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Tag: Speeches

  • Grant Shapps – 2010 Speech on Aspiration

    Below is the text of the speech made by Grant Shapps at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in London on 8th June 2010.

    Introduction

    Thank you to Robert Peto for your very kind introduction and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors for hosting this event this morning.

    Last time I was here as Shadow Minister to launch a collection of my speeches.

    Old habits die hard – in a speech last week I made the mistake of calling myself the Shadow Housing Minister.

    As one of my staff cruelly pointed out – “Minister, you spent longer as a shadow than Cliff Richard!”

    But I’m finally here and it’s great to be able to talk to you today on a subject I am passionate about.

    Something that is at the heart and soul of this Government – aspiration.

    Aspiration

    Now, my predecessor famously said that falling levels of home ownership were ‘not such a bad thing’.

    I’ve asked RICS to host this event to make clear from the outset that I believe that home ownership is a very good thing.

    In fact I will work every day to help people achieve their aspirations to own their home.

    Of course I am not arguing that everyone should somehow aspire to home ownership.

    Renting a home can be a positive and flexible choice.

    And social housing provides a sense of security for millions of families.

    I am simply saying to those who aspire to own their own home –

    This Government will support you.

    You will not be ignored.

    The age of aspiration is back!

    There are an estimated 1.4 million households who aspire to own a home but are unable to do so because of house prices and mortgage availability.

    There are hundreds of thousands of people in rented accommodation, or living with parents, who yearn to be first time buyers.

    It is now true that the average age of first time buyer (with no support from their family) is 37.

    Now that 37 year old is not asking for a hand-out they just want a chance.

    We need to give them that opportunity.

    Sound economic management

    The best thing we can do for the all-important First Time Buyer is to get the economy back onto a sound footing.

    This Coalition is prepared to take the tough decisions needed to make that happen.

    The Prime Minister said yesterday that his number one priority is to deal with the country’s massive deficit.

    As he put it; if we don’t, we run the risk of much higher interest rates. But it’s not just that they will be higher:

    It’s that they’ll climb faster – and further – and sooner and stay high for longer – if we don’t act immediately.

    We’ve made a good start with over £6 billion in savings for this year. George Osborne is sending a strong signal to the markets that we’re very serious about tackling head on the huge financial challenges we face.

    We will need to work together across the housing market – builders and surveyors, lenders and brokers, Regulators and agents – to ensure that the conditions which created the housing bubbles of the past are never repeated.

    But there are still difficult adjustments to be made and I know that market confidence remains fragile.

    There is a risk that the market may not respond to changing conditions quickly enough, leaving creditworthy borrowers still out in the cold.

    I see responsible lending and responsible borrowing as two sides of the same coin.

    Borrowers will need to demonstrate financial responsibility and show that they can sustain homeownership.

    In return lenders will need to support creditworthy homeowners. I know the housing market is still fragile but we in Government will do all we can to help.

    We’ve already taken quick and decisive action to make HIPs history.

    Expensive and bureaucratic Home Information Packs increased the cost and hassle of selling homes. We have ripped up red-tape that was strangling the Housing Market recovery.

    A move that has already started to have an impact – the number of homes coming to market immediately jumping by a third.

    The Coalition Government has also agreed to promote shared ownership schemes and help social tenants and others to own or part-own their home.

    Housebuilding

    But if we are really serious about supporting people’s aspiration for home ownership, the real prize is we must build more homes.

    In that booklet of speeches I launched here earlier this year, I sympathised with my predecessors in this job, saying:

    Ordered to deliver 3m homes by 2020 – it was just a race against time for this week’s hapless housing minister to make something … anything …happen … before the inevitable reshuffle.

    So higher targets … louder diktats … a bigger stick and more legislation to create strange sounding Quangos designed to deliver on the Government’s housing targets … RSS’s … the HCA … RDAs … EEDA … SEDA … EERA … NERA.

    As the latest housing minister pulled the levers of state, he or she pushed the people further away.

    And now, I am that Minister with my hand on the levers.

    And I’m determined to deliver.

    So in place of those meaningless targets – we will introduce powerful incentives.

    In place of centralisation – I will devolve power.

    In place of expensive Quangos – we will trust people.

    I’m going to release those centralised levers that don’t work anyway – and as I do, I am certain an extraordinary thing will happen.

    The more power we give away – the more people will act to generate real change.

    For the first time incentives will create direct benefits for local communities. Bringing jobs, investment and yes – more homes for local people.

    Rather than being told what to build and where – residents of villages, towns and cities will be able to develop their own vision for their place.

    We’ll introduce Local Housing Trusts. Enabling communities to create new housing for local people.

    We understand that the transition to a more open, transparent and democratic planning system is not entirely anxiety-free for many involved.

    But we know that there is no future in this centrally planned system which has so dramatically failed, delivering fewer homes now than during any peacetime year since 1924.

    By unleashing the aspirations of communities as well as individuals to build homes where and when they are needed, we will bring about greater certainty.

    Certainty that will replace the conflict caused by imposing housing numbers from right here in Whitehall.

    Certainty that will give investors confidence to invest.

    Conclusion

    The last thing we need is a return to the house price boom and bust of recent years.

    Falling prices are bad for homeowners and builders alike, whilst soaring prices freeze out first time buyers.

    So, we need to build more homes and entrench sensible lending practices so that, in the long run, houses will become more affordable.

    That’s our aim: a stable housing market that gives both home buyers and builders a solid base to invest for the future.

    Homeownership has provided personal and financial security to millions of people in the UK, including (I am almost certain) the majority of this audience.

    I do not believe that it is right to deny the benefits of homeownership, that we have enjoyed, to the next generation.

    And this new Government is not in the business of pouring cold water on people’s aspirations.

    Of course I know many analysts predict further short or medium-term falls in homeownership.

    And given the appalling financial legacy left to us – they could be right.

    But it is not good enough to simply say “this may be a good thing.”

    I believe that it is human nature to aspire to shelter and security – and for the many that means owning the roof over your own head.

    And I don’t consider it my job as Housing Minister to hold those aspirations back.

    With a new Government and despite the enormous financial difficulties the country faces I want to state clearly today:

    “The Age of Aspiration is back.”

  • Andrew Selous – 2009 Speech on Poverty

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions, Andrew Selous, on 7th October 2009.

    I am proud to be serving in a party whose leader, David Cameron has said he wants the government he aspires to lead to be judged on how it tackles poverty in office.Those sentiments are nothing new for this party.

    From Shaftesbury to Disraeli, from Stanley Baldwin to Rab Butler, we have always seen the relief of poverty and the improvement of the conditions of all the people as a core part of our purpose.

    Labour have tried to make the eradication of child poverty their issue, but much of the most powerful thinking on combating poverty in our country today is coming from those on the centre right and within our own party. I want to pay tribute to the outstanding work of Iain Duncan Smith and the Centre for Social Justice in their Breakthrough Britain reports on ending the costs of social breakdown.  My colleague in the Lords, David Freud wrote the key Government report on reforming welfare before he joined this party to help put real reform of welfare into practice and the shadow Work and Pensions team published its welfare reform paper last year in order to make British poverty history.

    I do not doubt Labour’s commitment in this area.  But Labour have failed to meet the targets they set themselves and are miles away from meeting the target to reduce child poverty by half by 2010.  Even before the recession took hold they were very unlikely to have done so.  400, 000 more children are living in poverty since 2004  which means there are still four million children in poverty in the UK.   Even Alan Milburn has said that “poverty has become more entrenched”1 under this Government.

    Labour have concentrated almost entirely on tax credits to relieve poverty.  I do not believe that tweaking a benefit here or a tax credit there will ever get to the heart of the problems that trap so many of our nation’s families in poverty. Our approach must be focused on turning round the lives of people who live in poverty and in many cases who have lived in poverty for generations.

    That will require dealing with the root causes of poverty in a far more rigorous way.  We know that educational failure, worklessness, benefit traps, addiction, serious personal debt and family breakdown are the pathways into poverty for all too many of our fellow citizens. All these causes need to be addressed to keep families out of poverty.

    This government measures poverty by looking at households which have less than 60% of median income.  We have greater ambition than to raise a family’s income by a few percent. If you knocked on the door of a household whose income had gone from 58% to 61% of the median and asked “What does it feel like to be out of poverty? “, I suspect you would get  a pretty surprised reply.  So we are looking at a wider range of indicators to measure success in this area.

    Our approach to tackling poverty will be based on sound Conservative principles.  We know that to eradicate poverty you have to create more wealth.  You can not defeat poverty through the welfare system and tax credit system on its own.  So the people who start and grow businesses will be in the frontline of Conservative plans to combat poverty and we will need to pay special attention to those areas of our country which are jobs deserts, where almost no one works.  Some local authorities like Kent are taking the lead in this area and we want to see that best practice spread across the whole country.

    As Conservatives we also recognise that poor children don’t exist in a vacuum.  They are part of poor families and we will take a whole family approach to combating child poverty. And that means extended families, including grandparents.  We believe not just that every child matters, but that every family matters. It is no coincidence that the United Kingdom has both one of the highest rates of child poverty in Europe as well as one of the highest rates of family breakdown.  The courage and determination that David Cameron has shown to strengthen families has never been more necessary to reduce poverty in our country.

    We also recognise that government and families can not, on their own, always find the solutions to getting out of poverty.  The helping hand of the voluntary sector is absolutely vital too.  It’s  role and that of so many social enterprises will be central to the next Conservative’s government’s approach to fighting poverty.  And one thing we will change straight away is the refusal of the Department for Work and Pensions to signpost the voluntary help available in their areas.  This summer I learnt  that the department had actually stopped a job centre from telling its customers about a local food bank.  And they did this even though health visitors, social services and probation officers all work in closely with the food bank.  You see Gordon Brown’s view is that if everybody can’t have something then no one should.  Well, we think that’s wrong and we will instruct every Jobcentre Plus district manager in the country to sit down with charities providing emergency food,  debt counselling services, homelessness charities, family support groups and so on, to work out how this support can be signposted locally so that people in desperate poverty can find it.

    Ending family and child poverty is indeed everybody’s  business and I can give you this pledge today, that it will be very much at the heart of the work of the next Conservative government.

  • Arthur Scargill – 1985 NUM Conference Speech

    Below is the text of the speech made by Arthur Scargill, the then General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, to the 1985 NUM Conference.

    Conference meets this year following the longest, most bitter and possibly most savage national strike ever seen anywhere in the world. We meet not in the aftermath but still in the midst of a historic and heroic struggle waged by this Union and mining communities against the most reactionary coal industry management seen since the 1920s and 30s a struggle in which we have had to face the combined weight of the most reactionary and destructive Government Britain has known in over a century.

    We have come through a strike which has changed the course of British history: a conflict of tremendous significance which has resounded around the world – a conflict which has transformed the lives of those who stood and fought against the National Coal Board’s disastrous pit closure programme -a conflict which has inspired workers in this and other countries to defend the right to work.

    The National Union of Mineworkers has challenged the very heart of the capitalist system. We have refused to accept that any industry in capitalist society – whether public or private – has the right to destroy the livelihood of men and women at the stroke of an accountant’s pen. Our challenge has been met by an Establishment reaction of unprecedented savagery.

    The pit closure programme announced by the Board on the 6th March, 1984 was a deliberate action, designed to provoke our Union into either taking strike action or backing down in the face of Coal Board`s policy.

    Since November, 1983, the Union had been operating a highly successful overtime ban, building an effective “Campaign For Coal”, winning support both in mining areas and in the wider community the N.U.M. was taking the arguments for saving pits and jobs to our members and their families in a way which had never been seen before.

    Faced with this unity of action, the Coal Board began a new tactic, using closure announcements to cut across and violate all our industry’s established procedures. As they contemptuously announced 25 pit closures – five of them to come immediately – with a loss of over 25,000 jobs, we knew that our Union had no real choice. We could either accept the Board’s proposals in the certain knowledge that they were only the start of a massive closure programme-or we could take strike action, and fight with dignity and pride for the position we knew to be right.

    To the eternal credit of our Union, we took strike action. Let me say, unequivocally, that in defending our policies, jobs, communities and industry, we had no alternative – and history will vindicate our action.

    Now, four months after our return to work, it is essential too look back over the first crucial phase of our fight for the future, examine what was accomplished, and determine where our Union and its members go from here.

    It is vital that the Union analyses all the events of 1984/85 in order to learn from what took place and to utilise our experience in the next stage of our fight. The Board’s pit closure programme for 1984/85 was not carried through because the miners took strike action! It was the determination of this Union and mining communities which delivered the worst blow ever dealt to the Thatcher Government, and created a crisis in international capital.

    The cost of the miners’ strike in Thatcherism has been truly astronomic. In their crusade against the N.U.M. and trade unionism, the Government robbed Britain’s taxpayers of ?8 billion (more than eight times the cost of the Falklands War), as they desperately sought to defeat the miners and destroy the National Union of Mineworkers.

