Tag: Speeches

Below is the text of the speech made by the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, at the AGM of the British Chambers of Commerce. The speech was held at Central Hall, in Westminster, London, on 14th March 2013.

It is a great pleasure to be here this morning. I am very grateful to the British Chambers of Commerce for all you do to promote UK business overseas, and for your excellent relationship with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Your campaign theme this year is ‘business is good for Britain’. And our Government could not agree more strongly. Business is not only good for Britain, it is part of what makes our country great.

And when British companies succeed, Britain prospers. And it will be the enterprise, the ingenuity and the innovation of companies like yours here today that help to power our country out of difficult economic times.

Now as a Government we are exerting every sinew at home and abroad to create the conditions for that success.

And first and foremost this means, as you know, having the political courage to tackle our country’s problems head-on. That’s the only way to lay the foundations for real growth, not a mirage of growth.

That mirage was the idea that growth can be built on consumption fuelled by debt and on government spending built on debt, and together with problems in our financial sector it dragged our country to the brink.

Sustainable growth will only come from our country expanding its trade with the world, and being a magnet for inward investment from across the globe.

Because as the Prime Minister says, we are in a global race for jobs and for wealth.

We have to make extra efforts to maintain our prosperity, our standards of living, and sources of jobs for the next generation, and that is the Coalition Government’s defining purpose.

The Foreign and Commonwealth is central to this effort. Foreign policy is not something separate to our domestic economic strategy; it is the other side of the same coin:

At home, we have to strengthen the ability of UK business to compete by dealing with debts to safeguard low interest rates, rebalance our economy, cut business taxes and burdensome regulation, reform education so we turn out the brightest graduates and school leavers, reform welfare so it pays to work, and implement a modern industrial strategy to get behind the high growth industries of the future. We have to do all of that at home.

But overseas, we have to equip business to take full advantage of these reforms by connecting them and the British people with the fastest-growing parts of the world: opening new Embassies, striking new relationships beyond our traditional alliances, seeking ambitious Free Trade Agreements that unlock billions of pounds of new commerce. We have to fight protectionism, we have to press for international regulation that is fair and evenly applied, and we have to tackle immense threats to our competitiveness such as those stemming from cyberspace. In all these areas our diplomats and staff are working as hard to support the British economy, they work as hard to do that as they do to defend Britain’s security in a turbulent world.

Getting both things right – our strategy at home and our promotion of Britain overseas – is our national challenge. It is hard, there are no shortcuts. But it’s absolutely necessary.

Today I want to emphasise five areas where this government is equipping and strengthening Britain to succeed in the 21st century: building stability, increasing UK competitiveness, boosting trade and investment, fighting for a global market that is fair and open, and investing in international security, including for business.

First, ensuring stability is a necessary precondition to growth and competing in the global race. That stability comes from international confidence in our country’s ability to pay its way in the world.

We can’t shy away from the scale of the debt problem facing Britain. The unsustainable build up of debt over the last decade meant that total household, corporate and public sector debt had reached five times the size of the entire economy – the biggest increase in recent times of any major economy in the world.

When this Government came into office, Britain was forecast to have the largest budget deficit of any major economy and the highest outside the circumstances of war.

That is why dealing with the deficit is an absolute priority, and in just two years, why we have brought down our deficit by a quarter.

Of course, the scale of the global economic challenges that we face means that the task is more difficult than we thought. But the Moody’s downgrade was a stark reminder that we have to stay the course. By dealing decisively with our debt problem, we will increase overseas confidence in the UK economy and attract greater foreign investment to our shores.

Second, we need to make Britain fit to thrive in a far more competitive international marketplace. To take just one example, Brazil, Russia, India and China now account for 20 per cent of world economic output. That figure has doubled in ten years, and is still rising.

That is why we have cut small business taxes to encourage future entrepreneurs and support existing companies by reducing the burden of taxation. And so instead of sticking with the plan we inherited to put the small profits rate up to 22 per cent, we have cut it to 20 per cent.

We’ve cut the main rate of corporation tax from 28 per cent to 24 per cent, and it is set to fall further to 21 per cent in 2014 – the lowest rate of any major western economy.

We’ve reformed the planning system to favour growth and jobs, not delay and objection.

We’ve increased annual investment in infrastructure, through year on year increases since the June 10 budget to £33 billion pounds, so it is now higher than the Labour plans we inherited.

We have put a billion pounds into a Business Bank for small and mid-sized businesses.

And as Foreign Secretary I see repeatedly in meetings with business communities abroad just how important they are to perceptions of this country as a place to start a business and to invest.

That increased competitiveness is shown in the result of the recent KPMG survey, where in just two years the UK has gone from near the bottom to one of the most competitive corporate tax systems in the world; as well as the World Economic Forum competitiveness rankings, where we are up from 12th to 8th since 2010.

Third, we need to convert this increased competitiveness into actual results by increasing our exports and overseas trade and taking advantage of immense opportunities in new markets.

Of the $20 trillion of growth that the IMF forecasts in the world economy over the next five years, almost $13 trillion will be in emerging markets. And while long term forecasts are often wrong, as we all know, in a generation, China’s middle class is on course to be over three times the size of Western Europe’s, and by 2030, on current trends Central and Latin America’s middle class will be as big as North America’s.

There are huge opportunities for British companies to produce the high-tech and luxury goods that these new consumers want to buy. And it’s the job of this Government to help companies do just that.

One of my first acts as Foreign Secretary was to simplify dramatically the Foreign Office’s list of objectives. Before it had more than the people who worked at the Foreign Office could remember. We now have just three: protecting our security, supporting British nationals overseas and promoting our economy.

By 2015 we will have opened up to 20 new Embassies, consulates and trade offices, and deployed 300 extra staff in more than 20 countries, particularly in Asia, Latin America and parts of Africa, so that Britain is linked up to the world’s fastest growing economies.

And here in London and in all our 250 posts overseas we are focussed relentlessly on supporting jobs and growth alongside all our other responsibilities. I inherited a situation where commercial work was not part of some Embassies’ objectives. Now all Embassies support this work, except in those countries where there are sanctions that prevents such activity.

We have increased training in economics and commercial diplomacy for Foreign Office staff, and are using programme fund investments to build stronger ties with government and societies in emerging markets, so that we strengthen our influence where it really counts.

And we are taking a much more coherent and determined strategic approach to Ministerial visits to help expand Britain’s market share. And 22 visits to China and 21 to India in the last twelve months. The Prime Minister led an enormous trade delegation during his recent visit to India.

This changing culture in the Foreign Office is helping to achieve results for British companies. Our engagement with Brazil on the back-to-back London and Rio Olympics, and their hosting of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, has already helped UK companies to win Olympics and World Cup contracts worth over £100 million; and successful lobbying from Foreign Office Ministers and officials led to Russia lifting – and I was celebrating this yesterday with the Russian Foreign Minister – a 17-year ban on imports of British beef, lamb and mutton.

Our goods exports to the major emerging economies have also doubled since 2009 and, for the first time since the UK joined the Common Market in the 1970s, we now export more goods to countries outside the European Union than to countries inside it. Our bilateral trade with China is set to double to US$100bn by 2015, and is growing faster than our EU competitors, at 40 per cent a year over the past 2 years.

So, we are moving in the right direction on these things, but we have a great deal more to do.

We still lag behind European competitors in the market share of exports to emerging markets. In 2010, for example, Germany had 5 per cent of the Chinese market share compared to our 1 per cent, while for Brazil Germany had 7 per cent and the UK 2 per cent.

And to close this gap, in the last Budget speech the Chancellor announced the launch of a new £1.5 billion export finance facility to support the purchase of British exports, as well as a 25 per cent increase in funding for UK Trade and Investment.

British SMEs are currently less likely to export than their European competitors. Our ambition is to see as many as 100,000 more exporters by the year 2020.

But we know that this will not happen unless SMEs have greater support from government, as well as from business organisations. That is why Lord Green is leading a new Chambers Initiative to increase that support significantly in 20 high growth and emerging markets. A stronger domestic network of business support organisations, matched by an effective overseas network working closely with our Embassies, will offer UK business a genuinely attractive mechanism for increasing export led growth in our economy.

Fourth, we need to work constantly to ensure an open international environment that supports increased and more transparent trade. This starts in Europe, where we are working hard in the EU to complete the single market, address the crisis in competiveness, and conclude ambitious Free Trade Agreements with the US, Japan, Canada and India that will bring billions of pounds and millions of jobs potentially into the European economy.

The Single Market is the core of the EU, but when it remains incomplete in services, energy and digital – the very sectors that are the engines of a modern economy – it is only half the success it could be. So we are pressing for completion of that, as well as urging the EU as a whole to address excessive and unnecessary regulation that holds back innovation.

A comprehensive trade agreement between the EU and the US could boost the European economy by more than £75bn, which is more than any of the other trade deals currently underway. The EU and US account for about half of world GDP, and one third of global trade flows already. We are determined to use our Presidency of the G8 this year and our voice in the EU to secure an ambitious deal that will help break down the remaining trade barriers and bring benefits for businesses on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as boosting growth around the world.

And our diplomatic network will continue to fight other barriers to trade such as corruption, disregard for intellectual property rights, and creeping protectionism, all of which threaten investment. We have to promote a rules-based system so that our companies can compete in foreign markets on an equal basis, and not with one arm tied behind their backs.

That is why we are also using our G8 presidency to fight for freer trade, fairer taxes and greater transparency. We want the G8 to accelerate progress on fighting the evasion and aggressive avoidance of taxes that deprives governments of the revenue they need to provide public services, to ensure the rule of law, and stimulate investment and private sector growth. We also want the G8 to agree to ambitious new transparency standards for business, so that all companies play by the same rules.

Fifth and finally, we are investing in international security to help combat threats to security which undermine trade and commerce, including terrorism, piracy and conflict. To take just one important example, only two years ago Somalia appeared locked in a downward spiral of violence and lawlessness, but last year we brought fifty countries together to secure new action on piracy and persuade that country’s political leaders to make progress on the ground. As a result, the number of ship hijackings off the coast of Somalia has halved in the last year, and a second Somalia Conference will be held later this year so that we can ensure that progress continues. Our diplomatic efforts to support a politically open and economically prospering Middle East and North Africa, to head off threats to security – particularly business security – in cyberspace, and to combat terrorism from Asia to the Sahel, all underpin a more secure environment for business and trade.

So we are tackling our problems at home and using foreign policy to seek out new economic opportunity for our country.

We have all the attributes for success as a nation. The openness, the inventiveness and the daring that is hardwired into us in Britain helps to explain why we are still the sixth largest economy in the world when we only make up 1 per cent of its population.

