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  • Jacob Rees-Mogg – 2021 Appearance at the Committee of Privileges

    Jacob Rees-Mogg – 2021 Appearance at the Committee of Privileges

    The appearance of Jacob Rees-Mogg, the then Leader of the House of Commons, at the Committee of Privileges on 30 November 2021. The meeting was chaired by Chris Bryant.

    Chair: Welcome, Leader of the House. It is very good to have you with us on an issue that has been vexing and troubling the House for many years through many processes. We are keen, if we possibly can, to help the House get to a settled position on all of this without undermining our historic powers. Do you think that the House presently has the powers that it needs?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: In a way, this is the work that you are doing to try and establish whether the powers that are currently there, even if they are more theoretical than actual, achieve the objective of getting witnesses to come before Select Committees. We have discussed privately the reality of the powers—whether they could be used and whether they would survive challenge—but what would be interesting to see from your final report is not the anecdotal experiences of Select Committees, which tend to focus on a very small number of high-profile cases, but whether, year in, year out, most witnesses who were summoned actually attend, including the low-profile ones, or whether there is a real problem for Committee after Committee of not getting the people that they want. That statistical analysis would be incredibly useful.

    Q229       Chair: All the evidence we have had so far is that the vast majority of witnesses come without any bother, and it is a pretty simple, straightforward, relatively informal process. The problem is that a theoretical power, to use your words, is quite difficult to enforce, and that leaves us with the hard cases. I know that makes it look anecdotal, but it is none the less a series of hard cases. In fact, the two cases that we just heard about were both people who said, “I’m not coming to that Select Committee,” and then a while later decided that they were going to another Select Committee, so they are picking and choosing which inquiry they will participate in.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: Again, an important part of what you are doing is to understand both the scale of the problem and also whether changing things would make it better. By getting the one difficult person, do you make it a different atmosphere for the others who have come willingly? Would a formalisation undermine the informal system that is working very well in most cases? Or would it simply work in the cases that need it? Again, I think that is something that your report needs to work out because that will be essential to deciding whether legislation helps or hinders.

    Q230       Chair: I think I would be right in characterising the evidence we have had from everybody today as pretty much that there might be a risk that having a more formalised system, because otherwise there is no sanction, might do two things: it might invite the courts to enter into questioning elements of proceedings in Parliament, and it might make for a more formalised setting for all questioning. There are ways of mitigating both of those risks in terms of the way we draft the legislation and the way we make sure that it is not just a decision of individual Committee, on a whim, whether or not to have an individual come along, but a decision of the whole House. Then, as Lord Judge put it to us, that is a deliberate contempt of Parliament, and the question for the House is, do we really want to put up with deliberate contempts of Parliament without sanction?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: Then sanction becomes very important, because the sanctions that do exist—theoretically—have not really been used since Sir John Junor’s case because the sanction made the House look more ridiculous than powerful. In the Dominic Cummings case, a very mild sanction was applied because of the risk of appearing ridiculous with a different sanction. I think that the draft legislation, with the prospect of two years’ imprisonment, risks going to the other end of the scale. It is hard to see what level of contempt would warrant two years in prison.

    Q231       Chair: What sanctions do you think are available now?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I am sure you have discussed this with the Clerks, but Parliament has never formally given up its ability to imprison during the Session of Parliament. It is not, I believe, a power that has been used since the 17th century.

    Q232       Chair: Do you think we still have that power?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I think the power still exists. Would it be subject to challenge? Almost certainly. Would the challenge succeed?

    Chair: Would you ever advocate using it?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: Do we have the power to fine? I think the power to fine is more debatable. I cannot remember when it was last used, if ever—you will know from your Clerks. The House of Lords made a very interesting argument in relation to fining its own Members, which you will remember. Whether that argument would apply in relation to the Commons and recalcitrant witnesses, I do not know. I think the reality of our powers is that we do not know whether they are there until they are used. Then you might find that they are upheld by the courts, or you might find that they are not. This is an argument where learned lawyers disagree.

    Q233       Chair: I am not sure many learned lawyers disagree, do they? The last time there was a fine was 1665, and I think imprisonment was 1891—

    Mr Rees-Mogg: So sorry, I was wrong on the last imprisonment, which if it was 1891 is only just beyond living memory.

    Q234       Chair: I think the last imprisonment was 1880, which was Charles Grissell. You are saying you think that, if the House were to come to you, as Leader of the House, you would table a motion that would say, “We are now going to imprison such and such for refusing to attend.”

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I could not predict whether that motion would get through, and I could not predict whether the courts would maintain it. This is all very theoretical.

    Q235       Chair: But you think that that power still exists.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: The power has not been formally abandoned by Parliament.

    Q236       Chair: I am going to try again. So you think that it is still a power that we hold. Do you think it would be morally okay for Parliament to imprison somebody?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I repeat what I said: Parliament has not formally abandoned this power. But I am not saying with any degree of confidence that the power, if used, would not be challenged. Is it an effective power? I do not know. But has it formally been abandoned by Parliament? No, as you know.

    Q237       Chair: I think nearly every Committee that has investigated fining has said that we no longer have the power to fine, and I think that is written in “Erskine May”. You can argue about the legal status of “Erskine May” if you want to.

    You have used the word “theoretical” several times, but I am not sure whether you are advocating that we should reassert our historic powers and say, “We now have the power to imprison,” so that is the sanction that would be appropriate for somebody refusing to give evidence.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: But I have just said that, in the draft Bill, the potential of two years in prison is entirely disproportionate to failing to appear as a witness. It is very hard to see the circumstances where two years in prison would be a suitable penalty.

    Q238       Sir Bernard Jenkin: First, I apologise for missing your opening remarks. How theoretical does something need to be and how long ago does it need to be, before we start using a term I learned during the consideration of this matter in the 2013 Joint Committee—“desuetude”?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I was just thinking of the word “desuetude”. Is there an option of desuetude in terms of the powers of Parliament? That is a question for the Committee.

    Q239       Sir Bernard Jenkin: You yourself say the powers are theoretical. When you say that, what do you mean?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: What I mean is that if the powers had been used, when they were used, in the 19th century, there was no question that they would be challenged in a court. We live in a very different era in terms of courts’ exercise of their powers, and we have the European Court of Human Rights, which is currently considering a case relating to Sir Philip Green. Therefore courts are able to go where they would not have dreamed of going in the 19th century, and that is why I think it is a theoretical power and that you do not know whether it would survive challenge until tested.

    Q240       Sir Bernard Jenkin: Is it your view, in that case, that we need to test this before we resort to statute?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I think this is an important part of your Committee’s report, as to whether you think that is a course worth using. But you may come to the conclusion that it is not. You may come to the conclusion that desuetude is the right answer in this case.

    Q241       Sir Bernard Jenkin: And if the powers have fallen into desuetude, what should we do about it?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I think the next stage in that is to consider whether the current situation is in fact working. That’s the bit I was saying earlier: if this is just a very small number of very high-profile cases—

    Q242       Sir Bernard Jenkin: I heard that bit. I think we accept that it is a very small number of very high-profile cases, but the question is to what extent that discredits Parliament as a whole. If there was a statutory process, to which the Speaker would only give access if we had been through a series of hoops, so it clearly was not a vexatious summons, over-political or designed to bully the witness, but to get on public record evidence that is legitimately required for a legitimate inquiry, and if all those hoops had been gone through and the person is still refusing, do you not think the additional persuasive power of embroiling a potential person in a statutory process might act as an encouragement for them to attend?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: Possibly. There are obvious risks—the risks that we discussed briefly—of formalising it with other witnesses, who feel that this is a more intimidating experience than it currently is, and I think, for many witnesses, it is already quite an intimidating experience. And there is always the issue of exclusive cognisance of our proceedings, and how we lock in with the courts, which I do have a nervousness about, because once you let the courts in, how far are they able to go? Our ability to run our own affairs is fundamental to how Parliament works, both Lords and Commons.

    Q243       Sir Bernard Jenkin: The courts might do that if we try to fine a witness for non-attendance anyway.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: They might. That bit is untried, and you may come to the conclusion that you think it is so unrealistic as not to be worth trying. You may think that the untested nature of it actually in and of itself provides an incentive to attend, because people are not entirely sure whether it would be effective or not.

    Q244       Sir Bernard Jenkin: To be clear, if the Committee proposes that the House adopts a report that supports legislation, are the Government predisposed to resist that?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: No, I am not saying that at all. What I have been trying to set out is what I think is necessary to make the case for legislation. There are three points: first, the legislation would not affect the exclusive cognisance of the House; secondly, that it would be more effective than the current system in terms of witness attendance and the information that they were willing to give—it needs to be actively better than the current system. And that leads to the third point: I think we need a statistical analysis of who has not been appearing and who has been appearing. It is quite hard to make the case to legislate for a very small percentage of cases if most people are in fact turning up and the system is working well.

    Q245       Chair: In which case you are saying no to legislation? We have said it, and every report has always said it: it is a very small number, but they are hard cases that make a mockery of our theoretical powers.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I think your report needs the numbers, so that we have the context. Is it that 1,000 have come and there is one who refused? Is it that 100 have come and one has refused? What is the proportionality? I don’t think legislating on one or two high-profile cases is a sufficient case.

