisis of 2007-08.

    The Great Recession which followed that crisis brought some of the most challenging economic times our country has known.

    The Bank was inevitably caught up in the dramatic events of 2007 and 2008. The tripartite regulatory system, of which the Bank was a part, did not prove to be a success.

    It failed the country during the financial crisis and we have had to live with the consequences of that failure ever since.

    Our GDP fell by more than 6%, as the UK endured our deepest recession since the Second World War. Successive Governments have been forced to take difficult decisions to restore the public finances to order. These have been decisions which no government would ever want to take.

    The British people, who played no part in causing the financial crisis, have had to make sacrifices in order to return the economy to health and ease the burden of debt on future generations.

    Real progress has been made over the last seven years.

    The Bank has played its part, using its independent monetary policy tools of interest rates and Quantitative Easing to support our economy through the crisis and into the recovery.

    The Government has worked to repair our country’s finances and the latest public sector borrowing figures show that the deficit has been reduced by more than two thirds, from a post-war high of 10% of GDP in 2009-10 to 2.3% of GDP in 2016-17.

    But in truth, much work remains ahead of us, and for all our progress, we should neither forget nor underestimate the scale of the sacrifices which have been necessary to get us this far.

    A well-regulated free market

    The impact those sacrifices have had on ordinary working people has led some to lose faith in free market capitalism.

    And globalisation, which has brought us a great many benefits, has also brought changes which have contributed to a wider sense that our economy is not working as it should for everyone in our society.

    These are understandable responses. There are genuine problems with our economy which need to be addressed.

    But as we do so, we should never forget the immense value and potential of an open, innovative, free market economy which operates with the right rules and regulations.

    When countries make the transition from closed, restricted, centrally-planned economies to open, free market policies, the same things happen.

    Life expectancy increases, and infant mortality falls.

    Absolute poverty shrinks, and disposable income grows.

    Access to education is widened, and rates of illiteracy plummet.

    Participation in cultural life is extended, and more people have the chance to contribute.

    It is in open, free market economies that technological breakthroughs are made which transform, improve and save lives.

    It is in open, free market economies that personal freedoms and liberties find their surest protection.

    A free market economy, operating under the right rules and regulations, is the greatest agent of collective human progress ever created.

    It was the new combination which led societies out of darkness and stagnation and into the light of the modern age.

    In essence, it is very simple.

    It consists of an open market place, in which everyone is free to participate, regulated under the rule of law, with personal freedoms, equality and human rights democratically guaranteed, and an accountable government, progressively taxing the economic activity which the market generates, to fund high-quality public services which are freely available to all citizens, according to need.

    That is unquestionably the best, and indeed the only sustainable, means of increasing the living standards of everyone in a country.

    And we should never forget that raising the living standards and protecting the jobs of ordinary working people is the central aim of all economic policy.

    Helping each generation to live longer, fuller, more secure lives than the one which went before them.

    Not serving an abstract doctrine or an ideological concept – but serving the real interests of the British people.

    Restoring faith in a free market economy

    And those of us who believe that the interests of the British people are best served through a successful open, free market economy need to be honest about where it is not currently working or delivering for ordinary working people today.

    That is why the Government is leading a determined programme of wide-reaching economic reform.

    We have already overhauled our system of banking regulation, to put the Bank of England at the centre of the new framework.

    The Financial Policy Committee protects financial stability through macro-prudential regulation.

    The Prudential Regulation Authority serves as a micro-prudential regulator.

    And the Financial Conduct Authority regulates the conduct of businesses in our vibrant financial sector.

    We implemented the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Banking and the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, putting in place strict new rules on bank ring-fencing and enhancing individual accountability to raise standards.

    Our economy has made great strides in the last few years, but we know that for too long, too many communities across the United Kingdom have not seen the benefits of economic growth and prosperity. That waste of potential is bad for the areas concerned and bad for our country’s wider productivity.

    The Bank has always taken the economic health of our whole UK seriously, as your formidable network of local agents, based out in the nations and regions of the UK, testifies.

    And through our Industrial Strategy, the Government is playing its part in promoting growth across the whole country. That strategy will help business invest in the latest technologies, turn local areas of excellence into national export champions, and support the skills and innovation we need to succeed in the industries of the future.

    A thriving financial services sector, providing high-quality jobs right across the United Kingdom, is vital to our future prosperity. That sector benefits from a strong and respected framework of regulation, which incentivises innovation. And we will work with the sector to ensure the UK remains the world’s financial centre and the global hub of fintech.

    Britain now has a record number of people in work and our flexible labour market has contributed to that success. Many people value the flexibility of our system, but that flexibility cannot be one-sided.

    That’s why I commissioned Matthew Taylor to conduct a thorough review into modern employment practices in our economy. His report recommended that all work should be fair and decent, with scope for development and fulfilment. That is an ambition we fully share.

    Britain has some of the world’s very best higher education institutions, researchers and engineers. But we know that our system of technical education leaves too many of our young people without the skills they need to get a job – that holds them back and hurts our economy.

    So our new T-level qualifications will reverse decades of drift and create a new, high quality, vocational equivalent to A-Levels.

    Britain sets the global standard for high quality corporate governance. International firms are attracted to the UK in part because of the strengths of our regulatory system. But we know that to stay competitive, we must keep our standards high and ensure that bad examples of corporate governance do not undermine the public’s faith in our market economy.

    So our reforms to corporate governance will give workers and shareholders a stronger voice in the board room and ensure that our biggest firms are incentivised to take decisions which are in the right long-term interest of their businesses.

    These reforms will bring greater transparency, openness and accountability to markets and to the corporate sector; the very same principles that the Bank has lived up to in its work through the Monetary Policy Committee.

    The need to reform

    Now, some argue that a free market economy is an end in itself, and that drawing attention to the downsides is somehow anti-business.

    Others would use the imbalances which are now apparent as a justification for the total rejection of the free market economy, which has done so much to improve our lives.

    Instead they advocate ideologically extreme policies which have long-ago been shown to fail, and which are failing people today in places like Venezuela.

    My argument has always been that if you want to preserve and improve a system which has delivered unparalleled benefits, you have to take seriously its faults and do all you can to address them.

    Not to do so would put everything we have achieved together as a country at risk.

    It would lead to a wider loss of faith in free markets, and risk a return to the failed ideologies of the past. A return to protectionism in international trade, and to inflationary policies at home.

    Far from somehow protecting the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, that outcome would surely hurt them the most.

    New economic partnership with the EU 

    This is a crucial time to address these fundamental economic questions.

