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  • Hilary Benn – 2015 Speech at Coventry Rising 15

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Hilary Benn, the Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, at Coventry Rising 15 on 11 November 2015.

    It is a great honour to have been invited to contribute to Rising 15 and to do so on 11 November here in Coventry.

    This cathedral – the old and the new – stands as a reminder both of the consequences of war and of the enduring power of faith to inspire.

    Two weeks ago I was in Jordan listening to a mother describe how she fled there from Syria with her children after her husband, a baker, was arrested, tortured and killed by President Assad’s forces.

    There is not one of us who does not ask why human beings do this to their brothers and sisters? Maybe we shall never know, but there is another question that we can try and answer. What should we do when these things happen ?

    I was brought up on the parables of the New Testament, and the one that left the greatest mark on me was the Good Samaritan.

    St Luke’s gospel records that it was the question “And who is my neighbour?” that prompted Jesus to tell the story of the man on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho who was robbed and beaten and left for dead by the side of the road.

    While the Priest and the Levite both, separately, chose to pass by on the other side, it was the Samaritan who stopped to help.

    And having told the story, Jesus then asked his questioner:

    “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves ?

    And he said, He that shewed mercy on him.

    Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.”

    I have chosen this parable as my text for today.

    When we see the extreme suffering of others, what is our responsibility to our neighbours?

    For some, this is an uncomfortable moral choice and they hope it will pass them by.  Some say it is none of our business. Others respond by renouncing violence – an aspiration we should all share – but until all 7 billion of us do so, we have to face up to the effects of violence on its victims.

    War is often the handmaiden of poverty and civil wars on average result in 20 years of lost development.

    It is no accident that Afghanistan and Somalia have the highest rates of infant mortality in the world.

    Both are poor and both have been wracked by conflict.

    The causes of war are many. The legacy of colonialism. Resources. Ethnic and regional tensions. Politics. Nationalism. Ideology. Religion. Terrorism.

    And in the years to come, we may see added to this list people increasingly fighting over energy, land or water.

    So when is it right to act to prevent these things?

    Looking back on the Second World War which led to the bombing of this cathedral, did more people die than would have lost their lives if Hitler had not been confronted? Maybe. Was the war an expression of failure? Most certainly. And yet, was the second world war justified?  In my view, it was.

    And from its ashes came a determination that such a conflict should never happen again.

    Its expression was the founding of the United Nations in 1945 and three years later, the UN General Assembly adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

    Article 3 states: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

    Article 28 says: “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realised.”

    And yet, for millions of people these rights – so nobly expressed – have remained just words on paper.  The refugees from Syria I met in Jordan could not have been clearer. They said simply: “The world has forgotten us”.

    Why is this so? Because those affected lack the means to do anything about these conflicts themselves and because we, the rest of the world, lack the will or act imperfectly or not at all.

    This will not do.

    First, and most importantly, because we should uphold the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They mean something as the ultimate expression of our responsibility to one another. And yet without the rule of law and peace in all countries they mean nothing.

    Imagine if the world consisted only of the United Kingdom and someone argued that it would be alright to have peace in Coventry, but civil war in Leeds and genocide in Glasgow. What would we think ?

    Of course, this doesn’t happen because these rights are enjoyed in all parts of our country. And yet, we are one world and having created the United Nations, we have a duty to ensure these same rights are available to our fellow humans whichever part of the  planet they were born on

    The second reason why this matters is because  interdependence defines the condition of humankind today more clearly than at any other time in human history.

    The effects of conflict elsewhere are felt here, whether it is watching it on television, seeing the flow of refugees, feeling the repercussions in our politics or experiencing the impact of terrorism on our own lives. And as the world’s economies become more dependent on each other, the consequences for trade and travel are increasingly serious.

    The third reason is that no country can progress while it is mired in conflict.

    So those who care most passionately about overcoming the scars of poverty, disease and squalor, must be equally passionate about the part that peace and stability play in helping to bring this about.

    And the fourth reason is that new threats beckon.  Unchecked, climate change will affect our future security. If people can no longer live where they were born because their homes are under water or it has stopped raining, then they will do what human beings have done throughout history. They will move in search of a better life. They may be coming to live near you or me. And their number will dwarf anything we have seen thus far.

    What recent history teaches us is that whether it was Sierra Leone under the RUF and the West Side Boys, the Rwandan genocide, Kosovo when Muslims were being murdered in Europe’s backyard or Syria today, the world needs to find a way of dealing with crimes against humanity.

    In some of these cases we did act; in others we failed.

    It is not that the international community does not care. But there is not yet a settled and united will to act, and we lack the capacity to do so in an effective way.

    So how can we build this capacity?

    One of the problems we face is national sovereignty. A country invading another is one thing, but when terrible events happen within a country some still say that this is an internal matter and none of anyone else’s business.

    We used to hold the same view of domestic violence here in the UK. Forty or fifty years ago, if the police were called because of reports that a man was beating up someone in the street, he would be swiftly arrested. But if the victim was his wife or his partner behind a closed front door, then the prevailing attitude was ‘it’s a domestic dispute and not for us to get involved.’

    That doesn’t happen anymore. A crime is a crime, and the sovereign state of the kitchen or the bedroom no longer provides any protection against enforcement of the law.

    I think we are currently witnessing the world going through exactly the same process internationally for exactly the same reason. An increasing number of voices are saying that leaving people by the roadside of conflict to fend for themselves simply cannot be right.

    And so was born the concept of Responsibility to Protect – the idea that the international community does have a responsibility to stop people becoming victims of the most terrible crimes.

    Developed by the Canadian Government’s International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty in 2001, it led – following Ban Ki Moon’s report on implementing the Responsibility to Protect – to the UN General Assembly adopting a resolution in 2009.

    Seeing state sovereignty not as a privilege but a responsibility, R2P seeks to prevent and stop genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. And it explicitly accepts that the international community does have a responsibility to act in certain circumstances.

    I support R2P very strongly, but it is not without controversy, so I want to try and address directly the reservations and concerns people raise about it.

    The first is authority. Who is to decide what should be done?

    For me the answer is clear. It should be the Security Council of the United Nations. That is why we created it. The UN has both a unique responsibility because of its authority and a unique legitimacy.

    And yet we see from history that the UN has not always been capable of agreeing on what should be done or of acting effectively when it has.

    We have to accept that the veto exists to bind the world’s major powers – the five permanent members of the Security Council – into the United Nations, but with it comes a great responsibility. That is why the French Government has proposed that in cases of mass atrocities permanent members of the Security Council would voluntarily agree not to use their veto. I think this is an important proposal and it should be strongly supported by the UK and others.

    But what if the UN will not or cannot act – then what?  Is that an argument for standing on one side?  Not in all cases some would argue, including me, as our support for intervention in Sierra Leone and Kosovo demonstrated. Others, however, take the view that in the absence of a UN mandate there can be no legitimacy for any action.

    The second issue is that people fear premature military intervention. That’s why diplomatic and public pressure should always be the first resort. It can work.

    Western sanctions have played an important part, for example, in persuading Russia to implement the Minsk Agreement in Ukraine.

    We have also learned that a single camera or a single reporter bearing witness to an atrocity – and the shame that can be brought upon those responsible – can have a power equal to a thousand resolutions. The reason why the UK Government changed its mind in September about Britain taking more Syrian refugees was that photograph of little Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless body lying on a beach in Turkey.

    The third issue is deciding when states should act.

    Agreeing a threshold is difficult and highly contentious and achieving consensus about whether or not diplomatic options have been exhausted is fraught with difficulty. And yet, if we wait for evidence of genocide to become conclusive then it may be too late to do anything or to save anybody.

    The fourth issue is practicality. If a decision is taken to act, then who is going to undertake the work? If it involves military intervention, then whose troops will be used?  How many?  Under whose command?  With what resources and what mandate? And what is the plan for after military intervention?

    One way of answering these questions is to continue to build capacity regionally to be able to handle  peacekeeping. Was it right for the African Union to take the lead in Darfur and Somalia? Absolutely.

    Both because western forces in an Islamic country in those circumstances would not have been accepted and because these were conflicts in Africa’s backyard.

    On mandate, peacekeepers need the tools to do the job, and that includes the ability to protect and intervene if necessary under Chapter VII.

    Where there are people to protect or a peace to keep, we need more peacekeepers. At present there are close to 125,000 military and civilian UN peacekeepers compared with only 11,000 a quarter of a century ago.

    Despite this, there still aren’t enough for all the missions the UN would wish to run, and to the high standards we expect of them. For as well as numbers, there is also the question of training, equipment, and capacity, particularly as regional institutions build their own peacekeeping.

    This is an area in which Britain could and should play a much bigger part given the skill, experience and expertise of our armed forces. There are currently just under 300 British peacekeepers contributing to UN missions although another 300 are soon to deploy to South Sudan and Somalia. That simply is not good enough and I call on the Government to set out in the forthcoming Strategic Defence and Security Review how the UK can play a much bigger part in UN peacekeeping in the years ahead.

    And when action has been taken, it needs to be followed up with stabilisation, a political process and decent governance. There is no substitute for the parties to a conflict finding their own way out of it.

    Lastly, what is the consequence? There are two types of consequence; that of acting and that of not acting.

    In the case of Sierra Leone, the outcome of British and UN intervention was beneficial. The country remains poor but it is largely free of violence now and has taken the first steps on the road to recovery.

    In the case of Afghanistan, where the world responded to 9/11, the removal of the Taliban enabled about three and a half million of the estimated four million refugees who had fled the country to return. The conflict however continues – many lives have been and are being lost – but the aim remains enabling the elected Afghan government to look after its own security as politics brings a peace settlement.

    In Somalia, the American troops who went in to help with humanitarian relief ended up in a gun battle. They were replaced in time by African forces, but despite recent progress, parts of the country remain deeply troubled and insecure as the recent attack by al-Shabab in Mogadishu demonstrated. More positive has been the impact that international co-operation has had on piracy off the country’s coast. And, by contrast, Somaliland shows what can be done if politics is made to work.

    For the people of Rwanda the consequence of our not acting was devastating. In 100 days just under one million people were killed – the equivalent of 6 million people being murdered here in the United Kingdom on our street corners, and in our schools and on churches – as the world stood by and watched.

    Anyone who has read Romeo Dallaire’s book ‘Shake Hands with the Devil: the failure of humanity in Rwanda’ will weep with him in rage at what happened while we failed to help.

    And while the Syrian civil war has continued, over 200,000 people have been lost their lives, half the population have had to flee their homes and the barrel bombing by the regime and brutality of ISIL/Daesh continue.

    The world has to be much more effective in dealing with conflicts like this before they turn into brutal and bloody civil wars. The responsibility to protect was meant to be about that, but let us be honest: in Syria, no-one has taken responsibility and nobody has been protected.

    Now we do also have to deal with charges of selectivity and, at times, hypocrisy; that we have not been consistent in our choice of when to act, or that countries have chosen to act when there is much at stake for them but not when there isn’t.

    It is a reasonable criticism, and it has on occasions force.

    And yet the argument that just because you have failed to do the right thing everywhere you should not attempt to do the right thing anywhere is one I find profoundly unconvincing.

    Of course, in the case of all conflict, prevention is better than cure. There is nothing more important than putting time, effort and energy in trying to prevent violent conflict in the first place.

    Particularly important is the UN’s capacity to mediate and so help the parties to resolve their differences without turning to violence. So we need skilled, readily deployable teams able to go and support peace talks around the world, as Staffan de Mistura and Bernardino Leon are currently trying to do in Syria and Libya.

    Few civil wars arise from nowhere. So we need to be better at monitoring and understanding the causes of tension; the exclusion and injustice that makes people angry.

    The establishment of the Atrocity Prevention Board by the US Government is a particularly good example of what can be done.

    If all this sounds depressing, two decades ago things were much worse. Half of the countries in Africa were then affected by violence – many in regional conflicts across West and Central Africa.