    Q246       Chair: In which case you are saying no to legislation. Incidentally, I am still in a bit of shock at your belief that Parliament has the power to arrest and imprison, because I think that certainly went with the Human Rights Act 1998 and arguably went with the European convention on human rights.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: But I note you use the word “arguably”, and that is exactly what I have been saying.

    Q247       Chair: I don’t think anybody is arguing it—you are quite unusual in that position.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I have not been saying that I think these powers would survive test; I am simply saying they have not been tested and they have not been abandoned by the House.

    Q248       Chair: But do you think they should stand the test?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I would not want to imprison for non-attendance, as I have already said. Could the House have a system where it had some penal mechanism for people who failed to attend that was entirely a House matter? I don’t personally think that would be unreasonable, but it is a matter for your Committee to work out how that could be done in a way that was fair.

    Q249       Chair: Do you think it would be reasonable for the House to arrest?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I am not advocating arrest. I think imprisonment for non-attendance would be an extreme procedure. I am not advocating going back to the days of Peter Wentworth.

    Q250       Chair: What penal power would you suggest?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I think it is not unreasonable for the House to fine people for failing to attend.

    Q251       Chair: Wow! That is pretty extraordinary.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I don’t think it is. I would much rather the House did it and maintained its exclusive cognisance than that the courts did it. But that may in itself need legislation because, if the powers have fallen by the wayside, they cannot just be magicked up.

    Q252       Sir Bernard Jenkin: But if the offence being committed was not failure to attend, but first of all contempt of Parliament, it would secondly be contempt of court, because the court would order the person to attend.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: That gets very difficult. If courts start ordering people to attend Parliament, we are getting the courts directly involved in our proceedings, which I would be very nervous about.

    Q253       Chair: I am still in a bit of shock, I’m afraid.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I think the high court of Parliament should exercise its powers as a general principle. We are a sovereign Parliament: we are higher than any court in the land, and we should not be mealy-mouthed about being a Parliament.

    Q254       Chair: I think that is very difficult, but—

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I may be less committed to the niceties of human rights law, but I think a supreme sovereign Parliament with a democratic mandate is the greatest protection of human rights in this country.

    Q255       Chair: Okay. If we were to go down the route of the proposal we have come up with, I accept your point that two years may be excessive and that may need to be looked at. Indeed, Lord Judge made a sensible suggestion.

    My assumption is that this law would never be used; I think it would make it easier to get the difficult people to come, because the advice they would then be given by their lawyers would be that there is more reputational and financial risk and risk of criminal sanction if they do not turn up than if they do. I think it would improve things, and there is no reason why that would necessarily have an effect on all the other people with whom, in the normal course of things, it just happens very simply and informally.

    One of the things we have suggested to mitigate the problems and some of the risks that you and others have referred to is ensuring that there is a proper gatekeeper role, so it is not just one Committee deciding on a whim to summon somebody, but there would be a gatekeeper to go through before you get to the Speaker’s certificate, and then it is a deliberate contempt of Parliament. Does that process, if we were to go down that route, seem sensible to you?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I have a couple of things to say. First of all, if you are creating a power that you think would never be used, you are in much the same position as we are already, and then you get into the question—the Scottish Parliament has the power to fine, which I understand it has never used on a witness—of whether powers that you intend never to use are any better than the powers that you may or may not have that you never use. That is a matter for you.

    On the gatekeeper Committee, it depends on how it would interrelate with the court.

    Chair: Go on.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: Well, looking at the legislation, it doesn’t interrelate with the court; the court just looks at the fairness of the summons. So how does the court determine that and how do the two fit in together? That I am not clear on.

    Q256       Chair: So the bit for the court would be whether there is a reasonable excuse—something courts decide all the time is whether somebody turns up to court. Was it the 1948 contempt of court Act that basically formalised a set of agreements that had existed for a long time?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: Would the court be looking at the gatekeeper Committee having decided the summons? How would that be formalised? Would that be formalised in Standing Orders? It’s the question of how these two relate, because that is obviously where you get to the exclusive cognisance issue.

    Q257       Chair: Our working assumption has been—I think I am right, unless anybody corrects me—that if we were going down this legislative route, we would have to do some Standing Order changes so that there was a new process that got you to the Speaker’s certificate.

    We use the Speaker’s certificate because that has been an accepted system for some time and it limits the engagement of the court in the background to the decision. But it is undoubtedly true, as Lord Judge said earlier, that the defendant in a case might want to say, “Well, my reasonable excuse is that I think you’re all just engaged in a party political ding-dong and I don’t want to get involved in that.” Whether that would count as an excuse would be a matter for the court.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: Yes, and you would hope that the Speaker’s certificate, like the Speaker’s certificate under the Parliament Act or to money Bills, would not be challenged. This may be a more litigious area than money Bills if you have somebody who is very determined not to come. I think one has to be quite cautious about extending the remit of Speaker’s certificates. Just because they have not been challenged in a very specific area does not mean that they could not be challenged in another area. As I have said throughout, exclusive cognisance is very important.

    Q258       Sir Bernard Jenkin: You are setting some very important hurdles for legislation, but I think they are hurdles we may have to jump. I agree with you that Parliament is sovereign; Parliament is, in fact, the greatest guarantor of human rights in this country. After all, the only reason we have the Human Rights Act is that Parliament passed an Act. But doesn’t that also demonstrate that actually the only way Parliament can assert its sovereignty is through statute? While history may be littered with examples of how Parliament used to assert its sovereignty in different ways, statute has become the habit.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: Well, even article IX is statute.

    Q259       Sir Bernard Jenkin: Indeed, but article IX has a peculiar constitutional status, which also hitherto observed a self-restraining ordinance in respect of exclusive cognisance.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: Even the Act on tallage is statute. You go all the way back, and statute is of course how powers within the different arms of the state are exercised. That is absolutely right.

    Q260       Sir Bernard Jenkin: But there are all kinds of non-statutory powers that Parliament used to exercise that we don’t exercise anymore. I think if we sent a posse into the street to arrest somebody, the posse would not have any statutory authority and would not be regarded as a legitimate force. But that used not to be the case.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: This is the argument about Sessional Orders.

    Q261       Sir Bernard Jenkin: Which I hope you will restore.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I am very interested in that.

    Sir Bernard Jenkin: Not because they have any statutory force, but because they would inform the police outside the Palace that whatever statutory rules remain in force, they also have a public obligation to Parliament to secure the passages and so on—within the law, within statute law.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: The moral authority of Parliament should not be underestimated, even when the powers are not codified. That is an essential part of this investigation.

    Sir Bernard Jenkin: I look forward to your implementing the 2013 recommendation to restore Sessional Orders.

    Q262       Chair: That rather makes the point that we have been going around this track for a very long time—longer than I have been in the House and much longer than you have been in the House. I have an anxiety about that—that we will just be doing this again in 10 years’ time, 20 years’ time and 30 years’ time, by which time desuetude itself will have fallen into desuetude.

    On Scotland, the Scottish Parliament is of course set up by statute, so it is somewhat different. There is a reasonable excuse provision in that as well. It is all justiciable. It feels to me that we have three routes: one is that we can just accept desuetude and live with it, which I think is sort of where you are at, because you are reluctant to legislate unless it is absolutely necessary. Basically, you are saying to us, we have to prove to you that it is absolutely necessary.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I do not think that that was an unreasonable challenge.

    Chair: I am not objecting to that—

    Sir Bernard Jenkin: For the record, Chair, I do not think it is a no, but you are taking it as a no. I do not think it is a no.

    Q263       Chair: We will do our best to persuade, if that is the route that we want to go down. But you have reinvigorated a bit the argument that we could just reassert our powers today, which was considered in previous versions of this inquiry. It is just that when we have said we would reassert them, we have never done anything about reasserting them and, personally, I am very sceptical that that really meets—it feels a bit like an Act of Attainder.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: If all court judgments always went the way one thought in advance they would go, one would never go to court. Therefore, until you do this, you do not know whether it would work. We all have our views, and mine may not be that dissimilar from yours, but you do not know, and it has not been tested. Whether it is worth testing is a different question, because Parliament always has to make sure that it does not look ridiculous. That is why we have to be so careful about this. Whatever powers we have, if we use them aggressively or arbitrarily, we look ridiculous. We remain scarred—it is a long time ago now, but the John Junor case has scarred Parliament’s use of its powers ever since.

    We always face that problem, as we would with legislation. What would we actually want to do when someone refused to come—who was it, which Committee was it, and so on? I doubt it would be as simple as someone not coming, therefore we automatically go through this process and take them to court. There would be many political considerations we would want to take into account about the reputation of Parliament.

    Chair: You know how this ended up with us, which is basically that people worried that the dragon has no teeth and no flame-throwing ability, so it ends up being just a rather limp dragon.

    Mr Rees-Mogg: That is why I think it needs to be shown statistically what the real level of the problem is.

    Q264       Chair: I will ask you a completely different question, unless anyone has anything else they want to ask. As you know, the Committee of Privileges may only consider things that have been referred to it. There have been various suggestions that we should have a bigger power, so that, like most other Select Committees, we are able to consider things that interest us. Would you welcome that, or do you think that that is unnecessary?

    Mr Rees-Mogg: I think that the Privileges Committee is a particularly and singularly important Committee because it has that very narrow remit to do things specifically charged to it by the House. I think that is a good thing for the Committee and strengthens your reports.

    Chair: Anyone else? No. In which case, we are done. Thank you very much, Leader of the House.

