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  • Arlene Foster – 2016 Speech on Becoming First Minister

    arlenefoster

    Below is the text of the speech made by Arlene Foster in the Northern Ireland Assembly after she became First Minister. The speech was made on 11 January 2016.

    Mr Speaker, it was with great humility, an enormous sense of responsibility and the imagination of endless potential for Northern Ireland that I affirmed the pledge of office and take up this post today.

    I can think of no greater honour than to have the opportunity to serve my country and the people of Northern Ireland as their First Minister.

    I am truly humbled by the trust and confidence which has been placed in me and grateful for all those who have kept me in their prayers in recent days.

    As a young girl growing up in rural Fermanagh, the most westerly constituency in the whole of the United Kingdom, in the days when we were plagued by terrorism and decisions affecting our fates and our futures were taken far away, I could not have dreamt that I would be in this position today.

    Is it any wonder that in politics I believe that nothing is impossible.

    But the real measure of success is not in obtaining the office but in how it enables me to help others realise their dreams, ambitions and aspirations.

    For my part I want to make sure what is possible for me is possible for any young boy or girl growing up in Northern Ireland.

    For so many reasons, this is an historic moment.

    I take great pride in the fact that since Northern Ireland was created almost a century ago I am the first woman to hold such a post.

    It was with even greater trepidation still that I learned I am also the youngest person to have assumed this post.

    I hope that I can bring the perspectives that both these attributes have to the office.

    Indeed, at this turning point in our country’s history, as we seek to address the challenges of the future, I believe the moment is right for the next generation to assume leadership.

    The challenges that this generation face are very different to those that our forefathers did a century ago, but our fundamental values remain the same.

    The challenges in just five years time will be different again.

    Though I may be the youngest holder of this post I am not new to Ministerial office.

    Mr Speaker, you will be aware that this is not the first time that I have taken this Pledge of Office but over the past eight years have done so as the Environment Minister, the Economy Minister and most recently as the Finance Minister.

    I have learned much in all these roles that I will bring to my new office.

    I will be forever grateful for the opportunity that both Dr Paisley and Peter Robinson gave me to serve the community in Ministerial office and the rich legacy that I am inheriting in this office.

    That experience has prepared me for the challenges that will undoubtedly lie ahead.

    Last autumn we published the Fresh Start Agreement; and today we make a new start with our eyes focussed firmly on the future.

    But in looking to the future we will never forget the past.

    I am conscious of those who have not lived to see this day.

    Of course, I think particularly of my father who would have been so proud of what has been achieved.

    I also think of all of those who served the community in the security forces during the dark days of the Troubles and those whose lives were cut all too short.

    I make this promise: In all I do I will honour their memory.

    We are all shaped by our history and our experience.

    Many of us live with the scars, emotional and real that we have endured.

    Far too often during my earlier years I saw the devastating effect that terrorism and violence had on our community.

    We cannot allow the past to forever blight our future.

    That’s why I want to make sure that we never ever go back to the bad old days.

    I believe that the duty on me to make Northern Ireland work is all the greater for the sacrifice that they have made.

    The reward and legacy of those who gave their lives defending the Country is a stable and secure Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom.

    I also pay tribute to those who have served our community so well in positions of leadership over the last decades.

    It is because of what they have done that we have the hope for the future that we do.

    They have laid the foundations for the new Northern Ireland that we are seeking to build.

    But at this moment in our country’s history it is time for a new generation to step forward.

    To build on all that has been achieved and to move our country forward.

    Abraham Lincoln once said, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

    That is our responsibility now… to create a better future than the past and one where we can live together in a society free of strife and conflict.

    The challenges of our time are great, but they are different than in the past.

    The challenges of our time are great, but the opportunities for the next generation are greater still.

    The challenges of our time are great, but there are none that we cannot overcome.

    With Northern Ireland’s position in the United Kingdom secure, with devolution safeguarded, and with the economy growing again, we can have hope for the future.

    Over the years people from this small corner of the world have done remarkable things.

    We can do that again.

    In my role as the economy Minister for seven years I travelled the world seeking to bring jobs and investment home.

    In that time I am proud that we created more jobs from international investment than at any time in our past.

    One thing made that easy. It was the quality of our young people.

    When I travel across Northern Ireland I see people with abundant gifts and talents … sometimes held back by nothing but a lack of confidence and a poverty of ambition.

    The only thing that they lack is belief.

    I want to use this office to restore that belief and to give new hope.

    I want to instil a new confidence in our people and a pride in our Province.

    I want everyone to love this country with the same passion that I do.

    Leadership has many facets and many responsibilities but there is no greater challenge than to motivate and to encourage and to inspire.
    I want to bring hope to those who lack it and help to those who need it.

    I want us to live in a more harmonious society where we seek accommodation with one another and not conflict.

    Those in positions of responsibility in Government cannot do everything but we can act as an example to others.

    If only we believe in ourselves all things are possible.

    Mr Speaker, I make no apology for being a unionist but my role as First Minister calls on me to serve the whole community.

    I see that not just as a legal duty but a moral imperative.

    I want the same opportunities for every child in Northern Ireland as for my own.

    I want no section or part of the community in Northern Ireland to be isolated, marginalised or left behind whatever their background or way of life. That was Edward Carson’s vision of the Union and it is mine too.

    The best way to safeguard our history and culture and traditions is to make sure that we create a society in which everyone can have a say and play a part.

    That is why it is no coincidence that support for our constitutional position has never been stronger.

    I believe in Northern Ireland and the people of Northern Ireland. I believe we are a special people.

    People ask me what I want to do in office and what I want to achieve.
    My answer is simple. Like every mother, I am a practical person.

    Above all else, I want to look to the future and I want to get things done, I want to make Northern Ireland a better place and I want to strengthen our United Kingdom, I want to give our young people the future that has been denied to so many for so long.

    I want Northern Ireland to be a beacon to the world of how, by working together with political opponents and old enemies we can create a Northern Ireland we can all be proud of.

    I want to do all of that not in spite of my own past but because of it.

    I will work with anyone who can share that ambition of hope and will oppose anyone who would deny our people the future that they deserve.

    The people we represent deserve no less.

    I’m tired of Stormont being a watchword for arguing and bickering. That’s not why our people elected us. They did so to provide a better future for us all.

    I will do all I can to change the political culture of this place but I can’t change that alone. We can only do it by working together.

    I know from experience it won’t be easy. Real change never is.
    But I ask today that we find a new way of doing business, one that places a greater premium on consensus than on conflict.

    Mr Speaker, it is with great honour that today I accept the nomination to become First Minister.

    It is truly humbling that the girl who was raised and reared in Fermanagh has been given the opportunity to lead the country and the people she loves so much.

    Today is a new chapter in Northern Ireland’s story but when the history of this time comes to be written let it be said of all of us that we fought the good fight, we finished the race and we have kept the faith.

    Thank you.

  • Peter Robinson – 2016 Retirement Speech

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    Below is the text of the retirement speech made by Peter Robinson when he stood down as the Northern Ireland First Minister. The speech was made on 11 January 2016 in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

    Mr Speaker,

    I am grateful for the opportunity to make this statement. It is typical of the fairness and courtesy you have demonstrated during your time in office that you provided me with this opportunity and made all the necessary arrangements. I can assure you that I do not intend to trespass on your generosity by speaking too long.

    Mr Speaker, it has been a great privilege to serve the people of Northern Ireland for almost forty years – with nearly eight of those years as First Minister.

    In this Assembly we have had our share of trials and ordeals but through them all we have emerged stronger. Every new institution composed of politicians who have known nothing other than being in opposition will have a learning curve while members mature, develop and adapt to taking responsibility – and while the more sensible ones – adjust their ambitions to fit the politics of what, with effort, is achievable. Crucially, after centuries of division, we had to outlive the growing pains of learning to work together, fashion shared policies and create a more inclusive society.

    It is a feature of every societal transformation that some will be displeased at the pace of change – some believing it to be too fast and others feeling it is too slow. Yet so much has been achieved and the platform now exists to do even more.

    Politics by its very nature is a combative endeavour and we don’t always take time to recognise the role that others play.

    I differ with some in this House on many issues but in my long experience in politics there are very few who are not well motivated and who do not act in the best interests of society as they see it. In whatever capacity they serve I admire those who devote their lives to public service.

    When we take a step back and with the perspective of history we can see just how far we have come. We now live in a new era.

    You only have to look around to see the progress that there has been not just in the physical structures that didn’t exist a decade ago, but in the lives of our people.

    Though we don’t always fully appreciate it, devolution underpins the level of peace and stability we enjoy today. After thirty-five years of stop-go government, devolution with local people taking the decisions, is once again the norm.