    Last week in Florence, I set out my vision for the new economic partnership I want our country to build with the European Union in the years ahead.

    That vision is rooted in a belief in a well-regulated, open, free market economy, with sound money and stable prices.

    As I set out, in leaving the EU, the UK will no longer be members of its single market or Customs Union. That, of course, will mean changes. You cannot have all the benefits of membership of the single market without its obligations.

    So, our task is to find a new framework that allows for a close economic partnership, but which holds those rights and obligations in a new and different balance.

    In forging that new partnership, we start from an unprecedented position.

    At the point of our exit, we will have exactly the same rules and regulations as the EU, as our EU Withdrawal Bill will ensure they are carried over into our domestic law.

    The challenge, then, is not how to bring our rules and regulations closer together, but what to do when one of us wants to make changes.

    That fact should give us confidence. And I believe there are further good reasons to be ambitious and optimistic about what lies ahead.

    The UK is one of the largest economies in the world and EU’s biggest export market.

    Businesses and jobs across the continent rely on our shared trade.

    And, more fundamentally, we share a common commitment to the principles of an open free market economy, which I referred to earlier.

    We believe in free trade, in rigorous and fair competition, in strong consumer rights, and in a rejection of protectionism.

    And whether it is on goods or on services – including the excellent financial services for which the UK has a global reputation – creating needless new barriers to trade between the EU and its biggest market would benefit no one.

    The UK’s financial markets provide support for businesses and consumers right across the EU, reducing the cost of capital and supporting choice and innovation for consumers. It is in neither the EU’s nor the UK’s interest to see these financial service markets fragment, and that is another reason I am confident we can agree a new partnership that enables us to continue to work together to bring prosperity for all our peoples.

    A balanced approach

    And that is a responsibility which democratically elected governments, and institutions dedicated to the public good, like the Bank of England, both share: to promote the prosperity of the people we serve.

    For the Bank of England – strengthened and improved since the financial crisis – that means discharging its responsibilities to keep inflation on target and maintain the wider health and sustainability of the financial sector. For the Government, that means stepping up to its role, ensuring that the rules and regulations which define the free market are designed to make it serve the interests of ordinary working people.

    Success in this mission must be underpinned by a balanced approach to public spending.

    That means continuing to deal with our debts, so that our economy can remain strong and we can protect people’s jobs.

    At the same time, it means investing in our vital public services, like schools and hospitals, which our successful management of the economy has made possible.

    To abandon that balanced approach with unfunded borrowing and significantly higher levels of taxation would damage our economy, threaten jobs, and hurt working people.

    It would mean paying even more in debt interest, which already costs us more each year than we spend on schools.

    Ultimately, it would mean less money for the public services we all rely on.

    Conclusion

    So we can already see in outline the challenges and opportunities which will define the Bank’s third decade of independence.

    Building a new economic partnership with the European Union, which will deliver prosperity for all our people, and making the most of the opportunities which Brexit presents.

    Reforming our economy, so that the benefits of a well-regulated free market are felt in all parts of our country, and by everyone in our society.

    And taking a balanced approach to public spending, so debt falls as our economy grows, and we can invest in the public services on which we all depend.

    I have no doubt that Bank will continue its work to deliver the monetary and financial stability that is essential for a successful economy, as we make the most of the opportunities ahead.

    Governor, I wish you and your distinguished guests well over the next two days as you explore what the future may hold.

  • Karen Bradley – 2017 Speech at Bazalgette Review Launch

    Below is the text of the speech made by Karen Bradley, the Secretary of State for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport on 22 September 2017.

    Thank you to Sir Peter for his hard work in completing such a broad, thorough and thought-provoking review – some really interesting and bold recommendations for both industry and government to pursue, and across a very wide range of areas. And made much more interesting than a normal review by the quotes across the document which are drawn from British creative life. I can certainly relate to Kate Tempest’s call to action – “move fast, don’t stop, you got things to do” – as I’m sure you all can too.

    And thank you to you all for making time to be here at such short notice. Turnout at a few days notice shows how much passion and commitment there is in relation to this subject, and how much interest in hearing what Sir Peter has to say.

    That we are here today is testament to the importance of the creative industries to the UK – increasingly recognised across government as a key sector of the economy. This is partly about a sector holding its own with more traditional industries such as manufacturing – industrial policy is no longer just about widgets and hardware. It is also too about a sector holding its own with tech and other celebrated growth sectors.

    Now – as Business Secretary, Greg has to be even-handed across the economy. As Culture Secretary, I can be a little more partisan. To underline just how important creative industries are to the UK economy, Creative Industries Federation analysis of PwC data suggests that they deliver four times the GVA of the automotive industry, six times as much as life sciences and nearly 10 times that of aerospace. Between 2011 and 2015, the sector created three times more jobs than the economy as a whole. The UK is the third-largest exporter of cultural goods and services in the world – just behind China and the USA. I spend a lot of my time reminding my Cabinet colleagues of these kinds of fact.

    But they matter too for Britain’s place in the world – our values, soft power and influence. Creative Industries are in many cases at the very forefront of how the world perceives us. Whether it be music, film or design, they strengthen the UK brand, adding impetus to our growing creative content and services presence around the world, strengthening trading links in key emerging economies and influencing wider perceptions of the UK.

    And they also matter intrinsically. They produce the things that enrich lives and give them meaning. That’s true of the ‘content’ sub-sectors of the Creative Industries – TV, film, games, music, publishing, fashion. It’s also true of the services side – the architecture that RIBA, our hosts today, do such fantastic work to promote, the design that creates our products, the advertising that influences our desires.

    I hope it is clear to you that Government is committed to supporting the Creative Industries – for example, through the creative sector tax reliefs, which paid out over £600 million last year alone, securing in return nearly £2 billion. And more broadly in securing the best possible outcome for the sectors as the UK prepares to exit the European Union and looks to do trade deals around the world.

    But there is still more to do – and that’s what today is all about. Creative industries in Britain and beyond face both real challenges and opportunities. Much of that is driven by technology and changing patterns of consumer demand. The “D” word – Digital – is now at the heart of the DCMS as the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is transforming the whole economy, but bears strongly on the Intellectual Property-rich, small and micro-dominated businesses that make up much of the creative industries. But change also arises from policy landscape – for example, the opportunities presented by the Government’s Industrial Strategy, and its clear focus on place, inclusive growth and rebalancing the economy.