  • Matthew Parris – 2022 Article on Former Prime Ministers

    Matthew Parris – 2022 Article on Former Prime Ministers

    A section of the article by Matthew Parris for the Times Newspaper on 4 November 2022.

    As with Liz Truss, it’s hard to put your finger on what isn’t quite right, but you just know. In a Truss biography (Out of the Blue) published this week, the word “weird” appears 18 times. To a visitor, she says: “I am weird and I don’t have any friends. How can you help me fix that?”
    Truss is an extreme example and spending four months in the sub-Antarctic an extreme case, but the underlying process is the same. We humans think we’re islands, entire unto ourselves. We think we could stay sane alone on a desert island. In our imagination, other human beings surround us but are separate. We’re unaware of the connections — myriad, muscular, almost umbilical — feeding our consciousness, our values, our perspective, our understanding; making and reshaping what and who we are, refreshing, rebooting, pruning, upgrading. In the lingo of IT, we are in a state of automatic and continuous download.

    …….

    When you are famous, when you are powerful, when you’re a king of the world, when those around you are dependent on your sympathies, a diary secretary organises your day, you see nobody without prior arrangement, protection officers hover, your media briefings orbit your own interests and anonymity is impossible, much of this unfiltered input begins to dry up. The sound of the commonplace grows fainter; the outlines of people who are of no account begin to blur. The world “out there” feels almost like a hologram. “The street” becomes for you no

    ………

    In the end, I can only prescribe time limits. Within five years, the condition has usually begun to manifest itself. Seven is the absolute limit. Thatcher had 11 and went bonkers, grotesquely unaware of what was going on. Truss managed that in weeks. John Major stayed sane and, in consequence, became deeply depressed.

  • Trevor Clarke – 2022 Comments on New Decade New Approach Policing Agreement

    Trevor Clarke – 2022 Comments on New Decade New Approach Policing Agreement

    The comments made by Trevor Clarke, the DUP MP for South Antrim, on 3 November 2022.

    The Chief Constable has reported that there will be 1,000 fewer officers in the PSNI by 2025. Already, tough decisions are being made to delay the repair of vehicles, slow down the issue of equipment and reduce occupational health services because of the pressures facing the police budget.

    Local communities and the PSNI workforce deserve better than this.

    The New Decade New Approach agreement contained a UK Government commitment – not an aspiration – to increasing police numbers to 7,500. That pledge has been utterly ignored and we are now seeing headcount plummeting toward 6,000.

    While the Secretary of State dithers and delays over the date of an election, the challenges facing policing, including the potential for a smaller and slower response to tackling crime and harm, continue to grow.

    The roots of this problem lie with years of under-investment with successive Justice Ministers in place. Furthermore, far from being a panacea, the Sinn Fein draft budget would have left the PSNI bereft of a further £226m over the next year years. This crisis will not be averted by just restoring the Executive.

    It is also important to be honest with the public and our hard-pressed officers. Any funding still available to the Executive could be spent three, five and probably even seven times over by our Departments, such are the pressures they face.

    Mr Heaton-Harris should acknowledge that if the average 5% pay award is good for officers in his own constituency, then officers are PSNI are worthy of that recognition too. A timely solution to the issue of public sector pay awards is needed across the Board and the Treasury first and foremost must increase its engagement to bring forward delivery arrangements that are fair.

    Ultimately, the NIO must now advocate for the practical and financial support that is desperately needed for policing in Northern Ireland. If it does not, the impact of a freeze on recruitment will be stark for communities in need of a visible, effective and responsive police service. It will not be a case of simply turning the tap back on. The Government needs to act now to protect all of our citizens and defend the gains that have been made through recent investment in neighbourhood policing.’

  • Carla Lockhart – 2022 Statement on Meeting with Chris Heaton-Harris

    Carla Lockhart – 2022 Statement on Meeting with Chris Heaton-Harris

    The statement made by Carla Lockhart, the DUP MP for Upper Bann, on 2 November 2022.

    It is deeply regrettable that the Secretary of State has continued down the pathway of Brandon Lewis by commissioning abortion services here in Northern Ireland.

    This is a devolved matter. It is for those elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly, and those appointed to serve in any future Executive, to decide on the law regarding abortion in this part of the United Kingdom.

    In a society where there are such deeply held views, on both sides of the argument, it is not surprising that reaching consensus on this issue at Stormont has been elusive. However, the answer to that is not to impose the pro-abortion minority viewpoint, when the clear majority in Northern Ireland are against the liberal abortion regime being pursued by the Secretary of State.

    We made this point forcibly to the Secretary of State and that his actions undermine both the devolution settlement in Northern Ireland and how devolution might be viewed by many people. The Secretary of State should be working to see the return of devolution and local decision making in Northern Ireland, not stripping away key decisions.

  • Keith Taylor – 2012 Letter to the Guardian on Cuadrilla

    Keith Taylor – 2012 Letter to the Guardian on Cuadrilla

    The letter sent by Keith Taylor, the then Green Party MEP for South East England, to the Guardian newspaper on 16 January 2012.

    Your report (13 January) of a packed village-hall meeting standing up to the chief executive and PR machine of the US multinational Cuadrilla over its plans to drill for gas clearly exposed the strength of feeling on this issue. The villagers are determined to oppose this oil and gas company’s attempt to expand its dangerous fracking practice from Lancashire to the south of England.

    There is growing evidence that fracking can cause a range of environmental problems. A recent study by the US Environmental Protection Agency reported evidence of pollution, finding a range of chemicals in the groundwater around shale gas wells in Wyoming. Last year in Lancashire a report to investigate minor earthquakes found it was “highly probable” that fracking in the Blackpool area by Cuadrilla was the cause. Mounting evidence about the negative impacts of shale gas extraction, along with the growing number of applications to drill in the UK, mean that now more than ever a thorough and independent investigation is needed into the possible effects on the environment and people’s health. Until then the government should halt drilling operations.

    In any case, shale oil will contribute little towards meeting our emissions targets. We should instead be investing in renewable energy, which is clean and safe. Other European countries are aware of the risks – France recently banned fracking. In the European parliament the Greens are questioning the European commission about whether this technique complies with EU regulations on water and chemicals, and I will be meeting constituents next week to support their campaign against fracking.

    Keith Taylor MEP
    Green, South East England

  • Keith Taylor – 2006 Speech to the Green Party’s Conference

    Keith Taylor – 2006 Speech to the Green Party’s Conference

    The speech made by Keith Taylor, the then Principal Speaker of the Green Party (alongside Caroline Lucas) on 22 September 2006.

    Great to welcome delegates here to the greenest city in the uk where, just 18 months ago we secured the highest ever UK general election vote and where next year, we are looking forward to significant gains in the local elections

    This is our first national conference since this May’s local elections where there was an increase of almost a third in the number of cllrs across the country. The elections that saw massive Labour losses and the LibDems failing to win a single seat. I’d like to congratulate those winning candidates and their local parties – their diligence and determination is an example to us all.

    What those results show is that people are turning to the Greens because the traditional politics, whether at Westminster or in their Town Hall is no longer part of the solution, it’s part of the problem.

    What those results show is that people are recognising that our vision of environmental, social and economic justice is the right vision for the 21st century.

    Those votes have been given to us so we can continue our work ..So that Caroline Lucas can fight for Fair Trade not Free Trade so Jean Lambert can defend public services and human rights. So Jenny Jones and Darren Johnson can carry on the greening of our capital city, as Londoners clearly want. So councillors across the country can bring the green revolution to people’s doorsteps..making improvements to people’s lives.

    We are doing all this, and more, delivering concrete political achievements in all the decision-making chambers to which we’re elected

    And it doesn’t take much imagination to realise how much more we’ll be able achieve once the first Greens are elected as MP’s to Westminster,

    Fellow greens, at the start of the 21st century humankind faces a climate change challenge which could literally end our time as the dominant species on this planet.

    Over the last 200 years there have been social and political challenges which have been solved by the emergence of new philosophies, new movements.

    At the beginning of the 19th century out of UK population of 16m, only 400,000 people were allowed a vote. After dedicated campaigns from reformers it took till 1928 until all adults, men and women had a vote.

    And it wasn’t til midway through the 20th century, in a bid to combat ignorance, disease, squalor, and poverty the Beveridge Report laid the foundations of the Welfare State.

    New thinking to provide new solutions to new problems.

    And now it is our climate that is on a critical path in world affairs, because of the activities of humankind.

    People are hungry for a solution, the planet is desperate for mercy, and it is green thinkers like us who have the answers..

    But when people look to the Westminster political parties for those climate change answers, what do they get?

    With the party of government, for all their posturing and ‘world leadership’ on global warming, they see carbon emissions going up not coming down under new labour!

    Furthermore, when Blair eventually does go, the country has to hope in vain his replacement will be any better – the New Labour project has entirely failed to lead the world on climate change by example – and they’ve proved leading by spin alone just doesn’t work.

    And when we look to the tories/lib dems –

    It’s good that environmental awareness has at last surfaced onto the mainstream agenda – because18 months ago at the last election it was nowhere.

    Indeed Cameron – architect of the brand new hug-a-hoodie-ride-a-bike- conservatism, failed to mention climate change at all when he wrote the Tories last manifesto.

    And as for Ming, just look and see what decisions the LibDems take when they are in power, more roads like the M74 in Scotland which was branded by FoE as probably the worst environmental decision ever taken by the Scottish Assembly.

