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Tag: Speeches

  • Yvette Cooper – 2023 Speech on Missing Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

    Yvette Cooper – 2023 Speech on Missing Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

    The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 24 January 2023.

    The report from Sussex police is that one in four unaccompanied children in a Home Office hotel have gone missing—one in four—and that around half of them are still missing. It would appear from the figures the Minister has given that that means one hotel accounts for 40% of the missing children.

    A whistleblower is reported as saying:

    “Children are literally being picked up from outside the building, disappearing and not being found. They’re being taken from the street by traffickers”.

    Greater Manchester police warned that asylum hotels and children’s homes are being targeted by organised criminals. There is a pattern here. The gangs know where to come to get the children—often, likely because they trafficked them here in the first place. There is a criminal network involved and the Government are completely failing to stop it. They are letting gangs run amok. Last year, there was only one—just one—conviction for child trafficking, even though it is now believed to involve potentially thousands of British children, as well as the children targeted here.

    Where is the single co-ordinated unit involving the National Crime Agency, the Border Force, the south-east regional organised crime unit and local police forces to hit the gang networks operating around this hotel and across the channel? Why are the Government still refusing to boost the National Crime Agency? Why have they repeatedly ignored the warnings about this hotel and unregulated accommodation for 16 and 17-year-olds being targeted by criminal gangs?

    It is unbelievable that there is still no clarity on whether the Home Office or the council is legally responsible for these children. Will the Home Office now agree to immediately end the contract with this hotel and move the children out to safer accommodation? Will it set up a proper inquiry and team to pursue the links between organised crime, trafficking and the children in these hotels? This is a total dereliction of duty that is putting children at risk. We need urgent and serious action to crack down on these gangs, and to keep children and young people safe.

    Robert Jenrick

    I gave the figures the Home Office has at the start of this urgent question. Of the 4,600 unaccompanied children who have been accommodated in hotels since July 2021, 440 have gone missing at one point and 200 remain missing, so I am afraid the statistics the right hon. Lady quotes are not those that I have been given by the Home Office.

    On press reports that individuals have been abducted outside the hotel, those are very serious allegations. I specifically asked the officials who run the hotel whether they have seen evidence of that, and I also asked the senior leadership of Brighton and Hove Council. I have not been presented with evidence that that has happened, but I will continue to make inquiries. Senior officials from my Department are meeting the Mitie security team in the coming days to ask them whether they have seen any occurrences, whether the individual quoted in the press as a whistleblower raised issues with Mitie, and, if they did, why those issues were not subsequently passed on to the Home Office. The right hon. Lady has my assurance that I will not let the matter drop. I am also going to meet a number of staff who work at the site in the coming days to take their opinions and reflections.

    On the broader point the right hon. Lady makes about our policy, she is incorrect when she says the NCA is insufficiently financed. The Prime Minister announced at the end of last year that we would step up NCA funding. In fact, I visited the NCA just last week to be briefed on the work it is doing upstream throughout Europe and into Turkey, Iraq and a number of other countries. There is very significant activity happening to tackle the evil people-smuggling gangs.

    The problem the right hon. Lady has is that she does not support any of the measures the Government bring forward to stop the trade. She votes against every Bill we bring forward to try to address this challenge. There is nothing compassionate about allowing unsecure borders and allowing growing numbers of people, including young people, to cross the channel. She will have an opportunity to put her money where mouth is when we bring forward further legislation in the weeks ahead.

  • Caroline Lucas – 2023 Speech on Missing Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

    Caroline Lucas – 2023 Speech on Missing Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

    The speech made by Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, in the House of Commons on 24 January 2023.

    This is horrific. Vulnerable children are being dumped by the Home Office, scores of them are going missing, and I can tell the Minister that there is nothing “specialist” about these hotels. We are not asking him to detain children; we are asking the Home Office to apply some basic safeguarding so that we can keep them safe. Does he know how many have been kidnapped, trafficked, put into forced labour—where are they living, are they allowed to leave, are they in school? He should know because the Home Office is running these hotels. It has told me it is commissioning everything from social work to security, but it is still unclear whether it is prepared to take legal as well as practical responsibility.

    Meanwhile, these children are in legal limbo. I was told before Christmas that Government lawyers were deliberating over their ultimate legal responsibility. We need to know the outcome today: what is it? We need to know why successive Home Secretaries have played into the hands of criminal gangs.

    The Minister will talk of new money being given to local authorities, but where will they get the foster care capacity, which he knows is in seriously short supply? Brighton and Hove City Council has been raising concerns about the dangerous practice of using these hotels for 18 months, and as the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) has made clear on many occasions—I pay credit to him for his tireless work on this—it was entirely foreseeable that children were at risk of being snatched, abducted and coerced by criminals.

    Has the Minister taken up offers of help from charities working with children? What is the response to the migration watchdog’s finding that some staff in these hotels were not DBS—disclosure and barring service—checked? What role is the Children’s Commissioner playing? Why is not Ofsted inspecting these hotels regularly? Will he commit to publishing regular data on missing children—how long they have been missing, whether they are still missing, when they went missing? Where is the special operation to find the missing children? This feels like the plight of the girls in Rotherham who were treated like they did not matter and, frankly, it is sickening. Lastly, the use of these hotels must stop—when will that actually happen?

    The staggering complacency and incompetence from the Home Office are shameful. We need immediate answers and an urgent investigation, and we need to ask how many more children are going to go missing before we see some action.

    Robert Jenrick

    If the hon. Lady has not visited the hotel in her constituency, or indeed in her neighbouring constituency, I would be happy to organise that. I spoke with the chief executive and director of children’s services of Brighton and Hove City Council yesterday to ask for their reflections on the relationship with the Home Office and the management of the hotel. We have a good relationship with that council and I want to ensure that that continues.

    As regards the level of support provided in that hotel, and indeed others elsewhere in the country, it is significant. On any given day, there will be a significant security presence at the hotel. Those security guards are there to protect the staff and the minors and to raise any suspicious activity immediately with the local police. I have been assured that that does happen in Sussex. A number of social workers are on site 24/7. There are also nurses on site and team leaders to manage the site appropriately. So there is a significant specialist team provided in each of these hotels to ensure that the young people present are properly looked after.

    The report by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration in October last year—I believe that Ofsted was involved in the inspection—did find unanimously that the young people reported that they felt safe, happy and treated with respect. Now, that does not mean that we have any cause to be complacent, because it is extremely concerning if young people are leaving these accommodation settings and not being found. I have been told that any young person leaving one of these hotels and not returning is treated in exactly the same way as any young person of any nationality or immigration status who goes missing anywhere else in the country and that the police follow up as robustly as they would in any other circumstances. That is quite right, because we have a responsibility to any minor, regardless of why they are here in the United Kingdom.

    Working with police forces and local authorities, we have created a new protocol, known as “missing after reasonable steps”, in which further action is taken to find missing young people. That has had significant success: I am told that it has led to a 36% reduction in the number of missing people occurrences. We will take further steps, as required, to ensure that young people are safe in these hotels and not unduly preyed on by the evil people smuggling gangs that perpetuate the trade.

    The key task ahead of us—other than deterring people from making dangerous crossings in the first place, of course—is to ensure that these young people are swiftly moved out of hotels, as the hon. Lady rightly said, and into more appropriate settings in local authorities. Since being in position I have reviewed the offer that we have for local authorities and significantly enhanced it. From next month—this has already been announced—any local authority will receive a one-off initial £15,000 payment for taking a young person from one of these hotels into their care in addition to the annual payment of about £50,000 per person. That is a significant increase in the amount of financial support available to local authorities.

    The hon. Lady is right to say that money is not the only barrier to local authorities, because there are significant capacity issues including a lack of foster carers, a lack of trained social workers and a lack of local authority children’s home places. Those are issues that the Department for Education is seeking to address through its care review. The best thing that any of us can do as constituency Members of Parliament who care about this issue is speak to our local authorities and ask them whether they can find extra capacity to take more young people through the national transfer scheme so that we can close these hotels or, at least, reduce reliance on them as quickly as possible.

  • Robert Jenrick – 2023 Statement on Missing Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

    Robert Jenrick – 2023 Statement on Missing Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

    The statement made by Robert Jenrick, the Minister for Immigration, in the House of Commons on 24 January 2023.