    Now, we can look back and say that sub-Saharan Africa was the only region in the world to see a decline in violent conflict at the start of the 21st century.

    Much of that is down to the pioneering work of the African Union and its Peace and Security Council. It can deploy military forces in situations which include genocide and crimes against humanity and can also authorise peacekeeping missions. The AU has put troops on the ground in Burundi, the Central African Republic, Darfur, and most recently in Somalia in the form of AMISON – a regional mission operating under a UN mandate

    We are getting better at negotiating peace. According to the Human Security Report, the international community has negotiated more settlements to conflict in the last 15 years than in the 185 years previously.

    Finally, when all of this is done, we need to end up where we started – with the rule of law so we can call those responsible to account.

    That is why the UK has been such a strong supporter of the International Criminal Court. The message it sends is clear and simple. Anyone who is planning crimes against humanity will think twice because they will know that the international community will in the end catch up with them, as Slobodan Milosevic and Radko Mladic both discovered.

    The reason why we should want international action at the UN to succeed is that this is all about demonstrating that multilateralism – countries working together – can provide the answer to that uncomfortable question – what is to be done?

    And the more it does succeed, the stronger is the argument we can make with those who would act unilaterally that there is another way.

    I would like to end on a note of optimism. 100 years ago this year my grandfather William fought in Gallipoli in the First World War. He lost his younger brother in that campaign and his eldest son in World War Two. This is what he wrote about war:

    “Is there anyone, now, who will deny that, step by step, warfare degrades a nation? …[Soldiers] know from bitter experiences what militarism really means; its stupidity, its brutality, its waste. They are chivalrous because they have learned the one good thing that war can teach, namely that peril shared knits hearts together – yes, even between enemies. They have mingled with strangers. They know that common folk the world over love peace and in the main desire good will.”

    Nearly a hundred years after he wrote those words, they remain true.

    Human beings everywhere yearn for peace and if together we can make our politics work in the service of humankind then we will bring nearer the day on which that hope is realised.

    Thank you.

  • Hilary Benn – 2013 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Hilary Benn, the Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, to the 2013 Labour Party conference in Brighton.

    I want to begin by thanking David Sparks and all our Labour councillors, including the 291 newly elected last May, for the terrific job they do standing up for our communities and flying the flag for Labour values.

    We may not be in government nationally, but we are increasingly in government locally and in exceptionally tough times our councillors are leading the way.

    I would also like to thank my great team in the Commons and the Lords for holding this awful Government to account.

    Three years on, we now know exactly whose side they’re on. And what they think.

    Do you know what, Michael Gove actually said recently that the reason people have to go to food banks – I know it’s hard to believe it – is because they can’t “manage their finances.”

    No, Mr Gove, that’s not why they swallow their pride and ask for help. It’s because they haven’t got any money, and they haven’t got any food. And instead of you patronising them, we should be helping them.

    And what about Eric Pickles? He told us he was protecting people from council tax rises, but what did he actually do in April? He imposed a hefty increase in council tax on over two million of the very poorest households.

    Nearly half a million already in arrears. Thousands of summonses issued. People facing fines and even the threat of jail. Mr Pickles, you should be ashamed of your new Tory poll tax.

    And then there’s Iain Duncan Smith, the man who came up with the hated bedroom tax. Hated because it hits families, and widows, and disabled people. Hated because it’s unfair, immoral and doesn’t work. And who helped him do it?

    Forget all those troubled consciences you saw paraded around Glasgow last week. It was the Liberal Democrats who helped him to do it and they should be ashamed of themselves too.

    Well, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. The next Labour government led by Ed Miliband will stop taxing the bedrooms we have and start building the homes we need.

    Conference, our housing system is broken. Parents and grandparents worry. “Where are our children and grandchildren going to be able to afford to live?”

    Young couples unable to buy their first home. Families forced to pay spiralling rents and wondering if they’ll still be in the same home next year when their tenancy ends.

    This is the reality of the cost of living crisis for many people.

    And what’s the Government done? Cut the affordable housing budget cut by 60 per cent.

    And when the IMF said to the Chancellor that Britain should be investing £10 billion in infrastructure – that would build 400,000 affordable homes – what did the Government do? Nothing.

    No wonder housing completions are at their lowest peacetime level since the 1920’s.

    But there is hope. Labour councils. Labour councils building council houses.

    In Liverpool and Leeds, Stevenage and Southwark, Manchester, York, Exeter, Nottingham, Ipswich and in many other Labour areas our councillors are building social homes on a scale we haven’t seen for a generation. Tackling the cost of living crisis by building homes that families can afford.

    And, Conference, that’s why a Labour government will help councils to build more affordable homes by reforming the Housing Revenue Account.

    And for the 8.5 million people who now rent privately, we will tackle the unfair fees charged by lettings agents. We’ll introduce a national register of private landlords. And we’ll fight for longer tenancies and predictable rents so that families can put down roots.

    And for the millions of people who dream of owning their own home, Labour will get Britain building again. We’re just not building enough homes and yet, in the last few years, the profits of the big housebuilders have soared.

    Land is too expensive. Too often developers hang on to it hoping for the price to rise. And communities feel powerless.

    Today Ed Miliband will pledge to change that.

    So what will a Labour Government do?

    First, we must admit that we can’t carry on saying on the one hand “where are the homes for the next generation?” and on the other “please don’t build them near me”.

    Nor will we get more homes by top-down targets. Councils and communities must take that responsibility but they need more power to be able to do so.

    Communities should know where land is available. That’s why we will ensure developers register the land they own or have options on.

    And where land is not brought forward for homes, communities should be able to do something about it.

    And when communities have given planning permission they should be able to say to developers: we’ve given you the go ahead so please get on and build the homes you said you would. And if you don’t then we’ll charge you and, if you still don’t, we’ll sell the land on to someone else who will.

    Secondly, there are areas in the country where councils and communities see the need for more homes but there just isn’t the land to build them on. So the next Labour government will give those communities a new ‘Right to Grow’, allowing them – if they want – to expand and ensuring that neighbouring areas work with them to do so.

    Thirdly, conference, it’s time to build new communities – new towns and new garden cities. That’s what the great Attlee Government did as they started to rebuild Britain and we need that same spirit again. So we will invite local authorities to come forward, and in return, we will make sure that they get the powers and the incentives they need to acquire land, put in the infrastructure and build. Build those new communities.

    Getting Britain building, with communities taking the lead. People deciding where the new homes will go and what land they want to preserve.

    Passing down power is the answer to many of the great challenges we face as a nation.

    With an ageing population we need Andy Burnham’s revolution in whole person care with local government and the NHS working together.

    We need more school places. That’s why Stephen Twigg will get rid of Michael Gove’s absurd ban on local councils opening their own schools for their own children in their own area.

    Too many people can’t find jobs, including nearly one million young people. So, Liam Byrne wants councils to take a lead in helping people to find work, get skills and deliver Labour’s jobs guarantee.

    We need to get the country moving. So why do we tolerate the endless journey back and forth to Whitehall so that ministers can decide on local transport schemes when we all know – as Maria Eagle says – that local government could do it faster and better?

    Now, what about fairness. This Government has imposed the deepest cuts on our most deprived communities and they have the nerve to give David Cameron’s council an increase.

    It’s just not fair and a Labour Government will change it. Money should go to meet need.

    And why do we need to do all this? Because of what Ed calls the new politics.

    We have reached a defining moment for our country.

    A fork in the road.

    A moment of huge danger but also of great opportunity.

    The financial crisis rocked the foundations of our banking system and our economy. But it did far more than that.

    It undermined people’s sense of hope and their confidence in a better future.

    It damaged the faith in politics to make a difference.

    It has left a generation unsure that their children’s lives will be better than the life they have enjoyed.

    And that’s why these days there is so much despair.

    I get that, but despair didn’t inspire the previous generations who first brought gas, electricity and clean water to our homes. The schools that teach our children, the parks in which they play, the hospitals that treat us when we’re sick and the libraries that transform lives.

    And it won’t help us – our generation – to build the homes we need. To care for our Mums and Dads as they get older. To bring fast broadband to every city and village. To kick out the local sharks and bring in the credit unions. To generate our own energy to keep down the bills.

    Our task is to turn despair into hope.

    For with hope comes confidence. And with confidence comes trust.

    And if we, as Labour, are going to win people’s trust, then we must trust the people. We must be the movement that helps people to change their own lives.

    Money may be short, but in every community – every village, every town, every city – there is an inexhaustible supply of energy and of ideas.

    That’s how we helped to change the country for the better before.

    And that’s how we will make our country One Nation again.

  • Hilary Benn – 2014 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Hilary Benn, the Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, to the 2014 Labour Party conference in Manchester.

    Conference, I want to begin by saying thank you.

    To all our great Labour councillors and leaders for the work they do to stand up for Labour values in difficult times, to all the members of our team in the Commons and the Lords, and to everyone on the Policy Commission.

    Last Thursday the people of Scotland made their decision. They voted against separation, but they also voted for change.

    In years to come, this will be seen as a moment in our history when the ground shifted beneath our feet.

    A moment – uncertain and exhilarating in equal measure – but also full of opportunity. A moment to lift up our eyes.

    We get the message about the distance and, at times, the alienation that too many people feel from politics, and we have a plan to radically transform our political system so that people can see that change is coming.

    It is no wonder there is discontent. We see Tory Ministers on the television telling us that the economy is doing fine. There’s nothing to see here. Everything is OK. Move along.

    It just shows how out of touch they are.

    People working hard day after day, putting in the hours, doing their best for their family, but finding it tough. Pay not rising enough to meet gas and electricity bills.

    Nearly one and half million people on zero hours contracts, not knowing from one week to the next how much they will earn and for those on the very lowest incomes, David Cameron’s bedroom tax. Pushing families into a spiral of debt.

    It’s a rotten policy that comes from rotten values with no regard for decency and security.

    Well, Conference, we have different values. We reject the bedroom tax and we will scrap it.

    And what about our broken housing market? Housebuilding at its lowest peacetime level since the 1920s.

    Young people doing all they can to save, but knowing that their dream of owning a home is moving further and further out of reach. So they end up renting, and often find themselves paying off someone else’s mortgage, rather than one on a home of their own.

    They probably have a short term tenancy and worry that the rent may jump up, even if they get a new contract.

    And if their children are about to start primary school, what kind of security and stability is there if they may be forced to move away from friends and neighbours next year?

    We all hear these stories, but this government doesn’t get it.

    Well we do – and that’s why we are determined to introduce three year tenancies; to put a ceiling on rent increases; to scrap lettings agent fees for tenants; and to build at least 200,000 homes a year by the end of the next Parliament.

    Because we know that our home is where we feel most secure.

    And how will we do this? By being bold and by offering a different kind of politics. By giving people the responsibility to make it happen and the means to do so.

    So instead of communities feeling that they can’t influence where new homes go because developers ignore the sites the council has identified, and instead try to build somewhere else.

    Instead of communities saying that the design is poor, the rooms are too small, and the GP surgeries, roads and schools won’t be there.

    And instead of them thinking that even if the homes are built, that their children or friends or neighbours will never get one of them.

    Instead of all of this, we will give communities, as Sir Michael Lyons’ report will recommend, the powers they need to tackle land banking; put together the sites; get the design right; put in the infrastructure; and work with small and medium-size and large builders to build the homes that local people need where local people want.

    And Conference, we’ll work with councils so that they can build more council houses.

    Let’s be proud of the Labour councils already leading the way and outbuilding Tory councils.

    The building of social homes by Labour councils on a scale not witnessed for a generation.

    Conference, the problem with housing is a symptom of the problem with our politics. People feel distant from decisions that affect their daily lives. They don’t feel in control and they want a bigger say.

    That’s why the ground is shifting. So we will build a new politics that works for people rather than just telling them that’s how things must be.

    After all it’s where we started as a movement and how we first won the people’s trust.

    Our fellow citizens who went to the polling stations four days ago spoke not only for themselves but for the whole of the United Kingdom.

