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Tag: Speeches

  • Danny Alexander – 2005 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Danny Alexander in the House of Commons on 19th May 2005.

     

    Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this House today. I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend—sorry, my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy). I was going to say that Cornwall had maybe discovered another star of the future, but perhaps I have promoted her somewhat too quickly. I congratulate her on her maiden speech and I congratulate other hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today.

    I am personally grateful to hon. Members from all parties, but especially to Liberal Democrat Members and to the staff of the House, whose advice and kindness have helped me and other new Members to find our feet. I am proud to say that I am the first Member of Parliament to represent Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. This is a new constituency, and there are many in Scotland. Three quarters of the constituency was previously within the Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber constituency. I pay tribute to David Stewart, who was the Member of Parliament for that constituency from 1997 and the Labour party candidate at the election.

    Mr. Stewart conducted his campaign in the way he conducted himself in this House: he was understated, industrious and gentlemanly. He was a renowned campaigner on many worthy causes, and I would particularly like to highlight his work to tackle global poverty through the Jubilee 2000 movement. I wish him well for the future. Of course, the highlands of Scotland have a long and radical tradition. Hence it has been for many years a stronghold of Liberalism and now Liberal Democracy. Prior to 1997, much of my constituency was represented by that great Highland Liberal Russell Johnston, who continues his service in the other place. Throughout his 33 years representing the area, Russell exemplified the thoughtful and independent-minded approach that is characteristic of the highlands. I was especially grateful to him for spending so much of his time with me during the election campaign. It is striking to think that Russell was a Member of this House for as many years as I have so far spent on this earth. Russell Johnston was to me, as to many others, a political inspiration, but he was not the first Liberal influence on my life. My mother tells me that, when I was three months old, my grandfather was seen rocking me in my pram and saying “Repeat after me: ‘I am a member of the Liberal Party.’”

    A quarter of my constituency was previously represented by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy). Indeed, that is not the only thing that we have in common, for we are both former pupils of Lochaber high school and, as has been remarked upon in the press, share a hair colour that is perhaps more prevalent in the far north of Scotland than anywhere else. I have been very grateful for his help and support locally over the past year as a candidate, as well as for his outstanding leadership of the Liberal Democrat party, which has seen us to our best performance in a general election since the 1920s. Both my right hon. Friend and Lord Russell-Johnston have spoken up loudly for the highlands and for their principles, and if I can live up to their standards in the years to come, I shall be serving my constituents well. Like them, I shall work hard for everybody in my constituency, irrespective of their party preference.

    Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey is the longest name of any constituency in the country—indeed, to some it may prove to be something of a tongue-twister. While many Members can speak of the visual attractions of their constituencies, I believe that Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey can rightly be described as one of the most beautiful of all. It is also one of the most diverse, encompassing the fast-growing city of Inverness, the remote splendour of the Cairngorm mountains, the mysteries of Loch Ness and the popular seaside town of Nairn. I have not yet had the pleasure of canvassing the most famous resident of Loch Ness, but I am reliably informed that she is not a Labour supporter. Like the Prime Minister, Nessie was not seen in my constituency during the election campaign, but unlike the Prime Minister, her reputation has grown as a result. Tourism is one of the most important industries in the area and hon. Members on both sides of the House can be assured of a warm highland welcome as and when they choose to visit. Indeed, I hope that the Prime Minister will now take the opportunity to do so.

    One of the most important recent developments in Badenoch and Strathspey has been the creation of the Cairngorms national park, and I previously worked for the park authority. Readers of the National Geographic Magazine recently voted the highlands one of the top 10 sustainable tourism destinations in the world. Clearly, the need to develop the tourist industry further must be accommodated in such a way that it does not at the same time undermine the natural features that attract the visitors in the first place. We must not kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

    As Members on both sides of the House are all too aware—the right hon. Member for Fylde (Michael Jack) eloquently made the point in his speech earlier—threats to our environment are more often international than local. The threat and indeed the current reality of climate change are all too apparent to my constituents, not least because they are highly visible through the fortunes of the Scottish ski industry. The Cairngorm mountain ski area has successfully diversified into a very popular summer attraction, as the amount of time and the snow available for winter sports have fallen as a consequence of global warming. I hope that we might finally see some genuine progress made on that most pressing question when the G8 comes to Scotland in the summer.

    I am proud to represent the whole of the city of Inverness, capital of the highlands. Britain’s most northerly city is also one of the country’s fastest growing. The quality of life, as well as the quality of employment, have caused the population to rise, especially in the Inverness and Nairn areas. As well as being a service centre for the highlands, with much income from traditional areas such as tourism, Inverness is home to an increasing number of innovative modern industries, particularly in the medical field. The success of LifeScan Scotland, formerly Inverness Medical, which now employs more than 1,200 people, is helping to attract many new businesses to the area.

    Inverness’s growth and success present challenges, not least the fact that, despite recent progress, with wages at 80 per cent. of the UK average, the highlands and islands is still one of the poorer areas in the United Kingdom. Problems caused by remoteness are as pressing as they were when Russell Johnston raised them in his maiden speech in 1964. Of course, there has been progress, and I pay tribute to the work of many public agencies in the highlands. The fact remains that there is considerable room for improvement in all aspects of the transport network—bus, train, road, and air—in my constituency, despite the substantial progress made under Nicol Stephen, our Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive Minister for Transport.

    Effective transport links between the highlands and London are vital for the region’s continued growth, so it is a matter of regret that the Government have so far not seen fit to protect vital air routes between Inverness and London with a public service obligation. Considerable further investment is also needed to improve road and rail infrastructure around Inverness and between Inverness and Nairn, particularly by upgrading the A96 and completing the Inverness southern link road.

    Perhaps the most pressing problem across the highlands—and, as we have heard in other speeches today, in many areas across the country—is the shortage of affordable housing. The rapid rise in house prices has pushed owning a home beyond the means of many local people. One Conservative Member has already confessed to me that he owns a second home in my constituency. I look forward to meeting him there, but I have to say that demand for second homes has enormously exacerbated the problem of the shortage of affordable housing. We need radical solutions, which will be one of my priorities during this Parliament. Although housing policy in Scotland is a matter for the Scottish Parliament, decisions made here can have a significant impact on the problem.

    Our rural areas are home to many thousands of people, so services in small communities such as those that I represent must be preserved and enhanced, not undermined or removed, as has been the fate, for example, of too many post offices in recent years.

    In his book, “Memory Hold the Door”, the author, John Buchan, wrote of the importance of holding public office in words that I believe still hold true today:

    “Here our surface ribaldry covers a sincere respect, and in recent years, when parliamentary government has been overthrown elsewhere, I think we have come to cherish ours more than ever. Public life is regarded as the crown of a career, and to a young man it is the worthiest ambition. Politics is still the greatest and most honourable adventure.”

    I look forward to the next stage of that adventure and I thank hon. Members for their forbearance of my opening foray today.

  • Peter Aldous – 2010 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Peter Aldous in the House of Commons on 27th May 2010.

    Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to make my maiden speech. I will start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) for his passionate, detailed and knowledgeable speech on climate change. Indeed, it has been marvellous to listen today to some great speeches. We heard the speech of the new hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), whose brother is a minister in my constituency, Waveney in Suffolk. We then heard the speech of the new hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), who listed some films that had been made in the famous Ealing Studios. She actually missed out the most famous, “Kind Hearts and Coronets”, where the star had a particular way of getting into the other place. I think that constitutional reform will put an end to that.

    I chose this debate to make my maiden speech because energy and offshore renewable energy is vital to the future of my constituency-Lowestoft and the surrounding area, which have suffered from industrial decline for the best part of 30 years. I pay tribute to my predecessor, Mr Bob Blizzard, for the work that he has done over the past 13 years. He has been a passionate advocate for Waveney and a hard-working and diligent MP. I thank him for all the work that he has done.

    Waveney is the most easterly constituency in the country. Perhaps at times, we Suffolk people hide our light under a bushel and do not make the most of the virtues that we have. The constituency’s make-up is diverse. We have the coastal town of Lowestoft, famous for its fish, its maritime history, its decent, honourable people and its clean beaches. There is the fishing village of Kessingland, and the market towns of Bungay and Beccles, and wide open rural expanses in between. The people up there do at times feel that they have been forgotten down here. It is as if we were at the end of a line.

    We have been crying out for better roads and railways for what seems like many, many years. I will continue to make that cry, as other Waveney politicians have done. In November 1959, Jim Prior, now in another place, described the road and communications system in East Anglia as the Cinderella of the country. It seems as if we have not got very much further in the past 50-odd years.

