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  • Chris Mullin – 2004 Speech on Africa

    Below is the text of the speech made by Chris Mullin, the then Foreign Office Minister, in New York, USA, on 4th February 2004.

    There are a number of reasons why Africa should matter to us. The first, of course, is moral. The war, famine, disease and unspeakable barbarity that have haunted that tragic Continent for much of the twentieth century are simply unacceptable in a civilised world. Some years ago Prime Minister Blair described the condition of Africa as ‘a scar on the conscience of mankind’. And so it is.

    There are also, however, sound practical reasons why we cannot afford to ignore the state of Africa. The most immediate of these is terrorism. It is a little known fact that there have been more Al Qaeda attacks in Africa than anywhere else in the world. The fact that in parts of Africa such as Somalia entire societies have imploded makes them a ready breeding ground for terrorism.

    It is also not widely realised that there are more Muslims south of the Sahara than in the Middle East, most of them, fortunately, are moderates. If we want them to stay that way, we cannot neglect Africa.

    Africa also has oil and gas resources to rival those of the Middle East. We need to work together with Africa to make sure Africans benefit from this resource. This is an important strand of efforts to bring prosperity to the region.

    Then there is HIV/AIDS. Of estimated 42 million people living with AIDS about three-quarters are in Africa and the rate of increase is steeper in Africa than anywhere else. Globalisation and travel means that AIDS is exported ever more easily. The USA and Europe are not immune.

    These then are sound practical reasons why we should be interested in Africa, but as I said at the outset the primary reason – for decent people of all political persuasions – is moral.

    A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

    The good news is that for a variety of reasons, some man-made, some fortuitous, a window of opportunity now exists that will enable us – if we demonstrate the necessary political will – to make a difference. To coin a phrase, a wind of change is blowing. A series of venal dictatorships is giving way to elected governments; countries like South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Uganda and even Nigeria, now have governments that care about their people. This year we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the end of Apartheid in South Africa. Who, ten years ago, would have dared predict that the transition to majority rule could have been achieved without a bloodbath? What has happened in South Africa is a great achievement and ought to serve as an inspiration for the rest of the Continent.

    Elsewhere – in Angola, the Congo, Sudan – civil wars which have wracked those countries for decades and generated slaughter and barbarity on an unimaginable scale – appear to be coming to an end.

    There is also a growing recognition among African leaders that they, too, have a part to play in resolving their Continent’s problems. Witness the South African-led peacekeeping forces in the Congo and Burundi. Witness the role Nigeria and Ghana are playing in helping to resolve the West African conflicts. Witness, also, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in which Africans are taking the lead in spreading sound economic management, democracy and good governance.

    So, there is a sound basis for partnership between the G8 and Africa. The United States and Great Britain share common priorities in Africa. Last November in London President Bush and Prime Minister Blair re-affirmed their commitment to Africa. They agreed to strengthen co-operation in a number of key areas and provide support through the G8 Africa Action Plan. Both our countries have key roles to play in our respective G8 Presidencies this year and next to take forward those commitments. Today I want to set our how Britain and the US, together with our other partners, can work together in support of Africa.

    THE G8 AND AFRICA

    With leadership from President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, the G8 responded to NEPAD over two years ago by agreeing a series of commitments under the G8 Africa Action Plan. These included increasing and improving development assistance, tackling debt, liberalising world trade and helping developing economies and developing a new partnership with Africa.

    One of the main objectives of the Plan was also to define a new way of working with Africa as well as addressing the main constraints on Africa’s development. The G8/Africa partnership is based on the principle of mutual accountability – that if Africa is to make progress, both the G8 and African governments must live up to their commitments. This represents a fundamental shift in the development relationship between the international community and Africa. It is not a case of quid pro quo, it is a partnership based on the need for both sides to make progress. In the G8, we must live up to our commitments to increase the volume and effectiveness of aid, and improve the coherence of policies – such as on trade – with international development goals.

    The partnership between the G8 and Africa has galvanised efforts on both sides to deliver. It also keeps Africa on the agenda. It provides a regular opportunity for leaders from African and major industrialised countries to sustain political efforts and attention needed for change. The fact that President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and other G8 leaders sat down at last year’s G8 Summit with President Mbeki, President Obasanjo and other African leaders was important in itself.

    But the principle value of the G8 lies in its ability to give high level political attention to issues where political weight is essential to progress. It is important that we, in the G8, focus our efforts where they will have most impact. A concerted effort by G8 and African leaders to tackle key issues including conflict, HIV, trade and education is essential if we are to get on track for the Millennium Development Goals. With our support, the G8 engagement with Africa has recently broadened to an extended Africa Partners Forum, which includes 19 African countries. It is important that the Forum maintains the high level political engagement that African Heads of government have emphasised as being key to G8 engagement with Africa. We do not see the Forum as a channel for deciding or bidding on sector projects. The Forum has a strategic role to play, one which should put a political spotlight on issues.

    Our objectives for the Forum are for a frank and open dialogue which will maintain high level political commitment; review priorities; promote coordination and policy coherence; and track progress against commitments made on both sides.

    THE UK AND AFRICA

    Underlying everything we do in Africa is our belief in a relationship with African countries as equal partners. We expect issues affecting Africa to remain on the G8 agenda this year, under the US Presidency. The Prime Minister is committed to making Africa a key part of the UK’s 2005 G8 Presidency. We have made a bilateral commitment to £ 1 billion a year in development assistance to Africa by 2005, an increase of over 50% in the last three years alone. The funds will be used in the countries that need them the most – the poorest. We will focus development assistance on the areas that can best reduce poverty – health, education, and building accountable and effective governments.

    AREAS FOR GREATER INTERNATIONAL AND AFRICAN COOPERATION

    I would like to highlight next some areas where I think the international community and African partners need to continue to focus their efforts:

    CONFLICT

    Progress in Africa, and improvement in the lives of its people, has been undermined or destroyed by conflict and insecurity. Scarce resources needed to fight poverty have been wasted. Conflicts in one country have fuelled insecurity and instability in its neighbours. In all, some 200 million people in Sub Saharan Africa have been affected by conflict.

    I therefore see peace and security, and tackling the underlying causes of conflict, as top priorities. We must support African efforts to resolve armed conflicts. We need to provide assistance so that African countries and regional and sub-regional organisation are able to engage more effectively to prevent and resolve violent conflicts and to undertake peace support operations.

    The new African Union peace and security architecture presents an opportunity for us to engage. The AU is now leading the first African mission in Burundi with Ethiopian, South African and Mozambican troops to which the UK has contributed nearly £4 million. And the AU is developing a plan for an African standby peacekeeping force. We are seeking to support this through the implementation of the joint Africa/G8 plan to enhance African peace and security capabilities in close collaboration particularly with the African Union, ECOWAS, the US, France, Germany and Canada. A peace plan for training and operational support has been developed and agreed between the G8 and African countries.

    Our engagement in Sierra Leone is an example of where Britain, working alongside others, can make a difference in Africa. By deploying UK forces, creating a more effective and accountable Sierra Leonean army, and helping to tackle the root causes of the conflict, we have played a part in bringing peace to Sierra Leone. But this would have been nothing without the UN, ECOWAS and Government of Sierra Leone’s commitment to make it work. Much remains to be done, but we have demonstrated that the international community can work together to bring an end to seemingly impossible conflicts.

    The support of the international community has been vital in helping to resolve the conflicts in the Great Lakes region – Africa’s equivalent of the first world war in which millions died. We are doing all we can to ensure that peace is established in that region – a region the size of Europe.

    In Liberia the partnership between the US and ECOWAS has bought tentative peace to a country ravaged by years of conflict. While the numbers of US troops deployed were small, their effect was great; an example of the importance of international engagement in African conflict resolution. We welcome the leadership role the US has taken in Liberia.

    In Southern Sudan, for the first time in more than a generation, there is a prospect of peace. A chance to end Africa’s longest-running civil war in Africa’s largest country. After decades of conflict, the challenges are enormous. Former combatants, amongst them child soldiers, need to be persuaded to give up their weapons and helped to return and re-settle into their communities. The displaced people will want help returning home and rebuilding their lives. Schools and hospitals must be built. And the foundations for democracy have to be laid to give a voice to those who have been marginalised for so long. And of course an international peace-support operation will have to be set up to monitor the peace. The UN is already making plans, but the support of the international community in all these areas will be crucial if peace is to hold.

    TACKLING TERRORISM

    Terrorism. Africa has a track record of serious terrorism including the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2002 Kenya hotel bombing and attempted shooting down of a holiday jet carrying Israeli passengers. The failed state of Somalia, and undoubtedly other weak states in Africa, present terrorists with space in which to plan and export attacks. These are not anomalous incidents but symptoms of a problem in Africa which poses a serious, direct and continuing security threat to us, and poses a fundamental threat to Africa itself.

    We are of course pursuing terrorists in Africa in collaboration with our partners there, and are doing so with great vigour. But that is only part of the solution. Irrespective of operational success, the factors which sustain and feed terrorist networks and activity also need tackling. These factors stem from a complex relationship between geography, institutional weakness, corruption, poor borders, economic and social issues, radicalisation and alienation, and simple opportunity. So to that extent the problems of terrorism are inextricably connected to Africa’s other problems, and the solutions are likewise interconnected. And we cannot wish the problem away: on the contrary the signs are that, if unchecked, the terrorist problem in Africa could grow.

    ECONOMIC GROWTH AND TRADE

    The current trade system doesn’t work for Africa. Africa’s share of world trade is declining. In 2002 it produced only 2% of global exports compared to 6% in 1980. We need to reverse this trend and facilitate Africa’s integration into the global economy by making our markets more accessible to African exports.

    We therefore welcome the moves here to extend the coverage and duration of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act to 2015 which has opened up new markets for African exports in the US. In Lesotho for instance, the Act has attracted significant foreign direct investment and increased garment exports to the US by an average of 24% a year, creating almost 30,000 new jobs.

    The UK Government is determined to do all it can, working with the US and other international partners, to get the Doha Development Round back on track and deliver real benefits for African countries and their poorest citizens.

    We should pay special attention to critical areas such as agricultural market access and reducing trade distorting subsidies particularly for key commodities for Africa such as cotton.

    HIV/AIDS

    Supporting African partners to fight HIV/AIDS is a high priority for both the US and the UK. Indeed we are the two largest bilateral donors of HIV/AIDS assistance. Both our countries have substantial bilateral country-based programmes and are major contributors to a number of relevant global initiatives, including the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and malaria.

    Last November when they met in London, President Bush and my Prime Minister agreed to enhance our collaboration on the ground in five African countries (Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia) in order to better support their national HIV/AIDS plans.

    This enhanced collaboration, when harnessed to the efforts of all other contributors, should help improve overall donor harmonization, an aim both our governments are keen to pursue. Better coordinated and better funded support is clearly an important means to reach the key international targets of: three million people – two million in Africa – receiving treatment by the end of 2005; 25% fewer young people infected by 2005; and slowing the progress of HIV/AIDS by 2015.

    GOVERNANCE

    We must work to strengthen governance in African states. Effective institutions, representative democracy and accountable government are essential conditions for growth, development and poverty reduction. African governments are increasingly taking poverty reduction seriously, improving governance, economic and political performance. We are supporting them through our engagement with and support to NEPAD and country owned poverty reduction strategies.

    The African Review Mechanism, developing under NEPAD, is a bold commitment, establishing a process for monitoring good governance. We support it as well as the work currently in progress in the OECD to develop a mutual review of donor performance in Africa.

    MORE AND BETTER DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE

    There is an urgent need to increase the quality and quantity of development aid. We are taking a lead role in working with our international partners and with international organisations to do this. Improving aid quality means making sure that donors adopt common practices for the disbursement of aid and that country programmes reflect the recipient’s priorities.

    We also need to maintain momentum on meeting our commitments for substantial new development assistance. This includes ensuring that 50% of new commitments go to Sub-Saharan Africa, providing predictable levels of resources to those countries who can best use it.

    We are exploring with partners how best to do this, for example, through the UK’s proposal for an International Finance Facility (IFF) which aims to double resources for development assistance up to 2015 by leveraging in additional resources from the private sector. The IMF and World Bank are carrying out detailed work ahead of reports to the Spring and Annual Meetings of the Fund and Bank. We welcome the potential of the US Government’s Millennium Challenge Account to make more resources available for development in Africa. It is important that this initiative succeeds, both in terms of the volume of funding delivered through the mechanism, but also as a new approach to deliver aid. We look forward to seeing the Millennium Challenge Account up and running and to working with it in any way we can.

    CONCLUSION

    Africans are increasingly recognising their responsibility to tackle the problems on their Continent. Our role is to help Africa help itself.

    The UK is strongly committed to the G8 Africa Action Plan and the Africa partnership. They offer a new framework for long-term, constructive engagement with African people and their leaders to ensure that a stable, democratic and successful Africa takes it rightful place in the global economy.

    We look forward to continuing to work with our American friends to realise that goal.

  • Chris Mullin – 2003 Speech on Britain and South Africa

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Foreign Office Minister, Chris Mullin, in Cape Town, South Africa, on 3rd November 2003.

    Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends,

    Last week in London a series of events was held to celebrate the tenth anniversary of your country’s freedom. I myself had the pleasure of hosting a reception to mark the occasion, which was attended by many members of the South African and British governments, including your Foreign Minister, Dr Dlamini Zuma. I will say to you what I said to them. Namely, that for many of us active in British politics, the release of Nelson Mandela and the subsequent peaceful transfer of power from the Apartheid regime to South Africa’s first democratically elected government was one of the seminal events of our political lives. What made a particular impression in the UK, where we sometimes tend to take democracy for granted, was the sight of long lines of impoverished people queuing patiently for hours in order, for the first time in their lives, to cast their vote.