    That’s repeated across the UK with more runways approved or supported by the LDs in Manchester, Exeter and Sheffield

    But this new found enthusiasm from the Tories and the LibDEms for tackling climate change is hollow without understanding the need for wholesale radical economic reform. The green taxes proposed by the Lds this week in Brighton are only part of the solution. A part that won’t work in isolation.

    Economic management is at the heart of tackling carbon reduction.

    For as long as the Westminster parties remain wedded to the joint beliefs the ‘market’ will deliver social and environmental solutions and that unrestrained unfettered economic growth at home and abroad must be given free rein we will make no real progress

    They are clinging to the economic strategies of the past which were about increasing consumption, about growth at any cost. But that growth brings effects the future can simply no longer absorb.

    The economic strategies of the past will not meet the needs of the future.

    Those traditional targets have no room for restrained and channeled growth, for reigning in our addiction to oil, and profligate energy use

    Nor do they accommodate or promote a world where simple solutions, using technology we already have…for wind farms, for solar panels, for energy efficient homes, … that could start us on the road to recovery and adaptation where local, small measures adopted on a global scale could make the high energy lifestyles of today unrecognizable.

    TERROR

    Since our last conference we’ve also see the fifth anniversary of the twin tower attack and since Bush and Blair declared their disastrous War on Terror.

    Five years on but disaster follows disaster and the world is now a far more dangerous place than it was five years ago…

    Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of people have died as a result of the War on Terror, most of them civilians. Crimes against humanity have been committed, and the situation in the Middle East is bloodier than ever.

    The Americans have simply thrown international law, and respect for international law, out of the window.

    Under the new neo-con world law, set and sheriffed by the US they seek to secure both continuous oil supplies and the destruction of any groups and governments perceived as hostile to US policies, democratically elected or not.

    Pre-emptive strike policies have now become a valid form of defence, and god help anyone who stands in their way. Right-thinking people the world over hope the lessons of Iraq are learnt before the same mistakes are made in Iran.

    This policy is both illegal – It violates the UN charter – and immoral

    And our own country’s involvement has been ignoble and shameful with Yo Blair’s act-now-pray-later-anything-you-say-boss-brown-nosing adoration of Bush and anything American.

    Blair is responsible for crimes against humanity and should be tried alongside Bush accordingly It’s not only abroad that the New Labour project is intent on leaving their damaging mark on our society.

    With both Blair and Brown’s support for a Trident nuclear weapons replacement they are spending billions in contravention of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.

    And in championing Trident, a replacement for a system which was designed to be a deterrent in a cold war which no longer exists, they have the full support of the Tories, and though the Lib Dems might be sitting on the fence we al know which way they are going to jump!

    Trident – the nuclear weapons system that, as part of the world wide web of WMD’s, ensures we are all only seconds away from annihilation at any one time.

    Tragedy is that whilst the nuclear nations spend billions on more efficient ways of killing people, millions die of malnutrition or lack of clean water for want of aid

    And at home, when we look at the energy crisis and government enthusiasm for a new programme of nuclear power stations we can see just how out of touch the they really are, both with the aspirations of this generation and any sense of responsibility to generations yet to come.

    We already have 2.3 million cubic metres of nuclear waste in storage,every single tax payer in this country is already paying 1000 pounds a head to clear up the toxic legacy of our current generation – but the government want to build more! There are better, cleaner, safer and cheaper alternatives, that don’t endanger our children’s health. That provide cheap and reliable energy and an end to fuel poverty, that don’t leave a dirty dangerous and expensive legacy for future generations to deal with.

    We should immediately rule out a greater use of the nuclear option and focus on cleaner, safer, renewable forms of energy. There should be a national strategy in place now to address the impacts of Peak Oil

    The challenge for the Green Party

    So how can the GP increase the pressure? Simply put, to achieve change through the political process we nee more greens elected.We already have the policies that can appeal to millions, now we have to sharpen up our act in admin delivering our message We need to be presenting our case across doorsteps, in works canteens, in colleges and meetings. We must all be messengers that another world is possible We must keep faith as other parties make their half-hearted attempts to jump on the green bandwagon.As it says on the back of a pair of Levis, beware of imitations.the time is arriving for our party, we have a job to do and a responsibility to step forward with our green solutions

    CALL TO ARMS

    The UK needs a new political order to deliver a new political will, to breathe life into the aspirations of people in their millions waking up to the real threat climate change poses, to put people at the centre of policies and curb the corporate takeover of the UK.

    The Green Party are a central part of that new political order

    That’s because, unlike the major parties with their self interest in preserving their own structures and government’s corporate links, we’re different. We are honest, trustworthy and courageous. We are not afraid to challenge and change the political climate, and the patronage that supports it. We need drastic, radical action on global warming – not tinkering round the edges. We have already adopted Tradeable Carbon Quotas and Contraction and Convergence – these together with a basket of other measures are solutions that will work and they must be widely adopted right now because we don’t have time to squander.

    The Westminster parties have failed to take decisive action, as yet they have not adopted these models

    But the greens are prepared to do this, because we are motivated by more than political expediency and tomorrow’s headlines. Our overarching ambition at home and abroad is a just and sustainable world.

    This means facing some hard choices and having the courage to challenge the status quo of life in Britain today and the effects it has

    ….Something the other parties aren’t prepared to do.

    They aren’t prepared to look at a country where…

    1 in 4 children grow up in poverty where the gulf between rich and poor is every day widening, public services are being eroded schools and hospitals sold off to the highest bidder and civil liberties eroded in the name of respect where billions are wasted on the Big Brother ID card scheme

    ….no, the other parties don’t want to go there..let alone say “something has go to change”

    They would prefer not to admit that…

    the world’s policeman has turned into a bully-boy and words like intolerance, bigotry, hatred, persecution and ethnic cleansing are stock in trade of evil leaders and the rich live in excess at the expense of the poor or that the world’s poorest are suffering the impacts of our over travelled, over consumptive lives in the West, and where extreme weather events are more frequent and the dead and displaced are measured in their millions

    We must not shirk from confronting these wrongs

    We have a part to play in returning true environmental, social and economic justice whether it be to the Transit camps at DarfurOr the refugee camps in Gaza

    Conference, I think now is the time that we must declare war on carbon.

    This is a war we CAN win, and a war we MUST win for human survival. The front line is here, the time for action is now.

    And I believe the Greens are the party with real and pragmatic plans to get us out of this hole

    A party that understands to lower our emissions by 90% by 2050

    reduce energy demand source from renewable sources, improve efficiency.

    ..We must have binding , compulsory carbon reduction targets

    We need to control and reduce aviation emissions, with a special aviation emission trading system

    We need to look at the way we live and how we can change that to fit within the resources of one world.

    And we must shout loud and clear that voters shouldn’t be taken in by the green-sounding platitudes of the gray parties.

    There is only one party that’s really green, and that’s the Green Party

    And we have the solutions that the future needs.Because we only have one planet, and we only have one chance, and that is why we will continue to win peoples hearts and minds. And that’s why people will vote Green.

    Conference, we must never give up our quest, because the future is in our hands, and history waits to see if humankind is up to the challenge we’ve been given.

    Thank you.

  • Keith Taylor – 2005 Speech to the Green Party’s Spring Conference

    Keith Taylor – 2005 Speech to the Green Party’s Spring Conference

    The speech/speaking notes made by Keith Taylor, the then Principal Speaker for the Green Party (alongside Caroline Lucas) on 4 March 2005.

    Fellow Greens, I’m sorry I couldn’t be here yesterday, but I was speaking in the Brighton & Hove Council budget debate, where like in Oxford/Norwich/Lancaster we were busy placing Green priorities within the spending plans of those councils

    And I’m sorry I can’t be here tomorrow or Sunday, but I there’s a full weekend’s work back in Brighton Pavilion constituency

    Anyone would think there’s an election on!

    Like many of you I have been talking across of lot of doorsteps over the last few months, and when I explain to people how Greens are putting their interests and those of the environment at the heart of our policies, more and more are agreeing with us that those priorities are the right ones for the 21st century

    People are hungry to see integrity and vision put back into all levels of government. They want policies that are about the next 100 years, not the next 100 days

    In fact over a million people voted Green in the last European Elections, and where people have elected Greens, they like what they get and want more

    We now have more councillors than ever before, as well as 2 MEPs / 2 GLAMs and over the border in Scotland there’s a magnificent 7 MSPs

    Yes, I know the FPTP system works against reflecting the diversity of the community, and it works against smaller parties. But it’s the system we’ve got, and the one we have to work with. And the one I’m sure will deliver the public with their first Green MPs, very soon.

    But, while we’re on the subject of FPTP wouldn’t it be good for Tony Blair to deliver on his pledge he made in 1997 to hold a referendum on whether the public wanted PR? We could hold that at the same time as the referendum on the European Constitution.

    Soon, will be the General Election. We’ll have getting on for 200 GE candidates, about 30% of the seats in the UK, and many more contesting local elections

    That’s not bad for a party that does not feed at the corporate trough – which I see the latest snout swallowing big business bucks belongs to the LibDems – they’ve obviously given up all hopes of street cred

    Our manifesto will be published on XXXX, and once again provides radical and alternative policies across the whole spectrum of how we live, how society functions, and offers policies that deliver social, environmental and economic justice for all.

    we’re unveiling today our campaign slogan that wraps up what we are offering –

    REAL CHOICE FOR REAL CHANGE

    The Green Party is the Real Choice for Real Change because Britain needs an new intelligent, radical and compassionate vision for politics. We need real change now on the pressing issues that face our society such as climate change and the power of big business. We need a politics and economics that puts people first and delivers real quality of life.