    That has allowed us the platform to recast Northern Ireland’s international image and to bring in more jobs than at any point in our history. Whereas once tourists avoided coming here we now attract people from all over the world.

    We not only provided for partnership government but we agreed the devolution of policing and justice functions. In recent months we have resolved the welfare reform issue and put the Assembly’s finances back on a stable footing. We have secured the devolution of Corporation Tax and agreed a rate and a date for commencement.
    We have agreed significant reforms to the way government operates with a reduction in the number of Departments and MLAs and the creation of an official opposition.

    In politics there is never a full stop, and much remains to be done but I believe that this is the right moment for me to step aside and to hand over the burden and privilege of Office.

    Dealing with the legacy of the past is a work in progress and reconciliation will be an ongoing enterprise but even here real progress has been made.

    The foundations have been laid and it will be for others to continue building.

    It would be remiss of me not to thank the deputy First Minister and all of those I have served alongside in the Executive over these past years.

    Through good times and bad we have worked together despite our many differences in background, temperament and outlook.
    Strangely we were at our strongest when the threat from outside the political institutions was at its greatest. The collective revulsion across the community and across this chamber following the murders of Sappers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar, as well as Constables Stephen Carroll and Ronan Kerr was the surest sign that we were never going back to the past.

    I thank my party colleagues for the opportunities they have given me and I wish all of them well for the future. I am absolutely certain that in Arlene, I have a worthy successor.

    I can assure her that I will not interfere in her work but that if she ever needs a word of encouragement or advice I will always be there to offer it.

    Mr Speaker, consistent with the terms of my letter of last Monday, I hereby resign the office of First Minister with confidence that the political institutions we have together created will be here for generations to come.

    Thank you.

  • Peter Hain – 1994 Speech on Regulators

    peterhain

    Below is the text of the speech made by Peter Hain in the House of Commons on 20 April 1994.

    A big thank you, Madam Speaker. I beg to move,

    That leave be given to bring in a Bill to reform the accountability and other objectives of the privatised utility regulators.

    Without any serious debate, the regulation of the privatised utilities has been hived off to autocratic unaccountable directors general. The invisible hand of Ofman the regulator now guides policy for every light switched on, every bath run and every telephone call made. Regulators are independent and all-powerful, and they have extensive discretion, which has often been exercised in a highly personalised fashion.

    Oftel, Ofgas, Ofwat and OFFER cover vital services.

    Telecommunications, gas, water and electricity affect major areas of public policy and every citizen in the land.

    However, the regulators were largely afterthoughts. Regulation has evolved in an ad hoc fashion, becoming complex, over-technical, rambling and fundamentally flawed. The main beneficiaries are shareholders, whose dividends have soared–dividends had increased by 85 per cent. for water by 1992, and by a massive 63 per cent. in the first year of electricity privatisation. Industry chiefs have also enjoyed a pay and shares bonanza.

    By contrast, job losses in the privatised utilities will soon total a staggering 200,000. The National Consumer Council reports at best a mixed record on prices, with anomalies such as a £9,000 charge for a 4 ft water connection to a residential home in my constituency of Neath.

    The right-wing assumption that individual shareholder interest necessarily equates with the public interest is nonsense. Individual shareholder or consumer interests, compartmentalised from each other, do not inevitably aggregate into the general public interest. Indeed, selfishly pursued with the support of the regulator, they often thwart achievement of the general interest in such matters as the ability of strategic national companies to compete in world markets, environmental protection and the preservation of precious natural resources.

    In 1993 the electricity regulator–a public servant, not an elected representative–insisted that forcing the electricity generators to maintain existing coal volumes would infringe competition rules. He thereby vetoed an alternative energy policy, which led to the closing of dozens of pits. That public servant’s encouragement of the dash for gas for electricity power station base load is depleting North sea oil reserves by more than 15 years’ usage, and causing a most inefficient use of a critical fuel. Coal is sentenced to death, while coal imports soar and nuclear power has a £1 billion-plus subsidy. The driving objective of the regulators to promote competition almost at all costs invites foreign companies to enter the United Kingdom market on advantageous terms, while British companies are barred from reciprocal rights abroad. That is most striking in gas and telecommunications, where American-owned television companies are capturing important local markets. British Telecom cannot enter the United States market on equivalent terms, and is further penalised by being barred from offering broadcast services, such as cable television, over its lines.

    Britain’s industrial interests in that vital area of information technology are being undermined, as BT is forced to concentrate on pigmy competition in its backyard at the expense of international competition, where we are now threatened with an American takeover. Competition dogma is also tending to force the privatised utilities to concentrate on the most lucrative, fastest growing markets, where competition from new entrants is fiercest, at the expense of low- income communities. That so-called “cherry picking” means that the most profitable users get the cheapest and most sophisticated services. Telecommunications in the City of London is a good example. By contrast, there is social dumping of rural areas and poor inner city areas, where competition is limited or non-existent. Installation charges for telephones are high, well beyond the reach of many people on low incomes.
    Water disconnections trebled after privatisation, and charges soared almost as high as executive salaries and perks in the water industry. Low-income households face discrimination, with higher deposits and pre-payment systems.

    Privatised British Gas is refusing to extend the main supply an extra few miles to supply villagers–in Neath’s Dulais and Swansea valleys, for example. The new competition regime will also increase gas charges for the poor and reduce charges, relatively, for the rich, while gas showrooms are closed.

    Competition is not value free, nor is regulation a value-free, non- political exercise carried out in an objective, technical fashion. Each regulator has enormous discretion to determine public policy as he sees fit for his own industry without regard to the knock-on effect. We need to put democratic politics back in charge. The Government should take a small stake in each industry and should appoint a Government director, thus securing considerable influence at minimal cost.

    New regulators should be appointed with different objectives to ensure that policies to advance strategic national and social interests always take precedence over promoting domestic competition or shareholders’ profits. The regulators should have new performance targets, such as universal tariffs, protection of supplies to the elderly and the disabled, research and development, levels of investment and international competition. Those, rather than competition for its own sake, should be the driving objectives of the regulators.

    Democratic accountability could also be improved by establishing a parliamentary Select Committee to scrutinise the utilities, with annual debates on the Floor of the House. A utilities commission should be established to bring the regulators under one roof. That would promote policy consistency between the different regulators housed within it. We do not see that at the moment, especially in gas and electricity.

    The commission would be a quasi-judicial body, akin to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, but with powers of scrutiny and subpoena similar to those of a Select Committee. It could be governed by a board of representatives from all sectors–from consumers, senior managers, trade unions, shareholders and academics appointed by the Secretary of State.

    Enabling the different regulators to share common resources would also bring economies. Each regulator would still be proactive and would still have considerable operational autonomy, but each would be supervised by the commission’s board. It would have an advisory role for Government on policy and strategy, and it would help to resolve disputes between the regulators in industries. Such disputes have sometimes dragged on for months.

    There must be transparency in the regulators’ decisions and the regulators’ right to silence should be abolished. They should be required to explain the reasons for their decisions, either publicly or at least privately to the industries concerned. It would also make sense for the regulators to be merged and reorganised so that we had one regulator covering communications ; telecommunications and broadcasting are increasingly converging. There should be one regulator for energy, including coal, one regulator for transport and one regulator for water.

    The customer is crying out for change and the companies themselves want consistency. Opinion-formers and utilities experts, and even some of the regulators themselves, are casting around for alternatives. The Bill would introduce regulation for the common good.

  • Nick Gibb – 2016 Speech on Social Mobility

    nickgibb

    Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister, at the Sutton Trust in London on 9 March 2016.

    Introduction

    Thank you, Sir Peter. Since you established the Sutton Trust almost 20 years ago, no organisation has done more to highlight educational inequality, develop the evidence on how disadvantage can be overcome, and demonstrate the decisive role schools can play in unlocking pupils’ potential.

    Every event you hold, every study you publish, contributes to a powerful, but simple argument: that for too many children the circumstances of their birth still determine the quality of education they receive and their life chances, but that this need not be inevitable.

    Moral purpose

    This view has not always attracted widespread support. Over 200 years ago, the Parochial Schools Bill of 1807 proposed a moderate expansion of the availability of basic education by increasing state funding.

    It was controversial – there was no agreement that this was a legitimate role for government or a worthwhile use of resources, and the bill failed to pass.

    But one MP, Davies Giddy, went further than the others in opposing the very principle of broad access to education. He said: “Giving education to the labouring classes of the poor… would teach them to despise their lot in life, instead of making them good servants in agriculture and other laborious employments to which their rank in society had destined them.”

