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Tag: Speeches

  • David Trimble – 1990 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

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    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by David Trimble in the House of Commons on 23 May 1990.

    I understand that it is customary for me to begin by paying tribute to the previous Member for Upper Bann, which I do gladly. Mr. Harold McCusker can be aptly summed up as a man of the people. He worked extremely hard for the people of Upper Bann and cared deeply for their welfare. I know from canvassing in the recent by-election that he was held in high regard and with deep affection by the people of Upper Bann. Harold, characteristically, was a fighter. He fought for those people and he fought in personal terms. His illness would not have been so prolonged if he had not fought so strongly against it. As many hon. Members know, Harold’s surname literally means “a son of Ulster”, and he was a son of Ulster. He was conscious of the soil from which he sprang and the traditions of the area and its people.

    The Upper Bann area is proud of its Unionist heritage, and many elements within the area express that heritage. I had some pleasure in reading a recent publication by the Public Record Office, edited by David Miller. Hon. Members will be familiar with his earlier work, which was extremely enlightening, on Unionism and loyalism. That publication included a copy of the account by Colonel Blacker of the formation of the Orange Order, of which I am proud to be a member. We find within it not only the Armagh area—sometimes the Armagh people, it being the County of the Diamond, forget that other counties contributed—but particularly in the west Down area. I am thinking particularly of the Bleary boys who contributed to that and to the successful defeat of the 1938 rebellion shortly afterwards.

    The Unionist heritage of the north Armagh area is in some ways epitomised by the statute of Colonel Saunderson, which stands in the centre of Armagh. I shall refer again to Colonel Saunderson in a way that is particularly apposite to other matters.

    Upper Bann is significant not only for its Orange heritage but for the way in which its character was formed largely through the plantation processes of the 17th and early 18th centuries. The major towns in the area are plantation towns. We see that from the contribution of the Brownlows to the creation of Lurgan and of the Warings to Waringstown and other towns in the area.

    That plantation had a significant heritage in other repects, because directly from it sprang the Ulster custom, which after the Ulster land war of the 1770s provided a basis from which the industrial revolution was able to occur. The industrial revolution in Ulster, which was centred on the Lagan valley, was an indigenous growth. Ministers may be interested in this, because it owed nothing to Government contribution or significant landlord patronage. It was indigenous and arose out of the customary rights that the tenants had won for themselves. We find the traces of one of the first major industrial developments in the area—the textile industry—through the middle Bann valley, running from Gilford down to the town of Banbridge, which lies in the centre of the constituency.

    During the recent by-election in Upper Bann, attention focused on the intervention of what are called national parties. I want to reflect on that for a moment. I mentioned Colonel Saunderson, whose statue stands in the centre of Portadown. The inscription refers to him as the leader of Ulster’s Unionists in the House for more than 20 years. As hon. Members will know, he first sat in the House as a Liberal, representing the constituency of County Cavan, and in the 1880s was returned for North Armagh, including Portadown, as a Conservative. Of course, he is noted as the leader of the Ulster Unionists.

    The term “national parties” which has been bandied about in recent times is misleading. It was misleading for some people who call themselves Conservatives to intervene in that election and call themselves the national parties. They claimed that their arrival was something new. Of course it was not new. Nor are they right to refer to themselves as solely national parties as distinct from provincial parties. We in the Ulster Unionist party are the British national party in Ulster. We were formed historically by an alliance between Ulster Liberals and Ulster Conservatives, with Ulster Labour representatives too, to combat Irish nationalists. We are the national British parties in Ulster. In that context, one must put a large question mark against the aims and motives of a group calling itself Conservative which contested the election with, it seemed to us, the object of dividing and diminishing the Unionist voice and, by so doing, diminishing the voice of the British people of Ulster.

    Since my arrival in the House, several hon. Members have expressed to me their regret at the decision of the Conservative party to contest the Upper Bann election. I did not regret it during the election. While canvassing, I repeatedly told the electors that the election was an opportunity for them to vote against the policies of the Government. The results show that the electorate of Upper Bann seized that opportunity with both hands. Hon. Members will not need to be reminded that the candidate representing the policies of the Government scored a total of 2.9 per cent.—less than 3 per cent.—of the valid votes cast in the election. That is a clear rejection of the policies of the present Administration. That demonstrates—indeed, it confirms, because we had demonstrated it on many previous occasions—that the policies pursued by the Northern Ireland Office have no mandate from the people of Ulster. That is significant.

    People cannot say that a majority elsewhere in the United Kingdom in favour of the Government’s policies legitimises those policies. A clear distinction can be drawn between Northern Ireland and, say, Scotland. In Scotland, where again the Government have no mandate for their policies, they can say that their policies are applied on a Great Britain basis and that they have a majority in Great Britain. However, the policies pursued in Northern Ireland are applied, not on a United Kingdom basis but specifically to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is treated differently from the rest of the United Kingdom and its constitutional status in the kingdom is diminished.

    A mandate for the Government’s policies can be obtained only from the people of Ulster. Clearly that mandate does not exist. In the light of that, the only honourable course for the Government is to reconsider their policies and accept the offers made by my colleague to extricate them from the position in which they have put themselves. They should adopt policies that reinforce the position of the kingdom of Ulster within the kingdom.

    At least the Conservative party came to seek a mandate in Upper Bann, even though that mandate was refused. If listened with interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall). I find his detailed interest in matters relating to Northern Ireland interesting. I agreed with several of the points that he made. Surely he must find it a little strange to take such a detailed interest in Northern Ireland matters and discuss them at length in the House when he belongs to a party that not only does not contest elections in Northern Ireland but refuses people in Northern Ireland the right or opportunity to join it. A member of a party which deliberately boycotts the people of Northern Ireland must surely find it inconsistent to take such a detailed interest in Northern Ireland.

    Tonight we are discussing the Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 1990. The measure is dealt with in the form of an Order in Council. Order in Council procedures are less than satisfactory. Indeed, that is an understatement. The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) referred a few moments ago to defects in the planning legislation on article 22 inquiries. As hon. Members will know, a planning and building regulations order has been tabled and is shortly to be debated. If that was legislation dealt with in the normal way, the hon. Member for Belfast, East could table an amendment to provide a remedy for the defects to which he referred. Of course, he cannot do so. That is not right. The procedures should not operate in the way that they do. Significant changes are needed.

    I support the comments made by the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe) on the Payments for Debt (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Northern Ireland) 1971. Order in Council procedure is objectionable partly because it is described as temporary. It is a temporary procedure stemming currently from the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974 and originally from the Northern Ireland (Temporary Provisions) Act 1972. One wonders what the meaning of the word “temporary” is in that context.

    That is even more appropriate in the context of the point raised by the hon. Member for Antrim, South. He dealt with a temporary measure introduced in 1971, which is still operating. Not only is the measure objectionable because it was a temporary measure which lasted 19 years, but the provisions made for deduction of benefits under the Act were made as the result of administrative action.

    I should have thought that hon. Members who are interested in the rights of persons subject to the law of the United Kingdom would want people’s property rights determined in the courts or through some form of judicial procedure, rather than civil service actions. Civil servants may decide to withhold benefits in order to pay debts owed to other persons. That is particularly strange when, through the Enforcement of Judgments Office and its provisions for attachment of earnings and other assets, procedures have to be followed and some independent judgment is placed between the debtor and the creditor by the operations of the enforcement officers.

    Surely, at least on those grounds, something should be done. Even if it is still felt necessary to make deductions from people entitled to claim benefit, surely something should be done to enable people to make representations before a third party. It would be appropriate to provide something analogous to the procedure for enforcement judgments.

    My first point about the order concerns planning policy in the Craigavon district. That area is unique in Northern Ireland as the only area that does not have in force a development plan or area plan. The original, non-statutory plan, which is now some 20 years old, is not relevant, because the position has changed drastically in the past 20 years, with the failure of the new city project contained within it. In that area, we are operating with the detritus of the new city project.

    While canvassing during the election campaign, I was struck by the desolation of the estates in the central Craigavon or Brownlow area. I hope that some thought has been given to planning policies that could help to regenerate that area. I was also struck by the way in which many areas of the town of Lurgan have been badly blighted because of road proposals which, I am told, have since been abandoned. Again, I hope that some serious planning policies will be evolved to regenerate those areas.

    I was also struck by one of the consequences of the 1960s housing policies which I hope will not be repeated. I refer to the not very well built medium and high-rise flat developments. Nearly all the developments that I saw were semi-derelict and unoccupied. They were eyesores and worse—especially in the Portadown district, where properties that were originally constructed by the local Housing Executive have been bought by the tenants under the right-to-buy procedures, which the Government encouraged.

    The owners have found that, to some extent, their properties have been devalued by the derelict medium-rise flat developments just across the road. I hope that some urgent action will be taken on that. I was told by the occupiers—the purchasers—that they had been told by the executive that they would have to wait two or three years simply for a decision on the flat developments, let alone for any action to be taken.

    My second point about the appropriation order relates to the community relations cultural traditions programmes. As the Minister said, the programmes are being expanded considerably. That is a good thing, and I very much welcome the existence of those programmes. However, I should like an assurance that they will be genuinely representative and even-handed. I must confess to being uncertain about the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council. Technically, it is not a Government body, although in the first instance all its members have been appointed by the Government. It has been given a budget of £300,000. We must ask, how was the body formed? How representative of the community are the people who serve on it and how balanced is that representation? It seems that that representation does not rise above the level of tokenism as far as the majority tradition in Ulster is concerned. Many of the people who serve on it cannot be regarded as truly representative.

    Finally, I refer to an item of expenditure relating to the Northern Ireland Assembly. I note that there is a provision for £274,000 to be spent—over £200,000 of which will be spent on maintaining a cadre to provide the basis for an Assembly, should one be called in the future. I welcome that expenditure because there is a great need for representative institutions in Ulster. Hon. Members will know that there is a virtual absence of representative institutions and that what are called “local authorities” are not really what are normally understood by that term. They rarely get above the level of English parish councils. There is a huge gap between them and this House. We need representative institutions.

    Although I welcome that expenditure on the Northern Ireland Assembly, I do not want my comments to be taken as implying my approval of the proposals in the Prior Act—the Northern Ireland Act 1982. I am not sure that those proposals ever were workable. If we ever have an Assembly—or devolution on any significant scale in the future—I hope that it will be much more substantial than that of the Northern Ireland Assembly, if it is to be regarded as worthwhile devolution as distinct from what is essentially local government restructuring, which is another matter.