    South Africa has come a long way during the last ten years. It has assumed its rightful place as a major player, both of the continent of Africa and in the world as a whole. It plays an important part in the Commonwealth, in the Non-Aligned Movement, in the United Nations and in the African Union. It has contributed peacekeepers to war torn neighbours. It is playing a leading part in NEPAD, the New Partnership for African Development – of which we all have high hopes.

    But what has impressed us most in the ten years since you won your freedom is the dignity with which you went about coming to terms with your past. How you did not allow yourselves to become consumed with bitterness or a desire for revenge which might so easily have poisoned the future. How instead you have built a coalition in which there is a place for everyone who wants to play a part in a multi-racial democracy. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission has become a model for other divided societies struggling to overcome their terrible past – only the other day a prominent Iraqi remarked to me that Iraqis could do with something similar in their own country.

    THE CHALLENGES AHEAD

    Friends, I congratulate you on what has been achieved so far. We are proud to be your partners. But, as I am sure you will be the first to agree, it is not enough to celebrate what has been achieved so far. Other large challenges lie ahead. I want, if I may, to use this opportunity to set out some of those challenges and how we hope, in partnership with our friends in Africa, to tackle them.

    First however, I want to assure you that we will not allow events in Iraq to distract us from our commitment to Africa. Prime Minister Tony Blair has long made clear his personal commitment to Africa and he has re-iterated this commitment on several occasions. DFID has reaffirmed 2 commitments; that it’s spending in Africa will continue to rise substantially (set to reach £1billion per year by 2006); and that the proportion of DFID programmes going to low income countries will rise to 90% by the same date. We had already planned to reduce our overall allocation to middle income countries (MICs) in order to increase spending in the poorest countries. In light of the needs in Iraq we will make reallocations within our overall MIC programmes. No decision has yet been taken on changed spending for individual countries. But Hilary Benn has made clear that he intends to maintain a substantial programme in South Africa. It is not my place to preach about Africa’s problems, indeed you are as well aware of them as I am, but the grim facts will not go away unless they are faced. Since 1960 over eight million Africans have died as a result of war and ninety percent of the casualties have been not soldiers, but civilians. Many millions more have become refugees, fleeing war and chaos. It is the responsibility of all of us to tackle poverty in Africa. We are committed to meeting the Millennium Development Goals, which aim to halve the proportion of the world population living in poverty. Africa requires annual growth of 7% to meet this goal.

    Second, we should remember that there is much good news in Africa. Democratic governance is taking root. Ghana, Senegal and Kenya, which I have just visited, have all seen peaceful transfers of power in the last four years. Some countries have seen very strong economic performance. Uganda is among the ten fastest growing economies in the world. The recovery of the South African rand is a tribute to the strength and sound management of Africa’s largest economy.

    There is also hope of an end to Africa’s most intractable conflicts. Angola is at peace for the first time in thirty years. Sierra Leone is rebuilding itself. The DRC and Burundi are all making fresh starts. The role which President Mbeki played personally in helping to broker agreements including the signing of the Pretoria Protocol yesterday, together with the commitment of South African troops to sustain them, reflect great credit to your country. I am encouraged by the prospect of a peace agreement in Sudan, and the success of ECOWAS in ensuring a peaceful transition in Liberia.

    Africa’s leaders are leading this progress. They have made clear that they will not wait for the rest of the world to solve the continent’s problems. NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development demonstrates this approach. It is about Africa taking responsibility for African problems; and development partners accepting their role in supporting it. The G8 has responded by making clear commitments to reinforce the efforts of regional leaders.

    Thirdly, good governance is critical to Africa’s development. As President Mbeki has said, democracy, good governance and respect for human rights are not alien conditions imposed by western donors. They are African values rooted in the councils of the chiefs for many generations. The African Peer Review Mechanism is a bold commitment, establishing a process for monitoring good governance that goes further than any other in the world. It will give business, African and foreign, the confidence to invest.

    ZIMBABWE

    I am sure that you are expecting me to say a little about Zimbabwe in this context. I will disappoint some journalists when I point out that Britain and South Africa agree to a large extent about Zimbabwe. When Foreign Secretary Jack Straw visited South Africa in May, he and Foreign Minister Dlamini-Zuma agreed a communiqué on a range of bilateral issues. Let me quote to you the section on Zimbabwe: ‘both countries agreed on the need to encourage the parties to commit themselves to removing the obstacles to the negotiations. They underlined that the longer the problems in Zimbabwe remain unresolved, the more entrenched poverty will become. They stressed their commitment to an outcome in which the people of Zimbabwe enjoy independence, freedom, peace, stability, democracy and prosperity. The Working Group noted, unequivocally, that no lasting solution to the challenges that face Zimbabwe can be found, unless that solution comes from the people of Zimbabwe themselves’.

    We know that President Mbeki and others have been working hard to help the negotiations between ZANU (PF) and the MDC bear fruit. We applaud those efforts, and wish them every success. But for these talks to succeed there has to be a serious commitment to dialogue – in this context the recent closure of the Daily News and the locking up of trade union leaders sends the wrong signal, and these must be reversed.

    The British position is often misrepresented. We support the people of Zimbabwe. We support their human rights. We recognise and have said clearly that the colonial inheritance on land was both unjust and unsustainable. We fully support land reform, but only if it is done transparently, sustainably and for the benefit of the poor. And we are helping keep Zimbabweans alive, by helping to finance the international humanitarian relief effort. Last winter the World Food Programme, to which we are major contributors, helped to feed more than five million Zimbabweans. How can it be that this beautiful country that was the bread basket of Southern Africa has been reduced to relying on foreign aid to keep its people alive? I should also make clear that, once there is a democratically accountable government in Zimbabwe, working for the interests of its own people, we are ready to help lead the international community’s efforts to rebuild the country. In the meantime, we will do all in our power to ensure that no Zimbabwean starves, and to help tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis.

    BRITAIN’S WIDER ROLE IN AFRICA

    But enough on Zimbabwe. Let me say a little about the role that Britain hopes to play more widely in Africa. Our aim is a relationship with African countries as equal partners. We recognise the moral obligation to support African efforts. But we also recognise that there are wider reasons. Terrorism and extremism thrive where there is oppression and poverty.

    So what are we doing to help Africa to achieve the recovery is seeks? First, our bilateral commitment. We will commit £1bn a year in development assistance to Africa by 2005. The funds will be used in the countries that need them most – the poorest. We will focus development assistance on the areas that can best reduce poverty – health, education, and building accountable and effective governments.

    Secondly, we recognise that trade is much more important than aid. The disappointment of Cancun should not discourage us from pursuing a fairer global trading system. We will build on alliances with developing countries, including South Africa, to get the Doha Development agenda back on track. We will not continue to tolerate a situation in which a cow in Europe is subsidised at $2 a day (twice the amount that half of all Africans live on). With our support the European Union has made substantial reforms to the Common Agricultural Policies Policy which when implemented will cut damaging European subsidies and open European markets. We want to go further.

    Thirdly, we will continue to use our influence to ensure the developed world is prepared to give Africa a fairer chance. We are leading the effort to provide debt relief for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries. This is releasing up to $41.2 billion for the twenty countries in Africa that are participating. We have also proposed, with South Africa’s support, an International Financing Facility. Including debt relief this should lead to the release of up to $50 billion of development assistance in a reasonably short time frame, making the Millennium Development Goals more achievable. We will support African national, regional and continental institutions to build the capacity to absorb these levels of funding.

    I highlighted Africa’s efforts to end its wars. We will support these. The UK is providing resources and expertise for conflict prevention, peacekeeping and conflict resolution missions as the AU Peace and Security Council establishes itself. We are closely involved in the process of peacebuilding in Sierra Leone, and we supported deployment of South African troops in the DRC. In Burundi, we have provided £3.9m to the cost of peacekeeping efforts led by South Africa, Mozambique and Ethiopia. In this context, I am happy to announce that South Africa and Britain will in the next few days conduct a bilateral command and control exercise in South Africa – Exercise African Shield. British and South African military and civilian personnel will share experience and techniques in regional peacekeeping. We hope this practical co-operation will help the AU and UN to meet the challenges ahead.

    Like you, we will give increasing attention to HIV/AIDS. We are already engaged in battling TB and malaria throughout Africa, but tackling this new disease poses unique challenges. So far, Africa has borne the brunt of these, although HIV is now spreading fast in other parts of the world too. The world has had to learn fast, we now know that we need a comprehensive response – preventing the spread of infection; treatment and care of those infected; addressing the wider impact on society. Britain is working with African countries and with international organisations to promote this sort of response. Like many round the world, we welcome South Africa’s recent decision to expand access to anti retroviral treatment as part of a comprehensive approach.

    Finally, we will continue to act as champions of NEPAD and the African Union. Tony Blair intends to make Africa a central focus of the UK’s Presidency of the G8 in 2005.

    CONCLUSION

    Our relationship with South Africa exemplifies this partnership. Tony Blair and President Mbeki have worked closely together on the progressive governance. South Africa and Britain have £6bn worth of two-way bilateral trade every year. We are working together in multilateral fora to combat crime, terrorism and money laundering. We also share goals in the pursuit of free trade, in the Renewable Energy Partnership that followed the Johannesburg summit, and in ethical business practise, in particular the efforts to promote transparency in the Extractives Industry.

    Friends we regard South Africa as a role model for the rest of Africa. In 10 short years you have managed a peaceful transition from Apartheid to a modern democracy in which there is freedom of speech, the rule of law, a market economy and a real effort to improve the lives of your poorest people. We recognise that great challenges still lie ahead and we want to help you meet them. Success is important not only for you but for the whole of Africa.

  • Mo Mowlam – 1998 Speech to TUC Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Mo Mowlam to the 1998 TUC Conference.

    Can I say it is good to be here, particularly to open the debate on Northern Ireland as part of the International Affairs debate. Before I speak on what I have planned to do, can I just, in terms of the TSSA, David, and Keith from ISTC, add my comments that one of the important things – and I think it is symptomatic of what the TUC has done over the years – is that the cross-community representation in the different delegations makes a difference. It is sometimes difficult but it always has helped when the unions have remained organised across the divide – a very important situation to have.

    Also in relation to what Mark Healy said from the POA, of course we will have our differences and I would just like to say, through him, a ‘thank you’ to his members for what they have done because, as he says, they have not had an easy time with the deaths that they have gone through, and working in certain prisons in Northern Ireland is tougher than elsewhere for the very simple reason that when somebody threatens you in the Maze there are people outside who are prepared to carry it out. That is tough not just on the POA members but on their families too. Hopefully we have got a time of change ahead and it is change for everybody. So I thank them for what they have done in the past and thank them also for the difficult times that we will face in the future, because change is hard for everybody.

    Just a final note on the brothers and sisters in the Probation Service: it is not easy in Northern Ireland. I think the Probation Service is one of the harder jobs around. They make some very tough decisions and not many of them people acknowledge. They have worked hard in Northern Ireland and it has made a big plus. (Applause)

    In terms of the welcome you very kindly gave me earlier, can I just share that with the people who have done the work over the years. I think it is important to acknowledge that it has been a joint effort over many years – previous Governments, Tony Blair, Bertie Aherne, the Taoiseach – and one of the big differences is we have worked together, the British, Irish and the Americans, to build the coalition to move the process forward, an important point in getting us going when the Labour Government took over.

    But over the years the work has been put in by people like Peter Cassells from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, an all-Ireland body as many of you are aware, and by people like Terry Carlin and Tom Gillan from the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress. They have put that work in. We also have people like Bill Atlee here from SIPTU. Again this did not happen in 16 months, it has happened over 16 years and it is the people who are not represented here today that I would like to share that acknowledgement with.

    I do not think it will come as any surprise to anybody here to learn that trade unions, which have been at the forefront of much of the progressive social changes that have taken place throughout the world, were also at the forefront of social change in Northern Ireland and we should say ‘thank you’ to them.

    Let me just give you some examples in Northern Ireland of how the trade unions have worked over the years which have helped us get to where we are today. The first – and you do not often think about this – is over the last 30 years most of the focus by the press has been on the violence, and it has been appalling and atrocious for people to live with, but the trade unions, to their credit, kept up campaigning on those issues that affect people’s lives day in and day out as well as the violence. They have campaigned on health, education and, above all, employment. They never let those fall off the agenda in Northern Ireland and I think that is terribly important to remember. One of the phrases they used as a campaign phrase was “A Better Life for All”, and that really encompasses everything that they have fought for over the years gone by.

    The other thing they have done is work tirelessly to build up relationships across the communities. A good example is money came from Europe for Northern Ireland to help try and build the peace – Peace and Reconciliation Fund – and they gave it to Northern Ireland and said, “How can we get this through to the people?” So Monika Wulf-Mathies, who is a wonderful Commissioner in Europe, set up these committees, 26 throughout Northern Ireland, and on them are politicians right from DUP to Sinn Fein, trade unionists, business people, community groups, voluntary sector, and they allocate the money for different areas. Throughout all the difficulties those committees have kept meeting, kept talking and delivered things for the local people – over 11,000 community groups set up.