And as Lord Green often reminds the Government, we export cheese to France, sushi to Japan, caviar to Russia, sand to Saudi Arabia and potato chips to America. Now this requires enormous ingenuity on behalf of British businesses involved.

It will be talented and hardworking British people and companies who propel our country towards a prosperous future, and our government – as you can gather from what I have briefly described – will give them every support and assistance. We welcome your ideas: challenge us, criticise us and tell us how we can do more.

Below is a text of a speech made by the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, on 14th February 2013 at the Royal United Services Institute.

On January 16th a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb attacked a gas production facility in the Algerian desert.

Thirty-nine hostages from nine countries died, including six British nationals. It was the largest and most complex attack affecting UK citizens since the 7/7 bombings.

It naturally raises questions about the threat posed by Al Qaeda and its affiliates, and how we work with others to reduce that threat.

The United Kingdom has a long experience of confronting terrorism, and we have some of the finest Intelligence Agencies and police forces in the world. They stop terrorists from entering our borders, they detect and stop terrorist attack plans, and prevent potential recruits from being radicalised. Thanks to their efforts there have been no successful attacks on our mainland since 2005.

But unless our foreign policy addresses the circumstances in which terrorism thrives overseas, we will always fight a rearguard action against it.

We will never give up for a moment of course our right to defend ourselves, including through military force if needed. But there is rarely, if ever, a purely military solution to terrorism.

And we are in a long, generational effort to deny terrorist groups the space to operate, to help vulnerable countries develop their law enforcement capabilities, to address the injustice and conflict which terrorists exploit, and to combat their ideology.

We must never forget that those who suffer the most are the citizens of countries blighted by terrorism and extremism: the women and children killed by Al Shabaab suicide bombings in Somalia; the girls who cannot go to school in Pakistan, because of Pakistani Taliban intimidation; or the communities devastated by Al Qaeda attacks in Iraq.

Muslim communities are bearing the brunt of terrorism worldwide, at the hands of people who espouse a distorted and violent extremist interpretation of a great and peaceful religion.

There can never be any justification for terrorism. The indiscriminate targeting of civilians is contemptible in any shape or form and our resolve to defeat it must never weaken or falter even for a day.

But in standing up for freedom, human rights and the rule of law ourselves, we must never use methods that undermine these things.

As a democracy we must hold ourselves to the highest standards. This includes being absolutely clear that torture and mistreatment are repugnant, unacceptable and counter-productive.

Our bottom line is always that we are determined to uphold the law. Any allegation of UK complicity in the sorts of practices I’ve just mentioned must be investigated fully.

So to tackle terrorism we need to combine creative work from our Intelligence Agencies and police with intelligent diplomacy. We have to help build stability and the rule of law in other countries, living up to our values at all times. And we need to make common cause with peoples and governments that reject this violence. This combination of intelligence, diplomacy, development and partnership with other nations is the only way to defeat terrorism over the long term. We must be resolved, decisive and principled.

Twelve years after 9/11 the greatest source of the terrorist threat to the United Kingdom remains Al Qaeda and its ideology. But the nature of the threat has changed, in three principal ways:

First, it is geographically more diverse. We face a determined ‘Al Qaeda core’ in Pakistan and Afghanistan’s border region, and multiple groups inspired by Al Qaeda in the world’s most fragile regions.

Al Qaeda in Pakistan is diminished and under severe pressure. Nonetheless, it is still capable of devising sophisticated attacks. As in other parts of the world, it exploits the presence of those Westerners drawn to the region for extremist purposes, and it abuses diaspora links, including to the UK, which are in other ways such an asset to our country. At the same time Al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, Somalia and other parts of Africa are capable of mounting dangerous attacks. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has attempted multiple attacks on aircraft that would have caused mass casualties if they had been successful, such as the attempted printer cartridge bomb.

Second, the threat is more fragmented. Al Qaeda does not control a franchise of groups all operating to the same agenda, however much they would like us to think this. We should not make the mistake of overstating their support or coherence. Al Shabaab in Somalia for example ranges from those who object to the presence of African troops and aspire to establish an Islamist state, to others seeking ‘a greater Somalia’ in the region, to foreign fighters who regard Somalia as a platform for global terror. However, this fragmentation of the threat means that each group has to be tackled separately and across a far wider area, making for a more complex effort and difficult choices about the prioritisation of resources.

Third, terrorism today is based even more closely on the exploitation of local and regional issues. Terrorists are constantly searching out new areas where they have the greatest freedom to plan external attacks. They take advantage of unresolved conflicts to infiltrate local communities who otherwise would be likely to reject them. In this way, like a virus, the threat spreads where local defences are weakest.

For example, since its emergence as an Al Qaeda affiliate in the middle of the last decade, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has exploited a sense of exclusion amongst the Tuareg people across the region. From northern Mali they plan and conduct terrorist operations, kidnapping foreigners for ransoms to fund their activities. Before the intervention of France we faced the prospect of the Malian state being destroyed by terrorists.

The Arab Spring revolutions were a grievous blow, of course, to extremist ideology. The idea that that change can be accomplished by the people of a country demanding political and economic freedom contains the seeds of Al Qaeda’s irrelevance.

Creating the building blocks of stable democracy – the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, constitutions that respect the rights of women and minorities, security forces that can maintain order without repression, and economic development – all takes a long time.

The assassination of an opposition leader in Tunisia and the attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi demonstrate the security challenges in Arab Spring countries. And that is why we are providing the new Libyan government with advice and technical assistance on police and defence reform, public security, and building justice systems that protect human rights.

We should not lose faith in the people of the region. Any suggestion that the repression of the past would somehow be better for the region is wrong. The worst outcome of all would be a lapse back into authoritarianism or conflict. There is no substitute for painstaking work to build a new political order, so we are also devoting £110 million through our Arab Partnership Initiative to civil society and economic reform in the region.

But in the short term extremists and terrorists will take every opportunity to try to hijack these revolutions. Syria is the most acute case of all.

The vast majority of people opposing the Assad regime are Syrians, fighting for the future of their country. But Syria is now the number one destination for jihadists anywhere in the world today. This includes a number of individuals connected with the United Kingdom and other European countries. They may not pose a threat to us when they first go to Syria, but if they survive some may return ideologically hardened and with experience of weapons and explosives. The longer the conflict continues, the greater this danger will become, a point that should not be lost on policy makers in Russia and elsewhere. More innocent lives will be lost, extremists will be emboldened, sectarianism will increase and the risk of the use of Chemical or Biological Weapons will grow.

A negotiated agreement leading to a new government formed of the opposition and elements of the regime, on the basis of mutual consent, is the best way to chart a way out of Syria’s divisions. We want Russia and China to join us in achieving this transition, backed by the United Nations Security Council.

But there is a serious risk that the violence will worsen and we must keep open options to help save lives in Syria and to assist opposition groups that are opposed to extremism. So we are working with other European countries now to amend EU sanctions so that the possibility of additional assistance is not closed off.

We also believe the EU must also take robust action in response to the terrorist attack on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year. The Bulgarian investigation has indicated that Hizballah’s military wing was responsible. The European Union must demonstrate that no organisation can carry out terrorism on European soil without consequences.

And as we work to eliminate safe havens for terrorists further afield, we must be clear that no state should allow terrorist groups to operate from its territory and that terrorism as a tool of foreign policy is always unacceptable.

If we know that the threat we face from terrorism is likely to come from a wider range of fragile countries; that plots against the United Kingdom are frequently prepared overseas; and that we cannot disrupt such plots without working with nations where the risk originates, then a long term, coordinated international approach is the only way we can defeat terrorism.

The Government’s counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST, combines a full range of international and domestic responses, ranging from the overt to the covert, from security to development, through to working with our communities at home.

We have maintained and where necessary increased police, intelligence and other counter terrorist capabilities.

We are ensuring that we have the powers in place to detect, investigate disrupt and prosecute terrorist activity through legislative changes, and we have made significant improvements at our borders to reduce threats to their security and to civilian aircraft.

We are also making continuous improvements to improve the complex, coordinated response needed from our police, agencies and emergency services if acts of terror do take place, learning lessons from attacks such those in Mumbai in 2008, in Norway in 2011 and in Toulouse in 2012.

In the 12 months leading up to July last year, more than 220 people were arrested in the UK for terrorism-related offences, so the threat from home grown terrorism remains challenging. So we also work to prevent people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. This includes resisting the efforts of those who actively seek to stoke tensions with Muslims in Britain. The Government and all communities need to continue to work together so that we can reject messages of division, hate and extremism, wherever they originate.

But a large part of our effort to counter terrorism is now overseas where terrorists train and plan for attacks against the UK or our interests abroad. We cannot do this without working with other countries.

First of all, we must address the conditions in which terrorism thrives, whether it is restarting the Middle East Peace Process or intensifying our conflict prevention work to help fragile countries become more stable and secure.

Helping Somalia is a major priority for our government. Two years ago Al Shabaab controlled large parts of the country, piracy was booming and the threat from terrorism was growing. Today, a coordinated effort by the international community has seen African and Somali troops drive Al Shabaab out of its strongholds; the creation of a new and legitimate government; and the reduction of piracy to its lowest levels since 2008. In May, there will be a second conference here in London to plan support to rebuild Somalia’s armed forces, police, coastguard, justice system and public finances.

We must never assume that what works in one country will work exactly in another. But the key features of what is working in Somalia are helping a new legitimate government, African troops bringing peace and security, with the international community giving constant diplomatic, financial and humanitarian support.

This should be the model that we follow elsewhere in Africa wherever we can, including in Mali, where a full and inclusive democratic process, including talks with non-violent groups in the north and support for Malians to rebuild their livelihoods, is urgently needed. As a country we give generous humanitarian assistance to countries affected by conflict, including £13 million in Mali, £55 million in Yemen and £80 million in Somalia, in the current financial year.

We must also strengthen the ability of states to counter terrorism, while protecting human rights, as called for by the UN. This is extremely difficult and challenging work, since the threat from terrorism is greatest in the countries where the rule of law and human rights are weakest.

And that is why today I wish to set out a clear direction the Government will follow over the coming years.

When we detect a terrorist plot originating in a third country, we want to be in a position to share information to stop that planning, and do it in a way that leads to the arrest, investigation and prosecution of the individuals concerned in accordance with our own legal obligations, and with their human rights respected at every stage.

This gives rise to extremely difficult ethical and political decisions, such as whether to pass on information which might save lives and disrupt an imminent attack, but which could also create a risk of someone being mistreated if detained.

Our Secret Intelligence Service has the lead responsibility for sharing intelligence with foreign partners on terrorist threats. Requests to share intelligence in these difficult and finely-balanced circumstances come to me.