    The rise in small boat crossings has placed a severe strain on the asylum accommodation system. We have had no alternative but to temporarily use specialist hotels to give some unaccompanied minors a roof over their heads while local authority accommodation is found. We take our safeguarding responsibilities extremely seriously and we have procedures in place to ensure all children are accommodated as safely as possible while in those hotels. This work is led on site by personnel providing 24/7 supervision, with support from teams of social workers and nurses. Staff, including contractors, receive briefings and guidance on how to safeguard minors, while all children receive a welfare interview, which includes questions designed to identify potential indicators of trafficking or safeguarding risks. The movements of under-18s in and out of hotels are monitored and recorded, and they are accompanied by social workers when attending organised activities.

    We have no power to detain unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in these settings and we know some do go missing. Over 4,600 unaccompanied children have been accommodated in hotels since July 2021. There have been 440 missing occurrences and 200 children remain missing, 13 of whom are under 16 years of age and only one of whom is female.

    When any child goes missing, a multi-agency missing persons protocol is mobilised alongside the police and the relevant local authority to establish their whereabouts and to ensure they are safe. Many of those who have gone missing are subsequently traced and located. Of the unaccompanied asylum-seeking children still missing, 88% are Albanian nationals, with the remaining 12% from Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Vietnam, Pakistan and Turkey.

    As I have made clear repeatedly, we must end the use of hotels as soon as possible. We are providing local authorities with children’s services with £15,000 for eligible young people they take into their care from a dedicated UASC—unaccompanied asylum-seeking children—hotel, or the reception and safe care service in Kent.

    I fully understand the interest of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), and indeed the whole House, in this issue and I am grateful for the opportunity to address it. I assure the House that safeguarding concerns are, and will remain, a priority for me and for my Department as we deliver the broader reforms that are so desperately needed to ensure we have a fair and effective asylum system that works in the interests of the British people.

  • Barbara Keeley – 2023 Speech on Arts Council Funding for England

    Barbara Keeley – 2023 Speech on Arts Council Funding for England

    The speech made by Barbara Keeley, the Labour MP for Worsley and Eccles South, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

    I declare that I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on classical music. It is a pleasure to speak with you in the Chair, Mr Bone. I thank the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) for securing the debate and for the way he opened it, and all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to it.

    I start by congratulating colleagues across both Houses and the wider arts sector on achieving the apparent 12-month reprieve announced yesterday for the funding of the English National Opera. It does not settle all the questions raised about the damage done by the decision, but I am pleased that there can at least be a longer-term conversation about the ENO’s future, which is right. The ENO has worked hard to increase access to opera, bringing it to younger and more diverse audiences. It has delivered innovative education and health projects throughout the country, and it is right that this is finally being recognised. However, the back and forth of the decision has caused acute anxiety among the ENO’s 300 full-time employees and the 600 freelancers whose job security was put at risk. The screeching U-turn is further indication of the total lack of strategic planning involved in the national portfolio organisation funding decisions that we have been debating.

    First, I want to reflect on the arm’s length principle of arts funding, which we have heard about in the debate. At the core of the recent dispute about arts funding is the issue of who makes decisions about arts funding and what the criteria for those decisions are. When the answers to those questions are unclear, there will always be discontent and frustration about how the investment of taxpayers’ money is being made.

    Andy Slaughter

    My hon. Friend makes a very good point: there is a lack of transparency. I am very lucky that the two main theatres in my constituency, the Bush and the Lyric, have maintained their grants—in one case, it has slightly increased—but every organisation was on tenterhooks waiting for the announcements, and they will be next time as well, because they have no idea on what basis Arts Council England makes a decision. Other theatres in London, such as the Donmar Warehouse, have lost 100% of their funding. What is the rationale behind this?

    Barbara Keeley

    Indeed. It is important to focus on that principle. The arm’s length principle has been in operation since public subsidy for the arts began in the aftermath of the second world war. At the inception of the original Arts Council, Keynes wrote that:

    “It should be a permanent body, independent in constitution…but financed by the Treasury”.

    However, as we have heard, the former Culture Secretary, the right hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), issued a clear instruction to Arts Council England last year and ordered it to move money outside the capital through a reduction in the London budget. Even the places at which the additional investment would be targeted were decided with input from DCMS, with removals and changes to the “Let’s Create” priority places, which had been originally identified in Arts Council England’s 2020 strategy.

    As we heard earlier, the former Culture Secretary has now criticised the decisions made by Arts Council England for their “undue political bias”, and accused the leadership of pulling a “stunt” to try to reverse levelling up. We have heard a variety of ways of describing the very strange decision making, but we have to see that it was this directive that led Arts Council England to the decision to make cuts to the English National Opera, the Welsh National Opera, Glyndebourne’s touring and other organisations, such as the Britten Sinfonia, the Oldham Coliseum and the Donmar Warehouse. The comments made show that Ministers and Arts Council England had not thought through the implications of the directive, both on art forms such as opera and on the other arts organisations I mentioned.

    Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)

    Will the hon. Lady give way, just for one second, so that I can put on the record my views about the English National Opera?

    Barbara Keeley

    No; I will run out of time.

    Through the directive, Ministers and Arts Council England reallocated a shrinking budget for London. I recommend to the Minister an excellent blog post from Border Crossings that can be found on Twitter and makes the point that we cannot level up at the same time as cutting. That is the problem: the aims have become confused. It is this inconsistency and short-sightedness that is so frustrating for so many arts organisations.

    The second major issue with the NPO decisions—we have heard much about this in the debate—is the glaring lack of any art form-specific strategy, planning or consultation. Opera is the major victim of this approach. Before the reprieve—the reversal of the ENO decision—overall funding for the sector was down by 11 %. It is reckless and irresponsible to remove £19 million of funding with no strategy in place. The decisions should be based on evidence and audience data, not on a whim.

    Under such acute constraints, it is the expense of touring that is often the first activity to be sacrificed, as we are seeing already. As we have heard, Glyndebourne has had the subsidy for its touring budget halved, so has been forced to scrap its entire autumn tour, which would have held performances in Liverpool, Canterbury, Norwich and Milton Keynes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) rightly said, Welsh National Opera has responded to a 35% cut by removing Liverpool from its touring plans. As we have heard, it is estimated that the cuts to those two companies alone will deprive 23,000 people from access to opera throughout the country. In addition to that gap, the consequences for the arts ecosystem will be severe, given that there are already pressures on the workforce and on skills retention.

    Jennifer Johnston is a mezzo-soprano who was born in Liverpool. She told me about the impact that the Arts Council funding allocations will have on young students at the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Choir. These young people in Liverpool come from backgrounds where there is no money for singing lessons, with their fees for the choir paid by bursaries. She said:

    “Now that live staged opera isn’t going to come to the city, these young singers won’t have a chance to see any at all. They don’t have funds to travel, and the educational workshops carried out by both Welsh National Opera and Glyndebourne now won’t happen.

    It’s a simple equation—inspire a young person by showing them excellence in an artform and demonstrate what they could achieve if given the chance, defeating assumptions of elitism and thoughts of ‘Opera’s for posh people, not for me’.

    These young people now won’t have the chance to be exposed to, and be inspired by, live staged opera, and are unlikely to want to train as an opera singer in the future. Arts Council England funding cuts will therefore affect life choices, making a nonsense of the idea of ‘levelling up’.”

    I am interested to hear the Minister’s response to those comments. How does his Department intend to ensure that there is support for the next generation of England’s opera singers when there is no coherence to the decisions being made about the sector?

    There are other arts organisations that have had their income slashed in this funding round, with little apparent sense in the decisions. We have heard that Britten Sinfonia was entirely cut from the NPO programme, despite being the only orchestra based in the east of England. Many other regional orchestras were funded only at standstill. Meanwhile, the funding settlement for producing theatres is short-sighted and risks having a negative impact on the programming of regional theatres—as we have heard in the debate—as well as compromising the UK’s cultural reputation in the longer term. Sam Mendes, the former chief executive of the Donmar Warehouse, has been predicted that it will “wreak long-lasting havoc” on the industry.

    Speaking of the Donmar Warehouse, it received a 100% cut in its Arts Council funding. Its representatives told me that the hit to their budget means they will no longer be able to create work outside London and will have to reduce or cease altogether their excellent CATALYST programme, which supports 13 people a year with paid training to develop the next generation of writers, artists and administrators. Given the flexibility in exit funding that has suddenly been found by Arts Council England for ENO, will the Minister say whether Minister similar flexibility can be found for the Donmar Warehouse? It is really important that Arts Council England is transparent and equitable in its funding processes, as the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said earlier.