    Labour will honour the promise we made to Scotland and we will offer a new deal to England too.

    The people of England have been very patient and in that very English way, they are now saying “Excuse me, but what about us?”

    Well, we are listening and that’s why Labour will offer England a new deal that will pass power down, money down, responsibility down.

    I want cities and counties, towns and districts, parishes and neighbourhoods to make more decisions for themselves and to have more control over the money they raise and contribute.

    But I want that to be fair, because what we have now certainly isn’t.

    Look at the shameful and deliberate way the Tories have taken most money away from the most deprived communities.

    They’re cutting spending power for every household in the ten most deprived areas in England by sixteen times as much as the ten least deprived. Sixteen times.

    They’ve targeted Labour Liverpool and Hackney and Knowsley and Birmingham while at the very same time they’ve actually given increases to Tory Elmbridge, Surrey Heath and Wokingham.

    Rotten values once again. It’s not fair and we will change it. We will make sure that the money we have is fairly shared. We will make sure devolution goes hand in hand with redistribution from each according to their ability to contribute, to each according to their need.

    That’s why we plan to take £30 billion from Whitehall over five years and pass it to local communities – to city and county regions across the length and breadth of the land to: give them the means to create jobs; help people into those jobs; train them in the skills they need for those jobs, invest in the trams, the buses, the railways and the roads to help them get to work and businesses to thrive, and build the homes for those workers and their children.

    That’s why we’ll say to local authorities: “Help us to commission our new Work Programme.”

    That’s why we will give local areas control of the funding for further education for 19 to 24 year-olds.

    That’s why we will put together the money for health and social care so that local communities can provide better integrated care for the old, and for those with long-term conditions and disabilities.

    Why should our mums and our dads be sent to hospital or kept there for want of a grab rail or someone to help them get dressed in the morning?

    After all, isn’t that what we want for them, and for us, when our time comes?

    And by doing this we will help communities to build a stronger economy, a stronger society and a more equal one too, so that not only does London get investment and flourish, but Leeds and Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle, Sheffield and Bristol, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, Cornwall and Essex.

    Our new deal is for all parts of England. Conference, this will be the biggest economic decentralisation in a century. But it won’t be enough.

    We will go further in changing the way decisions are made so that we can free local communities, the people of England, to shape their own destiny.

    Not something cooked up in corridors of Whitehall, but a deeper, more profound change involving people from every part of the country.

    A national debate – leading up to a Constitutional Convention – as fervent and as involved as the one that paved the way for devolution in Scotland.

    This isn’t about the long grass; it’s about the grass roots telling us what they want in the long term. A Convention with a purpose.

    Change that is a means to an end. No longer “what will you do for me?” but “what shall we do for ourselves?”

    The change we need to build the homes, generate renewable energy, create jobs, give our young hope, overcome poverty, care for our community and one another.

    So, Conference, change is coming. Change that devolves power but which also binds our country together.

    Every part of our United Kingdom – side by side, shoulder to shoulder. England and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

    And despite the cynics and the critics, it’s everyone’s responsibility to stand up for our democracy. To cherish our democracy. To have faith in our democracy because we know it’s how we built the better society we became, and how we will build the better society of tomorrow.

    Yes, there is so much more to do, but the next time someone tells you that getting involved, doing your bit, standing up, getting organised, voting doesn’t make any difference, look them in the eye and say “It isn’t true.”

    And tell them this. 70 years ago Europe lay in ruins. We had huge debts and money was short, but faced with this, the British people chose to put their trust in us because they wanted to change the country.

    It was a Labour government which started building homes for the returning troops and for those whose homes had been bombed, which strengthened the welfare state, and which gave life to our precious National Health Service.

    It’s why we will fight to the death to save it.

    People came together to change their own lives and the lives of their neighbours. And how did they do it?

    By drawing on compassion for each other and a burning desire to make things better, using the most powerful weapon of all in a democracy: ideas; a piece of paper and a pencil. Cross after cross after cross.

    That was how the Scottish people made their decision last Thursday and that is how the British people will make theirs next May.

    We know how much this matters. We know how hard the fight will be, but conference, we also know that the greatest victories are won in the toughest circumstances.

    So let’s give people hope and let’s go out there and win.

    Thank you.

  • Hilary Benn – 2015 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    hilarybenn

    Below is the text of the speech made by Hilary Benn, the Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, to the 2015 Labour Party conference.

    Good morning Conference.

    I would like to begin by thanking our friend and my predecessor, Douglas Alexander. Douglas gave outstanding service to his constituents and to our Party over many years. We wish him well.

    Conference. At the start of this new century, what do we see as we look around our world?

    Fewer conflicts. Technology transforming and enriching our lives at a blistering pace. The rise of new global powers. Economic and social advance as trade opens minds. But we still face old problems like poverty and new challenges like climate change.

    And one constant remains. The innate human desire to decide for ourselves and our families how we live our lives. The argument for democracy.

    This changing world is at times uncertain but it is also full of possibility, and it calls on us to look outwards.

    And that’s why the choice the British people will make when they vote in the European referendum will be the most important decision for 40 years about our place in the world.

    Thank you Alan for leading Labour’s campaign to stay in and thank you Glenis and our MEPs for the important work you do.

    Together we believe that Britain’s future lies in Europe because whatever the disagreements of today or the changes we want to see tomorrow, it has given us jobs, investment, growth, security, influence in the world and workers’ rights.

    Don’t mess with them, Prime Minister, but be assured that if you do, a future Labour Government in Europe will restore them. We will not be part of a race to the bottom.

    Above all Europe has brought peace to our continent; a continent that has seen enough graveyards filled with the flower of generations who gave their lives in war.

    In our party, in our movement, we understand that our responsibilities extend beyond Britain’s shores. From the struggle against Franco’s fascism in the 1930s to the defeat of Nazi Germany; from the fight against apartheid in South Africa to the protection of the people of Kosovo and Sierra Leone, we have always been proud internationalists.

    Proud to stand in solidarity with those in trouble.

    And determined not to walk by on the other side of the road.

    And so, despite all the progress that humankind has made, when we see the five remaining giant evils of our time – disease, inequality, oppression, war and environmental damage – we have a moral duty to act.

    Earlier this summer we looked in horror at that photograph of Aylan Kurdi lying dead on a Turkish beach, and our eyes filled with tears.

    I think we all felt ashamed. This small and precious child had his whole life before him when his desperate family – victims of a civil war that is raging through Syria – stepped into that boat in search of a better life. They had fled from Kobane – a city in which the BBC reports “every building, home, shop and street is ruined.”

    Each death in this conflict is a rebuke to the world for its failure. We believe in the responsibility to protect, but in Syria no-one has taken responsibility and no-one has been protected.

    Nearly half the population are today no longer living where they were when the civil war broke out.

    Seven and a half million people are internally displaced.

    Four million have fled the country.

    That’s why this is the great humanitarian crisis of our age.

    Britain is second only to the United States in the generosity of its humanitarian aid.

    But that makes it all the more shocking that David Cameron thought that our nation had already done enough when he turned away and said we would not take in any more refugees.

    It was the British people who changed his mind, and now we must change his mind again to offer shelter, not just to families still in the region, but also to the most vulnerable already here in Europe.

    After all, why is a child now in Greece who has safely made the same perilous journey that claimed little Aylan Kurdi’s life any less deserving of our help than a child still in a Syrian refugee camp?

    It is a false choice for the Prime Minister to say we shouldn’t. He’s wrong. We should help both.

    And it is not just the bloody terror of President Assad they are fleeing. It is also ISIL/Daesh whose brutality is as indiscriminate as it is mind-numbing.

    In Syria and Iraq, they have killed Muslims and Christians alike.

    Stoned people to death.

    Thrown gay men off buildings.

    Raped girls and women and sold them in markets.

    Cut the heads off brave humanitarians who only came to help.

    If doing something about this crisis is not one of the great tests of our age, then what is?

    And just as the first responsibility of any government is to ensure the security of its people and to be prepared to defend our nation from those who would do us harm, so we are right to be offering air support to the Government of Iraq in trying to defeat ISIL/Daesh, but let me be clear we do not want British boots on the ground in either Iraq or Syria.

    Now, there’s been a lot of talk about airstrikes in Syria, but to bring peace, stability and security there we need a much broader, more comprehensive plan than just trying to deal with ISIL/Daesh.

    This will require political, diplomatic and humanitarian will too.

    This week the United Nations General Assembly is meeting in New York for the world leaders’ debate.

    Presidents Obama, Putin, Xi Jinping and Rouhani will be among those speaking, but it seems that the UK’s contribution will be made by the Foreign Secretary and not by David Cameron.

    I say to the Prime Minister today that that’s just not good enough. Given the scale of the crisis in Syria he should be staying on in New York and straining every sinew to secure a comprehensive United Nations Security Council Resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter calling for:

    Effective action to end the threat from ISIL/Daesh;

    The creation of Safe Zones in Syria to shelter those who have had to flee their homes;

    The referral of suspected war crimes to the International Criminal Court;

    Increased humanitarian aid to those who have fled to neighbouring states;

    An international agreement for countries to welcome their share of Syrian refugees; and
    A major international effort bringing together Russia, Iran, the neighbouring countries, the Gulf states, the United States of America and Europe to agree a post-civil war plan for Syria.

    It is no longer good enough for the world to say “this is too difficult.”

    Instead we must say “this has got to stop” so that the people of Syria can go home, rebuild their country and give hope to their children for a better future.

    Conference, we live in an increasingly interdependent world in which what happens in one country – as we have seen this summer – will increasingly affect those of us who live in another.

    We are 7.2 billion people today. By the end of this century we will be 11 billion.

    And so, whether it is how we are going to overcome conflict, or poverty or climate change there is a truth we must face.

    If people can no longer live where they were born and brought up because their homes are under water or their crops have failed because it has stopped raining.

    If young people having had the chance to go to school, discover that there is no job for them afterwards.

    If disease means that a mother thinks ‘if only I could get to a country with good health care than I could save my child’s life.’

    If people experience these things and think these things, then they will try to move to find a better life.

    It is after all what human beings have done since the dawn of time.

    The reason why we stand against this inequality in life chances is not only because it is morally right, but also because continuing inequality in our world in this century is unsustainable.

    And so, the fight for freedom from disease, inequality, oppression, war and environmental damage is our fight.  It is the challenge of our age.

    We can end conflict. Look at Angola, look at Northern Ireland, look at what is happening in Colombia today.

    And we must end the conflict in the Middle East, where it is now time for the Palestinian people to have their own state so that they and the people of Israel can live in peace.

    Britain’s voice, Britain’s influence, can and should help make these things happen.

    Because those of us who have enjoyed the benefits of progress have a particular responsibility to use that voice and that influence to help others – our friends and neighbours – with whom we share this small and fragile planet.

    At this Conference nearly 70 years ago, our Prime Minister Clem Attlee said this:

    “We ask for others the freedom that we claim for ourselves. We proclaim this freedom, but we do more. We seek to put it into effect.”

    And that is why Conference, as a country we should reject the siren calls of those who would have us turn our backs on the rest of the world.

    Instead let us proclaim.

    That Britain always has been, is now and always will be an outward facing country.

    That Labour always has been, is now and always will be an internationalist movement.

    And let us stand together – a Party united – ready to play our part in building a better world.

  • Pat McFadden – 2010 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Pat McFadden to the 2010 Labour Party conference.

    It’s a strange thing opposing the Business Department.

    One minute they’re speaking up for business on the immigration cap.

    The next, they’re calling for the abolition of capitalism.

    Who ever said the Liberal Democrats were all things to all people?

    When Britain was hit by the worldwide recession Labour knew that government could not just stand back and let it run its course.

    We saved people from the collapse of the banks.

    Stimulated the economy.

    Put in place a scrappage scheme for a car industry that was on its knees.

    Gave 200,000 businesses extra time to pay their tax bills.

    Business and unions too played their part, accepting pay freezes, s hort time working and other changes.