Where there are serious risks, it is right that it is the Foreign Secretary who takes the ultimate responsibility for these decisions, just as it is right that our Parliament and ultimately the Courts hold government to account.

In many cases, we are able to obtain credible assurances from our foreign partners on issues such as detainee treatment and legal processes that give us the safeguards we need, and the confidence that we can share information in this way. Where this is not the case, we face a stark choice. We could disengage, or we can choose to cooperate with them in a carefully controlled way while developing a more comprehensive approach to human rights adherence. This approach brings risk, but I am clear that the risks of the first option, of stepping back are greater still, placing our citizens at greater risk of terrorist attack.

The need to cooperate with other countries is growing for all the reasons I have described. So I am convinced that we need to have a coherent approach that is sustainable for the long term, that upholds our laws and has safeguards, and that works to strengthen the ability of other countries to observe human rights and meet their own obligations. How we go about this will have to vary from country to country depending on the scale and nature of the challenge. But we will seek justice and human rights partnerships with countries where there is both a threat to the United Kingdom’s security, and weaknesses in the law enforcement, human rights and criminal justice architecture of these countries.

These are not one-off initiatives or stand-alone agreements, but rather – as the name suggests – a systematic process of working with the authorities in question to identify shortcomings in capability, and to address these through the provision of British assistance and expertise, over many months or years.

The sorts of measures we will take include:

– Building up the counter-terrorism capacity of overseas security services to improve compliance with the law and human rights and to make them more effective;

– Working with local investigators to improve the ability to build cases based on evidence rather than on confessions;

– Supporting prosecutors and judges to ensure that they are capable of processing terrorism cases through the court systems, effectively, fairly and in line with the rule of law;

– And working to improve and where appropriate monitor conditions in detention facilities so that convicted terrorists can be held securely and their treatment meets with international standards.

We are already doing many of these things. In Somalia for example, we are already working with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to construct prisons to hold convicted pirates in facilities that meet international standards.

What I am making clear today is that given the changing nature of the threat I have described, and given our determination to uphold human rights and the law, we will be doing more of this and developing more of these partnerships.

But crucially we are creating a strong and systematic framework for this work, with strong safeguards, with five safeguards:

First, we will only engage in such efforts where there is serious and potentially long-running threat to the UK or our interests abroad, such as that flowing from terrorist networks in South Asia, Yemen, and parts of North and West Africa.

Second, all our counter-terrorism capacity building work will be carefully considered in line with our Overseas Security and Justice Assistance Guidance in order to assess and to mitigate human rights risks, and specifically designed to improve human rights standards and strengthen the rule of law in that country.

Third, it will not be carried out in isolation, but will be part of UK and international diplomatic and development efforts in that country.

Fourth, the intelligence dimension will be subject to the same robust scrutiny and oversight that exists in other areas of Intelligence activity and always be in accordance with the law.

Fifth, every aspect of this work requires Ministerial oversight and approval. If I or another responsible Minister see any credible evidence that our support is being misused we will take immediate action. Any work that would involve breaking our legal obligations simply would not go ahead.

So this is a framework of accountability and human rights to ensure that our counter-terrorism work supports justice and the rule of law as well as our security, with the goal of creating the long term conditions for better observance of human rights in countries that have a poor record and where the threat from terrorism is strong.

We believe that the British people can have confidence in this framework; that it puts UK capacity building overseas onto a surer footing; and that it will give greater confidence that UK and international law and our democratic values are upheld. Even with these safeguards in place, there may be some people who say that this approach is wrong.

But we cannot keep our country safe if we are not cooperating at all with countries that don’t fully live up to our standards. Only a minority of countries in the world do that. We have to work with other countries. Justice and human rights partnerships will be a powerful framework for doing so.

Without such partnerships our ability to tackle threats before they reach the United Kingdom would be severely limited. And there are good arguments that by introducing important legal and human rights concepts and professional ways of tackling terrorism, and by insisting on the highest standards ourselves, we can encourage better human rights observance in those countries.

Achieving security, justice and advances in human rights together will not always be straightforward and despite our best efforts we may not always succeed. But it will always be our aim.

This is consistent with one of our first acts as a Government on this issue, which was to issue Consolidated Guidance to Intelligence Officers and Service Personnel on the Detention and Interviewing of Detainees Overseas, to ensure their actions uphold our domestic law and our international obligations. Additionally the Prime Minister also asked the Intelligence Services Commissioner to oversee compliance with the Guidance.

We are also taking steps to strengthen Parliamentary scrutiny and oversight of the agencies through the Justice and Security Bill currently being considered by Parliament. This also aims to ensure, where strictly necessary, that judges in civil cases relating to matters of national security will be able to consider all relevant material, including sensitive material, to ensure that justice is done while upholding national security. The objective is not to hide away the actions of the most secret parts of the State, but precisely the opposite: to strengthen their accountability and public confidence in them as they go about their difficult, dangerous and necessarily secret work.

Few if any countries have a stronger system of clear guidance, Ministerial decision-making, and strength of legal considerations in the area of counter-terrorism than we do. We are a world leader in upholding the highest possible standards.

But we are also a country that needs to be able to keep people safe and that is threatened by many who would do great harm to our citizens. Therefore we also intend to be foremost in the world in how we develop partnerships that are effective in protecting our security while upholding human rights. Far from being contradictory, these two concepts go together.

In tackling terrorism overseas we must approach the world as it is, rather than as we would like it to be. But that does not mean that we should not try to shape it and improve it and, when necessary, find means of working with others in ways that are consistent with our values: the very values which terrorism is intent on destroying.

So this is our government’s approach to tackling terrorism overseas:

Governments, agencies, police and prosecutors working together in a coherent, long term manner to address immediate threats from terrorism and the causes of terrorism;

Combating terrorism while upholding our values, within a framework of strong democratic accountability, seeking greater respect for human rights in other countries;

And using foreign and development policy to build stability in fragile countries.

This is how we enable the greater global cooperation that is essential to eliminating the risk from international terrorism over time, and support a safe, secure and prosperous future for our country.

Below is the text of the speech made by the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, on 18th October 2012 at Bletchley Park.

It is truly an honour to be here at Bletchley Park. I am very grateful to Sir John Scarlett, the Trustees and Bletchley staff; to the many volunteers who have given their time here over the years; and to Iain Lobban and all our guests today.

But I am most grateful of all to the Bletchley Park veterans who have joined us. I have just had an inspirational tour of some of the huts and blocks that you worked in. And I am not going to forget being guided through the workings of the Bombe machines by two of your colleagues. I believe I speak for many of us working in government and politics today when I say that we strive to live up to and build on your generation’s achievements on behalf of our country.

Bletchley Park was the scene of one of the finest achievements in our nation’s history: the systematic deciphering of encrypted enemy communications throughout the Second World War – including the supposedly ‘unbreakable’ Enigma cipher and the even more challenging Lorenz machine – through mathematical genius, technological innovation and sheer hard work.

This Park was the nerve centre of all British code breaking activities during War. Communications intercepted here in Britain and as far away as Australia and India were brought here for decoding and deciphering, and then sent in great secrecy to the government in London and all over the world to support British and Allied military planning.

The Chief of SIS, “C”, personally delivered boxes of intercepts to Winston Churchill throughout the war. And the connection with the Foreign Office was particularly close.  On average more than 1,000 decrypted reports were sent to the Foreign Office each month on scores of countries from Abyssinia to Yugoslavia, many of them to be read directly by the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden.

Today we are releasing for the first time a letter Eden sent to “C” marked “personal and most secret” after he read particular telegrams enciphered in the German diplomatic code. They had just been broken after months of effort. From the warmth of the message and his decision to write immediately you gain a strong sense of just how important Bletchley’s work was to the war effort.

And it was done here, in cold, cramped and unheated huts, in the most Spartan of conditions, in utter secrecy, and while the whole country was engaged in a struggle for national survival.

1943, for example, was the year in which Montgomery’s Eighth Army defeated Rommel’s forces in North Africa and invaded Sicily and Italy; when the Battle of the Atlantic between British merchant ships and German U-Boats reached its climax; when RAF 617 Squadron launched the ‘Dambuster’ Raids; when British midget submarines crippled the battleship Tirpitz at anchor in Norway, and when Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met in Tehran to agree plans for the invasion of Europe. During that time more than 14,000 cables were decrypted for the Foreign Office while a much greater number of people were working here against the Axis military targets.

We can only imagine what it must have been like for everyone who laboured to break codes under the intense pressure of those events, knowing that the encrypted messages they held in their hands contained information that could save British and Allied lives if only they could decipher it in time. And we can only marvel at the skill needed to adapt the information obtained into a form that would enable it to be used without giving away the fact that the codes had been broken.

The men and women of Bletchley truly are heroes for our nation; and for those of us looking back on their achievements they will always be giants in our history.

Without the code-breaking geniuses of Bletchley Park our country would have been at a devastating disadvantage during the war. And without the men and women of GCHQ and our other intelligence agencies we could not protect Britain today. There is an unbroken chain connecting their achievements.

The story of Bletchley is only really now being told in full because it was shrouded in secrecy for so long. More than 30,000 people in total had worked in Sigint or had received ULTRA intelligence by the end of the war, but not a single one of them breathed a word of Bletchley’s secrets in the thirty years that followed. That is another measure of their ethos and their service to our country, and one that can never be measured in codes broken and telegrams deciphered.

But it is also equally true of the men and women of GCHQ and of our other intelligence agencies today.

I have the immense privilege of being responsible for GCHQ and SIS as Foreign Secretary.  I know that their dedication, technical brilliance and remarkable achievements more than live up to the accomplishments of Bletchley Park, and that they too keep vital secrets of behalf of our nation.

Today, Bletchley Park’s wartime achievement symbolise our country’s ability to draw on the very best intelligence-gathering capability, individual creative genius, cutting-edge technology and international partnerships to overcome serious threats to our country.

The patient accumulation of ideas, experience and analysis including from partners in Poland and France; the constant improvement of technology; the gradual modifying of approach and scaling up our effort with the United States; and of course flashes of sheer inspiration; these were the things that lay at the heart of Bletchley Park’s success.

And such accumulation of expertise is indeed the foundation of all that our country excels at in the world; in diplomacy, security and defence as much as in science or culture.

Our Government believes that we must value and take pride in British history, and ensure that that where Britain has built up a strategic advantage or capability in the world we invest in it, to be absolutely sure that we retain it for the future.
It is part of the living legacy of Bletchley Park that Britain today is an international leader in cyber security.