    The combination of a top-down approach from DCMS and poor planning have given the impression that the Government’s goal is more about political gimmickry around levelling up than a true rebalancing of power to the regions. It is a fact that 70% of the organisations that are being entirely cut from the programme are based outside London, including the Oldham Coliseum, the Britten Sinfonia and, as highlighted so effectively by the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), the Watermill Theatre. In addition, the lack of consultation, which has been most clearly evidenced by all the reaction to the decision about ENO, speaks of insincerity in making the changes. That risks the very existence of our essential cultural organisations and makes it more difficult to achieve regional parity in arts provision.

    Before I move on, I want to make the point that it has rarely been more important to get these decisions right, because having weathered the challenges of the covid pandemic—the Father of the House said that situation was well handled by Arts Council England—and a decade of funding cuts to the arts, organisations now face a perfect storm of other challenges, including increased energy and operating costs and a cost of living squeeze on their audiences.

    The U-turn on ENO is an admission that the choices announced in November were not well considered. This situation could have been avoided if there had been proper consultation with the sector, as many contributors to this debate have said. I hope that DCMS will now undertake an internal assessment of the process behind the NPO funding round for 2023 to 2026, so that this chaotic approach is never repeated. It is vital that we now have a transparent and equitable process.

    There are still some important decisions to be made to ensure that ENO can continue and so that future decisions are made based on strategy and in consultation with the sector, with a particular focus on supporting the organisations that we have heard about today, such as the Donmar Warehouse, Welsh National Opera, the Glyndebourne tour and the Watermill Theatre. They need to continue their vital work outside London and I hope to hear more from the Minister about what can be done to ensure that.

  • Alex Chalk – 2023 Speech at the Steel Cutting of HMS Active

    Alex Chalk – 2023 Speech at the Steel Cutting of HMS Active

    The speech made by Alex Chalk, the Minister for Defence Procurement, at Rosyth Dockyard in Scotland on 24 January 2023.

    It is an enormous pleasure to be here in Rosyth today for my first official visit to a shipyard as a Defence Minister.

    And in doing so to meet some of the staff who will be working on this great vessel but also, as has already happened, to welcome our overseas visitors from Poland, Indonesia, Chile, Denmark, Ukraine, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States.

    I’m especially honoured to be asked to cut the steel.

    Although in case any future crews are watching this and are slightly concerned, I’m assured that all I have to do is press a button and the machine will do the real work.

    Now this vessel is the second of five Type-31 – or Inspiration-class –frigates for the Royal Navy.

    And ‘inspiration’ is the right word for three straightforward reasons.

    First, there is the inspiration offered by a cutting edge, highly capable vessel.

    Armed with SeaCeptor missiles and a 4D radar system, HMS Active has flexibility woven into its DNA.

    Not only will it be able today to do everything from intercepting illegal activity, gathering intelligence, providing humanitarian relief, but, as a modular and scalable platform, it will have the ability to adapt tomorrow to the ever-evolving threats of the 21st century.

    And that’s important because the great frigates constructed here in this yard will be part of a formidable fleet for years to come.

    And they are deliberately designed to evolve and modernise to respond to a changing world and a changing mission.

    And they will of course be operating alongside advanced destroyers and autonomous minehunters, supported by our new auxiliary ships and all led by the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers.

    Second, today provides inspiration for our industry.

    Not only does the construction of these ships directly support 16 different Scottish suppliers – including eight SMEs – with contracts totalling more than £65 million.

    Not only does it sustain around 2,500 highly skilled roles.

    But this represents lasting investment in Scotland and Britain’s manufacturing future.

    Take those 150 or so technical and digital apprenticeships that Babcock is supporting to ensure we have the niche skills required for decades to come.

    Or the fact that, come the Spring, this yard will be hosting its second Festival of Engineering – which sees graduates deliver fun, interactive activities for local school children in a bid to get them excited about STEM careers which can be so fulfilling for them.

    Or consider the pivotal role this project is playing in the revival of our nation’s great shipbuilding traditions.

    We all know, don’t we, that Scottish dockyards have a proud history of producing some of the world’s finest ships.

    And that in recent years, we’ve seen a renaissance in Scottish shipbuilding industry with the construction of everything from offshore patrol vessels to our flagship aircraft carriers.

    Now, thanks to a £60 million investment programme here in Rosyth, we’ve got world-class facilities to match, including the Venturer Building which I’m looking forward so much to seeing shortly.

    And with the T-31 frigates, we’re going to ensure the made-in-Scotland stamp is a worldwide mark of quality for years to come.

    Such a powerful tribute to so many of the men and women here today.

    And that brings me onto my third point – these frigates will act as an inspiration for our exports.

    I don’t want to steal too much of Minister Bowie’s thunder, but it’s fair to say these ships are garnering global interest before they’ve even taken to the water.

    And that’s because I know our allies appreciate and understand how the unique Arrowhead-140 flexible design can support so many different configurations.

    And it offers the potential for greater collaboration at an operational and industrial level.

    And that’s why Babcock has already signed an export contract with Indonesia and I’m not giving anything away I hope when I say there are other suitors too.

    And I do want to take this opportunity finally to pay tribute to this vessel’s predecessor and namesake.

    A Type-21 frigate which played a vital role in the Falklands War 40 years ago, from escorting supply convoys to San Carlos Water, to providing naval gun support to British forces in the Battle of Mount Tumbledown.

    And I’m particularly delighted that some of those who served with such distinction on board the last HMS Active are here today as the torch is passed to a new vessel.

    But historians among you will know these aren’t the only ships to have borne the name.

    During the Second World War, Active joined the hunt for the Bismarck.

    During the First World War, Active was with the Grand Fleet in the Battle of Jutland.

    And in 1762, Active captured a prize of £100 million worth of Spanish treasure. Happy to confirm that is no longer British foreign policy.

    Indeed, 11 different HMS Actives have written their own chapter in our nation’s great maritime history.

    But today’s warship will be more advanced than any of its predecessors.

    More adaptable, more flexible, more agile and more powerful.

    So, thank you to everyone involved in this important enterprise.

    Congratulations on what you have achieved so far and what you will achieve and deliver in the future.

    With a thriving Scottish shipbuilding sector behind it, the 12th HMS Active reflects the finest traditions of the Royal Navy and will write a new and exciting chapter in our nation’s maritime history.

    Thank you.

  • Kemi Badenoch – 2023 Speech at Lancaster House

    Kemi Badenoch – 2023 Speech at Lancaster House

    The speech made by Kemi Badenoch, the Secretary of State for International Trade, at Lancaster House in London on 24 January 2023.

    Welcome to Lancaster House.

    What a spectacular setting. The sort of setting that makes me realise how lucky I am to do the job I do.

    Lancaster House has been the venue for G7 meetings, the backdrop for royal TV adaptions and the location for numerous grand political speeches. The very best of the UK.

    So it’s only fitting that among our audience this evening we’ve got Fever-Tree, who are now the number one premium mixer firm in the world.

    Creative Nature CEO Julianne Ponan and Scanning Pens co-founder Jack Churchill, both honoured for their services to industry in the New Year’s Honours….

    and Nestlé who have just officially opened their new £30m mineral water distribution facility in Buxton, Derbyshire.

    I could carry on, but if I listed all the achievements of people in the room there wouldn’t be any time left for my speech.

    And also, I’d rather talk to you than at you. So I will keep this brief.

    The first part of my speech focuses on my priorities for the year ahead.

    The second is about how I want to work with you to deliver them for the country.

    When I was the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, it was my job to focus on economic growth. And I always felt that it needed its own department. That’s why I am thrilled to be running DIT – which really is the Government’s flagship economic growth department.

    More importantly, the Prime Minister this month laid out his five priorities for the Government, the second of which was growing the economy.

    Everything DIT does is about creating economic growth…

    …whether it’s supporting exporters…

    securing foreign investment to create UK jobs…

    or building the global security in trade – working with old friends and new – to help British businesses thrive.

    In doing all that, we have an exciting vision to sell. Of a high-skill, high-tech economy with the capability to thrive in the modern world. And one that is finding the life sciences solutions for a healthier world.

    So how are we going to deliver that economic growth; those opportunities; and the secure global trading environment that we need?

    It’s through these five priorities.

    First, we will:

    Remove trade barriers – DIT will knock down 100 unnecessary blockers standing in the way of helping UK businesses sell more and grow more, creating new jobs and paying higher wages.

    We have already made progress. Last year, we opened up the Chinese market to cosmetic companies who sell cruelty-free products – that’s a half a billion pound opportunity for British business.