    In this recession; unemployment, home repossessions and business failures – all about half the level of the early 1990s.

    Don’t let anyone tell you the action we took didn’t make a difference.

    Taking this action wasn’t losing control of public finances – it was helping the country through and we were right to do it because we saved people from the pain of a far greater downturn.

    But as the world tries to recover, people ask, where will the jobs of tomorrow come from?

    Labour must always be a party of wealth creation as well as wealth distribution. Economic prosperity and social justice go hand in hand.

    To achieve both we need successful businesses large and small.

    We have been through an era when first, finance dominated. Then, finance collapsed.

    And we never again want the country to be held to ransom by the banking system.

    The huge rewards at the top of banking are totally out of line with anyone’s sense of fairness or worth. That’s why Labour acted to introduce the levy on bankers’ bonuses.

    But the real test in politics isn’t a rhetorical auction of who can bash the banks most.

    The real test – the issue that matters – is how to get banks lending again to good businesses so that we get the growth and jobs that Britain needs in the future.

    And on that, we have heard precisely nothing from the coalition Government.

    The opportunities for new growth and jobs are there. The shi ft to low carbon. The digital economy. Our brilliant creative industries.

    We should never resign ourselves to Britain being a post-industrial society.

    We stand for both strong manufacturing and great services.

    This isn’t nostalgia. We are still a country that makes things. Every week in my constituency I see firms that do so with pride and skill.

    The Tories and Lib Dems say that if only we cut the state fast enough and hard enough, the private sector will step up to the plate.

    But cut too fast or in the wrong places and you run a risk with recovery and prosperity.

    Around the world, our competitors know that Government has a crucial role in creating the capability a successful economy needs.

    This doesn’t get in the way of jobs and growth. It’s the foundation for jobs and growth.

    You don’t rebalance the economy by cutting £3bn in investment allowances for manufacturing industry.

    And you don’t rebalance the economy by abo lishing the Regional Development Agencies that are providing support for business up and down the country.

    Eight organisations abolished.

    Fifty eight bidding to replace them.

    More bodies chasing less money.

    That’s what they call the bonfire of the quangos.

    And on industry, don’t let the Tories and Lib Dems tell you we were wasting money.

    It wasn’t a waste of money to work with Nissan to make sure their first electric car was built here in Britain in the North East.

    It wasn’t a waste of money to put a loan guarantee in place for Ford to make the next generation of low carbon diesel engines here in Britain.

    And it wasn’t a waste of money to grant the loan to Sheffield Forgemasters to help make Britain a world leader in the civil nuclear supply chain.

    Last week Vince Cable made a speech attacking the banks and arguing for corporate change. Fine. We can agree on a lot of that. But in denying this loan the Government behaved just like the banks they like to attack for not supporting industry.

    So if they really have a Regional Growth Fund of £1 billion why is its first decision not to reinstate the loan to Forgemasters and put this stupid refusal behind us once and for all?

    Conference, together we will keep fighting for this decision to be reversed.

    But having jobs and growth in the future isn’t just about individual companies or sectors.

    It’s about people.

    It’s about giving them a chance to be everything they can be in an age when knowledge is more important than ever.

    Before we came to power – just 60,000 apprenticeships. When we left office – 250,000 – apprenticeships a mainstream part of the labour market again thanks to what we did in Government.

    All around the world countries are sending more young people to university. Yet here some argue that more achievement means lower standards, as if there was just a small lump of talent that had to be shared among the traditional chosen few.

    But more achievement isn’t a decline in standards. It’s people getting chances in life that their parents and grandparents could never have dreamed of. And our movement knows that if you give people a platform, they will achieve.

    There are tough decisions coming about how to pay for Higher Education.

    And it’s right that if we can get more value out of the system we should.

    But I have a message for the ministers in charge who benefited from the best education themselves: stop attacking the goals of more participation in higher education that Labour put in place; don’t pull up the drawbridge up from the generation that comes after you.

    Our economic future isn’t just about how far or how fast we cut.

    It’s also about shaping something anew out of the crisis we have been through.

    Britain isn’t broken.

    We could build a recovery that lasts.

    But it needs a vision for jobs and growth for our economic future.

    It needs belief that more educational opportunity is a goal worth fighting for, not a target to be decried.

    And it needs the will and the resources to make it happen.

  • John McDonnell – Speech to the 2009 PCS Conference Speech

    Below is the text of the speech made by John McDonnell to the Public and Commercial Services Union in 2009.

    Look, thanks, look I’ve got to be brief today, sorry about this, I can’t hang about, I’ve got to get back home, there’s a bloke coming round to do the moat, put up the pergola and tarmac the tennis courts.

    I couldn’t get here the other day for Mark’s rally because I was dealing with the bill on prostitution in parliament, and I’ve learnt a lot, so when I heard that someone had claimed for floating their duck, I thought it was rhyming slang for some bizarre sexual practice.

    You just can’t make this up can you? I was here two-years ago, can you remember? It was the day that I hadn’t got nominated to stand as leader of the Labour party.

    I couldn’t get the nominations, one of the MPs told me that ‘I’d seen your manifesto and I’ve seen your proposal for public expenditure and I can’t nominate you, ‘cos we can’t trust you with the public finances’. You can’t trust this lot with the bloody tea money, let alone the public finances. Unbelievable isn’t it.

    There is a deep sense of irony that when all this scandal on the expenses was beginning to break, parliament, MPs were voting through the welfare reform bill.

    A welfare reform bill where people lose benefits, not for fiddling their benefits, not for fiddling at all but just because they simply don’t turn up for an interview.

    A welfare reform bill, where we are forcing the long term unemployed to work, under workfair proposals where they will work for one pound seventy three an hour, contrast that with the £400 a month that some of the MPs have been spending, two-thousand pounds on plasma television screens, tens of thousands of pounds on mortgages which didn’t even exist.

    Obscene? Of course it is. And no wonder people are pissed off quite honestly, no wonder. I’m angry as well ‘cos they bring us all down, they bring us all down.

    You know the solution isn’t just about sacking the speaker, or a few corrupt, bent politicians, it’s just as the solution to the economic crisis isn’t just about getting rid of a few bankers.

    The solution for this political crisis isn’t just about getting rid of a few MP’s, this is a systemic crisis, it’s a systemic failure.

    And the political and economic crisis are not isolated, they’re two sides of the same corrupt, incompetent, unfair, and un-democratic system in which we live. An economic system which has created grotesque inequalities of wealth.

    A society where 3 million children still live in poverty, whilst the rich pay less in proportion of their taxes than their own cleaners.

    But also it’s a political system which has created vast inequalities of power, why, and we know, we see it everyday, a government permeated by big business.

    Number 10 populated by advisors who have come from big business, lucrative jobs, or are going to lucrative jobs in big business.

    Where we witness the farce of welfare reform, designed for this government by a venture capitalist, someone clearly expert in poverty and it’s experience.

    Where former ministers who have awarded contracts to companies within months of standing down as ministers are employed as consultants by those companies and raking in anything in some instances from 50 and in some instances a 100 thousand pound a year.

    And to be frank with you, where MPs will vote for what ever is put in front of them. What for? Just to be offered the chance of being a bag carrier to a bag carrier.

    And this week, the reason I was in parliament yesterday is a classic example, we had before us a change in the standing orders of parliament, not as enlightening as the last debate I have to say, it was bringing forward a change in standing orders which would allow parliament to debate the new planning policies that the government is bringing forward on, nuclear power, on expansion of airports, on the major infrastructure projects that will design the future of our environment for generations.

    And the government gave us the opportunity to allow us to debate those proposals. So I moved a simple amendment, that when we’ve debated them, can we have a vote. Labour MPs voted against even having a vote. We are voting ourselves virtually into irrelevancy, out of existence.

    And yes, there are issues of morality, but I don’t think we should loose sight of the real morality that’s at stake in government and politics today.

    Yes, be angry at the thousands of pounds that are spent on moats and mortgages and expensive meals. But I tell you, be angrier at the expenditure on immoral wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, and elsewhere, where thousands have died.

    And yes, be angry at the expenditure of tax payers money on their extravagant lifestyles, but be even angrier at the extravagance of spending seventy-three billion pounds on trident when there are 3 million children, and 2 million pensioners still living in poverty.

    And yes, be shocked at how much they consume, the food, the allowances, the TV’s and all the rest, but be more shocked that despite all we know now about climate change, despite all that we know, they are still promoting policies like airport expansion that will consume our planet.

    And yes, be angry, at what they are spending on their second homes, but I tell you, be bloody angrier that after twelve years of a Labour government that hasn’t spent the money to house the 80,000 homeless families that we have in our country.

    Be angry at that. And you know, when they wanted to keep their allowances private, I was angry at the privatisation of the jobs that we’ve seen over the last twelve years. The cuts in a 100,000 workers of this union.

    But I say to you now, let’s not waste that anger, lets not waste it. Don’t waste that demand to change, otherwise this anger would be futile.

    And if it’s diverted solely into stringing up a few MPs, enjoyable as that may be, if it is just diverted into that and the Tories are allowed to use it opportunistically to get them into power, or worse still if the revulsion of political practices of Labour and other MPs delivers people into the hands of the BNP, or even UKIP, that anger and that revulsion will be wasted.

    I think our task, and the task of this union now is to link up with all those others who are angry as well.

    Link up with all those others who want change, to channel the anger that people feel, to channel this exasperation into a demand for change, but real change this time.

    We don’t want just a new parliament. That’s not what we are about. We want a new society. A society that’s based on rights. The rights at work, the right to a decent wage, the right to decent working conditions. The right to be safe at work, and yes to have a say and to be represented and yes, in many instances, to have that say through public and common ownership of our services.

    A society that’s based upon rights at home. A right to a decent home. A right to a decent and clean environment, treatment when our children or members of our family are sick. Free education at all levels. A right to be free from poverty and a society which is fifth richest country in the world.

    And yes, rights in our communities. Community institutions which have the power and resources at local level to tackle the problems that we experience. The need for homes, the need for safe areas, the need for a clean and green environment.

    And yes, a local democracy that isn’t just about marking a ballot paper once every four years, but where we can all have a say and continual basis to change our society.

    But it is also about the rights to control the destiny of our country. To own and democratically control our financial institutions so we can plan the future of our economy so that we no longer suffer the risk, the scourge of approaching 3 million unemployed.

    To own and control our public services which are the foundations of any civilised society.

    Ending the rip-offs and the privatisations. And yes, the right to a parliament elected that is truly representative of our country of all classes.

    A government not appointed by patronage through the prime minister but elected by MPs and ministers elected directly by MPs.

    And I say yes, as a Labour party member, a party which is not a degenerate bureaucracy, but a party where members take back the power to select their candidates to determine their policies and their programs and elect the party’s officers. And yes maybe just occasionally to elect the leader of the party in a democratic ballot.

    This is just the start of this debate. The crisis can be exploited and will be exploited by the Tories and the fascists or we can harness the powerful surge of anger and revulsion amongst the people to determine that new society that we want. How do we go forward?

    Well there’s various discussions and proposals. Some like Compass and the Guardian and others are calling for an immediate debate.

    But that debate they want to contain within the political elite.

    The political class, the very people who have corrupted our system so far. They are looking for some form of self-interested rotation within that elite. That sort of discussion, I think, is absolutely meaningless and ineffectual.

    These are the very people who gave us Blair, supported Brown and now deifying Alan Johnson. All of them voted for the same wars, the same privatisations, the same attacks on our civil liberties and yes are now voting for policies that will cut our jobs, our services and yes even attack the poor on benefits.

    And its interesting isn’t it. That there’s a consensus almost across all of them, all the political parties now. It’s a consensus that the economic crisis will be paid for by us, not them. Paid for by cuts in services, cuts in jobs, more unemployment, cuts in wages, and yes, and then they come for your pension.

    We need now new voices. We need new political formations which reflect the breadth of the challenge to the status quo and to these vested interests. The government is talked about, and the prime minister is talked about convening conventions about parliamentary reform.