    And that’s where the sector deal comes in. As Greg has said, the Government has essentially asked business to make it an offer it can’t refuse. In the words of the IS Green Paper there is ‘open door challenge to industry’ to be ‘driven by business to meet the priorities of business’. It seeks ‘a clear proposal for boosting productivity’ in order to ‘drive growth right across the United Kingdom… creating more high-skilled, high paid jobs and opportunities’.

    We have a once-in-a-Parliament opportunity to capitalise on this through the promise of a sector deal.

    In devising a deal, the Creative Industries have made good progress so far thanks to the work of the sector and of course Sir Peter’s independent review, which we will hear about in a minute.

    We have a down-payment today with the announcement of the AHRC funding for research and development partnerships across eight creative clusters.

    The key challenge now is turning a lot of compelling ideas, at varying stages of development, into a tangible agreement. An agreement which is credible and has buy-in from both Ministers and the industry.

    There is definite appetite in Government to land an ambitious deal and this review is a really valuable input. But there are also real constraints – not least financial. As you would expect in a time of continued austerity, the bar to new Government money is very high. The starting point is spending existing resources better.

    There is also time pressure. As ever with these things it is more important to get it right than to get it fast. But we also want to get on and reach an agreement as quickly as possible, taking advantage of the platform the Industrial Strategy provides. Success will depend on the commitment behind the offer from industry, and how that fits with the strategic challenges set out in the Industrial Strategy Green Paper.

    So I encourage Creative Industries leaders to continue to work together and wow Government with a compelling proposal. As the statutory sector body, the Creative Industries Council will lead negotiations on the deal – and I pay tribute to Nicola Mendlesohn who has done a fantastic job as chair – with critically important input from the Creative Industries Federation, under John Kampfner’s outstanding leadership, as well as from others across the sector. We are keen for those discussions to move forward.

    Times are challenging but the prize is big so let’s be bold and ambitious; do what you do best – thinking creatively! – so we can deliver real change that takes the UK’s creative industries to the next level of success.

    I am now delighted to hand over to Sir Peter to tell you about the detail of his review.

  • John Ashworth – 2017 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Ashworth, the Shadow Secretary of State for Health, to the Labour Party Conference held in Brighton on 26 September 2017.

    It is a tremendous privilege to speak from this platform, humbled in the knowledge that it was this Conference over 80 years ago that demanded public universal healthcare.

    And this Party, almost 70 years ago, established a National Health Service, free at the point of use covering every man, woman and child in the land.

    So today we renew our commitment to that cause and dedicate ourselves to electing a Jeremy Corbyn Labour Government whose mission will be the rebuilding of a comprehensive, reintegrated, public NHS, free at the point of use, there for all who need it.

    And we must also speak out with a sense of urgency about what is happening to our NHS. In the past year: waiting lists topped 4 million and 2.5 million people waited over four hours in A&E; over the winter, patients crammed on trolleys in corridors; ambulances backed up outside overflowing hospitals.

    And the nation left shocked by a little boy, with suspected meningitis, waiting 5 hours in A&E without a bed, forced to lie on two plastic chairs. Some called it a humanitarian crisis. When you underfund the NHS and slash billions from social care let’s call it what it is, a Tory manufactured crisis.

    A crisis where waiting lists are so lengthy, more and more patients feel they have no option but to pay for a surgeon to come to their bedside, while the rest wait longer and longer.

    Friends, a person’s health should never depend on their individual wealth.

    So a Labour Government would allocate an extra £45 billion for our NHS and social care sector. And to avoid another winter like the one we’ve just had, we would establish a half billion pound emergency winter fund, so that patients and their families never suffer like that again.

    And we will invest in general practice too, and start recruiting so everyone can access a GP when they need one.

    This is the leadership Jeremy Hunt should be showing. Instead he ordered hospital bosses to a summit last week where they were instructed to chant ‘we can do this’. The NHS doesn’t need silly Jeremy Hunt gimmicks; it needs a Jeremy Corbyn Labour Government.

    I will be a Health Secretary, who will work closely with NHS staff.

    So let us send a message to the staff of the NHS, who work day in day out, at weekends too, whose hands deliver us into the world, who comfort us in our final moments, you have our gratitude, our backing and you have our commitment that a Labour Government will tackle vacancies, will bring back bursaries and scrap the pay cap to deliver fair pay for you all.

    To those who come to our shores from the EU and beyond, we say you are welcome, your rights will be secured, you are not bargaining chips, but part of our society and of the fabric of our NHS.

    Our NHS is undermined by millions of pounds wasted on endless tendering of services to private providers. It is patient care that suffers.

    Let me give a quick example, an ambulance contract here in Sussex handed to a private company who didn’t own any ambulances so they sub-contracted to 20 other companies. Two ceased trading, and ambulances drivers couldn’t be paid. Thankfully the contract was taken back off private hands.

    I had the privilege of meeting those ambulance drivers recently. They continued taking patients to appointments for 8 weeks without pay. Doesn’t that show public service is about a greater calling, is about compassion, care and public duty, not contracts, markets and commercialisation.

    So a Labour Government will legislate to reinstate the Secretary of State’s duty to provide universal care, we’ll reintegrate the NHS, reverse the Health and Social Care Act, fight fire sales of hospital assets and end Tory privatisation.

    Cutting beds, closing services and rationing treatments because of underfunding is not sustainable transformation. So we would stop the STPs and integrate health and social care.

    I also want a new approach to public health that protects people’s wellbeing for years to come.

    To prevent disease, to reduce the toll from cancer, stroke and diabetes it’s time to start tackling the causes of ill health too. We need to end the dismantling of our public health services, we need to tackle social isolation, build decent homes and improve the quality of the air we breathe.

    We have seen an increase in hospital admissions for malnutrition, and a stalling in the improvement in life expectancy for the first time in 100 years. We know a child born into poverty is likely to suffer far worse health outcomes in life.

    It was once said “there can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children”. This Party has long been committed to abolishing child poverty, so I can tell you today that the next Labour Government will commit to an all-out assault on child ill health too.

    No longer will we let squalor impair the health of our children.

    We’ll recruit more health visitors for our communities. We’ll invest in dentistry and, to tackle child obesity, we’ll give every infant a free school meal and ban junk food advertising on family night-time television.

    And we’ll end the disgraceful cuts to child and adolescent mental health budgets, end the scandal of children being treated on adult wards, and finally deliver true parity of esteem.

    I want to mention one other area. This year £43 million will be slashed from alcohol and drug addiction treatment services. Recently, I chose to speak out very personally about my own circumstances, growing up with a dad who had a drink problem. He was an alcoholic.