    Thankfully, such offensive views are now so far outside the mainstream – and rare – that they would attract ridicule if repeated today.

    A welcome consensus has begun to emerge that schools can – and must – be engines of social mobility.

    This commitment to extend opportunity and ensure that every child receives the best possible start in life is at the heart of the government’s plan for education.

    It’s also a moral purpose around which the teaching profession is united. A survey of teachers last year found that the single most popular motivation for joining the profession was a desire to make a difference to pupils’ lives – cited by a staggering 93% of those polled.

    But a shared moral purpose is not enough – on its own it will not deliver the transformation in the life chances of the most disadvantaged children which we all hope to see.

    Attainment gap

    Last year, 57.1% of all pupils in state-funded schools achieved 5 A* to C grades at GCSE, including English and mathematics. But just 33.1% of pupils entitled to free school meals achieved the same standard.

    This underperformance has a clear financial impact. Department for Education analysis has found that pupils who achieve 5 or more good GCSEs (including English and maths) as their highest qualification are estimated to have lifetime productivity gains worth around £100,000 compared to those who fail to reach that level.

    But this blighted potential also has a social cost. When we fail to ensure that disadvantaged young people reach their potential, we perpetuate their under-representation in the most senior ranks of our professions and public service and diminish their voice in our democracy.

    Two weeks ago, the Sutton Trust published the latest in its long series of analyses looking at the proportion of senior figures educated in state and private schools.

    It found that 74% of our most senior judges attended private school, 71% of our top generals attended private school, and 51% of leading print journalists were educated privately. Just 7% of the population as a whole is privately educated.

    Progress

    The disparity between the educational opportunities open to disadvantaged pupils and their peers has become entrenched and expected over generations. Addressing this unfairness, so that every young person receives the preparation to fulfil their potential, will take many years.

    But the urgency with which we have pursued the goal of social mobility since 2010 is already showing promising results.

    In 2011, we introduced the pupil premium – a total of around £2.5 billion this year, allocated to schools for each disadvantaged pupil they admit. The pupil premium gives teachers the resources they need to provide additional support to these pupils, and the flexibility to adopt the specific interventions likely to have the greatest impact.

    We have funded the Sutton Trust and Impetus-PEF to establish the Education Endowment Foundation to provide teachers with the evidence on which to base their decisions. The EEF has helped to debunk failed teaching methods, including learning styles, and promoted effective approaches, including maths mastery. And the Sutton Trust’s report ‘What Makes Great Teaching’, produced by Professor Robert Coe and colleagues, has been invaluable to teachers.

    The department has recognised the overwhelming evidence that the most effective approach to teaching early reading is systematic synthetic phonics. In 2012, we therefore introduced the phonics screening check to help schools identify pupils struggling to master the basics of reading so that any difficulties can be quickly addressed.

    Since the check was introduced, the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard has increased from 58% in 2012 to 77% last year – equivalent to more than 120,000 pupils reading more effectively. That’s 120,000 more pupils better prepared to develop a love of reading, and more likely to enter secondary school ready to succeed.

    And our ‘gap index measure’ shows that the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has already narrowed by 7.1% at key stage 2 and 6.6% at key stage 4 since 2011.

    Our reforms to the primary curriculum are challenging and demanding, but the rewards colossal.

    They include our focus on phonics. As increasing numbers of schools adopt high-quality systematic synthetic phonics in the early teaching of reading, imagine the effect of ensuring every child leaves primary school as a fluent reader.

    And our new primary maths curriculum and plans for a multiplication tables check in year 6. Imagine if every child left primary school knowing their tables by heart.

    And the new grammar requirements, ensuring that every primary school is teaching English grammar – the first time for a generation.

    We have much further to go in building an education system which is truly the engine of social mobility it needs to be. But no government has done more, or made greater progress, than we have since 2010.

    More good places

    The most fundamental feature of an education system which promotes social mobility is one in which every child is able to attend a good school.

    Today, over 1.4 milion more children attend schools judged by Ofsted to be ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ than in 2010, thanks to the hard work of teachers and the reforms introduced by government.

    The success of schools in London shows the way forward. In the capital, 60.9% of pupils achieve 5 A* to C at GCSE, including English and Maths; across England, the figure is 57.1%. Most strikingly, the attainment of pupils eligible for free school meals in some local authorities in London, including Tower Hamlets, exceeds the average performance of all pupils across England.

    But though schools in England have secured significant improvements, and some areas are achieving remarkable progress, we need to do more to ensure that every child attends a school which gives them the best possible start in life.

    The Secretary of State has characterised this challenge as the need to secure educational excellence everywhere – so that a pupil, in whatever circumstances, wherever they live, and in any school, receives the highest possible standard of education.

    Last year, I challenged the leaders of one local authority in the North West to address the entrenched underperformance in their secondary schools.

    Last year, 37.4% of pupils in Knowsley achieved 5 A* to C at GCSE, including English and Maths. This was 19.7 percentage points lower than the national average. The figure was even lower for pupils eligible for free school meals – at 20.5% – 12.6 percentage points lower than the national average.

    In response, the leader of the council wrote a public letter to me. He described my intervention as “distasteful and opportunistic”, and suggested that I should be reassured by the increase in their LA’s GCSE results last year: from 35.4% achieving 5 A* to C, including English and Maths, to 37.4% – still 19.7 percentage points below the national average.

    This council leader’s excuses for the underperformance of schools in his area represent an unacceptable complacency which prioritises maintaining a comfortable status quo for adults over protecting the life chances of children.

    The Education and Adoption Bill, shortly to receive royal assent, will give the department new powers to address failing and coasting schools.

    Failing schools, those judged by Ofsted to be inadequate, will automatically become academies, so that they can benefit from the expertise and support of a strong sponsor.

    Schools identified as coasting will be assessed by the relevant regional schools commissioner. Those with a credible plan to improve will be helped to do so; those with greater challenges will be eligible for intervention so that they become a sponsored academy.

    And the free schools programme, including studio schools and university technical colleges – which has created 380 new schools and 190,000 new places since it was established in 2010 – will continue to bring fresh ideas and new approaches into areas in need of additional high-quality places.

    We will deliver our manifesto commitment to open at least 500 of these new schools over this Parliament, so that more communities can benefit from the excellent standard of education now offered by free schools, such as Michaela Community School in Brent or Dixons Trinity Academy in Bradford.

    A rich curriculum

    These structural changes – through additional powers for RSCs and new free schools opening in response to demand – will contribute to higher standards for all pupils, and especially the most disadvantaged.

    Just as important, though, is ensuring that schools have the freedom and resources to offer a curriculum which stretches all pupils and equips them for further study and employment.

    For children from relatively advantaged backgrounds, the curriculum they follow at school has always been less material – their parents will ensure they have the background knowledge and cultural literacy to read widely and pursue their interests.

    Disadvantaged children, though, perhaps without the benefit of educated parents at home, are more likely to rely upon their school curriculum to provide the intellectual foundation they need to grow into confident, articulate young adults able to advance to an apprenticeship, university or a rewarding career.

    As literary critic and education expert ED Hirsch has powerfully argued, and cognitive psychologists such as Daniel Willingham have proved, a vague ‘skills-based’ curriculum, light on knowledge but heavy on fads and wishful thinking, provides scant hope to disadvantaged children hoping to build a brighter future.

    The new national curriculum, introduced in September 2014, has carefully sequenced knowledge at its heart. And the new GCSEs and A levels, the first of which began to be taught in September 2015, set higher expectations and reflect the advice of leading subject experts.

    Ensuring that individual subject curriculums are appropriately designed would, in isolation, be insufficient. There is clear evidence that disadvantaged young people have also been less likely to take the subjects most valuable to further progression.

    Some schools simply did not expect disadvantaged pupils – even when highly able – to study the most academic subjects. Without these subjects, university and many careers fall further out of reach.

    Last year, the Sutton Trust published analysis which looked at the GCSE performance of pupils who had previously scored in the top 10% nationally at the end of primary school. They found that, even within this group, pupils who had received free school meals were significantly less likely to be taking history, geography, a language, or triple science at GCSE than their peers.

    In the last Parliament, we announced that we would introduce the Progress 8 accountability measure to replace the existing 5 A* to C GCSE metric. From this year, schools will be held to account for the progress their pupils make, rather than simply their final attainment. They will be incentivised to stretch their most able pupils and support their weakest, rather than focusing on a narrow C/D grade threshold.

    And last year we set out proposals to implement our manifesto commitment for 90% of pupils to study the English Baccalaureate. For many schools, this will be a significant change as they reconfigure their curriculums and establish new expectations.