    My view is that this change will only come about, not through parliament, not through MP’s, not through prime ministers but through us, through the people themselves, and I think PCS has a fundamental role working with others. We set up the trade union co-ordinating group to work with other unions.

    Why don’t we invite other unions with us, to convene our own conventions? Invite other trade unionists from all unions, but also organisations that are campaigning in every policy field for the same changes we demand.

    Why don’t we link up with all those others who are demanding fundamental change, the campaigners on climate change, the groups demanding decent incomes, decent pensions, the families who have got no homes, the asylum seekers, the most oppressed within our society, the cleaners on poverty wages that we mentioned earlier today in the debate.

    The teachers, the public sector workers, the ones who are facing the cuts in privatisation, the people at the sharp end. They are the ones who should determine the new society that we want to create.

    And it will mean new structures, new alliances, new formations, new methods for mobilising the demand for change. That’s what we need.

    And you know it isn’t just about electoral politics. I tell you wherever necessary, wherever it is needed, it may mean direct action if parliament fails to give us a choice we have to relocate democracy from parliament onto the picket line and onto the streets.

    If it comes to it, we have to seize the power again that the MPs themselves have so distorted. We can’t be spectators as party leaders and media commentators try to prop up this system which is so degenerate.

    It’s time for us to seize the moment. Its time for us to seize the moment for change, and it takes courage, it takes courage to stand against the stream.

    But if we don’t unite, if we don’t call upon others, if we don’t unite with all of those who are angry like us, all those who are coming under attack, all those who are entering into struggle already, if we don’t do that, they’ll simply reform the system, tidy up the expenses, give themselves all a wage rise, stuff their pockets yet again and carry on as before.

    That’s not acceptable to our members, it shouldn’t be acceptable to us, so the demand we want now is change led by the people.

    It’s about restoring democracy to the people themselves, it’s about getting rid of this degenerate bureaucratic system that we have, and restoring the rights that people demand.

    Real rights to a decent home, a decent environment, a decent job, a decent education, a decent health service and security in the long term.

    We as a union have always demonstrated that we are capable of leading that demand for change. From this conference, let’s put out that call to all those other unions and all those other organisations that want change like us to unite with us for this creation, not of a new parliament, but of new politics and a new society. That’s the challenge, let’s seize it. Solidarity.

  • Ian McCartney – 2000 Speech to TUC Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Ian McCartney to the 2000 TUC Conference in Glasgow.

    On the quay, just opposite, which you will see, that was where I, at the age of 15, joined my first iron ore carrier and went to sea as a member of the National Union of Seamen. After three weeks I thought I had better have a career change when I came back. But it was an all too short visit to look at places far and wide.

    Last year, a few days after we presented these awards, my son died. It was the strength and support of the letters, phone calls and the friendship from trade unions and trade unionists across Britain which helped me and my family through the past difficult year. With your generosity of spirit and also your generosity in financial terms, in this City today, there are four projects up and running now to assess young people who have got a drug, alcohol or abuse problem. With your generosity, there will be young people who will be alive today who may not have been. I want to thank you on behalf of my family for that generosity.

    Colleagues, I am known for my diplomatic skills. When I was in the DTI I had to go to Japan to meet our colleagues there, and I went to a factory which made robots. The Japanese are very proud of their robots. In front of the assembled workforce was the president of the company, and I was asked to watch robots playing traditional Japanese drums. I just knew that at the end of it he was going to ask me what I thought of this, and being a diplomat, at the end of it when we all cheered and clapped the robots, I said to him, “When they can play the bagpipes, come back and see us”.

    Colleagues, I hope this morning is going to be as much a credit as it was last year. There are three awards; the Women’s Gold Badge, the Men’s Gold Badge and the Youth Award. The recipients are the embodiment of all that is good in the labour movement, representing without fear or favour their fellow workers. Day in, day out, month in, month out, year after year, they have represented workers in their place of work, promoting good practice, promoting the cause of trade unionism and promoting the skills and abilities of their fellow workers, and sometimes they do it at their personal cost. So the awards today to the three people concerned are not just personal awards to them but a recognition to the tens of thousands of men and women who each and every day go about their jobs on behalf of our movement, without whom we would not have the strong, vibrant movement that we have today. So it is a recognition to both them and to the movement as a whole.

    Being a trade union representative is not an easy task. Yes, it has been a bit easier in the past year as trade union membership has increased and employers are recognising more the worth of the trade unions in the workplace, but there will never be a day when every employer will be on board for collective representation in the workplace. It is like painting the Fourth Bridge – when you get to the end you have to start again. That is why it is important that we recognise the worth of our members, because it is our members who gather the strength of the Movement, year in and year out, with employers large and small across the country. So, it is a privilege for someone like me to be asked to come and preside over these awards.

    The words which I have been given this morning, are about three very special people. They are not my words but the words of their fellow representatives from the T&G, the GMB and the MSF. It is what their fellow workers, their fellow trade unionists, think about their contribution, and that is why these words are most powerful.

    Let me tell you, John and Rita, that I have been head-hunted by the CBI. They have offered me a full-time job. At the last meeting of the CBI, Digby Jones said, “I think it is time you came and worked here full-time”. Thompson raised a finger, and he said, “Perhaps we should ask someone to give us a resum’e of this man’s career. Perhaps we should ask someone to give him a reference”. This was agreed. Somebody leaked it to John Monks and John Monks passed it to me last night. I will read it to you. This is a letter to Digby Jones. “I saw Ian on Question Time last night. He is a most ignorant, arrogant, lying, uncaring, hypocritical, bombastic, thieving little sod this nation has ever seen.” This is a reference for a job at the CBI. “I would not trust him with my dog. A disgusted Peter Mandelson.” So I will stick with my day job in the Cabinet Office at the moment and work part-time for the TUC at weekends.

  • Theresa May – 2014 Defence and Security Lecture

    theresamay

    Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, at the Mansion House in London on 24th June 2014.

    Thank you, Lord Mayor. I am delighted to have been invited to speak at this prestigious event and to such a distinguished audience. I am particularly pleased to be here at the Mansion House, given the history of policing in the City and the work you do with the Government and others in the fight against terrorism and organised crime.

    Tonight I want to talk about the balance between privacy and security but in the full context of the threats we face – because too often, these important issues are discussed in a strange vacuum as if the debate was entirely academic.

    The threats we face are considerable: the collapse of Syria; the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant; Boko Harm in Nigeria; al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen; like minded groups in Libya; al Shabaab in East Africa; terrorist planning in Pakistan and Afghanistan; industrial, military and state espionage practised by states and businesses alike; organised crime that crosses national boundaries; the expanding scope of cyber. All these threats and many more should remind us of an obvious old truth. The world is a dangerous place and the United Kingdom needs the capabilities to defend its interests and protect its citizens.

    This task is, of course, becoming more complicated. The evolution of the internet and modern forms of communication provide those who would do us harm with new options; they provide those who would protect us – the police, the security and intelligence agencies, the National Crime Agency and others – with new challenges. And they have kicked off new debates about the balance between privacy and security.

    The role of the Home Secretary in approving surveillance

    I want to start by telling you about a part of my job that nobody really knows about. It is a responsibility that is rarely discussed but it perhaps occupies more of my time as Home Secretary than anything else.

    It is my statutory responsibility to give careful consideration to applications for warrants from the police, the National Crime Agency, the intelligence agencies and other law enforcement bodies to undertake the most sensitive forms of surveillance – surveillance that includes the interception of electronic communications and monitoring private conversations.

    If the Security Service wants to place a device in the property of a terrorist suspect, or the National Crime Agency wants to listen to the telephone calls of a drugs trafficker, they need my agreement first. On the basis of a detailed warrant application and advice from officials in my department I must be satisfied that the benefits justify the means and that the proposed action is necessary and proportionate.

    The warrant application gives me the intelligence background, the means by which the surveillance will take place, and the degree of intrusion upon the citizen. Neither the Security Service nor other intelligence agencies, nor the police, nor other law enforcement agencies, can undertake sensitive surveillance without providing these details and gaining my approval. Ministerial oversight – which I share with the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – is a crucial safeguard to make sure that the most intrusive powers are used only when they are necessary and proportionate.

    In a typical week, I consider warrant applications against organised criminals involved in drugs, guns and money laundering. I consider warrant applications against people suspected of terrorism. Those applications include intelligence relating to modern slavery, gang violence, kidnapping, intimidation and corruption.

    They inform me about terrorist plots that could kill innocent civilians and damage our economy. Many applications now relate to events in Syria and the plans young British people have to travel there to fight. Some applications concern attempts to proliferate chemical biological and sometimes even nuclear technology. Threats in cyber space – from organised criminals and hostile foreign states – are increasingly common.

    I do not take my responsibilities lightly. I approve warrants only on the basis of detailed intelligence and a reasoned explanation of their likely benefit. Sometimes I demand more information before taking a decision or I make my approval conditional. On some occasions I refuse the application. But the lessons from this daily inflow of detailed intelligence work are clear.

    Our country has faced these threats before and the intelligence agencies, the police and other law enforcement agencies have worked brilliantly to contain them. They have done so not through inspired guesswork but by using sensitive capabilities and skills developed over many years.

    This government has preserved individual freedom while defending national security

    So I make decisions about the specific use of capabilities every day. But I am also responsible for broader government policy that dictates what powers should be available to the authorities and what safeguards should be in place. And since the formation of this government in 2010 we have made a series of changes because we concluded that some powers were unnecessary and unduly intrusive.

    We reduced the upper limit on pre-charge detention for terror suspects by half – from 28 days to 14 days. We replaced control orders – which had been defeated consistently and watered down in the courts – with new measures which better balance the need to control with the overriding priority to prosecute. We cut the time an individual can be examined at our ports and borders under counter-terrorism laws.

    We have ended the indiscriminate use of no-suspicion stop-and-search powers granted by the Terrorism Act 2000. And one of the first things I did as Home Secretary was scrap ID cards and destroy the identity database.

    Where we believe the authorities need sensitive and intrusive powers we have increased oversight of their use. We have given greater authority to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament to scrutinise in far more detail the operational activity of all the security and intelligence agencies – MI5, MI6 and GCHQ – and to publish their reports. We are making changes to the rules that govern undercover policing. We have new controls on the use of biometric material. We have stopped local authorities using electronic communications data and other surveillance techniques to deal with a raft of relatively trivial problems.

    If we take this opportunity to take stock, it is fair to conclude that this government has performed well in preserving individual freedom while defending our national security. But you might not believe that if you listen to some of the things that are said in the debate about privacy and security.

    It is alleged that there is a programme of mass surveillance on people in this country; that our intelligence agencies are acting illegally; that there is no effective oversight or control of their activities. It is said that our powers are not only disproportionate but ineffective, that they do not stop terrorist attacks or other serious crimes.

    And while we are accused of overstating the threats we face, it is said that the theft and disclosure of sensitive material about the capabilities we have has caused no damage to our national security.

    The public is at risk of being misled. It is important that people hear the truth about each of these allegations, because we cannot afford a loss of faith in the vital work of the security and intelligence agencies, and because we need public support and public trust if we are to win the argument about capability.

    There is no programme of mass surveillance

    Let me start by saying this: there is no programme of mass surveillance and there is no surveillance state. Surveillance of this nature would be illegal, and I only ever sign warrants for limited and specific proposals. If anybody ever attempted any form of mass surveillance, internal controls and external oversight would detect it and stop it and the perpetrators would be prosecuted.

    We should be clear about what this accusation actually means. Mass surveillance would require the pervasive and thorough observation of huge numbers of people living in this country.

    The very idea that we could or would want to monitor everyone and all their communications, trawling at will through their private lives, is absurd.

    Signals intelligence relies on automated and remote access to data on the internet and other communications systems. Computers search for only the communications relating to a small number of suspects under investigation. Once the content of these communications has been identified, and only then, is it is examined by a trained analysts. And every step of the way it is governed by strict rules, checked against Human Rights Act requirements.