    Second, we will:

    Grow UK exports every year until we hit our Race to a Trillion – selling over a trillion pounds of goods and services to the world a year by 2030.

    There are, as I have said recently, and many times, a number of people who keep wanting to talk the UK down. Whatever you have read in papers today, the fact is that UK exports are growing – and even to the EU.

    You might not know that I am also the Secretary of State for UK Export Finance. It’s great to see Tim Reid, the newly appointed CEO, here tonight.

    In just five years UKEF has provided over £30 billion to help firms around the country export. And that money has a direct impact on lives – supporting as many as 72,000 jobs.

    Exports are currently at over £800 billion – and that doesn’t happen by accident. We set the challenge of accelerating the race to a trillion to push companies to export, creating more jobs and increasing wages, and that is why it’s my second priority.

    Third, we will:

    Make the UK the undisputed top investment destination in Europe, attracting new investment into communities and helping to level-up the country.

    The UK is a leading destination for foreign investment. However, this position is not a given. There is fierce global competition for every pound of finance.

    I want to make the UK the most attractive place to invest in Europe, enticing companies from across the world to put their money into communities across the country.

    Fourth, we will:

    Seal high quality deals with India and CPTPP – they have a combined population of nearly 2 billion consumers – opening exciting opportunities in fast-growing markets for years to come.

    That’s essentially a quarter of the world’s population in two huge deals, meaning companies such as Coventry-based driverless car manufacturer, Aurrigo, could benefit on its exports to huge markets in Vietnam and Japan.

    But I want to be clear that just signing on the dotted line is not the objective. These deals will only be agreed if they are the right deals for the people of this country. Bringing in jobs and investment to left-behind communities and capitalising on those areas in which we specialise.

    The fifth and final priority is to…

    Defend free trade, and make the world more secure by strengthening supply chains and standing up to protectionism.

    We are a trading nation at heart and by tradition. So we know that free trade is the surest way to prosperity that the world has.

    So that’s the pitch. I will be your biggest defender, your keenest saleswoman, and your proudest backer.

    Because the success of business is the success of the British people – more jobs, higher pay, and better lives.

    Here’s the catch – I need your help to deliver it.

    Some of you will know I was a software engineer and a systems analyst before I became a politician.

    That means I’m a problem solver at heart.

    So when our Indian trade talks hit a bit of an impasse, I didn’t pick up the phone, I got on a plane. That deal’s not done yet, but it’s back on track.

    But to illustrate my point, think about something you use every day, when you open your emails, your WhatsApp, your text messages.

    The QWERTY keyboard.

    One of the greatest problem-solving inventions of all time and still going strong in its 150th year.

    The layout was created because the technology of early typewriters couldn’t cope with clusters of commonly-used keys being too close together.

    Those keys became stuck and blocked – the QWERTY layout unstuck and unblocked them.

    That’s what we need to do as we seek new export markets and drive international investment.

    It’s too easy for trade to become stuck and blocked. For well-meaning rules to become needless regulation.

    But I can’t solve your problems if I don’t know what they are. I need to know which keys are sticking, which levers need pulling, which wheels need greasing.

    So I need you to tell me the problems you face.

    A Lancashire firm called VetPlus did just that. They came to DIT a little while ago and said they had a paperwork problem in selling their pet food products into India.

    We fixed it. And the company now expects to do £1.5m of additional business over the next five years.

    This is where my team comes in.

    We have a new Permanent Secretary at DIT – Gareth Davies. He joins Crawford in adding yet more knowledge and experience to the department’s top team.

    I also have a brilliant team of ministers…

    Greg Hands, back in the department once again to help remove barriers and negotiate FTAs…

    Andrew Bowie, our advocate for British exports…

    Nigel Huddleston, bringing the FTAs we are negotiating into law and working to defend global free trade…

    And Lord Johnson, banging the drum for investment into the UK.

    Please come and talk to any one of us.

    And if you’re not getting the access to the department you need, let us know. If there are things we should be doing differently, do tell us.

    I want DIT to be both a department of economic growth and business engagement. But business engagement with a purpose.

    I wish I had enough time to meet with everyone, but I don’t.

    So instead I will say that the best meetings I’ve had come with a purpose, an agenda and an objective.

    That’s how I work – and it’s not just my time that’s precious but yours too.

    If we get this relationship right I can be your problem-solver-in-chief.

    I look forward to working with you all to deliver for UK PLC..

    Thank you.

  • James Bevan – 2023 Speech on the Future City

    James Bevan – 2023 Speech on the Future City

    The speech made by Sir James Bevan, the Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, at Imperial College in London on 24 January 2023.

    Introduction: the right kind of city

    Close your eyes and picture a city. What do you see? I’d guess that whatever most of us see in our mind’s eye, it’s mostly grey – roads, buildings, bridges. When you say the word “city”, it doesn’t normally bring to mind things which are green, like leaves and grass; or blue, like rivers and lakes; or red, yellow, brown, black and white all together, like a goldfinch.

    But the best cities, and the cities of the future we should be aspiring to build now, are not just grey: they are multicoloured – in their biodiversity, their ecosystems and their partnership with nature.

    That is not just because those multicoloured cities are better places for people and wildlife. It’s because our cities – even more than our countryside – hold the key to addressing the biggest of all issues facing us: the climate emergency.

    In praise of cities

    It’s easy to find people praising the countryside. And rightly so – our own is one of the greatest inheritances we have, and we need to look after it. In the country we can still find things that are increasingly, sometimes vanishingly, rare in our urban environments: natural beauty, silence, darkness, tranquility. We can all draw sustenance from being out in the country and experiencing at least some of those things. Which is why a lot of the work of the organisation I lead, the Environment Agency, is about protecting and enhancing nature and the countryside.

    But today I want to talk about something different. Today I want to sing the praises of the city, and not just the great city of London where we are today.

    Cities matter. They matter because they are where most people on the planet now live. In 2010 the world passed a threshold that went largely unnoticed: for the first time in history more people were living in cities than in the countryside. That trend is going to continue: by 2050, most of the people on this planet (some 70% or more) will be living in cities and other urban areas.

    Now this next bit may sound counter-intuitive, but that fact is good news, because cities are Good Things. They are more efficient at using resources, so they are a critical ingredient in securing a sustainable economy. They put out less carbon per person than rural areas, so they are critical in tackling climate change. They produce most of the resources we need to create the cleaner, greener world we all want. They offer social, educational, cultural and other opportunities that can be hard or impossible to access in many rural environments. They are centres of economic activity, knowledge and innovation, because they are the places where different people from different places with different skills, new ideas and talent congregate and spark off each other to create something new. Which is why cities are what have driven pretty much all human progress since the dawn of humanity. It’s not for nothing that the word civilisation comes from the Latin for city.

    So what we need in future is not – as some might argue – fewer or less populous cities. What we need is bigger and better ones. Cities that retain all the fizz and energy of the cities of the past that have driven so much progress, but which in future use resources much more efficiently, create far less pollution, can stand up to all the impacts that a changing climate will throw at them and thrive, and which have more green and blue spaces to which all city-dwellers have equal access, so that our cities are a joy to live in for everyone as well as drivers of growth and progress. In short, we need to make our cities what the UN Sustainable Development Goals say they should be: “inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”.

    The state of nature in our cities

    At the heart of every good city is nature. So what is the state of nature our cities in this country? Short answer: a lot better than it was, but not as good as it could be. I know this because in 2021 the Environment Agency published a report on the state of the urban environment in England.

    Let’s start with what’s got better. To illustrate this I want to take you back to the decade of my birth, the 1950s, and this city, London. It was then that three significant events happened that shaped this city we know now for the better.

    Air quality: the Great Smog,1952

    The first event took place in 1952, when thousands of people in London died as a result of the so-called Great Smog – the smoky fog caused by coal burning which eventually led to the Clean Air Act that banned smoke pollution. Most Londoners today have never even heard of smog, which shows you have far we have come. And it’s not just the smoke that’s gone: our air is much cleaner than it was overall. As a result of robust regulation of polluting industries, largely by the Environment Agency, emissions of some of the worst air pollutants have been massively reduced right across the country. Between 1970 and 2017 sulphur oxides (SOx) emissions have decreased by 97%, particulate matter (PM10) by 73%, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) by 79%, and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 73%. We need to go further, because air quality is still a major factor in unnecessary deaths. But we are making progress.