    History will record that this was a colossal act of vandalism by a monetarist Tory Government, which in order to survive requires a high pool of unemployed – a weak, collaborationist, or non-existent trade union movement – and laws which remove the democratic rights won by our people in over two centuries of struggle.

    The attack on our Union was the culmination of five years in which the Thatcher Government had successively introduced anti-trade union legislation while raising unemployment to four-and-a-half million – and through the use of the media had implanted in trade unionists’ minds the idea that they could not win any struggle against this new authoritarian Government.

    The decision to appoint Ian MacGregor as Chairman of the National Coal Board was vidence of the Tories’ growing confidence-and, with their success against the N.G.A., and the elimination of trade unionism at G.C.H.Q., they showed their increasing contempt for the T.U.C. and its affiliated unions.

    Ian MacGregor was appointed N.C.B. Chairman in order that free market criteria could be applied to the mining industry, following exactly the line pursued by the Tory Government in other nationalised industries. His brief was to carry through a policy of pit closures as the first step towards a restructured coal industry, ripe for privatisation -a strategy which the Tories also believed would see Britain’s most powerful union rendered impotent.

    Trade unionism and nationalisation are totally abhorrent to MacGregor. His union-busting record in the United States speaks for itself, and it was because of that record that he was brought over to Britain (to the eternal shame of the last Labour Government), first to British Leyland and then to British Steel, before being instructed to butcher British coal.

    His attitude not only towards trade unions but Parliament itself has been demonstrated within the last fortnight-first by his disdainful dismissal of the Conservative-dominated Employment Select Committee’s report, which recommended that the Coal Board review its position in relation to those miners dismissed during the strike – a recommendation which if implemented would result in over 80 per cent of those sacked being reinstated.

    During the strike, over 900 miners were sacked, and since the end of the strike, still more have been dismissed. To date, over 600 have not been reinstated.

    Over 50 of our members have been jailed while carrying out union policy, taking action to save pits and jobs. They are political prisoners, whose crime is fighting for the right to work, and an amnesty for them, as well as reinstatement for all who have been sacked, are among our first priorities.

    Ian MacGregor’s contempt for our industry and those who work within it has also just been demonstrated by the Board’s total abandonment of the agreement reached last autumn with N.A.C.O.D.S., modifying the Colliery Review Procedure. This Agreement, described during our strike as “sacrosanct” by both the Board and the Government, has now been proved the sham we always said it was.

    Ironically, if we judge Ian MacGregor’s stewardship of the coal industry even on the basis of his own market forces criteria, he stands accused of total incompetence and of crimes against Britain’s economy and the British people. During the two years since his appointment, he has cost the taxpayers of this nation over ?90 million per week. He is, by any standards, an unmitigated disaster, and if ever there was a case for redundancy, he represents the perfect candidate -the quicker he goes, the better for all concerned.

    The N.U.M. argued from the beginning that Ian MacGregor should never have been appointed, his entire performance during and since the end of the dispute bears witness to our belief. Under his direction, local and area management of the Board have embarked on a vendetta of draconian measures which have deliberately destroyed long-established customs and practice within our industry. We have seen industrial relations dismantled as Board management takes an increasingly hard line against our members.

    There is no denying that the miners’ strike could have been brought to a swift and successful conclusion within a short space of time but for a number of important factors which had a major effect on the attitude of both the Coal Board and the Government.

    1. Following our Special Delegate Conference on 19th April, 1984, which reaffirmed the democratic decision to endorse strike action in accordance with Rule 41, the Union’s call on all Areas to support the dispute was not followed by Nottinghamshire, South Derbyshire or Leicestershire.

    In refusing to respond to a call from the vast majority of their colleagues already on strike, and – more importantly – by refusing to respect picket lines, those who continued to work producing coal provided a life-line to the Tory Government as it waged class war against the N.U.M.

    2. There have been many comments from critics, cynics and even some colleagues, suggesting that had we held an individual ballot vote the outcome of our dispute would have been different. That argument has three basic flows:

    (a) It fails to recognise that miners in 1984 were taking the same kind of action they had taken in 1981, when they had the support of Notts., South Derbyshire and Leicester -without a ballot.

    (b) By the time of our Conference on the 19th April last year, nearly 80 per cent of our members were already on strike.

    (c) The argument also fails to recognise, or conveniently forgets, that on a previous occasion Areas, including Notts., South Derbyshire and Leicester, refused to accept the democratic decision of our membership as determined in an individual ballot vote, and proceeded to negotiate with the Coal Board an incentive scheme which has helped to divide this Union and weaken our ability to fight for our policies.

    3. There have been suggestions (again, from critics, cynics, even some colleagues) that traditional, picket-line militancy is dead. Nothing could be further from the truth, and accurate, historical analysis will prove that point beyond doubt. It was not a failure of mass picketing, but a failure to mass picket that represented a weakness in many sections of our Union, and other trade unions beside ourselves must learn the lessons of what took place in 1984/85.

    The mass picketing of Orgreave, like Saltley in 1972, proved so effective that it led to the British Steel Corporation halting its operations on the 18th June, 1984. But – unlike Saltley, where picketing was stepped up and intensified following the first closure – at Orgreave picketing was scaled down following our success on 18th June.

    I have consistently argued that the tactics which brought us victory at Saltley should have been employed at Orgreave, where with increased picketing we would inevitably have involved the trade union and Labour movement throughout the Sheffield and South Yorkshire area, and brought the flow of coke from Orgreave to a complete halt.

    We are involved in a class war, and any attempt to deny that flies in the face of reality. Confronted by our enemy’s mobilisation, we are entitled, indeed obliged, to call upon our class for massive support. In any future industrial action by any Union – including ours -this must be done.

    4. It is a fact that the N.U.M. did not receive the level of support we needed and were entitled to expect from our colleagues in the wider Movements.

    In spite of pleas from this Union, the leaders of the power workers refused to give us the same basic support they gave in 1974 – a measure of support which, I should add for the sake of the record, was not present in 1972 (contrary to any statements made by media experts). In 1974, by operating basic principled guidelines, power workers stopped the flow of coal into British power stations.

    By acquiescing in the conversion of coal-fired power stations to oil, the power station workers made it possible for the Government and the C.E.G.B. to raise the amount of oil burn from 5 to 40 per cent. Power station workers could have prevented this simply by operating along the same principled lines followed in 1974.

    5. The abject refusal by I.S.T.C. leaders to mobilise and coordinate the same degree of support for the N.U.M. which we gave steel workers in 1980 not only betrayed every tenet of the “Triple Alliance”, but actually forced and provoked the battles of Orgreave, Ravenscraig and Llanwern.

    The British Steel Corporation has admitted that without the cooperation of the steel unions they could not have kept going, and the Coal Board would thus have been put under intense pressure to negotiate with the N.U.M.

    6. The Government’s massive transport operation, mounted a long the lines of the Ridley Plan, to convey coal, coke and iron ore to power stations and steel works only proved effective because the power and steel unions failed to respect picket lines and stop deliveries.

    On the other hand, the fantastic support given to us by the National Union of Railwaymen, A.S.L.E.F., the National Union of Seamen, and sections of the T.G.W.U. was not only an inspiration, but a demonstration to the rest of the Movement and the world of what trade union solidarity is all about. Their support is something that our Union will never forget.

    7. Last October, N.A.C.O.D.S., having committed themselves to a united fight with the N.U.M. on pit closures, suddenly capitulated to the Board during talks at the conciliation service A.C.A.S., and accepted what everyone now knows was a deal that amounted to deception.

    This N.A.C.O.D.S./N.C.B. Agreement, described as “sacrosanct” by both the Board and Government, was praised to the skies by pundits and politicians who criticised the N.U.M. for refusing to accept it.

    The Agreement – which we said was worthless -was supposed to introduce into the colliery review procedure an independent appeals body, acceptable to unions and management, which would review any dispute about the future of a colliery or unit after all other procedures had been exhausted.

    Only four months after the end of the miners’ strike, the Coal Board has now openly violated this “sacrosanct” Agreement, and has announced instead that it will go ahead on its own, unilaterally appointing one inspector to hear any appeals. The N.U.M. warned that the Agreement was a sham, and we have been proved absolutely correct.

    8. The T.U.C.’s failure to translate into positive action the decisions taken at the 1984 T.U.C. Congress was seen by the Government as a green light to intensify its attacks on the N.U.M. Had the guidelines supporting the N.U.M. adopted by Congress been even partially implemented, the pressure upon the Coal Board and the Government would have been intense, and a negotiated settlement inevitable.

    There can be no excuse for the T.U.C. General Council’s refusal to provide desperately needed financial assistance to this Union following sequestration and receivership. The appointment of a Receiver for a trade union is unprecedented, and is associated with the new Tory legislation – yet, eight months after receivership was imposed on the N.U.M., the £400,000 fund established by the T.U.C. at the 1982 Wembley Conference remains intact while we fight to survive.

    9. During the strike, the Labour Party leadership allowed itself to be preoccupied with allegations of “violence”, scripted daily by the media-when they should have been attacking the Tory Government for its violence against our industry, and defending our members in the same way as Thatcher defended her riot squad in blue.

    10. The High Court decision last autumn to fine the N.U.M., and then place an order of sequestration upon us failed to stop the Union functioning. Further legal moves then resulted in the High Court sacking the three N.U.M. Trustees and appointing a Receiver, whose purpose was to bring our Union’s operations and administration to a standstill by hijacking our funds. As a result of his appointment, our funds have been depleted by £1 million which would be part of our assets today had the Union’s Trustees not been removed by the High Court.

    11. Throughout the past year, and longer, the capitalist media has played a role which would have impressed even Goebbells. Press and broadcasting have smeared and lied about our Union, its leadership and its members. It’s no good just blaming proprietors and managing editors. Journalists-many of whom will say privately that they “support” the miners – have allowed themselves to be used to attack us every day at every turn, as we fight to protect and sustain our industry. But in hurling weapon after weapon at the N.U.M., our enemies have revealed more than their hatred of us – they have revealed their own fear. Their viciousness springs from the knowledge that the heart of their own-class ridden system is under attack.

    12. The proposal for a return to work without an agreement was a fundamental mistake – and events have shown that this was not the best course of action to adopt.

    However, let no-one talk to me about defeat or setbacks. Those who since the end of the strike have pontificated in a negative and destructive fashion fail utterly to understand the nature of what actually took place.

    This Union must not turn inwards in an orgy of self-criticism. We should stand confident and proud of what we have achieved, proclaiming the positive aspects of the dispute, and the most important victory of all – the struggle itself.

    Within our Union and our communities, the strike brought forth revolutionary changes. I never tire of paying tribute to our young miners, whose courage and determination throughout the months’ battle remain an inspiration to us all. Our union must continue to involve them and use their energy and skills to the full.

    I also acknowledge, yet again, the magnificent force which has emerged to take its rightful place alongside the N.U.M. -the women’s support groups. No words of mine can pay adequate tribute to their historic contribution to our common struggle. I believe I speak on behalf of Michael McGahey and Peter Heathfield as well when I say that nothing gives me greater pride than my association with Women Against Pit Closures.

    They have been our strongest and truest allies, and there is absolutely no doubt that their collective strength is crucial to the fight that still lies ahead of us.

    The Future

    For the N.U.M., the tasks ahead present the greatest challenge any trade union has ever faced. We must build from this Conference a united fight united on policies and on principles. We must intensify the fight to save pits, jobs and communities, knowing that in the present climate only industrial action hopefully involving other mining unions can stop a pit closure programme which if allowed to proceed would slaughter our industry.

    We must demand from the rest of the Movement – in particular the leadership of the Labour Party and the T.U.C. -a commitment in action to our fight for coal.

    The case to protect our communities and mining families is irrefutable- but never forget that it is inextricable from the economic case for coal, and it is on our economic case against pit closures that we urge the Labour Party and T.U.C. to campaign in Parliament and throughout the nation.

    The brilliant economic case against pit closures produced by Andrew Glyn of Oxford University shows that the cost to Britain’s taxpayers of closing a pit is almost double that of keeping it open, employing workers and producing valuable coal.

    This is a fight for Britain’s future, and the extent to which we succeed or fail fundamentally affects other workers and the nation’s destiny.

    The rail and steel industries, now under increasing attack must learn the lessons of the last 12 months, and understand that the surest way to save British steel and the railways is to take combined action-and not leave trade union colleagues isolated when facing a concerted attack by the ruling class.

    But ours is not just a defensive fight. Our generation of trade unionist has a responsibility to make the dreams of the Socialist pioneers a reality. In fighting to save our nationalised industries and public services, we must win for them and for the British people the democracy, accountability, efficiency and profitability they have been denied over the past 40 years.