    His drinking hung over my childhood with the fridge empty other than bottles of drink. His drinking became so bad in his final years he couldn’t bring himself to come to my wedding because he felt too embarrassed.

    I tell this story not for your indulgence or sympathy. But because 2 million children grow up with an alcoholic parent, 335,000 children grow up with a parent with drug abuse issues.

    So as part of our assault on child ill health, I will put in place the first ever national strategy to support children of alcoholics and drug users and we’ll invest in addiction treatment and prevention as well.

    So conference, a fully funded public National Health Service; fair pay for our staff; an end to Tory privatisation; an assault on health inequalities. The very best quality of care for all, free at the point of use, there when you need it.

    This is what we strive for. We settle for nothing less. It’s the demand of a civilised society.

    So today we pledge ourselves to united effort: and resolve that the next Labour Government will rebuild our NHS.

  • Jeremy Corbyn – 2017 Speech at Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, at the Labour Party Conference held in Brighton on 27 September 2017.

    Conference, thank you for that. We meet here this week as a united Party, advancing in every part of Britain, winning the confidence of millions of our fellow citizens, setting out our ideas and plans for our country’s future, that have already inspired people of all ages and backgrounds.

    And it’s a privilege to be speaking in Brighton. A city that not only has a long history of hosting Labour conferences, but also of inspirational Labour activists.

    It was over a century ago, here in Brighton, that a teenage shop worker had had enough of the terrible conditions facing her and her workmates. She risked the sack to join the Shop Workers’ Union, after learning about it in a newspaper used to wrap up fish and chips, and was so effective at standing up for women shop workers, she became assistant general secretary before the age of 30.

    In that role she seconded the historic resolution at the Trades Union Congress of 1899 to set up the Labour Representation Committee so that working people would finally have representation in Parliament.

    That became the Labour Party and it was this woman, Margaret Bondfield who later become a Labour MP. And in 1929, the first ever woman to join the British cabinet’

    From a Brighton drapery to Downing Street. Margaret Bondfield’s story is a reminder of the decisive role women have played in the Labour Party from its foundation, and that Labour has always been about making change by working together and standing up for others.

    Conference, against all predictions in June we won the largest increase in the Labour vote since 1945 and achieved Labour’s best vote for a generation. It’s a result which has put the Tories on notice and Labour on the threshold of power.

    Yes, we didn’t do quite well enough and we remain in opposition for now, but we have become a Government-in-waiting. Our outstanding shadow cabinet team here today. And our message to the country could not be clearer – Labour is ready.

    Ready to tackle inequality , ready to rebuild our NHS, ready to give opportunity to young people, dignity and security to older people, ready to invest in our economy and meet the challenges of climate change and automation, ready to put peace and justice at the heart of foreign policy. And ready to build a new and progressive relationship with Europe.

    We are ready and the Tories are clearly not. They’re certainly not strong and they’re definitely not stable. They’re not remotely united. And they’re hanging on by their fingertips.

    But this Tory Government does have one thing that we lack. They have tracked down the Magic Money Tree when it was needed to keep Theresa May in Downing Street. It was given a good old shake – and lo and behold – now we know the price of power – it’s about £100m for each Democratic Unionist MP.

    During the election campaign, Theresa May told voters they faced the threat of a “coalition of chaos . Remember that? Well, now they’re showing us exactly how that works. And I don’t just mean the Prime Minister’s desperate deal with the DUP. She’s got a “coalition of chaos” around her own cabinet table – Phillip Hammond and Liam Fox, Boris Johnson and David Davis.

    At each other’s throats, squabbling and plotting, manoeuvring to bundle the Prime Minister out of Number Ten and take her place at the first opportunity Instead of getting to grips with the momentous issues facing our country.

    But this coalition of chaos is no joke. Just look at their record since the Conservatives have been in office;

    The longest fall in people’s pay since record began

    Homelessness doubled

    NHS waiting lists lengthening

    School class sizes growing and teachers leaving

    Over 4 million children now in poverty

    20,000 police officers … and 11,000 firefighters cut

    More people in work and in poverty … than ever before

    Condemned by the United Nations for violating the rights of disabled people.

    That’s not strong and stable. It’s callous and calculating. Because the Tories calculated that making life worse for millions in the name of austerity would pay for hefty tax handouts to the rich and powerful.

    Conference, your efforts in the election campaign stopped the Tories in their tracks. The election result has already delivered one Tory U-turn after another over some of their most damaging policies. The cruel dementia tax was scrapped within three days of being announced. Plans to bring back grammar schools have been ditched . The threat to the pensions’ triple lock abandoned. Withdrawal of Winter Fuel payments dumped. The pledge to bring back fox hunting dropped. And their plan to end free school meals in primary schools has been binned.

    The reality is that barely three months since the election this coalition of Conservative chaos is tearing up its Manifesto and tearing itself apart. They are bereft of ideas and energy. Indeed, they seem to be cherry-picking Labour policies instead, including on Brexit.

    I say to the Prime Minister: “You’re welcome . But go the whole hog end austerity, abolish tuition fees, scrap the public sector pay cap. I think we can find a Commons majority for all of that. This is a weak and divided Government with no purpose beyond clinging to power.

    It is Labour that is now setting the agenda and winning the arguments for a new common sense about the direction our country should take.

    Conference, there were two stars of our election campaign. The first was our Manifesto that drew on the ideas of our members and trade unionists and the hopes and aspirations of their communities and workplaces. And we were clear about how we would pay for it by asking the richest and the largest corporations to start paying their fair share.

    Not simply to redistribute within a system that isn’t delivering for most people but to transform that system. So we set out not only how we would protect public services but how we would rebuild and invest in our economy, with a publicly-owned engine of sustainable growth, driven by national and regional investment banks, to generate good jobs and prosperity in every region and nation.

    Our Manifesto is the programme of a modern, progressive socialist party that has rediscovered its roots and its purpose, bucking the trend across Europe.

    And Conference, the other star of that campaign was YOU. Our members, our supporters in the trade unions, our doorstep and social media campaigners. Young people sharing messages and stories on social media, hundreds of thousands organising online and on the ground to outplay the Tories’ big money machine.

    Is it any wonder that here today in Brighton you represent the largest political party in western Europe, with nearly 600,000 members, alongside three million affiliated trade unionists, brimming with enthusiasm and confidence in the potential of our people. You are the future. And let me say straight away. I’m awed and humbled by everything you have done, along with hundreds of thousands of others across the country, to take us to where we are today.