    Our major campaign themes headline three key areas where action is needed now

    * Global Warming – that Climate Change is happening now as a result of burning fossil fuels is no longer in doubt * more than simple rhetoric needed – Blair is fooling no one by promising action while other govt policies undermine carbon reductions * and Labour, to their shame, recently voted to increase the carbon emissions allowed for industry * Need to stop the plans to treble the aviation industry within 20 years, * redirect the £30BN roadbuilding programme into investment in sustainable transport * massively invest in renewable energies * use regulatory powers to reduce unnecessary waste like packaging materials which form a large part of what’s being thrown away

    We need a strong Green voice at Westminster to deliver these messages

    * Public services * stop sell off * bring rail services back into public ownership * no more Foundation Hospitals * no more PFIs, because * PFIs are poor value for money, * taxpayers pay through the nose over long contracts for generally a lower standard of service * bad for standards (link between cleanliness/MRSA/privatised services) * bad for workers * end the spurious ‘choice’ argument about patients choosing where they want health treatment What people want is a good service in their local hospital or surgery, free at the point of delivery * Proper funding for public servicesIn getting an education or receiving medical treatment there mustn’t be two levels of service, a good one for those who can afford it and a worse service for those that can’t. Free medical care, no tuition fees, no top up fees

    * Yet still the westminster parties cling on to the misplaced faith that the markets will solve social inequality * Well that needs challenging – and we need a strong Green voice at Westminster to do that

    Iraq – breakdown in trust/accountability * That Tony Blair took this country to war on a lie is no longer in doubt * No WMDs were ever found and the dodgy dossier was another piece of Downing St fiction * That Tony Blair took this country into an illegal and immoral war is now longer in doubt * It’s being reported that the legal basis for war presented to MPs was written not by the Lord Chancellor, but was a “statement of his views” written by two devout Blairites

    And you couldn’t argue that we didn’t try to tell him it was wrong.

    The millions people demonstrating across the UK tried, but Blair believed he was “doing the right thing”

    And now George Bush and Tony Blair tell us we need to draw a line under Iraq. Mistakes were made, but so what? Get over it they say.

    100,000 Iraqis won’t wake up tomorrow. They can’t get over it – and in this case there can be no justification that the means justified the end.

    What we’re left with is a PM who’s taken this country into five wars in six years – Bombing Saddam Hussein in 98, military action in Kosovo in 99, Sierra Leone in 2000, followed by Afghanistan, then Iraq. That’s more conflicts than any other British PM

    And what we’re left with is a government and a premier who does not accept either the mistakes he made or responsibility for what his government did in this country’s name

    And what we’re left with a drift towards increasing big brother controls and decreasing civil liberties – a turn about in the basic legal right that every person is deemed innocent until proven guilty. We see politicians seeking to act as prosecutor, judge and jury.

    And that conference, is a major assault on liberty and democracy

    We need a strong Green voice at Westminster to effectively champion these values because NO OTHER PARTY WILL DO IT

    And Iraq has left people * not trusting Labour * feeling disempowered * feeling their vote counts for nothing

    Well we want to re-value those votes because every single vote IS precious

    Give it to us and we will make good use of it

    Labour will still win this election but every single green vote sends a message that the business as usual politics of Westminster is no longer good enough, it needs a thorough sorting out.

    Voters are fed up with the pantomime politics of Westminster, where policy setting is not about long term vision or strategic thinking, but more about what marketing experts have identified will sway people to vote one way or the other.

    Look at labour’s six pledges total failure to mention climate change, that’s despite Tony Blair just one week earlier naming it nr 1 challenge

    Look at the climate of fear that all three parties are stoking up, so they can frighten people into voting for them, so that they can lock people up at a whim.

    Look at the race to find a scapegoats led by M Howard, followed closely by Charles Clark. Immigration, asylum seekers and is always a favourite. The more vulnerable the target the better, because there’s less chance of anyone speaking out for them.

    Yes of course immigration and those issues are important, but it’s part of the decoy that all three Westminster parties are deploying to distract attention from where they are really taking this country, to distract from * from the divisive effects of their govt’s social policies * the ever increasing gap between rich and poor, * the continuing exploitation of our environment and resources in the name of the major corporations and at the expense of developing countries and of future generations. * Their shared reliance on simple economic expansion as being the only kind of growth that is possible

    * One of our activists neatly summed up what happened to Labour and New Labour. Labour started off as a movement and a political party, with the arrival of the New Labour project it lost its values and just turned into another political party.

    * We need to remain both a movement and a party, because the passion, the vision and values of the first must be the guide to the second

    * We must work alongside other progressive thinkers to ensure that our children and theirs receive the future they deserve

    * We cannot stand by and allow the human race to become the first intelligent species to be the authors of its own extinction

    Now is the time for a politics of vision, of ideals and values

    “The Green Party received over a million votes in the European Elections and – at least in a few key constituencies – voters could now elect a real alternative to the war-mongering and deception of the Labour Party. Once in Parliament, even a handful of Green MPs would change the face of politics for good”.

    Time for a Real Choice for Real Change

    Together we can do it!

  • Iain Duncan Smith – 2002 Speech to the Royal Institute for International Affairs

    Iain Duncan Smith – 2002 Speech to the Royal Institute for International Affairs

    The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, on 31 January 2002.

    For more than three-quarters of a century, British and foreign politicians alike have been beating a path to the doors of Chatham House in order to set out their wares before this distinguished and discriminating gathering. I am honoured and delighted to be invited to do likewise.

    Henry Kissinger’s most recent book, published before the outrages of 11th September, was provocatively entitled “Does America Need a Foreign Policy?” His answer, of course, was “yes”. Dr Kissinger argues that (I quote) “in the 1990s, American preeminence evolved less from any strategic design than a series of ad hoc decisions designed to satisfy domestic constituencies” which had “given rise to the temptation of acting as if the United States needed no long-range foreign policy at all”.

    Under President George W. Bush – as I learned for myself when I talked to him and senior members of his Administration – America does indeed now have such a policy. It is strong, focused, self-confident, realistic and governed by an intelligent perception of America’s national interest.

    In this, as in other respects, the Americans have much to remind us of.

    Dr Kissinger’s question about America was obviously asked tongue-in-cheek: a super-power does clearly need a long-range foreign policy. But Britain needs one just as much. We are the fourth largest economy, a power with global interests but limited resources to defend them. We have to be focused in our analysis, realistic in our objectives, staunch in our alliances, ingenious in our methods and resolute in our actions.

    And, to quote Kissinger again, our leaders need “the intuitive ability to sense the future and thereby master it”. It is a tall order. But, then, whoever said statesmanship was easy?

    Tuesday 11th September brought home to many the domestic imperative of foreign affairs. The terrorist outrages committed against New York and Washington transformed public perceptions throughout the West. Suddenly, people of all political persuasions and none were compelled to take stock of the dangers and the complexities of the world beyond our shores.

    It is essential, however, not to fall into the trap of believing that the world itself – along with perceptions of it – changed fundamentally on that fateful Tuesday.

    Most obviously, al-Qaeda was planning these attacks for a number of years beforehand. Indeed, arguably, if different decisions had been taken by the US authorities in the wake of earlier outrages the horrors of last September might have been avoided.

    As the title of this address suggests, Britain does indeed have to make its way in a “changing world”. But it is important to distinguish what changes from what stays the same.

    11th September was not, after all, the first time even in modern recollection when the world appeared to be undergoing fundamental change. It happened at the end of the Cold War. Freedom was extended to millions who had never known it. And geopolitics was all at once turned up-side-down. The world became uni-polar, with the United States as the only global superpower. The international system was more open but less predictable. It was one where the globalisation of both economics and culture were promoted by a communications revolution.

    But there also grew up a dangerously false view of realities. The Cold War had lasted so long that many people assumed that a stand-off between great powers was the usual state of affairs. And now that there was no such stand off, it was tacitly assumed that there was also no serious threat to peace.

    In fact, the end of the Cold War meant no such thing. It marked in many respects a return to earlier conditions – ones where a number of powers jostled for advantage, and where both alliances and tensions shifted in line with the circumstances of the day.

    Within this more fluid world NATO’s role retained its importance. And so did America’s leadership. But the old disciplines disappeared along with the old rigidities. Hence the rise of the rogue state. Hence also Saddam Hussein and the Gulf War.

    And then again the world seemed fundamentally to change on 11th September. Old rivalries have given way to at least one new partnership – that emerging between the West and Russia, whose strategic importance has been emphasised by the demands of the War Against Terrorism. So too, the rivalry between the US and China, which had grown sharply in recent years, has suddenly been put on hold. These, then, are some of the ways in which the world today has changed.

    And yet equally important is the extent to which the underlying realities have not changed at all – either with the end of the Cold War or with the start of the War on Terrorism. We have clearly not reached anything like the “End of History”, when swords are forged into ploughshares – or perhaps laptops – as the lure of prosperity transforms yesterday’s warrior into today’s entrepreneur.

    Yet these particular instances fail to get to the heart of the matter. Even before we analyse the risks that surround us we should at least always assume that they exist. For that is the way the world is. Human nature has made it so.