    We have industries that have declined. The fishing industry is no longer what it was; shipbuilding has gone; and the canning factory has gone. That is what we need to address. I am not going to moan; offshore renewables present us with a great opportunity to bring Waveney into the 21st century. It was an opportunity that Bob Blizzard recognised, and I will be taking the baton from him to make sure that we deliver on that goal.

    We need a new and radical energy policy. If we do not have it, the lights will go out. We need to be in control of our own destiny. We need energy security. We owe it to future generations to take a major step towards a low-carbon economy. We need a mixture of energy sources-green energy sources. To me, nuclear has a vital role to play; so, too, does clean coal, and micro-energy is also of great importance, but it is offshore renewables on which I want to focus. We have to get 15% of our energy supply from renewables by 2020. We have a lot of work to do, being at just over 5% now. There are great opportunities for green jobs; I see that it is estimated that there will be 1.2 million by 2015. If we do not do the work, we will fall a long way short.

    Lowestoft has a great opportunity, and great advantages in setting about giving us those green jobs and taking us forward. It has a great location, close to where the offshore turbines will be-the East Anglia Array and the Greater Gabbard. We have a skills base, built up over many years, in fishing, in shipbuilding, and in the North sea oil and gas industry. Those skills are transferrable, and we can make best use of them in the renewables sector.

    We have to improve our training and education. We have a further education college that is delivering skills, and there is the opportunity for University Campus Suffolk to provide higher education with regard to those skills. We also need to reinvigorate the apprenticeship system, which, in Waveney and Lowestoft, has been so important in our past. There are measures in the Queen’s Speech that will help to deliver that.

    I am here to represent Waveney, but I must not be parochial. To deliver green energy, and get the renewables that we need, I have to think outside my constituency, and think about the surrounding constituencies. In East Anglia, we have great opportunities. There is a deep-sea port in Yarmouth; that will help us to bring opportunities there. There is land elsewhere in other constituencies, too. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) is not here at the moment; in the past, Lowestoft and Yarmouth have spent a lot of time fighting each other. We fought on opposite sides in the civil war, and we had the herring wars, but we are united now in seeking to deliver the renewable energy opportunities.

    The energy Bill will be a foundation stone; we have to build on that for the benefit of Britain, East Anglia and-to go back to being parochial for a minute-Waveney. Looking at it from Britain’s point of view, we have the opportunity to lead the world in a transition to a low-carbon economy. We owe it to future generations to grasp that opportunity.

  • Jonathan Aitken – 2009 Speech on Truth and Politics

    Below is the text of a speech made by Jonathan Aitken on 26th May 2009.

     

    As some of you know I have the unhappy distinction of being the only British cabinet minister ever to have been sent to prison.

    These days, quite a few people seem to be surprised that I am the only one.

    But despite the obvious ironies of being invited to open our discussion today, perhaps I can bring to it both a worm’s eye view and a bird’s eye view of the subject.

    The worm’s eye view, which I acquired involuntarily by spending 7 months in Her Majesty’s prisons for perjury, does concentrate the mind wonderfully on why some politicians fail tests of character to do with the truth.  In my own case it was largely to do with pride, a theme which may recur in other cases.

    But on the principle that poachers sometimes make good gamekeepers I also want to offer you a bird’s eye view of why our present Parliamentary system has been failing.

    Coupled with some concluding thoughts about how the best practices and highest ideals of Parliamentary democracy could be made to work far better than they are working today.

    In short, using the title of Peter Hitchens stimulating book The Broken Compass, I want to ask 2 questions in the spirit of seeking after truth.

    1. Why is our national political compass broken?

    2. How could we fix it?

    In the present mood of public anger about Parliamentary expenses there may be some confusion as to whether we are talking about individual, institutional or constitutional failures.

    Individual failures of character in politics are not new.

    Jack Profumo was a close friend and Parliamentary colleague of my father’s.  I vividly remember as a teenager in the summer of 1962 when the utterly broken Jack Profumo secretly came to stay with us in our home in Suffolk to escape from media hounding.

    And while he was staying with us Time Magazine published a cover story on the Profumo Crisis.  The American reporters writing the article took the line that the whole drama was over-hyped British establishment hypocrisy. All the errant minister had done was to sleep with a girl and deny it in the House of Commons.  So Time Magazine signed off their piece with a jokey quatrain:

    “To lie in the nude is not at all rude

    But to lie in the House is obscene.”

    Yet for all the lampooning by Time, the fact of the matter was that the institutional standards of Parliament in regards to truth were not in any danger of failing in 1962.

    For an MP to lie in a personal statement to the House – traditionally heard in silence and without questioning – was regarded to be as massively serious a breach of Parliamentary rules as to lie on oath in a court room is regarded as a breach of the law.

    So both Profumo and I were rightly punished – although for individual rather than institutional failings.

    Today’s broken compass is different because its exposed failings suggest that an entire political class has lost its bearings.

    Of course we all know that on the expenses scandal large numbers of decent MPs have not, to paraphrase the words of the Anglican general confession, “followed too much the devices and desires of their own hearts” – or pockets.  There are still plenty of good and honourable members.

    Yet the Parliamentary compass is evidently broken and I think that is so for far deeper reasons than claims for flipped mortgages, moats, beams, bathplugs and duckhouses.

    My view which I think is shared to some extent by Peter Hitchens, is that Parliament has been falling into low public esteem for some years.  This is due to some if not all of the following factors:

    1. The failure to scrutinise huge swathes of legislation with anything like the same level of debating time and due diligence that almost all Parliaments in the first nine decades of the 20th century applied as a fundamental duty of MPs.

    2. The handing over of Parliamentary authority to an ever increasing number of unelected bodies ranging from politically correct quangos to the EU commission.  Power has drained away from Parliament as a result and marginalising MPs.

    3. The increase and almost automatic use of the Parliamentary guillotine to cut off debates on Bills.  The first Blair government even invented a corrupt device by which parts of Bills are “deemed” to have been debated by Parliamentary committees when they have not actually been debated. So much for truth in politics there!

    4. The failure of Parliament to protect the erosion of traditional British liberties in the cause, occasionally justified but too often unjustified, of strengthening the criminal justice system, particularly in regard to terrorism.

    5. The rise in power of the party whips’ offices and their centralised control over independent minded back benchers – who have become an almost extinct species as a result.  The whips now suppress dissent and control all committee chairmanships and memberships – which is wrong.

    6. The undermining not only of Parliamentary independence but also Civil Service independence.  This has been achieved by the appointment of large numbers of “special advisors” on the government’s payroll who act as Prime Ministerial spin doctors and acolytes, again marginalising MPs in the process.

    7. The undermining of what used to be called the adversarial system of long and sometimes fierce Parliamentary debates over all important legislative proposals.

    Peter Hitchens writes powerfully about this in the final chapter of his book.  He argues, and I agree with him, that the historic traditions of adversarial argument in Parliament have almost completely ceased.  Instead we have the creation of a cosy Parliamentary consensus in which too many important issues get short changed or even ignored by the political class.  As Peter Hitchens puts it: “Political parties have become devices for representing the views of the establishment to the people rather than the other way round”.

    8. The cumulative effect of these changes has been to turn the peoples Parliament into a politicians Parliament.

    This introverted approach has increased the power of government and outside bodies at Westminster’s expense.  Toomnay MPs have been reduced to impotent time-servers.  They have long forgotten the wise dictum of Mr Gladstone: “Parliament is not the government.  It is the check upon the government”.

    Today’s subservience of Members of Parliament to government is much more worrying an institutional trend than individual venality over expenses.

    Yet it is the scandals over these expenses that has triggered today’s crisis and which now offers a major and healthy opportunity for Parliamentary reform.

    So finally how might we fix the broken compass?

    At the heart of the individual and institutional failings of Parliament lies this uncomfortable truth.

    For far too many people in politics compliance has replaced conscience as the arbiter of what is right and what is wrong.

    Perhaps it is spiritually relevant to this debate to remember the question Pontias Pilate asked before disregarding his own conscience and complying with the pressures from the crowd: “What is truth?” – unfortunately he did not stay for an answer.

    I suggest we will only get the right answer to questions such as “what is truth?” or “what is right?” until we have gone through the painful but necessary cleansing process of electoral and Parliamentary upheaval which has only just begun.