    Government must also do its part to support the change, especially by helping to recruit the additional teachers needed in subjects such as modern foreign languages.

    But the prize is worth it – virtually all young people studying subjects which keep options open, so that they can choose their future path on the basis of hope and aspiration rather than elimination of options already closed to them.

    The best teachers in the right schools

    The report you are publishing today provides more detail on the final, crucial element of an education system with social justice at its heart – ensuring that we have the best teachers working in the schools which need them most.

    As you all know, teacher recruitment in England has become more challenging as the economy continues to strengthen and pupil numbers rise.

    The data show that we have more teachers working in our schools than ever before, that the overall vacancy rate in schools has remained broadly stable over the past 15 years, but that recruitment is tightening in specific subjects and regions.

    Your survey also suggests that schools in the most challenging circumstances may be finding it more difficult to recruit experienced teachers.

    We have heard schools’ concerns, and are doing everything possible to support the recruitment and retention of teachers. There is no single solution, but I believe that the department does have a strong plan.

    We are reforming initial teacher training, giving schools greater flexibility to train their own teachers. We have increased bursaries, launched a television advertising campaign, and are investing up to £67 million to recruit additional teachers in maths and physics.

    We are also taking action to tackle excessive teacher workload. The OECD’s TALIS survey from 2013 showed that teachers in England work 8 hours longer than the OECD average each week, but their time in front of a class is in line with the average.

    We are working with the teaching unions and others from the profession to identify unnecessary tasks, so that teachers can focus on what they do best. Three working groups – on marking, planning and management data – will shortly report their findings.

    We are also introducing a new National Teaching Service, which will recruit excellent teachers and place them in challenging schools – the teacher will gain valuable new experience, and the school will benefit from their expertise and the confidence that they will perform to a high standard. Underperforming schools in areas that struggle to recruit the best teachers will be key beneficiaries of the NTS, fulfilling our commitment to delivering educational excellence everywhere.

    But, alongside this work, I believe all of us have a responsibility to highlight the opportunities now open to teachers, to build rewarding careers and make a lasting difference to the lives of young people.

    Conclusion

    I hope that we will be setting out further details on these priorities in due course, and will have more to say about the next steps in placing social mobility at the heart of our education system.

    Taken together, I am confident that our approach amounts to an ambitious plan which follows the evidence, builds on our shared moral purpose, and will transform the life chances of our most disadvantaged young people.

    Thank you.

  • Jeremy Hunt – 2016 Statement on Mistakes in the NHS

    jeremyhunt

    Below is the text of the statement made by Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Health, in the House of Commons on 9 March 2016.

    With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the steps the government is taking to build a safer 7-day NHS. We are proud of the NHS and what it stands for and proud of the record numbers of doctors and nurses working for the NHS under this government. But with that pride in the NHS comes a simple ambition: that our NHS should offer the safest, highest quality care anywhere in the world. Today we are taking some important steps to make that possible.

    In December, following problems at Southern Health, I updated the House about the improvements we need to make in reporting and learning from mistakes. NHS professionals deliver excellent care to around 650,000 patients every day, but we are determined to support them to improve still further the quality of the care we offer. So this government has introduced a tough and transparent new inspection regime for hospitals, a new legal duty of candour to patients and families who suffer harm and a major initiative to save lives lost from sepsis. As a result of these measures, according to the Health Foundation, the proportion of people suffering from the major causes of preventable harm has dropped by a third in the last 3 years.

    But still we make too many mistakes. Twice a week in the NHS we operate on the wrong part of someone’s body and twice a week we wrongly leave a foreign object in someone’s body. The pioneering work of Helen Hogan, Nick Black and Ara Darzi has estimated that 3.6% of hospital deaths have a 50% or more chance of being avoidable, which equates to over 150 deaths every week.

    We should remember that, despite this, our standards of safety still compare well to many other countries. But I want England to lead the world in offering the highest possible standards of safety in healthcare so today I am welcoming to London health ministers and healthcare safety experts from around the world for the first ever ministerial-level summit on patient safety.

    I am co-hosting the summit with the German Health Minister, Hermann Grohe, who will host a follow-up summit in Berlin next year. Other guests will include Dr Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Gary Kaplan, Chief Executive of the renowned Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, Professor Don Berwick and Sir Robert Francis QC.

    In the end, Mr Speaker, no change is permanent without real and lasting culture change. And that culture change needs to be about 2 things: openness and transparency about where problems exist, and a true learning culture to put them right.

    With the new inspection regime for hospitals, GP surgeries and care homes, as well as a raft of new information now published on My NHS, we have made much progress on transparency. But as Sir Robert Francis’s Freedom to Speak Up report told us, it is still too hard for doctors, nurses and other frontline staff to raise concerns in a supportive environment.

    Other industries – in particular the airline and nuclear industries – have learned the importance of developing a learning culture and not a blame culture if safety is to be improved. But too often the fear of litigation or professional consequences inhibits the openness and transparency we need if we are to learn from mistakes.

    So following the commitment I made to Parliament at the time of the Morecambe Bay investigation, we will from 1 April 2016 set up our first ever independent Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch. Modelled on the Air Accident Investigation Branch that has been so successful in reducing fatalities in the airline industry, it will undertake timely, no-blame investigations.

    As with the Air Accident Investigation Branch, I can today announce that we will bring forward measures to give legal protection to those who speak honestly to Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch investigators.

    The results of such investigations will be shared with patients and families, who will therefore get to the truth of what happened much more quickly. However, unlike at present they will not normally be able to be used in litigation or disciplinary proceedings, for which the normal processes and rules will apply. The ‘safe space’ they create will therefore reduce the defensive culture patients and families too often find meaning mean the NHS can learn and disseminate any lessons much more quickly so that we avoid repeating any mistakes.

    My intention is to use this reform to encourage much more openness in the way the NHS responds to tragic mistakes: families will get the full truth faster; doctors will get support and protection to speak out; and the NHS as a whole will become much better at learning when things go wrong. What patients and families who suffer want more than anything is a guarantee that no-one else will have to re-live their agony. This new legal protection will help us promise them ‘never again’.

    Fundamental to this is getting a strong reporting culture in hospitals where mistakes are acknowledged and not swept under the carpet. So today NHS Improvement has also published a Learning from Mistakes ranking of NHS Trusts. This draws on data from the staff survey and safety incident reporting data to show which trusts have the best reporting culture and which ones need to be better at supporting staff who wish to raise concerns. This will be updated every year in a new Care Quality Commission (CQC) State of Hospital Quality report that will also contain trusts’ own annual estimates of their avoidable mortality rates and have a strong focus on learning and improvement.

    Furthermore, the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council guidance is now clear – that where doctors, nurses or midwives admit what has gone wrong and apologise, the professional tribunal should give them credit for that, just as failing to do so is likely to incur a serious sanction. The government remains committed to further reform that would allow professional regulators more flexibility to resolve cases without stressful tribunals.

    This change in culture must also extend to trust disciplinary procedures. So NHS Improvement will ask for a commitment to openness and learning to be reflected in all trust disciplinary procedures and ask all trusts to publish a Charter for Openness and Transparency so staff can have clear expectations of how they will be treated if they report clinical errors.

    Finally, from April 2018, the government will introduce the system of medical examiners recommended in the Francis Report. This will bring a profound change in our ability to learn from unexpected or avoidable deaths, with every death either investigated by a coroner or scrutinised by a second independent doctor. Grieving relatives will be at the heart of the process and will have the chance to flag any concerns about the quality of care and cause of death with an independent clinician, meaning we get to the bottom of any systemic failures in care much more quickly.

    Taken together, I want these measures to help the NHS to become the world’s largest learning organisation as part of our determination to offer the safest, highest quality standards of care.

    An NHS that learns from mistakes. One of the largest organisations in the world becoming the world’s largest learning organisation – that is how we will offer the safest, highest quality standards of care in the NHS and I commend this statement to the House.

  • Sajid Javid – 2016 Speech on Iran

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, in London on 9 March 2016.

    Good morning everyone.

    I’d like to start by thanking Lionel for inviting me to come and speak today.

    It means a lot to me for 3 reasons.

    First, because Iran offers all kinds of exciting and intriguing possibilities for British business.

    Second, because I feel a slight connection with Iran – Javid is, after all, a Persian name.

    I’m told that it means ‘eternal’, which is a good thing if you’re a politician who has got to be re-elected every 5 years!

    And third, because I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to talk about something other than the EU referendum!

    Twenty-five years ago and straight out of university, I suddenly found myself working in the New York HQ of Chase Manhattan Bank.