    Devolution is said to be the Government’s policy. I find it curious that a Government with that policy have not made any proposals that would advance that policy. That is to be contrasted with the experience or the actions of the Ulster Unionist party because it is now almost two and a half years since the Ulster Unionist party made detailed proposals for developments in Northern Ireland to the previous Secretary of State, to which there has not yet been any response. The Government do not make any proposals of their own. Their attitude is passive. If we were to have discussions on the proposals, I suspect that the Government would not advance any proposals of their own, but would simply adopt the role of picking holes in the proposals of ourselves and others.

    I wonder why that should be the case. I suspect that, despite its protestations to the contrary, the Northern Ireland Office actually prefers the present position. I suspect that it does not really want devolution, but prefers to sustain the present direct rule. Under that system, it is effectively insulated from any form of democratic control. Ministers can speak for themselves, but civil servants in the Northern Ireland Office give the impression that they are not really interested in devolution, and that they enjoy the freedom from accountability that direct rule gives them. That is another reason for ending direct rule at the earliest opportunity.

  • Nusrat Ghani – 2016 Statement on Deaths of Journalists

    NusratGhani

    Below is the text of the speech made by Nusrat Ghani in the House of Commons on 1 February 2016.

    Marie Colvin was a The Sunday Times journalist killed in Syria in 2012, while reporting from the siege of Homs. She passionately believed that through her work she could be the voice of all those experiencing conflict, from whatever perspective. During the latter part of her life, her determination to be that voice had a physical manifestation: an eye patch, the result of injuries sustained in Sri Lanka, where she was hit by shrapnel as she tried to cross the front line.

    Following her death, the columnist Peter Oborne wrote:

    “Society urgently requires men and women with courage, passion and integrity to discover the facts that those in authority want to suppress.”

    Marie Colvin herself said:

    “In an age of 24/7 rolling news, blogs and Twitter, we are on constant call wherever we are. But war reporting is still essentially the same—someone has to go there and see what is happening. You can’t get that information without going to places where people are being shot at, and others are shooting at you.”

    The relationship between Members of this House and the fourth estate—our friends up in the Press Gallery—is complicated, but although much of modern-day politics could often be described as a conflict zone, we do not daily put our lives on the line in our place of work. When a member of our armed forces is killed in a conflict zone, the Prime Minister rightly takes a moment at the beginning of Prime Minister’s questions to remind the nation of the sacrifice that that brave serviceman or woman has made. But with the notable exception of people such as Marie Colvin, we do not hear anywhere near as much about the sacrifices made by a large number of professional and citizen journalists every year in the name of newsgathering.

    The Committee to Protect Journalists, which I want to thank on the record for its assistance in preparation for this debate, has recorded that 98 journalists were killed last year. It has been definitively confirmed that 71 of them were murdered in direct reprisal for their work; were killed in crossfire during combat situations; or were killed while carrying out a dangerous assignment, such as covering a street protest.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP) I sought the hon. Lady’s permission last week to intervene. Statistics from the International Federation of Journalists show that 2,297 journalists and media professionals were killed in the past quarter of a century. That is an enormous number. They were standing up for the freedom of speech that we take for granted in this country. Does she agree that the United Kingdom and other liberal democracies should be promoting free speech and liberty across the globe, through the media and through journalism?

    Nusrat Ghani The hon. Gentleman makes an important point: the numbers are vast in the past 50 years or so. I hope that the Minister will respond on that, and I will ask him to do so towards the end of my speech. The International Federation of Journalists puts the number even higher than the CPJ, saying that at least 112 were killed last year.

    Professional journalists in conflict zones, such as those working for the BBC and Sky, are fortunate to have extensive support from their employers. Employees of those organisations undergo hostile environment training in preparation for travelling to conflict zones to check that they are adequately prepared for the dangers that they will face.

    Recently, a member of staff working for a major British media outlet in the middle east was approached by a man who verbally abused him, accusing him of being a traitor and a collaborator. His companions intervened, but another eight people arrived on the scene carrying batons and knives. The journalist ran away and took refuge in a nearby shop. However, two of his companions were heavily beaten up and received hospital treatment from the injuries they sustained.

    The incident was reported by the staff member to the high risk team, which subsequently deployed a security adviser to the country to conduct a security review for that individual, and put additional security measures in place to support the staff. However, increasingly, our news comes not just from professional journalists, whose names, faces and employers we recognise, but from stringers and citizen journalists. Stringers are unattached freelance journalists and citizen journalists are members of the public—independent voices.

    The ability of citizen journalists to share stories has an effect on professional journalists. The pressure to go deeper into conflict zones is greater. One of the defining features of a war reporter these days is that they are embedded in the conflict. Today, they are on the frontline, or in enemy territory.

    Increasingly, we understand that many of the world’s conflicts today are conflicts of narrative. In the middle east, Daesh wants to control what the conflict looks like. It wants a monopoly over stories and images. More than ever, the narrative is what people are fighting over. Daesh wants to recruit with images, and the reality disseminated by journalists challenges that propaganda. Any citizen journalist can break the propaganda machine. Anyone with a phone is an opponent.

    Daesh sees journalists as spies. It sees them as western actors who seek to disrupt the Daesh narrative by reporting on its weaknesses and failures, and that makes them a target. The philosopher Walter Benjamin said:

    “History is written by the victors.”

    That remains true, but the victors, and the course of the fight, are now a consequence of what is written, and that is even more the case now than it was in Benjamin’s time. That makes it even more important that we protect and honour those journalists, whether professional or citizen.

    The BBC’s Lyse Doucet said last year:

    “We often say that journalists are no longer on the frontline. But we are the frontline…We are targeted in a way we never have been before… now journalists are seen as bounty and as having propaganda value.”

    Journalists in conflict zones are not ordinary members of the public. They tell the stories that allow us to understand what is truly going on in the confusion and propaganda of warfare, and they carry out a vital public service.

    Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con) I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I congratulate her on securing this very important debate. Does she agree that the pace of news in the modern age means that we can no longer wait for dispatches to be informed about what is going on in conflict zones? Journalists are best positioned to give us this real-time accurate information of what is really going on.

    Nusrat Ghani I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Conflict is changing incredibly quickly. Lots of chaotic terrorism acts are happening all over the world, and, quite often, we rely on journalists to be our eyes and ears on the ground.

    My discussions with journalists and their employers in recent days have highlighted what I consider to be a gap in the service provided by the Foreign Office to those taking risks to bring truth and to hold people to account. Will the Foreign Office consider making it the policy of British embassies and consuls abroad to hold a register of journalists working in conflict zones within the relevant country at any one time? At the moment this process is ad hoc. On registration, the embassy would and should provide a security briefing on the situation in that country or the neighbouring country if it is in conflict, increasing the ability of journalists to protect themselves, and their employer’s ability to ensure that they are acting according to legitimate and expert advice.

    The role of foreign Governments in the protection of journalists is an important one. Will the Minister outline what expectations the Foreign Office currently has of foreign Governments to do everything they can to protect journalists who are British, or working for British-based media outlets, and to challenge them to extend that protection to their own local journalists? Will he consider making it a requirement for negotiations with foreign Governments, especially when embarking on diplomatic relations with emerging democracies, that the protection of journalists is an issue on the table?

    The British Government have rightly identified Bangladesh and Pakistan as critical countries in the region and we have partnered with them as a result. Yet in Bangladesh, for example, bloggers are killed by al-Qaeda and others because of what they write. Last year, over 40% of journalists killed in Bangladesh were killed by Islamic extremists because they just disagreed with the words that were written.

    In Pakistan in 2006, it is documented that the Government prepared a list of 33 columnists, writers and reporters in the English and Urdu print media and tried to neutralise the “negativism” of these writers by making them “soft and friendly”, and one could interpret that as going a bit beyond a friendly chat. I have more up-to-date testimonies, but the journalists concerned were reluctant for me to raise that on the Floor of the House today. Will the Foreign Office consider making it a requirement that countries that we are partnered with show clear intent to protect the rights of journalists, both professional and citizen? We must not flinch from exporting our proud British values of freedom of the media and of expression.

    I will finish by talking about Ruqia Hassan, a citizen journalist in Syria who used her Facebook page to describe the atrocities of daily life in Raqqa, until she went silent in July last year. It has been reported that her last words were:

    “I’m in Raqqa and I received death threats, and when Isis [arrests] me and kills me it’s ok because they will cut my head and I have dignity it’s better than I live in humiliation with Isis.”

    It has been speculated that her Facebook page was kept open for months so that other citizen journalists could be lured in and so that they too, in turn, could be silenced.

    Naji Jerf, a 38-year-old activist who reported for the website “Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently”, was also murdered late last year following his final work, “Islamic State in Aleppo”, which exposed human rights violations in the city. His murderers disagreed with him that anyone should hear about those violations. I believe he is the fourth person from “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently” to have been murdered so far.

    Individuals such as these are part of conflict, and through our consumption of news we are complicit in their participation, but they take the risks. We must honour their bravery, and their pride in what they were, and still are, doing, by highlighting their contribution not only to our understanding of what is going on in conflict zones, but also their contribution to ending conflict by shedding light on it, and we must do all we can to defend their right to do what they do, and protect them as they go about it.

  • David Lidington – 2016 Statement on the European Union

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    Below is the text of the speech made by David Lidington, the Minister for Europe, in the House of Commons on 2 February 2016.

    At about 11.35 this morning, the President of the European Council, Mr Donald Tusk, published a set of draft texts about the United Kingdom’s renegotiation. He has now sent those to all European Union Governments for them to consider ahead of the February European Council. This is a complex and detailed set of documents, which right hon. and hon. Members will, understandably, wish to read and study in detail. With that in mind, and subject to your agreement, Mr Speaker, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will offer an oral statement tomorrow, following Prime Minister’s questions, to allow Members of the House to question him, having first had a chance to digest the detail of the papers that have been issued within the last hour.