    Crucial to those were the trade union members and when the politicians found it difficult, which they inevitably did, they were there to keep the process alive. I can never prove it, but I have no doubt that those partnerships and the schemes they have set up over the years have helped people on the ground get to know each other and get the kind of results we have got now because it is people in Northern Ireland who want peace. They will keep pushing which is why I am so sure we will get there because people want a future that is non-violent and that is a way that the trade unions have helped tremendously. They have got their own projects, like Counteract, in the workplace to try and deal with inter-communal strife that arises – again trade union instigated, again slow, subtle. People do not necessarily notice it first time but again it makes a difference.

    Can I just be cheeky for one minute because it is my own union and that is UNISON, just to say what I think UNISON has done and I would like particularly to mention Inez McCormick and Patricia McEwan and lots of the other folk there who worked on the ground to get lots of people, particularly women, involved. They have done an amazing job and I know how effective they are because I remember the first time when I was Shadow in this job I went to Inez’s office and said, “Inez, I just need you to talk me through what the issues are, what I need to know”, and she said nothing, took me down to the Royal Victoria Hospital to the basement, put me in a room for an hour with cleaners, cooks, porters and they told me what they expected me to do without any doubt. That is the way the work has been done on the ground and I would like to acknowledge particularly what they have done.

    Other examples of what the unions have done: the campaign that they have organised on what we call the Fairness Equality agenda again has been central because inequality, discrimination, has been a crucial part of the backdrop of what has happened in Northern Ireland, and the work they have done on fair employment legislation has made a big, big difference.

    Finally to thank them, when we had the referendum in Northern Ireland back in May I kind of had a free front of panic for the first week because not many people were saying anything, and because of the difficulties that have happened in the past people are sometimes reticent to speak out. It takes a lot to have the confidence to stand up and say, “I’m going to support this side”, or the other. It is a bit of a risk. It is not easy in Northern Ireland. That “Yes” Campaign, which won the Referendum, was due in large part to, as always, the union leaders in Northern Ireland having the guts to stand up, put their head above the barricade and say what they believed. That got it going and that made a difference. I do want to put that on record because they were crucial in getting us to where we were.

    The second thing I want to touch on, briefly, is the degree of violence and the degree of divisions which exist in Northern Ireland – that sectarian bigotry which you see at different times manifest itself. That is not going to disappear overnight. It is going to be there for years. We must slowly edge away at dealing with that. You deal with that by building up people’s confidence and getting them closer and closer to respect each other to hope that the future will be very different.

    One of the central difficulties is the degree of exclusion that divisions create. The deprivation which exists in parts of Northern Ireland is worse than anywhere else in the UK. That fuels the difficulties of the past.

    Let me give you a very bland statistic. Out of the unemployed in Northern Ireland, more than half of them are long-term unemployed. That is double anywhere else in the UK. It gives you an idea of the extent of how there is a group which is marginalised on both sides of the divide, and that needs addressing. We are beginning, in the first sixteen months, to address that.

    Let me give you a quick example so that you get a feel of what is actually happening in Northern Ireland. First, New Deal is working and making progress. We have a thousand employers signed up. Do not forget that Northern Ireland comprises 1.5 million people, similar to Greater Leeds, so that is a good bit of progress in terms of getting people off the dole and into a better future.

    Policies which will be implemented here by the middle of next year, such as the minimum wage and Fairness at Work will all help. We have many policies, thanks again to the equality agenda which has been pushed, on TSN – Targeting Social Need – so that policies in terms of fair treatment are directed to the most deprived.

    The Gordon Brown “the Chancellor’s package”, as we call it, which is a specific effort to put money into infrastructure to make it more attractive to get investment, has helped again. One of the big differences is that the people of Northern Ireland are at the moment putting together their own economic strategy to grow local businesses. In the past 24 hours there has been , 5 million worth of investment between two local companies in Craigavon and Dungannon. Again, that is real progress alongside the talks which will help make them work.

    The other and final area which we have been working in is trying to get more inward investment. We have not done too badly. We are off again next month to try and get more investment from the United States, who have been quite positive in their investment in Northern Ireland. Eleven cities will be visited and Gordon Brown will launch it. The important point about this tour is that it is headed by David Trimble and Seamus Mallon, together in partnership symbolically saying “We are working for a different future in Northern Ireland and we are leading it to show that this is where the future lies”. That is a real big plus because it shows to people Unionists and Nationalists working together to build for the future.

    In terms of that visit in October, we have had a lot of support from the AFL-CIO, particularly John Sweeney, who has worked with us in what could otherwise be a difficult area to facilitate that trip.

    While I am on the subject of leaders, one of the things which has helped in Northern Ireland is the relationship between the trades union Movement in America, in Ireland and here, in Northern Ireland, in the UK. The co-operation between them makes work easier. John Monks is an important part of that. His contribution — do not look so embarrassed — has been important because he is there in public when you need him. He went after the Canary Wharf bomb to Derry and spoke. When we were having the Referendum, he came to Belfast and spoke. That counts.

    But in addition what also makes a difference is, privately, when we are going through tough times he is there behind the scenes, over the years, working consistently to try and move it forward. We all have bad days. I have had some pretty bad days in the past 16 months. It makes a difference when people like John phone you up and says “It happens to all of us. Keep going”. I did just want to take this opportunity to thank him, too, because that has made a difference.

    Let me just touch on some aspects of the Good Friday Agreement. I also ought to say that of symbolic importance is at the Labour Party Conference at the week after next. We have a fringe meeting at which David Trimble and Shamus Mallon are speaking. It is sponsored by the TUC and the CBI, which shows that in Northern Ireland it is about partnership and working together. That is happening.

    I hear a mobile phone! I have a rule with the press in press conferences in Northern Ireland. That is that if a mobile phone goes off I stop and refuse to speak until the sinner leaves the room. They do not thank me for it but it is pretty awful.

    Let me talk about a couple of things that we are doing in the Good Friday Agreement. It is quite important in terms of the fairness and equality agenda which you, as a Congress, have committed yourselves to over many years. One of those aspects is that we are setting up a Human Rights Commission, which will be a new and powerful body. It is about changing the culture, to a human rights culture from one of injustice and discrimination. When people are threatened, they go back into their own culture and people. We are saying that if we have a human rights culture where everybody is treated fairly, then that will make a difference. That is part of the Good Friday Agreement and it is being set up. It will exist not just to advise people about the rights that they are entitled to but to help them when they believe their rights have been abused, or they have been denied rights, but it will give them assistance in taking it through the courts. I think the Human Rights Commission will be an important and powerful body. It is part of the “new” politics which is going to be the future as Northern Ireland begins to change.

    One of its priorities, for example, is to look towards consulting with all the parties in Northern Ireland to examine the possibility of a human Bill of Rights, which would, again, be an important and symbolic backdrop for making progress in Northern Ireland.

    Another part of the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, which again links in with your interests, is, as part of that, a commitment to introduce a legal duty on all public bodies, which is legally binding, to be sure that there is the promotion of equality of opportunity, not just a fairness for Catholics and Protestants, and that will be for men and women, people of different races, people with different disabilities, sexual orientation and age. It will be a pretty comprehensive equality of opportunity portfolio together. The point is that unless we deal with those underlying inequalities, we will never deal with the fundamental problems. That is why I have highlighted those two because I think they are important.

    As to that equality commitment, in terms of equality of opportunity, we are putting in an Equality Commission to implement it. I know, from talking to a number of you, that that is not terribly popular because we are merging some of the different inequalities. People feel that some may be treated as second class rather than the importance they have as individual agencies. We are still consulting on it and I hope that we can find an agreement so that everybody will get a bit of what they want. In the nature of compromise, nobody ever gets everything they want. I hope we get there.

    Let me, briefly, emphasise where we have got to and where, I hope, we are going in the next couple of months. At present we are indulging in implementing all the different bits of the Good Friday Agreement. The only way we are going to continue to make progress is if it is implemented in total, because those Parties which signed up to it did not sign up to it because they agreed 100 per cent with it — nobody agreed 100 per cent — but they all got something which they wanted. The only way that we are going to be able to move it forward now is that the bit which they wanted moves in unison with everything else. Otherwise, they will say “Why have you got it and I have not?”, and we will be back to where we were for many years.

    At the moment we are putting in place the Assembly in the North, the North-South Ministerial Council and the Civic Forum, which is a chance for other voices to be heard in Northern Ireland from other communities apart from the political parties. I noticed, as I was coming in, I saw one of those voices, Monica McWilliams, who is a T&G woman, who had her voice heard in the Women’s Coalition, which did very impressively and gained a couple of seats, and also May Blood, who is one of those women who have been there for years and worked on the ground to make it happen.

    I have to mention some other bits because if I do not, people say “You are not doing that which we are implementing” in parallel with the ones that I have just mentioned. At the British Irish Council we have Commissions working on criminal justice review, on policing and where that will go in a year’s time, and a decommissioning independent body, which is a difficult one. Nobody doubts that the decommissioning of weapons has been one of the stumbling blocks in previous years with previous Governments. It is hard. It is part of the Good Friday Agreement and it has to happen in unison with the other parts of that Agreement.

    I believe that in the two year stretch we have we will see not just the decommissioning, but another tough issue which has started and that is the accelerated release of prisoners. Again, it is very difficult for victims who have lost people – victims’ families – to cope with that. We have a counselling service in place and constraints. Anybody who committed anything after April 10th cannot qualify. None of those who committed the atrocities at Omagh or those who murdered the three Quinn brothers will qualify. But that accelerated release, however difficult people are finding it to be, is part of the Good Friday Agreement. My job is to honour that Agreement and implement it in full, and that is what we will be working at.

    Alongside that, and Tony has worked very hard — I did not think the Prime Minister would have as much time as he has had to work on this — on this. When we have had difficulties and could not anybody, it has been very useful to call on the Prime Minister to come in and knock heads together, which he has done on more occasions than I believed possible, but he has made a difference.

    The other person who has made a difference is, when we have worked with the President of the Irish Republic, Bill Clinton. I do not think that many people know but during the talks he used to stay up all night because of the time difference. When we wanted a call from the Prime Minister, a call from the Irish Taoiseach or a call from the President of the United States, when we were trying to move along in those last days, everybody played their part, but none of that has hit the media. That helped us push people along to get to where we did.

    Finally, let me talk briefly about the security situation because, as a Government, one’s real job, first and foremost, is to make sure you protect citizens, and that is our first job. We are doing everything we can on that front to achieve as tight a level of security as we can. Two weeks ago we put through the House of Commons legislation which now matches the Irish legislation — legislation for legislation — to do all we can to catch the very small numbers still engaging in violence. The advantage of that is for the first time ever — the Irish Dail passed legislation at the same time as the Westminster Parliament — terrorists cannot go from one side of the border to the other, which they have in the past, to escape. This should put us in a much stronger position.

    Contrary to some of the things said in the wonderful press, everything we have put in place is in line with the European Convention on Human Rights. I am sure we will be challenged but we would not have done it otherwise. It is time limited and focused on the specific groups which are still committed to violence.

    I consider myself a libertarian. I do not have any trouble with that legislation. We are dealing both north and south of the border with — I do not know — maybe 100, 200 or 300 people who are directly or indirectly still involved with violence in Northern Ireland. I do not think that we should let them ruin what 99.9% of people in Northern Ireland want to see.

    The final way to rid a community of terrorist activities, of people who indulge in violence, is to make the Good Friday Agreement work. Only when the community reject them and does not give them any hiding place ‑‑ that is, everybody’s mum and granny says, “If he is involved, they are not coming in this house” ‑‑ do you begin to root them out. That is why making the Good Friday Agreement succeed will take out those men of violence quicker than anything else. That is also why, in the weeks and months ahead ‑‑ it is going to be tough; nobody said it was going to be easy ‑‑ we have to make sure, even though the formal talks are over, that the talking continues because that is the only way we are going to find a way to build a better future. The good part of that is that most of the decisions now are devolving slowly to local people during this transitional period ensuring that by next year it is not us but the representatives of all the communities in Northern Ireland making those decisions.

    David Trimble made the best point when the Assembly met last week: “I want this to be a pluralist Parliament for a pluralist people in Northern Ireland in which all of us, Unionists and Nationalists, work together for the benefit of all.” When David Trimble says that, and Seamus Mallon immediately afterwards says “A peaceful path has been created”, it is up to all of us now to walk down it.

    That is why I am hopeful. I am very pleased that we are walking down that path step in step with the unions in Northern Ireland to deliver what people in Northern Ireland deserve, which is a future based on equality, justice, opportunity, but, above all, hope. Thank you.

  • Estelle Morris – 2002 Labour Party Conference Speech

    Below is the text of the speech of the then Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, to the 2002 Labour Party Conference.

    A few days ago some youngsters asked had it been tough in the last two weeks. I said yes, but not as tough as it has been for our students who have been left uncertain about their examination results.

    Today the inquiry I initiated has given further details of what happens next and a firm date by which we will know of any changes.

    The reason the last few weeks have been so difficult, why it’s worried so many people, is because it’s uncertainty about something that is so very important. It matters that we have an exam system in which everyone can have confidence, that’s why we must make sure this never happens again.

    You know, in this job I am invited to do a lot of prize givings, in schools up and down the country. And a bit like now I get to be on the stage. And from the stage you can see the faces of all the parents. You can spot the parent whose child’s name has just been read out. You can see the pride in their faces and the light in their eyes.

    As parents, you know that feeling. And we know as a party that pride we have in education.

    Education has always been at the heart of everything we’ve wanted to do. We have always wanted to tear down the barriers that hold people back.We have always said that the street you were born into should not determine what you will achieve. We have always told people to aim high and believe that what you dream about as a child you can achieve as an adult.

    That gives us a responsibility. If as a party we give people that hope, we must give them the means to achieve it.