    All the wrongs that I have just listed, plus a root and branch clean up of the Parliamentary expenses rules can be put right by the votes of the electorate and by a new reforming Parliament.  It has happened before in our history, notably at the time of the Great Reform Bill of 1832.

    Indeed a new government and Parliament might usefully consider whether Britain needs a Great Parliamentary Reform Bill of 2010 or 2011 to give us a differently motivated political class and a new political compass.

    At least the great debate is now starting.  Thank you for putting on this early instalment of it in St Mary le Bow today.

  • Peter Ainsworth – 2008 Environmental Business Speech

    Below is the text of a speech made by Peter Ainsworth to the Environmental Business Conference on 2nd December 2008.

     

    I am deeply grateful to the EIC for inviting me to participate in this conference. As you all know, the issue of climate change has been taken away from the Government Department which I shadow. Merlin Hyman’s insistence that I should join you today is proof that there is life after DECC.

    The Environmental Industries Commission has a crucial role to play in the fight to overcome the environmental and commercial challenges facing business and industry.

    By showing genuine leadership in an area where so often there is none, the EIC is at the forefront of the push towards a low-carbon, environmentally-focused, economy.

    And the economy must be that way, or we won’t have much of one.

    We all know that the economy is in trouble.

    Uncertainty is rife. It is harder to get loans.  It is harder to get good ideas off the ground.  It is harder for businesses to plan for the future when others are going under.

    Yet these difficulties are made worse still when Government fails to offer clarity and leadership.

    Investing in the environmental industries should not be a gamble.

    People are worried about their jobs and businesses and are anxious about what next year will bring. These are real and immediate concerns.

    Yet we must not lose sight of the prospects for our long term advantage in the world economy.  The only way forward is to move to a genuinely low carbon way of doing business.

    The current crisis is just that: a crisis. But as I said here in April, there is a Chinese symbol for crisis which means both danger and opportunity.

    It is essential that, in dealing with the present crisis, we do not lose sight of the opportunity for a different kind of growth.

    We must build new, green businesses and make old businesses greener.

    This way we will create new and lasting jobs. Here. At Home. In the UK. And around the world.

    So right now, whilst all attention is understandably focussed on damage limitation, we need to remember an important point:  there is no trade-off between the green agenda and saving the economy.  They go hand in hand.  Our economy, our environment, our country, must be equally resilient.

    We are becoming far too dependent on foreign oil and gas. In the last three years, our domestic oil production has fallen by 9%.  This is trend will continue.

    The UK has recently become a net importer of gas.  By 2010, imported gas is set to make up half of our supply. This poses a serious risk to the country.

    We are losing our resilience.

    We are becoming weaker and more vulnerable.

    In the spring of 2006, a supply problem in Europe meant that we, in Britain, had to fork out an extra £1 billion pounds to heat our homes.

    We cannot afford to be so exposed to factors beyond our control.

    It stunts our economic growth and leaves the most vulnerable in society at risk.

    I guess what I am saying is that it’s not just in your interest to go green. It’s in the national interest. So green really is the new red, white, and blue.

    The Government can wring its hands about the failure to meet domestic fuel poverty targets, but the truth is that if we don’t control the fuel, we don’t control the price of it.

    When we are dependent on others, we put our industry and citizens at risk.

    To break free we must go green.

    Our economy is in need of an overhaul. It needs re-engineering. We cannot afford to grow in the way we have for the last century and a half; behaving as if we were masters of nature, and not a part of the natural world.

    It is clearer now than ever that we simply cannot afford growth if it isn’t green.

    In the frightening risk of economic decline lies our generation’s chance to shift to a greener way of living and doing business.

    It is our only chance.

    From the ashes created by economic behaviour based on short term greed and hubris we have a golden opportunity to learn, and to build a stronger, more sustainable and greener economy.

    We must seize this chance.

    The future of our economic competitiveness is inseparable from our environmental competitiveness.

    If we want more jobs in this country now and economic advantage around the world tomorrow, we must develop our environmental industries.

    We need new industries, rooted in a new green, British workforce, with British know-how, and scientific excellence behind them.

    We have a long way to go.

    The Environmental Industry in the UK has an estimated turnover of £25 billion and includes 17,000 companies.

    But I really do believe it must and can be stonger.

    The projected world turnover is set to increase to $688 billion by 2010. Britain must be a player in that market.

    Though there has been enormous progress in our environmental industries in the last two decades, our competitiveness is still at risk.

    The most recent Government estimate of the number of British jobs in environmental industries is 350,000. Yet Germany has almost as many in renewable energy alone.

    Renewables in the UK?  The sector employs 15,700.

    We are falling behind.  We should be a world leader, not a laggard.

    Consider what happened with Pelamis Wave Power.  A British company developed the technology to generate enough power for 1,000 homes from completely sustainable tidal power.  Where was it built?  Portugal.

    I use this example from the energy world because it neatly illustrates a point.  British innovation without an outlet at home.

    We are big on ideas, but rubbish at delivering results.

    Talking of rubbish, look at our waste industry.

    The spot price for recycled plastics has plummeted-from £200 a tonne, to £10.  Now local authorities are having to find places to store the stuff and that isn’t easy or sustainable.

    I work on the assumption that people want to do the right thing for their families, communities and local environment.  But there is a real risk that confronted with mountains of bottles, paper, and glass, they will ask, ‘why bother?’

    That is a question which we cannot allow to be asked.

    Why did this happen?  Global economic circumstances certainly play their part: the price of virgin material has fallen and China’s demand has dropped.

    But it didn’t have to be as bad as this. The UK just doesn’t have the infrastructure to process the waste.  There has not been nearly enough investment because not enough has been done to encourage the market.

    The industry in the UK is worth £6.8 billion.  Germany’s is worth 7 times that.  Now, Germany’s market for recyclable materials is also suffering, and there will certainly be some losers, but the strength of their market means that they will be the first to rebound when the price goes up.

    They have the capacity to wait out a bad spell.  We won’t fare as well.

    This is the kind of strength that we need to encourage at home.  This is the kind of resilience we will need to compete abroad.

    Although hidden behind the headlines about economic meltdown, the challenges facing our global environment are profound.  You all know the dangers.  They haven’t gone away just because other problems have turned up.

    Yesterday, the Committee on Climate Change published its review.  As Lord Turner put it, ‘the challenge is not the technical feasibility of a low-carbon economy but making it happen.’

    The debate; the endless Reviews and Reports; and the time for talking and consultations: they are all over.

    Now we need to get down to the tough business of getting the job done.

    In a climate of uncertainty, Government needs to set a clear direction.  With the Climate Change Act-demanded and strengthened by the Conservatives, we have our framework.

    Now, we must make it work.

    The Government must isolate and destroy the barriers to encouraging new markets, new technologies and new solutions.  Now we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

    We need to put political will behind regulatory change to clear the way for new markets.

    We have made some progress.  Despite hostility from the Government, we fought to have a feed-in tariff in what is now the Energy Act.  Instead of overlapping and convoluted regulation of the energy sector, companies and individuals can be confident that they will get a return from renewable energy.  It now makes economic sense to make energy green.

    Bio-methane from farms has the potential to make a real contribution to our gas supply.  This resource can be tapped but it needs similar regulatory reform.

    We want to help people enter the market through better, clearer signals that give a long term guarantee that their investments will be worth it.

    Of course, Government cannot do everything, nor should they.  We have to work together with industry and the public.

    For example, we should take advantage of potential offered by biogas. Yet to make this happen, we need to make it possible for more farms to feed their gas back into the national grid.

    If the goals are clear, together we can give confidence and expunge the blockages to decarbonising our economy.

    Our approach to feed-in tariffs and biogas are two examples with a common theme: Clarity.

    Unless we make the direction clear, we will never decarbonise our economy.

    It is also a matter of trust.

    Unless investors can trust the Government to hold a course and stick to its green commitments, we will never stimulate the green economy or make our country more resilient and our citizens safer.

    We have a plan. In the next few months, we will be publishing our comprehensive guide to how we will do this.  Our Low Carbon Economy Paper will be a detailed plan for change.

    It will outline clearly the market signals and regulatory changes that are needed to increase energy efficiency in homes, businesses and farms; it will show how new networks can be created for decentralised energy and mass use of sustainable transport; it will address the barriers to reducing emissions; and it will map the pathway to our ambition for a zero waste Britain.

    We need clarity if we are going to be competitive.

    Because if we are to compete economically in the future, it will be on green terms.

    Going green will make us safer and better off.