    The Government have been clear that the European Union needs to be reformed if it is to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The British people have very reasonable concerns about the UK’s membership of the European Union, and the Prime Minister is determined to address those. He believes that the reforms that Britain is seeking will benefit not just Britain, but the European Union as a whole. Therefore, our approach in Government has been one of reform, renegotiation and then a referendum. We are working together with other countries to discuss and agree reforms, many of which will benefit the entire European Union, before holding a referendum to ensure that the British people have the final and decisive say about our membership.

    The House will recall that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made a statement after the December meeting of the European Council. At that meeting, leaders agreed to work together to find mutually satisfactory solutions in all the four areas at the European Council meeting on 18 and 19 February. My right hon. Friend’s meetings in Brussels on 29 January, and his dinner with President Tusk on 31 January, were steps in that negotiation process.

    We are in the middle of a live negotiation and are now entering a particularly crucial phase. The Government have been clear throughout that they cannot provide a running commentary on the renegotiations. However, I am able to say that much progress has been made in recent days, and it appears that a deal is within sight. The publication of the texts by President Tusk this morning is another step in that process, but I would stress to the House that there is still a lot of work to be done.

    If the texts tabled today are agreed by all member states, they will deliver significant reforms in each of the four areas of greatest concern to the British people: economic governance, competitiveness, sovereignty and immigration. On sovereignty, the texts show significant advances towards securing a United Kingdom carve-out from ever closer union.

    On the relations between euro “ins” and “outs”, the documents offer steps towards significant safeguards for countries outside the eurozone as euro members integrate further. On competitiveness, we are seeing a greater commitment by the entire Union to completing the single market for trade and cutting job-destroying regulations on business.

    On free movement, there are important ideas in President Tusk’s drafts on reducing the pull factor of our welfare system and on action to address the abuse of freedom of movement of persons.

    We believe that real progress has been made, but I would stress that there is more work still to be done and more detail to be nailed down before we are able to say that a satisfactory deal has been secured.

  • Michael Wilshaw – 2016 to the Fair Education Alliance

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Chief Inspector of OFSTED, in London on 14 April 2016.

    Good evening everyone. I am really pleased to have been asked to take part in this event to mark the launch of your latest annual report card.

    As I approach the end of my tenure as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, I am saddened, but not surprised, by many of your findings. My motivation and commitment to the cause of educational equality and social mobility remains as strong today as it did on the day I first entered a classroom in Bermondsey nearly half a century ago. And let me tell you about that first class, because it has a bearing on what I’m going to say tonight.

    Since Tracey disappeared into the mists of East London to do an unskilled job, somewhere on the Bermondsey dockside, the world has changed. The world economy has changed, and expectations have changed. Quite rightly we have much higher expectations of what our children can achieve to prepare them for this vastly different economic landscape.

    If Tracey were growing up in today’s world she would have more choices and better options. Children from all walks of life should now be able to achieve any goal. Expectations are higher, our schools are better – in part thanks to Ofsted – and there is definitely more opportunity for all.

    The fact that many more of our children from across the social spectrum are doing well is a cause for optimism.

    So why am I standing here making this speech? Because, although we are doing better, we are not doing anywhere near well enough to compete with the best jurisdictions in the world. And we are certainly not doing well enough for our poorest children. What is particularly worrying is that we are not doing well enough for our brightest children coming from poor backgrounds.

    There’s that damning statistic, the one that keeps me awake at night, from the Sutton Trust. Seven thousand of our brightest children, mainly from poorer backgrounds, were in the top 10% nationally at age 11 but were not in the top 25% at GCSE 5 years later.

    I therefore applaud the collective efforts of the people in this room who have come together under the umbrella of the Fair Education Alliance to try to do something about educational inequality.

    And let’s be clear. This isn’t simply about doing right by a certain sector of society. Tackling inequality benefits the whole of our education system. When we improve standards for the most disadvantaged then standards improve nationally. As Lord Adonis, the pioneer of the original academies programme, understood, if you tackle problems at the bottom end there will be a trickle-up effect through the whole sector.

    One of my first acts as Chief Inspector was to assemble an expert panel of head teachers, academics and educational leaders to undertake an in-depth study into the educational achievements of England’s poorest children. This was a follow-up to the landmark reports published by 2 of my predecessors in 1993 and in 2003.

    My report on access and achievement, entitled Unseen Children, concluded that poverty of expectation had become a greater problem than material poverty. The children of poor parents with high expectations were doing much better academically than those whose parents and teachers expected little of them.

    The report also found that the distribution of underachievement had shifted. Twenty or 30 years ago, the problems were in urban areas, especially inner London schools. At that time these were the worst-achieving in the country.

    By 2013, schools in inner as well as outer London had become the highest performing in England. Instead, we found that many of the poor children being let down by the system in recent times attended schools either in generally affluent areas with small numbers of free school meal children or in places that were relatively isolated, such as rural communities and coastal towns.

    I made a series of recommendations for politicians and policy-makers on the back of these findings.

    Among the most important of these were:

    – the development of a number of sub-regional challenges aimed particularly at raising the achievement of disadvantaged children

    – a more strategic approach to the appointment of National Leaders of Education and their matching with schools in need of support

    – the creation of a ‘National Service of Teachers’ to direct ambitious and talented professionals to underperforming schools in less fashionable or more challenging parts of the country
    the reshaping of vocational education

    The report also recognised the fundamental importance of early years in shaping the future prospects of young people.

    Of course there is no magic bullet or shortcut to success. The Fair Education Alliance (FEA) itself sets out an ambitious array of recommendations for how we can make things better. Tonight I would like to concentrate on progress we have seen and the challenges that still lie ahead.

    We need to get the early years right

    I have said many times before that underachievement starts from birth. Too many children are given a poor start in the essential early years. I whole-heartedly support the recommendations of your report for more use of qualified teachers in this sector.

    Children who fall behind in the early years of their life struggle to make up for it in later years. If by age 7, a child cannot read, the odds are stacked against them. If children cannot count, sit still, follow instructions or hold a pencil properly when they leave Reception, they will always be playing catch-up.

    This is why I have long argued that effective nursery and primary schools are the best places for very young children from disadvantaged homes. In these schools, clear routines bring order and security into the lives of young children and help build self-assurance as well as awareness of the needs of others.

    In our last Annual Report for the Early Years, I suggested that there was a strong case for schools taking many more of the poorest children from the age of 2. Schools have the in-built advantage of being able to offer continuity across the transition to Reception, have more access to specialist support, employ well-qualified graduate teachers and are familiar with tracking children’s development.

    I also called for much more to be done to encourage parents of the poorest 2-year-old children to take up the offer of a funded place in a high-quality provider. We found that nearly half of all 2-year-olds (around 113,000) eligible for 15 hours of free early education had not taken up their place in any type of setting. It is essential that more is done, through children’s centres and health visitors, to promote greater take-up.

    We need to get the best leaders and the best teachers to the schools that need them most

    It is vital that we do far more to attract and incentivise the best people to lead underperforming schools in challenging areas. All my experience has taught me that when schools are chaotic it is the poor and vulnerable who suffer most. The lack of structure at home is replicated at school and, unlike their peers from middle class backgrounds, poor parents often lack the capacity to compensate for deficiencies in the school and in the classroom. Therefore getting good leadership into these areas is of fundamental importance.

    The government’s recently published White Paper talks about “rebalancing incentives” and “investing in targeted initiatives” to boost leadership capacity in challenging areas and to create career pathways for people who want to work in the areas where they are most needed.

    This is certainly something I welcome, along with the emerging National Teachers Service, particularly given they were a key feature of my report, and I look forward to hearing more detail about these measures and, more important, seeing them bearing fruit.

    The FEA proposals for incentivising teachers to different areas, with schemes such as mortgage-deposit support, are exactly the sort of innovative thinking that we should be exploring to help with this challenge. We need to get vocational and post 16 education right.

    The Unseen Children report expressed my concerns about the overall quality of provision for the many children who would prefer an alternative to university. Our system is adept at guiding students into higher education. However, as the House of Lords social mobility committee found last week, it still struggles, despite the recent focus on apprenticeships, to inform them about alternative career pathways available to them.

    We simply have to improve the quality of our technical provision and present it as a valid educational path if we are to equip youngsters – especially those from poorer backgrounds – with the skills they need and employers want.

    We are making strides in the right direction here, with ambitious targets for the creation and quality of apprenticeships and a growing number of university technical colleges coming into the system.

    As the Alliance report card recognises, we need to ensure that careers advice in schools improves so that young people understand the different options in front of them and can make informed choices about their future.

    We need more political leadership and regional solutions
    We need more focus on those areas that are not delivering the necessary high standards for their children. I welcome the government’s White Paper proposals for focusing efforts in ‘Achieving Excellence Areas’. This version of my suggestion of ‘sub-regional challenges’ will only succeed if local politicians, be they mayors, council leaders or cabinet members, are prepared to take ownership of school performance no matter what the governance structure and status of the school.

    We need them to be visible, high-profile figures that people can recognise as education champions. The great success stories in London would not have happened without the drive and commitment of the likes of Jules Pipe and Sir Robin Wales in Hackney and in Newham, respectively.

    There is ultimately, however, only so much that the school can achieve without the commitment of parents and carers.

    We need to ensure schools do more to engage with those parents who don’t care enough about their children’s education.

    As the chief executive of Centre Forum observed last week, many white British pupils are falling behind students from other ethnic backgrounds by the time they take their GCSEs because of a lack of support from their parents.

    The family is the great educator. We need more leaders who have no qualms about reminding parents of their obligation to be a good parent – coming to open evenings, making sure their child does their homework, reading to them and listening to them read.

    I know this is a difficult task but it is not impossible.

    As I recounted in a radio interview just this morning, it can be tough to get these parents on board. I often speculate on how useful it would be for heads to have the ability to fine those who have the capacity but wilfully choose not to engage.

    Grounds for optimism

    Let’s not allow ourselves to be too pessimistic.

    I do not underestimate how difficult it is to educate children who are poor and who lack all the advantages that a more affluent background confers. I understand that it’s a lot easier to teach children who don’t come to school hungry, who live in homes filled with books, who have parents that are employed, let alone university educated.

    I spent most of my professional career trying to enthuse children whom others had written off. It isn’t easy for schools to compensate for social disadvantage. But never make the mistake that because it’s difficult, schools cannot make a difference. They can.

    We know that we can overcome the challenges of poverty because we have seen it happen. In London, with effective, tenacious leadership and political will, failure turned into stunning success over a relatively short period of time. There is no reason, in my view, that this sort of success cannot be replicated elsewhere.