In the years since the Second World War GCHQ’s international reputation and technological capabilities have grown to embrace a world in which we are dependent on computer and communications networks in every area of life, and in which we face constant and growing threats from crime and attacks in cyberspace.

So in celebrating Bletchley and our past we are also celebrating world-beating skills and capabilities which continue today and Britain’s international role. Our Government is determined to preserve this and to build on it for the future.

In early March we announced the establishment of Academic Centres of Excellence in Cyber Security Research and in September the first Research Institute for the Science of Cyber Security was established.

We have decided to give £480,000 in Foreign Office funding for the preservation and restoration of Bletchley Park for the nation. This has unlocked £5 million of Heritage Lottery Funding, which will allow the Trust to restore many more of the code-breaking buildings and exhibit more of the work that was done here, and provide an even richer educational experience for the thousands of people that come to Bletchley Park today.

And we are launching or intensifying three schemes to ensure that our country invests in the next generation of young mathematical and computer science geniuses.

In the year in which we celebrate the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, one of the finest mathematical minds our country has ever known and a leading light at Bletchley, we want to step up our efforts to find the most talented people to help sustain and secure the UK’s code-breaking and cyber expertise for the future.

Young people are the key to our country’s future success, just as they were during the War. When Churchill visited Bletchley after the war and addressed staff on the front lawn he said “I knew you were all mad but I didn’t realise you were quite so young”.  It will be the young innovators of this generation who will help keep our country safe in years to come against threats which are every bit as serious as some of those confronted in the Second World War.

Today we are not at war, but I see evidence every day of deliberate, organised attacks against intellectual property and government networks in the United Kingdom from cyber criminals or foreign actors with the potential to undermine our security and economic competitiveness. This is one of the great challenges of our time, and we must confront it to ensure that Britain remains a world leader in cyber security and a preeminent safe space for e-commerce and intellectual property online.

So today, I am announcing a new development programme for Apprentices, which will help to identify and develop talent in school and university age students and give opportunities to 70 new recruits for GCHQ and our other Intelligence Agencies.

Second, this year’s National Cipher Challenge starts today, an annual competition run by the University of Southampton and sponsored by GCHQ for schools to get involved in learning about cyber skills, including ciphers and code-breaking.

Third, GHCQ will introduce a new recruitment policy aimed at attracting a wider pool of cyber expertise by moving to an open-door and continuous recruitment strategy. GCHQ will no longer only recruit annually, and it will be looking not only for those with a university degree but those with relevant experience or vocational qualifications so that we attract a wider pool of cyber talent.

One of my favourite stories about Bletchley Park, which Iain drew to my attention, was the decision by the Admiralty to post one Geoffrey Tandy here because he was believed to be an expert in cryptograms or messages signalled in code. In fact, he was an expert in cryptogams, which are plants like mosses, ferns and seaweeds. Happily he turned out to have excellent advice on preserving documents rescued at sea, which just goes to show how useful wide expertise can be. Although it has to be said that of all the issues Iain has raised with me over the last two years, a shortage of seaweed experts at GCHQ has not been among them.

And as a symbol of the contribution that GCHQ makes to our international relationships today as well as of our pride in the past, I have decided that the Enigma machine which they have kindly agreed to give to the Foreign Office will be displayed in the Ambassador’s Waiting Room next to my own office, where every guest who comes to see me will be able to see it.

This all comes on top of our continuing work to protect the United Kingdom’s networks from threats in cyberspace including cyber attack and cyber crime through our National Cyber Security Strategy, and our diplomatic efforts to secure international agreement on behaviour in cyberspace which began with the London Conference on cyberspace last year and continued in Budapest earlier this month. We are investing in ways of sharing our cyber capability with countries with weaker defences than our own, and we are calling for a new consensus about protecting human rights and freedom of expression online.

So we are working to draw on the UK’s history and reputation, on our skills and capabilities in cyberspace, on our talented young people, on our operational intelligence partnerships with other countries, and on our ability to give international diplomatic leadership to keep our country safe, secure and prosperous in the long term. By doing this we can confidently preserve and build on all that the men and women of Bletchley Park worked so hard themselves to secure for our nation.

The below speech was made by the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, on 16th October 2012 at the Foreign Office and Commonwealth Office in London.

It gives me great pleasure to be able to join you here today for the opening of our new Crisis Centre here at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

I would like to start by paying tribute to the work of the Crisis Management Department and our whole Consular Team. They work tirelessly, day in and day out, in the evening and at weekends, to make sure that when Britons are in trouble overseas, their safety and security remains our central priority.

As Foreign Secretary, my objective is to strengthen the Foreign Office as an institution; striving to achieve excellence in every area of our work. We have launched the biggest drive to enhance cutting edge abilities and diplomatic skills that this Department has ever seen. We are re-opening the language school next year, and spending £1 million pounds more each year teaching languages to our staff. It is why we are strengthening our diplomatic network and, at a time when many countries are closing posts we are opening new Embassies and Consulates around the world and the launch of the new Crisis Centre is another example of that constant drive to be the best at what we do.

The way that most members of the public come into contact with the Foreign Office is through our consular service. These services really matter to members of the public, who find themselves in difficult and unfamiliar circumstances. That is why we have made the provision of modern and efficient consular services to British nationals around the world one of the FCO’s three central objectives.

It is also why we are trying to make sure that the consular service that we provide is constantly evolving, even if that evolution comes from crisis and sometimes even tragedy.

Just a few days ago, on the 10th anniversary of the bombings in Bali, the families and relatives of the victims of that terrible crime, met at the memorial outside the Foreign Office to remember those who were injured and lost their lives. That horrific tragedy led to the creation of our Rapid Deployment Teams; trained volunteers who are prepared to deploy anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice.

Over the last ten years they have been deployed more than 50 times to support our staff at post; helping locate missing people, printing emergency travel documents and providing a safe route home for hundreds of nationals who have found themselves caught up in events beyond their control.

In the last year our staff, both here in the UK as well as overseas have done their utmost to help those in trouble. For example, they worked painstakingly alongside local authorities to identify the seven Britons who were amongst those killed in the plane crash in Kathmandu.

They made sure that when a fire broke out on a cruise ship in Germany with 106 British nationals on board, that the injured were visited in hospital and emergency passports were issued so that everyone could travel home.

And when 22 British and Commonwealth nationals were trapped by civil unrest in Tajikistan we worked with other European missions to organise an international convoy to make the difficult 15-hour road journey to safety and ensure that everyone was successfully evacuated.

These are just a few of many examples.

The opening of the crisis centre here today is indicative of the effort and drive that we put into ensuring that we have one of the most complete and advanced consular services in the world.

By their very nature crises are unpredictable events. Last year the Foreign Office experienced a perfect storm of international incidents that required a crisis response. The earthquake in New Zealand, Tsunami in Japan and the events of the Arab Spring all occurred within three months of each other and all of the consequences took place at the same time.

All of these events have been described as once in a lifetime. None of these events were predictable. All involved large numbers of British nationals and all presented their own unique issues and challenges.

These challenges, however, provided us with an invaluable opportunity to learn the necessary lessons and refine our approach in crisis management, so that in the future, we are better able to cope with the huge demands that such events place on the Foreign Office, and offer the best possible service to British nationals in trouble overseas.

Following the evacuation of our nationals from Libya I launched a review of our evacuation procedures to make a thorough and objective assessment of what had gone well and what we could do to further improve.

From that review there were two main areas in which we felt we could strengthen our crisis response. The first was in procedures and preparedness and the second was in resource and capacity.

On procedures and preparedness we have adopted a crisis response system used by the emergency services that offers more agile and clearer decision making in a crisis.

We have also raised our game on training, running 13 live exercises over the past 12 months at some of our most high risk posts. Set alongside the launch of new guidance for handling a crisis and better support for our diplomatic posts on how to handle a crisis, we are better prepared for when the unexpected happens.

On resource and capacity, we have created a new Rapid Deployment Team for the Middle East and South Asia and now have more than 170 trained volunteers who we can deploy, across the globe, to deal with any unfolding crisis. We have increased the number of staff in the Foreign Office dedicated to crisis work from 16 to 26 and have increased the capacity of the crisis centre more than 50% to 110 people.

With this new Crisis Centre, for the first time we will be able handle two large scale events simultaneously; operating a centralised command structure, bringing different departments from across Government into a single place, with the right technology available, so that we can help those in trouble overseas.

The launch of the Crisis Centre today is another step in a cycle of continuous improvement in the way that we deliver services to the British public. With increasing numbers of British nationals living, working and travelling abroad, and to a more and more diverse range of places, we’ve got to ensure that we are innovative and make the most of emerging tools of communication, such as Twitter and Facebook, so that we can reach and help as many people as possible in a crisis.

In the last year alone, these new approaches and our new capacity has been tested no fewer than thirteen times, including evacuating our diplomats and their families from Tehran, helping those involved in the sinking of the Costa Concordia and dealing with the coach crash in France earlier this year. They are proving to be flexible and resilient procedures so far. I hope that we can continue to improve the services and support that we provide, supporting the public when they need us and moving towards our objective of becoming the best diplomatic service in the world.

Below is the text of a speech made by the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, at the 2012 Speech Budapest Conference on Cyberspace on 4th October 2012.

I congratulate the Government of Hungary for hosting this conference. Prime Minister Orbán, Hungary has provided important leadership to maintain the momentum from the London Conference on cyberspace, and I also thank the Korean Government for agreeing to build on our efforts in 2013.

We are here to address one of the greatest global and strategic challenges of our time: how to preserve and expand the benefits of the digital age.

We should never be pessimistic about this. The internet has been an unprecedented engine for growth, for social progress and for innovation, across the globe and in all areas of human endeavour.

But there is a darker side to it, and in the United Kingdom we believe it is time to shine a strong light on those shadows.

We are calling for a new international consensus on rules of the road to guide future behaviour in cyberspace, and to combat the worst abuses of it.

We are not calling for a new Treaty between governments which would be cumbersome to agree, hard to enforce and too narrow in its focus.

Instead, last year I proposed a set of seven principles as a basis for more effective cooperation between states, business and organisations. These are:

•        The need for governments to act proportionately in cyberspace and in accordance with international law;

•        The need for everyone to have the ability to access cyberspace, including the skills, technology, confidence and opportunity to do so;

•        The need for users of cyberspace to show tolerance and respect for diversity of language, culture and ideas;

•        The need to ensure that cyberspace remains open to innovation and the free flow of ideas, information and expression;

•        The need to respect individual rights of privacy and to provide proper protection to intellectual property;

•        The need for us all to work together collectively to tackle the threat from criminals acting online;

•        And the promotion of a competitive environment which ensures a fair return on investment in networks, services and content.