    Stronger and more resilient.

    These are difficult times. But we must, and will, hold fast to the green agenda.

    Don’t let anyone tell you there is a choice between the economy and the environment.

    There isn’t.

    So, as we rebuild the global economy, we must make sure we do so as if the Earth matters, as if our natural capital matters as much as the capital we put in the bank.

    We must seize our opportunity and, in doing so, make our environment, our economy, and our society more secure.

  • Peter Ainsworth – 2008 Conservative Party Conference Speech

    This session is about the local environment, the places where we live. But this week of all weeks we don’t need to be reminded that events that happen on a global scale can hurt every family.

    The economic problems reverberating around the world can, and must be put right.

    We were promised no more boom and bust. And look what happened.

    But when it comes to the global environment, if that goes bust, there will be no boom ever again.

    So, as we rebuild the global economy, we must make sure we do so as if the Earth matters, as if our natural capital matters as much as the capital we put in the bank. We must make both more secure.

    With our dependency on foreign oil, with food prices spiralling and jobs at risk there is an urgent need to forge a greener economy that promises less dependency, more security, less risk, more jobs.

    As David Cameron said in June, ‘we cannot afford not to go green’.

    Going green means being safer by being more self sufficient; it means building a more robust and resilient Britain in a troubled world.

    But we need a Government that sends out consistent and clear signals.

    It’s no good Ministers going around the world lecturing countries like India and China about carbon emissions and then ushering in a new generation of dirty coal fired power stations.

    Or building a third runway at Heathrow regardless of the impact on the local and global environment.

    Why should anyone take lectures from Labour when over half of all Government departments have bigger carbon emissions than a decade ago.

    And I can’t think of a better way of undermining the green agenda than slapping a retrospective tax on cars we’ve already bought.

    That’s a stealth tax, not a green tax.

    We need an honest government, a government of courage and vision, to see us through tough times.

    There is a great opportunity for Britain.

    Germany already has over a quarter of a million ‘green collar’ jobs. We have a handful.

    It is not good enough to sit back and watch, while other countries take the lead developing new economic opportunities. That is exactly what Labour has done.

    It’s just not good enough for Britain, for our families and children.

    We need a different approach – one that makes it easier to do the right thing.

    We won’t build more resilient communities by sitting in Whitehall banning things.

    For example, we should reward people who do more recycling – not punish people who don’t.

    We want literally to give power to the people, enabling communities to create their own green electricity and profit from it.

    And we want to provide incentives for employers to help those who work for them make their homes more energy efficient.

    The challenges we face may be huge, and global, but often the answers will lie close at hand.

    I am delighted that we are joined by Bill Bryson, who is doing so much to protect and promote our local environment.

    Caring for the areas where we live, creating green spaces and preserving wildlife habitats; these are important to our wellbeing and can help build pride in our communities.

    Just four miles from here is Sandwell Valley, a nature reserve run by the RSPB. I went there on Monday.

    A green oasis.

    I went pond dipping with a group of local school children. Their enthusiasm was amazing.

    Newts and creepy crawlies are always going to be more memorable than double maths.

    The lake in the reserve was originally designed as a flood defence measure. It’s a brilliant example of how we can help prevent flooding and make life better and more beautiful, by working with nature.

    And so many other places know how important it is that we adapt to a changing climate. Floods both this year and last, which brought so much misery to thousands of people, exposed frightening weaknesses in our defences against extreme weather.

    Going green will make us safer and better off.

    These are difficult times. But we must, and will, hold fast to the green agenda.

    It is the resilience agenda.

    Don’t let anyone tell you there is a choice between the economy and the environment. There isn’t.

    It begins with the places we all call home: our street, our town, our city, each individual action however insignificant it may seem is a building block to a more resilient Britain and a greener and safer world.

  • Peter Ainsworth – 2008 Speech to Sustainable Development Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Peter Ainsworth to the Sustainable Development conference on 10th March 2008.

     

    Someone said recently that politicians talking about Sustainable Development sound like Soviet rock ‘n’ rollers. He’s right. The lyrics are terrible: Integrated Framework; Social Equity and Cohesion; Global Environmental Governance; Convergence. Catchy stuff, isn’t it? Anyone dropped off yet?

    There are two problems with using language like this. One, it kills stone dead any idea of Sustainable Development as a vital opportunity for change. Secondly, terms like Global Environmental Governance make it sound as if we’ve got the problem of sustainable development sorted.

    Well, we haven’t. Not by a long chalk.

    It’s hard to believe that Margaret Thatcher spoke about the dangers of global warming back in 1988. She said it was quite possible ‘we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself’. And where are we now? After 20 years of conferences and debate – we’re using up natural resources faster than ever, and the pace of climate change is quickening beyond scientists’ worst expectations. Tipping points we thought were generations away are coming closer every year. It’s taken a very long time for us to accept that fossil energy was, in the words of writer Bill McKibben, ‘a one-time gift, that underwrote a one-time binge of growth.’ The experiment has gone horribly wrong.

    So today what I want to talk about is how we move from talk to action.

    Last September the Quality of Life Group, set up by David Cameron, published its findings and proposed some exciting and far-reaching proposals. It successfully sought answers to the key question of how can we continue to be an economically successful nation and, at the same time, an environmentally and socially healthy one?

    We have got to change the current mindset.

    Over many years, we’ve got into the habit of defining progress by the single criterion of economic growth. And levels of income and consumption have soared in most developed countries during that time. Yet the people of those same countries report no increase in their sense of happiness or wellbeing. In many cases they report a decline.

    That’s an odd kind of progress.

    Of course we need economic growth; but not at all costs.

    We need a stronger, greener society. One that recognises the importance of wellbeing.

    Green spaces are essential to this, and Local Authorities have a vital role to play, through the planning system, in ensuring that planning is not just about buildings, but about the spaces that surround them.

    But what’s the point of a green space if mothers are afraid to let their children play there? Or if, every two minutes, a plane screams overhead?

    To state the obvious, our environment is where we live. But we have failed to recognise its importance either locally or globally.

    The fact is that UK carbon emissions have risen over the last ten years. OK; the government reported a 0.1 percent fall in carbon pollution last year; at that rate it will take us over 500 years to reach our 2050 reduction target. We haven’t got 500 years; we may have as few as five to begin to make a difference to the quality of the world our children will inherit.

    We can’t go on as we are.

    The good news is that the market is on the case. Increasingly, the business community is recognising the opportunities for ‘green growth’. Large utility companies have brought renewable power into millions of homes. The decision by M&S just last week to charge for plastic bags was a brave and welcome move and shows that responsible business is playing its part.

    Responsible businesses can see the opportunities created by increasing consumer awareness of the ethical and environmental values attached to what we buy.

    And I don’t think that this is just a middle class phenomenon; nor do I think that it will fade away at the first whiff of an economic downturn.

    Consumers are not about to start demanding less. They never have before.

    But the bad news is that it will take more than a market-led approach to achieve a truly green economy.

    We need the engagement of a far-sighted government, with joined-up policies, and the courage to implement them. And that’s the missing part of the equation at the moment.

    The Climate Change Bill, currently in the House of Lords, has the potential to deliver a step change in the way we think about, and plan for, a sustainable society.

    But in itself it will not be enough.

    The key test will be the extent to which the Bill changes the mindset in Whitehall and Westminster. The Bill will set a framework; but it is a coherent approach to policy making that is needed.

    Let me offer one stark example of the present confusion over policy.

    Pollution from aviation is the fastest growing source of climate change gasses.

    Yet, even as the Climate Change Bill is making its way into legislation, the Government is supporting a massive increase in the capacity of Heathrow airport

    It just doesn’t add up.

    I don’t say that any of this is easy. But I do say that we need to be consistent.

    Where’s the political and economic clear-sightedness? Where’s the joined-up thinking? Where’s the courage to carry through change?

    Hitting our emissions targets and building a sustainable society will require a wholesale transformation of our energy and transport infrastructures.

    We need an ambitious and determined government.

    We have a long way to go in a very short time.

    The UK has just signed up to a 15% total renewable energy obligation by 2020. By implication, that means that we will need to obtain around 40% of our electricity from renewable sources. It’s a heck of a challenge, given where we are today. Bottom of the EU league table for renewable energy.

    Instead of being a leading innovator in renewable energy, we have the most expensive wind energy in Europe, and – worse still – we are teetering on the edge of building the first new coal-fired power station for thirty years.