    I’d only ever been on a school coach trip to Paris before that, and suddenly here I was – a Bristol boy working in the Big Apple.

    The USA was actually quite a culture shock for me.

    For starters they had more than 4 TV channels!

    But since then work – first in finance and in then in government – has repeatedly taken me around the world.

    I’ve been to plenty of familiar western places, but also lots of emerging markets and frontier economies too.

    And if there’s one thing that’s taught me it’s that the familiar and the safe are all well and good.

    But that if you really want to find new opportunities, you have to step outside your comfort zone.

    A culture may be hard to get your head around, but the greater challenge brings with it greater rewards.

    So if Britain is going to continue to thrive as a trading nation, we shouldn’t just engage with the easy and familiar trading partners.

    Regardless of how June’s referendum goes, our future lies beyond the usual suspects and our traditional Anglophone allies.

    We can’t afford to stick with what we know.

    We have to secure new markets for British goods and services, and attract new sources of investment.

    Which, of course, brings us to Iran.

    Now I know that, just a few years ago, the idea that the UK and Iran could co-operate on anything, let alone trade, would have been seen as quite fanciful.

    But the past is the past.

    Economic sanctions have been lifted.

    Our embassy has reopened.

    And Iran’s nuclear programme is under international supervision.

    The time is now right to build stronger commercial ties between our 2 nations.

    Persia is of course the cradle of civilisation, the place where the modern world began.

    The people there have been trading for centuries.

    The bazaar at Tabriz, I’m told, dates back to at least the 13th century.

    But more than that, modern Iran is home to an economy that some people believe will grow faster than China this year.

    It’s home to a potential market of almost 80 million people.

    And it’s home to an almost unlimited range of opportunities for British businesses.

    Now I’ve already made sure that UK Trade and Investment, our export promotion agency, is providing support and assistance to British companies that want to do business in and with Iran.

    They will be playing an important role in the months ahead, both here at home and in through our Tehran embassy.

    UK Export Finance, our export credit agency, reintroduced cover to support exports to Iran the moment that sanctions were lifted.

    And earlier this morning, it announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran’s export credit agency, the Export Guarantee Fund of Iran.

    The 2 organisations have committed to promoting the financing of contracts and projects involving exports between our nations.

    Now partnerships such as this will help British businesses seize the opportunities that economic re-engagement brings.

    And it will give them the opportunity to play a part in realising Iran’s plans for rapid economic and infrastructure development.

    But to really build those ties that bind, to really get to know a country, there’s no substitute for going there in person.

    I visited Iran myself back in my Deutsche Bank days.

    I took home a couple of beautiful paintings.

    One of them still hangs on my wall, up in my bedroom.

    But I also came back with a sense of Iran’s history and its potential.

    Of the appetite that local traders have for doing business with the rest of the world.

    So today I’m delighted to announce that I plan to personally take a UK trade mission to Iran later this year.

    It will see some of our leading companies seeking out new opportunities across the country.

    And it will give me the opportunity to talk face to face with Iranian officials and with Iranian business men and women, so we can remove some of the remaining barriers to trade between our countries.

    Obviously not all of those barriers are located in Iran.

    Even though many EU sanctions have been relaxed or lifted, there is still a certain reluctance to engage.

    It’s particularly true in the financial sector, where multinational banks have to worry about regulations in a host of countries that they operate in.

    And let me reassure everyone here that ministers and officials across Whitehall are working with their international counterparts to resolve these problems.

    There remain areas where the UK and Iran disagree, of course, and areas where we would like to see change.

    But stronger business links are not a sign that such issues are being ignored.

    In fact it’s quite the opposite.

    Trade and industry are part of the solution.

    I want the UK and Iran to have the kind of relationship where you can discuss issues by being frank and open with each other.

    And trade opens doors.

    It provides a platform on which to build diplomatic relations.

    It creates influence and leverage when it comes to negotiation.

    And it builds a bulwark against political instability.

    Last year our embassy in Iran reopened.

    Last month, we received the first bilateral visit from an Iranian foreign minister in well over a decade.

    Just 2 weeks ago, we started offering a full visa service out of our visa application centre in Tehran.

    Relations between our 2 countries are thawing.

    Suspicions are being dropped.

    And the flow of people and ideas is beginning again.

    I want British business to be at the forefront of this new wave.

    I want the people of Iran to see for themselves what British industry looks like, and how it can make a very a real difference to their lives.

    For a thousand years British traders have reached out around the world and travelled where others feared to tread.

    As Iran opens up to the west, I want Britain in pole position.

    And I will be doing everything I can as Business Secretary to make it so.

    Thank you very much.

  • Nicky Morgan – 2016 Speech on International Women’s Day

    nickymorgan

    Below is the text of the speech made by Nicky Morgan, the Secretary of State for Education, at the Churchill War Rooms in London on 8 March 2016.

    Thank you Alison [Stephenson – Director, Head Office MOD and the MOD Civil Service Gender Champion] for that kind introduction and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and happy International Women’s Day.

    It’s such a pleasure to be at the Cabinet War Rooms to talk to you today, and I want to thank the Ministry of Defence and my friend and colleague Penny Mordaunt for hosting this event on this special day.

    I should point out that Penny is the first woman ever to hold the ministerial portfolio for the armed forces – and I’m sure that she is the first of many talented women who will take on this and other MOD roles.

    I’m delighted that we are here marking International Women’s Day – and right the way across Whitehall this is a day when we take the opportunity to celebrate just how far we have come on the road to gender equality.

    But it’s also an opportunity to take stock of how far we still have to travel to create an equal and inclusive society for women and girls.

    Every single government department has a role to play in the fight for gender equality – not just in the UK but around the world.

    My colleague Justine Greening has been putting women’s rights to the top of the agenda in the developing world and beyond.

    Her commitment to, and I quote, “breaking the chains of dependency” from men is such a powerful message, especially today.

    And here at the Ministry of Defence there is fantastic work going on in terms of recruitment, outreach and leadership to ensure that more women have the opportunity to enter the armed forces.

    And I fully support the Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary who are united in wanting to see all roles in the armed forces opened up to women so that they can serve and protect their country in any way that they choose.

    I’m looking forward to seeing the contribution that women continue to make as they shape the defence agenda more than ever before.

    And I can also announce today that the government will be extending the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women to the British overseas territories of Anguilla and the Cayman Islands.

    This is a significant move with well over 35,000 women and girls expected to benefit from the standards and expectations of gender equality set out under the convention.

    I’m a great believer that our responsibility for gender equality stretches beyond our own shores.

    Put simply, we have a duty to protect and empower women.

    The fact is, sexual violence is not about sex, it’s about power.

    It’s a tactic of war, a weapon of terror used to destroy lives and fuel conflict.

    Victims often find that there are no laws to protect them, no support system to help them recover, and no hope of justice.

    All they have is stigma, humiliation and pain.

    And we mustn’t shy away from talking about this.

    As Angelina Jolie said so powerfully at the End Sexual Violence in Conflict Summit in 2014 “war zone rape is a crime that thrives on silence and denial”.

    And so that’s why I welcome the government’s ongoing commitment to tackling sexual violence and in particular the commitment that by November 2016 all UK troops deployed overseas will receive training on the prevention of sexual violence.

    We must continue to fight for gender equality and support women around the world, whether that’s at home in the UK or in conflict zones like Syria.

    You will know better than anybody that we are fighting currently a global war against the evils of Daesh.

    There is no more abhorrent an example of how some women are still treated as slaves, reduced to little more than property.

    We know that women are raped and abused at will so we are right to take the fight to Daesh and to stand up for our values here and overseas of equality and justice for all.

    But women and girls are not just survivors and victims of war; they are also leaders and peace builders.

    Talking about gender equality and conflict isn’t simply about some idealistic notion that women want peace more than men do – far from it.

    Statistics show us that the active and meaningful involvement of women in conflict settlement and peacebuilding leads to longer lasting agreements and better and more lasting outcomes for women and men.

    Women are vital to the fulfilment of stability, security, and cooperation.

    I firmly believe that conflict through a woman’s eyes brings a valuable perspective, one which has often been ignored in our history.

    It’s this diversity of perspectives that ensures effective peacebuilding which takes into account the needs of the whole population.

    Our overarching theme for this International Women’s Day is the importance of women’s representation and empowerment.

    Someone who truly championed women’s empowerment was former foreign secretary Lord Hague who was absolutely right when he said that the “greatest strategic prize for our century is the full social, political and economic empowerment of women.”

    And we need men and boys to be advocates for this.

    An equal world won’t be one that improves just for women – it will improve for men and boys too.