There are three reasons why we believe this remains an urgent, unavoidable and essential task.

One is that cyberspace is emerging as a new dimension in conflicts of the future. Many nations simply do not yet have the defences or the resources to counter state-sponsored cyber attack. If we do not find ways of agreeing principles to moderate such behaviour and to deal with its consequences, then some countries could find themselves vulnerable to a wholly new strategic threat: effectively held to ransom by hostile states.

The second, and currently much larger threat, is from organised cyber crime. It has never been easier to become a cyber criminal than it is today. It is now possible to buy off-the-shelf malicious software, designed to steal bank details, for as little as £3,000, including access to a 24-hour technical support line.

As Foreign Secretary I see frequent evidence of deliberate and organised attacks against intellectual property and government networks in the United Kingdom.

Earlier this year, a well-protected international company was breached via a foreign subsidiary. Hackers used a spear-phishing email attack to gain access to the subsidiary’s network. From there, they stole many thousands of passwords, including those for the parent company’s file servers. From that file server, they were able to steal 100GB of the parent company’s sensitive intellectual property, roughly equivalent to a document made up of 20 million pages of A4.

In another case, a large international manufacturer was targeted during a period of negotiation with a foreign government. We do not know how the company’s networks were initially penetrated. But the company later identified that the hackers had accessed the accounts of the company’s entire leadership team during the negotiations. Their significant commercial interests were clearly threatened by this loss of confidentiality.

Attacks of such scale and severity continue to compromise many millions of pounds of investment in research and development, damaging a company’s ability to defend its Intellectual Property Rights and wiping away years of sensitive negotiations and commercial positioning. If these attacks are left unchecked they could have a devastating impact on the future earning potential of many major companies and the economic wellbeing of countries.

These attacks are not aimed solely at commercial organisations. This summer one particular group targeted over 200 email accounts at 30 of the UK’s 47 government departments, in a single attack. They too sent a spear-phishing email with a malicious attachment which, if opened, would install malware on the user’s machine.  Without good protective security the attackers might have gained unfettered access to sensitive government information.

Such attacks are criss-crossing the globe from North to South, East to West, in all directions, recognising no borders, and with all countries in the firing line.

In the UK we are determined to remain a world leader in cyber security. We want to our country to be a pre-eminent safe space for e-commerce and intellectual property online. We are significantly increasing our cyber capabilities and have committed an extra £650 million of government funding over a four year period. We successfully defended our core networks against a range of threats throughout the Olympics and Paralympics, working seamlessly across the government and private sector to do so.

And last month we shared for the first time detailed information about cyber attacks against British companies with the CEOs of our major firms, launching new guidance for British businesses developed with our Security and Intelligence Agency GCHQ, to help them to comprehend the scale of the problem and to secure their networks.

But some countries lack the infrastructure and expertise to police their cyberspace and we need to do more to increase the capabilities of others. Cyber criminals and terrorists should have no refuge online, just as they should have no sanctuary off-line.

I can therefore announce today that the UK is developing a new Centre for Global Cyber-Security Capacity Building in the United Kingdom, and we will be investing £2m a year to offer countries independent advice on how to build secure and resilient cyberspace, improving co-ordination and promoting good governance online.

This practical initiative will help close the gap between supply and demand for capacity building and to ensure we make better use of the skills and resources available internationally. My colleague Francis Maude will discuss the full details of this announcement shortly.

I also welcome the work that has been done since the London conference on creating a framework of norms to help reduce the threat of conflict in cyberspace, in the OSCE, in the ASEAN Regional Forum and at the UN.  We need to be able to communicate in this area with more than just our closest allies. As the importance of cyberspace grows and the threats are magnified we will all need cyber hotlines to each other.

A great deal can be achieved through relatively simple measures such as improved crisis communications, greater cooperation between national computer emergency response teams and collaboration on tackling e-crime and responding to cyber attacks.

These two reasons of crime and state sponsored cyber attack should be reason enough for states to come together. But there is a third factor, in itself part of the problem, which makes our task more urgent. This is the growing divergence of opinion and action between those countries seeking an open future for the internet and those who are inching down the path of state control.

We believe that it is not simply enough to address economic and security threats on the internet without also taking steps to preserve the openness and freedom which is the root of its success.

We see growing evidence of some countries drawing the opposite conclusion. Some appear to be going down the path of state control of the internet: pulling the plug at times of political unrest, invading the privacy of net users, and criminalising and legislating against legitimate expression online.

We are all aware of the countries where YouTube is permanently blocked as are webpages mentioning ‘democracy’ or ‘human rights’. In some countries the websites of human rights organisations have come under cyber attack themselves. Some countries are considering going down the route of build their own national, ghettoised internets for a variety of reasons. And following the Arab Spring, we see growing numbers of people ending up in jail for blogging and tweeting about issues we would consider to be legitimate political debate and freedom of expression.

We believe that efforts to suppress the internet are wrong and are bound to fail over time. Governments who attempt this are erecting barricades against an unstoppable tide, and acting against their own long term economic interests and their security. This debate needs to be part of international efforts to protect the future of cyberspace.

We accept that no country has a perfect record. And we are under no illusions about how difficult these issues can be when they flare up as crises, even in established democracies.

The protests around the world against the anti-Islam trailer were a compelling example of this. This was a contemptible piece of work, designed to provoke outrage and we deplore the fact that innocent people died in the violence that followed.

But democratic governments must resist the calls to censor a wide range of content just because they or others find it offensive or objectionable. If we go down that path, we begin to erode the hard won rights of freedom of expression. We will always argue that is its necessary to err on the side of freedom.

So in the United Kingdom we aspire to a future cyberspace that is characterised by openness and transparency. A future where safe, trusted and reliable access to the internet is the norm irrespective of where you are born, in which we are able to harness the power of new technologies to close the digital divide, to spur growth and innovation, to protect cultural diversity and to increase accountability and transparency. A future where the flow of business and ideas drives down barriers to trade and increases choice for citizens. A future where human rights are respected online as well as offline. And a future where cooperation between nations makes it harder for people to abuse the internet for crime, terrorism, cyber attack or political ends. This is what we hope the process begun in London and taken forward in Budapest and Korea can take us closer to agreeing.

And we will do all we can in Britain to support such agreement: promoting the social and economic benefits of the internet and human rights and freedom online; developing our own skills, capabilities and defences at home, sharing that expertise with others abroad, and working with our allies to help win the argument that an open internet is the only way to support security and prosperity for all.

Below is the text of the speech made by the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, at the independence of South Sudan ceremony in Juba, South Sudan, on Saturday 9th July 2011.

It is an immense honour to represent the United Kingdom of Great Britain on this momentous occasion, and to show our wholehearted support for The Republic of South Sudan as it joins the community of nations as an independent, sovereign nation and celebrates its first Day of Independence.

We congratulate the people of South Sudan on this historic achievement. It represents the triumph of peaceful negotiation over conflict and adversity, and is a moment of hope and optimism for the future.

In Britain we are proud to be among the first nations in the world to recognise the new Republic of South Sudan, and I thank His Excellency Salva Kiir Miyardit for his invitation to attend today. I offer you my heartfelt congratulations, Mr President, on behalf of my Prime Minister David Cameron and the whole of the British Government, as you become the first President of the Republic of South Sudan.

The Government of the United Kingdom stands with the people of South Sudan as they seek a future of stability and prosperity; one we hope of lasting peace with their neighbours, full integration into the region, and strong cooperation with Britain and other nations represented here today. We look forward to South Sudan taking its place as a full member of the United Nations.

We pay tribute to the enormous progress South Sudan has made since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement six and a half years ago. The 98% vote for secession in January’s referendum showed the unity of the people of South Sudan in their desire for self-government: today, that dream has become a reality. And we remember all those who died or were bereaved during the conflict. Their sacrifices should redouble the determination of all of us to support a peaceful future for South Sudan.

I commend all those in North and South who have been part of the painstaking negotiations that brought us to this point; and President Thabo Mbeki, the AU High Level Panel, the African Union and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development for their irreplaceable role in these efforts.

The people of the Republic of South Sudan and the Republic of Sudan now have a chance to coexist peacefully as neighbours and to settle their remaining differences.

We urge the leaders of both countries to maintain their commitment to the continuing negotiations, which are essential to building a lasting peace for all the peoples of both Sudans, and to lose no time in addressing the considerable challenges which still remain. They will have the support of the Britain and the international community as they do this.

To the people of the South Sudan, I say that the United Kingdom understands the challenges your new country will face. We will work with you as you face those challenges. As a demonstration of that support and our confidence in your future, we have today opened a new British Embassy in Juba and appointed the first British Ambassador to South Sudan, Dr Alastair McPhail. We will use this enhanced diplomatic presence to work alongside you as you build your nation and seek to meet the aspirations of your people.

And I also say to their neighbours in the north, the people of Sudan, that the United Kingdom wants to develop our relations with you and to help you too to build a better future.

Thank you very much, and happy Independence Day.

Below is the text of the speech made by William Hague on 3 November 2008.

Tomorrow, the people of the United States of America will choose a new President.

He will very quickly have to grapple with the urgent need to head off Iran’s dash towards nuclear weapons capability.

The stakes are considerable: If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, we are likely to face a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, the shattering of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty which has been a cornerstone of our collective security for the last four decades, and the rise of a new era of insecurity in the Middle East.

We know full well that Iranian support of Hezbollah enabled it to rain down missiles on Israeli cities in 2006. If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, its ability to destabilise the region will be dangerously enhanced.

Iran has paid no serious penalty for its defiance of the Security Council and its abuse of the NPT. It is isolated, but only marginally. It has revelled in high oil revenues. It faces sanctions, but they have not yet bitten into the finances or freedom of movement of those responsible for Iran’s actions. Whatever anyone says, the fact that the Security Council failed to agree a single new sanction on Iran in the last seven months sends a terrible signal of weakness and disunity.

A successful policy towards Iran cannot be achieved by either Europe or America acting in isolation. The experience of past years suggests that America alone can offer the incentives to form a long-term settlement with Iran – Europe has tried, but without success. But no American President can do this unless European countries muster the will to back diplomacy with meaningful sanctions. Direct US engagement with Iran has the potential to be a decisive factor in bringing Iran to the negotiating table. But it is not a panacea. Unless we can demonstrate to Iran that it has to come to the table or else face serious consequences, the offer of talks will probably attract a derisory response from Tehran and encourage it to think that the world is caving into its demands. To succeed, negotiations must take place from the strength that a truly united strategy would bring, one based on the exertion of peaceful but meaningful pressure.