    The support mechanism for large scale renewable technologies has primarily benefited onshore wind power and landfill gas generation, to the neglect of other technologies farther up the cost curve, many of which could play a major role in our low carbon future, particularly in microgeneration technologies.

    This is why we recently announced our Feed in Tariff policy, which will provide a twenty year price guarantee to microgeneration technologies; significantly reducing our carbon emissions and enhancing our energy security in the process.

    Feed in Tariffs have worked to great effect in other EU countries, Germany in particular, which can now boast up to 300,000 people working in the renewable industries. Germany has 10 times the installed wind energy capacity of Britain, and 200 times more solar capacity. You will note that Germany is neither 10 times windier nor 200 times sunnier than the UK, yet they are leading the world in these technologies.

    It’s about having the right policies.

    The EU renewables industry already has a turnover of €20 billion per annum. The Stern review estimated that global climate change markets will be worth US$500 billion per annum by 2050. How much of this $500 billion green economy will be located in the UK?

    This is not just about being Green. It’s about being competitive; and it’s about being secure.

    So let’s have more of the politics of ‘can do’, and less of the politics of ‘cannot’.

    My father used to tell me that there’s no such word as “can’t”. .

    Here are some things we can do.

    Last week we announced three new climate change policies designed to help decarbonise our economy whilst still allowing it to grow, through utilising Britain’s natural advantages: our intellectual capital, our financial capital, our enterprising spirit, as well as our public willingness to act on climate change:

    Green technology Incubators will allow more of our finest research minds to actualise their ideas in to viable businesses. We have some of the finest research universities in the world, yet in Britain today, we are concerned that is much too difficult to turn bright ideas into a working enterprise. We have seen too many great technologies fail to reach the market, getting caught in the trap between a great idea and a viable company.

    Secondly, last week we announced our intention to establish the world’s first dedicated trading market for companies focused on green technology. Britain is privileged to have access to some of the world’s finest financial minds and investors in the City of London. The Green Environmental Market is designed to help London become the world’s leading centre for the listing and trading of companies in the field of environmental technology. GEM will build upon the success of AIM (Alternative Investment Market) in attracting green technology companies, but have its own distinct identity and listing criteria.

    Thirdly, we proposed introducing new Green Individual Savings Accounts, which will enable the public to save more than they currently are allowed tax free, provided these funds are being only invested in environmentally friendly companies. These Green ISAs – or GISAs – will engage the public in a new way in the issues around climate change – and show them very clearly the economic benefits of green investment. And by providing lucrative new sources of that investment, Green ISAs will create a race to the top by incentivising businesses to adopt environmentally friendly policies.

    These are the kind of policies that we believe will allow Britain to deliver on our Climate Change Bill commitments. These are the policies that will deliver dynamic industrial change and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the UK economy.

    As Jonathon Porritt has acknowledged, there has been some progress.

    The Government has already ‘adopted’ our policy of transferring the Air Passenger Duty from individual passengers to the whole flight, so as to incentivise the airlines to fill their planes and thus reduce the carbon pollution per person to as low as possible.

    It now appears that the Government may also be adopting out feed in tariff policy. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

    It is an extraordinary fact that, in an age of concern over energy security, over two thirds of the energy created in a traditional hydrocarbon power plant is lost, primarily up the chimney, as waste heat. To deal with this, we have announced our intention to introduce a Waste Heat Levy, to incentivise large energy producers and users to make use of their waste heat.

    And then there’s our plan for a ‘Carbon Levy’, which will be a tax on carbon intensive energy production, to replace existing ‘Climate Change Levy’ – which has a great brand name, but which is unfortunately just a non-discriminating tax on industry’s use of electricity, regardless of its origins.

    That’s what central government should be doing.

    We need to put a price on carbon across the economy. We must ensure that the carbon costs of all activities are factored in to the policy making process. The present way in which the Government treats carbon costs as off balance-sheet would do credit to Enron.

    And just as important, it should make sure it takes the country with it. Not nearly enough has been done to engage other key groups in the process: local government, the business community, local communities, and individuals. As a result, people feel disempowered and disconnected from what the Government is saying about Green issues, and suggestions of higher taxes on polluting products and activities are greeted with hostility.

    That is understandable, if green taxes are simply presented as a punitive add-on to our existing system. What we need is a more fundamental shift in taxation – away from “pay as you earn” and towards “pay as you burn”. Green taxes needn’t – indeed must not – raise the overall tax burden.

    But we do need to shift the revenue base away from taxes on work and families, towards taxes on carbon and other pollutants.

    The message to consumers must be clear: environmentally responsible choices will save you money.

    So if those are some of the national changes we face as we move towards developing a sustainable society – what about the global picture?

    You don’t have to be a fully fledged federalist to work out that the EU has a very important role to play, both in encouraging sustainable practices at home and in the wider world.

    Harnessing the power of the world’s largest single market to drive up product standards around the world, for example.

    Or developing innovative market based mechanisms like the Emissions Trading Scheme:

    Of course, it is widely accepted that Phase One of the ETS has been a failure in terms of actually reducing emissions. Too many credits were handed out for free, giving dirty industries a licence to pollute. But this has been a political failure, not a market failure.

    The very existence of the ETS has proved that the mechanics of a carbon market can be made to work, and that is a major achievement in its own right

    Phase II already looks more promising; the auctioning of up to 10% of allowances has helped to drive the price of carbon to above €20 per tonne.

    But it is Phase Three of the ETS, which runs from 2013-2020, and is being negotiated this year, where we must focus our efforts. For EU Emissions Trading Scheme to deliver as a true carbon reduction mechanism, we need to aspire to, argue for, and hopefully achieve 100% auctioning of credits in the Third Phase.

    If we are to stand a chance of tackling climate change we have to have reach international agreement on a way forward post-Kyoto. This is the true test.

    All the world’s eyes are currently on the USA, waiting for whoever wins the Presidential race to ensure that the mightiest nation on Earth, and its biggest polluter, takes its rightful place at the head on international efforts to curb climate change and adapt to its impacts.

    Crucial to the success of the international action the world needs, by the way, will be an effective and fair means of halting deforestation.

    And we can start by demanding sustainable biofuels.

    It is utter madness to impose quotas for the use of biofuels without ensuring that they can be obtained from sustainable sources. There is a real risk that the British taxpayer will be contributing to the destruction of the rainforest and rising world food prices in the name of the environment.

    Twenty years on since Margaret Thatcher warned that we might be experimenting with the planet, we desperately need, above all, to change the mindset of government.

    Let’s see an end to the flabby, half-hearted, contradictory and complex approach we have witnessed to date.

    This is the ecological, social, economic, security and moral issue of our times.

    We must rise to the challenge.

    And, in view of the sheer scale of it, it’s just as well that there’s no such word as “can’t.

  • Bob Ainsworth – 2001 Speech on the Gender Agenda

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Home Office Minister, Bob Ainsworth, on 21st August 2001.

    I congratulate all of the people who have worked together to produce the Gender Agenda. It is well crafted, constructive and needed. Its intended audience will ignore the Gender Agenda at its peril. The police service has to get its diversity management right if forces are to make the best use of the available talent and skill. The Gender Agenda makes a major contribution towards the process not only of achieving fair treatment for women officers, but also towards achieving a modern effective police service.

    It is helpful that the Gender Agenda is being launched at the same time as the Home Office National Recruitment Campaign begins to put a special emphasis on women and minority ethnic candidates.
    The Agenda is fully consistent with the Government’s overarching aims in this area. These include equal representation of women and men in public appointments and appointment on merit, using fair selection procedures.

    It is good to see that the Gender Agenda states under its values that it wishes to ensure that all of its arguments are evidence based. This approach must be set to succeed given the wealth of evidence which exists to support it.

    The Home Office will shortly be publishing a review of the considerable research which has been undertaken into women officers’ career development and progression. Inevitably, the research doesn’t make comforting reading, and serves to reinforce the need for the Gender Agenda. The service has made some progress, but it still has a long way to go.

    Progression is clearly a central issue. Research suggests that the use of interviews to test key skills and abilities has been particularly discriminatory towards women. Because of the low representation of women officers in higher ranks, interview panels will be mainly made up of men – and they will determine the criteria used for selection. The obvious danger is that, without training, these men will simply define themselves in the criteria, thus perpetuating the selection of male officers. This is a classic problem, which forces need to get a grip on.