    I have never been more proud to be your elected leader. Our election campaign gave people strength. It brought millions on to the electoral register and inspired millions to go to vote for the first time.

    And Labour was the Party of unity, bringing generations and communities together, rather than pitting young and old against each other, as the Tories did. We will never seek to squeeze one generation to support another. Under Labour, people will win together.

    The result of our campaign confounded every expert and sceptic. I see John McDonnell said the ‘grey beards’ had got it all wrong. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair, John? We wiped out the Tory majority, winning support in every social and age group and gaining seats in every region and nation of the country.

    So please, Theresa May take another walking holiday and make another impetuous decision. The Labour campaign machine is primed and ready to roll.

    Of course, there were some who didn’t come out of the election too well. I’m thinking of some of our more traditional media friends. They ran the campaign they always do under orders from their tax exile owners to trash Labour at every turn. The day before the election one paper devoted fourteen pages to attacking the Labour Party. And our vote went up nearly 10%.

    Never have so many trees died in vain. The British people saw right through it. So this is a message to the Daily Mail’s editor- next time, please could you make it 28 pages?

    But there’s a serious message too, the campaign by the Tories and their loyal media was nasty and personal. It fuelled abuse online and no one was the target of that more than Diane Abbott. She has a decades-long record of campaigning for social justice and has suffered intolerable misogynistic and racist abuse. Faced with such an overwhelmingly hostile press and an army of social media trolls,it’s even more important that we stand.

    Yes we will disagree, but there can never be any excuse for any abuse of anybody. We settle our differences with democratic votes and unite around those decision.

    That is the Labour Party, here this week, and out in the communities EVERY week -diverse, welcoming, democratic and ready to serve our country.

    There is no bigger test in politics right now than Brexit, an incredibly important and complex process, that cannot be reduced to repeating fairy stories from the side of a bus or waiting 15 months to state the obvious. As democratic socialists, we accept and respect the referendum result, but respect for a democratic decision does not mean giving a green light to a recklesss Tory Brexit agenda that would plunge Britain into a Trump-style race-to-the-bottom in rights and corporate taxes.

    We are not going to be passive spectators to a hopelessly inept negotiating team putting at risk people’s jobs, rights and living standards. A team more interested in posturing for personal advantage than in getting the best deal for our country. To be fair, Theresa May’s speech in Florence last week did unite the cabinet. for a few hours at least. Her plane had barely touched down at Heathrow before the divisions broke out again.

    Never has the national interest been so ill-served on such a vital issue, If there were no other reason for the Tories to go their self-interested Brexit bungling would be reason enough. So I have a simple message to the cabinet for Britain’s sake pull yourself together or make way.

    One thing needs to be made clear straight away. The three million EU citizens currently living and working in Britain are welcome here. They have been left under a cloud of insecurity by this government when their future could have been settled months ago. So Theresa May, give them the full guarantees they deserve today. If you don’t, we will.

    Since the referendum result our Brexit team has focused above all on our economic future. That future is now under real threat. A powerful faction in the Conservative leadership sees Brexit as their chance to create a tax haven on the shores of Europe a low-wage, low tax deregulated playground for the hedge funds and speculators. A few at the top would do very nicely, no question. But manufacturing industries would go to the wall taking skilled jobs with them our tax base would crumble our public services would be slashed still further.

    We are now less than 18 months away from leaving the European Union. And so far, the Tory trio leading the talks have got nowhere and agreed next to nothing. This rag-tag Cabinet spends more time negotiating with each other than they do with the EU. A cliff-edge Brexit is at risk of becoming a reality. That is why Labour has made clear that Britain should stay within the basic terms of the single market and a customs union for a limited transition period. It is welcome at least that Theresa May has belatedly accepted that.

    But beyond that transition, our task is a different one. It is to unite everyone in our country around a progressive vision of what Britain could be, but with a government that stands for the many not the few.

    Labour is the only party that can bring together those who voted leave and those who backed remain and unite the country for a future beyond Brexi. What matters in the Brexit negotiations is to achieve a settlement that delivers jobs, rights and decent living standards.

    Conference, the real divide over Brexit could not be . A shambolic Tory Brexit driving down standards .Or a Labour Brexit that puts jobs first a Brexit for the many, one that guarantees unimpeded access to the single market and establishes a new co-operative relationship with the EU.

    A Brexit that uses powers returned from Brussels to support a new industrial strategy to upgrade our economy in every region and nation. One that puts our economy first not fake immigration targets that fan the flames of fear. We will never follow the Tories into the gutter of blaming migrants for the ills of society. It isn’t migrants who drive down wages and conditions but the worst bosses in collusion with a Conservative government that never misses a chance to attack trade unions and weaken people’s rights at work.

    Labour will take action to stop employers driving down pay and conditions not pander to scapegoating or racism. How Britain leaves the European Union is too important to be left to the Conservatives and their internal battles and identity crises.

    Labour will hold Theresa May’s squabbling ministers to account every step of the way in these talks. And, with our Brexit team of Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry and Barry Gardiner we stand ready to take over whenever this government fails. to negotiate a new relationship with Europe that works for us all reaching outto help create a Europe for the many for the future.

    The truth is …. That under the Tories Britain’s future is at risk whatever the outcome of the Brexit process. Our economy no longer delivers secure housing secure well-paid jobs or rising living standards. There is a new common sense emerging about how the country should be run. That’s what we fought for in the election and that’s what’s needed to replace the broken model forged by Margaret Thatcher many years ago.

    And Ten years after the global financial crash the Tories still believe in the same dogmatic mantra – Deregulate, privatise ,cut taxes for the wealthy, weaken rights at work, delivering profits for a few, and debt for the many. Nothing has changed. It’s as if we’re stuck in a political and economic time-warp.

    As the Financial Times put it last month our “financial system still looks a lot like the pre-crisis one” and the capitalist system still faces a “crisis of legitimacy”, stemming from the crash.

    Now is the time that government took a more active role in restructuring our economy. Now is the time that corporate boardrooms were held accountable for their actions, And now is the time that we developed a new model of economic management to replace the failed dogmas of neo-liberalism … That is why Labour is looking not just to repair the damage done by austerity but to transform our economy with a new and dynamic role for the public sector particularly where the private sector has evidently failed.

    Take the water industry. Of the nine water companies in England six are now owned by private equity or foreign sovereign wealth funds. Their profits are handed out in dividends to shareholders while the infrastructure crumbles the companies pay little or nothing in tax and executive pay has soared as the service deteriorates.