European countries must summon the will to impose new sanctions, and do so quickly. There should be a ban on new investment in Iranian oil and gas, an end to European export credit guarantees which subsidise trade with Iran and a freeze on those Iranian banks which have abused the international financial system.

We will be encouraging Britain to work with the new American President to join up the European and American approaches to Iran’s nuclear programme, and to bring our other vital partners on board. Because the strategy of western nations is currently drifting, there is a danger of fissure between governments about what approach to pursue, and divisions amongst the Security Council members are once more coming to the fore. Many in Europe appear to be sitting back, hoping for a dramatic initiative by America that will take this difficult problem from our hands. This is wishful and irresponsible thinking. Nuclear proliferation threatens all countries. It is imperative that all countries recognise this and act.

Below is the text of the speech made by the then Leader of the Opposition, William Hague, at the Conservative Councillors Association conference on 24th March 2001 during the General Election campaign.

It is always a great pleasure for me to be with so many friends and colleagues at the annual conference of the Conservative Councillors Association. Whenever I speak at your conference, I am reminded of the great tradition of public service and duty that exists throughout all sections of our party – locally and nationally. It is not borne of personal ambition or self-fulfilment, but of a desire to serve our districts, our communities and our nation. And looking around the hall today, I see that great Tory tradition of service on full display once again.

The Conservative Councillors Association represents all that is best about the Conservative Party in local government, and in your Chairman Paul Hanningfield you could have no better representative for your views on the Board of the Party.

At this conference, though, we begin again by thinking of those colleagues who are unable to be with us today because of the foot and mouth crisis that has engulfed the British countryside.

As the record increases in the number of cases this week has shown, for farmers and for huge numbers of rural businesses and tourist attractions facing financial ruin, the end is far from in sight. In the last 10 days, I’ve met farmers in Devon desperate because the spread of the disease has not been halted. I’ve met hotel owners and tourist operators in the Lake District facing bankruptcy because emergency help has not arrived. Anyone who has spent any time in the countryside knows that this crisis is clearly not under control. In fact it is getting worse.

We’ve supported the Government’s measures to halt the spread of the disease. But we have watched with increasing exasperation and anger as the Government has continually underestimated the scale of the crisis, has failed to act with anything like the necessary speed or vigour and has consistently shown itself to be behind the game.

There is much more they could be doing and yet for some reason they refuse to do it.

It’s time to get the army properly involved. They’ve got the manpower, they’ve got the machinery. They should be used to help clear the backlog of rotting carcasses. They army are used to moving things. They are used to acting quickly. It’s time to move them in. It’s common sense, so let’s get on with it.

We should speed up the slaughter programme. The backlog is growing by thousands every day. We should be sending in the valuers with the slaughtermen so there’s no more delays.

There are 80,000 dead animals lying in fields. Everyone acknowledges that burial is the most effective way of disposing of them. We should be putting pressure on the Environment Agency to find the right sites so we can get on with it.

Rural businesses need immediate help. They’re faced with thousands of pound of expenses but with no income. What they need is a Government backed loan scheme, like the one we put forward four days ago. They can’t wait any longer so let’s get on with it.

If all these things are going to happen we need the full weight and authority of government to drive them. When there is a war, there is a War Cabinet. Well this is a national crisis, and we need a Crisis Cabinet.

The Prime Minister should set it up now. It’s not enough to involve just the agriculture, environment and tourism ministers. The Chancellor, the Home Secretary, the Defence Secretary, the Trade Secretary, the territorial ministers should all sit on it too. The Prime Minister should chair this Crisis Cabinet himself. And it should meet every day until they’re on top of this crisis.

My message to the Government is: Get it together. Get a grip.

And there’s another thing. In parts of the country severely affected by Foot and Mouth, fighting the disease must have priority over fighting elections.

So Tony Blair should bring forward legislation now to take on the power to postpone some county elections should it become clear later that people cannot participat e fully and freely in them. The time to do that is fast running out.

The foot and mouth crisis comes on top of all the other crippling blows that have hit the countryside like the worst agricultural depression for sixty years, the plunging farm incomes and the closure of rural services. While Labour can’t be blamed for the outbreak of foot and mouth they can be blamed for policies that threaten to destroy the liberty and livelihood of thousands of people.

And it’s time it came to an end.

So I’ll give you, and millions of people in rural Britain desperate for a change of Government, this assurance. The next Conservative Government will stand up for the interests of the British countryside, we will fight for the hard-pressed British farmers and we will do everything we can to defend a rural way of life that Labour have so brutally and systematically undermined.

We will do these things because Conservatives believes in the countryside, because unlike Labour that has pitted town against country we are the party of One Nation. We will do it because we will govern for all the people. And we’ll do it by winning the next Election.

Whatever happens, in a few weeks time many of you will be facing the electorate locally, while our party could once again be asking the British people to entrust us to form the government of our country.

Let nobody be in any doubt. We are determined to win in the county council elections on 3 May, just as we are determined to win in any other elections that might take place on that day. And we can win together.

I have no hesitation in saying we can win. We can win because we have in the Conservative Shadow Cabinet a team brimming with the talent, the policies and the drive to take on the governance of our country.

We can win because of the reforms that together we have made to make our party the most open and democratic in British politics.

We can win because of the hard work, the tireless dedication and the commitment of the people in this hall.

We can win because of the efforts of people like you who through some of the most difficult times in our long history have been the backbone that has kept this party strong.

We can win because of the way you have championed the Conservative cause on the doorsteps and in the council chambers, fighting for Conservative principles when those principles were under attack as never before.

And we can win because week in, week out, you have been winning elections when all the pundits said that those elections couldn’t be won.

It’s thanks to you that the Conservative Party now has nearly 2,500 more councillors than we did four years ago. It’s thanks to you that we control four times as many councils than we did four years ago. It’s thanks to you that we are the largest party of local government in district councils and county councils and after 3 May we’ll be larger still.

It’s thanks to you that under Michael Ancram’s Chairmanship we are ready to fight the most disciplined, professional and effective campaign we have ever fought.

Because it doesn’t matter when it comes. The Conservative Party can win the General Election, and make no mistake the Conservative Party is fighting tooth and nail to win the General Election.

And I’ll give two more reasons why we can win. Tony Blair and New Labour.

We could give no greater service to our country than to get rid of this sleaze ridden, crony stuffed, promise breaking, miserable excuse for a Government, led by a Prime Minister so consumed with his own self importance that he commissions memos entitled ‘Getting the Right Place in History’ and doesn’t even hide the fact that his only guiding purpose in politics is to be re-elected for a second term.

Remember that day four years ago when Tony Blair walked into Downing Street. He told the country that things could only get better. He pledged that his would be a government that would only promise what it c ould deliver. He said he was offering the country a new kind of politics and a government that would be purer than pure.

Yet four years on the hopes and aspirations of millions of people have been destroyed, and their trust has been betrayed.

Four years on we know that for millions of people still waiting for their hospital operation, for better education, for more police, for improved transport and for lower taxes the only certainty under Labour is that things have got worse.

Four years on, we know that all the promises, the pledges and Tony Blair’s vows have been broken by a Government that lives by cynicism, deception, distortion, manipulation and half-truth – a Government that is all spin and no delivery.

Four years on we know that Tony Blair’s new kind of politics meant Formula One, favours for lobbyists, the home loans scandal, the Lord Chancellor’s dinners, the two resignations of Peter Mandelson, and everything to do with Geoffrey Robinson.

Four years on we know that being purer than pure really meant allowing Robin Cook wilfully to mislead the House of Commons and get away with it and the scandal of allowing Keith Vaz to cling on to office when everyone knows that Tony Blair should have sacked him weeks ago.

And after four years of failure, cushioned only by the strength of the economy that we Conservatives bequeathed him, Tony Blair now asks for four more years. You’ve got to hand it to him. He’s certainly got some nerve. He’s the first Prime Minister in history to ask for a second term of office so that he can begin to get round to delivering on all the promises he has broken in his first term.

Well I’ve got news for Tony Blair. We are not going to sit back and let him inflict four more years of damage on the country we love. We are going to fight him every inch of the way and with every ounce of energy we’ve got.

We all know what four more years of Labour would mean for Britain. And we are not afraid to spell it out.

Four more years of stealth taxes, of fewer police, of more criminals released early to commit even more crimes, of more cancelled operations, of more crises in our schools, of more chaos on our roads and of even more expensive petrol.

And yes, after four more years Britain railroaded into a European single currency, with the British pound gone forever and ever more of our precious rights to govern ourselves handed over to Brussels. The steady and certain march into a European superstate – on course.

I make no apology for warning of the dangers of a second term of Labour. Just as I’m not going to be deterred by a self appointed, self opinionated liberal elite from speaking up for the common sense instincts of the British people.

In New Labour’s Britain, there are certain subjects that we are not supposed to talk about. Talk about tax and they call you greedy. Talk about crime and they call you extreme. Talk about asylum and they call you racist. Talk about your country and they call you a xenophobe.

Well I don’t believe that the British people are any of those things. They recognise that a decent society needs properly funded public services. But they don’t see why they should pay higher and higher taxes when they can’t see any improvement in those services.

They are not reactionary. But they understand that, in order to tackle crime, we should be increasing police numbers not cutting them. And they can see that letting violent criminals out of prison early is likely to cause more crime.

Our people are not intolerant. They recognise, as Conservatives have always recognised, that Britain must offer sanctuary to those fleeing from persecution. But they believe that Britain should be a safe haven and not a soft touch.

Above all, our people are not xenophobes. They understand that the United Kingdom works internally as a partnership of nations, and externally as a partner in the international community. They know that we are a maritime, trading country, connected by our history and geography to other continents.

And they also believe in democracy. They can see that if our interest rates, our exchange rates and even our tax rates were set in Frankfurt, then yet more of our rights would have been signed away.

So Tony Blair and his ministers can sneer all they like. But the reality is they are not sneering at me. They are sneering at the British people, whose opinions they hold in contempt.

That’s one of the differences between Tony Blair and me.

I am not ashamed to speak for the people of our country who don’t feel they have a voice, the people who despair at the way in which common sense is brushed aside by the politically correct, the people who look on with anger as they see their country increasingly being taken from them by an arrogant and out of touch liberal elite.

I am proud to speak up for the common sense instincts of the British people and that is what I will continue to do.

But I know I don’t have anything to teach you about the nature of the Labour Party or their Liberal allies in government. After all you see how they behave at first hand every day in town halls the length and breadth of Britain.

You see at first hand Labour and the Liberals who control seventeen out of the top twenty highest charging councils in England and Wales.

You see how the Council Tax has been turned into the ultimate in stealth taxes, engineered by central government, but with councils rather than Gordon Brown having to face the anger of local residents as their bills soar.