    Think how much more important education is for our children then it was for us. More than any other generation, they need qualifications to get jobs. Yes, they have opportunities unknown to their grandparents but when they grow up into a world where the challenges are greater than any previous generations.

    Our children are the genome generation. It is they who will have to grapple with the big decisions about how far we go with genetic research, how we temper the advances in technology with the needs of our environment, how we plan for our society as more people live longer.

    What we give tham to help them on their journey, our inheritance to them, is education. It is education that provides the bridge from ambition to opportunity to reality. That is why we need a world-class education system and that is why those who work in schools, colleges and universities are in one of the most important professions there is.

    We know that our government has achieved a great deal:

    · Sure Start

    · Literacy and numeracy

    · GCSEs

    · Standards rising in our inner cities

    · More students in our colleges and universities

    · EMAs

    · More adults with basic skills

    · The fabric of our schools never better

    But you know there is another list as well:

    · One in four children cannot read and write at the proper level at age 11.

    · 50 per cent of children have still not got five good GCSE passes.

    · Seven million adults still do not have basic skills.

    · The link between social class and poverty is still strong.

    Now we face a choice. A choice that comes to every generation perhaps only once. And the choice is this. We can settle for what we have got , which is a good education system, or we can have the courage of our ambitions and go for being great.

    And if we show that courage, as Tony said yesterday, there’s nothing we cannot do. New Labour is doing a lot. Bold Labour will do even more. But if we turn our back on this chance, it may never come our way again.

    That choice between settling for what we’ve got, or striving for what we [want], is at the core of every challenge we face in education.

    I believe in the comprehensive ideal – every child of equal worth; the highest expectations of everyone. I know the achievements of comprehensive education. I’ve seen it. It’s stopped us writing off children at the age of 11. I don’t believe we’d have the made the progress we have with girls’ education without comprehensive education. The expansion of higher education has been on the back of comprehensive schools.

    The old rigid selection system – so valued by the Tories – couldn’t have achieved that.

    But it has not delivered everything I wanted. It hasn’t achieved all that we campaigned for. I thought it would break the link between poverty and achievement. It hasn’t. I hoped it would end the massive underachievement of ethnic minorities. It hasn’t.

    So we face a choice. We can settle for what we have already or we can have the courage to reform. I tell you what I mean by a post-comprehensive era. It cherishes the values of opportunity and worth, but it’s honest about it’s strengths and weaknesses, and brave about where it goes next.

    I know that we’ve got many good schools, but I know some are better than others and I know that there are some schools that parents avoid. I know our best schools have a strong identity and sense of mission. I know that schools need incentives to improve. I know that successful schools need rewards and that failing schools need to be supported and turned round. One child spending one day in a failing school is one child, one day too many.

    I know that schools learn best from each other and that the secret to success is in the corridors of our schools not the corridors of Whitehall.

    And that’s why over time we want every school to be a specialist school – teaching the national curriculum, but playing to its strengths and developing a centre of excellence.

    And that’s why we’ll develop advanced schools – our best schools responsible for leading the rest.

    And that’s why we’ll develop city academies, a new model of schools in areas where everything else has failed.

    And that’s what we mean by getting rid of “one size fits all.” Each area, each pupil is different, so we need different types of schools to meet their needs.

    And when we come to the school workforce we’ve got a choice here too. We can carry on as we are now – a model of staffing schools that has hardly changed for half a century, teachers working harder than ever before but using their time on things that others could do, a school timetable that offers too little flexibility.

    Or we could do what we’ve always wanted to do – staff our schools so we can meet the needs of each individual child. But that’s the harder choice. It will mean new staff with new skills, new ways of working, so teachers are freed to do what they do best, teach. And it will mean using our classroom assistants – properly trained and supported – in more productive roles. It will mean teachers rewarded for high performance. It will mean every school with state of the art information technology. And that way we can change how our children learn.

    And this is not a pipe dream. It’s beginning to happen in our best schools.

    And there’s a choice for parents and children as well. We have a wonderful generation of young people. They achieve more. They work harder. You only have to listen to them play music and perform to see how good they are.

    We know what they’re like at ICT – better than most adults, and certainly better than me.

    They are a credit to themselves, their families and their schools and we should be proud of them.

    But there is a minority who misbehave and are out of control. And they make life a misery for teachers and their classmates.

    Teachers cannot teach if children are disruptive. One child threatening or abusing one teacher in one of our schools is one too many. Actually, one child showing just disrespect to a teacher is one child too many.

    So we have a choice. The easy choice is to say nothing can be done. It is a sign of the times. We can choose to be a society that throws up its hands in horror but is unwilling to do anything about it.

    Or we can give a clear message about the behaviour we expect from our pupils. We must back teachers and make parents take responsibility.

    It’s not asking a lot. Why shouldn’t all children start school knowing the difference between right and wrong? Why shouldn’t our children know it’s wrong to swear? Why shouldn’t they understand that they should respect the authority of the teacher? How is it that most primary aged school children who are found truanting are with a parent or another adult?

    And although almost all parents support teachers, the small numbers who do not, damage their childrens’ future. I hear too many stories of parents questioning a teacher’s right to exercise discipline in the classroom. It has to stop.

    Parents do have rights. They should know how a school performs. They should always be able to question what is going on. But they have responsibilities as well. And if they do not exercise those responsibilities, then they will have to face the consequences.

    It sometimes seems as if we put the responsibility for solving all the ills of society on the shoulders of those who teach in our schools, colleges and universities. But the truth is that we all have our part to play.

    We have responsibilities as a government. For the first time ever, every permanently excluded child is now guaranteed full time education. They’re no longer slung out of schools, dumped on the streets, allowed to run wild and finally end up as a law and order statistic in the magistrate’s court.

    In all these areas, in all that we do, this is the choice the education service faces. To settle for what we’ve got, or to do what we came into politics to do.

    We’ve made our choice. That’s why we set high targets. Some don’t think we can make it. But I’ll tell you this. All we have to do to meet the targets we have set, is for poor children to achieve at the same level as more affluent children; black children to achieve at the same level as white; and boys to achieve at the same level as girls.

    Don’t tell me it can’t be done. I see it every single day in our best schools.

    We all know the success of literacy and numeracy. But do you know what is its greatest prize? That it has raised standards for everyone, and closed the achievement gap as well. In literacy and numeracy, we’ve raised standards everywhere but most of all in the most deprived neighbourhoods.

    So don’t let anyone say that more means worse. Don’t ever be persuaded to drop our sights. Don’t any one of us ever be embarassed by excellence.

    I say this to those who work in education. When I ask for reform, it’s not because I go around the country and see that everything is bad. It’s because I go around the country and see what’s possible.

    If ever there was a time when education should have the confidence to take on reform, it’s now. We’re a party that understands that education matters. We’ve got a government that’s consistently invested in education in a way that’s never happened before. And we’ve got the best generation of teachers ever. Don’t let’s falter now.

    If in five year’s time our schools look the same way as they do now, we’ll have made the wrong choice. If in five year’s time. they’re staffed in the same way as they are now, we’ll have made the wrong choice. And if in five year’s time we as a country do not believe that all our children can achieve more than they do now, we’ll have made the wrong choice.

    I have made my choice. I have chosen ambition and reform over caution and settling for second best.

    If we sit on our hands and do nothing, if we spend nothing, if we create nothing, if we change nothing, we’ll end up like the Tories – doing nothing, investing nothing, meaning nothing.

    Just remember, all this talk of reform, all this talk of investment, all this talk of change – it’s not just about politics, it’s about people, it’s about every child, every student, every parent.

    That’s why though it’s hard, there is only one choice. Falter now and I know we’ll live to regret it. Make the right decision and it will be one of the proudest achievements of Labour in power.

  • Estelle Morris – 2001 Speech at London Guildhall University

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, at London Guildhall University on 22nd October 2001.

    I was very sorry not to have been able to speak to you at the Universities UK conference in Southampton, and I think we all regret the circumstances that didn’t make that possible, but I am pleased to be here today.

    London Guildhall is a good place to make the sort of speech that I want to make today because I want to talk about the mission for higher education, and many of the elements we see at London Guildhall – widening participation, diversity, rising to new challenges and promoting leadership – are key to what I want to say.

    I know I am going to be a disappointment to at least one person today. I got a lot of messages of goodwill after the Election in June (it’s probably downwards from then on, I’ve decided). But there were lots of messages of good will, except for one which appeared in the Independent. An academic, Warden of a well known college, said, “I rather assume that all her interests will be in schools rather than universities. Politicians do not understand how universities work. It will be a period of benign neglect, and I don’t mind that.” Well, I’m setting out very deliberately today to disappoint that one gentleman but I hope not the rest of the audience.

    One of the reasons I want to disappoint him is that what you do every day in your institutions, the students you teach, the work that you do, the research that you carry out, is far too important, not only to individuals in this country, but far too crucial to the whole nation’s future to be neglected benignly or otherwise. What I think is true (and maybe this is the source of those comments) is that since the Labour Government was first elected in 1997 we have been devoting enormous energy and enthusiasm and drive and resources into raising standards in our schools. And that is as important, I’d argue, to the future of higher education and what we want to achieve there as to any of the structures of our community.

    I want to remind you what the position was throughout the schools system in 1997. There was massive under-performance at primary and secondary level; children reaching the age of 11 without the skills that they needed to read and write effectively and to access the secondary curriculum. And that’s why we have introduced the literacy and numeracy strategies. Before then, the gaps between those who achieve and those who don’t achieve have never really been seriously and consistently addressed. That’s why we introduced Education Action Zones and Excellence in Cities – offering targeted good quality and sustained challenge and support in some of our most challenging urban areas in the country, to see if we could narrow the unacceptable gap in performance between children from different backgrounds – something which no-one had done before – and that includes generations of educationalists, and not just Governments.

    And what’s more, in this term we will want to concentrate on our schools agenda and transforming secondary education. We have set up the Learning and Skills Council to try to tackle the nation’s long-term failure to raise skills. But it is time now to put more focus on what we do in higher education, and the work we have done so far in schools and with the skills agenda will lay good foundations for us all to do that.

    There has been a huge change in higher education over the last ten to twenty years – it has shifted from being an elite system to being something much wider, something much more important than that. When we look back over those decades, it almost happened without anyone necessarily thinking strategically about what we want Universities to do. I am committed to further expansion, I know and I believe with all my heart that it can be achieved without any compromise on excellence. But as we expand further we’ve got to think strategically about what the sector does and how we want it to do it. We’re here to set out today together a vision for higher education that looks forward a decade or more. That vision has got to be built around diverse institutions pursuing excellence in their different ways. There are four central goals that I want to put to you today, and I want to talk about how we can achieve them and look at the challenges that face us and how we might begin overcoming them. I think those four are:

    Firstly, widening participation and unlocking the potential of the poorer sections of society. We do want to move ahead to achieve our target that half of the population will enter higher education by the time they reach the age of 30.

    Secondly, to continue to produce world class research.

    Thirdly, making sure that Universities work better with industry and with the wider community.

    Fourthly, to support excellent teaching in our higher education institutions.

    Meeting these goals won’t necessarily be easy. It will demand vision and it will demand commitment and drive from every single one of us. So I also want to raise today the issue of excellent management and leadership in the sector.

    The pledge that the Government made shortly before the General Election and repeated in the Manifesto that 50 per cent of under 30s would enter higher education by 2010 is one of the highest priorities on the Government’s agenda. It is not unrealistic – it can be done – and the increase in figures for accepted applications this year suggests that we have made further progress. But I want to be clear as I can, it’s not just something that would be quite nice, it’s not just a social aspiration (although it is both those things) – it’s far more important than that. You know that way back in 1997 our Government made the decision that as a nation we wanted to compete on the world stage as a high-value-added and high skills economy. We can’t do that without investment in skills, investment in education and increasing participation in higher education. Quite simply we need more graduates and we will not be training people for whom there are no jobs. Labour market forecasts by the National Skills Taskforce show that between 1999 and 2010 there will be a growth of 1.73 million jobs in those occupations that typically recruit graduates – things like managers and associate professionals. In the past, a 50% participation rate might have been seen as socially desirable, certainly part of my political background and philosophy would have made it the right thing to do. But now it is an economic necessity.

    You know better than I do the link throughout all parts of our education system between social class and educational attainment. And no where are those statistics more startling and frightening than they are in higher education. That’s inevitable given its position after the compulsory years of schooling. About 70% of the children from higher socio-economic groups go on to higher education and that’s compared to somewhere between 13 and 14 percent from families from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

    And it can be traced back to wasted talent in schools. Children from non-manual backgrounds are one-and-a-half times more likely to get five or more A* to Cs at GCSE than those from manual backgrounds, and twice as likely to get eight A* to Cs. 43% of 18 year olds from higher socio-economic backgrounds achieve two A levels – the basic requirement to go on a degree course – compared with only 18% from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

    But in a strange sort of way, when I look at those statistics, terrible though they may be, they actually give me my optimism. Because like you, nobody can think that middle class children are brighter than poorer children. Nobody can think that white children should achieve at a higher level than black children. Nobody can assume that children from the inner cities shouldn’t be able to achieve at the same level as those from the suburbs. So it is possible. All we have to do is to raise the achievement of those children from the communities which have traditionally underachieved to the same level as those from the communities that have traditionally achieved. If you look at it in that way, 50% does not sound unrealistic. But it will be hard work and it will be a challenge.