    Looking ahead, one immediate task facing us – and the Movement – is building the campaign to release our members, jailed as political prisoners fighting against pit closures. We must win reinstatement at work for our members sacked during and since the end of the strike. This task is as crucial to our Union as the fight to save the industry itself.

    We make it clear to the next Labour Government that it must first of all ensure that it frees from jail and reinstates at work any miners who remain victimised.

    The next Labour Government must then address itself to the National Coal Board. It is no longer enough to merely call for the dismissal of ]an McGregor, although the N.U.M. and the Movement must continue to do that. The next Labour Government must remove all senior Coal Board personnel, and all area and local managers who have not only participated during the last two years in the deliberate destruction of our industry, but who have viciously attacked our members and sought to humiliate them since the end of the strike.

    The N.U.M. must then be invited to share in the responsibility of running the National Coal Board as it should be run – of the people, by the people and for the people. The Board must be accountable to those who work within our industry, and the Chairman should be the nominee of the unions. Only in this way can the great wrongs of the past five years be righted, and our industry expanded and developed in line with 1974 Plan for Coal.

    It follows that we must therefore make the broad alliances necessary to create the conditions for the swiftest possible return of a Labour Government – one which will mobilise a march towards full employment, while campaigning for peace, the removal of all nuclear bases from Britain, and economic justice throughout the world.

    Despite the struggles and turmoil of the past two years, our Union will continue to participate in plans for a new Miners’ International Organisation, incorporating East and West by bridging the ideological differences and ripping away the barriers that have separated workers for far too long.

    As we look at rising unemployment within Europe, the threat to other E.E.C. coal industries, as we view the horror of incessant warfare in the Lebanon, or watch while thousands die of hunger in the Third World, we cannot forget that our own struggles are connected with those of workers everywhere.

    As we see the nuclear madness of the ever-increasing arms race, we must re-dedicate ourselves to campaign for peace – without world peace there is no hope for any of us. We must campaign until the billions spent on weapons of death and destruction are spent instead on providing an improved quality of life.

    This Conference is a vital one. It follows a historic strike which has united our communities as never before. It is true to say that in 1984/85, for the first time in 50 years, many of our people discovered the real meaning of the word “community”.

    But there are also indications (carefully nurtured by our enemies in the Board and Government) of splits and divisions in our great Union-divisions which would inevitably affect our ability to fight effectively to stop pit closures, save jobs or indeed to represent as powerfully as we should the interests of the entire membership.

    At a time when the industry is under attack from the ruthless Government seen in our lifetime, it would be a disaster for every member of the Union if any breakaway were to take place. But, as history shows all too clearly, it would be most disastrous of all for those who themselves formed any such breakaway.

    I call on all sections of our Union to take strength from the lessons of 1984/85, and from the fact that we are all part of a national Union.

    I pledge for my part to accept the decisions of Conference – whether it be on policy or Rules – and to work wholeheartedly for them. No matter what my personal view, I will fight for the policies you decide, and I believe that all Areas of the Union should give the same commitment. That is my responsibility as President and I carry it proudly.

    I would like, in conclusion, to express my appreciation of the unfailing solidarity and comradeship shared throughout our struggle by the three National Officials. Michael McGahey, Peter Heathfield and I have worked together in a way which has helped me meet and combat the unremitting attacks of our class enemy.

    Our Union’s contribution to history and to humanity is in itself a triumph – let our great strike be the beginning of the fight not only to save jobs and pits, but to strengthen our Union, and help create the conditions for electing a Labour Government pledged to fulfil the aims and principles upon which the N.U.M. was founded.

  • Arthur Scargill – 1984 NUM Conference Speech

    Below is the text of the speech made by Arthur Scargill, the then General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, to the 1984 NUM Conference.

    Fellow members, this Presidential Address has been completed within the last 24 hours, and obviously I have tried to take account of all the factors which have taken place in what can only be described as the most memorable and certainly the most important period in the history of this Union. This Extraordinary Annual Conference takes place during the eighteenth week of the most bitter dispute seen in the mining industry since 1926 -a strike sparked off by the Coal Board’s announcement on March 6th that it intended to close 20 pits and destroy 20,000 jobs over the coming year alone, as part of what Ian MacGregor termed “bringing supply into line with demand”.

    It was obvious that this decision marked the beginning of the pit closure programme announced by the Coal Board Chairman at a Consultative Council meeting over a year ago. On June 14th, 1983 he declared it was the Board’s intention to take 25 million tonnes of capacity out of the industry with the advent of the Selby coalfield. Translated into flesh and blood terms, this meant over 70 pit closures and 70,000 job losses. By the time the Union presented its claim for wages in 1983, it had become clear that the Board’s intention was to run down the industry, getting rid of what it termed “uneconomic capacity”. This programme for butchering coal was strikingly similar to the industrial vandalism inflicted on the British steel industry, where Ian MacGregor wiped out over 100,000 jobs, and, earlier, at British Leyland, where (in collaboration with Sir Michael Edwardes) he destroyed a similar number of jobs.

    The policy now openly pursued by the National Coal Board utterly violates the Plan For Coal, agreed between Government, Coal Board and mining Unions in 1974, reaffirmed in 1977 and, more significantly, accepted by the present Government in 1979 and as recently as 1981. Delegates will not need reminding that our Union has consistently pledged itself to fight against pit closures and reductions in manpower levels, while at the same time demanding decent wages and conditions for British miners.

    We do not need reminding of what took place in the 1960s when, in an era of what can only be described as collaboration, the Union acquiesced to a policy of mass destruction of jobs, pits and mining communities. We vowed that never again would we stand by and witness such vandalism – never again would we sit back and watch our people turned into industrial gypsies, wandering from coalfield to coalfield, from pit to pit, searching for work: victims of the narrow, balance-sheet mentality of both Coal Board and Government.

    Today, the devastation threatening our communities is dramatically and tragically compounded by the destructive monetarist policies which this Government has unleashed. With over four-and-a-half million unemployed people, Britain’s industrial base crippled by lack of investment, and the nation’s social services network being torn to shreds, there is a climate of helplessness, hopelessness and outright despair. It is our responsibility as trade unionists to fight that despair and oppose the policies which created it.

    When I was elected President of this Union, by over 70 per cent of the votes cast, I was elected on a programme of total opposition to pit closures and reductions in manpower – a programme demanding better wages and conditions, aimed at restoring the wages of miners to at least the level approved by Parliament itself following the dispute in 1974. Against this background of the last few years, the Coal Board announcement on March 6th, and its decision to close Polmaise and Cortonwood as part of the programme, the Union decided to approve strike action in the coalfields under Rule 41. This decision, taken within the Rules and Constitution of our Union was in fact a reaffirmation of unanimous decisions taken by successive Annual Conferences, both on the issue of pit closures and on the demand for better wages and conditions.

    From the start of this dispute – in fact, from the day our overtime ban began last November-there has been a lot of talk, particularly from the media, about democracy. I have noted with interest that those who are most vociferous in attacking our Union, telling it what it should and should not do, are in fact the non-elected editors of newspapers, or non-elected judges. They include such public figures as Vice Chancellor Sir Robert Megarry, who is now openly trying to run the affairs of our organisation. I would hope that Conference rejects this blatant state interference in the affairs of an independent and democratic trade union. Indeed, what Sir Robert Megarry is trying to do is in violation of I.L.O. conventions, but his actions reveal clearly the level and weight of the state interference with miners in this dispute.

    Through the police, the judiciary, the social security system – whichever way seems possible, the full weight of the state is being brought to bear upon us in an attempt to try and break this strike. I would further remind all those super-democrats and others both inside and outside our Union, that in 1977, following a National Conference decision and an individual ballot vote which rejected an incentive bonus pay agreement, there were Areas (Areas which in the current situation have called for a ballot before taking strike action) which on that occasion deliberately ignored a national ballot result. They went ahead and introduced into the coalfields an Area-based scheme which has led to deep and damaging divisions within our Union: a scheme which has set man against man, pit against pit, Area against Area.

    Throughout the past eighteen weeks, with over 80 per cent of British miners out on strike fighting for the survival of our industry, our pits, jobs and communities, we have witnessed the sad sight of a small section of our members ignoring, or trying to ignore, the Union’s fight for the future. I want to say to all those men who are still at work: no matter what arguments you put forward, you cannot ignore the most important and precious trade union principle upon which the strength of our movement has been built. When workers are in dispute, you do not cross picket lines.

    During the course of this strike, well over 4,000 of our members have been arrested. Nearly 2,000 have been injured – many of them very seriously. Two miners have been killed fighting for the right to work. Each of these facts alone should have convinced any trade unionist to stop work immediately -and give their support to policies for which our members have been prepared to give their lives. Miners on strike and their families are suffering intense hardship in this dispute, and I can only applaud their incredible determination and courage. Not only have they faced deprivation and hunger – they have found themselves in the front line facing the most massive assault on civil liberties and human rights ever launched against trade unionists in this country. On the picket lines, riot police in full battle gear, on horseback and on foot, accompanied by police dogs, have been unleashed in violent attacks upon our members.

    We have seen in our communities and villages a level of police harassment and intimidation which organised British trade unionists have never before experienced. Preventing the right of people to move freely from one part of the country, or even county, to another; the calculated attacks upon striking miners in the streets of their villages; the oppressive conditions of bail under which it is hoped to silence, discourage and defeat us – all these tactics constitute outright violation of people’s basic rights. It may well be that we will have to go before the European Court of Human Rights to challenge these flagrant acts of injustice. Against such a background I say without equivocation that not one miner should be going to work.

    If the Nottinghamshire, South Derbyshire and Leicester Areas – regardless of whatever differences exist – had come out on strike along with their colleagues throughout the coalfields, this dispute would by now have been brought to a successful conclusion. I appeal to those who are still at work: search your conscience. No trade unionist can justify crossing an official picket line. No trade union official can condone or collude in such an action. Look instead at the reasons why your colleagues are out on strike. They are fighting for your future and that of your families as well as for their own.

    Through the magnificent solidarity of our membership, this Union has proved that the National Coal Board (despite the public statements of Ian MacGregor) can be brought back to the negotiating table. For the first time over the past two years, we are involved in negotiations at which the Board can no longer treat us with contempt. In the course of this strike, the Coal Board has this far lost 36 million tonnes of production, with a further ten million lost during our overtime ban – a production loss valued at £2,100 million. Add to this the £30 million per week paid by the C.E.G.B., which has increased its oil burn from five to 27 per cent in an effort to defeat the miners’ fight for jobs. On top of that is the enormous public cost of the police operations which have hi-jacked our people’s civil liberties and human rights. It can thus be seen that the taxpayers of Britain will have to bear the weight of more than £3,000 million for a dispute caused by Ian MacGregor and the National Coal Board.

    Mr. MacGregor’s appalling stewardship of our industry is even more incredible when we consider the costs of closing pits and making miners redundant. These costs are more than twice those required at present to keep pits open and communities intact. Negotiations with the Coal Board have over the past week alone involved the Union in a marathon 25 hours of talks aimed at seeking a solution which would maintain our industry and guarantee employment not only for our members today, but for our sons and daughters. Throughout this dispute, however, it has been clear that the Board’s negotiators are manipulated in every move by the Prime Minister, who seems obsessed with trying to defeat the National Union of Mineworkers. MacGregor is reported to have said that, rather than settle this bitter and costly dispute which has already savaged our nation’s economy, he would prefer to see the miners strike continue in order to try to defeat our Union. We will not be defeated.

    The magnificent courage and determination of our people will see us through to victory. And, at this point, I want yet again to pay special tribute to two elements within our ranks which have provided a unique inspiration in our fight for the future. Throughout the strike, we have seen our young miners out on the picket lines, demonstrating a commitment to principle, and to people, which makes me proud to be President of this Union. We have also seen, in every mining village around the country, the birth and growth of women’s support groups, displaying and inspiring a community solidarity the like of which we have never witnessed in any industry or any union, ever before. Their work and their campaigning has had its own special effect on the broader trade union movement, within which solid support for our strike grows day by day. Much of that support, of course, is historical and long-standing.

    I can only pay the highest tribute to our colleagues in A.S.L.E.F. and the National Union of Railwaymen, whose solidarity has been nothing short of fantastic. To the members of the National Union of Seamen, which has from the very beginning of our strike put into practice the basic principles of trade unionism, and blocked each coal shipment coming into Britain, our Union expresses its deepest appreciation. We will not forget their support. The Transport and General Workers’ Union has also been magnificent in backing us. The solidarity of the T.& G. shines triumphantly in the decision of the nation’s dockers to take action against Biritish Steel’s blatant disregard of trade union rights.