    That is why we are committed to take back our utilities into public ownership to put them at the service of our people and our economy and stop the public being ripped off.

    Of course there is much more that needs to be done. Our National Investment Bank… and the Transformation Fund will be harnessed to mobilise public investment to create wealth and good jobs. When I’ve met business groups I’ve been frank we will invest in the education and skills of the workforce and we will invest in better infrastructure from energy to digital but we are going to ask big business to pay a bit more tax.

    The Tory approach to the economy isn’t entrepreneurial It’s extractive. They’re not focused on long-term investment and wealth creation. When you look at what they do rather than what they say it’s all about driving down wages, services and standards … to make as much money as quickly as possible with government not as the servant of the people but of global corporations. And their disregard for rampant inequality the hollowing out of our public services, the disdain for the powerless and the poorhave made our society more brutal and less caring.

    Now that degraded regime has a tragic monument the chilling wreckage of Grenfell Tower. A horrifying fire in which dozens perished an entirely avoidable human disaster. One which is an indictment not just of decades of failed housing policies and privatisation and the yawning inequality in one of the wealthiest boroughs and cities in the world, it is also a damning indictment of a whole outlook which values council tax refunds for the wealthy above decent provision for all and which has contempt for working class communities.

    Before the fire, a tenants’ group of Grenfell residents had warned … and I quote words that should haunt all politicians “the Grenfell Action Group firmly believesthat only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord”. Grenfell is not just the result of bad political decisions It stands for a failed and broken system which Labour must and will replace.

    The poet Ben Okri recently wrote in his poem “Grenfell Tower”:

    Those who were living now are dead

    Those who were breathing are from the living earth fled

    If you want to see how the poor die, come see Grenfell Tower.

    See the tower, and let a world changing dream flower.

    We have a duty as a country to learn the lessons from this calamity and ensure that a changed world flowers . I hope that the public inquiry will assist. But a decent home is a right for everyone whatever their income or background. And houses should be homes for the many not speculative investments for a few. Look at the Conservative housing record and you understand why Grenfell residents are sceptical about their Conservative council and this Conservative government.

    Since 2010: homelessness has doubled, 120,000 children don’t have a home to call their own, home ownership has fallen, thousands are living in homes unfit for human habitation. This is why alongside our Shadow Housing minister John Healey we’re launching a review of social housing policy – its building, planning, regulation and management.

    We will listen to tenants across the country and propose a radical programme of action to next year’s conference. But some things are already clear tenants are not being listened to.

    We will insist that every home is fit for human habitation, a proposal this Tory government voted down. And we will control rents – when the younger generation’s housing costs are three times more than those of their grandparents, that is not sustainable.

    Rent controls exist in many cities across the world and I want our cities to have those powers too and tenants to have those protections. We also need to tax undeveloped land held by developers and have the power to compulsorily purchase. As Ed Miliband said, “Use it or lose it”. Families need homes.

    After Grenfell we must think again about what are called regeneration schemes.

    Regeneration is a much abused word.

    Too often what it really means is forced gentrification and social cleansing, as private developers move in and tenants and leaseholders are moved out.

    We are very clear: we will stop the cuts to social security.

    But we need to go further, as conference decided yesterday.

    So when councils come forward with proposals for regeneration, we will put down two markers based on one simple principle:

    Regeneration under a Labour government will be for the benefit of the local people, not private developers, not property speculators.

    First, people who live on an estate that’s redeveloped must get a home on the same site and the same terms as before.

    No social cleansing, no jacking up rents, no exorbitant ground rents.

    And second councils will have to win a ballot of existing tenants and leaseholders before any redevelopment scheme can take place.

    Real regeneration, yes, but for the many not the few.

    That’s not all that has to change.

    All parties unite in paying tribute to our public sector workers:

    The firefighters who ran into Grenfell Tower to save lives; the health service workers caring for the maimed in the Manchester terrorist outrage; the brave police officers who confronted the attackers at London Bridge; and PC Keith Palmer who gave his life when terrorists attack our democracy.

    Our public servants make the difference every day, between a decent and a threadbare society.

    Everyone praises them. But it is Labour that values them and is prepared to give them the pay rise they deserve and protect the services they provide.

    Year after year the Tories have cut budgets and squeezed public sector pay, while cutting taxes for the highest earners and the big corporations.

    You can’t care for the nation’s health when doctors and nurses are being asked to accept falling living standards year after year.

    You can’t educate our children properly in ever larger class sizes with more teachers than ever leaving the profession.

    You can’t protect the public on the cheap.

    The police and security services must get the resources they need, not 20,000 police cuts.

    Scrapping the public sector pay squeeze isn’t an act of charity – it is a necessity to keep our public services fully staffed and strong.

    Not everything worthwhile costs money though.

    Like many people, I have been moved by the Daily Mirror’s campaign to change the organ donation law.

    There are more than 5,000 people on organ transplant waiting lists, but a shortage of donors means that in recent years only 3,500 of them get the life-saving treatments they need.

    So that everybody whose life could be saved by an organ transplant can have the gift of life – from one human being to another.

    The law has already been changed in Wales under Carwyn Jones’s leadership, and today I make the commitment a Labour government will do the same for England.

    In the last couple of days John McDonnell and Rebecca Long-Bailey have set out how we are going to develop the economic plans in our manifesto to ensure that sustainable growth and good jobs reach ALL parts of the country.

    So that no community or region is held back.

    To establish regional development banks,. to invest in an industrial strategy for every region.

    But the challenges of the future go beyond the need to turn our backs on an economic model that has failed to invest and upgrade our economy.

    We need urgently to face the challenge of automation – robotics that could make so much of contemporary work redundant.

    That is a threat in the hands of the greedy, but it’s a huge opportunity if it’s managed in the interests of society as a whole.

    We won’t reap the full rewards of these great technological advances if they’re monopolised to pile up profits for a few.

    But if they’re publicly managed – to share the benefits – they can be the gateway for a new settlement between work and leisure. A springboard for expanded creativity and culture.

    The tide of automation and technological change means re-training and management of the workforce must be centre-stage in the coming years.

    So Labour will build an education and training system from the cradle to the grave that empowers people.

    Not one that shackles them with debt.

    That’s why we will establish a National Education Service which will include at its core free tuition for all college courses, technical and vocational training so that no one is held back by costs and everyone has the chance to learn.

    That will give millions a fair chance.

    Lifelong learning for all is essential in the economy of the future.

    The huge shift of employment that will take place under the impact of automation must be planned and managed.