    Flood risk: the Great Floods, 1953

    The second big event happened almost exactly seventy years ago now, on the night of 31 January 1953. On that day, an anniversary we will shortly be commemorating, over 300 people died in this country when a massive storm surge caused sudden and catastrophic flooding of parts of the East Coast. While Lincolnshire, East Anglia and Canvey Island bore the brunt, London itself came perilously close to disaster. We have come a long way since then. We are much better now at warning people of flood risk and informing communities how to protect themselves. We have much better flood defences. The EA now deploys our people and kit quickly and effectively to help communities under threat. And – a direct result of the 1953 disaster – the Thames Barrier now protects 125 square km of central London, millions of people, and hundreds of billions of pounds of assets and infrastructure. It will continue to do that until at least 2070, but we are already planning for its replacement.

    Water quality: the biological death of the Thames, 1957

    The Thames was also the centre of the third big event. In 1957 the Natural History Museum declared that the river in London was ‘biologically dead’ because the water was so polluted. Since then, we have made great strides in restoring the water quality of the river, largely down to the investments made by the water companies and the introduction of much tougher rules about what operators can put into the river, enforced by the EA. Which is why the river is alive again, with salmon – always a sure sign of good water quality – back in central London.

    Citytopia: imagining the future city

    But it isn’t all good news. While here in London and in many other cities around the country the air is cleaner, the population is better protected against flood risk, and the rivers have come back to life, there are significant challenges that remain as our cities grow. Perhaps the biggest of those challenges isn’t actually out there on the streets, in our air or in our waters but in our own heads: if we want to build a better world then the challenge is to reimagine the city itself.

    A utopia is defined as “an imaginary place in which everything is perfect”. Of course, nowhere is nor ever will be perfect. But it helps to have a vision of where you want to get to. What would Citytopia look like? It would be many things, but most of all it would be three things: clean, green and climate positive.

    Clean

    First, the environment in and around our future city would be pristine, with clean air, clean land and clean waters.

    For the EA, that means continuing all the work we have been doing over the last two decades to stop the pollution that threatens those natural assets – regulating to ensure our air and water quality continues to improve, restoring contaminated land to its near-natural state, tackling the waste criminals who damage our communities and our environment through illegal dumping, and so on.

    Green

    Second, our Citytopia would be the best possible place to live: for wildlife as much as for people. That means more green (and blue) alongside the grey and black.

    The EA is playing a major role in designing and delivering cities with that green and blue infrastructure. We are a statutory consultee on all major developments, and take an active role in placemaking, including by helping design in that blue and green infrastructure, and advising on how best to protect people from flood risk and enhance the environment. We are influential: more than 97% of planning applications are decided in line with our advice.

    As part of that we apply the principle of what is technically called Biodiversity Net Gain, but which in normal English means development that leaves nature in a better state than it was. With our active support that principle was enshrined by the government in the 2021 Environment Act, which makes it a precondition of planning permission.

    The government has recently announced another important step forward: its intent to make what is called sustainable drainage mandatory in new developments in England. This is another boring phrase for another really exciting concept. Sustainable drainage increases the ability of our cities and their drainage systems to absorb large amounts of water when it rains, for example by creating parks to act as giant sponges or putting grass on roofs to allow rainwater to drain away gradually.

    As our cities grow and our current drains reach full capacity, as we concrete over areas that used to act as natural drains, and as climate change brings us bigger and more violent rainfall, these schemes can make all the difference between basements, underpasses, city centres and Tube lines that are flooded and dangerous, and a city that just shrugs its shoulders, puts up its umbrellas, and keeps going. Not only can sustainable drainage reduce flooding, it can also improve water quality, and provide more green – creating better habitats for wildlife and better places for people. The EA already designs sustainable drainage into the flood schemes we build and the developments we support.

    Climate positive

    And third, our future city would not just be a clean, green place where many would dream to live. It would also do something even more important than all of those things: it would actively help us beat the biggest of all challenges that we face, the climate emergency.

    This Citytopia would no longer be part of the climate problem, because it would not be emitting the greenhouse gases that are causing our climate to change. It would achieve that with the right transport systems, so that people could easily walk or cycle to wherever they wanted to go or use cheap and convenient public transport fueled by renewable energy. It would have buildings designed to be energy efficient, heated by solar or other renewable energy and cooled by natural airflow designed into the building at the start. It would use all its resources efficiently and turn all its waste back into a resource to be reused again. It would have arrangements that allowed its inhabitants to share many of the things they needed (bicycles, vehicles, tools, etc) without having to buy or own them all, thus vastly reducing the carbon cost of producing, consuming and disposing of all the stuff we currently feel we have to each own ourselves. Our city might even grow much of its own food, including in so-called vertical farms – tall buildings or deep tunnels – and so avoid the carbon damage caused by transporting its food over hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles.

    And our future city would not just stop being part of the climate problem. It would also be a major part of the solution. Its green areas – parks, woodland, grasslands, flowerbeds, football pitches – would all be acting as carbon sinks, taking damaging carbon out of the atmosphere and so reducing the extent of climate change. In its design and its infrastructure our city would be perfectly adapted to living safely and well in a climate-changed world. It would have flood defences that protected people from the worst that the violent weather caused by a changing climate could fling at it. It would have power and transport systems designed to cope just as well with periods of high temperature and drought as with record-breaking rainfall. Better still, its trees and plants would not just take carbon out of the atmosphere but cool the air and provide habitats for wildlife. Our city would not just be liveable: it would be beautiful. And by nurturing nature as well as the human spirit, it would lift us all up in mind and body.

    The future is now

    The good news is that this isn’t science fiction. A lot of this future is happening now, and the Environment Agency is helping it happen. I could replicate what follows from most of the cities in this country, but since we are in London let me give you a couple of examples from this city:

    The London Olympic site. The Environment Agency worked with our partners before, during and after the 2012 London Olympics to transform what was a derelict and contaminated landscape into what was first the site for those fantastic games and is now Britain’s largest urban park and a vibrant new development with thousands of sustainable homes and businesses, better water quality, new habitats and lower flood risk – a better place for people and wildlife.

    The Thames Tideway Tunnel. This is a new 25km sewer running from west to east London, mostly in a tunnel under the River Thames. It will address the problem of overflow from Bazalgette’s Victorian sewers, ensuring that after high rainfall sewage discharges are stored and treated rather than as now emptying straight into the Thames. That will bring the biggest single improvement to water quality in the Thames since Bazalgette. The EA has ensured it’s designed and built in ways which don’t just avoid damage to the environment but create something better. For example, a new piece of landscaped land jutting out into the Thames by Blackfriars Bridge which covers one of the main tunnel shafts will create a small park. And the project won’t just improve water quality in the river and provide amenities for the public. It will also help tackle the climate emergency, because it will increase London’s resilience to the higher rainfall that climate change is bringing.

    None of us is as good as all of us: Imperial strength

    So the future London, and the other future cities in this country, are being designed and built right now. But none of us is as good as all of us. If we are going to build the future cities we want – both in our heads and on the ground – we need to draw on all the energy, insight and expertise that’s out there.

    Which is why I want to salute the role of the Grantham Institute and Imperial College in all this.

    The Grantham Institute is delivering world-leading research on climate and the environment and – critically – turning that into real world impact. You are giving us all – practitioners, policymakers, businesses and governments – news we can use. And we are acting on that news. Keep giving it to us.

    And here at Imperial you are doing all that and more. Your vision – a sustainable, resilient, zero-carbon future – is our vision. And your work is helping us realise that vision, including what you are doing on urban ecosystems, and your own Transition to Zero Pollution initiative.

    It’s not just all of you here today and the rest of your faculty, researchers and academic partners who will change the world for the better. The students here at Imperial and in other institutions like this around the country will too. Because they are the people who over the next few critical decades will be playing leading roles in governments around the world, in research, in development, in businesses, in NGOs and the other major organisations that will be shaping the future world – and our future cities – in ways that can be better for everyone.

    Before I conclude, please let me include a brief commercial for the Environment Agency. Our job is to create a better place. We are always looking for talented people who have a passionate commitment to that goal. There is a lot of that talent and commitment in this room, and at Imperial College more widely. So if you are interested in building the green cities of the future, or changing the world for the better in other ways, please think about joining us.

    Conclusion

    I said at the start of these remarks that it’s relatively easy to find people who will praise the country but there are fewer who will praise cities. That includes poets. But there are exceptions, including someone who is much more famous as a nature poet than as a writer about the urban environment.