    In calling on all our colleagues throughout the trade union movement-including those working in steel, in the power stations and industry generally-to give physical support to our strike, I say: the best way to protect your own jobs and your families is to support the N.U.M.. By violating picket lines, you are supporting the management of British Steel and other key corporations which have combined with the Tory Government to destroy all our industries. They are the ones responsible for four-and-a-half million unemployed people. There can be no compromise in our Union’s principled opposition to the Coal Board’s pit closure programme. Ours is a supremely noble aim: to defend pits, jobs, communities and the right to work.

    We are now entering a crucial phase in our battle for the survival of this industry. For the first time since the strike began, even the pundits and the experts have started to admit that the pendulum is swinging in favour of the N.U.M.. Coal stocks have dropped dramatically; there are little more than 14 million tonnes at the power stations, and the situation in industry generally is becoming critical. As we move towards the autumn and the winter, even the most intransigent Tories must recognise that our negotiating position will improve, while that of the Coal Board, backed by the Government, will steadily deteriorate.

    When I was elected President of the N.U.M. at the end of 1981, I promised that I would never betray the decisions of this Conference, the rights of our members, nor the principles enshrined in the history of our Union. At the same time, I said I believed that the leadership had the right to demand from the rank-and-file the same loyalty and commitment that the leadership was prepared to give. Over the past eighteen weeks I have witnessed in our rank-and-file a degree of loyalty and commitment that is almost unbelievable, and a dedication to principle among British miners which has roused admiration around the world. I have always felt proud and privileged to be a member of this Union, but never more proud than at the present time.

    This Conference has the task of re-dedicating itself to the policies laid down to protect pits and jobs. We are fighting in defence of our communities for the right to work-and for our dignity and self-respect. The sacrifices and the hardships have forged a unique commitment among our members. They will ensure that the National Union of Mineworkers wins this most crucial battle in the history of our industry. Comrades, I salute you for your magnificent achievements and for your support – together, we cannot fail. I feel privileged to be your President.

  • Lord Sassoon – 2012 Speech to the Middle East Association

    Below is the text of a speech made by Lord Sassoon, the Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, on Thursday 25th October 2012. The speech was given at the Mansion House in London to the Middle East Association.

    Lord Mayor Locum Tenens, Your Excellency, ladies and gentlemen.

    Thank you for your warm and generous welcome and my thanks especially to Matthew Smith and the Middle East Association for organising today’s lunch.

    It is of course, Sir Robert [Finch], wonderful to be in the Mansion House and in this great Egyptian Hall.

    But even if this room is not strictly genuine, being more Roman than Egyptian, the hospitality certainly is. And I do think that the way that Lord Mayors so generously welcome business and other groups into this, their home is as close as it gets in the UK to a traditional Arab majlis.

    I am sorry that Liz Symons, Chairman of the Arab British Chamber of Commerce, is not here today but I am reminded of the time last year when we were both at one of the legendary majlis lunches of Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi.

    It is great that these traditions of combining business and hospitality are alive both in the City of London and the Middle East.

    Now today is a day some of us have been focused on for a while – and not just for this lunch. It is encouraging to see the first estimate of third quarter GDP showing growth of one per cent.

    But this is only one quarter and the UK still faces very considerable challenges to get growth to where it should be.

    There is still a long way to go, but these figures show we are on the right track. This is another sign that the economy is healing.

    And there are other positive signs – particularly on the jobs front. There are now more people in work in the UK than ever before. Testament to the flexibility of the UK labour market.

    But also a reflection of strong export growth.  With non-EU exports up by over nine per cent in 2011.

    And that takes us to the heart of the challenge for the UK in the Middle East.

    With a GDP in excess of $1.2 trillion, the Gulf alone constitutes the UK’s 7th largest export market, larger than India, Russia and Mexico combined.

    But, for all our historic ties with the Middle East, exports last year to the Gulf rose not by nine per cent but by a paltry four per cent.

    By contrast, China and Korea’s exports to the Gulf are increasing by more than 30 per cent.

    So we have to do much more.

    As Treasury Ministers, we recognise that it is by building strong relationships with our partners in the Gulf that we will achieve more together.

    And to that end, we launched the Government’s Gulf initiative in Summer 2010 to reinvigorate the UK’s engagement with the Gulf states.

    There have been more than 80 British Ministerial visits to the region in the last year and 50 senior Gulf visits to the UK.

    More and more British investors are building enduring relationships with the Middle East to support our mutual prosperity. And the Government is supporting this wherever we can.

    And there have been notable successes in the past year. For example:

    • Ultra Electronic winning a £200 million contract to upgrade Oman’s airports;
    • Carillion’s involvement in the re-development of Doha to the tune of £300 million; and
    • In May Saudi Arabia agreed a £1.5bn deal with BAE Systems for Hawk aircraft, in addition to their partnership on Typhoon.

    But I hope to see many more British companies helping to realise the visions governments have for infrastructure across the Middle East.

    UK business is already the largest foreign investor in Egypt, with cumulative investments of £10bn including across oil, gas and telecoms.

    And Saudi Arabia alone has $400bn to spend on infrastructure by the end of 2013, with only 18 per cent of this spent so far.

    There may not always be a UK leads contractor bidding for a project – but when it comes to designing, engineering, managing and financing the smallest or largest projects, we have to get the world to understand that the depth and breadth of UK-based expertise is ahead of what any other country can offer.

    And we must have our SMEs as hungry and organised as German SMEs, if we are to meet our export targets.

    From what I see, UKTI are doing an excellent job.

    But we need all of you beating a path to my door and to Stephen Green’s door to tell us what more you need from us, from UKTI and from the Chambers to support you efforts – particularly for those of you who are SMEs.

    Meanwhile, the City of London remains the most international financial centre in the world.  And the City remains the largest Islamic Finance centre outside the Islamic world, with $19bn of sharia complaint assets.

    This has contributed to Gulf Sovereign Wealth Funds’ investment into the UK.

    Whether it is the US$2.4 billion ijara financing for the redevelopment of Chelsea Barracks or the Islamic financial products supporting the construction of The Shard, the City has shown how it can facilitate Sovereign Wealth Fund investment.

    I have made it a personal priority to maintain close relationships with the Gulf Sovereign Wealth Funds. The UK has benefitted hugely from their support over many years and we will continue to welcome them here.

    I hosted ADIA, the KIA and the QIA at the Global Investment Conference at the start of the Olympic Games. And I again welcomed ADIA to London in September for a roundtable on the UK Economy, to present in detail the UK’s plans to deliver growth and stability.

    And, as Sir Robert mentioned, we are looking forward to the Amir of Kuwait’s State visit at the end of November to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the KIO’s London office.

    Finally, The UK will chair the Deauville Partnership in 2013 – the international initiative through which the G8 and Gulf are helping support political and economic transitions taking shape in wake of the Arab Spring.

    The focus of our Presidency will be on promoting open economies and inclusive growth – including supporting economic stabilisation and reform, and increased trade and capital market development to enable private sector growth in Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen.

    And the UK Government are working closely with the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development to host an Investment Conference in London next year which will bring together investors, business, and officials from across the G8 and Middle East to help deliver against these commitments to the region.

    So my message today is clear.  The UK and the Gulf are successfully looking beyond the recent global crisis and working together for a more prosperous future.

    The Amir of Qatar has said that he “cannot remember the relationship being in a better state.” That is a sentiment I hear widely echoed. We now have to turn that sentiment into more business wins.

    I have mentioned only a few of the very many opportunities for us to support each other’s endeavours.

    Government will be unrelenting in support of your efforts.  I will be making two more trips to the Middle East before the end of the year in support of British business. I will be lucky, though, if I am invited to a majlis as splendid as this one, whether in a genuine or a fake Egyptian Room.

    Thank you.

  • Lord Sassoon – 2011 Business Finance Taskforce Speech

    The below speech was made by Lord Sassoon in Sheffield on 15th March 2011, launching the Business Finance Taskforce regional event.

    As a Treasury Minister, I felt that I couldn’t possibly turn down the opportunity to speak at this afternoon’s event. More seriously I wanted to be here at the launch of what is a very significant initiative by the major British banks to reconnect with their SME business customers and to help British businesses obtain the finance they need – finance they need to grow their own businesses and to drive the growth of the economy.

    Much of the economic and political debate of the past three years has focused on the role of the banking sector in our society; the relationship that banks have with their customers; and how this feeds through to the rest of the economy.

    In the past few years this relationship has seen its fair share of ups and downs. And regrettably there seem to have been more downs than ups.

    Which is why this event – and similar ones being held up and down the UK – are so important.

    As today is all about how our largest banks are looking to reconnect with the rest of the economy.

    By this I mean providing the lending that viable businesses need to invest and expand.

    Supplying the capital to stimulate enterprise across the country.

    And ensuring that we a have financial sector that serves its customers, has their trust, as well as their best interests at heart.

    This is vital.

    Because if our financial sector doesn’t tick these boxes then we’ll have an economy that struggles to respond to today’s challenges; a country that doesn’t fulfil its potential; and a recovery that fails to gather momentum.

    It’s no exaggeration to say that private finance is the lifeblood of British business…

    …and that when our banking system is healthy, then so is our economy.

    But the current environment has thrown up particular challenges as banks have retrenched; weathered the financial storm; and looked to rebuild their balance sheets.

    I’m all too aware that SMEs in particular have been facing difficulties when on the hunt for affordable lending.

    So, as a Government, we’ve been working with the banks to try and get credit flowing again.

    Part of this is the recent Project Merlin announcement.

    Among other things, this agreement will ensure that, this year, the UK’s largest banks will make available up to £190 billion to creditworthy businesses… of which £76 billion has been earmarked specifically for small businesses.

    Which is an increase of almost 15 per cent on last year’s lending figures to small business.

    If demand exceeds this, the banks will lend more.

    I think we can all agree that this is an excellent starting point… but there’s still more that needs to be done…

    …and ultimately it will be the banks, not the Government, who will have to lead this work.

    Which is the focus of today’s event.

    I am not only pleased to see the financial sector is taking steps to restore business confidence, and renew the trust that’s been lost. But i also want to commend, not condemn, the BBA and the major banks for the intense effort they have put in over the past nine months in this task.

    Through the Business Finance Taskforce – made up of the British Banker’s Association and the UK’s six largest banks, the industry itself is taking forward a range of initiatives to help better serve its customers. And it has been working closely with Government to shape the Taskforce’s agenda.

    Collectively, these reforms – known as the ‘Better Business Finance’ package – will:

    improve the relationship that banks have with their businesses; ensure better access to finance; and provide better information to increase transparency. And it’s the first of these objectives that I want to concentrate on.

    There has been much debate surrounding whether what we’re currently seeing is either a supply or demand problem.

    Certainly, data continues to show that demand for credit from small businesses remains relatively weak, and this is set against a backdrop of lending levels that are on a downward trend.

    But from my conversations with business, I know it’s not that simple.

    A large part of demand is about confidence… and if businesses don’t have confidence in the banks then they’re unlikely to come asking for credit.

    That is why I see the task of rebuilding business-bank relationships as so important.

    Rightly or wrongly, businesses across Britain believe there’s been a decline in banking standards and a deliberate turning away from ‘relationship banking’ and personal service.

    Rightly or wrongly, many businesses also feel that when they do approach their local banks they’re not made to feel welcome – that they’re now considered too ‘high risk’ even when their businesses were never seen as risky before.

    Undoubtedly, following the crisis, things have changed.

    Banks are understandably more risk averse.

    But this perception may also be adding to the apparent suppressed demand for credit – maybe it’s not so much a lack of demand as discouraged demand that we’re seeing.

    I know that this message has been taken on board by the banks.

    It’s at the core of the various initiatives included as part of the ‘Better Business Finance’ project.

    It’s the focus of the new lending code and principles, which will set out the minimum standards that smaller enterprises can expect from banks… and gives details of the help and advice that banks are making available.

    And it has helped drive the new transparent appeals process, which will give businesses the chance to voice their concerns if they feel they’ve been unfairly refused credit.

    This appeals process will be independently reviewed to ensure that each bank has a fair and equitable process.

    I’m pleased to say that the banks will be launching the new Code and Principles, as well as the appeals process, next month.

    From May, they’ll also help coordinate a new national business mentoring network – using both mentors recruited from their own ranks and, in the first instance, mentors from the not-for-profit sector.

    The introduction of new, independent data on business finance supply and demand trends across the UK will also help to restore relationships. I look forward to seeing the first results from these new surveys in July and to tracking the story they tell thereafter.

    And our major banks have agreed to publish a regular independent survey of businesses’ experience when looking for access to finance.

    This will give a strong indication of how well the banks are doing in meeting the commitments they’ve made.

    Taken together, these various initiatives will make the decisions of financial institutions easier for everyone to understand, but also allow customers to hold their banks to account.

    That way, we all know where we stand.

    And we all know what we can expect.

    But what businesses really want is better access to the funds they need for day-to-day financing as well as investment and growth.

    Which is why the Government has welcomed the decision of the major UK banks to set up the Business Growth Fund.