    Research suggests that the vast majority of policewomen have experienced some form of sexual harassment, and this is borne out by the high proportion of employment tribunal cases involving sexual discrimination and harassment. This is obviously unacceptable and worrying. Forces must learn lessons from employment tribunal cases, so that they can manage themselves better. Sexual discrimination is not only harassment by individual officers but also through institutionalised sexism, such as the stereotyping of women officers, and the use of exclusionary language.

    The Gender Agenda addresses the problem of double jeopardy suffered by black women officers. ACC Spence’s reference to these officers having to put their effort into surviving let alone seeking progression reflects very badly on the police service. It is awful for the individuals concerned – and they are to be congratulated on their commitment – and it is symptomatic of a culture which must be changed if we are to achieve a modern police service.

    Culture and attitudes have to change – but so must the employment framework. A particular issue, rightly highlighted in the Gender Agenda is the availability of part-time working for probationers and ranks above sergeant. I know forces are screaming out for this and I am glad to say that the Home Office has now agreed with the Police Negotiating Board the amendments needed to the Police Regulations to extend part-time working to probationers and the inspector ranks. We should be able to make the necessary regulations in the very near future, and we are pursuing with the PNB a further extension of part-time working to all ranks. We will be issuing detailed guidance to forces on part-time working to go with the changes to the regulations.

    Part-time working does not, of course, only benefit women officers. It is an example of how change which has – if I may put it this way – a female impetus, has across-the-board benefits. Increasingly we are seeing that initiatives to bring about equality and proper diversity management for one group has a much wider impact. The Home Office-led national recruitment standards project came out of the Dismantling Barriers initiative to achieve proper minority ethnic representation in the police service – but part of the project is to come up with fitness testing which does not unfairly discriminate, which is of vital relevance to women candidates.

    Taking an example from outside of gender and race, the police service is, perhaps as soon as 2004, to lose its exemption from the employment provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act. This will mean that forces must make what are termed under the Act as “reasonable adjustments” to any current arrangements which place disabled people at a substantial disadvantage. To carry out this process, forces will have to work out what objectively is needed to do the job and to apply this in a fair and transparent way. But the benefits of this way of managing, which is after all the proper way to manage, will clearly not be confined to disabled people.

    We need to target areas for action in order to manage the process of change, but the overlapping problems and solutions are becoming more and more obvious. And we need to be aware of the dangers in linking modernising change to particular groups. Part-time working was introduced with a focus on its potential to retain women, as an equal opportunities measure, rather than as a means of improving efficiency and effectiveness. This has led some managers to think of part-time working as a problem and an administrative burden, rather than as a way of making better use of the available resources.

    Changes to legislation help change along, but much of the change – perhaps the most important change – must be the way in which forces manage themselves. The Gender Agenda emphasises the need for flexible working practices, and this is one of the themes of the Police Reform programme,. which is to deliver best practice in all aspects of human resource management. Some excellent work has already been done by the ACPO Equality Sub-Committee, with support from the Home Office, in the production of guidelines on part-time working and other flexible options.

    And the Home Office will shortly be publishing a report which explores in a detailed way flexible working practices in the police service. This will be an important contribution to modernisation and the Police Reform discussion. It will show the benefits of flexible working practices and the barriers to their use; it will identify types of flexible working practices suitable for different employee groups and employee roles; and suggest good practice in the introduction and management of flexible working practices in the service.
    The report will show its readers that on flexible working, as elsewhere, the police service has a long way to go:

    – the most common type of flexibility currently exercised by forces is part-time work, but even here the police service does not follow practices in other organisations. Outside the service, posts are often identified as suitable for part-time work and staff are recruited to them accordingly. In the police service, common practice is for staff to reduce their hours in a post which they previously occupied full-time;

    – managers often perceive part-time workers to be inflexible, not working night shifts or provide short notice cover; but this is directly contradicted by evidence of staff who work until midnight or two o’clock in the morning and who are able to provide cover without being notified in advance.

    Training is another critical issue identified by the Gender Agenda. I congratulate the British Association of Women Police for developing the Women’s Leadership training course which has recently been adopted by National Police Training. I acknowledge the personal contribution made to this by ACC Julie Spence. It is also good to see that the Strategic Command Course, traditionally run as a long residential course, has been made more flexible to be more family friendly. The course will now take the form of short modules lasting no longer than four weeks each. In the run up to the course, and between modules, candidates can carry out police based research locally. This will ensure that candidates do not have to work far away from home and are better placed to meet their personal and domestic commitments.

    The Gender Agenda calls on the Home Office amongst others to promote the aims of the Agenda and a dialogue around the issues. We will of course take full account of it in formulating our police gender policies. The commonality of our interest is very strong, and it is important for the British Association of Women Police and the Home Office to work together. Officials have already been closely in touch with you in the run up to this conference, and this needs to continue for our mutual benefit. So far as promoting dialogue is concerned, this will happen. Flexible working is key, and this is an important theme within the human resource management work strand of the Police Reform programme, which is being taken forward as a priority. For the dialogue to be meaningful, there must be information – and as I have indicated, the Home Office is providing this to the police service in a substantial way.
    So you will gather from all of this that I am able to give my serious and enthusiastic support to the Gender Agenda. I predict that when we look back in just a few years time we will see that it has been a major landmark in the history of the police service.

  • Adam Afriyie – 2012 Speech on Conservatism

    Below is the text of the speech made by Adam Afriyie at the Renewal of Conservatism Conference held in Windsor on 22nd September 2012.

    afriyie

    Good morning and welcome to Windsor.

    This conference is a significant moment for both Windsor and the Conservative Party.

    It also promises to be a significant moment for centre-right thinking and the future of our country.

    Windsor is a wonderful town and this is a great constituency.

    It has lakes and great parks and tourist attractions and some magnificent historic buildings.

    Windsor is steeped in political and military history.

    Windsor castle has been a birth place and home for our Royal Family for centuries.

    It was in Windsor that the conference preceding the signing of the Magna Carta was held.

    Many battles have been fought here.

    It is the perfect place to fight the political battles to come.
    Windsor has been an agent of change in the past and I hope it will be instrumental in the renewal of Conservatism for the future

    I’d like to thank the organisers, speakers and participants.

    With the support of the Windsor Conservative Association, Richard Hyslop and Phil Sage have worked tirelessly to pull together today’s event.

    The leader of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, David Burbage, is a legend. He has improved services across the borough, while reducing the council tax to the lowest of any council outside London. He is here today.

    The Taxpayers’ Alliance, the Freedom Association and the Centre for Social Justice are well-know right-thinkers. You are welcome.
    And I want to thank those MPs, MEPs, Councillors and GLA members for remaining loyal to Conservative values. They are again making a contribution today.

    With Toby Young, James Delingpole, Tim Montgomery, Jill Kirby, Daniel Hannan, Syed Kemall and so many others, the quality of participants will speak for itself.

    There will be keynote speeches, panel discussions and breakout sessions.

    I hope that you will not only contribute to the revitalisation of the Conservative vision in these sessions, but will also stay for the supper with Roger Scrutton if you can.

    Of course, at an event like this, one cannot avoid mentioning the Coalition.

    We are in difficult political territory.

    The last Government left our country in a hell of a mess.
    In 2010 the Conservative-led Coalition was confronted with big government, massive debts, rising taxes and a growing budget deficit.

    Our national control and self-determination were being eroded by European jurisdiction over our borders and our criminal justice system.

    Great Britain had become humbled, indebted and subservient place.
    Thankfully, the Coalition has being doing good work in the area of Welfare Reform, debt reduction and improving school standards.
    But despite some good progress the tensions and constraints of coalition are taking their toll.

    There is headway to be made on so many fronts.

    Our job today is to identify the policies that will underpin a government that truly is on the side of people who work hard and aspire to better themselves by merit and endeavour.

    We need policies that will help to secure a solid Conservative majority.

    But those policies must also influence the current Government.
    Now, if I were Europe Minister, I’d want to know how to regain control of our borders and secure our criminal justice system.
    Businesses are the engine of the economy.

    If I were Chancellor, I’d be concerned about removing the age-old obstacles to growth.

    I’d want to release our risk-takers and wealth creators to generate the jobs and economic growth the country so desperately needs
    If I were Party Chairman, I’d be concerned about the support base of my Party. I’d want to ensure that the policies adopted had been endorsed by the Party. And I’d want my Party to be motivated and ready to campaign, wholeheartedly, at the next election.

    And if I were Prime Minister, I’d want to be in tune with my Party and I’d want the right ideas for the country on Europe, taxation and the economy.