    That person is William Wordsworth, and I thought it would be fitting to end this speech – which is a speech in praise of cities in general and London in particular – with a poem he wrote over 200 years ago on Westminster Bridge. Wordsworth was looking at the London of 1803, a city that is long gone. But if we do the right things, in this city and elsewhere, his words could also be describing the city of the future.

    Earth has not anything to show more fair:

    Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

    A sight so touching in its majesty:

    This City now doth like a garment wear

    The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

    Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

    Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

    All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

    Never did sun more beautifully steep

    In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;

    Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

    The river glideth at his own sweet will:

    Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

    And all that mighty heart is lying still!

  • James Cleverly – 2023 Speech at the Holocaust Memorial Day Reception

    James Cleverly – 2023 Speech at the Holocaust Memorial Day Reception

    The speech made by James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, in London on 24 January 2023.

    Your Excellency the Ambassador of Israel, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

    I’m deeply honoured to join you on this occasion.

    Last year, on a winter evening, I stood on a concrete platform of the disused Radegast station in Lodz in Poland.

    From this nondescript and functional building, 200,000 Jewish men, women and children were transported to Nazi death camps.

    I reflected that there were countless unused buildings like this, scattered across occupied Europe, all being used, to send human beings to be murdered.

    Radegast was where the Jews of Lodz ghetto were transported to Chelmno and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

    I stood where they would have stood, and I saw what they saw; the crude wooden cattle trucks, drawn up by the platform.

    Inside the station building, I turned over page after page of neatly typewritten names of the people who were forced at gunpoint onto those trucks.

    One of those who was deported to Auschwitz, in her case from Romania, was Olga Lengyel, who lost her parents, lost her husband, and lost her two sons.

    She wrote, and I quote: “Whenever I recall the first days at the camp, I still grow hot and cold with nameless terror. It was a terror that rose for no particular reason, but one that was constantly nourished by strange occurrences whose meaning I sought in vain.

    “At night the glow of the flames from the chimneys…showed through the crevices in the walls. The shrieks of the sick or the wounded, crowded together in trucks bound for some unknown destination, grated on our nerves.

    “Sometimes we heard revolver shots, for the SS guards used their guns freely. Above these noises came orders barked in overbearing voices. Nothing would let us forget our slavery.”

    And then Olga Lengyel asks: “Could such conditions really exist in Europe in the twentieth century?”

    Today, every one of us shares a solemn duty to remember that those conditions did indeed exist in Europe in the 20th century, that six million men, women and children were consumed by the Holocaust,

    Now our only possible response is to mean it, heart and soul, when we say the words “never again”.

    But there were, at the time, some ordinary people who meant it when they said to themselves that they would not stand by, and they would not watch others being transported to their deaths.

    It remains an extraordinary and uplifting fact that ordinary people in Denmark managed to save almost all of their country’s Jews.

    They were hidden in churches, in hospitals and in family homes, and spirited to coastal towns, from where they were taken to safety in Sweden, on board fishing boats or kayaks or motorboats.

    In the town of Elsinore, the escape line was run by Erling Kiaer, the local bookbinder, Thormod Larsen, a policeman, Ove Bruhn, a clerk, and Børge Rønne, the editor of the local newspaper.

    They called themselves the “Elsinore Sewing Club” and they carried about 700 Jews across the Sound to Sweden.

    They knew full well that they were risking their own lives.

    And indeed in May 1944, the Nazis arrested Erling Kiaer after intercepting his motorboat, and he was incarcerated in Neuengamme concentration camp in Germany.

    But he survived until the camp liberation, and he lived until his 77th year, dying in 1980.

    The members of the Elsinore Sewing Club – and others like them across occupied Europe – consciously decided to place themselves in the mortal peril in order to save others.

    But the hard truth is that when the moment came, there were never enough people like them.

    If almost every Jew could be saved in Denmark, why not elsewhere?

    Today, we must all silently ask ourselves the difficult and searching question, what would I have done?

    Would I have taken that risk, not just for myself but for my family?

    And as we answer that profoundly difficult and necessary question in our hearts, we owe it to the six million who were not saved to reflect, to learn, to grieve, and above all, to remember.

  • Barbara Castle – 1967 Statement on the Railway Network Map

    Barbara Castle – 1967 Statement on the Railway Network Map

    The statement made by Barbara Castle, the then Minister of Transport, in the House of Commons on 15 March 1967.

    When the House debated transport policy last month I was able to report on the progress which the Chairman of the Railways Board and I had made on the determination of the new basic railway network. I am now glad to be able to tell the House that the network has been decided. A detailed map of the network, with an explanatory foreword by the Chairman and myself, will be available in the Vote Office at 11 o’clock.

    In deciding which lines should be included I have taken account of my consultations with the planning Ministers, with the Economic Planning Councils, and with the railway unions. Above all, I have given full weight to the Government’s determination that broader social and economic needs, not just narrow profitability, should count when it comes to national decisions on priorities. The result is a basic network of about 11,000 miles—some 3,000 miles longer than the likely outcome of the policy of the last Administration.

    This will be a network of which the industry, and the country, can be proud. In itself, it will give a much-needed boost to railway efficiency and morale, but the Chairman and I do not intend that these 11,000 miles should simply remain in being; they must be a working system, continually developed with the aid of modern research and technology: and I shall see that this is done.

    The Railways Board will now be reviewing the future of the lines outside the basic network. For these lines, it will be up to the Board to publish passenger closure proposals under Section 56 of the Transport Act if it so decides. But I would remind the House that no such line will be closed without my individual consent, and only after a full examination by the Transport Users Consultative Committees and the Economic Planning Councils of the hardship and economic planning implications.

    The basic network is a landmark in carrying out the railway policy set out in the Government’s White Paper. It will help the railways to provide an efficient and flexible service to the public, fitted to the needs of the day. The Government are determined that a revitalised railway industry should play its full part in the integrated transport system of the country. This network will give them the right infrastructure to do it.

    Mr. Webster Is the right hon. Lady aware that it has been a growing practice, since morning Sittings began, to make Statements which are palatable to Government supporters in the afternoon and those which are unpalatable to them in the morning? Is she further aware that it is a monstrous discourtesy to the House to make a Statement at 10 o’clock, when the map which we are discussing, if we are to have any substance out of this Statement, will not be published for another 50 minutes, and that this is something which all my hon. Friends will wish to probe most deeply in relation to what is happening in their regions?

    How does the right hon. Lady propose to maintain lines which are running at a loss? To what extent will the local authority contribute and to what extent will the central Government? What sanctions does she propose to use if a local authority does not contribute, and how will she undertake to keep these lines going if they are running at a loss? Is she further aware that, for every seven miles closed in the period 1951–64, she is closing 10 miles under her present proposals?

    Mrs. Castle I cannot accept for one moment that this statement is unpalatable to Government supporters. On the contrary, they realise full well the plans which were afoot under the policy of the previous Administration for a constant contraction of our railway service to a mere skeleton of a system—

    Several Hon. Members rose—

    Mrs. Castle Hon. Gentlemen must not jump up at this stage. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) has asked me half a dozen questions and I must take some time to answer them. Of course, when the railway map is available for detailed consideration, it will be open to any hon. Member to put down any Questions or to probe in any way he likes, and I shall be only too delighted to try to deal with any particular points.

    The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare asked how unprofitable lines will be paid for. We have discussed this matter in the House; it was referred to in the White Paper and it was discussed in the debate on transport policy. There is at the moment a joint study going on between the Railways Board and myself, under a steering committee, of which the Joint Parliamentary Secretary is Chairman, and the job of which is to identify these socially necessary unprofitable lines and decide the amount of subsidy that will be necessary. We have made it clear that the Government, having adopted a policy of maintaining socially necessary lines—even if they do not pay—must, the Government having made that decision, give an open subsidy for those lines; and I am sure that the majority of hon. Members welcome this decision.

    The position regarding local authorities has already been outlined in the White Paper. We will be moving forward towards the creation of conurbation transport authorities and—

    Sir G. Nabarro On a point of order. Is it not a fact that, in accordance with the custom and tradition of this House, you ask for supplementaries to be brief, Mr. Speaker? That being so, should you—

    Mr. Manuel Sit down.

    Sir G. Nabarro I was asking, Mr. Speaker—[Interruption.]

    Mr. Speaker Order. There is too much morning enthusiasm.

    Sir G. Nabarro Are we to have inflicted upon us by Ministers long answers of this type? Cannot Ministers be brief, as back benchers are asked to be brief?

    Mr. Speaker Order. I allow a certain amount of latitude or longitude to the Front Bench spokesmen.