    This FEA report has focused on the progress that is being made in the North East of England. We also know there are schools in places like Portsmouth and Barking and Dagenham that are now bucking the trend in terms of the achievement of poorer children, especially from white British backgrounds.

    Conclusion

    It is not only a moral imperative that we should do better for our poorest youngsters, but also crucial if we are going to become a more productive nation and a more socially-cohesive one.

    If we are to compete with the best jurisdictions in the world then we need more organisations, politicians and leaders to collaborate and support schools, and ensure that every young person gets the standard of education they deserve.

    It’s only through commitment, ambition and determination that we will break the pattern of underachievement in challenging areas of the country and create a more fair and equal society. A society where every child has the same life chances regardless of where they live.

    I commend all of you in this room for your commitment to those goals.

  • Patrick McLoughlin – 2015 Speech on Manchester Victoria Re-opening

    Patrick McLoughlin

    Below is the text of the speech made by Patrick McLoughlin, the Secretary of State for Transport, at Manchester Victoria Station on 6 October 2015.

    Introduction

    It is a privilege to be here today.

    To declare open a renewed Manchester Victoria station.

    Manchester Victoria has been serving passengers for over 170 years.

    Designed as a grand station for the greatest manufacturing city in the world.

    It is a great station with a great history.

    Yet over recent decades, it had been allowed to decline, as successive governments failed to invest in northern transport.

    By 2009, Manchester Victoria was rated the worst station in Britain; a casualty of the north-south investment divide.

    A station fit for Manchester

    So 6 years later, and 3 years after work here began, it’s thrilling to see Manchester Victoria.

    Once again a station fit for the city of Manchester.

    No longer a symbol of northern neglect.

    But proof we are building a Northern Powerhouse.

    The north is receiving a wave of investment in its transport infrastructure on a scale not seen for generations.

    £4.5 billion in the north west alone.

    This region’s roads and railways, so important for prosperity, are being transformed.

    Everyone who uses Manchester Victoria is getting not just a stunning, upgraded station, but improvements to their journey.

    When we have finished, every line serving this station will have been enhanced with new infrastructure or better services.

    The line to Liverpool has already been electrified, so the journey takes less than 35 minutes.

    We are re-signalling the Calder Valley line to improve journey times and provide for more frequent trains.

    As I speak, a tunnelling machine built in Oldham, and bigger than those used to dig the Channel Tunnel and Crossrail, is boring a new tunnel at Farnworth so we can electrify the line between Manchester, Bolton and Preston.

    On the Metrolink, Transport for Greater Manchester is building a 2nd City Crossing from this station, which will increase the capacity and reliability of the Metrolink network.

    And last week I was pleased to announce that work to electrify the TransPennine route to Huddersfield, Leeds and York is to resume.

    This picture of change is repeated across the north.

    Over the year to December, over 85 additional carriages will have been added to Northern Rail fleet for services in the north west.

    From 2018, new InterCity Express trains will replace the existing trains on the East Coast Mainline.

    Overall, by the end of 2019, there will be an increase in peak capacity into the big cities of the north of over one third.

    Providing an extra 200 services every day.

    And Pacers will have been removed from the Northern franchise.

    Then looking further ahead, there’s HS2.

    The tendering process for construction has begun.

    And work will start in just 2 years.

    Conclusion

    So this magnificent station is the evidence.

    The Northern Powerhouse is being built.

    And the benefits are already being delivered.

    There are 71,000 more businesses in the north west than in 2010: a clear sign our long-term plan to secure a stronger, healthier economy is working.

    So, thank you to Network Rail.

    Transport for Greater Manchester.

    The Railway Heritage Trust.

    The main contractor, Morgan Sindall.

    And the staff of Northern Rail who have kept trains running throughout.

    You have done a brilliant job.

    You have made Manchester Victoria a station for the future.

    I have no doubt that it will continue to serve the people of Manchester for another 170 years.

    Thank you.

  • Sheryll Murray – 2015 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sheryll Murray in the House of Commons on 27 May 2015.

    It is an honour to be invited to second this Humble Address, which was proposed so eloquently by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns). He has the pleasure of representing an area that differs considerably from my own, although I am sure many of his constituents have had fantastic holidays in the beautiful Duchy of Cornwall.

    This honour really belongs to the people who live in South East Cornwall, and I am proud that they have chosen me to represent them in this place for a further term. South East Cornwall is where I have always called home: it is where I was born, where I was schooled, where I have worked and where I am proud to call home. Anyone who has visited my beautiful constituency, who has walked the rugged coastline or explored the wonderful countryside and met the warm, genuine folk of Cornwall will understand why it is where my heart lies.

    I think I am right in saying that I am the first Cornish maid to second the Loyal Address, although back in 1971 the proposer was the Member of Parliament for St Ives. I am pleased to welcome the new Conservative representative, my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), although he did keep us waiting: his constituency was the last to declare.

    During the election campaign, the Prime Minister visited Cornwall on a number of occasions. On one occasion, a group of enthusiastic party supporters were summoned to a large cowshed to meet him: that is the way we do things in Cornwall. In his rallying speech, he mentioned how glad he was to be in the county of Poldark. Like Poldark, the Prime Minister rode into Cornwall—not on a horse, but on a bus—where he was introduced to all those who were waiting by my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), who himself has been likened to Aidan Turner, the actor who played Ross Poldark.

    On the morning of 8 May, as votes were counted in that same cowshed, it became evident that true-blue representation throughout Cornwall was on course to double when my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) was elected. The Prime Minister can now tell his wife that, like Ross Poldark, he has his own six-pack—six blue constituencies in Poldark’s county—and that three new Conservative Members are joining me and my hon. Friends the Members for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) and for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice).

    The result of the general election was a surprise to many people. Cornwall is surrounded by blue water, and the blue tide rose, sweeping across the duchy, but it did not stop at the Tamar. It crossed into Plymouth, where a new Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), joined my hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) and for South West Devon (Mr Streeter). The tide swept across Devon, and halted only when it reached the constituency of the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), where his defences could not quite be penetrated. I know from experience in my own constituency that water does have a way, so he should be warned.

    I look forward to working with colleagues from Devon, and with other west country Members, but I want to set a clear ground rule for my right hon. and hon. Friends. Given that I am Cornish born and bred, it will comes as no surprise to hear me mention clotted cream. I say to my colleagues, “Please note: the jam must come first on the scone, before the cream.” If they agree, I am sure that we shall get along fine. I pay tribute to the Prime Minister for putting his jam and cream on a scone in the proper way. It has been said that the only reason those in Devon prepare their cream teas incorrectly is their wish to hide their use of clotted cream with the jam.

    A number of dairy farmers in my constituency and elsewhere have diversified, producing not only cream but cheese. The Gracious Speech supports aspiration and small businesses like those producers, and I am sure that they will welcome it.

    Many of my constituents told me that they had been waiting for an EU referendum Bill for a very long time, and were fed up with hearing that it would be provided directly by Opposition Members. I am delighted that the Bill is at last going to happen, and I welcome the fact that the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) has changed her mind and decided to support it. I shall not dwell on the fact that she has changed her mind; women do.

    I cannot end without passing on special thanks to the Prime Minister from the residents of my home villages, Kingsand and Cawsand. Last Saturday, I attended the reopening of the newly repaired clock tower, and the Prime Minister’s help in making this historic building survive was acknowledged. The building was reopened by 102-year-old Doll Jago, who is the oldest resident in the village. It was extremely special for me because Doll’s late son, Tony, first introduced my late husband Neil to commercial fishing.

    It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of Cornwall, to commend the Gracious Speech to the House.

  • Simon Burns – 2015 Speech on the Loyal Address

    simonburns

    Below is the text of the speech made by Simon Burns in the House of Commons on 27 May 2015.

    I beg to move,

    That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:

    Most Gracious Sovereign,

    We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg to leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.

    It is a great honour for me, and for my constituents, to propose the Humble Address, not least as this is the first majority Conservative Government elected since 1992—and one should not lose sight of the historical context of this achievement. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is the first Prime Minister who served a full term to win his second general election with more seats and a higher share of the vote since Lord Palmerston in 1857.

    It is a pleasure to be called first in a debate by you, Mr Speaker, though I suspect this will be the last time.

    I must confess that I am finding this a nerve-racking experience, because I am not used to addressing such a packed Chamber. In fact, I feel a bit like a very young British diplomat serving in our mission in Beijing in the mid-1960s who at a diplomatic reception found to his horror that he was standing next to Chairman Mao. He was terrified that whatever he said would be inadequate and he desperately racked his brains to try to find something intelligent to say. Finally, he found what he thought was intelligent and asked Mao, “What do you think would have happened if Khrushchev rather than President Kennedy had been killed in Dallas.” There was total silence and he felt that he had committed the diplomatic faux pas that he was trying to avoid. What he did not know, as all too often I do not know, but certainly my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister knows, is that wise men always think before they speak. After what seemed like an eternity, Mao turned to the young man and very quietly said, “I don’t think that Mr Onassis would have married Mrs Khrushchev.”

    Talking of diplomats, I would like to pay tribute to our former colleague William Hague. He was a great parliamentarian and an outstanding Foreign Secretary who will be sorely missed. I am personally indebted to him for arranging for me to meet Hillary Clinton at the Foreign Office four years ago. Towards the end of the meeting, William grabbed my arm, pulled up my jacket sleeve and thrust my wrist in front of our distinguished American guest. At first, I was worried that William was wanting to demonstrate his judo skills, but it soon became clear that he was attempting to show Hillary my watch, which features a picture of her on the face of it. Hillary looked at it and literally screamed with laughter—I knew it was laughter, but her secret service protection officers were not so sure; they immediately stepped forward, and one of them was heard to mutter, “What the hell’s he done to her?” Fortunately, calm was restored before what could easily have been an untimely by-election in Chelmsford.

    Despite the security scare, I thought the meeting had gone pretty well. I was therefore taken aback when William called me a few months ago with some unsettling news. Hillary had got wind of my desire to help her 2016 presidential campaign, and it was not good news he had to convey to me. She told William she had heard about my record: “He worked for McGovern’s campaign in ’72, and he lost; he worked for Ted Kennedy’s campaign in 1980, and he lost; he worked for Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s campaign in 2002, and she lost; and he worked for my campaign in 2008, and I lost. For goodness’ sake”, Hillary pleaded with him, “please find Simon something—anything—else to do, away from the United States in 2016.”