    This will provide £2.5 billion in equity investment for established small businesses with growth potential over the next 10 years.

    And help equity financing again become more of a mainstream financing option.

    If a loan or an overdraft isn’t the most appropriate form of finance for a small business, then banks should say so.

    And help business find the type of finance that is right for them – whether this is an alternative banking product – like supply chain or invoice financing – or non-bank lending, including equity.

    That’s why today is so important.

    Because you can have the best policy in the world, but if no one knows it exists then it’ll never be a success.

    Which is why I want to tell you about the other website that is launched today: http://www.betterbusinessfinance.co.uk/. It is a website that may be even more important for the UK economy than the 2012 ticket website.

    So the work of the Business Finance Taskforce, and the ‘Better Business Finance’ initiatives, are important first steps in re-establishing confidence and trust in the financial sector.

    It’s this work that is helping the sector as a whole reconnect with the rest of the economy.

    And this can’t be overstated.

    As there’s no hiding from the fact that our banks bear some responsibility for what’s happened to the economy.

    But equally, they have an important role in getting us out of the mire.

    By providing the finance that’s essential for investment.

    The advice that helps businesses grow and succeed.

    And the confidence that underpins a flourishing economy.

    So I welcome the progress that the banks are making.

    I recognise that the Taskforce is taking is taking its job very seriously.

    And I’m happy to be part of this process.

    Where banks, businesses and the Government are working together to create a strong financial sector… one that serves the interests of its customers, has the confidence of investors, and helps deliver a strong and sustainable economy.

  • Viscount Samuel – 1939 House of Lords Address

    My Lords, I trust that your Lordships will agree with Lord Snell that it will be useful if from time to time this House discusses the great issues of these days and does not limit itself, as hitherto, merely to brief acknowledgments of the statements made periodically by His Majesty’s Government. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that Lord Snell himself to-day has initiated such discussion with his accustomed clarity, eloquence and force. Many of us will remember the well-known lines in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera: “The House of Lords throughout the war” “Did nothing in particular,” “And did it very well.” In this war I trust that the House of Lords will not be limited to that function but will be able to contribute in some degree both to the expression of public opinion and perhaps sometimes to its guidance.

    The general course of this country and Empire has been set, and it has been set with almost universal national agreement. The declaration of the Government yesterday shows that the policy is unchanged. Had it been otherwise, had the statement of yesterday been of a different character, I am sure that many of your Lordships would have been prompt to speak their minds. As it is, the discussion may perhaps be brief and limited. For my own part I desire, so far as international affairs are concerned, to refer only to some of the factors that have lately arisen. Without doubt the most important of them is the anxiety that is felt owing to the uncertainty of the attitude of Russia. I do not know whether it would be possible for the Foreign Secretary to say anything on what all of us must recognise to be a difficult and delicate matter. Hitherto, however, the Soviets have declared their neutrality, and it seems to the general public that there need be no reason to assume that that policy will change. The important point is that His Majesty’s Government declared in their statement of yesterday that, whether Russia does or does not change her policy, Britain and France will not depart from theirs but will pursue their declared purpose to the end.

    Consequent upon the recent course of action of Russia, there has been some concern on account of the negotiations that have taken place between Turkey and the Soviets. I trust, however, that the people of this country will view those negotiations with understanding. Turkey, from her geographical situation, has great interests in the Black Sea and in Asia which would lead her to cultivate friendship with the Soviets, as she has done in recent years; while at the same time she has great interests in the Mediterranean which would lead her to value the good will and, if necessary, the assistance of Britain and France. It should be, it would seem to many, our task to help the Turkish Government to avoid any clash between those two real interests, which might at times appear to be somewhat incompatible. We may recognise that Turkey is right in her own interests to cultivate friendship with all her neighbours, and we need not see unfriendliness to ourselves if she seeks to preserve those friendships while maintaining her engagements with France and with Britain.

    As to the division of Poland that has lately been proclaimed by Germany and Russia, we may well feel confident that that will not stand. That matter is not to be decided by those two Powers at the present time; the Peace Conference at the end of the war will deal with it. We may all of us recollect how in March, 1918, there was another treaty between Germany and Russia, signed after long negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, followed by a treaty on similar lines between Germany and Rumania – both of them very advantageous to a triumphant Germany; but events decided otherwise.

    One thing stands out quite clearly in the existing situation. There is one prospect which is utterly intolerable, and it is this. When the war is ended, whether it be late or soon, when the conference has been held and terms of peace have been agreed, and the smoke has cleared away, it would be intolerable if one fact were to remain in the eyes of the world and in the face of history—namely, that Herr Hitler should be found once more to have achieved by violence all, and more 1301 than all, that he had set out to obtain, that the Czech people had not been redeemed and that the Poles had been added as new victims, and that, by another resounding triumph, the Nazi régime had been fastened yet more firmly upon the necks of the German people and of Europe. That that should be the net result is a prospect not to be borne. That that should be the legacy which this generation of ours should leave to posterity, is a thought that would be unendurable. All of us, of course, would rejoice if the war could be ended in a month, but if the ending was such as to leave the situation no better than before, but worse, with the peoples subjected to the continuous strains that have marked the last few years, with international treaties made more worthless even than before, and with further wars ever impending, then the respite could be bought at far too high a price. I believe that the British nation, with a sound instinct, and the French nation as well, feel that now we are in it we must go on and finish it.

    These observations, I gather, meet with a considerable measure of approval from your Lordships. Perhaps what I have to say next, turning to questions of domestic affairs, may not quite be equally approved. A Chinese sage said of one of his disciples who used to accompany him in his wanderings, “So-and-so gives me no assistance at all; he admires immensely everything that I say.” Well, we on these Benches are not debarred in that way from rendering assistance to His Majesty’s Government. In the first place, I think that the country is disappointed with respect to the composition of the War Cabinet. That view has been expressed already this afternoon by the noble Viscounts, Lord Astor and Lord Elibank. Everyone welcomes a smaller War Cabinet, but neither the lines on which it has been constituted – its present numbers – nor its personnel really satisfy the wishes of the nation. I do not wish to pursue that further, because it would raise questions of too great delicacy. But one point stands out very clearly – that the present War Cabinet is weak on the financial and economic side. One does not see in that body a real grasp of all the great questions of that order on which the success of this contest will ultimately in very large measure depend. Many of your Lordships will, no doubt, have seen in The Times yesterday a most able article by Sir William Beveridge, dealing with these matters. He makes there many cogent criticisms and presents practical proposals, with which I would express my humble agreement, and which I trust will receive the close attention of the Government.

    The second ground on which the Government are subject to general criticism, I think, has been the delay in setting up the Ministry of Supply. Again and again in recent years many members of your Lordships’ House – some of those with the closest knowledge of the questions at issue – have urged upon the Government the immediate necessity of establishing such a Ministry, but until recently we had no more than the famous formula uttered by the noble Marquess, Lord Zetland – “sooner or later, perhaps.” When the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, spoke in this House after the September crisis last year, he said: “I would mobilise our industries tomorrow.” Many wondered why they have not been mobilised before, but they have not been mobilised yet in all their fullness. The Ministry of Supply has very limited functions. It is perhaps not through its own fault, but it has not yet won the confidence of the nation. It has not been able, perhaps it has not got the power, to grasp the whole situation comprehensively, that is to say, the mobilisation of all the industry of Britain for the war effort and the proper planning of its output.

    Furthermore, still dealing with the economic side, the Commercial War Risks Insurance Scheme was received with general disapproval by the commercial community, but still it has not been changed in accordance with their desires. With regard to war damage compensation, the public are left altogether at a loss to know what action will be taken by the Government to carry out their declared policy of relieving the individual who suffers from any damage to his house or property resulting from war action, instead of leaving him to bear the whole burden of what should be a communal charge. As long ago as January 31 the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared that this was a matter which the Government ought to take up, that it was one which required legislation, and that legislation should be introduced as soon as possible. That was at the end of January, and still no steps have been taken. That this matter should not have been pressed on with before the war is cause for blame for the Government as a whole, and for the Treasury in particular.

    With regard to the Ministry of Information, that has been so fully discussed this afternoon that it is unnecessary to add a further word. The Government have recognised that the scheme prepared beforehand has proved completely unsuitable, and they have now abandoned it. But it is necessary to urge upon His Majesty’s Government – a view that has already been expressed by some noble Lords this afternoon – that adequate steps have not been taken to maintain the tone of the nation. The war drags slowly, perhaps inevitably. On land, on the Western Front, it has taken the tedious form of siege warfare. On the seas it is a matter of patrols and skirmishes. In the air, hitherto, it has been the same. These methods of warfare demand magnificent qualities from the individuals engaged, and have given opportunities for the display of heroism which must command the admiration of everyone, but to the public at large the war seems going slowly, and apparently the end can only be found, unless there are some striking changes in one direction or another, in the gradual process of the economic exhaustion of Germany.

    In 1914, before conscription was introduced, when we depended on voluntary recruitment, it was necessary for the Government and for all the leaders of Parties to go down to the people and hold great meetings in all the centres of population in order to explain the purposes of the war, to stimulate and maintain enthusiasm, and to recruit the great armies of millions that were then being raised. Now that is not necessary in the same way. The noble Lord, Lord Macmillan, speaking a little while ago, said it was proposed to mobilise all the means of publicity in the country, and he mentioned first the platform. Possibly some member of the Government may be able to tell us to what extent and in what way it is proposed to do that.

    Now there is a method that did not exist 25 years ago—broadcasting—which enables the leaders of the people to speak directly to every household, and there one cannot but endorse the complaints that have been made this afternoon by Lord Strabolgi, Lord Astor, and the noble and gallant Field Marshal Lord Birdwood, that the broadcasting programmes of the B.B.C. are inadequate to the times and to the promotion of the strenuous effort which is required from the nation. They are uninspired and uninspiring. As Meredith said, “England is a muffled drum.” That is characteristic of the broadcasting of to-day. That is why the whole people welcomed with so much enthusiasm the spirited and resonant speeches in Parliament and on the wireless of Mr. Winston Churchill. Lord Macmillan told us to-day that he had to devote himself hitherto to reforming the structure of his Ministry, and that it is only now that the Ministry is able to get on with its real work of disseminating information and carrying on legitimate propaganda. It is a sad thing that, during this critical month, time should have been wasted and, according to the Minister of Information himself, the Ministry should have been immobilised for its real purpose by the initial defects in its own constitution.

    There are many suggestions that might be made by members of this House and members of the other House which it is not expedient to make in open session. For my own part I desire to support the proposal which was initiated by the leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons, and has been supported here by Lord Ponsonby and Lord Noel-Buxton already, that there should be Secret Sessions of Parliament, if not now, then at no distant future. Members cannot criticise or comment freely on certain matters without doing harm. An example may be found in Mr. Lloyd George’s speech yesterday – a speech which, if made at this juncture, should have been made in Secret Session, and which appears to many to have been untimely. That is my view; others may think differently. During the last war there were Secret Sessions which I well remember, and it is true that they caused some disappointment among members of Parliament, because it was anticipated that the Government would be able to give information about the strategic situation and the state of national preparedness which, as a matter of fact, Ministers could not give. It would no doubt be the same to-day. If there is even a distant risk of information on any strategic or military matter leaking out and reaching the ears of General Staffs who are eagerly listening for every whisper, however distant that risk may be, it cannot be faced, and no Government charged with these great matters could face the danger of a breach of secrecy.

    But Ministers can give a great deal of information about home conditions which it might not be expedient to publish to the world, and it is not only a question of what the Government can tell members, but also a question of what members can tell the Government. It is very necessary that Ministers should be kept in touch with the movement of public opinion, particularly in days like these, when there are no by-elections to be held except what may be called freak elections such as the one pending in Scotland. It is true that it would hinder the successful conduct of the war if certain things were said in public, but it is also true that it may hinder the successful conduct of the war if these things are not said at all. They cart be said much more effectively in Parliament than privately by members to individual Ministers. It is, of course, a matter on which the House of Commons should take the initiative, but if Secret Sessions are held there as they were during the last war, no doubt here also they will take place as happened on that occasion.

    All these are comparatively minor points. After a month of war, the important salient fact is that the substantial unity of the nation is unshaken, and we all stand behind the Government to secure the successful waging of the war. We all see clearly that the essence of the matter is this. Czecho-Slovakia and Poland are only symptoms. There is a deep-seated disease in the centre of Europe, and it is a disease of the mind. This is a war of ideas. Ideas determine action. As a German philospher said, “Ideas have hands and feet.” They strike, they march, whether for good or for ill; and a nation which allows itself to fall subject to men who take a cynical view of life and of politics, who have no religion, who are not aware that such a thing as international morality exists, such a nation brings on itself certain disaster and on its neighbours great suffering. The Germans might have learned better from the uniform teaching of all history. They have not done so. They have to learn afresh in the school of hard experience. That seems to me the essence of the matter.