    The insight I have described here is at the heart of the Conservative view of foreign policy. Conservatives – with a big and a small “c” – are interested in the world as it is. We are realists; and we rejoice in the fact, because we know that it allows us to avoid succumbing to the distractions and descending into the cul-de-sacs that lure the unwary.

    There is, though, another view. And it is frequently proclaimed by the Prime Minister.

    The Conservative Party has supported, and will support, the Prime Minister whenever the national interest demands. But this does not detract from the fact that the present government has an approach to British foreign and security policy which is, at its very roots, misguided.

    The problem is simple and fundamental. It is that the Prime Minister seems to believe that there are no limits to what Britain, acting as part of an all-embracing global coalition of the Righteous, can and should do to make the world a better place. To judge from a speech he made earlier this month in Bangalore, he does not even see any limits to foreign policy, saying (I quote): “In today’s globally interdependent world foreign and domestic policy are part of the same thing”.

    If, of course, this means that you cannot have a successful foreign policy without also having a successful domestic policy, then there is a certain amount of truth in it. But, even then, it is not the whole truth. Countries which seek to pursue ambitious foreign policies which neither advance their interests nor match their resources are putting their standing and possibly their security at risk. And there is worse. An unfocused approach to foreign policy leads to, and is often devised in pursuit of, media grand-standing.

    The truth is that high profile diplomacy always contains it own temptations. Before foreign leaders decide to offer their personal services in sorting out long-standing international disputes, they should be clear about the answer to three searching questions. First: what do I expect to achieve?

    Second: what practical means are at my disposal?

    And third: am I best placed to do it?

    Without clarity on these points, the correct conclusion may be to stay at home.

    So much of today’s Designer Diplomacy demonstrates a worrying lack of realism. What is at work is a delusion about the way the world actually works, one which consists (in T. S. Eliot’s words) of : “Dreaming a system so perfect that no-one will need to be good”.

    Today’s utopian internationalists, who only have to glance at an opportunity for multilateral intervention in order to jump at it, run the risk of weakening national support for those military engagements which are fundamental to our security. Moreover, they fail to recognise that it is only when nations consider that their vital interests are engaged that they will make those sacrifices and shoulder those commitments that lead to successful outcomes.

    Let me take the War Against Terrorism as a decisive case in point.

    The attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon provoked such national, as well as international, outrage because no-one could fail to see that they were intended as attacks not just on America’s interests, policies, and actions but on America herself.

    I said at the time that America’s war was – and is – our war. That is both because our people and our interests are so close to those of America and because we also had the will and the means to make America’s struggle ours as well. But the fact remains that America unambiguously led the war – a sovereign power leading a coalition of sovereign powers.

    America has now demonstrated decisively that its capacity for action is the best guarantee of the world’s security. But America has also demonstrated that, no matter how powerful the currents of globalism and internationalism, the decisive strike against international terrorism required mobilising national loyalty, national pride and national willingness for sacrifice. That remains the most reliable way of ensuring that grave wrongs are punished and that just wars are won.

    This reflection leads to my first conclusion about the right priorities for British policy today. For me, as a Conservative, a successful foreign and security policy is one which always has a clear understanding of the national interest.

    That is not an isolationist principle: quite the reverse – it is precisely because our national interest is bound with the interests of other civilized nations that we must pursue a vigorous foreign policy. But we must always have a clear understanding of our mission.

    But, naturally, the national interest has to be viewed in the round, with intelligence and perception.

    In today’s interdependent world, the national interest can be damaged or advanced by crises arising far away from our shores – not unusually in the Middle East, home to most of the world’s hydrocarbon resources. But many other areas too, where international terrorism, or proliferation of weaponry, or destabilising ethnic tension, or human or ecological disaster threaten, will rightly concern us. The War Against Terrorism itself reinforces this truth. After all, when our troops were acting to smash the Taliban in Afghanistan they were also acting to cut off a deadly channel of heroin that kills young people in our cities at home.

    Moreover, it can sometimes arise, as in Kosovo, that a failure to take military action to protect an endangered civilian population would be morally culpable. It may also be right to intervene in order to maintain a great principle whose infraction with impunity could set a fatal precedent – for example, the principle that aggression shall not prosper, or that borders shall not be changed by force. And over and above all these security matters, the maintenance of global trade, promotion of global prosperity and enlargement of global freedom are real national concerns of Britain. But when we do, which was not the case in Kosovo at the outset, we must determine to put the right forces in place to force our plan.

    The history of our nation has qualified us well to play a major strategic and humanitarian role. The fact that Britain bestrides three spheres of influence: its Commonwealth, its special relationship with America and its partnership with other European states enables it to have influence over the response of the international community to disasters both natural and man-made.

    Other countries actually look to Britain to take a lead because of our heritage in international diplomacy and our reputation for getting things done.

    British NGO s are highly regarded and it is no surprise that the United Nations has just picked Oxfam as an acknowledged world expert to restore water supplies in Goma. Providing international help on this scale is resource hungry that is why hard questions need to be asked about the effectiveness of aid, making sure it gets into the right hands. And as far as possible helping to make a country self-reliant and not dependent.

    Reform of international organisations through whom Britain channels its multi-lateral aid should not escape our attention. European Development assistance accounts for a third of all our giving and although there has been some progress in cutting red tape and speeding up EU relief efforts, much more needs to be done. Britain’s role on the international stage is an important part of our nation’s identity. Being respected for the quality of our help to others in trouble is something we can be rightly proud of.

    The second follows from a clear understanding of our priorities. It is that diplomacy is no substitute for strong defence, and foreign entanglements that leave British forces overstretched and vulnerable are to be avoided.

    Britain is not just another second order world power. We are unique, and our uniqueness lends our opinions weight. No other power enjoys the combination of far-flung links through the Commonwealth, or our special standing in the Gulf, or our place at the historic hub of the English speaking world or our long tradition of civil peace or our international reputation for decency and fair-dealing. These are all important advantages. But while trumpeting all these claims, let’s not forget something else: Jaw-Jaw is indeed preferable to War-War – but investment in defence is also an investment in our international influence. We are listened to, above all, because we are permanent member of the UN Security Council, and a nuclear power with highly effective armed forces – and because we benefit from a uniquely close relationship with the only global superpower. Each of these – our defence preparedness and our alliance with America – is vital to our national interest.

    Happily, our relations with our great ally are in good repair, though I should like to see them stronger still, as I shall explain.

    Our lack of defence preparedness, however, gives greater cause for concern. The size of our armed forces has been shrinking at the same time as they have been tasked with extra commitments – the most recent being a new peacekeeping mission in Kabul which is much less well-defined than the original objective of removing the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

    What any sensible British Government has to recognise, and then to act upon, is that we cannot hope to do more in the world and yet spend less on it. That’s called facing up to reality.

    In the US today, there is a drive towards further strengthening of military capabilities. In Europe, however, it is a very different picture. According to the latest figures from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, EU countries’ defence spending continues to fall. This is deeply disturbing, and there is no sign yet that the events of 11th September have shaken Europeans – or the British Government – out of their complacency.

    That brings me to my third conclusion – the vital strategic importance of our relationship with America. For it is upon our American friends’ cooperation that our effectiveness as a military power and our security as a nation depend. Not the least of the positive inheritance from the Conservative eighties and nineties is that Americans know that Britain is America’s most reliable ally. It is to the credit of the Prime Minister that he has reinforced that perception by his well-chosen words of support during recent months. In fact, at an emotional level the Trans-Atlantic relationship has rarely been closer.

    This emotion also reflects a deep reality. People sometimes query the importance of the “special relationship” and suggest that it is just nostalgia. It isn’t. It reflects the fact that the British and Americans see the world in much the same way – which itself reflects our shared history, language, culture, values and beliefs. And it is upon such foundations that international relationships are built. Yet while psychological closeness is important, it is not a substitute for decision-making.

    Since September 11th something else has changed. We have all but seen the last of the attempts to induce America to abandon its plans for Ballistic Missile Defence. Russia has been constructive over the issue, recognizing that the ABM Treaty was based on a military doctrine which has substantially changed. The priority now is not so much to deter a massive nuclear strike: it is to protect ourselves, our forces and our allies from missile attack by rogue states or from the risk of accidental missile launches.

    I believe that the British Government should have given stronger support to President Bush’s plans and led the debate here in Europe. Indeed, we should be doing all we can to take advantage of them. Just as we benefit from America’s nuclear umbrella, so we should also seek to benefit from its Ballistic Missile shield. Staying outside it by default would be to take an unforgivable risk with our nation’s security.

    A further piece of confusion is also discernable on the political horizon. Labour’s position on Ballistic Missile Defence is explicable by the internal politics of the Labour Party.

    Yet America is determined to see this enterprise through – and rightly so. Washington clearly sees that the problem of rogue states and the problem of international terrorism are intimately connected.

    The world cannot be safe while Saddam Hussein is free to develop weapons of mass destruction. Nor can we accept that, simply because they were hostile to the Taliban, other states which actively support terrorism should be treated as if they were upstanding members of the international community. Britain should give absolute support to the measures necessary to ensure that events like those of 11th September are never repeated.

    We should always recognize that our ability to help shape the thinking of the USA is greatest if we retain the capacity to act. If all we have to offer is our wisdom, our influence is likely to be diminished.