    That is not mass surveillance.

    You do not have to take my word for it. We have an Interception Commissioner whose job it is to monitor the use of powers of interception and collect communications data by all the agencies, including GCHQ. The Commissioner is a man of unimpeachable independent standing. He is the former Court of Appeal judge, Sir Anthony May.

    His last annual report, which was published in April, explains that interception requires a warrant from a Secretary of State and must be for a purpose specified in law. There are three such purposes: national security, serious crime and economic well-being when it is related directly to state security. As Sir Anthony says, it would be unlawful to issue a warrant for any other purpose.

    In fact, he concludes that “any member of the public who does not associate with potential terrorists or serious criminals or individuals who are potentially involved in action which could raise national security issues for the UK can be assured that none of the interception agencies which I inspect has the slightest interest in examining their emails, their phone or postal communications or their use of the internet, and they do not do so to any extent which could reasonably be regarded as significant.”

    He could not be any clearer – there is no mass surveillance programme.

    The intelligence agencies do not act illegally

    Our critics also allege that the intelligence agencies take advantage of the relationship with their counterparts in the United States to seek intelligence which they cannot obtain legally in the UK.

    It is certainly true that we benefit hugely from the intelligence relationships we enjoy with the US and other allies. They have often provided the crucial early warning of terrorist plots against us. They are essential to the protection of this country and we could not do without them.

    In this country we do not just have laws governing the use of sensitive capabilities – we also have laws governing the acquisition of information from other countries. Our intelligence agencies – MI5, MI6 and, yes, GCHQ – cannot ask their counterparts overseas to undertake activity that would be unlawful if they conducted it themselves.

    This matters, especially in the context of electronic communications. It has been alleged that our agencies rely on their counterparts overseas – notably those in the United States – to provide them with intercepted communications unlawfully. This is – quite simply – untrue.

    And again, you do not have to take my word for it. The Intelligence and Security Committee reviewed GCHQ’s alleged use of interception material from the US PRISM programme and concluded that “in each case where GCHQ sought information from the US, a warrant for interception, signed by a Minister, was already in place, in accordance with the legal safeguards contained in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.”

    Sir Anthony May has also looked at this allegation and he concluded: “British intelligence agencies do not circumvent domestic oversight regimes by receiving from US agencies intercept material about British citizens which could not lawfully be acquired by intercept in the UK.”

    I know that some people have alleged that GCHQ is exploiting a technical loophole in legislation that allows them to intercept external communications – that is, communications either sent or received outside the United Kingdom – at will and without authorisation. This is also nonsense. The definition of external communications was set out clearly in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. It is not new, it is not hidden and it is clear that the interception of external communications by GCHQ requires warrants. They are not signed by me but by the Foreign Secretary. And those warrants have to be accompanied by a certificate, also signed by the Foreign Secretary, that sets out what intelligence analysts in GCHQ are permitted to examine. So there is no loophole and no illegal activity.

    There is effective oversight of the agencies

    Many of the criticisms of the security and intelligence agencies are based on an assumption that there is only very limited – and ineffective – oversight of what they do. It is often implied that oversight is only provided by ministers and the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. This is also wrong.

    Safeguards are built into the system at every level. Oversight begins with each and every employee engaged in operational work in the agencies. Their training about legal issues and compliance is detailed and a matter of course. The agencies’ operating systems are designed to control and limit access to intelligence rather than facilitate it. The work that the agencies do is checked, double-checked and checked again.

    I have already explained my role and the role of other ministers in approving applications for warrants. I have also mentioned the Interception Commissioner. There are also Commissioners for the Intelligence Services and for Surveillance. Like Sir Anthony May, they are also former members of the senior judiciary, they are entirely independent, and they publish annual reports. There is also the independent reviewer of terrorist legislation – a position established by statute, with a duty to report to the public on the operation of our counter-terrorism legislation. The reviewer is independent of government, but has access to the most sensitive security information. The position was occupied first by Lord Carlile and now by David Anderson, both of whom are as independent as they are expert in the law.

    Last year, when we proposed new legislation relating to access to communications data – which is something I have mentioned already and to which I will return later – a Joint Scrutiny Committee of both Houses of Parliament was established to examine the case for the legislation. In doing so, they heard evidence from a wide range of witnesses, including from the security and intelligence agencies and of course the Home Office.

    I have already noted how the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament has been given an extended remit and more staff to inspect the work of the agencies. They are, for example, due to report on the circumstances surrounding the terrorist murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in May last year. Their investigation has been extraordinarily thorough and extensive, and the agencies have had to submit huge volumes of material. The agencies’ heads and staff have been questioned at great length. And of course the Committee is working on its own report on issues about privacy and security.

    There is also an Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which hears complaints about the activities of the agencies. The Panel is about to consider a legal challenge against aspects of the interception and signals intelligence regime, for example. The Government has submitted and agreed to publish fifty pages of evidence.

    This is a comprehensive system of checks and balances with a clear role for elected ministers and Parliamentarians to provide democratic accountability – and I do not believe it is surpassed by any other country.

    Our powers and capabilities are necessary and effective

    The fourth criticism of the security and intelligence agencies is that their sensitive powers and capabilities are not only disproportionate but ineffective, that they do not stop terrorist attacks or other serious crimes.

    We have been asked repeatedly to respond to this criticism by laying out in public and in full our secret capabilities and the effects they have had. In particular we are asked where and when and how terrorist attacks have been stopped. We are asked to submit this information for scrutiny not in Parliament but in public; not by our elected representatives but by unelected, unaccountable and self-appointed arbiters of our national security; not with respect for the need for secrecy but with a cavalier and reckless transparency.

    We cannot and will not do so. If we did we would only damage the capabilities we have to protect our country. What we have done and what we will continue to do is set out our capabilities and the benefits they bring – and we will set them out to the people who have the legal and constitutional duty to provide oversight of these necessarily secret activities.

    Those people are the Interception Commissioner, the Intelligence Services Commissioner and the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. We will give the Committee all the information they need to do their job, and we will do everything we can to allow them to report on these matters in detail.

    And the crucial fact here is that in all their recent reports and evidence, the Commissioners and the Intelligence and Security Committee conclude that the capabilities of the security and intelligence agencies are necessary, effective and used in a responsible way.

    We can be more open and explicit about the benefits of communications data because some of this data – which is obtained by the police and others from communications service providers – can be used as evidence by the Crown Prosecution Service in our courts. As I have said before, it is estimated that communications data is used in 95 per cent of all serious and organised crime cases handled by the Crown Prosecution Service. And it has been used in every single major terrorist investigation over the last ten years. Access to communications data is vital for combating crime and fighting terrorism. We would not be able to keep our country safe without it.

    The threat we face is real and it is deadly

    For a long time, we have been criticised for overstating the threats we face. We need to remember some facts. Between September 2001 and the end of 2013, more than 2,500 people were arrested for terrorist offences in this country. Almost 400 people have been convicted for terrorism-related offences. We have disrupted more than one major attack in this country each year since 2005 and many more overseas.

    The terrorist threats to this country and our interests are changing faster than at any time since 9/11. We continue to face possible attacks by al Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But we face further threats from Syria and now from Iraq where al Qaida, ISIL and others have created a safe haven with substantial resources including advanced technology and weapons. They are on the doorstep of Europe, just a few hours flying time from London, and they want to attack us – not just in Syria or Iraq but here in Britain.

    Many hundreds of people from our country have travelled to Syria to fight against the Assad regime. They have ended up fighting for terrorist groups, often against other parts of the opposition rather than against the Syrian government. Some of them will present a real danger to us when they return to Britain.

    The investigation of these people will require all of our sensitive capabilities and the skills and resources of the agencies and police. It will involve the further use of the powers I have through the Royal Prerogative to remove people’s passports to stop them travelling – and in a smaller number of cases, I am prepared to use my powers to deprive people with dual citizenship of their British nationality.

    We need to focus all aspects of our counter-terrorist strategy on the problem – pursuing groups who are plotting against us; preventing people from being drawn into extremism and terrorism; and protecting our borders and infrastructure.

    Organised crime is changing as fast as terrorism. Because of the nature of financial and economic crime, those of you who work here in the City are more aware of these developments than many others. Crime is moving online. Cyber techniques enable organised criminals to carry out crimes from remote locations, often in other countries. They operate at a scale and speed and from a distance that has not previously been possible. I have every confidence in the strategy we have developed to deal with organised crime and in the capacity of our new National Crime Agency. But the threats faced by the NCA are formidable.

    In front of this audience I do not want to spend more time pointing out the inadequacy of the argument that the threats we face are overstated. But I do want to make this related observation: those who make this claim find it easy to argue that the disclosure of sensitive capabilities used by the police and intelligence agencies has caused no damage. If you don’t believe in the threat then of course you can be frivolous about the capabilities intended to contain it. Indeed, we are sometimes asked to believe that the disclosure of our capabilities has served a public good.

    The fact is that since the theft of NSA and GCHQ documents, and since the allegations about their secret capabilities contained in those documents were made public, this country is at greater risk than it was before.

    Maintaining capabilities in a digital age

    It is right that we have a debate about security and privacy. But that debate must start with a sensible and considered assessment of the threats we and other democratic states face. As events in Syria and Iraq show, we cannot wish those threats away. If we do not base this hugely important debate upon the threats, nothing we do will seem necessary or proportionate.

    We then need to be clear about our capabilities and the challenges we face in maintaining them in a digital age. I want to make three points about this.

    First, we are living more of our lives online, using an array of new technology – IP telephony such as Skype and Facetime, social networking such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, chat rooms, anonymising services, and a myriad of mobile apps. This is hugely liberating and a great opportunity for economic growth, but this technology has become essential not just to the likes of you and me but to organised criminals and terrorists.

    Second, the new technology is generally owned and operated not by states but by communications companies. They are global and they exercise considerable power. They collect data from their services about our online activity and they often use it for commercial purposes. It is often bought and sold. These companies affect – I might even say intrude upon – our lives and our privacy every single day. They can drive a car up your road and put an image of your home online for the world to observe. Of course, they do not need a warrant to do so.

    Third – and I cannot emphasise this point enough – far from having some fictitious mastery over all this technology we, in democratic states, face the significant risk of being caught out by it. Governments have always reserved the power to monitor communications and to collect data about communications when it is necessary and proportionate to do so.

    It is much harder now – there is more data, we do not own it and we can no longer always obtain it. I know some people will say “hurrah for that” – but the result is that we are in danger of making the internet an ungoverned, ungovernable space, a safe haven for terrorism and criminality.

    I know some people like the thought that the internet should become a libertarian paradise, but that will entail complete freedom not just for law-abiding people but for terrorists and criminals. I do not believe that is what the public wants. Loss of capability – not mass surveillance nor illegal and unaccountable behaviour – is the great danger we face.

    And that danger is already upon us. We no longer have capabilities upon which we have always relied. Let me give one example. Over a six-month period the National Crime Agency alone estimates that it has had to drop at least twenty cases as a result of missing communications data. Thirteen of these were threat-to-life cases in which a child was assessed to be at risk of imminent harm.

    The truth about the way the privacy and security debate has been presented is that it creates myths that hide serious and pressing difficulties. The real problem is not that we have built an over-mighty state but that the state is finding it harder to fulfil its most basic duty, which is to protect the public.

    That is why I have said before and I will go on saying that we need to make changes to the law to maintain the capabilities we need. Yes, we have to make sure that the capabilities can only be used with the right authorisation and with appropriate oversight. But this is quite simply a question of life and death, a matter of national security. We must keep on making the case until we get the changes we need.

    Thank you.

  • Theresa May – 2014 Speech on Chinese Visas

    theresamay

    Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, on Chinese visas.  The speech was made at the UK Chinese Visa Alliance event on 16th June 2014.

    I am very pleased to be joining you for this evening’s event.