    That’s why I want to see more campaigns like HeForShe with men and women standing together, making the case passionately for equality in the best interests of humankind.

    Now we are making progress here in the UK on women’s representation and empowerment with more women on FTSE 100 boards than ever before and almost a third of MPs and a third of the cabinet are women.

    But we know that women remain badly underrepresented across many walks of life.

    And as Minister for Women and Equalities but also Secretary of State for Education one of my key priorities is to ensure that young people have strong female role models – whether that’s in the armed forces, in politics, schools or the workplace.

    We need our young people to view women who are running the show as the norm, not the exception!

    That’s why women and girls like Malala Yousafzai are so important.

    Despite being only 18, she is an absolute giant of global politics.

    Her tireless campaign for female education reminds us that around the world some girls don’t even get to go to school – let alone choose which subjects they want to study.

    But I’m not here to say to you that violence and discrimination against women only happens in far-flung countries around the world.

    The sad fact is that in schools, in places of work, in homes, in every part of Britain, there are still women and girls who aren’t being treated with the respect that they deserve and who suffer physical and psychological violence.

    Last year there were 1.4 million female victims of domestic abuse and over 300,000 victims of sexual violence in the UK.

    This is simply unacceptable.

    And so today I want to reiterate this government’s commitment to doing everything we possibly can to tackle all forms of violence against women and girls in the UK.

    The Home Secretary has led on several important measures in tackling violence and abuse – allowing women for example to check their partner’s criminal history, introducing domestic violence protection orders and criminalising forced marriage.

    And I’m delighted that today we are publishing a refreshed Violence Against Women and Girls strategy which sets out a package of awareness raising and support for victims.

    And of course in my role as Education Secretary I want us to do everything we can to prevent violence occurring in the first place.

    That’s why we are supporting fantastic charities like Freedom – which educates pupils about when someone might be at risk of barbaric practices like forced marriage and FGM.

    Now we know that some progress has been made.

    In 2014 to 2015 the Crime Survey gave the lowest estimate ever of victims of domestic abuse since questions on the topic were first asked 10 years ago.

    We need to make sure that this trend continues and that this issue keeps getting the traction and the airtime that it desperately needs.

    So today I want to celebrate how far we have come whilst recognising that we must all do more to build a truly inclusive society.

    I’m a firm believer that actions speak louder than words and that’s why I’m passionate about driving this agenda forward. And why it’s such a pleasure to be here with you today.

    As Emma Watson eloquently pointed out in her speech on equality to the UN in 2014, “we don’t just want to talk” about gender equality, we want to see meaningful change.

    So I hope that you will join me in committing ourselves to reaching our destination – a place where women and men are truly equals.

    Equals who walk side by side in pursuing the safer, freer and more prosperous world that we all want to live in – thank you.

  • Hugo Swire – 2016 Speech at Asia 2025 Event

    hugoswire

    Below is the text of the speech made by Hugo Swire, the Minister of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, at Asia House in London on 8 March 2016.

    Introduction

    Thank you Michael for that kind introduction. I am delighted to be here at the launch of Asia 2025. The list of contributors to this excellent book – and the distinguished guest list this evening – reads like a Who’s Who of all things Asia, and is a credit to the respect which Asia House commands, both in this country and in the region.

    You’ll forgive me that I have not read the whole book, but I have seen some extracts of the expert opinions it contains. I know many of the authors are with us tonight so I won’t pick any out for fear of favouritism, but I will say that I am sure it makes for fascinating reading.

    Many spoke of risks, challenges and uncertainties, yet all relished the possibilities, potential, and opportunities they presented. Whether we’re in politics, diplomacy or business, we all know that risk and opportunity are two sides of the same coin.

    Some commentators are sounding the alarm about the Chinese economic slowdown, and the impact this might have on other economies in the region and further afield. This does not change the fundamental fact that Asia is now – and will remain – a major engine for global growth, and one with which we must continue to engage.

    How Asia is changing

    You only have to look at how Asia is changing, and the astonishing pace of that change. China’s Pearl River Delta now encompasses 42 million people – that’s more than the 20 biggest European cities put together. It’s the largest urban area on the planet. There are 160 cities of over 1 million people in China alone. And despite hundreds of millions of people moving into cities in the last decade, Asia’s urbanisation surge is only just beginning. This urbanisation is directly linked to income growth and consumer spending. The purchasing power of Asia’s growing middle classes is going up faster than the sky scrapers they are moving into.

    This huge movement of people is not restricted to Asia. They are travelling overseas in ever greater numbers. India overtook China recently to become the fastest growing outbound travel market – predicted to more than triple to 50 million between now and 2020.

    Two of the world’s top three economies are now Asian; a third of global trade and GDP is represented by Asia. Some predict that by 2025 as many as two thirds of the world’s population will be Asian. Both the G7 and G20 will be hosted in the region this year – clear testament to its growing significance.

    Why this matters to the UK

    There is no doubt that these seismic economic shifts are being felt right across the world, and the UK is feeling them too. Some contributors in the book you are launching today argued persuasively that the Asian economic centre of gravity was shifting westwards. Others argued just as forcefully that it was the centre of gravity of western economies that was heading east.

    Of course both are right. People in Europe are looking east as never before, but Asians are also increasingly looking west – as students, investors and tourists. Some estimates suggest that Chinese tourists spend as much as £8,000 during a visit to the UK. (Informal sources suggest much of this is spent in Bicester village.) This increasing integration is having a huge impact on the UK. Cheaper Asian imports – from T-shirts to televisions – have given British people today a standard of living their grandparents could only dream of. But at the same time these products threaten the livelihoods of lower skilled British workers. So economics spills over into politics, with protests about globalisation – not least against free trade agreements such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which is already the subject of urban myths.

    Inter-connectivity

    But we all have to accept that this increasing global inter-connectivity is here to stay and embrace it. Asia is embracing e-commerce. Ten years ago only 2% of Indonesia’s population used the internet. This year a third are expected to: that means 100 million Indonesians connected globally, with huge implications for economic growth and social change. Chinese consumers spent a record £10 billion online in just one day last year.

    At an individual level, it means that a teenager on a laptop in Hanoi can do business with a company in Huddersfield. At a country level, it has meant a recognition of growing economic inter-dependence and the need to join forces with others.

    Like our work with the Republic of Korea – building a new fleet of ships for the Royal Navy, which has led us to work together to promote the project to third countries. Or our plans to bring Typhoon fighter jets to Japan later this year, for the first non-US military exercise Japan has ever hosted.

    Cooperation like this not only breaks down barriers between countries inside the grouping or partnership, it also magnifies their individual power and influence outside it.

    In the trading context, you can see the proof of this in the EU – which I’ll come to in a moment. You can see it in the Commonwealth, where we are expecting to see the value of intra-Commonwealth trade reach $1 trillion by 2020. And you can see it in ASEAN’s economic success, and the launch of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). Almost two thirds of ASEAN’s growth in the last quarter century has come from productivity gains. Today ASEAN is the fourth largest exporting region in the world, accounting for 7% of global exports.

    We support ASEAN’s Vision 2025, with its plan to tackle non-tariff barriers, harmonise the regulatory environment and liberalise services. These changes will be crucial for boosting growth in South East Asia and strengthening integration with the rest of the world economy. We also support the Free Trade Agreements that the EU is pursuing with countries in the region – we see these as laying the foundations for an EU-ASEAN FTA.

    The UK, the EU and other like-minded economies are gradually building a global free trade network – through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and various EU Free Trade Agreements, with the Republic of Korea, Vietnam and Singapore. (Only yesterday I was able to reaffirm our commitment to the EU-Vietnam FTA during our third Annual UK-Vietnam Strategic Dialogue here in London.) An agreement with Japan is in the pipeline; I very much hope to see soon a resumption of negotiations on the EU-Thailand FTA; and the UK is advocating a feasibility study on an EU-China FTA.

    Interconnectivity – security

    The benefits of international cooperation are not just seen in trade. It is a simple truth that in an inter-connected world, problems and threats in the form of Daesh-inspired terrorism, instability in the South China Sea or the North Korean menace require a unified response. Large multilateral organisations like the EU or NATO, ASEAN or the UN are listened to in a way that no individual country is. That is plain fact.

    I am pleased that United Nations Security Council Resolution 2270 passed unanimously this week, delivering a strong response from the international community to North Korea’s nuclear test and satellite launch using ballistic missile technology. We must stand united against acts that so flagrantly disregard international agreements and responsibilities.

    And it makes sense that these groupings come together for discussions. ASEM is a good example – giving the UK and its European and Asian partners a forum to discuss issues of mutual interest and further consolidate their influence.