  • Alex Salmond – 2014 Speech to SNP Conference

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Alex Salmond, the Scottish First Minister, in Aberdeen on 12th April 2014.

    We meet here in this conference centre in Aberdeen as ordinary members of the Scottish National Party.

    But also the most privileged members of the SNP in our 80 year history.

    For this generation has the opportunity our forebears could only dream about.

    But we are no longer just members of a political party.

    We are also now part of a greater movement.

    A movement of young and old, of women and men, of trade unionists and businesspeople, of writers and artists.

    A movement of glorious diversity, reflecting our country’s rich spirit.

    Dedicated to a common goal:

    To build a better Scotland.

    To create a fairer society.

    To become an independence country.

    Make no mistake – momentum is with this campaign.

    The people are coming towards us.

    Political public meetings are being revived.

    Halls have been crowded across Scotland as we discuss our nation’s future.

    The messages from these meetings of hundreds are amplified a hundred times through social media and the campaign momentum continues.

    Can the No campaign match this?

    Well not really. To do it you have to first organise meetings and then you have to have people wanting to turn up.

    Last month the BBC finally discovered this grassroots campaign and tried to cover both sides of the debate.

    Their problem was that the No campaign struggled to find them any grassroots group to film – or even a single grassroot.

    It is rather like what happened a few weeks back when the UK and Scottish cabinets met on the same day here in Aberdeen.

    What a contrast.

    We met in Portlethen church hall in a public meeting with hundreds of people.

    The London Cabinet met in private behind the security screen in the HQ of Shell Oil.

    Big oil meets big government with small ideas.

    So let me repeat my offer to David Cameron. Prime Minister we can drum up a crowd for you in Scotland.

    All you have to do is say ‘yes’ to a debate.

    I mean what can you possibly be frightened of. Just think how well your deputy did debating UKIP!

    And if the fourth and fifth parties in Scotland can have a TV debate then why not the First Minister and Prime Minister?

    So let us at last have that debate about the future of this country in a proper open and democratic way.

    And let us agree to do it now.

    Of course not everyone is feart on the no side.

    One man is still game.

    Alistair Carmichael is still fighting hard for the Westminster establishment.

    Last month Alistair was on home turf in Shetland – a safe distance, he must have felt from Nicola Sturgeon.

    Reading the Shetland News – which has the motto: “Great is the Truth and it will prevail,” I saw that Alistair had not lost his touch.

    After a debate with Mike Mackenzie MSP and local activist Danus Skene, the Shetland News reported:

    “A show of hands revealed that Mackenzie and Skene had succeeded in widening the gap between yes and no from a single vote to 22.”

    Great is the truth and it will prevail.

    The trouble for the No campaign is this:

    The more the people of Scotland hear the case for No, the more likely they are to vote Yes.

    And no wonder.

    They are the most miserable, negative, depressing and thoroughly boring campaign in modern political history.

    They are already out of touch with the people and are now losing touch with reality.

    Lord Robertson told a startled Washington that the “forces of darkness” are getting ready to celebrate a Yes vote.

    The “forces of darkness”!

    Darth Vader, Ming the Merciless, the Klingons and Lex Luthor must all be watching the campaign closely.

    The Daleks though are not so happy.

    Word has reached them that Dr Who is to be banned from an independent Scotland.

    That’s the no campaign – totally laughable and completely ludicrous.

    There is though this serious point.

    We are engaged in a consensual constitutional process which will be decided at the ballot box. Not a unique process – but rare in this world – and something which should be cherished.

    The referendum in Scotland is being held up to the world as an example of best practice. We should do everything in our power to keep it that way and each and every one of us carries that individual responsibility.

    A people exercising their right to self-determination in a lawful, agreed, respectful, democratic manner is not a threat but a noble thing.

    The Yes campaign is positive, uplifting, hopeful and must always stay that way.

    That is the basis on which we will win this referendum and our country’s independence.

    There was something else that caught my eye in the report of that Shetland debate.

    It was this passage:

    “Local architect Iain Malcolmson said he had never been an SNP voter but would vote yes in September.

    “Half his family are Geordies, and on a recent trip south for his grandmother’s 90th birthday he had asked for their views.”

    Their response: “Of course you should vote yes.”

    This touches on a fundamental truth.

    Many people who have never voted for our party will be voting Yes.

    This referendum is not about this Party, or this First Minister, or even the wider Yes campaign.

    It’s about putting Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands.

    A Yes vote in September is not a vote for an SNP government in 2016.

    It’s a vote for a government in Scotland that the people of Scotland choose, pursuing policies the people of Scotland support.

    A government in control of tax, the economy, social security, employment, immigration, oil and gas revenues, European policy and a range of other areas currently under Westminster control.

    That may be the SNP. It may be Labour. It may be a coalition.

    I tell you what it won’t be.

    It won’t be a government led by a party with just a single MP in Scotland.

    A government dismantling our welfare state.

    Privatising public services.

    In an independent Scotland we can give this guarantee:

    The era of Tory Governments unelected by the people of Scotland handing out punishment to the poor and the disabled will be gone and gone for good.

    The Westminster establishment is fighting hard to maintain its grip on Scotland.

    David Cameron’s government has produced edict after edict opposing independence.

    Members of the House of Lords have given us their unelected, distilled, wisdom from beneath their ermine robes.

    All of it designed to tell Scots how impossibly difficult it would be to run our own country.

    Backed up all the way by a Labour Party leadership that has totally lost its way.

    That has lost touch with the values of Labour voters.

    That supports illegal wars, a cuts commission to roll back the gains of devolution and the Tory assault on social security.

    Independence will be good for Scottish Labour.

    The Labour Party, freed from Westminster control, will have the chance to return to its core values: many of which we in this party agree with and share.

    But there is something the Scottish National Party will never agree to – will never be a part of.

    Something we will campaign against with every fibre of our being.

    The leadership of the Labour Party are hand in glove with the Tories in a shameful attempt to run Scotland and its people down.

    Let us look at the reality.

    Scotland’s contribution to mankind has been immense.

    Great enlightenment philosophers.

    Our commitment to science and medical advancement.

    Innovators, industrialists, educators and inventors.

    I’m just back from Scotland Week in New York. There is enormous interest in Scotland – huge profile. It helped us gain over a thousand jobs this week alone.

    In the opinion of American historians, Scotland ”invented the modern world” – something we wouldn’t claim for ourselves but don’t mind repeating as often as possible!

    But still today in modern Scotland:

    More top universities, per head, than any other country.

    A hot bed of life sciences.

    Brilliance in creative industries.

    A world-class food and drink industry.

    Manufacturers exporting across the world.

    25 per cent of Europe’s off-shore wind and tidal potential.

    60 per cent of the EU’s oil reserves.

    A Government 100 per cent committed to building a better future.

    We will not let anyone tell the people of Scotland that we’re not good enough to run our own country.

    Friends,

    A short distance from this conference centre is a vibrant, busy harbour.

    It’s full of vessels servicing Scotland’s thriving oil and gas industry.

    They will be here for many decades to come.

    The oil – and the tax revenue – will continue to flow.

    What a shock this scene must be for the opponents of independence.

    In the 1970s they said No to self-government because they told us the oil would all be gone by now.

    In the 1980s they said No even though the Tories were laying waste to our steel industry, car industry and coal mines.

    In the 1990s the doom-sayers were still saying No because they said we weren’t capable of running our schools and hospitals.

    Delegates,

    Scotland’s has got what it takes.

    Our Parliament working together, introduced free personal care for the elderly.

    We’ve passed world-leading climate change legislation.

    And this party in government has restored free education.

    We’ve kept Scottish Water in public hands.

    And there is no better example of why decisions about Scotland are best taken in Scotland than the future of our National Health Service.

    At Westminster the NHS is being softened up for privatisation.

    The Tories are forcing through a costly, confusing and harmful top-down re-organisation.

    Nurses are being denied the pay rise they deserve.

    Scotland has gone down a better route.

    We reject the free market in health.

    We’ve abolished prescription charges.

    And nurses in Scotland are getting their recommended pay-rise.

    Let us be absolutely clear conference.

    It is because we have control of the health service we can give this pledge : Scotland’s NHS will never be up for sale.

    Scotland is a wealthy country. We more than pay our way.

    As an independent nation we would be the 14th richest country in the developed world.

    The UK are 18th.

    Is anyone seriously meant to believe that the 14th most prosperous country in the developed world cannot sustain itself as an independent country?

    Of course they don’t, which is why the ratings agency Standard & Poors – not known for their unbridled optimism on any country’s prospects – said in February:

    “Even excluding North Sea output……. Scotland would qualify for our highest economic assessment.”

    And so in September the people of this wealthy country will face a choice between two futures.

    One future is to put our faith in Westminster.

    In a system where the five richest families own more wealth than the poorest 12 and a half million people.

    Where charities are warning of a “poverty storm engulfing Scotland.”

    Where families with children need emergency food aid.

    Delegates,

    These aren’t reasons to put our faith in the Westminster system.

    These are reasons to get rid of the Westminster system.

    All of us campaigning for Yes know an independent Scotland won’t get every decision right.

    There will be choices to be made and challenges to face.

    The point is to be equipped with the powers we need to meet those challenges.

    Not to shrug our shoulders and accept Scotland as a region of a grossly unequal country.

    But to take responsibility.

    To build a more resilient economy.

    To create jobs and opportunities.

    We can do this by capturing a sense of shared national purpose, a shared national mission to build a fairer and more prosperous country.

    By giving our companies a competitive edge in taxation, by reindustrialising Scotland and by building a lasting social partnership.

    But more than anything: whether we succeed or fail in our ambition will be down to one factor: the talents and abilities of our people.

    So the days of wasting talent and denying opportunity must end.

    And yet charities tell us up to 100,000 more Scottish children are set to grow up in poverty because of the Westminster government’s actions.

    So we will stop the poverty-creating policies.

    The minimum wage will rise at least in line with inflation.

    And in the first year of an independent Scotland we will abolish the bedroom tax.

    To release potential of all of the people we must do more.

    That is why we will put into action our independence plan to transform childcare – a plan put to me first by the late Professor Ailsa McKay of Glasgow Caledonian University whose motto is “For the Common Weal” – and a woman who was passionate in her belief that independence could change Scotland for the better.

    We will start the process by transferring money from

    Westminster’s priorities to Scotland’s priorities.

    We will save £50 million a year because we won’t be paying for the House of Lords, sending MPs to the Commons or funding the Scotland Office.

    In a time of tight resources we do not believe it is right to go ahead with David Cameron’s married couples tax allowance: a policy that discriminates against widows, single parent families and which only benefits one-third of married couples.

    For us, childcare for all families is the priority: not tax breaks for a few.

    And we will have another priority.

    Spending £100 billion over a generation on a new generation of nuclear weapons is obscene.

    We give this cast iron guarantee.

    A Yes vote on September 18th is a vote to remove these weapons of mass destruction from Scotland once and for all.

    This then is what we mean by a choice between two futures.

    Westminster wants to renew a weapons system that can destroy the world.

    In an independent Scotland we will build a system of childcare that will be the envy of the world.

    Let me tell you why this is so important.

    It is about changing the destiny of Scotland’s poorest children.

    Early years’ education and childcare benefits the most – those families who have the least.

    For many parents, childcare costs can be crippling.

    These costs are a barrier to work, the real route out of poverty.

    With devolution we are investing more than a quarter of a billion pounds over the next two years to expand childcare.

    But to transform childcare, we need the powers of independence.

    Some people say that it could be done under devolution. But under devolution nearly 90 per cent of the tax generated on women’s employment earnings go straight to the Westminster Exchequer not to Scotland.

    In an independent Scotland, with control of our budget, our resources and taxation, we can invest far more in our children’s future.

    High quality universal childcare and early learning – for all of Scotland’s children, that’s the independence pledge.

    Delegates,

    Transforming childcare will open up opportunities for many more women in Scotland.

    But our ambitions must go further.

    An equal opportunity to join the workforce – and an equal opportunity within the workforce.

    In an independent Scotland we will want our companies to aspire to at least 40 per cent female participation on their boards.

    And we will have the power to enforce the Equal Pay Act.

    This issue of equality, of equal opportunities, is of the highest importance.

    Shona Robison is the minister in charge of equality in the Scottish Government so today I have asked Shona to join the Scottish Cabinet as a full member and to also take on a specific brief on pensioners’ rights.

    The Scotland we are seeking to build will be an equal Scotland.

    A Scotland where everyone has the opportunity to make the most of their talents.

    Youth unemployment is the single biggest challenge we face in meeting that goal.

    The Scottish Government is working hard to tackle this blight of joblessness among the young.

    25,000 Modern Apprenticeships, working with the voluntary sector, and the guarantee of work or training place for every 16-19 year old.