    Sir G. Nabarro There is too much longitude.

    Mrs. Castle As I have had a number of questions inflicted on me by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare—[Interruption.]—presumably he wants them answered. It is intolerable if, when I am attempting to answer them, hon. Gentlemen opposite complain.

    I was explaining, regarding local authorities, that the new transportation authorities, under the new arrangements for the general help which the Government are giving to public transport, will take over responsibility for deciding which socially necessary lines they want as part of their local transport plans. In such a situation, the responsibility for maintaining those lines could gradually transfer to the local authorities. In the meantime, the subsidy will be a Government subsidy, although we leave it open to individual local authorities to approach the Railways Board and try to negotiate the retention of a purely local line on the basis that they will meet the particular subsidy.

    Mr. Manuel Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be no discourtesies or competition for discourtesy from this side of the House arising from her statement? Is she aware that we welcome it and that we are, by it, redeeming some of the pledges which we made at the General Election? Is she aware that one of the important results of her statement will be the heartening effect it will have on railway workers throughout the country? I assure my right hon. Friend that she will have the full backing of the influential railway trade unions in this matter.

    Mr. Speaker Order. Even compliments must be phrased in an interrogatory form.

    Mrs. Castle I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those remarks.

    Mr. John Hall The Minister has made an important and interesting statement. Would not she agree—and, as a constituent of mine, I am sure that she will agree—that it is difficult to be sure exactly what she is stating without our having the advantage of having looked at the map first? I cannot believe that it is possible for any hon. Member to say unreservedly that he welcomes her statement without having seen the effect of it by having looked at the map. Would it not have been more convenient to the House—I say nothing about discourtesy because I am sure that the right hon. Lady would not treat the House in a discourteous manner—if the map had been published earlier, instead of at 11 o’clock, and her statement made this afternoon, since we would then have been able to examine the matter more closely, and—

    Mr. Speaker Order. Questions must be brief.

    Mr. Hall Would not the right hon. Lady agree that we would have been able to examine the matter more closely and been able to ask questions more intelligently than we are able to do without the map?

    Mrs. Castle It is possible to welcome unreservedly the two principles which I have laid down. The first is that the Government do not believe that we can have a satisfactory railway network in Britain on the basis of purely commercial considerations. This is, therefore, a fundamental change of policy and, on that principle, hon. Members can make up their minds. The second point to be welcomed is the fact that we are going to give a period of stabilisation to the railway industry on the basis of a railway network which is about 3,000 miles longer than it would otherwise have been.

    To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question about the availability of the map, even if it had been released earlier, this is inevitably such a detailed subject that at this stage it is possible to discuss only the broad principles. However, it will be open to hon. Members to put down Questions about details of the matter in the normal way.

    Mr. Tudor Watkins Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Central Wales line was examined by the T.U.C.C. about five years ago? Is it her intention that this line should again be examined by herself and the T.U.C.C.?

    Mrs. Castle Yes, Sir, that is so. The Central Wales line will be one of the lines on the map for further consideration. However, I repeat that those lines on the man which are not included in the basic network will not necessarily all be closed. They are simply lines which need further examination so that we can see whether they should be retained, whether they should be modified or whether alternative methods can be found to cater for the people of the area.

    Mr. Peyton Would not the right hon. Lady agree that it is rather odd for her to have made a statement like this without hon. Members having the map, particularly since the map will be available in only half on hour’s time? I do not wish to accuse the right hon. Lady of discourtesy, but I urge her not to follow the example of some other members of the present Administration, and to show at least some courtesy to the House of Commons.

    Accepting all she says about socially necessary things, is she aware that one socially necessary thing always competes against another socially necessary thing for the limited resources that are available? Will she, therefore, when making her judgments about what is necessary, at least bear in mind and examine carefully those instances where local authorities press for the preservation of a line—[HON. MEMBERS: “Too long.”]—I apologise to the Minister for the barking that is coming from her hon. Friends; it is making my question that much longer—at the same time as they maintain an uneconomic bus service in competition with it?

    Mrs. Castle I naturally do not want to be discourteous to the House, and did not think that I was being discourteous. It is quite normal practice for a Minister to make a statement and to draw attention to material that is being placed in the Vote Office. I repeat that this is inevitably a detailed matter which could not possibly, even if the map were available now, be examined in great detail in the form of question and answer following a statement.

    As to what is socially necessary, we of course recognise that there must be a balance here—a balance on the basis of social cost benefit. This is the principle that we are bringing into our consideration of these lines. One factor which we shall take into account—it is important that we should, because this country cannot afford to throw money about just for the fun of it—in examining the grey lines on the map is to consider what are the alternatives and whether a more integrated local policy might be able to make the line pay.

    Mr. Dalyell Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the broader social and economic considerations in central and south Scotland? Is she in a position to say anything about the Edinburgh—Carlisle line?

    Mrs. Castle As my hon. Friend is no doubt aware, the Edinburgh—Carlisle line has already been proposed for closure and is already coming under the normal examination. [HON. MEMBERS: “Oh!”] This preceded the publication of the map, and whether in the end the Edinburgh—Carlisle line finishes up as one of the parts of the stabilised network must depend on the outcome of this examination.

    Mr. Alasdair Mackenzie While there is no reference to Scotland in the Minister’s statement, we welcome the fact that it says that social and economic needs will be considered in coming to decisions on closures, and so forth. Is she aware that this affects my part of the country, the Highlands of Scotland, very much? I should like an assurance from the right hon. Lady that there will be no further rundown in railway services in the Highlands of Scotland, because we are at the moment suffering a great deal on account of the rundown that has taken place in the past.

    Mrs. Castle I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be delighted to know that as a result of my reversal of the previous Administration’s policy, the line routes included in the basic network map include the Perth-Thurso line, which would have disappeared, the Aberdeen-Inverness line, which would have disappeared, the Helensburgh-Oban line, which would have disappeared, and a number of others.

    Mr. Speaker Mr. Mendelson.

    Mr. Mendelson rose—[Interruption.]

    Mr. Speaker Order.

    Mr. Manuel On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I ask, with the greatest respect to you, why, if hon. Members on this side seem to be pulled up right away, hon. and right hon. Members opposite get the utmost liberty to throw remarks about in this Chamber.

    Mr. Speaker I call to order hon. Members who are misbehaving when I notice them. I happened to notice the hon. Member concerned. Mr. Mendelson.

    Mr. Mendelson I should like to ask about the decisions which my right hon. Friend reserves to herself after these matters have been before the Economic Development Council. Would she bear in mind that a conflict is developing between the actual need to save on certain local lines and the future economic development of the areas they serve? The general policy of the Cabinet to have diversity of industry and new industries in certain old industrial areas is now being contradicted by the decision to close or drastically revise certain lines that should be kept open on economic grounds.

    Mrs. Castle I am very acutely aware of the need to take into consideration possible industrial and housing development in an area. This is one of the facts which should be very much taken care of by the Economic Planning Councils, and the basic map has been drawn up in consultation with them. The responsibility for the final network is mine, but the councils with this kind of idea in mind, have put many proposals to me to which I have responded in drawing up the basic network. I repeat that when we examine the closures which will have to be considered in the next few months, I shall have this very much in mind as well.

    Mr. Edward M. Taylor As the present Government have either closed or plan the closure of 4,991 miles of railway line compared with 3,480 miles in the 13 years when the previous Government were in power, does not the right hon. Lady agree that it is outrageous that we should have this statement made without the map? Why could the map not have been given to us by 10 a.m., in time for her statement?
    Will the right hon. Lady also—

    Mr. Speaker Order. Supplementary questions must be brief.

    Mr. Taylor —try to explain what is meant by gradually transferring the burden to local authorities? Does this mean that the 11,000 miles target can be achieved only if ratepayers in certain areas accept a further heavy burden? If so, is this wise in view of the already heavy burden that exists?

    Mrs. Castle I hope that we can nail once and for all the mythology that hon. Members opposite had tried to build up about closures. The truth is that more mileage was planned for closure in the last year of Conservative government than there has been in the whole life of this Government. The right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) merely refused 10 closures during his period of office; my right hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Tom Fraser) and I refused 29 in our two years of responsibility. Hon. Members will be able to see perfectly clearly what we have done in fixing this basic network to reverse a situation under which, under the logic of the policy of the previous Administration, we should have had something like 4,800 passenger miles left on our railway network. That was a fact, and this is the policy we have reversed.

    As to local councils, the answer to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) is that it does not mean that the preservation of 11,000 route miles depends on the ratepayers’ carrying this burden.