    But above all I’d want to have a clear Conservative majority.
    So our challenge today is to forge those policies that will secure the freedom and prosperity of the British people, and assert the ideas for an election-winning strategy.

    With the participants here today, I am confident we can rise to the challenge.

    So in closing let me say this.

    Whatever your views on the current state of the nation and our party, please remember:

    Governments and Coalitions, they come and they go, but our Conservative principles endure.

    – A commitment to individual liberty, self-determination and equality of opportunity,

    – A belief in lower taxes as a moral and economic good and,

    – The defence of sovereignty through an EU relationship based on economic cooperation, not political subservience.

    It is these Conservative principles that must inform the next manifesto, in the meantime, hold the Coalition to account in the meantime.

    And I suspect these values will endure long after Nick Clegg has departed public life.

    You are very welcome here in Windsor.

    Please enjoy the rest of today’s conference.

    And do come again.

    Thank you.

     

  • Afriyie, Adam – 2009 Speech on Empowering Citizens

    Below is the text of the speech made by Adam Afriyie on 22nd October 2009.

    afriyie

    I come to politics from a business background in technology and innovation. And, to me, the phrase ‘Government innovation’ sounds like a paradox.

    After twelve years of big spending, and even bigger promises, it’s easy to understand why people are just a tad cynical. Labour came to power with high hopes for what government could achieve.

    At the height of the dot.com boom they wanted to ‘modernise’ the public sector with IT solutions. So they created an e-unit, an e-envoy and even an e-minister. In fact, they slapped an ‘e’ in front of anything that moved. They set up a task force, appointed a tsar, and of course set a target: 100% of government services will be online by 2005.

    Thankfully, the Guardian realised they had gone too far when civil servants were required to tell people to ‘apply online’ for permission to be buried at sea. So none of us were surprised when the target was abandoned in 2004.

    Labour did have some worthy objectives, such as joined-up government and personalised public services. But their approach has been deeply flawed.

    While the pace of technological change was breath-taking, the response from government was not.

    Internet access empowers people. It improves productivity and opens the door to self-improvement. But while the internet was empowering individuals to take control over their lives Labour was attempting to maintain the old bureaucratic machinery.

    Ministers were mesmerised by the transformative potential of technology but failed to integrate it seamlessly into everyday use.
    In many ways, theirs has been a government populated by ‘digital immigrants’. The results have been disastrous.

    Cost overruns. Procurement failures. Security breaches. These are the hallmarks of a failed IT policy. And the spectre of the NHS IT system sends a shudder down the spine of even the most-hardy minister.

    As consumers increasingly take control of their personal information, we have watched with horror as the database state has extended its reach. As businesses swiftly moved services into the new online world of cloud computing, government continued to develop cumbersome in-house systems.

    My background is in IT. It’s been painful to watch these disasters unfold.

    So today I’m going to talk about the principles that underpin an emerging Conservative approach to IT policy. The principles are clear and I think they represent a more flexible and coherent approach that embraces the realities of the modern world.

    There are three main principles.

    Big is not always better

    First, big is not always better. Large scale IT projects increase the risk of failure. Big projects narrow the number of companies able to supply government, reduce competition and fail to deliver value for money.

    The Government spends about £16 billion on IT annually. Future budgets are tight and we really cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past.

    One option we are considering is the use of multiple proof-of-concept pilot projects. If several suppliers are asked to come up with working solutions, they can then be piloted, and the most successful can be scaled up and rolled out nationally. The use of multiple early-stage pilot projects could reduce reliance on a handful of big vendors and increase the proportion of IT budgets spent with innovative young companies.

    Openness

    The scale of projects could be significantly reduced by adopting our second principle: openness.

    By using standard data formats, like XML, government can open up the procurement process to the widest possible base of suppliers. With inter-operability, large projects can be split into manageable, modular chunks. The outcome is a more flexible procurement process where it is easier to change suppliers and resolve problems as they emerge. Francis Maude and his Implementation Unit are developing these ideas right now.

    We need more small systems that talk to one another, and fewer monolithic mega-projects of no return.

    Open procurement has a further implication: a level playing field for open source software – software that can offer significant cost reductions.

    Open source is not a panacea. But it would be senseless to continue to buy proprietary systems by default. One study suggests that open procurement might save £600 million every year. That’s a saving worth making in the current climate.

    But if our IT policy is to be genuinely open it must look to the market for innovative solutions. It must be free to discover new and novel solutions. And it must dictate the desired outcomes, but not the technological inputs.

    Perhaps the biggest emerging trend is the shift towards software and infrastructure as a service. Cloud computing is transforming our world. And Conservatives recognise that there are massive benefits and savings to be gained, including more flexibility for users, better value for the taxpayer, and even improved energy efficiency, as remote data centres fire-up only when needed.

    Take our approach to IT in the National Health Service. As an alternative to building an expensive in-house system we are exploring ways for patients to take control of their own health records. With easier access they might examine records more carefully, they might choose where to store them, and they might demand that GPs present them to the hospital of their choice. It’s an approach that could accelerate the take-up of electronic records through public demand – and all at little or no cost to the public purse.

    Empowering citizens

    Of course, openness is not just about how government interacts with suppliers. It’s also about the relationship between government and the citizen.

    So our third principle is empowering citizens.

    Trust in politics has reached historic lows, and the expenses scandal has magnified the suspicions that arise when information is hidden.
    So if you visit the Conservative website you’ll see our expenses published openly online in Google Docs, updated in real time. That’s because David Cameron recognised early on that technology would enable unparalleled transparency and help to restore confidence in public life.

    I believe that information is power. And thanks to the internet it is now easier than ever to put that power in the public domain.

    In a digital economy, access to information fuels innovation. It drives up standards because people are aware of what’s going on around them and have the power to choose on the basis of that information.
    That idea underlies the crime mapping pioneered by Boris Johnson in London. Crime maps give people real-time information on where crime hotspots are located and how effectively the local police are dealing with them.

    Crime mapping sits alongside George Osborne’s commitment to publish online every item of government expenditure above £25,000. With soaring levels of public debt, people have the right to know how their money is being spent.

    We want to empower individuals to hold government to account and incentivise government to meet public demands.

    But we won’t stop there, because there is a mountain of data hidden offline in Whitehall vaults. If it were online and accessible it could be highly valuable to families, businesses and social enterprises.
    Think about census data, overseas aid data, environmental and air pollution data. This information could be mashed up and re-used in innovative ways.

    Most of it is public information paid for by the taxpayer. If it is not classified or personal, it should be freely available for re-use. That’s why David Cameron has promised a ‘right to data’ – so that you can tell government which data sets are useful to you. And in my view this is the unfinished business of the Freedom of Information Act.
    But we’re not waiting for the election. We are already taking action. I am extremely proud that my local council is leading the way. In Windsor we have started to publish online everything that costs over £500.

    MyConservatives

    The next election is likely to be something of a technological breakthrough, and it’s about time. The Conservatives’ New Media team are onto it with the launch of myConservatives.com – a social network inspired by Obama but built in Britain. It is a UK first. And I think it will make a bit of a splash during the election.

    With online tools enabling users to build campaigns and tele-canvass from home, MyConservatives turns the very nature of political campaigning upside-down. It moves on from the top-down, centrally controlled politics of the past, to the politics of the future – built by individuals from the ground up.

    Rather than politicians taking charge of the internet, it is about individuals, through the internet, taking charge of politics. That’s what Conservatives mean when we talk about the post-bureaucratic age.

    And if we can do it in the election campaign, if we can do it with the publication of expenses, if we can do it for local authorities, then I’m quite sure we can do it in central government too.

    So I am optimistic. I am optimistic that a Conservative government will finally deliver the benefits of IT for taxpayers, exceeding what was promised 12 years ago, with more responsive public services, better-connected government and unprecedented value for money.
    In future, ‘Government’ and ‘innovation’ need not be mutually exclusive.

    We will move beyond the top-down and state-centric assumptions of Whitehall. Because for too long the transformative potential of IT has been imprisoned within an old-fashioned bureaucratic model. But with open procurement, with information to empower individuals, and with hundreds of ‘little platoons’ organising at the grass roots, we can have an open, accountable and innovative politics.
    And that’s what we call progressive.

  • Adam Afriyie – 2009 Speech on the Innovation Gap

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Shadow Science and Innovation Minister, Adam Afriyie, on 23rd November 2009.

    afriyie

    I come to politics from a background building hi-tech businesses.

    And it seems to me our nation’s in trouble.