    Today the UK China Visa Alliance launches its report “Building on Progress” which examines ways the UK can continue to attract ever greater numbers of Chinese visitors to this country.

    The spending power brought about by China’s economic revolution provides us with enormous opportunities. This week the Prime Minister will be welcoming the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang to the UK so that we can continue to strengthen the link between our two countries.

    This continuing closeness is something we all want to see in many areas including tourism. Visit Britain estimates that every Chinese tourist to the UK spends on average £2500. So there is direct economic value. But there is also enormous value in increasing cultural ties, and the potential impact that holds for future education, investment and the success of British brands in the Chinese market.

    I want to see increasing numbers of Chinese visitors enjoying all the fantastic tourist attractions across the UK from the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace and the Lake District and the magnificent scenery in Scotland and Wales.

    I know many of you here – hoteliers, restaurateurs, retailers, and all those involved in the tourism industry – work extremely hard to ensure that all tourist and business travellers have a great experience when they visit Britain.

    So I want to thank you for all that you do to show them everything this country has to offer, particularly those of you that are part of the GREAT China Welcome programme.

    We have a good story to tell

    At the Home Office we have listened to the views of British businesses, travel companies and Chinese customers and have taken steps to improve our visa service – and as a result we are seeing record numbers of Chinese visitors flocking to the UK.

    In 2013 we issued more than 290,000 visitor visas to Chinese nationals, up nearly 40% on 2012.

    Chinese nationals who apply for a British visa are very likely to get one – with 96% of Chinese visit visas approved.

    And of all the UK’s visa operations, in 2013 we saw the biggest increase in visitor numbers from China.

    And I just want to address some of the myths we still hear about visas. It’s not true for example that last year we issued fewer visitor visas than Belgium. It’s not true that we are miles behind France – last year we issued only slightly fewer visas to Chinese tourists than they did. And in fact we are gaining ground on Schengen countries – because last year the number of visit visas granted by the UK grew faster than France in particular and Schengen countries overall.

    So the message is clear: Britain is open to Chinese tourists and business travellers who are most welcome when they come here.

    Our Chinese visa system provides an excellent service

    Many of the changes we have introduced to our Chinese visa service are ensuring it really is first class.

    We have upgraded, expanded and branded our Visa Application Centres in China to increase capacity and strengthen our welcome. We have 12 centres across the major cities – more than any other country.

    We have made our processes less bureaucratic.

    And we continue to provide a service that is easy to access, ensures fast-turn around times, and provides fast-track priority services for those that want them.

    In fact – most Chinese nationals applying for a non-settlement UK visa will have one issued in just over seven days – with 98% of visit visas issued within our 15 working day target.

    Moreover, Approved Destination Scheme visit visas are processed in an average of just over five days.

    In the last year many of the initiatives we have introduced are proving increasingly popular.

    Those who want their visa issued quickly can choose the 3 to 5 day priority visa service – in July last year 11,000 customers used this service.

    We have brought in a Passport Pass Back service so that customers can retain their passport while their UK visa application is being processed.

    And we have introduced a VIP Mobile Visa Service for high-value travellers who would like the convenience of visa staff going directly to them to collect the biometric data necessary for a visa.

    Over the last five months we have delivered this service in three new locations in response to demand and we continue to expand and promote its reach.

    All these changes are working. They provide greater flexibility and choice. And we know they have been welcomed by many travellers and tour operators in China. In fact, China Perfect Travel in Beijing told us: Chinese tourists are “very welcome” in the UK and that “obtaining a visa has become much easier.”

    But there is more we can do, and we are doing it

    But I know we cannot afford to rest on our laurels.

    As China’s economy continues to grow, tapping into the potential that offers is vital to the UK. And we must ensure we can attract a healthy share of the increasing numbers of Chinese tourists. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, Chinese tourists spent nearly £63 billion on foreign travel in 2012, topping the tourist spend of any country. And this spend is set to rise substantially potentially to around £120 billion by 2015 according to Morgan Stanley.

    I know many people have argued that Britain should join Schengen.

    But I have been absolutely clear that I do not believe this is the answer.

    The reason a Schengen visa is valid for 26 countries is because there are no border controls between these countries.

    Our border controls in northern France and Belgium are absolutely vital in ensuring we only allow those we want to come to the UK to enter. We must ensure a migration system that commands public confidence, serves our economic interest, and protects the UK from immigration abuse.

    The use of biometric data helps us to strengthen control of our borders, confirming identity and giving us greater assurance around the background of those who want to come here.

    But while I have said we will not be joining Schengen, there are a range of other things we can do.

    So today I want to tell you about our latest initiatives.

    This August we will be launching a super priority 24 hour visa service which will dramatically speed-up the process for those who want to have a visa issued quickly. We are the only European country to offer this – a testament I believe to the Government’s determination to ensure we have a truly first class visa service on offer.

    We have also made significant improvements to our online application process. Later this month we will trial a new application service in China. It will be simpler, more user-friendly, with translated and intuitive questions, asking customers only those necessary for their individual application. It will be launched on our new improved website, and is as easy to complete on a mobile or tablet as it is on a desktop computer.

    Schengen

    But most importantly, we are working to make it much easier for Chinese people to visit the UK and mainland Europe on the same trip.

    Last year a pilot scheme which enabled tour operators to operate from a single application form in processing UK and Schengen visa applications proved highly successful. We will be extending it to all Chinese visitors applying to the UK starting this summer with independent travellers. Now those applying online will be able to automatically generate a partially completed Schengen form at the same time as completing their UK application.

    This helps to align the process of applying for a UK visa with the Schengen visa process – and I would like us to seek further alignment with Schengen applications.

    Talks are ongoing with European partners about further streamlining visa processes with Schengen arrangements to make trips to the UK even easier for Chinese visitors.

    Currently, we are exploring the development of a “single Visa Application Centre visit” concept which would enable customers who visit a UK application centre to submit both UK and Schengen visa applications at the same time.

    Although, of course, progress will be dependent on getting the agreement of a Schengen partner.

    And finally, I am very pleased to announce a new joint British/Irish Visa Scheme – which will allow Chinese visitors with an Irish visa to travel to Britain, or with a British visa to travel to Ireland – without the need for a separate visa.

    This arrangement will greatly improve both the British and the Irish offer to Chinese visitors and I hope will encourage ever greater numbers to explore both of these beautiful, vibrant, richly cultured island nations. The British/Irish Visa Scheme will also be launched in India.

    As I said earlier, we have a good story to tell. The Government is playing its part. But by working together we can do more to improve our appeal to Chinese visitors.

    The cross Government marketing campaign – GREAT – is helping to sell Britain as a great tourist destination to overseas travellers.

    But I would like to see all those in the tourist industry helping to pitch Britain as a great place to visit – not only to increase the numbers of visitors, but to encourage those who do visit to stay here longer, and to spend more money in our hotels, at tourist attractions and on luxury goods. Alongside the group tours we know the Chinese independent travel sector is growing and we can do more to appeal to that sector too. It is important that we all provide a clear, unambiguous welcome.

    Part of that appeal is making sure Chinese visitors know about the improved UK visitor visa service that’s on offer – and that all of us work together to dispel the persistent myths that we still hear and that can put people off.

    Conclusion

    Britain is a hugely attractive tourism destination – and these changes along with the fantastic visa service we already have in place will encourage even more visitors from China to discover it for themselves.

    Having a visa system is vital to protecting Britain’s borders. But I want to make sure we have a system which is as efficient as possible in welcoming tourists and business people from around the world.

    Britain is open to the brightest and best. And we are open to Chinese visitors who want to come and enjoy all the fantastic sights and experiences this great country has to offer.

  • Theresa May – 2014 Speech to Police Federation Conference

    theresamay

    Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, to the Police Federation Conference held at the Bournemouth International Conference on 21st May 2014.

    The police must change and so must the Federation

    This is my fifth address to the annual Police Federation conference. In each of my previous speeches, I’ve had to deliver some pretty tough messages. I know you haven’t always liked what I’ve had to say. And to be honest, you haven’t always been the easiest of audiences. But I want to start by saying this.

    When I first addressed you, back in 2010, I explained to you that there would be tough times ahead. It’s easy to forget now, but when this government was formed, we had just been through the worst financial disaster since the war. We faced the biggest budget deficit in our peacetime history. We had a higher deficit than countries like Portugal and Greece, both of whom had to be bailed out by the European Union and whose economies continue to languish.

    So I told you that we needed to be honest about dealing with the debt crisis and that doing so would mean police spending cuts. But I also told you that as Home Secretary I would be tough on crime, I would give you the powers you need to get the job done, and, as a government, we would do everything possible to maintain a strong police presence on our streets.

    I know many of you were sceptical. I know you meant it when you said that spending cuts would destroy the police as we know it, that the front line service would be ruined and that crime would go shooting up.

    I know that delivering those spending cuts has been hard and of course they have come at a price. We’ve changed your pay and conditions, we’ve reformed your pensions, and, yes, there are fewer officers employed overall. I understand the sacrifices you have made. But today we can say with confidence that spending cuts have not ended policing as we know it, the front line service has largely been maintained, and most important of all – according to both recorded crime statistics and the independent crime survey – crime is down by more than 10% since the election. So I want to thank every police officer and staff member in the country for getting on with the job and helping to deliver that reduction in crime.

    Officers remembered

    And I want to take this opportunity too to remember the officers who have fallen while on duty in the last year. PC Shazahan Wadud; DC Adrian Grew; PC Andrew Duncan; and PC Mick Chapman. They died serving their communities, and we honour their memory.

    Police bravery

    It was good to be reminded by Steve Williams during his speech of the police bravery awards. What strikes me is not just the bravery shown by individual officers but the fact that everyone says in a matter of fact way they were just doing their job. The public owe all those who do that job day in and out a debt of gratitude.

    Policing by consent

    Nearly 200 years ago, Sir Robert Peel founded the Metropolitan Police and declared, “the police are the public and the public are the police.” Today, everybody in policing – from the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to the newest recruit on the frontline – is familiar with those famous words. They are the unofficial motto of the British model of policing and they say very clearly that in this country we believe in policing by consent. It is a principle we all take pride in, and it is the duty of us all to protect and preserve it.

    That’s why, if there is anybody in this hall who doubts that our model of policing is at risk, if there is anybody who underestimates the damage recent events and revelations have done to the relationship between the public and the police, if anybody here questions the need for the police to change, I am here to tell you that it‟s time to face up to reality.

    For the Federation has gathered here in Bournemouth at a time of great difficulty for policing. In the last few years, we have seen the Leveson Inquiry. The appalling conclusions of the Hillsborough independent panel. The death of Ian Tomlinson and the sacking of PC Harwood. The ongoing inquiry by an independent panel into the murder of Daniel Morgan. The first sacking of a chief constable for gross misconduct in modern times. The investigation of more than ten senior officers for acts of alleged misconduct and corruption.

    Allegations of rigged recorded crime statistics. The sacking of PCs Keith Wallis, James Glanville and Gillian Weatherley after “Plebgate”. Worrying reports by the inspectorate about stop and search and domestic violence. The Herne Review into the conduct of the Metropolitan Police Special Demonstration Squad. The Ellison Review into allegations of corruption during the investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Further allegations that the police sought to smear Stephen‟s family. Soon, there will be another judge-led public inquiry into policing.

    Then there is the role of the Federation itself, which as Sir David Normington said in his review, needs to change from “top to bottom”. We’ve seen accusations of bullying, a lack of transparency in the accounts, questionable campaign tactics, infighting between branches, huge reserve funds worth millions of pounds, and a resounding call for change from your members – with 91% saying things cannot go on as they are.

    It would be the easiest thing in the world for me to turn a blind eye to these matters, to let things go on as they are, to deny the need for change. It would be the easy thing to do, but it would also be the wrong thing to do, because I would be letting down the people in whose interests I am elected and you are employed to serve.