    Proposing the Humble Address is a great honour for me. In many ways, this is a kaleidoscope Queen’s Speech—people can twist it as much as they want, but all the patterns are blue, without a hint of yellow, red or purple. I was brought down to earth, however, when I reread the excellent seconding speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) in 1992, when he defined the role of the proposer and seconder. He said a seconder had the opportunity to shine and further advance their career, so I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) has a glittering future ahead of her, but as he explained, the proposer is

    “some genial old codger on the way out”.—[Official Report, 6 May 1992; Vol. 207, c. 56.]

    I now know my role in life. Never again, when the word “reshuffle” permeates Westminster, will I sit anxiously by my telephone, because I now know that old codgers only have a past to look forward to.

    In recent years there have been dastardly rumours that you, Mr Speaker, and I do not get on, or even—heaven forbid—that we do not like each other. Just before Dissolution, I read an article by your biographer, who bizarrely suggested that I might be ugly, but, as you know, it is said that politics is show business for ugly people, so, Mr Speaker, I would say that we are all in this together.

    It is time, Mr Speaker, that we buried the hatchet—preferably not in my back—so I would like to offer an olive branch by clearing up a rumour about your car. As you will know, in recent years my relationship with cars has not been an altogether happy one, but it has been said that a few years ago my car reversed into yours in Speaker’s Court. You apparently saw the incident through the window of your apartment and hurried out shouting at me, “I’m not happy”, to which I am reputed to have replied, “Then which one are you?” If it is helpful to you, Mr Speaker, I want categorically to confirm that this incident never happened.

    It is also said that anyone wanting to keep a secret should mention it in the Chamber of the House of Commons. As I trust all right hon. and hon. Members here today, I would like to make a confession—[Interruption.] When I first came to this House, two MPs a week had to queue overnight in armchairs in a room upstairs for ten-minute rule Bill slots because of the high demand for them. Believe it or not—this is true—the night I chose was with Ann Widdecombe. If Jack Kennedy was the man who accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris in 1961, I am the man who spent the night with Ann Widdecombe in 1991!

    I am very proud of my constituency, which is set in the heart of Essex. It is the home of “Essex man” and “Essex girls”, who like to work hard and play even harder. It might have caught on only over the last few years, but I have been saying it since 1987—“The only way is Essex!” My constituents fully embrace the work ethic: they are aspirational for themselves and their families, believing that the harder they work, the more they should benefit, without losing sight of helping those who are genuinely in trouble or need assistance.

    My constituents understood the scale of the economic mess that we inherited and they accepted the measures my right hon. Friend the Chancellor took to establish the firm foundations of our long-term economic plan. That has meant for my constituents: unemployment down; inflation down; the deficit down; income taxes down—and growth up. They welcomed the income tax cuts through the significant raising of personal allowances each year of the last Parliament. For these reasons, they will warmly welcome the tax lock Bill, which will ensure no tax rise on income, VAT or national insurance contributions throughout the lifetime of this Parliament. They will also welcome the childcare Bill, which will double free childcare for three and four-year-olds to 30 hours a week, as this will help a tremendous number of young mothers in my constituency who would like to get back into work but find it difficult because of the cost of childcare.

    My constituents are forthright in their views, and what will impress them about this Queen’s Speech is that we have kept the faith by honouring our election commitments. During the election, the media and the pundits said we would not be able to deliver. This Gracious Speech disproves that fallacy, and I commend it to the House.

  • John Woodcock – 2016 Speech on Poppi Worthington

    johnwoodcock

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Woodcock in the House of Commons on 11 February 2016.

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will heed your very appropriate warning on these matters. Indeed, the precise nature of what can and cannot, and should and should not, be disclosed is an important issue in this debate, as I will go on to discuss. I want to thank colleagues who have been right behind the push to try to salvage some justice after the death of Poppi Worthington and to press for the changes that this investigation clearly must lead to, both in the way the police operate in these matters and in social services. I am grateful to the Minister for her time today in the meeting, and it is good to be able to follow on so directly with this public debate.

    Poppi Worthington died in December 2012, when she was 13 months old. We are now in February 2016, so more than three years later I am still having to come to this House for answers. Indeed, it has been only weeks since it has been possible to discuss this matter in public, because of the extensive, deeply surprising and in many ways concerning injunction that was placed upon reporting this matter. That was only partially lifted by Mr Justice Jackson’s ruling last month.

    I will briefly go through some of the key facts, before moving on to the questions I hope the Minister will answer. On 11 December 2012, Poppi Worthington was put to bed by her mother a perfectly healthy child. Eight hours later, she was brought downstairs by her father lifeless and with troubling injuries, including significant bleeding from her anus. She was just 13 months old when she died. It then took until June 2013 for the full post mortem to declare the cause of death as “unascertained”.

    In August 2013—eight months after Poppi’s death—Paul Worthington, her father, was brought in for questioning. That was the first time he had been questioned by police. He had twice before been questioned in relation to different child sexual abuse allegations. Critical evidence, such as Poppi’s clothes and last nappy, had been lost or never gathered by police. The media have reported that Mr Worthington’s laptop was not requested by police at the time, and by the time they eventually asked for it, the device had apparently been sold and sold again and so was unavailable to the police’s store of evidence.

    In March 2014, a fact-finding report was delivered in private in a family court. Court records dated 18 December 2014 make it clear that lawyers acting for Cumbria County Council originally applied for a 15-year ban on the disclosure even of Poppi’s name. In the judge’s words, their case for secrecy included the claim that

    “disclosure of alleged shortcomings by agencies might be unfair to the agencies”.

    The coroner’s inquest in Barrow town hall took just seven minutes to declare her death as “unexplained”. That is less than a quarter of the time we have for this debate.

    It took legal action from a variety of media organisations to force a second inquest, after the first was declared insufficient and therefore unlawful. I pay tribute to several people in the media who have pushed for this tirelessly, particularly Clare Fallon of “BBC North West Tonight” and the North West Evening Mail, whose Justice for Poppi campaign is still gathering signatures on the Downing Street website for the full and independent investigation that I believe is necessary, given the scale and breadth of the failings.

    It then took until July 2015 for the High Court to order the second inquest. In November, Mr Justice Jackson in the family court released part of his original fact-finding judgment from the March before. This revealed that Cumbria police conducted “no real investigation” into Poppi’s death for nine months, despite a senior pathologist at the time raising concerns that Poppi might have suffered a serious sexual assault. It then took until this January—just last month—for Mr Justice Jackson to give his final, very clear verdict: based on medical evidence, he believed that Poppi had suffered a penetrative sexual assault before her death. It was only after this judgment that the second coroner’s inquest could get off the ground. It had been requested in January 2015 and confirmed in July.

    We heard earlier this week that the second inquest would commence in March and that we would find out the timetable soon. Worryingly, the senior coroner has indicated that it might not even be concluded this year. Meanwhile, the Independent Police Complaints Commission has put together a report into failings by Cumbria police that names several officers. The report was finished last March—nearly a full 12 months ago—and leaked to the BBC, but the IPCC is currently still refusing to publish it. Similarly, a serious case review by Cumbria Local Safeguarding Children Board is being withheld, despite the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice, the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) making it clear that the publication of neither of these reports could prejudice the coroner’s second inquest.

    In addition, the Crown Prosecution Service is reviewing the evidence to see if a criminal prosecution is possible. The fact that it is in doubt is surely largely the result of the astounding failures by the police in their handling of this case. The clear question to the police, which must now be taken up, is why they did not act immediately after a pathologist raised the prospect of a serious sexual assault. Why did they not keep hold of vital evidence from the scene?

    Those questions demand serious action from the force itself and from the Government. That brings me to the following serious issues: the nature of and justification for the refusal by the IPCC to publish its completed report; and the appointment and continued tenure of acting Chief Constable Michelle Skeer.

    We are told that lessons have been learnt by the force, but we cannot judge because we are not permitted even to see the IPCC report into what went wrong. We do not know exactly why these failures occurred. We do not know if those responsible have been held properly accountable. Most importantly of all, we do not know if new systems have been put in place to stop this happening again.

    I have written to the IPCC to ask for the release of its report. It refused on the grounds that it could prejudice the second inquest, the disciplinary processes that have yet to be fully undergone or a future criminal investigation. My case to the Minister today is that none of those three potential justifications holds any water.

    Let me deal first with the idea that the report could prejudice the second inquest. The inquest, by definition of course, looks at the cause of death. It looks at the period of time up to death occurring. The IPCC report is concerned exclusively with the police investigation into that death, so there is zero overlap between those two periods of time. One cannot logically prejudice the other. While I understand that the Minister cannot command the IPCC, as it is currently constituted, to do anything—it is an independent body for justifiable reasons—I urge her to comment on her view of the logic of that case.

    Neither is it legally possible to prejudice disciplinary proceedings, which are yet to get under way. That is my clear legal understanding based on evidence I have seen provided to the BBC. I would like the Minister to confirm that. The key failure we face is whether there is the prospect of mounting any criminal investigation at all.

    When I was first able to question the Minister a couple of weeks ago after Mr Speaker granted me an urgent question on this matter, I called for a separate force to be brought in, given the manifest failures of the original investigation. I wanted a separate force to be brought in to take over this investigation. The Minister and I have been able to discuss this outside the Chamber and I understand that she does not yet have the necessary information to make a judgment on that, but part of the necessary information will be the IPCC report that is currently being withheld. Every day that goes by, the evidence trail gets colder, and every day without justice for Poppi is a day in which her killer, if she was unlawfully killed, is able to walk free.

    Will the Minister confirm that she wants to see the report as quickly as possible, preferably through full and open publication? If that is not possible, is she prepared to ask for a private copy like that provided to the police and crime commissioner, who has confirmed that, although he is not allowed to refer to it publicly, he is able to use it to make judgments?