    I know that what most needs to be done is to raise attainment in schools and that is my responsibility not yours. That is why in our first term we put such emphasis on literacy and numeracy; and why we are putting such emphasis in the second term on building on that as we move into reform of secondary education. But it goes further than that and I do need your help as well, and we do need to work together.

    I know academic attainment at 18 is essential if we are to increase the number of young people eligible to go into higher education but it is never going to be enough by itself. We have to raise aspirations, we have to raise self belief, we have to raise self esteem and ambition in some of our young people. You know as well as I do that some young people, even the brightest, grow up believing that higher education cannot be for them. They get to 18 without ever having set foot on a university campus, without ever having had a lengthy conversation with somebody who lectures in higher education. They go home to families and communities where the whole social life is with people who don’t have jobs which require degrees. It’s hardly surprising that their aspiration to go into higher education is perhaps not as great as some of their peers from other backgrounds who have had those opportunities.

    Excellence Challenge has made a start. I am deeply grateful to the universities and higher education colleges that have done work on it. I know that the Government’s launch of the Excellence Challenge over the last three or four years was only based on some of the good work that higher education has already done. I know myself as a teacher in the inner cities some ten years ago that even then there were some universities who were beginning to put out feelers and beginning to talk to us about how we can do better and about ending this relationship between social class and access to higher education.

    Now I think we need to go further than that, and that’s really our joint agenda. To have a school system that raises the attainment level. For higher education institutions to work with the school system and the Government to make sure you do all that you can to build on the work that you’ve done in the past. I think that what I want most of all to happen in all those universities is to put roots down into the schools so that we can see the work you are doing on access. This is not an optional extra. This is not just an occasional summer school or visit by a lecturer or student. What I want to see is that the presence of somebody from higher education almost becomes run of the mill so that you give those young people the aspiration and the ambition, and you help to persuade them that university is for people like them. That is the contribution that you can make to the widening participation agenda. I think the prospect of going to university is something that fires many young people to work harder for their A levels and achieve at a higher level. If you haven’t got that aspiration to go to university it is one of those levers that is missing. What we want you to do in secondary schools is to inject these aspirations to go to university amongst working class children so that together with the work that we will do in school, it will actually once and for all take us along the road which breaks the link that other nations don’t have between social class and educational attainment.

    There is another rich source of talent that we need to get into higher education over the next ten years. There are one million people in their 20s who already have level three qualifications. We need to work with employers to raise skill levels even further and to see if some of those people with level three qualifications in their 20s might benefit from a period of higher education to take them further on in their career and to give their employers and their workplaces the skills that they need. And achieving that will need greater diversity – and that’s true for each of the challenges that I set out at the beginning of this speech. As my predecessor David Blunkett said, there should be emphasis on foundation degrees and getting the proper channels for those who want to study vocational qualifications right from age 14 to degree and postgraduate level. That implies innovation in teaching and learning and it certainly means making higher education as flexible and as accessible as possible. Between us I think we have a joint mission to nurture the talent that is currently being lost not only to higher education but to the nation as a whole.

    Whenever I have conversations about access and about participation, many connect those issues to student finance. We want to think again about any obstacles – real or imagined – that could discourage young people from low income families from taking up higher education. All of us would like to produce a system for student support which is simpler than the present one. So we have begun to review the current system. I have said that the review has four clear aims:

    – simplification of the system, especially in the area of hardship support. It’s so complex at the moment you almost need a degree to access all the different funds that are available;

    – provision of more upfront support for students from less well-off backgrounds;

    – ensuring that all students have access to sufficient financial support throughout their years of higher education;

    – tackling the problems of debt and the perceptions of debt.

    The principles of the reforms that David Blunkett announced in 1997 were absolutely right and we will stick with them. Those who benefit from higher education should contribute to its cost. It would be utterly unfair for graduates, who as a group earn 35% more than the average wage, to be completely subsidised through their entire university education by those who do not have their advantages and who can afford it far less easily.

    And remember this – the “golden age” of free tuition and grants for those who need them did not work as a driver for access. The proportion of poorer students entering higher education did not rise. And despite the rhetoric around it, however much money we choose to put into student support it will not be by itself the answer to the access challenge. The problems are more complicated and more profound: they are about ethos, about the perception, and about prior attainment. So I want to satisfy myself and to be absolutely certain that there is nothing in the student support system that might act as a disincentive to those we most want to attract. But we must not see this as the only issue in the debate, and we must not let it distract us from the more fundamental and the more difficult challenges.

    I wanted to say a little bit about world class research. It’s a success story. It’s one of the real strengths of British higher education. With only 1% of the world’s population, the UK carries out 4.7% of the world’s research, it has 7.6% of the world’s scientific publications, and over 9% of the citations of scientific papers. We rank first in the world in terms of the number of publications and citations generated for each pound spent on research. We’ve got a challenge here as well, and the challenge is very real. It’s how to keep our leading position.

    I know that if you want to carry out good research you need to hire and back good quality researchers. That’s why the human resource strategies which universities and colleges are drawing up need to address the issues of recruitment and retention. And that is why I think successive research assessment exercises have helped improve the quality of research in universities because the results of those exercises have made universities think very carefully about where they can best invest their money. Weaker areas have declined, but developing and strong areas have grown and flourished.

    Research is expensive. It needs talented researchers, but also buildings and equipment as well. The infrastructure for both science and technological research was becoming run down. We have been investing huge sums of money to put it right in partnership with the Wellcome Trust, first with the Joint Infrastructure Fund, and now with the Science Research Infrastructure Fund.

    But more needs to be done. It’s that old cycle of years of under-investment followed by the Government injecting large amounts of money every so often to sort out the problems with infrastructure. I think just as we need to do in our schools and throughout the whole of our education service we need to end that dependence mentality and the idea that once we have invested in capital we think we could ignore it for a few more years. And that is one of the things that I very much hope that the cross cutting review of science which is part of our current spending review will look at.

    Again there are questions to ask. We need to ask about how universities provide their share of the support for research grants from external bodies. The dual support system has served us well, but the growth in research income from charities in particular – which has outstripped other sources – must make us ask whether the dual support system can continue to work in its present form. That is another issue for the cross cutting review.

    Again the challenges for both Government and the higher education sector are bigger than this. We have productive research, but we don’t spend that much on it in total. The UK ranked 16th out of the 23 OECD nations for higher education expenditure on research and development. So there are concerns about the UK slipping down the world league tables of research excellence and about UK research being unable to compete on a level playing field. Quite simply, we won’t keep our world class place if we allow that to happen. Since we have a comparative advantage, we should make sure it stays that way. So we do need more resources. But these cannot come from the Government alone. Government will never be able for instance to match the level of investment produced by the endowments of the top US universities. So there are hard questions to answer about how we maintain our position. What is the best way to lever in more support for world class research institutions in the UK, and how can the money best be distributed between institutions? How can we make sure that the brightest and the best want to use their talents here in the UK – whether they are staying on here or coming from elsewhere? And how can we help our best institutions collaborate effectively with other world leaders? How can we make sure that the benefits of the best research are shared throughout the system?

    The third challenge I outlined was that of embedding universities in industries and our communities. We know we live in a global economy. It’s a compulsory sentence in most speeches that politicians make these days. But it applies to universities and colleges in just the same way as it implies to individuals seeking training or education or employment. Yet the strange thing about globalisation is as much as national boundaries and national frontiers seem to break down this increases the importance of local and regional areas. And I believe that higher education is a very powerful driver of technological and other change. It is crucial to local and regional economic development. You produce the people with knowledge and skills; you generate new knowledge through research and scholarship; you exploit that knowledge through innovation in spinout companies, contract research and transferring skilled people to businesses. It is essential work. It will only work well if you get the relationship right between businesses and communities on the one hand and educational institutions on the other, and each knows each other’s needs. That is why forging links between the two is very important, and why working with regional development agencies is a crucial partnership.

    Survey data of knowledge transfer for technological innovation in the UK shows that enterprises look more to the “technology base” than directly to the science base for technological innovation. This type of applied research can be very important for the regional economy but is relatively poorly done in the UK perhaps for three reasons:

    – the level of business R&D in the UK is low compared to key competitors;

    – we have a skills gap in UK business with a shortage in areas such as certified civil and electrical engineering;

    – we don’t have as good links as we should between businesses and higher education or other publicly funded research.

    All these limit the ability of UK business to absorb knowledge and innovate.

    We are beginning to recognise that there is more money to be put into research and development through tax credits for small and medium enterprises, and there is a number of schemes designed to help in this area such as Science Enterprise Challenge and University Challenge.

    Again there is already good work being done. Newcastle University has a business development team whose main function is to match the needs of business with expertise and capabilities already in the university. And again, at Salford University, Academic Enterprise makes a point of providing a single place of contact for those enquiring about access to business and it offers a fast track for them to relevant expertise in the university.

    But we are only at the very beginning, and this is another immense challenge to the sector. Of course there are many other partners, and British industry too needs to rise to the challenge. But again there is a step change to be made in our thinking; success in this field will come when there is a commitment to the principle that this is an important and growing role of a modern university. I know that most of our universities do not deserve to be thought of as mere ivory towers. The fact that so many of them are perceived that way by people outside perhaps shows how much we need to change the culture and how much we need to talk to each other.

    There is one single issue that is central to the quality of everything that happens. The quality of teaching, and the quality of the student experience in terms of learning. I know there is a long history to this debate in higher education. Not just on teaching quality assurance but on the investment that has already been made in improving the quality of teaching and learning.

    We want to encourage new forms of teaching and learning. We have together already launched the e-Universities project so that we can make sure the UK is at the centre of high quality higher education over the internet. It was announced last Friday that Sun Microsystems had entered into a strategic alliance with a newly formed company UK e-Universities Worldwide, to provide the technology platform to deliver the courses worldwide.

    And there are examples of good university-based teaching as well. Coventry University has developed a comprehensive system of recognising and rewarding excellent teachers through promotion criteria, teaching awards and teaching fellowships. This shows a strong commitment to teaching excellence that I would like to see spreading further. But there is a debate to be had about how we get the balance right between institutional processes and external review. We attach, as I know you do, particular importance to robust assessment and review methods – both internal and external. We shall take a keen interest in the outcomes of the current consultation on quality assurance. Let’s wait to see what that brings before that debate between us. I will be guided by my initial thoughts on quality assurance. There are three key things which need to be put in place. First, in a publicly funded system there must be accountability. We cannot spend public money without some assurance that we are spending it to good effect. Second, there must be good information for students and parents so that they can make informed and sound decisions about the courses they take. And thirdly, because of the very nature of the higher education systems and its strengths, there must be autonomy – institutions must have the freedom to look for the solutions that suit them. But we must have a system that brings these three strands together. Accountability because that is right when public money is being spent; information because any organisation needs to concentrate on those people it serves; and autonomy because that is central to the ethics and values in our higher education institutions.

    We must value teaching quality as part of our vision for higher education. When I first looked at the higher education system it became increasingly evident that there were no financial incentives for excellent teaching, and I do wonder if in some way we could incentivise excellence in teaching in the same way as we do in research. This too raises some important questions: how should you identify what is excellent teaching in higher education? Should we put incentives in place which would let institutions specialise in this? If we are to do that, what does that mean for the relationship between teaching and research? Do the restrictions on student numbers stifle incentives to teach well? And is there a cultural obstacle to overcome? I sometimes get the feeling that teaching is still a bit of a side show compared to research. We need to have excellent research; we need excellent teaching; we need to expand higher education to all those groups that have not had access in all those ways that we need to achieve that. We have to accept that we need excellence and initiative and to allow people to specialise in teaching excellently.

    It’s a huge agenda that lies before us all – widening participation, the challenge of delivering diversity and opportunity, fostering teaching and research excellence, and linking universities to industry and the community. Any agenda like that will demand first class management and world class leadership. We already have some, much of it in this room, but we do not have enough. Too often as in any phase of education there is not enough effective management at the key levels of middle management as well as at senior management. No one can defend the number of women at senior levels of management in higher education. We must also think about succession planning and the development of people in general, to make sure that as each generation of effective managers and leaders moves on, there are more ready to take their place, and to accept that in the fast changing sector that higher education has become the challenges will always evolve.

    I much welcome the initiatives which are already underway from the top management programme to the use of HEFCE’s fund for the development of good management practice. But there is still more to be done. The scale of the pressures on institutions is formidable and we need a renewed effort to make a difference and look at management and leadership in its own right.

    We already have an enormously strong sector. And an increasingly varied sector too. We have the beginnings of new links and alliances. There is a climate of change. I know that London Guildhall University and the University of North London have ambitious plans to come together, as I recognised at the very beginning of this speech, and I wish you both well in that endeavour. But it strikes me that all of this, all these changes, all this new agenda perhaps needs to be part of a bigger picture and we perhaps need an active debate about how far it should be part of a bigger design. We must foster proud and autonomous institutions, confident in their differing missions and meeting the needs of their students. But at the same time we have to ensure that the full range of opportunities – including those relevant to the new students we will be recruiting – are available right across the country.

    I know that there has already been a great deal of debate on these very issues, but it feels as though the time is now right to come up with a more strategic approach. I am convinced that we need to look at the rich complexity of our higher education mission and to make sure that we are fostering all the things we want higher education to do.

    There are some big decisions ahead. We have already embarked on the next spending review, and I have no doubt that you will make your representations in due course to help put more pressure on the Chancellor. I think the time is also right to go beyond the timescale of the spending review and to think more widely and strategically about higher education in Britain. Therefore I have asked my Department to carry out a wide ranging and fundamental review covering all these key areas:

    – widening participation

    – world class research

    – linking universities with industry and communities

    – teaching excellence

    – management and leadership

    I want to look at how we incentivise and resource these missions because at the moment all the incentives seem to me to be skewed towards one end of the big picture. I invite you, the Vice Chancellors, and the rest of the sector to join us in that review as soon as we can get together to begin to map some of the way forward to some of the changes which I have outlined today.