You see how the other stealth taxes imposed by Gordon Brown – like the higher fuel tax, landfill tax and the raid on pension funds – have helped make the Council Tax for a Band D property rise by an average of £212 since Labour came to power.

You see the waste and mismanagement that causes Labour county and district councils charge £100 a year more on Band D properties than in areas where Conservatives are in control.

You have seen at first hand the profligacy of Labour in establishing their costly and totally unnecessary extra tier of bureaucracy, Regional Development Agencies that they then pack with their own supporters.

You have seen at first hand the high handed and arrogant Labour Government that is forcing councils to adopt Cabinets or directly elected Mayors whether they are wanted or not.

You have seen at first hand Labour’s war against drivers as they press ahead with their crazy schemes for workplace parking taxes and road charges that will pile extra costs onto business and threaten to force businesses them to abandon the city centres.

You see at first hand the extra red tape created by the introduction of Labour’s flawed schemes like Best Value.

You see at first hand the lunatic political correctness in Labour controlled authorities like Birmingham that puts forward plans to abolish Christmas because it’s ‘offensive’ to minorities and replace it with a ‘Winterval’ or in Liberal controlled authorities like Colchester that tried to ban Punch and Judy because it ‘promotes domestic violence’.

But why should any of this surprise us? Because the reality is Labour and the Liberals in the Council chamber are no different to their colleagues in the House of Commons. Wherever they are given the opportunity to govern – in Whitehall or your town hall – the song remains the same. Higher taxes and poorer services. All spin and no delivery.

On indicator after indicator, Labour or Liberal councils provide a worse standard of service than do those that are Conservative run. They have dirtier streets, poorer street lighting, pay less of their bills on time, have more empty council housing, collect less of their rent and council tax and have worse schools exam results. They are the Labour and Liberal rotten boroughs, and they are a national disgrace.

People don’t want to see more of their hard-earned money taken away in ta x, for it then to be frittered away on Labour’s pet projects and crazy schemes. They pay their tax in order to get a well run, efficient council that concentrates on delivering the services it is supposed to deliver and delivers them well. That is what they get when they vote for Conservative councils. Lower taxes and better quality services.

Since becoming leader of the Party it has been one of my key objectives to re-assert the Conservative commitment to local government. That’s why, as one of the reforms to our Party, I established the Conservative Councillors Association and ensured that the Chairman should have a place on the Party’s Board.

I did this because I believe in local government. I value local government. And I want to see local government thrive.

I want to see open, transparent and accountable local democracy with the power of the central state rolled back. I want to decentralise power away from Whitehall and back to local communities and neighbourhoods. I want to end the nanny state culture of interference and meddling that has run amok under this Government and put decision making back into the hands of people who best understand local concerns. I want to do this because it makes common sense. And I want to do it because unlike Labour, whose idea of local government seems to be a never ending series of circulars and diktats, I trust the people.

It’s because I trust the people that the next Conservative Government will make every school a free schools with the power to set their own admissions policies, and impose their own discipline. It’s common sense that when teachers and parents are put in charge, standards will rise. And Conservatives will deliver common sense in education.

It’s because I trust the people that the next Conservative Government will create free councils with responsible and efficient councils being subject to less Government interference and given more financial freedom. It’s common sense that well run councils shouldn’t be held back because of a minority of them that are badly run. And Conservatives will deliver common sense in local government.

The next Conservative Government will deliver common sense by giving councils discretion over local development by abolishing Labour’s regional and national housebuilding targets.

We will deliver common sense by giving councils new powers to promote economic development and regeneration and by abolishing Labour’s Regional Development Agencies and their Brussels offices too.

We will deliver common sense by stopping the introduction of directly-elected regional assemblies and by ending Labour’s plans to abolish England’s county councils.

We will deliver common sense by giving councils the powers to choose whether they keep the committee system and ending Labour’s policy of forcing councils to adopt a Cabinet or directly elected mayor.

We will deliver common sense by freeing councils from mountains of red tape and by abolishing in its current form the unpopular and bureaucratic Best Value regime.

We will deliver common sense by ensuring that councils are more accountable to the electorate for the money they spend and by ending Council Tax capping.

And we will deliver common sense by ending the constant upheavals and reforms that have taken place in local government and by providing a period of stability for councils to get on with the job they’re supposed to be doing.

So you have my assurance. Under the next Conservative Government, there will be no more costly and disruptive reorganisations of local government.

That is our approach. Common sense Conservatism, based on trusting the people. It’s an approach that can take us to victory in the local elections in May. And it’s the approach that can take us to victory at the General Election too.

That is what I will be offering as we set out our programme for the General Election campaign. It will be a programme that will go further than any that has gone before to give people greater freedom and responsibility for their lives.

It will be nothing less than the most radical, exciting and imaginative Conservative programme for a generation, giving back to people greater freedom and responsibility for their everyday lives. It will reflect the common sense instincts of the mainstream majority of the British people. And it will offer a decisive shift away from the politics of the past four years.

It will reflect the common sense instincts of the mainstream majority on tax. People know that Governments cannot simply go on spending more than the nation can afford. They understand it because that’s how they run their own budgets. But while that seems like common sense to you and me, it clearly isn’t to Gordon Brown.

Not content with piling on his stealth taxes, the Chancellor has set a course for public spending that will eventually have to be paid for by even higher taxes. Gordon Brown claims that his policies are prudent. I say they are simply irresponsible.

The people of this country have been overtaxed for far too long and the time has come to give them back more of their own money. That is what the next Conservative Government will do. Unlike Labour, who tax more and deliver less, we will spend only what the nation can afford, and tax no more than we need.

All of this is common sense, and Conservatives will deliver common sense.

We will reflect the common sense instincts of the people on crime too by going to war against the criminal like never before. The British people aren’t stupid. They see the connection between falling police numbers, morale at record lows and rises in violent crime. They know that there’s something fundamentally wrong when thousands of serious criminals are let out of prison under Labour’s special early release scheme, only to offend again. They know that crime will never be defeated when our criminal justice system often has more to say about the rights of the criminal rather than the rights of the victim.

So the next Conservative Government will end Labour’s special early release scheme for serious criminals.

We will restore the cuts in police numbers to at least the levels they were at when we left office, and we will sweep aside the bureaucracy and political correctness that has so damaged police morale.

We will review the criminal justice system to ensure that the law is on the side of the victim, and not the criminal.

And we will make sure that when a sentence is handed down in court, then that is the actual sentence that is served in prison.

All of these things are common sense. And Conservatives will deliver common sense on crime.

It will reflect the common sense instincts of the British people on public services who sick and tired of listening to Labour’s spin while the health service deteriorates, teachers shortages get worse and Britain grinds to a standstill.

The next Conservative Government will set our public servants free. We will establish free schools. We will end Labour’s clinically distorting waiting list initiative, and let doctors and nurses get on with the job of treating patients according to their clinical needs. And we will stop Labour’s policy of taxing drivers off the road without providing an alternative. We will deliver common sense on public services.

But we won’t be able to do any of these things unless we maintain our ability to govern ourselves. That is why, at the coming election, we will reflect the common sense instincts of the British who want to be in Europe, not run by Europe and who want to keep the pound.

A few weeks ago Tony Blair was finally forced to admit that if Labour win he will set about scrapping the Pound within two years.

So be in no doubt. The next General Election will be the final battle for the pound. A vote for Labour or the Liberals is a vote to get rid of the pound. A vote for the Conservatives is a vote to keep the pound. And a vote for the Conservatives is a vote to stop more of our rights to govern our own affairs through the Supremacy of the Crown in Parliament being handed away. It will be a vote to maintain the independence and integrity of the United Kingdom.

All of this is common sense, and Conservatives will deliver common sense on Europe.

We will deliver common sense for the British people. And we will trust the people.

We will trust the instincts of the British people who want to see want a Government that doesn’t spend more than the country can afford and doesn’t tax more than it needs.

Who want a Government that will wage war on crime and deliver more PCs and less PC.

Who want to doctors to treat patients and who want to let teachers teach.

Who when it comes to asylum seekers want their country to be a safe haven not a soft touch.

Who believe in Britain and want to maintain the union of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Who want to be in Europe and not run by Europe.

Who want to keep the pound.

Who want their country back.

We say come with the Conservatives, and we will give you back your country.

Below is the text of the speech made by the then Leader of the Opposition, William Hague, to the Police Federation Conference on 18th May 2000.

Mr Chairman, policemen and policewomen, thank you for inviting me to address you. One message comes out loud and clear from your Conference this week. You desperately want to be able to get on and do your job. You want to be free of red tape and political interference. You want to be free to fight crime and catch criminals.

That is not the case now. As you, Mr Chairman, put it yesterday, the police service are ‘facing a crisis of no confidence, a crisis of no cash and a crisis of no colleagues’. You said that there is ‘a sense of disorder and anarchy’ in some urban areas and that many rural communities are ‘unable to rely on the police’.

You know, and I know, that this crisis is not your fault. Each day you go out on to the streets and do your job to the very best of your professional ability. And what a job it is. When I was preparing this speech, I looked at the list of officers who had won Police Bravery Awards. In many cases, what is striking is how a routine incident like stopping a car or responding to a 999 call turned suddenly and without warning into an occasion where the officer has to put his or her life on the line.

It is not just the acts of outstanding bravery that deserve our thanks. Day in, day out, you are the people who are first on the scene at a road accident, who deal with missing children and distraught mothers, who have to tell families that their loved ones are dead or seriously injured.

That is why you command an 80 per cent public approval rating. With an approval rating like that you could be elected to run the Home Office. Come to think of it, that might not be a bad idea.

Politicians of all parties have not always taken the right decisions about the police, and I am the first to acknowledge that your problems did not begin on 1st May 1997. But they have got quite a lot worse since then.

Police numbers are falling, down by over 2,300 in three years. Police stations are being closed at the rate of 90 a year, leaving too many communities exposed and vulnerable. And the police service has become fair game to every pressure group competing to produce the latest sensational charge of corruption, abuse or discrimination.

It is time we politicians remembered that your job is to fight crime and that our job is to help you.

So let me start by utterly rejecting the defeatist nonsense that says crime is just a function of economic and social trends. For that is the constant excuse of a complacent establishment. They talk of crime as an abstract, dismiss victims as mere statistics on a page of a sociology thesis, and are always looking for someone other than criminals to blame for crime.

This liberal thinking on crime, which has pervaded our criminal justice system for forty years, has comprehensively failed Britain. Over that period the murder rate has doubled, violent crime has risen from 24,000 cases a year to 664,000, and burglaries have gone up from 75,000 to nearly one million. The only period when crime fell consistently was at the end of the last Government when Michael Howard was Home Secretary.