    It has become apparent that the police and crime commissioner, Mr Richard Rhodes, had not received the report when he endorsed the temporary promotion of Michelle Skeer from deputy chief constable to acting chief constable after Chief Constable Jerry Graham was forced to stand down temporarily on the grounds of ill health. Regulations state that the PCC should be given an unpublished report only if it relates to the chief constable, but he was not made aware of the contents of this report, even though he was required to endorse the temporary promotion of a woman—this is clear, because the report has been leaked to and reported on by the BBC, and it has been shown to me—whom it directly names and criticises for her actions in this case. She is now overseeing the force’s path of improvement from the case, despite the fact that she was directly implicated in it.

    Is the Minister as troubled as I am by this situation, and will she agree to re-examine the regulations and procedures, to ensure that this kind of thing cannot happen again? If a report relates to someone who may be promoted to the position of chief constable, the police and crime commissioner should automatically be given sight of that important evidence.

    I have come to the conclusion that it is unsustainable for Michelle Skeer to continue in the post of acting chief constable, because that is to the detriment of restoring confidence in the police force and the process of change that it now needs to carry out. She was named in the report from which the police force needs to recover, and the manner of her appointment was flawed. The Minister will probably say that that judgment is not for her, but for the PCC to make. However, if the PCC reaches that view, will the Minister at least pledge to give him her Department’s assistance in finding an alternative acting chief constable while the permanent chief constable returns to health?

    These are incredibly difficult and distressing matters. No professional intentionally allows such horrific cases to go without justice. Police officers go to work to prevent and to solve crimes, and social workers go to work to protect children, but that has not happened in this case. Although this is a difficult and complex issue, the Government face a binary choice: either they must be prepared to step in and do all they can to increase transparency and to remove the logjam and the cloud of secrecy hanging over the case, or they will end up being part of a system that perpetuates that secrecy.

  • Barbara Woodward – 2016 Speech on Inspiring Women

    barbarawoodward

    Below is the text of the speech made by Barbara Woodward, the British Ambassador to China, in China on 2 April 2016.

    I want to start by thanking Yang Lan not just for convening this forum today, but also for all the inspiring work she and Her Village do to inspire us all and bring out the best in us day after day.

    Being able to share experiences and support is critical to all our success. Zhang Xin, another wonderful speaker who will be talking the floor later today, reminded us all of that in her inspiring remarks in Davos earlier this year when she referred to the importance of support groups.

    We have just heard from Kevin Rudd about Advancing the Rights Interests and Role of Women Around the World. Since the Beijing UN Conference on Women, there have been important strides. President Xi Jinping’s commitment at UN GA last year reemphasised China’s commitment to this agenda.

    I have to pay tribute to Australia and China. As many of you know, I am the first female Ambassador to China. Of course, we are behind China already as State Councillor Mme Fu Ying was the first female Chinese Ambassador to London. And of course I am embarrassed to say that we are behind Australia too in this respect, as Australia has just sent their second female Ambassador to China.

    No matter. We have at least made some progress. I was very amused last month to hear this anecdote about Lord Killearn. He was a former British Ambassador in Cairo and earlier in his career, he was an official, a 1st Secretary in Peking. In 1933, he’s reported to have said, when he confronted with the possibility of a future with a female ambassador to China, this would be ‘’unsuitable and highly inadvisable’’!

    Well, if I hadn’t already been Ambassador, I would have been inspired right out there to go out and do the job and prove him wrong!

    And that’s what so many great women have done. Prove people wrong and challenge stereotypes.

    We are all familiar with Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai who refused to accept that girls could not have an education. She – and her classmates – went to school, day in day out. She wrote about her experience. Then one day in 2012 she was shot by a gunman on her way to school. She made a miraculous recovery- and I pay tribute to medical professionals in Pakistan and the UK. She has continued not only to pursue her own education, but also to press the right of all children to education. The youngest ever winner of a Nobel peace prize in 2014 and one whose work continues to inspire us today.

    Progress/the remaining challenge

    We are currently living under a record-high number of simultaneous female world leaders. The UK’s own Queen Elizabeth, who visited China in 1986, 30 years ago, and who celebrates her 90th Birthday this year is one. But that’s still only 20 or so out of more than 200. That’s 10%! But who knows if the next US President or the next UN Secretary General might be a woman?

    There are more women leading business. Our host today, Yang Lan, and many wonderful colleagues joining us are included in that number. In the UK, all FTSE 100 companies have at least one female board member and last year 33% of appointments were to women. But around the world somewhere between 8 and 15% of top executive jobs in business are held by women.

    Between 1901-1920, 4 women won Nobel prizes. Between 2001-2015, 19 women won prizes, including Chinese scientist Tu Youyou last year. That’s progress! But let’s bear in mind that in the whole history of Nobel prizes, 822 have been won by men and only 48 by women: that’s quite an imbalance!

    In sport, at the London Olympics in 2012, for the first time, women competed in as many sports as men, and every team sent at least one female athlete. That’s not equality, but it’s progress.

    That’s for leaders. What about the rest of us? Well, there’s still scope for progress.

    There is still not a single country in the world where women have equal economic and political power to men.

    What does that mean? Let me give two concrete examples.

    First: although women in sub Saharan Africa manage 80% of the farmland, they access only 10% of the credit available for smallholders.

    Second: The recent World Economic Forum Report (Nov 2015) suggests it will take another 118 years to achieve pay equality between men and women. That means even those girls born today may still not achieve equal pay before they die, even if they live to a ripe old age.

    But by narrowing the gender gap in work, as much as $12 trillion could be added to annual global GDP in 2025. Adding another economy the size of China’s must be something worth us all pursuing. And if China were to succeed in breaking down gender stereotypes and unleashing women’s economic potential, $2.5 trillion could be added to China’s own annual GDP . That’s a prize worth having for men and women.

    So what are we going to do about it?!

    The good news is that we all hold the power to accelerate change.

    Today I want to introduce three ways to accelerate change.

    Government and company policy

    First, Obviously governments and companies have a critical role to play. Equality is enshrined in China’s constitution. In the UK, women won the vote in 1918. In the 1970s the UK passed key legislation on equal pay and on sexual discrimination.

    But it takes time to implement legislation and catch up. It requires each organisation to have policies to make these laws work in practice. In my own organisation, the UK Foreign Ministry, now 35% of the FCO Board are women. More than 20% of Ambassadors and Heads of Mission are women. This number will continue to rise.

    Because we encourage flexible and remote working.

    Because we have career breaks and unpaid leave for up to 10 years.

    Because we have a nursery in the FCO where staff can leave their children while they work.

    Because we check every job advertisement to make sure it does not put women off.

    Because we have committed to having a woman on the shortlist for all senior jobs.

    Because we are committed to mentoring and coaching to develop women’s talents.

    Because we insist on diverse interview panels (not just men conducting the interviews).

    But it takes more than that….

    So, second let me talk a bit about

    Peer support.

    Following your dream, building your career, facing the challenges as knowing how and when to seize the opportunities involve tough choices. Since I came to China, I’ve been the very lucky beneficiary of support from a group of talented and supportive women.

    I have also met inspired and motivated members of Lean In Groups followers of Sheryl Sandberg’s seminal advice.

    Last month, the British Embassy in China organised a month long campaign “Be Yourself”. The aim of our campaign was empowering women to fulfil their potential, to break down barriers and be themselves.

    By the end of the month, our energetic, talented and committed staff had organised more than 20 events in 7 cities in China, including in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan Chongqing and Guangzhou.

    Over 1500 people had participated directly.

    Over 4m had participated on line.

    That was our small contribution last month to inspiring and empowering women through peer learning and mutual support.

    Third, we need to smooth the path of the next generation- of boys and girls.

    We all know the value of education. I was very struck by what the First Lady, Madam Peng Liyuan said last autumn in New York, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Women’s conference.

    After generations of hard work, China has come a long way in education. I myself am a beneficiary of that progress. Otherwise I would never have become a soprano and a professor of music.

    I myself started my work in China as an English teacher. I am passionate about education. I’m delighted that the UK is renowned as a world leader in education and that students from around the world, including 150,000 from China, many the beneficiaries of scholarships without which that study would not be possible, come to study in the UK.

    Why? Because education, for boys and girls is a route to opportunity, to realising dreams, and ultimately to the security of society. Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen maintains that “if we continue to leave vast sections of the people of the world outside the orbit of education, we make the world not only less just, but also less secure”.

    Education and the skills you learn in the classroom are important. But it’s not just about the learning.

    I was delighted last autumn to become the patron of a new British Council initiative, which is taking up the challenge for action by launching Inspiring Women China.

    Inspiring Women China is based on a successful UK-led model launched in 2013. Its aim is to break down gender stereotypes through real-life examples of what is possible.

    Inspiring Women provides an opportunity for female professionals from a wide range of occupations to volunteer just a small amount of time a year – to go into schools to talk with young people about the job they do and the route they took to get there.

    As the film so vividly portrays, research shows that children as young as 6-years old are already classifying particular careers as ‘male’ or ‘female’. If children hold on to this stereotyping, young women may never fulfil their true potential. They may rule themselves out of careers in which they might have otherwise excelled. Industries and employers fail to benefit from all the talent that is potentially available.

    Already over 20,000 women volunteers in the UK, from apprentices to CEOs, women from all walks of life are talking to 250,000 children.

    By rolling out Inspiring Women in China, the British Council and the British Embassy are supporting our country’s and our organisation’s commitments under the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

    I am delighted that Yang Lan has joined me as patron of this wonderful programme. And this is the young entrepreneur and philanthropist He Lan at the first Inspiring Women talk in Beijing last month!

    Let me conclude then by saying this. The world has much to gain from women fulfilling their potential and realising their dreams. All the women here are role models for achieving that. Thank you for getting involved with our peers and by inspiring the next generation, that is how we can truly accelerate progress.

  • David Lammy – 2016 Speech on BBC Diversity

    davidlammy

    Below is the text of the speech made in the House of Commons by David Lammy on 14 April 2016.

    I beg to move,

    That this House notes the crucial cultural role the BBC plays in modern Britain; welcomes the fact that one of the public purposes outlined in the BBC Charter is to represent the UK, its nations, regions and communities; notes with concern that the last employment census in 2012 showed the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic people working in the UK creative media fell by 30.9 per cent between 2006 and 2012; believes that a BBC target of 14.2 per cent for 2017 is insufficient; further notes that this target falls short of other UK broadcasters; and calls on the Government to recognise these failings when considering the BBC’s charter renewal and make representations to the BBC to ensure that the corporation is not failing in any of its diversity objectives, including, but not limited to, delivering high quality programming which reflects modern Britain accurately and authentically and that the Corporation must advance equal opportunities to diversify and develop its workforce and senior leaders so that they better reflect audiences.