    We’re stuck in the longest recession since records began. Millions of people have lost their jobs, their homes and their businesses. Britain has generated the biggest budget deficit in the G8. And government debt stands at £86,000 for every household in Britain.

    Just one year’s interest on this debt will lose us £43 billion. To put it in perspective, that’s about 10 times the entire science budget.

    We cannot escape the reality. Whether Labour or Conservative, the next government will be confronted with an empty financial cupboard.

    The challenge will be to rebalance our lopsided economy. We must break the over-reliance on housing and government debt and become less wholly dependent on financial services.

    Science holds the key.

    Sir James Dyson taskforce

    I‘m optimistic for the future of British science. Not since the days of Sputnik and Kennedy’s New Frontier has science been more central to a nation’s future.

    For me science is not a luxury to be indulged – it is a necessity to be embraced. We can be more than a nation of bankers and borrowers.

    We’ve got an impressive scientific tradition, especially here in Cambridge.

    British scientists are some of the best in the world. We punch above our weight for citations and Nobel prizes. But something’s gone badly wrong.

    We’ve tumbled down the world league tables, to become less competitive. There’s a disconnect between our excellent research on the one hand, and the creation of the high-tech products and jobs we so desperately need on the other.

    That’s the innovation gap. And that’s the gap we aim to close.
    So I’m delighted that James Dyson is heading a Conservative taskforce. We’re looking to transform Britain into Europe’s leading hi-tech exporter. We’re exploring options for a Future Fund to boost investment into those start-ups.

    And we’ve identified three priorities. First, to encourage our brightest young minds into science and engineering. Second, to maintain the excellence of our research base through these difficult economic times. And third, to close the gap between discovery and development – a gap that’s persisted under successive governments.

    Continuity after the election

    But, of course, before the election, you’ll want to know what a Conservative government means for science.

    We mustn’t fight political battles over science. Science should be the least ideological area in government. It’s difficult enough to raise the level of public debate about science, without unseemly squabbles among politicians.

    Science and innovation policy has been matured over the decades. William Waldegrave and Michael Heseltine pursued recognisable themes in the 1990s: commercialising research, building business-university links, and maximising the power of public procurement.
    The current machinery of science policy looks broadly as it did in 1997. The dual-funding system continues – shared between HEFCE and the Research Councils. And, curiously, the science portfolio has returned to the old DTI, where John Major first put it.

    The Technology Strategy Board is a new development. We welcome its arrival, and its functions will remain important.

    Stability is what’s needed right now. So let me offer reassurance. I am not planning a major reworking of either the dual funding system or the apparatus of science policy.

    After the election

    But while there are points of consensus for science, I certainly envisage some changes for innovation.

    Tomorrow marks the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s Origin of Species. For me innovation is an evolutionary impulse. It can’t be mandated regionally or forced through centrally. Innovation arises from a basic biological drive: we adapt to survive.

    So our approach will be different. We are going to free people, businesses and universities to innovate. Picking winners, second-guessing scientists, expanding unaccountable quangos – that’s simply not our way.

    But let’s cut to the chase. Let’s talk about spending.

    If fortunate enough to serve as science minister, I’m going to fight tooth and nail for science. But it’s reckless to make undeliverable promises. Spending constraint will apply for any incoming party.

    Gordon Brown has made a-song-and-a-dance over the ring-fenced science budget.

    Vince Cable says there should be no ring-fencing at all.

    To set out a more balanced approach: we respect the principle of the ring-fence. It operated in the last Conservative government. It’s sensible for Parliament to approve Research Council funding separately from the overall budget.

    But I’m concerned that some of Labour’s ring-fencing rhetoric might lull the science community into a false sense of security.
    The current ring-fence expires in 2011. The Government has allocated no-money-whatsoever to science beyond that point. The point is this: the Government can’t ring-fence money it hasn’t allocated.

    Public investment in science

    The value of public investment in science is not in question. Basic research is often too risky for commercial investors alone, and some research, such as ‘big’ physics like the Hadron Collider, can only be sustained at national levels.

    David Cameron singled out Research Councils as the right kind of public body. They offer accountability and value-for-money. They also work at arm’s length from politicians to create excellent science over the long-term.

    Long-term is the key phrase. The rewards of research can be unpredictable in the short-term. That’s why the public sector has a role to play.

    We will never overlook the value of fundamental research. Twenty years ago, a famous chemist said: ‘It is mainly by unlocking nature’s most basic secrets, whether it be about the structure of matter or the nature of life itself, that we have been able to build the modern world.’

    She was the only scientist to become Prime Minister. So, while I cannot promise spending increases with an economy on its knees, I can reveal this: a Conservative government will not turn the science budget into a short-term industrial subsidy.

    Taxpayers’ money must of course contribute to public goals. But when science meets policy, there is the ever-present risk of politicisation.

    How we identify our priorities is the essential question.
    Research Councils must support excellent research without undue political interference. Yet the spectre of Lord Haldane haunts the corridors of power. There is confusion about the meaning and relevance of the Haldane Principle today.

    The Lords and Commons science committees have been bold in this area. But Ministers have failed to give an adequate response.
    The Haldane Principle has largely safeguarded British science from the ideological battles we’ve seen elsewhere.

    Today, science is being driven as a tool of ‘industrial activism’. So it is more important than ever that we do not blur the distinction between appropriate strategic guidance and inappropriate political interference.

    But, sadly, the Haldane Principle has never been written down. Whether it’s an inquiry, commission or consultation, we need to resolve the uncertainty.

    We need a clear view going forward. For confidence and stability research spending priorities must be open. And if the present administration refuses to provide clarity, then we will seek to do so.

    Scientific advice in government

    Research council independence is essential. So too is the integrity of government scientific advice.

    Many of our biggest challenges are scientific challenges: generating energy, securing food supplies, improving the environment, rebalancing the economy, caring for an ageing population. So Government and Parliament need sound scientific advice.
    In many ways, Britain has been a world-leader. The last Conservative government setup the Foresight programme to scan the technological horizons. The current government has appointed chief scientific advisers for many departments.

    Conservatives recognise and respect the importance of scientific advice. We also recognise the value of the scientific approach to policy-making – so much so that it is now compulsory for all incoming Conservative MPs to have science induction training.

    There have been too many slip-ups and unnecessary controversies in the past: BSE, GM, MMR. Building systematically on acquired knowledge, is what unites all walks of a civilised society. For the sake of our economy and our society we must be clear that evidence matters.

    And this leads me to the Professor Nutt fiasco. In principle, it’s right that a minister has the power to dismiss an advisor on any grounds they see fit. In political terms, some of the Professor’s statements may well have seemed ill-judged.

    But let’s be clear: the science is not in question, only the handling of the situation by the Home Secretary.

    Independent scientists are not subject to government whipping – and rightly so. Scientific advisers now need reassurance that they can continue to challenge perceived wisdoms within a clear set of rules.

    Unfortunately, the existing rules fail to adequately define the relationship between ministers and their independent scientific advisers.

    The Government has now been forced to consult on new guidelines.
    A number of scientists have signed a Statement of Principles setting out how they think independent scientific advice should operate. I believe those principles offer a strong basis for a new framework. I support their efforts. And I urge the minister to develop these new guidelines as quickly as possible, to ensure they can be respected by independent advisers and ministers alike.

    The next generation of scientists and engineers

    Before finishing tonight, I want to say a few words about our plans to encourage the next generation of scientists and engineers.
    Michael Gove has set out proposals for a new generation of Technical Schools, and plans to restore exam confidence with international benchmarking.

    We’re going to revive careers advice with innovative online information, so that students can see the benefits of a science career.

    And I want to identify the best ways to attract people into science.
    Perhaps what’s missing is longitudinal research into existing interventions to discover what’s most effective. But, who knows? I don’t want to overlook the simple solutions.

    The number of places on forensic science degrees has more than doubled since 2002.

    Call it the CSI effect, or perhaps the Silence Witness has spoken. Maybe a sexy TV drama would attract more young people to science than all our STEM initiatives put together.

    Concluding remarks

    So in conclusion, with an incoming Conservative government there will be no ideological revolution in science policy. Whatever the rhetoric, all parties will be forced to face the realities of the debt crisis and budget pressure.

    My priority is to deliver the best possible environment for British science and innovation.

    Science has a great future with Conservatives.

    We are going to lean towards science, engineering and high-technology. We need to rebalance the economy.

    And I think we’re ready to make that change.

    Thank you.