    It demands the reskilling of millions of people. Only Labour will deliver that.

    As Angela Rayner said yesterday, our National Education Service will be run on clear principles: universal, free and empowering.

    This is central to our socialism for the 21st century, for the many not the few.

    During the election I visited Derwentside College in the constituency of our new MP Laura Pidcock – one of dozens of great new MPs breathing life and energy into Parliament.

    They offer adult courses in everything from IT to beauty therapy, from engineering to childcare.

    I met apprentice construction workers. They stand to benefit from Labour’s £250 billion National Transformation Fund, building the homes people need and the new transport, energy and digital infrastructure our country needs.

    But changing our economy to make it work for the whole country can’t take place in isolation from changing how our country is run.

    For people to take control of their own lives, our democracy needs to break out of Westminster into all parts of our society and economy where power is unaccountable.

    All around the world democracy is facing twin threats:

    One is the emergence of an authoritarian nationalism that is intolerant and belligerent.

    The second is apparently more benign, but equally insidious.

    It is that the big decisions should be left to the elite.

    That political choices can only be marginal and that people are consumers first, and only citizens a distant second.

    Democracy has to mean much more than that.

    It must mean listening to people outside of election time. Not just the rich and powerful who are used to calling the shots, but to those at the sharp end who really know what’s going on.

    Like the Greater Manchester police officer who warned Theresa May two years ago that cuts to neighbourhood policing were risking people’s lives and security.

    His concerns were dismissed as “crying wolf”.

    Like the care workers sacked when they blow the whistle on abuse of the elderly..

    Or the teachers intimidated when they speak out about the lack of funding for our children’s schools.

    Or the doctors who are ignored when they warn that the NHS crumbling before our eyes, or blow the whistle on patient safety.

    Labour is fighting for a society not only where rewards are more fairly spread, but where people are listened to more as well by government, their local council, their employer.

    Some of the most shocking cases of people not being listened to must surely be the recent revelations of widespread child sex abuse.

    Young people – and most often young working class women – have been subjected to the most repugnant abuse.

    The response lies in making sure that everybody’s voice must be heard no matter who they are or what their background.

    The kind of democracy that we should be aiming for is one where people have a continuing say in how society is run, how their workplace is run, how their local schools or hospitals are run.

    That means increasing the public accountability and democratization of local services that Andrew Gwynne was talking about on Monday.

    It means democratically accountable public ownership for the natural monopolies, with new participatory forms of management, as Rebecca Long-Bailey has been setting out.

    It means employees given their voice at work, with unions able to represent them properly, freed of undemocratic fetters on their right to organize.

    I promised you two years ago that we would do politics differently.

    It’s not always been easy.

    There’s quite a few who prefer politics the old way.

    But let me say it again. We will do politics differently.

    And the vital word there is “we”.

    Not just leaders saying things are different, but everyone having the chance to shape our democracy.

    Our rights as citizens are as important as our rights as consumers.

    Power devolved to the community, not monopolised in Westminster and Whitehall.

    Now let’s take it a stage further – make public services accountable to communities.

    Business accountable to the public, and politicians truly accountable to those we serve.

    Let the next Labour government will transform Britain by genuinely putting power in the hands of the people, the creative, compassionate and committed people of our country.

    Both at home and abroad, what underpins our politics is our compassion and our solidarity with people.

    Including those now recovering from hurricane damage in the Caribbean, floods in South Asia and Texas. and earthquakes in Mexico.

    Our interdependence as a planet could not be more obvious.

    The environmental crisis in particular demands a common global response.

    That is why President Trump’s threats to withdraw from the Paris Climate Change Treaty are so alarming.

    There is no contradiction between meeting our climate change commitments and investing to build a strong economy based on high skill industries.

    In fact the opposite is the case.

    Action on climate change is a powerful spur to investment in the green industries and jobs of the future. So long as it is managed as part of a sustainable transition.

    We know, tragically, that terrorism also recognises no boundaries.

    We have had five shocking examples in Britain this year alone.

    Two during the course of the General Election campaign and one in my own constituency.

    Both Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan – the mayors of Manchester and London – played a crucial role in bringing people together in the aftermath of those brutal attacks.

    The targeting of our democracy, of teenage girls at a pop concert, of people enjoying a night out, worshippers outside a mosque, commuters going to work – all of these are horrific crimes.

    And we all unite in both condemning the perpetrators and in our support for the emergency and security services, working to keep us safe.

    But we also know that terrorism is thriving in a world our governments have helped to shape, with its failed states, military interventions and occupations where millions are forced to flee conflict or hunger.

    We have to do better and swap the knee-jerk response of another bombing campaign for long-term help to solve conflicts rather than fuel them.

    And we must put our values at the heart of our foreign policy.

    Democracy and human rights are not an optional extra to be deployed selectively.

    So we cannot be silent at the cruel Saudi war in Yemen, while continuing to supply arms to Saudi Arabia, or the crushing of democracy in Egypt or Bahrain, or the tragic loss of life in Congo.

    And I say this today to Aung San Suu Kyi – a champion of democracy and human rights – : end the violence now against the Rohingya in Myanmar and allow the UN and international aid agencies in to Rakhine state.

    The Rohingya have suffered for too long!

    We should stand firm for peaceful solutions to international crises.

    Let’s tone down the rhetoric, and back dialogue and negotiations to wind down the deeply dangerous confrontation over the Korean Peninsula.

    And I appeal to the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres to use the authority of his office and go to Washington and Pyongyang to kick start that essential process of dialogue.

    And let’s give real support to end the oppression of the Palestinian people, the 50-year occupation and illegal settlement expansion and move to a genuine two-state solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

    Britain’s voice needs to be heard independently in the world.

    We must be a candid friend to the United States, now more than ever.

    The values we share are not served by building walls, banning immigrants on the basis of religion, polluting the planet, or pandering to racism.

    And let me say frankly – the speech made by the US President to the United Nations last week was deeply disturbing.

    It threatened war and talked of tearing up international agreements.

    Devoid of concern for human rights or universal values, it was not the speech of a world leader.

    Our government has a responsibility. It cannot meekly go along with this dangerous course.

    If the special relationship means anything, it must mean that we can say to Washington: that way is the wrong way.

    That’s clearly what’s needed in the case of Bombardier where thousands of jobs are now at stake.

    A Prime Minister betting our economic future on a deregulated trade deal with the US might want to explain how 220% tariffs are going to boost our exports.

    So let Britain’s voice be heard loud and clear for peace, justice and cooperation.