    EU – good or bad?

    Change, and increasing global connectivity, are as relevant to us here in Europe as they are for people in Asia.

    Like Asia, the European Union has changed a great deal over the last half century. From its roots as a means to prevent further conflict between France and Germany the EU has grown into something different. Whilst with a whole range of new members this is inevitable, it does mean that reform is now clearly needed if the EU is to respond to the changed demands of the 21st Century.

    But that aside, it is clear that the Union has brought peace and stability to its member states and to much of the European continent. It has introduced democracy, the rule of law and market economics to the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. And it acts as a champion for those values globally.

    EU – good for Britain

    A lot of this is down to the multiplying effect of EU cooperation. Its members have achieved more together than they could have achieved alone. The United Kingdom’s membership of the EU, like our membership of NATO, the Commonwealth and the UN, amplifies our power and influence on the world stage.

    In Asia, it gives us greater leverage in the negotiations on free trade agreements and on the comprehensive investment agreement with China. These are tough negotiations, and our negotiating power to secure market opening in important sectors is much greater from within the EU than outside it.

    At a time of increasing economic uncertainty and rising security threats, cooperation at an international level is more important than ever. The EU has powerful tools at its disposal, be they security, diplomatic, economic or humanitarian. They allow us to project our influence further than it would otherwise reach. Of course NATO remains the cornerstone of UK defence – we will never give control over such decisions to the EU. But the EU complements NATO’s military activities with its important longer-term stabilisation and development arms.

    Of course the benefits also go the other way. The UK gives EU foreign policy greater credibility thanks to our global perspective. We are after all one of the EU’s two serious military powers. We are the only major nation to have kept our promise to spend 2% of our national output on defence and 0.7% of our national income on international development. We take the lead on cutting red tape, negotiating FTAs and extending the single market. So our membership of the EU benefits both the UK and the EU.

    For all these reasons, I believe that the United Kingdom will be stronger, safer and better off in a reformed EU. Looking at the issue from an Asia perspective, it makes no sense at all for us to withdraw from the European Single Market just at the moment when Asia is creating one of its own.

    EU Referendum

    Some say the whole renegotiation and referendum exercise is an unnecessary gamble. If we were convinced of the case for staying in, why take the risk of Brexit by putting it to a referendum? I have two simple answers to these questions.

    First, like many, I am aware that the EU has its shortcomings. But I believe that the deal which the Prime Minister successfully negotiated is a landmark agreement which delivers tangible benefits for the UK in the four key areas of concern: economic governance, competitiveness, sovereignty and welfare/migration. The deal gives the UK special status within the EU that no arrangement outside the EU could match. It is a good deal for Britain – as the Prime Minister has said, it is a deal that gives us “the best of both worlds”.

    The deal he secured on competitiveness is of particular relevance to you here this evening. It is a tacit recognition by the EU of the need to reform in order to respond to the economic challenge Asia represents. The rise of Asia underlines the case for the UK to stay in the EU and to influence reform from within.

    Secondly, this referendum is about democracy. More than a generation of new voters have joined the British electorate since our accession in 1973. I am one of them. In last year’s election, this Government was given a clear mandate to renegotiate the terms of our EU membership and to let the electorate – not the politicians – decide whether to stay in or to leave. In setting a date for the referendum on 23 June we are honouring our electoral commitment.

    Conclusion

    So in conclusion, while challenges and uncertainties remain, the opportunities that Asia offers the UK and the West are undeniable, and now is the time to seize them. The best way to do that is in cooperation with others. So I for one intend to continue promoting international cooperation, working with my Ministerial colleagues to reform the EU from within, and keeping the EU firmly focused on the opportunities in the world beyond, above all in Asia. Thank you.

  • Justine Greening – 2016 Speech on Women’s Empowerment

    justinegreening

    Below is the text of the speech made by Justine Greening, the Secretary of State for International Development, at the Overseas Development Institute in London, on 8 March 2016.

    Introduction

    Thank you for that introduction. I’m delighted to be here at the end of what I know has been a fantastic, powerful day.

    And I’m delighted to be speaking here, on International Women’s Day, looking ahead to what I believe is an absolutely vital year in the battle for girls and women’s rights.

    And, actually, I know I said this time last year that 2015 was a key year for gender equality.

    And 2015 was an important year for girls and women – as we successfully fought for that standalone gender equality goal, Global Goal 5 in the new Sustainable Development Goals, and – against real opposition – for the first time the world has key targets on sexual and reproductive health, ending FGM and child marriage.

    What’s more we’ve made sure that gender equality runs through the Global Goals, because no goal, whether on education, sanitation or health, will be considered achieved unless it’s achieved for everyone – women and men, girls and boys. No one can be left behind.

    But that’s why this year, 2016, is so important. Last year was about getting the rights of women and girls on the world’s to do list – this year is about doing that to do list. We shouldn’t lose a single moment when it comes to making these goals a reality.

    2016 will also be the year of the UN High Level Panel on girls and women’s economic empowerment – announced by the UN Secretary General in January…the first time the UN have ever put together a High Level Panel on this.

    In the UN Secretary General’s words: “To achieve the Goals, we need a quantum leap in women’s economic empowerment”.

    I absolutely share that view and I’m very proud to be one of the founding members of this Panel. I believe that women’s economic empowerment is something that simply can’t wait. Girls and women around the world can’t wait, the world can’t wait. A lack of empowerment for women is pulling us all down.

    The challenge

    But what I want to be very clear about today is that when it comes to winning the battle on gender equality, we are getting there but it’s taking far, far too long.

    Yes there have been big victories in the battle for women’s rights – but, frankly, the pace of change has not been good enough – and that’s what we need to keep at the forefront of our minds this International Women’s Day. If we are to achieve the acceleration in progress for girls and women that we want and so badly need.

    The problems faced by girls and women will have been set out many times over the course of today. The statistics that, in some parts of the world, paint such a terrible picture for so many women.

    Child marriage: 1 in 4 girls in developing countries will likely be married before the age of 18, and 1 in 12 before the age of 15
    1 in 3 women worldwide are beaten or go through sexual violence in their lifetime. How is that something any of us can accept?

    200 million women around the world have undergone FGM. This represents brutal violence against women. In Uganda, a woman is 123 times more likely to die in childbirth than a woman in the United Kingdom

    Globally, just 50% of women participate in formal labour markets and have the financial independence that brings – compared with 77% of men

    In 17 countries, husbands can legally prevent their wives from working

    In 29 countries women are prohibited from working at night

    And in 34 countries women do not have the same inheritance rights as men.

    Even here in Britain we need to ask ourselves searching questions.

    It was 150 years ago that John Stuart Mill presented a petition to Parliament to give women the same political rights as men. Over six decades later, in 1928, all women over 21 in Britain finally won the right to vote. Change really took time to happen here – and we still have further to go. There are still glass ceilings to smash.

    Party leaders have come and gone, but there’s been just one female leader of a major political party.

    There are more women on FTSE 350 boards than ever before, with representation of women more than doubling since 2011.

    But as CBI Director-General Carolyn Fairbairn set out earlier this year, there are just 9 more female executive directors on FTSE350 boards than in 2010 and the number of female chief executives has hardly moved.

    Even in our schools, where you might think there must be equality as women have been teachers for decades. In fact, only 37% of school heads are women despite three-quarters of teachers being female.

    Here in London, the UK’s capital and one of the most advanced in the world, more progress is needed:

    – less than a third of London Assembly members are women (8 of 25)

    – on average men working in the City earn over £20,000 more than women

    – more than half of all newly identified cases of FGM, 1,300, in the UK from July to September last year occurred in London.

    When we look globally, according to the World Economic Forum, the global gender gap across health, education, economic opportunity and politics has closed by only 4% in the past 10 years, with the economic gap closing by just 3%. They suggest it will take another 118 years to close this gap completely.

    On the flip side of this:

    If girls and women were operating at their full potential and playing an identical role in labour markets to men’s then, according to the McKinsey Global Institute’s recent research, an estimated $28 trillion, or 26%, could be added to global GDP in 2025.

    They estimate the UK could add £0.6 trillion of additional annual GDP in 2025 by fully bridging the gender gap.

    So the world shouldn’t just wait for girls and women’s economic empowerment to steadily happen – we should turbo charge it.

    And what that shows is that our global economy needs women’s economic empowerment as much as any other lever that the central bankers can pull.

    And as well as being about basic, human rights for girls and women – gender equality is also in all our interests. When women are losing out – we’re all losing out. And at a time when there is still much economic uncertainty in global markets, we can’t afford to lock women out of the workplace – we need them in board rooms, offices and in industry.