    I am very conscious that I have come to you with a lot of questions and not the answers, but that is the way I want it at the moment. Most of all I want three things:

    True recognition of the work already done and the standing you have and the importance of the contribution you make. My thanks go to you for all that has happened.

    A real agenda to grow between us, not that I think we will always agree, but what I want is to have a sharing of what the key challenges are and what the key issues are that need to be addressed;

    I would like very much over the coming months to try as much as possible, in a diverse sector, to begin to agree the way forward. If we can do that we have actually done a service not only to higher education but a service to the economy, to the nation and to the rest of the community. We would have taken another step along the road of moving universities from their old mission of being elite and giving opportunities for the few, to being in the heart of our communities, the key to individual life chances, and in that sense the heart of our country as well.

    I am most grateful to London Guildhall University for giving me the chance to outline some of these challenges today, and I very much look forward to working with you towards these solutions in the months to come.

  • Rhodri Morgan – 2009 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Rhodri Morgan, the then First Minister of Wales, to the 2009 Labour Party conference on 27th September 2009.

    Conference, I’ve had the privilege as Labour Leader in Wales, of addressing you since 2000, and today I’m doing so for the last time.

    Over that decade of devolution, I’ve seen Wales grow enormously in confidence.

    Learning the art of government.

    Getting used to making our own decisions.

    Moving away from the old culture of blaming others for anything that goes wrong.

    We would not, and could not, go back to the old days of going on bended knee for help from the likes of William Hague and John Redwood – those figures from what now seems like the prehistoric past.

    That era is over for ever and ever.

    Finito.

    Dead as a Norwegian blue dodo.

    Dead as the Thatcher/Reagan era of ultra free-market economics which ended with the 2008 credit crunch.

    What’s needed now is active, interventionist, strong government, helping people through the recession and re-equipping the country for the coming up-turn.

    You don’t get that from the free marketeers.

    Their only answer is – cue John Maples Tory Deputy Chairman  – ‘this recession must be allowed to run its course’.

    What Labour is doing is to intervene for breakfast, for lunch, for tea and for supper, to shorten the recession and reduce the bad effects on ordinary peoples’ lives.

    In Wales, that has meant a social partnership, getting trade union and business leaders, local government and the third sector, round a table to get a full understanding of where the shoe is pinching. Deciding what to do about it, so that Wales can be ready for the upturn.

    From those summit meetings came the ProAct programme, paying employers to keep workers on their books, instead of making them redundant when orders are low.

    But we pay our £4,000 per head in return for up-grading the skills of those employees on the scheme.

    ProAct is saving thousands of jobs now and, even more important, it will prove its worth in saving thousands of future jobs because of those improved skills.

    That’s creative government intervention for you.

    Wales now has our own state-owned bank, Finance Wales, with a £150 million investment fund for small and medium enterprises.

    I announced the first tranche of investments totalling £6 million in 37 companies last week.

    Also last week, we launched a £105 million fund for our housing associations, mostly from the European Investment Bank, to take the place of the money they can’t get from the market because of the credit crunch.

    Where the market fails, Labour steps in, creating thousands of desperately needed construction jobs and meeting our urgent need for new homes.

    But active government doesn’t end with beating the recession.

    Since I last addressed conference, we have rolled out to every nursery and infant school in Wales our new Scandinavian-style learn-through-play curriculum.

    I have never known enthusiasm like it among all our early years teachers and learning assistants.

    It’s the biggest investment of new money in education in Wales in decades and we will see the benefit in decades to come, shortening the long tail of educational under-achievement from which Wales has always suffered.

    Ten years ago we wouldn’t have had the powers to break with a century of educational tradition in the UK and in any case, we wouldn’t have had the confidence to do it, even if we had.

    Now this new curriculum for the 3 – 7 year olds is a fantastic example of inventive government using devolution to the full.

    We don’t now teach the bended-knee, or the tug of the forelock, any longer in our posture and comportment classes!

    So Conference, a word about the future. Wales’ worst kept secret – I’m not going to be with you next year as Welsh Labour Leader and I’ll be announcing, before too long, the exact details of how and when the election of my successor it going to take place.

    Still, it’s the little things which say the time is coming to move on. Two weeks ago today, Julie and I were having a swim on Barry Island beach, taking advantage of our Indian summer.

    There was a surf life-saving competition going on and as I’m swimming along, quite powerfully so I think – OK, I’m not Michael Phelps, but I was quite impressed with my powerful stroke – next thing I know there’s an inflatable boat alongside me, and there is Miss Baywatch Barry Island 2009 leaning over and saying, ‘I’m just checking that you’re alright sir’!

    At least she said Sir, not Grandad!

    It’s things like that which tell you, to get ready to hand the baton over to the next generation.

    It just remains for me to thank the Labour Party for doing all the heavy lifting – to get devolution up and running 10 years ago, to strengthen our powers in 2006 and to give me the chance to have been First Minister of Wales.

    The Devolution Decade has been the most important thing to happen to Wales since the industrial revolution.

    All because of you.

    All because of Labour.

    And now we need to make sure the British people make the right choice next year.

    This is not the time for a free-market obsessed party to take over.

    It’s not time to make government smaller when there’s such a big job to do.

    It’s a time for a Party that believes in the power of government to develop our public services and to generate the new technologies and the new jobs.

    You only get that from one party – Labour.

    So, two final messages for this conference.

    First, to the whole of the Labour party in this hall and outside.

    I know that we are in difficulty now. We have temporarily mislaid that magic recipe for blending the mushy peas of old Labour with the guacamole of new Labour.

    Those difficulties will be temporary. We will find that recipe again soon.

    Because when the country is in difficulties, the Government takes a hit – it always happens, but when the country is in difficulties, that is precisely when you need the intervention of a government that actually believes in intervention.

    That means Labour.

    Last, to all my Welsh Labour compatriots here:

    Diolch yn fawr am eich ffydd a’ch cefnogaeth di-dor dros y ddegaid ddiwethaf.

    Thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming with me on this incredible journey over the past decade.

    Your loyalty and support has enabled me to do what I’ve been able to do to lead Wales and establish Wales as a ‘Yes We Can’ country.

    I know you will give the same support and loyalty to whoever takes the helm of leadership on after me.

    While my Labour leadership in Wales may not have long to run, Labour’s role of leadership in Wales and in Britain certainly isn’t coming to an end.

    When times are tough, when the future needs to be shaped for everybody’s benefit, Labour is the one party you can count on.

  • Rhodri Morgan – 2003 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Welsh First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, to the 2003 Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth on 28th September 2003.

    Conference, twelve months ago, in the steamy heat of Blackpool, I suggested to you that, if we could draw on the determined effort of the whole Labour movement, we in Wales were in a position to take outright control at this year’s Assembly elections.

    Well, we make that effort, we took outright control and today I’m here to thank everyone in the Labour family who helped to make it happen.

    Immediately after that election, the Labour Party in Wales met together in a special conference in Cardiff.

    What I said on that Saturday seems to me to be even more important today.

    We fought our Welsh Assembly campaign as the most united Party which I could ever remember.

    United Parties win elections. Divided Parties lose them.

    It’s the simplest law of successful politics – and all of us need to remember that today.

    And by all of us, I mean what I say.

    I mean the platform, as well as the people in the hall.

    I mean those who get elected, as well as those who help to get them elected.

    I mean the trade unions, as well as political wing of this Movement.

    We win when we are united for two main reasons.

    Unity means that we get our message across in a direct way, without the discord which disunity brings. When we are all really singing from the same hymn sheet, then not only do we make more noise –  we make it in harmony.

    But united parties don’t only deliver messages better. They have better messages to deliver.

    I don’t underestimate, for a moment, the struggle which our Party has always had to wage, to get our messages across. The vested interests of power and privilege may change as the years go on – but they are always there, and the message of this Movement will always be – must always be – a message which the powerful and privileged will find so uncomfortable that they will wish to stifle and suppress it.

    Let me give you just one example. For 18 years the Conservative Party made a concentrated attack upon our core public services. Nowhere was that attack more sustained, more insidious and more successful than in the case of NHS dentistry. Nor was that the whole of their plan. They wanted dentists out of the NHS, just as they had already got rid of opticians, before moving on to family doctors next.

    Since 1997, we have had to pick up the pieces and grow back dental services in parts of Wales where they had been completely abandoned. Since that time, because of the decisions which Labour has made, 31 practices have been expanded and 9 competely new ones opened, 90 dentists have benefited and 52,000 extra NHS places have been created.

    Of course, there is more which needs to be done. Many of you will have seen pictures of the queues which formed when an additional 300 NHS places were on offer at a West Wales dental practice over the summer.

    But what are the lessons which are really to be drawn from this story?

    Firstly, it reminds us, if we needed any reminding, that the NHS remains an institution which people in Wales, and beyond, value beyond almost any other. When people who had been denied such services were offered an opportunity to take them up again, then they welcome it hugely.

    Secondly, that the expansion in services only came about because of the actions of government – a Labour government in Westminster prepared to provide the additional investment and a Labour government in the Assembly committed to the NHS. Comrades, that so many should have been denied treatment for so long is a disgrace – but it is a disgrace which only this Party is committed to putting right.

    Those 300 places which were the focus of so much attention are only one part of the 6 practices where new and expanded NHS services have been provided in West Wales over the past two years. Even since those pictures appeared earlier in the summer, a  further practice has been expanded in the same part of Wales, using a grant from the Welsh Assembly Government to create 1,300 new NHS places, guaranteed for the next five years.

    The third thing we learn from all this is that, even when we are extending services, even when we are doing so in a way which so clearly meets a powerfully felt need, the media, and our opponents, will try to find a way to portray all this as some sort of government-induced crisis. It really is the height of hypocrisy to hear the Tories bleating about a lack of NHS dentists when they set out so deliberately to decimate that service.

    That’s why, looking back at our experience in the Assembly elections, I want to suggest to you that parties which win elections don’t just get better at getting their message across. They have to have the best messages – and that means messages which unite us, rather than divide us: messages which connect us with our supporters in the country, rather than cutting us off from them, messages which tell a real story, of real policies, benefiting real people.

    In the Assembly elections, we deliberately set out to make our Manifesto the centre-piece of our campaign. It’s become fashionable in some quarters to look down on Manifestos, to portray them as irrelevant to voters and a weak guide to what governments elected upon them will actually deliver. We tried to break out of that destructive circle by concentrating our Manifesto upon a series of practical measures which make a day-to-day difference in the lives of those who look to this Party to be on their side, the vehicle for help and for improvement.

    So, over the next four years, we will abolish all prescription charges in Wales and we will see to it that free breakfasts are on offer in all our primary schools.

    Why did we chose to make such commitments? Well, they bring direct health and education benefits. When I visited the South Wales Valleys, in the run up to the election, a headteacher of 30 years standing told me that free breakfasts had made the single greatest contribution to learning, of all the many initiatives which she had witnessed during her career. Children who begin the day properly fed are children who are ready for learning, whose behaviour is better, whose sociability is improved and whose alertness and receptivity has been secured.

    But there are vital economic as well as social benefits which these measures bring. In Wales, we have to tackle the problems of economic inactivity – people who could be in work, but who the Tories pushed onto the scrap heap. Thanks to the  astonishing success of Labour’s record since 1997, the Welsh economy has been transformed. During that period we have closed two thirds of the employment gap between Wales and the rest of the UK. Employment in Wales has increased by 78,000 comparing the three months to July this year with the same period a year ago. The employment rate in Wales is now higher than all the G7 countries (apart, of course from the UK) and higher than all EU countries apart from Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. And unemployment has fallen in the less well-off parts of the country at an even faster rate than elsewhere.

    Now we have to help back into work, those people who, after two decades of Tory neglect, have come to see themselves as cut off from the economic mainstream. To deliver that assistance we have to smooth the path back to work. Prescriptions are free when out of work. Now, in Wales, they’ll be free when working as well.

    Conference, the experience in Wales has been that when the Labour Movement offers the sort of policies which connect in this direct way with people’s lives, then this Party remains the natural home for all those who understand that we all do best when we know that we are  part one of another, stronger when united than divided, shaping that society which gave us our chances, so that there are better chances still for those who come after us.

    Now, of course, not all our political opponents understand the importance of this sense of inter-dependence.

    Our friends in Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Independence Party, have just spend an agonising weekend deciding that independence is, after all, the main aim of their game. Or at least for some of them. Their new President, Dafydd Iwan, a plucker of the more morose form of folk song, was enthusiastically in favour of  a seat at the United Nations, a Welsh army, navy and airforce and, as far as I know, a Welsh man on the moon. Their former president, Lord Elis Thomas, the far from morose Presiding Officer of the Assembly, is adamantly opposed. Their former, and now born-again leader at the Assembly, Ieuan Wyn Jones, nailed his colours so firmly to the fence that he didn’t vote at all.

    Ieuan Win – Ieuan Lose – Now it’s Ieuan abstain.

    Chair, we live in an interdependent world. What each one of us does in our own lives directly affects the lives of others. What each of us does in our communities affects other communities too. This idea is etched deep in the Welsh political psyche. It is the ethical foundation of our socialism. It is the reason why the narrow nationalist notion of independence is such a one-way ticket to political obscurity.