    Dr. John Dunwoody May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on allaying the doubts and anxieties that have hung over the railway industry since the days when the present Opposition were in power? Can she assure the House that the basic railway network as it is to be published will remain for the foreseeable future? Will she agree that if local authorities are to play a part in financing the maintenance of unprofitable branch lines, it may mean some changes in the criteria by which the central Government support local government? Will she consider consulting her right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government with this end in view?

    Mrs. Castle I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As a result of this reversal of policy, new hope is being brought to the South-West, because included in the basic network will be the Plymouth-Penzance line, the Salisbury-Exeter and Okehampton-Barnstaple line, and the Castle Cary-Dorchester line. These are some of the examples of what will be in the basic network map. I can assure my hon. Friend that no proposals for the closure of any lines now in the basic network will be made in the foreseeable future.

    On the local authority point, quite clearly it would be ridiculous to transfer to existing local authorities the Exchequer burden that we are openly taking here. There must be a move towards the creation of wider transport authorities in the context of the grant policy for public transport as a whole before a transfer of the burden could even be contemplated. In addition, I repeat that some local authorities have said that there are purely local lines that might otherwise be closed under Section 56 but which they want a chance to try to keep open by local subsidy. I have made it clear that if they want to do that, it will be open to them to negotiate with the British Railways Board.

    Several Hon. Members rose—

    Mr. Speaker Order. We must cut down the length of supplementary questions and answers if possible. Sir John Eden.

    Sir J. Eden Before leaving this matter, Mr. Speaker, may we hear from the right hon. Lady at what time the map was given to the Press?

    Sir G. Nabarro Having regard to the open-ended subsidy to which the Minister referred, whatever that jargon may mean, has she calculated what this will add to the existing rate of loss on the railways of £130 million per annum, when she abandons a commercial enterprise in favour of a Ministry of Social Security exercise?

    Mrs. Castle Hon. Members opposite had better make up their minds whether their objection is that I am to subsidise too much or whether it is that no lines are to be closed at all. This has been the duplicity of the policy of hon. Members opposite for years—[Interruption.]—and it has bedevilled the case—

    Mr. Barber On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for the Minister to accuse hon. Members on this side of duplicity?

    Mr. Speaker I think that the right hon. Gentleman is being unduly sensitive.

    Mrs. Castle It is—

    Hon. Members Withdraw.

    Mr. Speaker Order. We should be able to proceed more quietly.

    Mrs. Castle It is this which has be-devilled the creation of a proper railways policy. I do not know what the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) means by his reference to “open-ended subsidy”. I have made it clear that, on the contrary, in every case where the Government decide that a line is socially necessary, the joint survey to which I have referred will examine in great detail what economies can be brought into play in order to reduce the loss before deciding the size of the contribution which has to be made on social grounds by the Government.

    This will not add to the deficit of the Board, because the position at the moment is that, where closures are refused, the cost falls on the deficit anyhow. The right hon. Member for Wallasey refused certain closures on the one hand, while, on the other, lecturing the Railways Board about the need to pay its way. No one could hope in that way to get an efficiency target for British Railways that it could hope to reach.

    Mr. Ridley On a point order, Mr. Speaker. May we take it that my right hon. and hon. Friends will be allowed to ask longer supplementary questions in view of the disproportionate amount of time being taken by the right hon. Lady’s answers?

    Mr. Speaker I have already commented on that matter.

    Mrs. Castle The trouble is that I get such long questions, so I have to give long answers.

    Sir G. Nabarro On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. That jibe was directed at me. Is it not a fact that my supplementary question was a masterpiece of brevity?

    Mrs. Castle Well, it certainly was not a masterpiece of sanity.

    Sir G. Nabarro You have constantly ruled, Mr. Speaker, that supplementary questions should be brief. If my supplementary question had not been brief, you would have been on your feet in a split second. But you made no attempt to halt my question, which was a masterpiece of brevity. Would you, therefore, ask the right hon. Lady to withdraw her shocking innuendo that my supplementary was insane and not brief?

    Mr. Speaker The last question is not part of the hon. Gentleman’s point of order, the first part of which was a statement of fact.

    Sir G. Nabarro You agree with it?

    Mr. Speaker Order. The hon. Gentleman must contain himself a little. We must get on.

    Sir J. Eden Has the right hon. Lady made any assessment of the likely increase to the taxpayer of the Government’s policy?

    Mrs. Castle Perhaps I should explain what happens if a closure is refused even though the line is losing money. This cost falls on the deficit, although it is the Government and Parliament who have decided that the line should remain open. In such a situation, it is obvious common sense to have a separate social account so that, Parliament having willed a line to be kept open, Parliament will put it not on the deficit but under a special social subsidy. The amount involved cannot be foreseen until the joint survey has examined each socially necessary line, what economies can be made and what size of subsidy will be required.

  • Richard Sharp – 2023 Letter to BBC Staff Following Allegations of a Conflict of Interest

    Richard Sharp – 2023 Letter to BBC Staff Following Allegations of a Conflict of Interest

    The letter sent by Richard Sharp, the Chairman of the BBC, to the organisation’s staff on 23 January 2023.

    Dear all,

    You may have seen reporting over the weekend about the nature of my appointment as Chairman of the BBC.

    As Chairman of the BBC I have a responsibility to you, and to our audiences, to make sure that the BBC is always held in high regard, and I don’t want this episode to distract from the important work that you are doing. I wanted to write to you directly to set out the facts.

    Prior to my appointment, I introduced an old friend of mine – and distant cousin of the then Prime Minister – Sam Blythe, to the Cabinet Secretary, as Sam wanted to support Boris Johnson.

    I was not involved in making a loan, or arranging a guarantee, and I did not arrange any financing. What I did do was to seek an introduction of Sam Blythe to the relevant official in Government.

    Sam Blythe, who I have known for more than forty years, lives in London and having become aware of the financial pressures on the then Prime Minister, and being a successful entrepreneur, he told me he wanted to explore whether he could assist.

    He spoke to me because he trusts me and wanted to check with me what the right way to go about this could be. I told him that this was a sensitive area in any event, particularly so as Sam is a Canadian, and that he should seek to have the Cabinet Office involved and have the Cabinet Secretary advise on appropriateness and indeed whether any financial support Sam might wish to provide was possible. Accordingly Sam asked me whether I would connect him with the Cabinet Secretary.

    At the time I was working in Downing Street as a special economic adviser to the Treasury during the pandemic, and I had submitted my application to be Chairman of the BBC. I went to see the Cabinet Secretary and explained who Sam was, and that as a cousin of the then Prime Minister he wanted to help him if possible. I also reminded the Cabinet Secretary that I had submitted my application for the position of BBC Chairman. We both agreed that to avoid any conflict that I should have nothing further to do with the matter. At that point there was no detail on the proposed arrangements and I had no knowledge of whether any assistance was possible, or could be agreed.

    Since that meeting I have had no involvement whatsoever with any process. Even now, I don’t know any more than is reported in the media about a loan or reported guarantee.

    I am now aware that the Cabinet Office have a note of this meeting, and that this included advice to the Prime Minister that I should not be involved, to avoid any conflict or appearance of conflict with my BBC application.

    The Cabinet Office have confirmed that the recruitment process was followed appropriately and that I was appointed on merit, in a process which was independently monitored. Moreover they have confirmed that they gave advice at the time that I should have no involvement whatsoever in any process which might or might not take place, precisely to avoid a conflict or perception of a conflict of interest.

    This matter, although it took place before I joined the BBC, is a distraction for the organisation, which I regret. I’m really sorry about it all.

    I am proud and honoured to have been appointed as the Chairman of the BBC. I have never hidden my longstanding relationship with the former Prime Minister, however I believe firmly that I was appointed on merit, which the Cabinet Office have also confirmed.

    We have many challenges at the BBC, and I know that distractions such as this are not welcomed.

    Our work at the BBC is rooted in trust. Although the appointment of the BBC Chairman is solely a matter for the Government, I want to ensure that all the appropriate guidelines have been followed within the BBC since I have joined. The Nominations Committee of the BBC Board has responsibility for regularly reviewing Board members conflicts of interest and I have agreed with the Board’s Senior Independent Director, Sir Nicholas Serota, that the Committee shall assess this when it next meets, reporting to the Board, and in the interests of transparency publish the conclusions.

    I look forward to continuing our work together.

    Best wishes,
    Richard

    Richard Sharp, BBC Chairman