    Conference, it is often said that elections can only be won from the centre ground.

    And in a way that’s not wrong – so long as it’s clear that the political centre of gravity isn’t fixed or unmovable, nor is it where the establishment pundits like to think it is.

    It shifts as people’s expectations and experiences change and political space is opened up.

    Today’s centre ground is certainly not where it was twenty or thirty years ago.

    A new consensus is emerging from the great economic crash and the years of austerity, when people started to find political voice for their hopes for something different and better.

    2017 may be the year when politics finally caught up with the crash of 2008 – because we offered people a clear choice.

    We need to build a still broader consensus around the priorities we set in the election, making the case for both compassion and collective aspiration.

    This is the real centre of gravity of British politics.

    We are now the political mainstream.

    Our manifesto and our policies are popular because that is what most people in our country actually want, not what they’re told they should want.

    And that is why Labour is on the way back in Scotland becoming once again the champion of social justice.

    Thank you Kezia. And whoever next leads Scottish Labour – our unifying socialist message will continue to inspire both south and north of the border.

    That is why our party now has around twice the membership of all the other parties put together.

    Conference, we have left the status quo behind, but we must make the change we seek credible and effective.

    We have left our own divisions behind. But we must make our unity practical. We know we are campaign-ready.

    We must be government-ready too. Our aspirations matched by our competence.

    During the election campaign I met and listened to people in every part of the country.

    Struggling single parents, young people held back by lack of opportunity.

    Pensioners anxious about health and social care, public servants trying to keep services together.

    Low and middle earners, self-employed and employed, facing insecurity and squeezed living standards.

    But hopeful that things could change, and that Labour could make a difference.

    Many hadn’t voted before, or not for years past.

    But they put their faith in our party.

    We offered an antidote to apathy and despair.

    Let everyone understand – We will not let you down.

    Because we listen to you, because we believe in you.

    Labour can and will deliver a Britain for the many not just the few.

    Thank you.

  • Barbara Keeley – 2017 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Barbara Keeley, Shadow Cabinet Member for Mental Health and Social Care, at the Labour Party conference held in Brighton on 26 September 2017.

    Conference,

    It is an honour to close this debate as Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Member for Mental Health and Social Care

    I am proud to have this role in a Labour party that understands how vital Mental Health and Social Care services are. And that makes protecting these services a major priority.

    And it’s even more important when we see the crisis the Tory Government has created in both social care and mental health. A crisis made in Downing Street

    They are failing people across the country, failing those who need care and their families, failing unpaid family carers and failing hundreds of thousands of care workers.

    People are now going without the care they need. Nearly half a million fewer people getting publicly-funded care since the Tories came to office. Over a million older people with unmet care needs, many of them isolated and lonely

    But this Tory Government isn’t just failing social care users, it’s failing their families too. With hundreds of thousands of unpaid family carers struggling to balance work and care. It’s failing hundreds of thousands of care staff, because under the Tories too often they are under-paid, under-trained and under-valued.

    Caring staff who are forced to work on zero-hours contracts, denied pay for travel time, underpaid for sleep-in shifts, with care visits of just 15-minutes. Prevented from giving the quality of care which people deserve

    And the Tory Government is failing children and young people in need of mental health services, denied treatment due to Tory cuts. Young people told they are not thin enough to be treated for an eating disorder. Children who have self-harmed being turned away unless they have made a serious suicide attempt.

    And thousands of people in mental health crisis being sent hundreds of miles from their families just to get the treatment they need. Mental health services for young people that are now so poor, a High Court Judge had to tell Jeremy Hunt that this country: would have “blood on its hands” if suitable care could not be found for a suicidal teenage girl.

    Conference, it’s time for us in the Labour Party to say that this is not good enough.

    Not good enough that care quality has fallen, with one in four services now failing on safety grounds.

    Not good enough that thousands of vulnerable people are stuck in hospital for weeks or months, because there is no care for them at home or no place in a care home.

    Not good enough that last winter the British Red Cross talked of a humanitarian crisis that saw people sent home from hospital without clothes, people falling and not being found for days, people going unwashed because there are no care services to help them to wash.

    This Social Care Crisis was made in Downing Street. A crisis made by a Tory Government cutting billions of pounds from council budgets. And by Tory Ministers failing to find the extra funding needed for social care

    And then during the Snap General Election, Theresa May announced her solution to the crisis would be a new tax on care. Dubbed the “Dementia Tax”, hitting people who need care even harder. Making people use the value of their homes to pay for their own home care

    Such a failing and toxic policy that Theresa May announced a U-turn on it within 4 days. And then the Tories quietly dumped their policy. But in its place, the Tories now have nothing to say on the future funding of social care. They just promise a consultation and a Green Paper.

    And on the crisis in mental health for children and young people, they also promise only a Green Paper.

    Conference, Labour will fill the Tory policy vacuum. We will show that we are the party that values social care and mental health. At the election, we pledged an extra £8 billion for social care in this Parliament, with an extra £1 billion this year to deal with the Tory crisis.

    This would have delivered: paying a real living wage to care staff, paying them travel time and letting them choose regular hours; finally ending inadequate 15-minute care visits and ensuring free end of life care.

    And Conference, Labour believes funding must be found to pay care staff properly for sleep-in shifts.

    And Labour will support family carers. We have pledged to increase the carers allowance for unpaid carers to at least the same rates as Jobseeker’s Allowance. A small first step to recognise the value of the work of unpaid family carers.

    And Conference, a Labour Government will build a National Care Service. A service in which we pool the risk of high care costs, so that no-one is faced with catastrophic costs as they are now.

    In its first years, our National Care Service will receive an extra £3 billion in public funds every year. Enough to place a cap on what individuals have to pay towards care. Enough to raise the asset threshold for paying for care. Enough to provide free end of life care

    To act on our pledge, we will invite an independent, expert panel to advise us on how we move from the current broken system of care to a sustainable service for the long term.

    In mental health, we will increase the amount we spend on services for children and young people. We will ring-fence mental health budget,s so that money isn’t siphoned off by other parts of the NHS. We will bring an early end to patients being sent hundreds of miles for mental health treatment. And we will offer school-based counselling for young people in every one of our high schools.

    Conference, under the Tories we have seen years of neglect of care needs. Neglect of older people. Of younger people. Of vulnerable disabled people.

    This Tory Government has no solution to the problems it has created. Only Labour will end this crisis made in Downing Street. Only Labour will bring hope to those in need of care and those who care for them

    And only Labour will build care services fit for the many. Not the few.