    Economic empowerment goes right to the heart of women’s rights – it’s about jobs but it’s also about access to bank accounts, tackling violence against girls and women, overcoming discriminatory laws and reducing the burden of unpaid domestic work. All things the High Level Panel must tackle.

    I believe women’s economic empowerment is a game-changer – both for tackling poverty and for building global prosperity.

    No country can afford to leave half its population behind. This has been going on for too long – I don’t accept it.

    The UN High Level Panel is fundamentally about turbo charging all our efforts to deliver real and lasting change and I’m proud to be part of that.

    Voice, choice, control

    The question for all of us today is not just where we need to go but how fast we can get there – how we can accelerate the pace of change.

    What’s that going to take?

    I think it comes down to voice, choice and control. We have to look at politics, the business world, the attitudes people have within their communities and in the home.

    So what about women having a real voice over the decisions that affect them? Internationally we need the next UN Secretary General to really pick up the baton on gender equality – perhaps for the next UN Secretary General to be a woman for the first time.

    Again, on women having a voice, we need women to be equally represented in Parliaments around the world.

    In Somalia – where only 14% of MPs are women, in Sierra Leone – where just over 12% are women, but also Japan – where only 9% are women. And Britain – where it’s still only 30% despite all the progress we’ve made. We still need around 130 more women MPs here to be equal. Let’s find the 130 more.

    My message to women in Britain is: if you’re a great, capable woman then run, run for Parliament or for local government, or to be a police commissioner, and if you know a great, capable woman – then ask her to run.

    What about women being able to choose their own futures? Whether they’re sitting in Britain’s boardrooms or smallholder farmers in Ethiopia they need to be economically empowered.

    And finally the control women have over their lives and their own bodies, when and how many children they have, when they get married, not having FGM.

    We have to finally overcome those discriminatory social norms that hold women back – the cultures and traditions that can define what a girl is for. Culture and tradition should never be used as an excuse for inaction on girls and women’s rights.

    Britain is going to fight for a world where there is voice, choice and control for women.

    Nationally, we are getting our own house in order, with new league tables to put the spotlight on companies that are failing to address the gender pay gap. By supporting women to start and grow their own businesses, including through start-up loans & mentoring. And by supporting FGM and forced marriage units as well as refuges and rape support centres.

    Internationally, we will continue to work with countries that are moving in the same direction on this – supporting countries like Ethiopia that are focused on stamping out harmful practices such as child marriage and FGM. But this political leadership is, of course, not the case everywhere.

    In countries where that political leadership simply is not there, we’ll focus on supporting their grassroots movements, the local organisations and women’s rights groups, the women and men, girls and boys demanding change.

    When John Stuart Mill – a man fighting for women’s rights it’s worth pointing out – when he presented that petition to allow women to vote to Parliament, the establishment was all against him. By 1928 resistance had broken down. And that was because of a grassroots movement – the suffragettes – who kept fighting for change and in doing so transformed this country.

    It all adds up to this: the mission for gender equality will underpin everything we’re doing at DFID. It underpins what this government is doing in the UK. And it needs to underpin the work of the UN, the work of all governments around the world.

    The fight for women’s rights needs to have the same momentum, the same progress, the same deal-making, the same pace and urgency we’ve recently seen around the climate change movement in recent years – culminating in that ground-breaking deal in Paris. If we can do a deal to save the planet, then surely we can deliver gender equality now, in the 21st Century, too.

    Call to action

    So, I want to conclude with a call to action – not just to this room, but to everyone who cares about this issue, in Britain and around the world.

    Inequality between men and women is the greatest unmet human challenge the world continues to face this century. It requires the same global commitment that we’re now seeing around tackling climate change. The whole world needs to rally round women’s rights.

    The Sustainable Development Goals is a blueprint for women’s rights around the world – so let’s use it.

    In the end by building a better world for women, we are building a better world for everyone. We can see the world we all want – we just need to accelerate towards it as fast as we can. We’ve got to go further, faster.

    I’ve often said that when it comes to women’s rights – if we’re not winning this battle then, de facto, we’re losing it. There’s plenty of people who think things have already gone too far and will try to claw back the progress we’ve made. Just to stand still we have to keep winning.

    But the other aspect of that is we are now seeing a network effect. As we see more progress, and more rights for girls and women – there’s more and more voices to call for change.

    So the more we can be and give a voice to those that don’t have one, the more we shout for change, the more we can give a platform to those voices demanding change – I believe the more irresistible this movement will become until no country can withstand it.

    I don’t want someone in my place to be here in 150 years’ time talking about this day and this speech I made. In fact, making a similar speech about the need for more pace and urgency on women’s rights because there’s still more to do. It’s too long to wait. In our lifetimes, for our girls, for our children, for everyone – let’s all of us, men and women, girls and boys, finish off the job. Let’s make women equal.

    Thank you.

  • Matt Hancock – 2016 Speech on International Women’s Day

    Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, at Portcullis House in London on 8 March 2016.

    It’s a great privilege to be here today with you all, and it’s a joy to be hearing from these inspirational public servants.

    I’ve been an MP for nearly 6 years now, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time here in Portcullis House.

    It’s named after a Tudor badge that has been the symbol for our Parliament for over 500 years. It denotes fortitude, strength and stability.

    Castles and ramparts and gates have for millennia been erected to keep people out. That is a perception we must change.

    In my first speech as Cabinet Office Minister I said that to govern modern Britain, the Civil Service has to be more like modern Britain.

    Whether it’s a matter of social background, or gender, or ethnicity, or sexual orientation, we must end the injustice of unfair discrimination.

    Indeed one of the reasons I’m in public service is because I passionately believe that everyone should have the chance to reach their potential, whatever their background.

    I came to Westminster to fight for that principle and I intend to do so with every tool at my disposal.

    I want my daughter to have every opportunity that my sons have. And like all of you here today, I pledge to do my duty to build a world in which all can succeed.

    I’m proud of this great feminist cause, and I’m proud to call myself a feminist in making that pledge.

    This is a moral quest. Indeed I believe it to be a self-evident, cornerstone British value.

    We are all individuals with strengths, weaknesses, hopes and dreams. For each of us these things add up to the unique contribution that every one of us can make.

    Yes, it’s a moral quest, but it is also deeply practical.

    My core mission as Cabinet Office Minister is to help the government deliver more than the sum of its parts.

    A crucial and integral part of that is opening our doors to the best talent, making sure all people have the opportunity to grow and excel.

    It’s good business sense to bring in as many different ways of thinking as possible. Difference promotes innovation and strength.

    International Women’s Day is a chance to hold up a mirror to ourselves. To do so we must take a good hard look at where we are, where we need to go, and how we get there.

    So let’s look at where we are. Today, women make up 54% of our civil servants. A record 44% of new public appointments last year were women.

    The Bridge report I commissioned recently found that we’re improving gender access to the upper echelons of the civil service.

    Since the launch of the Talent Action Plan in 2014 we’ve improved support for returning mothers, increased the number of job shares, and put a halt to all-male interview panels.

    But as you climb higher the numbers get worse. 60% of junior employees are women, but only 40% of the Senior Civil Service.

    It’s striking that in 1996 – the year the portcullis was officially recognised as Parliament’s emblem – the figure was less than half that.

    Research shows the gender pay gap is closing, and in some cases has closed.

    We’re making progress, and this should be celebrated. But parity hasn’t yet been reached everywhere, and so there is more to do.

    First, we must turn our commitment to equal opportunities in public leadership roles into meaningful action.

    I want to see an end to single-sex shortlists and selection panels for public appointments. Whilst this is currently the case in the majority of competitions, I want it to be the standard across the board.

    This shows we’re serious about gender parity, and I hope that the private sector takes notice and follows suit.

    Next, our new digital advisory group for the government’s digital revolution is made up of 50% men and 50% women. And we intend to have more women on boards in the future.

    I want more women to consider a career in the Civil Service, and I want those that are here to be proud of their job and their achievements.

    So we’re going to make the selection and promotion process as transparent and fair as possible by tackling bias, conscious or otherwise, and making name-blind recruitment standard.

    There’s a lot more to do, and I’m going to set out our full strategy to boost social mobility in the Civil Service in the spring.

    So, to those storming the ramparts of injustice, I support you. Let us tear down these barriers to fairness for all.

    Today is an important day but one day isn’t enough. We must make sure our top institutions are bastions of equality and opportunity.

    They must be exemplars for the society we want to build. A society where everyone has the chance to succeed, and to serve their country.

    And I hope that you too will continue to be standard bearers for that society.