    I say this not – as I‟ve heard it said by some of you before – because I want to run down the police, but because I want the police to be the best it can be. I want you – the representatives of the thousands of decent, dedicated, honest police officers – to show the public that you get it, that you want to take responsibility for the future of policing and you want to work with me to change policing for the better.

    Police reform is working and crime is falling

    When I became Home Secretary 4 years ago, I started a programme of radical police reform. At the time, a lot of people – the Federation, Association of Chief Police Officers, the Opposition and many others – questioned the need for that reform. But after 4 years of reduced police spending and falling crime, as well as the revelations I just listed, nobody questions the need for police reform any longer.

    The abolition of all government targets, and putting operational responsibility where it belongs, with the police. Bureaucratic accountability replaced with democratic accountability, with crime maps, beat meetings and elected police and crime commissioners.

    An inspectorate more independent of government and more independent of the police.

    A College of Policing to drive up standards, improve professionalism and develop a better understanding of what works.

    The National Crime Agency to get tough on serious and organised crime.

    More powers and resources for the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

    Direct entry to inject into the senior ranks different perspectives, fresh thinking and new talent.

    And new terms and conditions that will reward not just time served but skills, expertise and frontline service. I know not all of these changes have been easy. I appreciate that you’re not just police officers but mothers and fathers too. You have bills to pay and mouths to feed. Changes to your pay and conditions and your pensions were always going to be tough. But – when the debt crisis meant that the alternative was to lose officers in greater numbers – it was the right thing to do. And because the changes were not just about saving money but about encouraging and rewarding specialist skills and expertise, I believe they will serve the police well for many years to come.

    Not all of the changes I’ve made should be so controversial and indeed many of them should be welcome to the police officers you represent. As Home Secretary I’ve resisted public and political pressure telling me to interfere with operational policing. I know locally-imposed targets still exist – and I am as frustrated by that as you are – but I have removed reams of bureaucracy and all targets imposed by government. I’ve increased the number of charging decisions you take. I’ve increased the number of prosecutions where the police take the lead instead of handing over to the CPS. I’m working with the NHS to reduce the time you have to spend dealing with people with mental health problems. And I’m changing the law to make sure that life really does mean life for people who murder police officers.

    Our reforms have been crucial in helping you to cut crime even as we have cut spending.

    If we hadn’t introduced police and crime commissioners and established the College of Policing, we wouldn’t have been able to break the unaccountable ACPO monopoly at the head of policing in this country. By introducing PCCs we have made police leaders more responsive to the people they serve, and by establishing the College we are improving the professionalism of policing and giving your members a direct say in its future.

    If we hadn’t reformed the way the inspectorate works, we might not have been able to shine a light on the misuse of stop and search or the police response to domestic violence. By making HMIC more independent of government and of the police, and by increasing its resources, we will later this year see the first ever annual inspections of every force in the country – which will give the public accurate and understandable information about the performance of their force.

    If we hadn’t set up the National Crime Agency, complete with the power to coordinate and task law enforcement organisations and assets, we’d still be nowhere near getting to grips with serious and organised crime. There is still a long way to go, but by creating the NCA we have made a start in tackling this long-ignored serious, national threat.

    If we had tried to micromanage the reorganisation of the front line from Whitehall, we’d have ended up in a predictable bureaucratic mess. By freeing up chief constables and giving them the freedom to get on with the job, we have seen the proportion of officers in front line roles go up to 91%.

    If we had tried to set policing priorities from the Home Office, we’d have had to keep the bureaucratic apparatus required to keep tabs on you – and we’d have fewer officers available on the frontline. By getting rid of all those government-imposed targets and much of that bureaucracy, we have saved up to 4.5 million police hours – the equivalent of 2,100 full-time officers.

    If we had gone on with the same terms and conditions, we’d have chiefs without the flexibility to lead their forces through these difficult times – and we’d have fewer police officers in post. By making those difficult decisions, we have rewarded front line service – and saved police jobs.

    If we hadn’t embarked on police reform, there is no guarantee that the front line service would, as HMIC reported, have been largely maintained. And there is no guarantee that crime would have gone on falling. So the lesson is clear – police reform is working and crime is falling.

    The police must change

    That is something you should all take pride in. But I’m afraid that this achievement – remarkable as it is – does not mean there is no need for further change.

    I know that the vast majority of police officers are dedicated, honourable men and women who want to serve their communities and bring criminals to justice. But when you remember the list of recent revelations about police misconduct, it is not enough to mouth platitudes about “a few bad apples”. The problem might lie with a minority of officers, but it is still a significant problem, and a problem that needs to be addressed.

    I can already hear some of you say, “but the opinion polls show confidence in the police hasn’t changed.” And that is indeed true. The opinion polls show consistently that about two thirds of the public trust the police to tell the truth. But that is no reason to rest on our laurels, because we should never accept a situation in which a third of people do not trust police officers to tell the truth.

    And for different communities, the numbers can get very worrying indeed. According to one survey carried out recently only 42% of black people from a Caribbean background trust the police. That is simply not sustainable. Change is therefore required.

    Many of the government’s broader police reforms will help. The College of Policing will improve the quality of leadership and drive up standards. Police and crime commissioners are making the police more accountable to their communities. Direct entry into the senior ranks will open up the police to talented outsiders. HMIC is more independent of the police and of the government and therefore has greater credibility in reporting on police standards and performance.

    But while these reforms are important they are not on their own enough to root out corruption and ensure standards are as high as they can be. That is why the College of Policing is establishing a Code of Ethics. It’s why the College is creating a national register of officers struck off from the police.

    We’re making sure officers can’t escape scrutiny or censure by resigning or retiring early. We’ve increased the powers and resources of the Independent Police Complaints Commission. I’ve asked HMIC to look at the anti-corruption capability of all forces. We’ve tightened the rules around the deployment of undercover officers. I will soon publish proposals to strengthen the protections available to whistleblowers in the police. I am creating a new criminal offence of police corruption. And I am determined that the use of stop and search must come down, become more targeted and lead to more arrests.

    But there is still more work to be done. We need to go further and faster in opening up the police to outside talent and to people who might not ordinarily consider a career in policing. We need to look much more closely at standards of training and leadership. We need to do whatever we can to make sure police officers are representative of the communities they serve. And – as I have said before – I am willing to grant the IPCC more powers and reform the organisation further if that is what is needed.

    Because it cannot be right when officers under investigation by the IPCC comply with the rules by turning up for interview but then refuse to cooperate and decline to answer questions.

    Such behaviour – which I am told is often encouraged by the Federation – reveals an attitude that is far removed from the principles of public service felt by the majority of police officers. It is the same attitude exposed by HMIC when officers, called to help a woman who had suffered domestic violence, accidentally recorded themselves calling the victim a “slag” and a “bitch”. It is the same attitude expressed when young black men ask the police why they are being stopped and searched and are told it is “just routine” even though according to the law, officers need “reasonable grounds for suspicion”. It is an attitude that betrays contempt for the public these officers are supposed to serve – and every police officer in the land, every single police leader, and everybody in the Police Federation should confront it and expunge it from the ranks.

    The Fed must change too

    But it’s not just the police itself that must change, because the Federation must change too. This is something I know Steve Williams believes sincerely – and the vast majority of your members agree with him. I remember sitting on this stage last year when Steve gave a brave and thoughtful speech. In that speech, Steve said this: “Of course, we will fight for pay and conditions. But we will not be responsible for giving anyone the impression that our members are self-interested. They are committed to protecting the public and this must not be lost in the way we present ourselves as their representatives. I want to see us not as an organisation that’s stuck in the past but as an organisation that is looking constructively to the future.”

    That is why Steve commissioned an independent review into the future of the Police Federation. The review was chaired by Sir David Normington, the former permanent secretary of the Home Office, and the other members of the review committee were Sir Denis O’Connor, the former chief constable and Chief Inspector of Constabulary; Brendan Barber, the former general secretary of the TUC; Linda Dickens, a professor of industrial relations; Dr Neil Bentley, the deputy director general of the CBI; and Kathryn Kane, the former chairman of the Police Federation in Merseyside. These are all people who want the best for policing in this country, and who want the Federation to serve its members well.

    The Normington Review found a lack of transparency and openness in the affairs and finances of the Federation. It found only limited accountability to the Fed’s membership and to the public. It concluded that the Fed was unable to promote good behaviour and professional standards. Police officers had lost confidence in the organisation and the Federation had lost its ability to influence and represent its members. As the report itself said, “we have encountered some [Fed leaders] who are more interested in fighting internal battles and protecting their own positions.”

    The Normington Review made 36 recommendations and, as I said at the time, it is vital that the Federation implements every one of them. Because the best thing that can happen for policing in this country is for you – the representatives of every police man and woman in the land – to show the public that you understand the need for change. I want you to show the public that you get it, that you want to take responsibility, that you want to make sure the Federation operates in the spirit of public service.

    But since the Normington Review concluded, that is not what has happened. Federation staff have been forced out and there have been allegations of bullying and victimisation. Instead of embracing the need for reform, some members of the Fed seems to have reverted to the worst kinds of behaviour exposed by the Normington Review.

    So the candidates who put themselves forward to replace Steve Williams, those who choose the new chairman, and you – the Federation’s representatives – have a choice to make. You can choose the status quo or you can choose change; you can choose irrelevance or reform; you can become another reactionary trade union or you can make sure the Police Federation becomes once more the authentic voice of policing in this country.

    I do not want to have to impose change on you, because I want you to show the public that you want to change. I want you to show them that you have the best interests of the police and of the public at heart. But make no mistake. If you do not make significant progress towards the implementation of the Normington reforms, if the Federation does not start to turn itself around, you must not be under the impression that the government will let things remain as they are.

    The Federation was created by an Act of Parliament and it can be reformed by an Act of Parliament. If you do not change of your own accord, we will impose change on you.

    And there are three changes I plan to make even before we reach that point. First, it is not acceptable that when the Federation is sitting on vast reserves worth tens of millions of pounds, it is in receipt of public funds to pay for the salaries and expenses of the chairman, general secretary and treasurer. We have already said we would reduce this spending from £320,000 to £190,000 per year but I can announce today that this funding will be stopped altogether from August. Instead, the money will go into a new fund to accelerate the introduction of Police First – a new scheme designed to attract the brightest young university graduates into the police.

    Second, I want Federation representatives to earn the right to represent their members. So in common with changes made elsewhere in the public sector, I plan to change the law so that officers will have to opt in to join the Federation. This will mean that officers no longer become Fed members by default.

    I also plan to change the law so that officers who have chosen to become members also have to opt in to pay full subscription fees. Federation members already have the option of not paying full fees if they do not want to use all Federation services. But not many officers know this, and, again, the default position in practice is that officers should automatically pay full fees, regardless. I believe that’s wrong, and it promotes some of the worst problems exposed by the Normington Review.

    Third, I want to make the Police Federation more accountable. That means, today and on an annual basis thereafter, the Home Office will use its existing legal powers to call in the Federation’s central accounts. I will also change the law so the Home Office can without any question call in the accounts for any money held by the Federation – including all so-called “Number Two‟ accounts. And I will bring forward proposals to make the Police Federation – that is, the national organisation and all the regional branches – subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

    Securing the British model of policing by consent

    I know that some of you will find these changes unpalatable. In particular, I know that some of you will find the Freedom of Information Act an unwelcome intrusion. But the Police Federation is an organisation created by statute, it serves a public function and the Normington Review demonstrated very clearly that it is an organisation in need of greater transparency and accountability. So it is a change that I believe needs to be made.

    Because my message to you today is that the police must change, and so must the Federation. I believe we have the best police officers in the world, and it is my privilege as Home Secretary to work with them. But it is our responsibility – yours and mine – to lead those officers through these difficult times, to show we understand the need to change, to keep improving the frontline service, to keep cutting crime, to show the public that they can have confidence in the impartiality, the fairness and the incorruptibility of the police. Only then will we be able to say we have secured the British model of policing, the model of policing by consent – and only then will we be able to say, with pride, that, in our country, the police are the public and the public are the police.

    Thank you.