    I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing me to bring this motion before the House today, and to my colleagues the hon. Members for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) and for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) for co-sponsoring this debate.

    Over the past few weeks I have met and spoken to many people, both black and white, who work in our creative industries. They do an extraordinary job, and our creative industries rightly have an envied international reputation. I am acutely aware that this is the first time in the history of the BBC that matters of diversity have been debated on the Floor of this House.

    This is certainly not, however, a new issue. I must begin by acknowledging those who have called for many years for greater diversity in the arts, especially in television. I salute the work my good friend Lenny Henry has done. Back in 2013 he called on me to help him as he began to think about the issues more deeply. In 2014 he laid out his plan for the BBC to set aside money for black, Asian and minority ethnic shows. Earlier this year, Idris Elba came to Parliament and spoke of the

    “disconnect between the real world and the TV world”,

    and the even bigger gap

    “between people who make TV, and people who watch TV”.

    I pay tribute to the Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy, who is in his place. In his six years in post he has been a champion of diversity in the media. I absolutely agree with his comments on “Channel 4 News” last week, when he said that the current position on diversity across our broadcasters is unacceptable and that more progress is needed. He has taken our broadcasters and the wider arts and culture sector and held their feet to the fire. I am grateful to him for doing so. On this issue, there is very little between us.

    Let me make it clear that diversity is not of course just about black and minority ethnic individuals; there is still significant work to be done to improve the representation within broadcasting and across our public life of women; of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals; and of people with disabilities. It is also right to say that class and social mobility play a role in representation across the BBC. I am quite sure that colleagues in the House are also concerned that, despite some progress, there is a north-south divide in England. There is still some way to go, particularly on the representation of the depth and range of voices across the north of this country.

    Diversity is an issue across the whole media sector, not just in broadcasting and certainly not just within the BBC. From Fleet Street to Hollywood, there are clearly many more rivers to cross. City University’s latest survey, conducted just last month, found that British journalism as a whole is 94% white, and that there was not a single BAME face among the entire list of nominees for the 2016 Oscars. In 2006, representation of BAME people in the creative media industries stood at 7.4%; yet in 2012, the figure fell to 5.4%, and in television it fell from 9.9% to 7.5%, so it is going in the wrong direction.

    Directors UK has said that the number of BAME directors working in UK TV is “critically low”. A sample of 55,000 episodes drawn from 546 titles found that only 1.29% of programmes were made by black, Asian and minority ethnic directors. In some areas—period dramas, talk shows, panel shows and sketch shows—not a single episode had been made by a black, Asian or minority ethnic director. This is just not good enough in 2016.

    We are privileged in this country to enjoy so much public broadcasting. That goes beyond the BBC: ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, S4C, STV and UTV have a public service broadcasting remit, meaning that they operate for the public benefit rather than purely for commercial purposes. Taken together, those channels account for 70% of all TV watched in the UK.

    Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP) The statistic the right hon. Gentleman read out about programmes produced by black and ethnic minority people is shocking. I would support his argument by pointing out that when a population of 60,000—I am talking about the Gaelic speakers of Scotland—is given the opportunity, tremendous talent comes forward and great programmes are made. I think the point he is making is that if that opportunity was available to others, the same would happen. I support him in that.

    Mr Lammy The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We have gone beyond the point where we say, “The talent is not there. Can we do some training?” The talent exists. Can we now bring it forward and get the change that is required?

    One of the central statutory responsibilities of public service broadcasters, as outlined in the Communications Act 2003, is to ensure that the diversity of the UK is reflected in their output. They must broadcast

    “programmes that reflect the lives and concerns of different communities…within the United Kingdom”.

    Ofcom has made it clear that all public sector broadcasters must do more on diversity and the portrayal of under-represented groups. Its latest research found that 26% of black viewers saw people from black ethnic groups on TV daily. Over half of black viewers feel both under-represented and unfairly portrayed across our public service broadcasts. Some 55% of viewers from a black ethnic group felt there were

    “too few people from black ethnic groups on TV”

    and 51% felt that black, Asian and minority ethnic people were shown negatively on TV.

    Since its inception at Alexandra Palace in Haringey, my home borough, the BBC has time and again proved its worth as a national broadcaster in the quality, depth and breadth of its output. Its great programmes bring the nation together, its outstanding journalism brings stories to life, and its online offering has seen the Beeb continue to flourish and serve its audience in the digital age.

    Over the years, the BBC has made significant strides in reflecting Britain’s increasing diversity. In 1964, it made the groundbreaking documentary “The Colony”, about West Indian immigrants living in Birmingham. In 1967 “Rainbow City” was the first drama series that saw a black man in a leading role. There was not a huge number of black actors on television when I was growing up, but Benny in “Grange Hill” was one of them and I was grateful for him. I remember Moira Stuart reading the news, beginning in 1981; the Tavernier family arriving on the set of “EastEnders”; and Diane-Louise Jordan presenting “Blue Peter” for the first time, as I made my way to university—not to mention great shows such as “Black Britain”, “The Lenny Henry Show”, “The Real McCoy” and “Goodness Gracious Me”.

    Seeing black faces on the BBC, the national broadcaster, has helped show Britain’s black community that they belong and that they are part of the nation’s social fabric. The BBC is the cornerstone of public service broadcasting in our country and our most important cultural institution. Most of all, it is the recipient of huge amounts of money, receiving £3.7 billion from the licence fee. Tony Hall, the director-general, has admitted that although this is “a truly cross-industry challenge”,

    “the BBC must take the lead because of our unique funding and responsibility to licence fee payers”,

    which comes with that funding.

    Let me state categorically that I am a friend of the BBC; I love its output. Today, my remarks are strong because I think my friend is in trouble. Too many people from ethnic minority backgrounds who work in the organisation have contacted my office over the past few weeks to say that they cannot speak up because they do not want to be labelled a troublemaker. Well, I have no problem with being called a troublemaker. That is why I and so many colleagues are in this House to speak up on their behalf.

    Between 1999 and the inquiry of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport into the future of the BBC in 2014—within 15 years—the BBC ran 29 initiatives aimed at black and ethnic minorities, but the situation is still not improving. In September 1999, it published a statement of promises, pledging better to reflect the UK’s diversity. In 2000, it published a cultural diversity action plan, promising that the corporation would

    “reflect the UK’s diversity in our programmes, our services and workforce”.

    It set up a new recruitment agency to reach out to “different communities”, a mentoring programme and a development scheme to enable

    “minority ethnic staff to compete for senior positions within the BBC”.

    In 2011, the BBC published “Everyone has a story: The BBC’s Diversity Strategy 2011-15”, which outlined its

    “determination to visibly increase our diversity on and off air”

    and five separate

    “strategic equality and diversity objectives”.

    Diversity was outsourced to various divisions, which were told to create divisional diversity action plans and diversity action groups.

    In 2014, Tony Hall unveiled yet another action plan to tackle on and off-air representation, stating

    “we need to do more”.

    He announced a senior leadership development programme, under which six talented people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds would come forward, and a diversity creative talent fund.

    We heard last year, and we are hearing it again, that at the end of this month the BBC will publish an equality and diversity report. Yet another one is coming very shortly, and it is all going to be fixed—£3.7 billion! It will be another strategy to get our teeth sunk into, and we will fix this challenge. If the BBC is genuinely a universal broadcaster, we have to ask these questions. This can no longer be about skills training. The skills are there. This is about the institution and the change that is now required. That is why we brought this debate forward.

    I am growing tired of strategies, new approaches, action plans, initiatives and press releases. The net result of all these strategies and initiatives is, sadly, very little. Despite the good intentions, the rhetoric has not been matched by real progress. In 2011, the proportion of the BBC’s workforce that was from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background was 12.2%. Tracked against the progress of its 2011-15 strategy, we see modest rises to 12.3% in 2012, 12.4% in 2013, 12.6% in 2014 and 13.1% in 2015. In four years, we have seen a 0.9 increase. In 2003, BAME employment was 10%, so in 12 years, it has increased the proportion of black, Asian and minority ethnic staff by just 2.2 percentage points.

    That is still not reflected by an increase in management roles in the organisation. We can all go into Broadcasting House and see black staff in security and at the junior end, but when we walk into that newsroom and think about the editorial decisions that are being made, we must ask ourselves, “Is this really representative of our country as a whole?”

    Everyone I have spoken to recognises that over the past two to three years, on-screen representation has improved significantly. There are areas of the BBC’s output that, frankly, are fantastic. I have young children, and children’s television is one of the areas that is really diverse. Anyone here who has teenagers or slightly older children who watch BBC Three’s output will know that it is really diverse. Documentary-making is another strong area. Last year, my constituency was portrayed in a documentary called “This Is Tottenham”, which showed the lives of people in that part of north London. However, in many areas, there is still a huge amount of work to be done.

    Let us take the headlines around the BBC’s new drama, “Undercover”, which people can see on BBC iPlayer at the moment. It is a great drama, but it was announced with great fanfare as, “The first time we’ve had a drama with two black leads.” In 2016? That was not news in the 20th century, let alone in this century.

    We must also ask questions about current affairs. I love sitting next to Andrew Neil on a Thursday night, when I occasionally stand in for my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott).

    Andrew Marr is a great guy, as are John Humphries and David Dimbleby—when they allow me on the show, which they have not for almost five years. But they are white, patrician men. What does that communicate about our country—that there cannot be a voice that is not a southern one? That there cannot be a woman? That there cannot be someone from a diverse background? Those men are the arbiters of current affairs in this country. We have to be brave and hold our public broadcaster to account. It cannot just appoint the same old faces from the same old schools to the same old jobs. That is not acceptable from a public broadcaster that takes licence fee money from all our constituents. We must hold it to account and say that yes, those individuals are brilliant, but more needs to be done to get that diversity across the spectrum.

    A lot of this comes back to senior management, and with systemic change what really matters is who the decision makers are. As I have said, there has been a lot of focus on training schemes and apprenticeships to open up the industry, but we need to change the culture and practices that stop black, Asian and minority ethnic people rising to the top; it should not just be that new schemes are set up to encourage more people to get in from the bottom. Only one of the BBC Trust’s 16 trustees is from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background. The executive directors are really important, as they are the controllers—the people who really govern the decisions on the executive board. Of the BBC’s eight executive directors, none is from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background, and only two are women.