    That’s why when we face the electorate again next year, in our local government and European elections, and in the general election which will follow, it is not the nationalists who we need to draw back to the attention of the voters. It is the Tories, with their own brand of narrow minded malice, whom we will have to hold to account. Now, for two general elections in a row, Wales has been that socialist nirvarnah – a Tory-free zone. And we plan to keep it that way again next time. In the Assembly, however, our voting system means that we’ve been able to see that endangered species – the Welsh Conservative – at close quarters. And the truth is that they are both nastier and more resilient than we sometimes remember. Nastier in their willingness to attack every progressive measure. More resilient in their ability to attract a core vote based around the worst sort of political appeal to fear and to envy.

    Conference, we’ve had a Labour Government in Westminster for six years. We’ve had a wholly Labour Government at the Assembly for less than six months.

    Now we have a golden chance, the chance of a generation, to use out combine will and our combined skill to make those changes which matter to Labour voters up and down the land.

    And when we do that together, we will not let you down.

  • Nicky Morgan – 2014 Speech on Charity

    nickymorgan

    Below is the text of the speech made by Nicky Morgan, the Financial Secretary, on 15th May 2014.

    Introduction

    Good afternoon.

    I’m sure I won’t be the first – or the last – speaker at this conference to talk about Stephen Sutton…

    Who sadly succumbed to bowel cancer yesterday.

    And – with no disrespect intended to any of the other speakers – if I want you to look back in a month or a year’s time…

    And remember one speech from today…

    Now, in that speech, which I can’t recommend highly enough…

    Stephen tells his story…

    From his childhood…

    Through his diagnosis…

    And into his – if you will – campaign…

    And the part of it that has stuck with me most is when he says… and I quote…

    I do not know how long I’ve got left to live…

    But one of the reasons for that is because I haven’t asked.

    And that’s because I don’t see the point in measuring life in terms of time anymore…

    I would rather measure it in terms of what I actually achieve.

    I’d rather measure it in terms of making a difference…

    Which I think is a much more valid and pragmatic measure.

    And I’m sure that anybody that has seen the papers this morning…

    And read about everything he did achieve…

    And the difference he did make…

    Would agree that – in his nineteen years…

    Stephen touched more lives, and bought more hope and more joy to more people than many of us will in a lifetime.

    He attempted a world record.

    He trended on twitter.

    He skydived.

    He drummed at the Champions League final.

    And perhaps most famously – and some would say most importantly – he raised over £3 million for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

    And the reason I wanted to talk about Stephen is this:

    I’m sure that he – having given up all those hours to do all that fundraising…

    And I’m sure that everyone who was touched by his story, and inspired to give up their time or their money to charity…

    Would expect those charities to make sure their money went as far as possible.

    And they would certainly expect the tax system to make sure their money went as far as possible.

    And it’s the latter of those that – as a Treasury Minister – I want to talk to you about today.

    Of course, I recognise that in an ideal world…

    Wherever possible, charities wouldn’t pay any taxes on income or expenditure.

    But realistically that isn’t possible…

    And – as such I want to use my time at the Treasury…

    To ensure that we all use the tax system as well as we can…

    Both to reduce the burden for charities…

    And to increase incentives for givers.

    I’d like to believe that we are making sure that happens.

    Tax reliefs for the sector were worth over £4.4 billion last year…

    Gift Aid alone was worth over £1bn…

    But I’d like to spend my time with you this morning to:

    first – look back on some of the progress the government has made on helping charities to date

    second – talk you through some of the announcements that the Chancellor made in his most recent budget…

    and finally – to discuss some of the work that we hope to take forward between

    Progress

    So first, what progress have we made to date?

    You’ll all – no doubt – be familiar with a lot of this, but…

    We’ve launched the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme…

    Which allows charities to benefit from a Gift Aid style top up payment on small cash donations.

    We’re clarifying the rules for Community Amateur Sports Clubs…

    And we’re introducing corporate Gift Aid to encourage companies to support their local sports clubs.

    We’ve launched Charities Online to make claiming Gift Aid quicker and easier…

    …and acted on feedback from charities that needed help in understanding the new online platform.

    And we’ve also:

    – reduced inheritance tax for those who donate to charity

    – increased the Gift Aid benefit limit for donors

    – introduced the Cultural Gifts Scheme

    – and introduced the Employment Allowance to reduce NICs bills by up to £2,000 a year – which could help 35 000 charities

    So – in four years – we’ve made a lot of very positive changes to the system.

    But – as you’ll all know – launching or unveiling or announcing schemes is one thing…

    But making sure they’re taken up is quite another.

    And of course we – as government – have got a part to play here.

    The new HMRC Outreach programme that the Chancellor announced in last month’s budget…

    Will play a key role in raising awareness of all these schemes.

    They will be a 15 strong team tasked with:

    – identifying – and contacting – charities that need help making Gift Aid claims…

    – simplifying HMRC guidance and forms…

    – and – most importantly –multiplying the number of people who know about – and take advantage of – these schemes

    But while we’ve recognised that government can – and that Government will – do more to raise awareness…

    You have just as crucial a role to play.

    First, we need you to use your networks and your contacts…

    To make sure that as many people as possible are aware of these schemes and these reliefs.

    And secondly – and most importantly – we need you to take advantage of them…

    Because as each future fiscal event comes around…

    Be it a budget or a spending review or an Autumn Statement…

    Ministers and opposition leaders and journalists will go through our entire tax system with a very fine toothed comb…

    And it’s crucial that we’re able to prove that these measures are being used…

    And that they are making the difference we intended.

    Budget

    Of course, we had a big fiscal event just two months ago…

    And – again – I hope it contained measures that will support what you do.

    We reiterated our support for Gift Aid…

    …and our intention to help people donate through modern, digital channels.

    We announced a programme of work with donor researchers…

    To clarify the wording of the Gift Aid declaration…

    And – on top of that – we announced a review and update of the Gift Aid guidance for charities and donors…

    Again, so people can understand it more easily…

    And access it more easily as part of the GOV.UK site.

    The Chancellor also announced…

    that we’ll set the rate of income tax relief for the Social investment tax relief at 30%…

    that we’ll be developing a joint HMRC/Charity Commission portal…

    …to make administration – particularly for smaller charities – easier

    And this was an announcement I was particularly pleased to see happen…

    We’ll increase the Cultural Gifts Scheme limit…

    To allow even more pre-eminent works of art and historical objects to be donated to public collections across the entire nation.

    Future work

    So – again – the budget built on our progress with further announcements.

    And there will be – I hope – a few more announcements to come.

    Because wherever you alert us to issues or blockages or problems…

    I will do my best to fix them.

    Some of you may know that I spoke to the Charity Tax Group at the end of last month.

    It was quite clear to me at that conference, that the biggest issue on your mind is tax avoidance.

    The first thing I’d say on that, is that we are using the powers we already have to clamp down on those who are abusing the system

    Just last week – in fact – HMRC scored its fifth victory against schemes promoted by Matthew Jenner and NT Advisors…

    The same Matthew Jenner behind the Cup trust scheme…

    Bringing the total tax protected to more than £750 million.

    This was in a case against an individual who used a ‘bluebox’ charity tax relief scheme to avoid £200 000 in tax.

    And as a result of that decision, about £21 million of tax is likely to be paid by users of the scheme.

    So there are measures in place to clamp down on this behaviour…

    We did add measures last month, in the form of our accelerated payments change…

    And wherever we do see disreputable companies – or individuals – using those reliefs…

    Which were set up with the best intentions…

    To support the worst kind of behaviour…

    We will continue to take action.

    As I’m sure all you’ll know, our recent consultation on tax avoidance and the charitable sector has closed…

    And officials back at Treasury and HMRC are working through the responses.

    Now, while I can’t yet share the outcome of that consultation…

    What I can share is the intent – which I’ve always made very clear.

    I want to protect innocent charities – and their reputations – from unscrupulous avoiders…

    And I will make sure that our response doesn’t harm those reputable charities devoted to making the world a healthier and a happier and – let’s be honest – a better place.

    I also know from that conference that there is concern in the sector about take up of the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme…

    So the HMRC outreach team that I mentioned earlier, will have raising its profile as a key activity.

    I’m also hopeful that our new and improved guidance will clarify just how easy it is for charities to claim that relief.

    And I also was reminded that morning that there are some concerns about donor benefits…

    So I went straight back from that conference to the Treasury…

    And made sure that our officials are hard at work consulting with charities and rep bodies on areas where we could simplify the process.

    In fact, one such official – Cerys Morgan – is on one of the panels later this afternoon…

    And if I can’t answer any of your more detailed questions in a moment…

    I’m sure that Cerys will be able to expand on my answers further.

    Conclusion

    In fact, I’m very keen to get to that Q&A as soon as possible…

    Because – presuming I stay in this post

    If I want to look back in a years’ time…

    And if I want to judge what I’ve done not in political terms, but in Stephen Sutton’s terms.

    By what I’ve achieved…

    And – by helping charities wring every last penny of every last donation – how many lives I’ve helped you to touch…

    Then we as the Treasury – and you as the sector – need to have as honest and as open a dialogue as possible.

    So that we can make sure that the schemes already in place work.

    That the schemes recently announced are introduced smoothly.

    And that ultimately…

    And this is the point of all this…

    We can make sure that all the money that you raise…

    Helps as many people as it possibly can.

    Thank you for listening.

  • Jonathan Morgan – 2003 Speech to Conservative Welsh Spring Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jonathan Morgan to the 2003 Conservative Welsh Spring Conference on 8th March 2003.

    Ladies and gentlemen,

    Four years since Labour’s promises of better public services.

    Four years of Labour’s dogma, interference and Minister knows best mentality.

    Four years of missed opportunities for getting increased funding to schools.

    Four years of Labour government in the National Assembly happily supported by the Liberal Democrats who do as they’re told.

    It’s a strange partnership. Labour get the blame for what goes wrong, the Lib Dems try to claim the credit for any thing that goes right, the Lib Dems say the government is driven by them, and Labour are driven to attacking the Lib Dems. A bat man and robin outfit where no one seems to wear the trousers. School teachers, pupils, parents and governors are asking, “where did it all go wrong?”

    I thought that devolution would have meant new ideas and new imagination for helping our public services. Perhaps I was being too optimistic, perhaps I was being youthfully naive, perhaps I was hoping for too much that the Labour government would start seeing our education service from the point of view of teachers, pupils, parents and governors instead of Labour councillors, Labour councillors and…well more Labour councillors.

    The present education Minister would make a very good local government minister. She has excellent local government credentials, former councillor, and former employee of the Welsh Local Government Association.

    For my part it has been a privilege to serve as this Party’s Education Spokesman in the first term of the National Assembly, without any baggage like the minister. 4 years of constructive Conservative ideas, of renewed determination to back our teaching profession 100%, to support our pupils and provide choice and opportunity for Welsh families.

    We have built up our working relationship with the teaching unions, consulted with schools on our ideas, and have produced a manifesto demonstrating our commitment to our education service, and also our willingness to be innovative and exciting in our ambitions for Wales.

    Labour and their Liberal Democrat helpers are settling for second best. They do not have any ambition for Wales. During these 4 crucial years there have been 4 big missed opportunities, which could have provided crucial resources to schools. No one will doubt that education spending has gone up, but spending does not equate investment unless there is a return.

    Last year the Education Act was hailed as supporting devolution with new powers to protect school budgets. The minister refuses to use powers to ring fence budgets. Because of her fixation with local government she refuses to protect school budgets.

    Labour’s reluctance to act has cost Welsh schools money, but a Welsh Conservative administration would protect school budgets.

    The refusal of the government to introduce a 3-year cycle of funding is stopping schools from planning for the future. How can we expect schools to run effectively when they don’t know how much money they will get from one year to the next? Head teachers want to know what resources they will require, how many teachers they can afford, and this needs certainty.

    Labour’s reluctance to act is preventing schools from planning ahead, but a Welsh Conservative administration would provide that certainty.

    Since 1999 the government have announced lots of little schemes, schemes with duplicated aims and huge amounts of cash. This is where a substantial amount of the money goes, hundreds of millions of pounds into various pots. These pots are there, not for the taking, but for the bidding. Schools are caught up in an endless stream of bidding cycles, begging for money. We need to see these pots merged, and money targeted at school budgets – let schools decide how to spend the money according to their local needs.

    Labour’s reluctance to concentrate on core funding is costing schools money and their time, but a Welsh Conservative administration would focus on money going into school budgets and not little schemes designed by government ministers.

    Lastly, Labour’s political interference in the way that schools budgets are allocated will mean that schools in Wales are set to lose money. Just ask schools in Cardiff North or in Flintshire, school budgets are about to be attacked and redistributed according to a politically correct formula. Labour don’t want to support schools that do well, that raise standards, that attract good teachers and supportive parents. Labour’s reluctance to shake off its political dogma will cost schools money and staff.

    But there is an alternative.

    We have a vision of a Wales where teachers are trusted as the professionals that they are, where schools are supported by a government that does not interfere, where pupils are given the chance to succeed according to ability and aspiration not background and status.

    But to realise that vision the people of Wales need their eyes opened, so go out and help them.

  • Michael Moore – 2013 Speech at Fife Chambers of Commerce

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Secretary of State of Scotland, Michael Moore, at the Fife Chambers of Commerce on 31st July 2013.

    The Chambers of Commerce network right across the United Kingdom plays a vital role in growing British businesses.

    I know that the network here in Fife is central to ensuring that the area attracts and supports its local businesses.

    It’s a great opportunity for me to be able to talk with you about the measures we are taking to support our economy, and the future that we want to see for you and your businesses in the years ahead.