    Sir Ian Wood’s Commission is producing exciting proposals which will align our education and training systems ever closer to the work place.

    This work has been overseen by Angela Constance as the only Minister for Youth Employment in Europe.

    Today I have also asked Angela to become a full member of the Scottish Cabinet and to take full policy responsibility for work training and the implementation of the Wood Commission.

    These appointments underline our commitment to equality, to pensioners and to helping the young people of Scotland into the workplace.

    And, subject to Parliamentary approval, with these two outstanding ministers in the Scottish Cabinet, we practice what we preach.

    The Cabinet is our board as a country and women will make up 40% of the members of the Scottish Cabinet.

    In this speech I have stressed that an independent Scotland will be an inclusive Scotland.

    There are many different colours and threads woven in to the Scottish tartan and we celebrate them all.

    We need to mobilise all the talents and the potential of all of our people.

    And we have to reflect that in how we will proceed after September the 18th , in the approach we will take to bring Scotland together as we prepare to move forward.

    With a Yes vote on September 18, that work will begin.

    An all-party “Team Scotland” negotiating group, including non-SNP members will be convened.

    It will secure expertise from across the political spectrum and beyond and indeed from Scotland and beyond.

    That group will begin negotiations with Westminster before the end of September.

    The discussions will be held in accordance with the principles of the Edinburgh Agreement.

    That means with respect and in the interests of everyone in Scotland and indeed the rest of the UK.

    The campaigning rhetoric will be over. The real work will begin.

    And in March 2016 Scotland will become an independent country and join the international family of nations.

    Delegates,

    Last week as the great life of Margo MacDonald was celebrated, many pictures were posted showing Margo out campaigning for independence down the years.

    In one, which is on the cover of Holyrood Magazine, a young

    Margo was outside the old Royal High School in Edinburgh, holding a big poster of a loveheart with the words: “Yes, We Love you Scotland.”

    In this referendum debate we often hear that same sentiment.

    For some it will be a love of the astounding natural beauty of our country.

    The rich diversity of the life and the landscape.

    But our cause is about more than the landscape, the history and the legends, no matter how romantic or moving.

    The historian J D Mackie once wrote of Scotland’s significance and vitality as a human community.

    That’s what the campaign for Scottish independence is about.

    Our human community.

    I think that it what it was for Margo. She didn’t just love Scotland. She loved Scots. She loved people.

    And she held the unshakable conviction that we can do better for and by our people.

    And this referendum will be won when we, as a people, no longer feel the need to ask of others: “tell me what will happen to us.”

    It will be won when we, as the people of Scotland say: “ We are going to take our future into our own hands.”

    The eyes of the world will be on Scotland in September – watching, intently, to see how we will vote.

    When the polls are closed and the voting has been done, let’s resolve this.

    Let’s keep the eyes of the world on Scotland.

    Not to see how we are voting but to watch in admiration at what we will be building.

    Building a new and better Scotland.

    Let’s take all our ideals, all our talent, all our commitment and our energy.

    Let us build a nation that carries itself with pride and humility in equal measure.

    That looks to its own but which gives of itself to the world as much as it possibly can.

    Which yields to no one in compassion and to no-one in ambition.

    And that, come independence day, walks tall among the nations of the Earth – on that day, and on every day thereafter.

    This is our moment.

    To be a beacon of hope.

    A land of achievement.

    Our country, our Scotland.

    Our independence.

  • Alex Salmond – 2013 Speech to SNP Conference

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    Below is the text of the speech made by the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, to the 2013 SNP Spring Conference.

    A week is indeed a long time in politics.

    On Thursday we announced the date of the independence referendum – Scotland’s date with destiny.

    My advisers told me that within a few minutes of making the announcement, I was “trending” in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

    Delegates, I was so disappointed – at first I thought they said I was “trendy” in Edinburgh and Glasgow!

    Well friends. Meet cool Eck fae Buchan.

    On 18 September 2014 we will have the opportunity to ensure that decisions about Scotland are taken by the people who care most about Scotland – the people who live and work here.

    Few nations and very few generations are fortunate enough to make such an important decision – we are in every sense  the lucky ones.

    It’s a vote for the people of Scotland – every citizen aged 16 up – and rightly so.  But do not underestimate the positive lesson to the wider world of a nation deciding its future by debate and democracy.

    It was former President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, who last October described Scotland’s referendum as a “remarkable and wonderful phenomenon”.

    Whether you are Yes, No – or like many at this stage a Dinnae Ken – we can all be proud that our nation is embarked on such an exciting journey in an impeccably democratic way.

    The 18th September 2014 is the day when every one of us will be asked to take the future of our country into our hands.

    And for years to come people will be asked to say by friends, neighbours, children and grandchildren to say how they voted on that day.

    And when that question comes, as come it will, let us make sure that each one of us can proudly say YES.

    I was one of those who voted by majority for a new future for Scotland.

    Friends, this party has never wavered from our commitment to trust the people to decide the issue of independence.

    While the Westminster parties ganged up to block a referendum in the last parliament – when the SNP were a minority – we held fast to Scotland’s democratic rights.

    THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SCOTTISH PEOPLE IS IN OUR DNA.

    This moment – Scotland’s moment – was the life-work of dedicated servants of Scotland such as the much-missed Jimmy Halliday.  When Jimmy led our party in the 1950s, a referendum to achieve an independent Scotland was just a dream  – but one he never wavered from.

    And the work of Jimmy and countless thousands others has made their dream our  reality – we thank them now, and will thank them best by achieving that Yes vote in the referendum.

    And because we have always trusted the people, I believe they will put their trust in the Yes campaign on the 18th of September next year – and vote with those of us who want to build a prosperous economy and a just society.

    Next year will be a huge year for Scotland not just for politics but for a range of events which will focus the attention of the planet on our country – the Commonwealth Games, the Ryder Cup, the second Homecoming Year.

    We will make sure that each of these events is a success for Scotland, but we also wish to see them as a catalyst for positive change.

    Exactly a year ago  I announced the establishment of a £10 million fund to help local communities bring sports facilities across Scotland into the 21st century.

    This year we are going further adding another £7 million to this initiative, meaning that over 80 projects across Scotland will be completed in good time for the Commonwealth Games.

    So whether its snowsports in Midlothian (for which there is plenty of raw material), Olympic swimming pools in Dundee and Aberdeen, 3G pitches in Dumfries and Galloway, or the outdoor community facility in Aviemore these facilities will provide real benefits.

    OUR AIM IS TO INSPIRE SCOTS YOUNG AND OLD TO SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY PRESENTED BY THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES TO BECOME A BETTER NATION.  

    Friends – it is said that to govern is to choose but even more fundamental than that is to choose how you are governed.

    That choice – THE REAL CHOICE – becomes clearer by the day – the opportunity to use our vast resources and talent to build a better country, or to continue with a Westminster system that simply isn’t working for Scotland – a system which has not worked in the past, is not working now and will not work in the future..

    Take the big issues debated in the Scottish Parliament last week – they illustrate exactly why an independent Scotland is the right choice.

    It is ten years since the Scottish Parliament first debated the Iraq war – when a catalogue of deception by a Labour Prime Minister – a Labour Prime Minister – led the UK into an illegal conflict that came at enormous human cost.

    Almost 5,000 allied soldiers – 179 from the UK – and well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians lost their lives as a result of a foreign policy disaster which made Suez look like a picnic in the sun.

    Now when our brave service men and women are sent into danger, we have a duty to give them our full support – and we have an equal duty to discuss the reasons why.  The people who elected us to public office expect nothing less.

    However, the No campaign parties in the Scottish Parliament actually tried to gag us from debating Iraq – Labour even claimed it was not a real issue.

    Try telling the families who have lost a loved one to the war in Iraq that this is not a ‘real issue’.  Try telling them it should be airbrushed away.

    The reality of the situation is that our opponents want to avoid confronting their demons, because they know they backed an illegal war based on a lie – the myth of weapons of mass destruction.

    In the Scottish Parliament, there are still 8 of the Tory MSPs and 15 Labour MSPs who voted for the Iraq war – including their leader.

    11 of the Scottish Labour MPs who voted for the war are still in the House of Commons – including No campaigner in chief, Alistair Darling.

    Another 10 have even been ‘elevated’ – if that is the right word – to the House of Lords.

    Labour and the Tories, Tories and Labour – they were wrong together about the Iraq war 10 years ago.

    And they should apologise together now.

    Friends, the imposition of the Poll Tax by Margaret Thatcher persuaded the majority of people that we needed a parliament with the powers to stop such divisive social experiments being visited upon Scotland.

    Instead of being just a good idea, a parliament became necessary if we were to protect Scotland’s social fabric, and ensure that domestic policy reflected the will of the people.

    Tony Blair’s legacy is to demonstrate why Scotland needs to go further.  The catastrophe of Iraq shows why our parliament needs to have the powers of independence – so that never again can Scotland be dragged into an illegal war on false pretences.

    I’m certain that the lie that led to Iraq would not have been perpetrated by the government of an independent Scotland, of any political persuasion. But we have to be absolutely certain.

    Other countries – including Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland – have constitutional guarantees that they will not go to war without a proper process of parliamentary approval, and a similar such undertaking could be written into the constitution of an independent Scotland.

    Friends, I believe it should be – indeed it has to be to demonstrate that our new Scotland is something worth voting for.

    That is part of the WHY of independence.

    The US/UK invasion of Iraq was about non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

    But delegates, there are real weapons of mass destruction. Weapons Inspectors  would have had no problem finding them in Scotland.

    Just one hundred and fifty miles from here the Trident missile system is based on the Clyde Estuary, just along the road from our most populous city, with an estimated cost for its renewal of up to one hundred billion pounds.

    Trident was conceived by the Tories, presided over by Labour just as Polaris before it was conceived by Labour and presided over by the Tories.

    The process of its renewal for another 50 years – another half century – is happening under a Tory/Lib Dem coalition supported by Labour.

    Trident is Westminster’s ultimate vanity obscenity but now is entirely dependent on next year’s vote.

    Because, delegates, it’s now clear that the only way, the only way, we can finally remove these weapons of mass destruction is with a Yes vote for independence.

    THAT IS ALSO PART OF THE WHY OF INDEPENDENCE.

    Friends, I’m proud to lead a Government that has made the Scottish Parliament work for our people.  That’s why the Scottish Social Attitudes survey showed that 71 per cent of people trust Holyrood to act in Scotland’s best interests – four-times more than trust Westminster.

    In the face of appalling financial pressures, we have have chosen a different path from Westminster – a path that reflects Scotland’s social democratic consensus, our shared progressive values, our priorities as a society.

    On all the key domestic issues Scotland trumps Westminster.

    Down south, the UK Government’s own figures reveal that England will see a 16,000 reduction in the number of police officers.  And to compound this, the starting wage of new officers has been reduced.

    South of the Border the thin blue line has just got a lot thinner.

    In contrast, the SNP government has delivered and protected 1,000 extra police officers on our streets.  A great achievement – and one that Labour said would take us 13 years!

    Just next week, Scotland’s new national police force comes into place, along with Scotland’s new national fire and rescue service.

    Friends this Government will always value the work of our emergency services – the people who have been mobilised all of last night helping our fellow citizens.

    It is our approach to front line policing which has delivered not only a 37-year low in recorded crime but also a fall in the fear of crime that causes such misery.

    That’s why Scotland’s Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill gets cheered to the rafters at the Police Federation conference.  And why his Tory counterpart at Westminster gets booed off the stage.

    On health, Scotland continues to protect frontline health spending, despite the Westminster cuts and the huge pressures on our budget.

    Prescription charges – the tax on the sick – have been abolished in Scotland, even as they rise to £7.85 in England.

    We have record patient satisfaction with our health service, the job our health professionals do, often in difficult circumstances.

    We have maintained a genuine National Health Service in Scotland – free at the point of need – even as the NHS is being fragmented and privatised south of the Border, first under Labour and then by the Tories.

    Professor Don Berwick is a world-renowned expert on patient safety, David Cameron’s new ‘health tsar’, and a former adviser to President Obama.  This is what he says about the strength of the Scottish system:

    “The Scottish Patient Safety Programme marks Scotland as a leader, second to no nation on earth, in its commitment to reducing harm to patients, dramatically and continually.”

    That must always be our goal, in every aspect of our health service and national life – ‘second to no nation on earth’.

    FOUR YEARS AGO AT OUR CONFERENCE WE ANNOUNCED THAT WE WOULD DRIVE OUT THE PRIVATISATION OF CLEANING SERVICES IN THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE.

    Since then healthcare acquired infections have dropped by 80 per cent.

    IS THERE ANY MORE VINDICATION NEEDED OF ALEX NEIL’S DETERMINATION TO HAVE A PUBLICLY RUN NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE FREE AT THE POINT OF NEED.