    My question to the BBC is simple: what will it take to see a black, Asian or minority ethnic channel controller? When will we get there, I wonder? What have we got to do to see a black commissioner in an important area—current affairs, or drama—in the BBC? Is our public broadcaster really saying that across the population of this great country there are no individuals from a BAME background who could take up those posts today? That is what it has to explain to us over the coming weeks as it heads towards its diversity strategy.

    Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op) Given the lack of diversity at the very top of the BBC, on its board, is it not now time to think about having a radical reorganisation of the BBC’s top management, potentially with elected directors for the board?

    Mr Lammy My hon. Friend is good at radical ideas—he is known for them—and that is certainly one. I am not going to stake my name today on what the change should be, but clearly we have come to a point—perhaps that is why the issue is on the Floor of the House for the first time—where we want step change. Change cannot be incremental any longer. I say that because if we treasure our public service broadcaster and the universality that it represents, I am afraid that in a multi-platform world, where people can turn to other services, that broadcaster is going to be in deep trouble if it does not step up pretty quickly.

    In 2015, 9.2% of the BBC’s senior leadership were black, Asian and minority ethnic. Looking beneath the surface, in TV the percentage drops to 7.1%; in news, the figure for senior leaders who are BAME drops to 5.8%. The lack of diversity at management and senior levels creates a dangerous vicious circle. If those decision makers are not from diverse backgrounds, content and programming will lack fresh narratives and insight, and will not speak to the breadth of this country. When we have all the same people at the top, hiring people in their own image, the circle simply stays closed.

    Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con) I really commend the right hon. Gentleman on his speech, which has highlighted the issue to me and educated me. I hope very much that, because of the brilliance of his speech and the force with which it is being given, the BBC board will insist on change.

    Mr Lammy Well, I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that, but I am only halfway through—just hold fire.

    Let us look at targets. The BBC has set itself a target of increasing representation in its workforce to 14.2% and increasing onscreen portrayal to 15%. As I have outlined, the track record does not fill me with absolute confidence that those targets will be met. The targets also fall short of those set by other broadcasters. Take Sky, for example. It has said that all new TV shows in Sky Entertainment will have people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds in at least 20% of significant onscreen roles. All original Sky Entertainment productions will have someone from a BAME background in at least one senior role, either producer, series producer, executive producer, director or head of production—my God, that is tall order. It has also said that 20% of writers on all team-written shows across all Sky Entertainment productions will be from a BAME background. Looking at the statistics from January and February 2016, Sky has also made progress in current affairs and news: on “Sky News” 15% of interviewers were BAME; on “Murnaghan”, the figure was 17%; on “Sunrise” it was 22%; and it was 17% on “Ian King Live”.

    Let us look at Channel 4’s targets in its “360° Diversity Charter”. One is that by 2020 20% of all Channel 4 staff will be BAME, a 33% increase from the 15% figure in 2015. Another is that of the top 120 people in the Channel 4 organisation—executive teams, heads of department and senior commissioning executives—15% will be from a BAME background, a big increase on the current figure of 8%.

    Instead of being behind the curve, the BBC should be setting the gold standard. This issue does not affect only in-house teams. Broadcasters commission a lot of their work from independent production companies. The relationship between the BBC and those third-party suppliers is growing in importance, because the BBC is moving towards a new, more fluid production model, whereby BBC Studios will operate in the market and produce programmes for other broadcasters, and the BBC will allow independents to compete for more of the corporation’s commissioning spend.

    If we look at the BBC’s editorial guidelines, which apply to all content made by a third party working for the BBC, we will see 19 separate subsections and eight appendices, but not one is specifically related to diversity and representation. Nudity, violence, the watershed, the right of reply, privacy, religion, editorial integrity and conflicts of interest are all covered specifically and in great detail, but there is not a single section on diversity. In a 228-page document, there is not even a mention of the 14.2% target that the BBC is setting for itself internally. In section 4, on impartiality, production companies sign up to providing a breadth and diversity of opinion, but they do not sign up to any diversity in terms of equality and representation.

    The BBC’s latest equality and diversity report, published in 2015, made this promise:

    “We will be clear with our suppliers about our diversity requirements so that they are able to deliver on them.”

    To find out just how clear the BBC is with its suppliers about diversity, I submitted a freedom of information request asking to see the agreements that BBC makes with its supplier for one show, “Question Time”. I was told that the information would not be supplied to me because it is

    “held for the purposes of journalism, art or literature”.

    Although the BBC is promising to be clear with its suppliers about diversity requirements, it is altogether less clear with its audience and those who pay the licence fee about what exactly those diversity requirements are. I therefore ask the Minister to look at the freedom of information rules that are enabling the BBC to be less than wholly transparent on these issues. I am sure that he, and all Members here today, would agree that a publicly funded body must adhere to the highest standards of openness. Over 50% of the FOI requests put to that organisation are denied. That cannot be right.

    Mr MacNeil The right hon. Gentleman’s point about transparency and openness is very important. The Liberal Democrats used to be in the position that the Scottish National party is in now, and I have asked “Question Time” and “Any Questions” for an impression of what the Liberal Democrat representation on those programmes was like compared with the representation of the SNP at the moment. An answer was not forthcoming.

    Mr Lammy The hon. Gentleman makes his case.

    By comparison, Channel 4’s diversity commissioning guidelines cover on-screen and off-screen diversity, and all commissions must adhere to one guideline in each section. For example, at least one lead character must be black or minority ethnic, disabled or LGBT. At least one senior off-screen role—executive producer, director, series editor, or executive producer—for all factual and scripted programmes must be from an ethnic minority or have a disability, and at least 15% of the entire production team or crew of a factual or scripted programme must be from an ethnic minority or have a disability. Channel 4’s expectations seem altogether much clearer, which means that production companies know exactly what is expected of them.

    Last month, Trevor Phillips presented research to the Oxford Media Convention that showed that in 2015 BBC 1 had a 21.9% audience share, but only 13.3% of BAME audience share. BBC 2 had a 5.7% share of the total audience, which falls to 3.3% for the BAME audience. Because the BBC is failing in its duty to reflect modern Britain, ethnic minorities are well within their rights to ask why they should continue to pay their licence fee at all, given that it is used to fund a service that does not serve them.

    The BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Sky have come together to create a diversity monitoring scheme to provide detailed, consistent and comparative data on diversity, and that will go live imminently. Project DIAMOND is a groundbreaking project that will shine a light on the industry, and provide independent data to show where we are with diversity in broadcasting so that we can make comparisons. Its monitoring and transparency will be clear, which I welcome, and I am sure the Minister will say more about that.

    The current BBC charter runs to the end of this year, so renewal provides a vital opportunity to drive real change if the BBC wants to be serious about being a leader in delivering diversity. I believe that diversity requirements should be stated clearly in the new charter as one of the BBC’s public purposes, and a core value at the heart of what the BBC does. We need something stronger, more ambitious and—importantly—more tangible than the current requirement for it to represent the UK, its nations and communities, which is frankly too woolly. I call on the Minister to assure the House that diversity will be front and centre of new ongoing debates about the BBC charter.

    A new public purpose should be written into the BBC charter, including a specific commitment accurately to reflect the diversity of the UK in its on-screen and off-screen workforce, and in its programming, including, but not limited to, promoting equal opportunities irrespective of age, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or gender reassignment. It is time to update the BBC’s founding mission for the 21st century so that it becomes “to inform, educate, entertain and reflect”. Writing diversity into the heart of the charter would be a bold first step. If we are to have another strategy at the end of this month and more initiatives, the BBC must propose specific actions to secure progress each year, together with details of how that progress will be measured objectively. To be taken seriously, we need answers to the questions of “how?” and “when?”

    Money talks, and money alone will drive real change. We have hard evidence of what works when it comes to addressing under-representation. The BBC had a problem when it came to representing the nations and regions, so it did something about that which involved a dedicated pot of money. It did not rely on mentorship or apprenticeship schemes—there was structural change, and the move to Salford was part of that. Since 2003, there has been a 400% increase in the number of network programmes produced in the English regions. As of this year, half the network spend will be outside the M25, and the amount of spend in Scotland and Wales has matched or exceeded the size of the population since 2014. I absolutely agree with that direction. I was a culture Minister at that time, and there were real concerns in Scotland because it paid 9% of the licence fee and had none of the programming. That has changed in recent times, although I am sure there is more to do.

    The BBC’s core purpose is to represent the UK’s nations, regions and communities. It seems to have got there or beyond for the first two, but what about BAME communities? I am sure that moving production spend out of London has not led to more employment for people of Chinese heritage in Liverpool, of Somalian heritage in Cardiff, or of Pakistani heritage in Glasgow. A focus on improving the representation of nations and regions has also seen areas with high concentrations of BAME people—such as Birmingham and London—lose out. We need something similar to act as a counterbalance, and if that is not in this next strategy, it will have failed. The holistic approach has not worked. After 15 years of focusing on people, skills and mentoring, it has not delivered the step change that we need in the institution.

    This is a seminal moment for the BBC and its position as our national broadcaster, and it must rise to the challenge. It is not enough for the director general to make the right noises. The will is clearly there, but the institution is big and it will take more than good intentions to turn such a huge tanker around. We cannot rely on individuals pushing the agenda; we need systemic change.

    Charter renewal is around the corner. We have reached a point of fragmentation in the TV industry where more content is available than ever before and viewers are consuming it online, and watching it on demand and through Netflix and Amazon Prime. They are challenging the BBC’s position at the centre of our national conversation. That national conversation is hugely important, especially when things go wrong and we see something awful. I was culture Minister in 2005 when there were those terrible bombs in London, and we looked to the BBC for that national conversation.

    Let us get it right. We cannot have people from BAME backgrounds turning to mother-tongue cable stations because they do not see themselves represented on the BBC. Take the Chinese community in this country. My God, it has been here for more than 100 years—talk about invisible! That community is not just invisible in this House—I recognise that the Government have made some progress on their Benches—but it is totally invisible among our broadcasters. I secured this debate because it is time for change, and I welcome the leadership shown by the Minister, and the fact that so many people have gathered across the House to debate these issues this afternoon.