    Economy

    There is no doubt that the last few years have been a real challenge for us all: for individuals, for families and for businesses.

    We have experienced an unprecedented global financial crisis; the UK’s largest ever peacetime deficit; and a series of external shocks, both in the euro area and to commodity prices, that have continued to make our recovery a challenge.

    Returning the whole of the UK to sustainable and balanced growth was the unifying objective for the two parties who came together in the national interest to form our Coalition Government.

    We remain fully focussed on delivering that.

    By reducing the deficit, restoring stability and rebalancing the economy we want to equip the UK to compete in the global race.

    Recent news has shown that the economy is on the mend and moving from the rescue phase to recovery.

    Last week’s UK GDP figures showing 0.6% growth in the three months to June were encouraging – above forecast and double the rate of the first quarter.

    We have made substantial progress in our plan to cut the deficit, reduced by a third as a percentage of GDP since we came to power.

    And we have seen significant progress over the past year in job creation and reducing unemployment.

    To continue to make progress, the UK Government is ensuring the right business environment is in place for you, and for the families and communities who depend on you for their livelihoods.

    We are supporting the recovery, reducing taxes remains an important priority – in particular by cutting the main rate of corporation tax to 20%.

    This is helping to deliver on our objective of making the UK’s tax system the most competitive in the G20.

    But tax reform is only part of the story.

    It sits alongside the Bank of England’s monetary activism of recent years and our programme of financial sector reform, particularly of the banks, as key components of fixing the economy.

    And we are determined to invest in our future, too.

    I’ve already mentioned the UK Government’s support for the Queensferry Crossing, a less prosaic name than the previous working title of ‘the Forth Replacement Crossing’.

    And the Queen Elizabeth class carriers, too. These are important parts of our investment programme.

    But we have also provided over 1.7 billion pounds of additional capital spending power to the Scottish Government since the Spending Review of 2010.

    It is for the Scottish Government to invest that money as it sees fit – including in the ‘shovel ready’ projects it has been so keen to promote.

    Where responsibility sits with the UK Government, we are working hard to improve Scotland’s infrastructure links with the rest of the UK and to get the construction sector moving again.

    In the housing sector, we are introducing the Help to Buy Mortgage Guarantee Scheme, which will offer up to 12 billion of Government guarantees to lenders who provide mortgages to people with a deposit value of between 5 and 20 per cent.

    Helping to make more high loan-to-value mortgages available to potential home-owners who can’t save for the large deposits needed following the financial crisis.

    And we have set out a clear industrial strategy to ensure that Government is working with the experts in our key industries: such as construction, renewable, oil and gas and life sciences.

    We know that you – and businesses like you, right across the United Kingdom – have been working hard to do your bit too. We need to keep working together to ensure that the economic recovery gathers strength and is sustained – we are not complacent about the challenges that remain.

    The Future of Scotland

    In this environment I know that right now all of you remain focussed on addressing the challenges we face day to day.

    But aside from that, I know that the next issue on everyone’s minds is ‘what future will Scotland choose in the referendum next year?’

    It’s just over 400 days until those of us living here in Scotland will make our biggest ever collective decision.

    It will be a big, bold moment.

    Offering us the choice between staying within the most successful partnership of nations the world has seen, or an irreversible decision to leave the United Kingdom and go our own, separate way.

    To my mind it will come down to one simple question: which of the alternatives is better for me, my family, and my country?

    For me the answer to that is absolutely clear.

    As a proud Scot I believe that we can enjoy a better future as a nation if we remain within the United Kingdom family.

    With a strong Scottish Parliament and a strong voice in the UK Parliament giving us the best of both worlds

    It is clear to me that, as Scots, being part of the United Kingdom gives us greater opportunities; greater security and an unrivalled platform on the world stage.

    And I believe all that is worth keeping.

    If you focus in on the economy, which I am sure will dominate your thinking, the argument for staying in the UK is a powerful one.

    As part of the world’s sixth largest economy, Scotland has strength in numbers – our 5 million people have unfettered access to a highly integrated single market across the UK.

    More than 300,000 Scottish businesses can sell goods and services in a domestic market of more than 60 million people.

    And enjoy support from an unparalleled network of embassies and consulates boosting their trade around the world and creating thousands of jobs at home.

    We have seen for ourselves the ability of the UK economy to absorb huge financial shocks like the banking crisis which devastated our two largest Scottish banks.

    And, as has been debated at length – as part of the UK we have certainty about our shared currency.

    Over the last decade and a half we have created a devolution settlement which maintains these inherent advantages of the UK, while developing our decision making here at home at the Scottish Parliament.

    Since the landmark creation of the Parliament at Holyrood we have seen it anchored in Scottish public life and seen its powers enhanced – significantly by the Scotland Act of last year which brings major tax and borrowing powers north of the border, in the biggest transfer of financial powers from London to Edinburgh since the Act of Union sent them the other way. But it’s not just by milestone Acts of Parliament that powers have been transferred.

    We have seen flexible, responsive arrangements evolve that have allowed economically important powers like the management of our railways come north, while ensuring that when it makes sense to legislate on a pan-UK basis, as we have done in relation to tackling organised crime, we can still do it in Westminster with the consent of the Scottish Parliament.

    This ‘best of both worlds’ approach is a real strength for us. And I believe the settlement will develop further.

    For me as a Liberal Democrat, seeing the commitment to further devolution coming from all three parties who support Scotland staying within our United Kingdom is a real milestone in our country’s development.

    But before we can take decisions on changes to our devolution settlement we need to take the most fundamental decision: are we in, or are we out?

    Scotland Analysis Programme

    As the UK Government, our proposition is clear: Scotland should remain the integral part of the United Kingdom that it is, and has been for over the last 300 years.

    That is why over the last six months we have set out in great detail on fundamental economic questions what Scotland has as part of the UK and what all of us need to weigh up as we consider our vote.

    I recognise that before many people can make their choice they want information, and they want to hear the case for each option.

    So far we’ve published four papers in our Scotland Analysis Programme, amounting to over 460 pages of argument and data.

    I’ll admit the title isn’t all that catchy – but it reflects a really important point about the way we are approaching this debate.

    Analysis. We are doing the homework,

    We are examining the evidence

    And we are setting out the facts.

    Our first paper sets out the legal position of Scotland within the United Kingdom – and the legal realities of becoming a separate independent state.

    Because it’s important for us all to be clear that independence means Scotland leaving the United Kingdom.

    And leaving the United Kingdom, means leaving the state that we have built together, with our fellow citizens who live in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

    It means there are no guarantees that an independent Scotland would be a member of international organisations like the EU, NATO, G8 and G20.

    A separate Scottish state would need to apply to join these organisations.

    For the UN that could be a relatively simple process, but it’s a process that a newly independent state would have to go through none the less.

    For other organisations there are detailed negotiations that would be required before an independent Scotland could be a member.

    For the EU that would mean a newly independent Scotland negotiating with 28 existing Member States.

    Simultaneously asking for fast-tracked membership, but also apparently expecting favourable terms:

    An exemption from the euro;

    An opt-out from the Schengen Agreement for the free movement of people; and

    An agreement on Scotland’s contribution to the EU budget having left the UK’s rebate behind.

    But it is not just the international implications of leaving the United Kingdom that need to be considered.

    Our second paper in the Scotland analysis series examined in detail the currency arrangement we have, right now, as part of the United Kingdom, and the options that would be open to an independent Scottish state.

    All of the options:

    Seeking a formal currency union with the continuing UK state;

    Using sterling outside of the UK, like the Isle of Man;

    Adopting the Euro;

    Or a separate Scottish currency altogether.

    None of these options is the same as the shared currency we have now.

    All are sub-optimal – for Scots and Scottish businesses and for the rest of the UK – to the current system we have of a shared pound sterling and a shared Bank of England.

    And as the Chancellor made clear when he launched our currency paper, it is ‘unlikely’ that the continuing UK would choose to have a formal currency union with a separate Scottish state.

    We’ve published a paper on our Financial Services sector

    Setting out the importance of the sector to Scotland, where financial services contribute more than 8 per cent of Scottish GDP and support around 7 per cent of Scottish employment.

    And the enormous benefit that this strong Scottish industry gets from being part of the UK financial sector, not least the support that the size and strength of the UK can provide in times of trouble.

    We recently produced a fourth paper that examines the benefit of our shared single domestic market.

    For whilst the border between England and Scotland means a great deal historically, it means nothing for our businesses large and small that operate across that border on a daily basis: Whether that be the 300,000 people that travel into or out of Scotland from the rest of the UK each day to work;

    Or the lorries that transport goods to and from Scotland providing free unfettered access to a marketplace of 60 million rather than five;

    Or the shared infrastructure we have like our broadband networks and energy markets.

    Through our work to date, I believe we have established the key facts in the debate.

    Independence would mean the end of devolution and Scotland leaving the UK, its institutions and its place in the world;

    Independence would mean a fundamental change on currency;

    A big change in regulation and the bodies we interact with every day

    A big change for our position in Europe;

    And – as we’ve seen reported extensively in recent days – some big challenges for our pensions.

    Over the autumn period we will develop these and other arguments further.

    The other side’s arguments

    But we’ve not just been setting out our own case over the past six months.

    We’ve been looking carefully at the arguments from the other side too.

    We’ve looked carefully at the Scottish Government’s approach.

    And you have to give them credit for some creative thinking about what independence means.

    I have always taken it to mean a separate country making its way in the world, choosing new and different policy paths, which the proponents of independence have argued are necessary.

    It’s that thirst for change, and recognition of the likely divergences, that lay behind the Chancellor’s thinking when he said that a currency union between the rest of the UK and Scotland was ‘unlikely’.

    ‘Unlikely’ because the simple truth is that, if we break up the United Kingdom, we will have turned our backs on our shared interests, so that we can instead develop separate interests.

    And as everyone in business knows – you can get along very well;

    You can be the best of neighbours;

    But where you have separate interests you get divergence.

    Doing things differently and creating differences is at the heart of separating Scotland from the rest of the UK.

    It is the inherent logic of creating a separate Scottish state.

    There is no hiding the upheaval independence would bring

    Even if the advocates of independence spend rather a lot of time trying to assure us that all the good things we have as part of the United Kingdom can be maintained under independence – that there will be no change to speak of.

    As I say, that’s a creative approach, but it doesn’t really add up, does it?

    Those who advocate independence are surely not saying to people in Scotland – vote for independence to keep everything the same as it is now?

    Indeed – even people in the yes camp are starting to question this vision of independence as a pale imitation of what they dream of.

    And more to the point, it is something that the Scottish Government cannot faithfully promise or deliver. Common sense tells us that.

    Looking at the detail of their work throws up more anomalies and contradictions.

    We’ve looked at the work of the Scottish Government’s Fiscal Commission.

    The Scottish Government like to highlight the Commission’s finding that keeping the pound would be the best starting point for an independent Scotland – but they refuse to set out their plan B or even what the long-term currency plan is.

    Instead the Scottish Government say that they will unilaterally use sterling regardless – so called ‘sterlingisation’.

    But if we then go back to their own Fiscal Commission report, those same economists pointed out the downsides of sterlingisation: no central bank or lender of last resort, no influence over monetary policy – in short this would be, in the Commission’s own words, ‘no long-term solution’.

    Another group set up by the Scottish Government to review welfare made clear that it was given no guidance about the principles they should work from – so no plan for what the welfare system should look like in a separate Scottish state. And far from recommending radical change it proposed that an independent Scotland should keep the same system as we already have in the UK.

    That’s the system that the Scottish Government like to say is flawed, but their own experts say should carry on under independence.

    If we turn to look at one of the most fractious areas of debate, over the oil numbers, this is another area where the Scottish Government lauds the role of independent experts.

    But when the independent experts in the Office for Budget Responsibility came up with figures, the Scottish Government didn’t like they cherry-picked the highest, most favourable figures to base their public arguments on.

    Something their own Fiscal Commission warned against doing.

    But of course we know from the leaked Scottish Government Cabinet paper that in private they are rather closer to our position on oil numbers and future spending than they care to admit in public.

    In private they say that, quote, ‘there is a high degree of uncertainty around future North Sea revenues’… and

    ‘that Scotland would have a larger net fiscal deficit than the UK’

    They also acknowledge, and I quote again, that ‘at present HMT and DWP absorb the risk…in future we will assume responsibility for managing such pressure. This will imply more volatility in overall spending than at present.’

    I think that is a fair assessment by Scottish Government ministers – it’s just a shame they won’t face up to it in public.

    Concluding remarks

    I gave a speech at the start of 2013 saying that I wanted this to be the year we moved from process to substance in the independence debate.

    That 2013 had to be the year of evidence and not assertion.

    And that is exactly what we, as the UK Government, have done and will continue to do.

    We are setting out the benefits we continue to enjoy and the contribution we have made working together for the last 300 years.

    And we are setting out the opportunities and prospects that lie ahead if we choose to remain part of the United Kingdom family.

    Our Scotland analysis papers are setting out the analysis and facts.

    Together they make the positive case for Scotland within the United Kingdom.

    We strongly and passionately believe that Scotland is better, safer and stronger within our United Kingdom.

    That’s our case.

    We don’t shy away from that – we don’t pretend to be arguing for anything else: we are making the case that we believe in, and we are making it clearly.

    And that’s what I am going to be doing throughout the Summer – to groups like yours – right across Scotland.

    Making the case that I am proud of.

    The case that I believe in.

    Thank you for the opportunity to set it out to you here in Dunfermline today.