    The confusions evident in this Government’s approach to foreign and security policy are also reflected in its confused approach to Europe. What is required is a clear, consistent strategy to promote Britain’s national interests in all our dealings with the European Union – and that is my fourth conclusion. This is a larger topic than can conveniently be covered here. But the main components of the Conservative Party’s policy are well known and enjoy very widespread support.

    They are, first, that we believe that the European Union continues to have great potential to help bring stability and prosperity to what should be a growing number of member states. To deliver that the EU needs radical reform, and that reform should be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down – in other words from the nation states and their parliamentary and political systems. A Conservative government would lead that process of reform, rather than pursue the Government’s policy of continual drift.

    The statements of both the present Right-of-Centre Italian Government and of the Conservative Candidate for the German Chancellorship demonstrate that the kind of concerns we have about over-centralisation are widely shared – even within countries which have been at the forefront of closer European integration.

    Second, and in keeping with this, we continue to oppose Sterling’s abolition in favour of the Euro. Our view is that there will never be a single interest rate and a single monetary policy which are right for all European countries. We remember the effects of the ERM. We also note the disastrous consequences of a fixed exchange rate in Argentina. We shall strongly, and I believe successfully, argue for retention of the Pound in any referendum which is called.

    Third, we believe that the proposed European Rapid Reaction Force is an exercise in politics not in serious security policy. It is – and has been intended as – an alternative to NATO, the most successful defence organisation that the world has ever seen. It will involve duplication. It will lack credibility. It will create confusion about Western aims. It risks decoupling Europe from America. It will add nothing to European defence capabilities, which as I have already noted are actually declining. In short, the European Army is a venture which only makes sense if it is regarded as a necessary part of creating a European superstate – something which the Prime Minister denies is his intention.

    The fifth element of our Conservative foreign policy concerns supranational organisations more widely. International cooperation between sovereign states is and always will be necessary to achieve practical objectives which would be beyond countries acting alone. That is why we have always been supportive of international bodies including the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation. The danger today, however, is that some supranational organisations are being invested with more powers than they are suited to wield.

    For example, we expressed our concerns in the last parliament about how the blueprint for an International Criminal Court would work in practice. It may, as in the cases of Yugoslavia and Rwanda, be necessary to set up special courts to deal with altogether unique circumstances. But we must avoid at all costs creating a situation which makes it more difficult for law-abiding nations to pursue just action, because it is their officials or soldiers which will find themselves having to answer to such a political body, not those from countries which scorn all law.

    There are parallel issues in economic affairs. We need to find and retain the right balance between global and national decision-making. The World Trade Organisation, as successor to the GATT, does sterling work in helping integrate the global market place. Removing obstacles to trade is the single most important task international economic decision makers have – for trade is the driving force of prosperity. But at the same time we should be cautious about more ambitious plans that have been mooted to create a “New Economic Order”.

    We should, in fact, remember: supranational organisations never of themselves kept the peace – that has been left to well-armed nation states. And supranational organisations never of themselves made nations rich – that was the work of countless individuals producing and consuming in the market place, in the context of fair and democratic institutions.

    I have tried to cover a wide canvas today, and some details will need to be filled in on other occasions. But the five axioms I have set out – and the philosophy which underpins them – are, I believe, clear, consistent and coherent. They stem from a view of the world, a world seen through Conservative eyes. The great Macaulay was not, of course, a Conservative – though I fancy he would be today. I warm to his observation, all the same, that “an acre in Middlesex is worth a principality in Utopia”. Our historian would doubtless be extremely surprised at the cost of land in Middlesex. But I am sure he would not be at all surprised to find preoccupations with Utopia still generating political folly. The next Conservative Government will try to change that.

  • Iain Duncan Smith – 2002 Speech to Students at Westminster Central Hall

    Iain Duncan Smith – 2002 Speech to Students at Westminster Central Hall

    The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, in London on 5 February 2002.

    It is a great pleasure for me to speak at the Westminster Day 2002 today and I am very grateful to you for inviting me. I know that my predecessor, William Hague, very much enjoyed coming to the Westminster Day and I look forward to doing what I can to support it in the future.

    One of the reasons for that is the importance that I attach to encouraging people from all walks of life, whatever their background, to take an interest in politics and what their political leaders are actually doing. That applies just as much to people of my own generation as it does to people of your generation. It is important because the decisions that are made here in Westminster can have a huge impact on all our lives.

    Questions about the future of our health service, about our education system, about the actions we will take to protect the state of the environment and to help those in our world less fortunate than ourselves, all of these will be decided through our political process.

    Our world is moving at a bewildering pace. It is important that democratic institutions guarantee our security at such a time, while leaving us free to take advantage of the opportunities that change presents us.

    But you cannot understand the power of politics without recognising first its place in modern life. At the very time when people are looking to politics for more and more answers, there has never been a more glaring disconnection between politicians and the people whom they are elected to represent.

    Active participation in politics is now very much a minority pastime. General apathy with politics is now leading to dangerously low levels of participation in the democratic process itself.

    Huge numbers of people cannot be bothered to vote. For them politics is just one big turn off.

    That was demonstrated clearly at the General Election last year. At just 59 per cent we had the lowest turnout of voters at any Election since 1918 – and even then there were exceptional circumstances at work. Alarmingly for the state of our politics, more people stayed at home and didn’t vote on polling day than actually went out and voted for the party that won.

    Among younger people the situation was more shocking. Just before the election an opinion poll for the BBC showed just 38 per cent of 18-24 year olds intending to vote, while among 25-34 year olds the figure was still only 45 per cent.

    This isn’t a partisan point at all but there is a strong argument for saying that the real winner at the Election was apathy.

    As a candidate, I met countless numbers of people who said to me that there was simply no point in voting. “They’re all the same – after your vote and then do nothing when they get in”. “Voting never changes anything. “It makes no difference to me”. They’re just in it for themselves”.

    So it almost goes without saying that the image of politics and politicians, especially among younger people, is not a good one. It is borne out in opinion polls that regularly place politicians among the least trustworthy members of society.

    There are numerous reasons for this. I don’t doubt that the various scandals that have hit all parties in recent years have tarnished the general image of politicians.

    There is a widespread feeling that Parliament no longer matters – that it is marginal to events and not a place where people can get things done.

    The language of politics is so often not the language of people and the priorities of politicians sometimes don’t appear to be the people’s priorities. As a result, political leaders seem to be remote arguing about obscure matters that have little or no relevance to people’s day-to-day experiences.

    There is the growth of single-issue pressure groups that channel people’s energies and act as an outlet for their political grievances rather than political parties.

    And, of course, there is the perfectly understandable fact that most people don’t sit around agonising about the day’s events at Westminster but simply want to get on with their lives.

    These, then, are the problems. What are the solutions?

    The first is that both politicians and voters must rise above the ritual cynicism that has become too ingrained in the conduct of politics.

    Britain does not need to be a nation of full time political junkies. But we should recognise that among all the freedoms we have in the country the democratic right to vote in, and to throw out, the Government of the day is perhaps the most priceless.

    Look at what is happening in places like Zimbabwe today, where free and fair elections are in peril. 20 years ago I served with the Army in Zimbabwe as we helped to help transform that country from white minority rule into a multiracial, multiparty state. Now, step-by-step it is becoming a dictatorship, unless we do something to stop it. That’s why democracy matters.

    Think of the first fully democratic elections in South Africa after the end of apartheid, when people from the black townships got up at dawn, walked for miles and then queued for hours simply in order to exercise their new-found freedom to vote after years of political struggle and oppression. That’s why democracy matters.

    When you see in Afghanistan today, women free to walk the streets by themselves, free to go to school and free to teach in those same schools because we lifted that country from the tyranny of the Taliban. That’s why democracy matters.

    If we pretend otherwise, if we allow our own cynicism to obscure what a precious and hard-earned thing democracy is, then we cheapen not only ourselves we cheapen those who have lived without it for far too long.

    We only have to look at our own country to see the power of democracy. Britain has become a very different place in the last 20 years in part because of the electoral successes of Margaret Thatcher, whether your parents agreed with her or voted for her.

    The second thing we can do to revive our democratic culture, is to engineer an outbreak of honesty. You might think this a particularly difficult thing for a politician to achieve!

    After all we live in an age of spin, soundbites and media manipulation, partly because we are led to believe that what looks and sounds good is more important than what is good.

    This not only insults you as future voters, it does politicians a disservice too. I became involved in politics because I believed in certain things:

    – that the more choice and more freedom people have the better their lives are;
    – that the traditional rights and laws which shape the way we live our lives in Britain should be preserved for future generations;
    – that governments don’t have all the answers and are at their worst when they pretend that they do.

    These beliefs haven’t changed. If you ask me what it is that politicians do, I would say we are in the business of ‘practical idealism’. Politics is at its best and its most honest when it is driven by values, when the political debate is between the policies which flow from different principles.

    These principles will differ from party to party. For the Conservatives it is about putting more trust in people and taking the world as we find it, rather than the way we would like it to be. That is where we start from when we seek to improve things.

    Some of these improvements will be modest. It doesn’t make them any less worthwhile. Today my colleague Caroline Spelman is announcing an appeal launched with Islamic Relief to raise money for a mobile ambulance that will help treat landmine victims in Afghanistan. It is a practical step that will help thousands of victims. It is the sort of initiative that is replicated by countless thousands of people in this country up and down our country every day.