    The Scottish Parliament does not control the key economic levers but we do have economic powers. We have used them to deliver the best help for the small business sector – the backbone of our economy – available anywhere in these islands.

    We have used them to win more jobs from inward investment compared to any other part of these islands – including London.

    And we now have lower unemployment – including youth unemployment – than the UK as a whole.

    One year ago youth unemployment was almost 25 per cent as young people bore the brunt of the Labour/Tory recession.

    Then we appointed Scotland’s first Minister for Youth Employment, gathered together our stakeholders from the STUC and from business, almost doubled the number of apprenticeships, focussed college courses on full time preparation for employment, introduced the youth guarantee for 16-19 year olds.

    What has been the result?

    In one year youth unemployment has gone down by one third, from 103,000 to 68,000.  Still far too high, but a dramatic difference to the lives of thousands of youngsters.

    ON THIS WEEK’S FIGURES ALL OF THE UK FALL OF 34,000 OVER THE YEAR IN YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT TOOK PLACE IN SCOTLAND.

    FRIENDS  WHAT A DEMONSTRATION OF THE WORK OF ANGELA CONSTANCE AS SCOTLAND’S MINISTER FOR YOUTH EMPLOYMENT.

    We cannot allow these successes to be blown away in an eternal economic winter of Westminster austerity.

    This week’s Westminster Budget is following a familiar pattern, fizz on the day, a hangover the day after.

    Even the fizz only lasted until we found they had swiped another £50 million from the Scottish Budget for this coming year, without so much as a by your leave.

    But there is much more bad news in this Budget. Analysis by the Institute of Fiscal Studies shows that from 2016 the Westminster Budget means either £500 tax rises for every family or further cuts in public services which they describe as “eye watering”.

    That is the grim future for Scottish families under Westminster rule.

    And would there be a different prospectus from Labour? – not a chance.

    At Westminster they dance to the Tory tune. In Scotland they are preparing to rip up the social gains of devolution.

    This week was one of Labour abstention in votes in Holyrood and Westminster.

    They abstained on the war, they abstained on Trident, they abstained on bus passes, they even abstained on workfare at Westminster.

    LABOUR – THE GREAT ABSTAINERS ON EVERYTHING – EXCEPT MINIMUM PRICING FOR ALCOHOL WHICH THEY OPPOSED!

    The SNP offer a different future.

    At Holyrood we will defend the social gains – policies such as free personal care and bus passes for our older folk – who have paid their taxes, powered our economy, raised the children, and deserve something back from society.  That is what it means to be a society.

    AND THE ROCKS WILL MELT WITH THE SUN BEFORE WE ALLOW TORY OR LABOUR TO TAKE AWAY THE RIGHT TO FREE EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND.

    Delegates, the Yes campaign is predicated on the compelling truth that decisions about Scotland are best made by the people who live and work here. That was once a theory, but is now an indisputable fact.

    Since the restoration of our parliament in 1999, we have demonstrated that in law & order, health, education, business support, and the great social services of Scotland – our parliament delivers the policies that are right for Scotland, and reflect the views and votes of the people.

    That is the very prize and purpose of self-government.

    And if it is true in these devolved areas, it is equally true in all areas of public life.

    That is the prize and purpose of an independent Scotland.

    With each passing day it becomes clearer that the Westminster system is not fit for any purpose – it is further away than ever from Scotland’s values, and past its time.

    The iniquitous Bedroom Tax is the latest example – in a House of Commons debate led by the SNP and Plaid Cymru, over 90 per cent of Scottish MPs voted against it.

    We know from Scottish Government research that the extra costs the Bedroom Tax impose on the Scottish economy will outweigh any savings the UK Government makes – even before we factor in the wider social costs and the distress and disruption it will cause.

    But still it is imposed on Scotland.  And to add insult to injury, the architect of this  shambles – Iain Duncan Smith – has to be dragged kicking and screaming to deign to defend his policy to a committee of the Scottish Parliament.

    Friends this is an iniquitous, unfair, anti-family imposition conceived because of runaway rent levels in the south.

    WHY SHOULD PEOPLE WHO WOULD IMPOSE SUCH INIQUITY HAVE ANY POWER AND AUTHORITY OVER THE SCOTTISH PEOPLE.

    Friends we have acted to mitigate the worst impacts of welfare changes. Acting with COSLA we have sheltered hundreds of thousands of families from council tax rises, we have established loan funds, increased support for advice centres.

    And today I can announce that all SNP-led local authorities will follow the lead of Dundee in halting the threat of evictions from this disgraceful tax for those struggling to pay.

    However what Scotland needs is not mitigation but power, not just a defence against Westminster but a removal of Westminster authority over Scotland.

    Delegates last year I made a speech pointing out the opportunities to grow the Scottish economy with control over our taxation policy. No-one in this world owes Scotland a living, every policy we articulate needs to focus on our competitiveness as a country.

    That is part of the WHY of Independence.

    Today I want to illustrate why social change can also release the untapped potential of Scotland and make us not just a prosperous economy but a just society and why these concepts go hand in hand – a prosperous economy and a just society.

    Last week the unemployment figures showed Scots unemployment below the UK average. However look behind these figures and see a glaring inequality which holds the nation back.

    66% of women are in employment compared to 76% of men.

    Now that is not down to lack of talent. Women now make up 55 per cent of entrants into higher education and the number of Modern Apprenticeship starts for women has increased from 27 per cent to 43 per cent.

    But in terms of lower numbers of women in employment it really doesn’t have to be like that. Elsewhere in Europe the gender gap is much much less.

    If we closed the opportunity gap we would add to our national wealth and to our taxation base by mobilising the skills of women into our workforce.

    But there would be another change – a fundamental opportunity to improve the life chances of many of our children.

    We have long cherished the ambition to increase pre-school education.  In our first term, we moved it from 412 to 475 free nursery hours per annum, benefiting 100,000 children a year.

    And last year I announced a step further – a statutory guarantee of over 600 hours of free nursery education for every 3 and 4 year old, and for every looked after 2 year old in our land.

    This is a statement of faith and commitment to the future and it is being carried forward without the fears of lower standards now prevalent in the south of the border.

    Flexible in its delivery, using the wisdom of the Early Years Taskforce to help us, but definite in our intent.

    For every young mum and dad juggling work and parenthood, this SNP Government is here for you and your family.

    This is what we can achieve with a devolved Parliament.  But devolution can only take Scotland so far.  We don’t have the financial freedom to give us the biggest bang for our buck – to invest in areas where Scotland could make huge social and economic strides.

    So let us consider what more we could achieve in an independent Scotland.

    I HAVE ASKED THE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS TO PRODUCE AN ANALYSIS OF THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL IMPACT ON SCOTLAND MOVING TO THE LEVELS OF SUPPORT FOR CHILDCARE COMMONPLACE ACROSS EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.

    Our ambitions for childcare are the hallmark of our approach to social and economic policy – we promote the measures we do because they advance both our economy and our society.

    Some argue there is a contradiction between the two, but the reality is that a progressive social policy boosts the economy, and a dynamic economy enables us to build the fairer society we want.  Each is the handmaiden of the other.

    It will not be done in a day, or a year, or even completed in the first term of an independent parliament.

    But I believe a transformational shift towards childcare should be one of the first tasks of an independent Scotland.

    That too is part of the why of independence.

    Friends ours is a noble cause because we are arguing for the rights and responsibilities, not of ourselves, but of our country.

    We are arguing for something bigger than any individual, any party, any campaign –the benefits of which will endure for generations to come.

    The biggest advantage of the Yes campaign is that we put no limits on the abilities of this nation to build prosperity and wellbeing for all the people.

    The biggest problem for the No campaign is their fear and scorn of a Scotland aspiring to equality of status among the nations of the world.

    Our opponents in the No campaign will say and do anything to keep Scotland where they think it should be.

    In terms of GDP per head, right now an independent Scotland would be the 8th wealthiest country in the league table of the world’s most developed nations.

    If the No campaign believe Scotland doesn’t have what it takes to be an independent country, they must think that only the 7 countries above Scotland can be independent – and the UK wouldn’t be one of them, because it trails at number 17 overtaken this year once again by Iceland!

    Delegates, our opponents often say we cannot afford to be independent.  I say Scotland can’t afford NOT to be independent.

    To listen to the No campaign, they’d have you believe that a new generation of Trident nuclear weapons on the Clyde was a fantastic asset – and having generations of oil and gas revenues to come was a big problem!

    That is the looking glass fantasy they want Scotland to believe.

    But the people aren’t daft – they know that Scottiish energy resources are the asset, Trident is the problem, and Westminster the liability.

    Combining the natural and human resources of Scotland is the way to fairness and prosperity.

    Our call for the 18th of September next year is one to optimism and progress.

    There was a referendum once when Scotland was cheated out of our right to self-government.

    Listen to just this one example – among the tirade of scare stories – used to frighten people into voting No to self-government in 1979.  It was a Daily Express editorial 10 days before the referendum:

    “How much of Scotland’s economy will be left intact if a Scottish Assembly gets the go-ahead on March 1?  Will our coal mines go gaily on?  Will Ravenscraig or Linwood thrive?  Will Bathgate flourish and Dounreay prosper?”

    No assembly came in 1979 – and every plant and facility listed by the Express closed under Westminster-rule – all gone, every one.

    We will not be conned again.

    We achieved a Parliament in 1997 – overcoming a welter of scaremongering in a referendum.  And we have never looked back.  The latest survey shows that only 6% of Scots want to turn the clock back to having no parliament.

    It will be exactly the same with independence.

    All of the things they say about independence now were said about devolution then.  And we know they were wrong, because as a nation we have proved them wrong together these past 14 years.

    We can now look back and say that thanks to having a parliament, Scotland has a National Health Service worthy of the name, free education for young Scots, and personal care for our older citizens.

    None of these things exist south of the Border, and none would exist in Scotland today without self-government.

    I believe in ten years time we will look back and say that thanks to independence we will have a thriving economy, a welfare state worthy of the name, the best childcare system anywhere in these islands, and the obscenity of Trident nuclear weapons on the Clyde will be but a distant memory.

    Friends, the referendum for an independent Scotland is a precious opportunity – one given to no previous generation.  We do not know if we will pass this way again.

    I believe Scotland will vote Yes next September – and give a renewed purpose to this old nation.

    A ‘new sang’ to sound a better Scotland.

  • Alex Salmond – 2013 New Year’s Speech

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    Below is the text of the news release relating to the speech made by Alex Salmond to mark 2013.

    The First Minister’s New Year message highlighted the restoration of free higher education as an example of the kind of difference that could be made in areas such as social security and foreign affairs following the referendum in 2014.

    Following the abolition of graduate endowment fees in 2007, Scotland’s colleges and universities have seen record numbers of Scots, English and overseas students studying higher education, while the number of people accepted into Scottish universities has increased again this year.

    In his message, recorded at the University of Aberdeen’s ‘magnificent’ new Sir Duncan Rice Library, Mr Salmond recalled that one of the Scottish Government’s very first decisions, in 2007, was to restore Scotland’s “centuries-old tradition of free education” as he asked people across the country to consider the position if Scotland had had to follow the same route as the rest of the UK.

    He added: “The results of this are now plain to see. This year, people accepted into Scottish universities have increased. And we’ve record numbers of Scottish, English and overseas students studying higher education at our Scottish colleges and universities. In contrast, the prospect of sky-high tuition fees in England has seen acceptances for universities there sinking like a stone, with tens of thousands of youngsters being denied their life opportunity.

    “Now this contrast between what is happening here and what isn’t happening there has only been made possible because it is the Scottish Parliament which runs Scottish education. But let’s imagine what would happen if we didn’t control education or if, as some people suggest, we imposed English-style tuition fees. Numbers at our universities would collapse. We would be mortgaging our own country’s future.

    “And just as the Scottish Parliament has restored free education, so it offers security to our old people with free personal care and protects us all by keeping vital public services, like health and water, in public hands. It is what makes it worthwhile to have our own Parliament and it is why the Scottish Parliament is now trusted by almost four times the number of people who trust Westminster.”

    The First Minister invited Scots to consider how they might vote if the referendum in 2014 was for an independent Scotland to give up its independence and hand over powers in areas like welfare or foreign affairs to the Westminster Parliament in London. Those arguing for such a move would be pursuing “mission impossible” and would be “laughed at from Gretna Green to Dunnet Head,” Mr Salmond continued.

    “This New Year the joke’s on us – because that is exactly the position that we have in Scotland right now. But in 2014 we will all have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do something about it.”

    “This Scottish Government has a positive vision of the future of this country. We can build a new independent nation. It is a vision of a country that earns its wealth and shares it more fairly. A country confident in itself and its place in the world. A country which makes the most of its natural resources. And a country where everyone gets a fair shout and a decent chance. In the meantime, as we work towards that future, let me wish each and everyone of you a happy and prosperous New Year.”