I’m not claiming that everything was perfect in some long-forgotten age. We now know that sexual crimes against women and children used to be scandalously under-reported. We also know that rising crime figures are also a measure of increased detection and better policing methods.

But we shall only turn the tide of rising disorder and lawlessness if we stop treating crime as an abstract problem and criminals as the victims of society. As every police officer who has ever had to confront an armed robber, or help a weeping victim of a mugging, knows – crime isn’t an abstract problem. Crime is something people choose to do to other people.

And criminals are not victims. It is the innocent people who they steal from and they beat up who are the real victims. Of course, there are incentives and influences, and the fight against crime is also a war on drugs, poverty and ignorance, on family breakdown and social dislocation. But criminals are not moral zombies sliding down a trend line on a graph. They make their choices and we should make them pay for those choices.

Those English and Turkish Thugs who caused the shameful display of violence in Copenhagen last night were not poor victims of society, they travelled to Denmark and booked hotel rooms with the specific purpose of committing crime. It is too soon for snap judgments but we need to see if the law is adequate and if it isn`t we should look to see how it might be changed.

I want criminals to be fearful of getting caught, and fearful of punishment, so they will choose not to commit crimes. I want to make convicted criminals unwilling to commit more crimes, or at least keep them under lock and key so they can’t. I want the victims of crime to feel that they have had justice. I want the law-abiding millions in our country to feel free from fear in their homes and on the streets. I want a police force that gets the backing and resources from politicians it deserves. I also want a police force that is trusted across our society.

You know that long before the Macpherson Report ever existed, the police and the Federation have been reaching out to Britain’s ethnic minority communities, building bridges of trust and working with local community leaders.

I, like you, want to see many more black or asian police officers, just as I want to see more black and asian Members of Parliament – particularly Conservative Members of Parliament! I hope and expect that within my lifetime we will see a British black or British asian Chief Constable or Chairman of the Police Federation or, indeed, Home Secretary.

And because I know that so many of you share that hope and expectation too, I well understand your resentment at the charge of ‘institutional racism’. No one, and I suspect least of all you, would deny that there are many things we need to improve in our police service, and many things we need to improve in society at large – but the slogan of ‘institutional racism’ has been lifted out of context from the Macpherson Report and used by some to brand tens of thousands of decent, unprejudiced police officers as racists.

That is a travesty of the truth. It is also wrong to allow a genuine concern about the treatment of ethnic minorities to lead to yet more unnecessary bureaucracy and regulation.

You are already hamstrung from doing your job properly by form filling, and target setting, and endless paperwork. If all the officials in Whitehall had sat down and thought of the best way to tie our police in knots, then they couldn’t have come up with a better system than the one inadvertently created in recent years.

We need to set the police free to do your job. We need to give you the political support by defeating the liberal nonsense that says the war against crime can’t be won. We need more police officers and less political correctness. In other words, we need more PCs and less PC.

We know the war against crime can be won because of what’s happened in parts of America. Anyone who says permanently rising crime is inevitable should visit New York. It used to be the Murder Capital of the United States; now it’s among the safest large cities in the world. I admire what Mayor Guiliani, with the help of his police chief, has achieved in New York. I believe we have a lot to learn from them. In Britain we’ve heard endless talk of zero tolerance, but no one has really begun to try it – not yet.

In this country, we have to set out with the confidence and ambition to win the war against crime; and we need to give you the tools and the manpower to go out and win it.

We have to begin by increasing the number of police officers.

You must be heartily sick of politicians coming here and calling for more bobbies on the beat, or more action against drugs, without promising you the extra police officers these things require.

We don’t make that mistake. We promise now that when we return to office we shall, as a minimum, restore the police cuts of the last three years.

Of course, both numbers and quality depend critically on recruitment and retention. I understand your deep-felt concerns. What I can promise is that whatever was done before by the previous Government, we will come to the difficult issues of pay, allowances and conditions with a fresh and open mind.

However, I must be candid with you. I simply cannot write you a blank cheque now in opposition. And if I did, you probably wouldn’t believe me. But nor will I mislead you with promises which, when you look at the small print, turn out to deliver far less than you thought.

We also need to get policemen and policewomen out from behind their desks and onto the streets fighting crime. I’ve seen some reports which suggest many police forces spend three-quarters of their time on administration and bureaucracy, and only a quarter on catching criminals.

That is a crazy waste of talent and resources. We are going to have a bonfire of police red tape and regulation, setting you free to do the job you were trained to do.

We are also going to make street patrols a priority. For the uniformed PC is still the building block of an effective police force. Street patrols may not be suitable for all areas, but they can dramatically reduce public fear of crime and trust in the local police by providing a very visible police presence in the community.

Good policing is no good without an effective criminal justice system. For what is the point of devoting a huge amount of time and effort to catching a criminal one day, only for them to be released by the court with a flimsy penalty the next day?

I regret to say that public confidence in our courts system is on the verge of collapse, and no wonder. Look at the examples we’ve had just in the last few days.

There was the sixteen year old boy finally put behind bars after terrorising his local community for more than four years. In that time he attacked women, old people, he assaulted police officers, stole cars, damaged property, committed burglary and blackmail yet was repeatedly given both bail and a conditional discharge.

Then there was the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that the taxpayer should shell out £11,500 to compensate a convicted drug trafficker who argued that a police listening device had infringed his right to privacy.

And, of course, there was Tony Martin. The details of the particular case are best left to the courts, but politicians and the police have a duty to understand why it generated such an explosive public reaction.

The fact is that the law-abiding majority are fed up with a system that allowed the three burglars who broke into Mr Martin’s home to collect 114 convictions between them without any of them serving more than a few months in prison and a couple of dozen hours community service.

We believe its time to overhaul the law in this area so that we are on the side of the person defending their home and their family against the criminal, and not the other way around.

Nothing dismays victims more or brings the entire criminal justice system into greater disrepute than the fact that criminals almost never serve the actual sentence handed down in court. It affects your job too. As the Chief Constable of the West Midlands said recently, ‘until we see the full tariff of penalties being used by the courts on professional criminals, my officers will have to run faster than ever to stand still’.

So the next Conservative Government will introduce honesty in sentencing. We will abolish automatic early release on licence. We will make criminals serve the full term ordered by the judge in open court. Discounts from a sentence will only be earned by good behaviour in prison.

I’m all for sensible efforts to rehabilitate offenders, but sometimes we deal with criminals who have spat in the face of the law, who have rejected every chance to go straight. A career in crime shouldn’t be an option for these parasites on society. A lifetime in prison should.

When we were last in office, my Party introduced mandatory minimum sentences for serious sexual and violent offenders and for persistent burglars. We now propose tough minimum sentences for those who peddle hard drugs to children and for people convicted more than once of sexual offences against children.

We will also stop the early release of serious criminals from prison. Last November the Home Secretary made an explicit pledge. He said that they had ‘no plans or intention whatsoever to provide for … the early release of serious or sexual offenders. Let me make that clear, with a full stop – none whatever’.

Yet he is releasing 2,600 convicted drug dealers, 2,300 thugs convicted of wounding, 1,700 burglars, 19 sex offenders, 22 people convicted of cruelty to children and 5 serving sentences for attempted murder.

Of even greater concern is the fact that over 600 criminals released early have broken their curfew and 200 have committed crimes, including 31 assaults, 67 burglaries and 2 rapes.

Either Jack Straw is the only person in Britain who regards none of these convictions as of a serious or sexual nature, or his promise not to release them early full stop was, like his promise of 5,000 extra police, worth nothing.

Now the Home Secretary is planning to keep criminals in prison during the day and release them at night. Great thinking. This means they can’t work, but they can burgle homes and mug people at night. I say instead of prison from 9 to 5, criminals should be locked up from 12 to 12, day and night.

Some of the fiercest public criticism of the criminal justice system arises from the manifest failure to enforce probation orders and other non-custodial punishments effectively. When a criminal learns that he can defy the courts and that nothing much will happen to him, he is more likely to commit crime again.

So if we are to start winning the war against crime then we have to enforce the sentence of the court. Here’s what we are going to do:

First, if someone on probation breaches their probation order just once then the court will be informed and it will have to take action.

Second, the same principle applies to the Conditional Discharge. What’s the point of a Conditional Discharge if the conditions aren’t enforced? We will make sure that a breach of Conditional Discharge leads automatically to sentencing for the original offence.

Third, we will take persistent young offenders off the streets. That means more Secure Training Centres. And we will make young criminals sent to these Centres subject to a new Flexible Detention Order that links their release date to specific achievements tailored to each inmate. It might be a recognised qualification or even the basics like learning to read and write. Inmates would serve at least six months and the exact time of release would depend on the progress they had made.

This proposal will punish, deter and rehabilitate younger offenders and protect the public from their crimes.

And there is one further change to sentencing which I want to propose today. Back in 1988, we introduced for the first time in English legal history the right to appeal against an over-lenient sentence. At the time, many denounced this as a dangerous innovation. That is liberal establishment speak for straight-forward common sense.

But the right of appeal applies only to a limited list of the most serious offences. Many crimes which spark real anger and fear amongst the public- GBH, ABH, burglary, racially aggravated offences – carry no such right to appeal. So we will extend the right to appeal against an over-lenient sentence to all so-called ‘either-way’ offences tried at the Crown Court.

And we should apply the same, common sense approach to the out-moded rule that no-one may be tried twice for the same offence.

By allowing a retrial in cases of jury or witness nobbling, we have already accepted that the double jeopardy rule is not sacrosanct. We should now go further.

We believe that where new and compelling evidence of guilt comes to light – evidence which could not reasonably have been uncovered during the original investigation – the prosecution should be able to ask the Court of Appeal to order a second trial. It is just as much a miscarriage of justice when a guilty man escapes justice as when an innocent man goes to jail.

Honest Sentences. Enforcing probation orders and conditional discharges. Ending early release for serious crimes. Extending Secure Training Centres and the right of appeal against lenient sentences. Reforming the double jeopardy rule. Putting victims first.

These are Conservative policies which will go a long way to restoring public confidence in our criminal justice system. They go hand in hand with our commitment to a larger, better supported, more motivated police force that is free to do its job.

For we can’t win that war without your help. I commit the Conservative Party here today to ensuring that you have all the political backing you need to be the strongest, most professional and best respected police force in the world. And I want you to know that you will be backed up with a criminal justice system that scares the hell out of criminals, and deserves the trust of the people it protects.

We can cut crime. We can make people feel safer in their homes and on the streets. Provided you are allowed to do your job and we give you the unequivocal, unapologetic, unstinting support you so richly deserve.