    Trusting people means trusting their instincts, their desire to improve their neighbourhoods, to help out in their communities, to lend a hand to people on the other side of the world.

    In our public services, it means giving more power to doctors and nurses and to teachers so that they can offer the quality of health care or education that they joined their respective professions to give. It is a simple vision rather than a grand design, but putting it into practice is far from easy. It means looking again at the way we run our hospitals and schools.

    It is one of the reasons why my Conservative colleagues have spent so much time looking at the way other countries run their public services in France, Germany and Sweden to see what we can learn, to see what might be made to work here.

    It means breaking away from old thinking, from the dogma and ideology that has characterised too much of our political debate on these issues for too long.

    What really matters is that people are treated more quickly and to a higher standard in our hospitals; that more pupils have the chance to achieve the same qualifications and learn the same respect for themselves and for others that many of you here today take for granted.

    This is the sharp end of politics. The democratic debate over the future of our hospitals and schools will shape the health care your parents and grandparents receive, it will also shape the education your children and grandchildren get when you are their age.

    It is nothing less than a debate about the future direction of this country, about the future direction of your lives. If you want to be involved in that debate, now is the time.

  • Peter Ainsworth – 2002 Speech at the Tenant Farmers Association AGM

    Peter Ainsworth – 2002 Speech at the Tenant Farmers Association AGM

    The speech made by Peter Ainsworth, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on 12 February 2002.

    I know that this has been for many of you a truly terrible year. Your chairman has described it as ‘horrendous’.

    It was horrendous even by the standards which your industry had sadly come to expect.

    In the three years to June 2001, over 60,000 farming jobs were lost, and total farm incomes crashed from over £5 billion to £1.8 billion. What other industry could take that kind of punishment and survive?

    By the start of last year, for many of you, achieving the National Minimum Wage was a pipe dream.

    You could be forgiven for asking what you had done wrong to invite the series of traumas, akin to the plagues of Ancient Egypt, which one after another struck. BSE, Classical Swine Fever, dreadful harvests, unprecedented rainfall, a collapse in commodity prices.

    And just when you thought it could not possibly get worse – it did.

    Next week will see the grim anniversary of the date on which Foot and Mouth became official.

    The scale of the disaster remains vividly in the mind. Over 2000 confirmed cases across thirty counties. Many of you saw your livelihoods quite literally vanish before your eyes as some 6.5 million animals were slaughtered, often in brutal circumstances, on nearly 10,000 farms.

    These are the official figures.

    Some estimates have put the number of animals slaughtered at nearer 10 million.

    I know that these numbers, horrific as they are, don’t tell the whole story. It is hard for anyone who was not directly touched by the tragedy to understand the emotional impact on the farming communities and families where the culling took place.

    I am acutely aware of the vital role played by this Association in providing advice, information and consolation during those painful months. It was a ghastly time, but the worst of times can often bring out the best in people and the whole country was moved by the resilience, determination and decency of the farming community during those days.

    There remain many questions to be answered by the Government over its handling of Foot and Mouth. When, precisely, did Ministers first become aware that the disease had broken out? Why was there a three day delay in imposing a total movement ban? Why were Ministers so slow in grasping the need for urgent action? Why was there no contingency plan in place? Why didn’t they mobilise local vets? Why did they rule out vaccination? Why was chaos allowed to develop before the army was finally called in to help with the disposal of carcasses? Was contiguous culling carried out legally? Who drew up the maps on which the culling was based? Why does the Prime Minister refer all enquiries to Defra when it was he who assumed personal responsibility for managing the outbreak?

    Were the Government’s eyes so transfixed by the date of the General Election that they couldn’t see the tragedy unfolding before them?

    All these questions, and more, we will continue to ask.

    But the honest way to learn the Lessons of Foot and Mouth would be to hold an independent public inquiry.

    Just why the Government has set its face against a thorough public scrutiny of its handling of the disease can only be guessed at. The fact is that if they have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear from a Public Inquiry, and in the absence of openness, we are left to draw our own conclusions about what it is they do not want to have exposed.

    What is certain is that the Prime Minister’s stance on this issue has done nothing whatever to heal the growing rift between Government and countryside which was already all too visible before the last Election.

    To make matters worse, the first measure introduced by the Government since the outbreak, the Animal Health Bill (Animal Death Bill) confers sweeping new powers of entry and destruction on Ministers and officials, and insinuates that farmers were chiefly responsible for the spread of Foot and Mouth.

    The uncompensated financial loss caused by Foot and Mouth to the livestock industry stands at over £1 billion.

    But the true costs to the wider economy have been far greater.

    It was only in the aftermath of the devastation that the Government seems to have begun to grasp the idea that farming is not an isolated activity, and that what happens to farming affects us all. That is why the future of agricultural policy is so important.

    Much has been said and written of the opportunities which now exist to develop a radical new approach to farming policy, but Ministers who lecture the rural community about the need for change must remember that before change must come trust. There remains an urgent need to restore consumer confidence in British farm produce, but equally urgent is the need to address the dysfunctional relationship between Government and the farming community.

    The most important policy objective must be to enable a return to profitable farming; this, more than any new regulations, will help to ensure the future of the rural environment. In fact the swathes of red tape are part of the problem and the Curry report has some useful recommendations to make in this area. Of course there is a need for regulation where issues concerning human health, the environment and animal welfare are concerned, but the command and control culture which originates from the Common Agricultural Policy and finds its expression in the Defra paperchase would be quaint if it were not so damaging.

    In all the discussions about the Future of farming, too little attention has been paid to the particular difficulties suffered by the tenant farmers. Given that you account for some 9.5 million hectares, 40% of land farmed in this country, your interests might be expected to form rather more than a footnote.

    If structural changes are believed to be necessary to farming, then Government thinking must take account of tenant farmers. With no assets to rely on, facing retirement can be a daunting prospect.

    That is why, before the last Election, we promised to use the Rural Development Regulation to introduce a retirement package for tenant farmers which would not only benefit existing tenants but also, importantly, help encourage newcomers into the tenanted sector.

    The Government made a similar pledge but so far they have done nothing to keep it; and we will work with you to hold them to their promise.

    Many of the problems facing farming and the environment will yield no easy or quick solutions, but a determined effort to get government out of the daily management of rural businesses would be a start.

    It seems that hardly a week goes by without some new regulation making life harder. In fact, since 1997 there have been a staggering 15,000 new regulations which have impacted on farming in some way. From the Right to Roam to the vibration of tractors, nothing can be allowed to happen without Ministerial approval and the endless, wasteful unproductive bureaucracy that goes with it.

    As Iain Duncan Smith said recently;:

    “It sometimes sees that what is not illegal is becoming compulsory”.

    What is happening to our country? What is happening to our freedom?

    And what is the meaning of Free Trade when British farmers are being asked to compete for supermarket orders with overseas producers who are less constrained by animal welfare, hygiene and environmental regulations?

    We must ensure that you are able to compete on fair terms.

    When it comes to farming, I want to hear a little less about free trade and a lot more about fair trade.

    The Curry Report had little to say about this, but it had much to say about modulation; indeed although it contains helpful thinking on better marketing and streamlining bureaucracy, modulation is its Big Idea.

    I am keen to help you do what, by and large, you have always done: manage the environment in sustainable way. The beauty of our landscape is of huge economic benefit, but it is more than that. For most of us, whether we live in the countryside or in cities, it has an intangible strength; something which cannot be adequately portrayed in a picture postcard; something essential to the way we think of ourselves as a nation.

    This environment is your work place and it has been fashioned by farmers over the centuries. It didn’t get there by accident, it got there because of you and your predecessors.

    But the words sustainable development become meaningless if sustainable does not also mean profitable.

    What worries me about the enthusiasm shown by Curry for modulation is that, under existing EU laws, it could simply mean that the taxpayer ends up paying an even higher bill, whilst farm incomes continue to decline and farmers become more, not less, dependent on the state.

    I will not attempt, this afternoon, to reform the CAP, although radical reform is urgently needed. The present stand off between the Commission on the one hand and Poland on the other shows just how great the problems are. Let me just say that you have a right to expect the British Government to have identified clear objectives long before now and to be taking a lead in mapping out the future of European agricultural policy. Well, if you know what Margaret Beckett wants out of CAP Reform do let me know, because I haven’t got a clue and don’t suppose she has either.

    The problems centred around the CAP and WTO talks must not be allowed to divert attention from measures which could be taken now. I have touched some of them:

    Start cutting bureaucracy now;

    Begin to rebuild trust;

    Help with retirement plans;

    Encourage new entrants to farming;

    Tackle unfair imports.

    And how about this? Margaret Beckett is keen to talk about encouraging local consumption of local food. We all think this is a good idea. Why doesn’t the Government take a look at its own food procurement policies and put its money where its mouth is (or vice versa)?

    Finally, the negligent approach to controlling illegal food imports is a disgrace which should be put right immediately. After all that went wrong last year, after all the waste and the cost and the heartbreak, perhaps the most disturbing thought is that literally nothing has been done to prevent Foot and Mouth being imported again tomorrow.

    I am once again, extremely grateful for the opportunity to share some thoughts with you today.

    In the months ahead, I look forward to working with TFA to develop the policies which you need, which we all need, for rural Britain to reverse the years of decline and to become once again a vibrant place to work and a source of physical and emotional nourishment.

    And I will never forget that all too often, Government has been part of the problem not part of the solution.