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  • Michael Ancram – 2002 Speech on Europe and America – Not Europe or America

    Michael Ancram – 2002 Speech on Europe and America – Not Europe or America

    The speech made by Michael Ancram, the then Shadow Foreign Secretary, at the Conservative Foreign Affairs Forum on 13 March 2002.

    Some weeks ago I spoke about the benefits of building partnerships of sovereignty rather than supranational structures. Tonight I want to pursue that debate in terms of its implications for our relations with Europe and with the United States of America.

    The end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, even more than September 11, represented a fundamentally important turning-point in international affairs. These events launched a process of change in which many cherished old assumptions perished. The era of the great countervailing blocs, of two great superpowers balancing against one another with a mix of military and economic might, ended. The solidity it offered was replaced by a fluidity last seen in the nineteenth century. This time, however, there was the added dimension of the “rogue state” complete with weapons of mass destruction – and unlike the blocs in the Cold War with no compunction about using them. This is a new challenge calling for new responses and new forms of relationships.

    At the heart of this new geopolitical environment stands America. America is in relative as well as in real terms probably the greatest superpower the world has ever known. It is the predominant force in the world today, and its predominance continues to grow. Count up the aircraft carriers, the aircraft, the frigates, the battle groups and the conclusion is inescapable. As we have seen in Afghanistan, its military power and reach are awesome.

    Nor is America’s strength merely military. Its technology leads the world. Its universities are the most advanced, its Nobel laureates the most numerous, its production now back to almost thirty percent of the entire global output. America is in every sense of the word a superpower. It is on its own not a bloc, not a supranational institution but a very big sovereign nation, jealous of its sovereignty and its independent rights of self-determination. In fact America with her flag, her sense of allegiance, and the clear values which underpin her nationhood is the epitome of the modern sovereign nation state.

    Yet like all great powers throughout history the USA gives rise to strong reactions and mixed feelings. These range on the one hand from the downright hostility of certain countries and regimes towards America, to feelings of great kinship and shared friendship in the face of common threats on the other. Between these, there has always been a danger that feelings of jealousy or inferiority, the instinctive envy of the ‘overdog’, could grow in the breasts of European integrationists as much as antagonism will grow in the hearts of those who have always seen American capitalism as the antithesis of the socialist utopias in which they still believe. The European Union official who was recently quoted saying that “it is humiliating and demeaning if we feel we have to go and get our homework marked by Dick Cheney and Condi Rice” was showing early symptoms of those feelings.

    Our Foreign Secretary’s ill-judged accusation that the US President’s foreign policy was motivated more by domestic politics than by international security considerations was a further manifestation. References by senior Europeans to American foreign policy as simplistic and absolutist in contrast to the sophistication of European foreign policy, only serve further to fan the embers of anti-Americanism and to set Europe against America. It is a misguided trend which stems from a false belief that a United Europe should somehow counterbalance the United States.

    What all this does, however, is to pose the choice – Europe or America. It infers that there are no realistic options outside this choice; and by inference that the wise will opt for Europe. It is a false choice because there is another. The Nations of Europe and America; the one I strongly support.

    Over the coming months the first option will be played out in the chancelleries of Europe as well as in our own British Cabinet Room on the delicate subject of Iraq. Already we have seen many of our European partners raising the flag of non-involvement in any future action to deal with Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Already we have heard senior Europeans striving to exculpate the regime in Iraq from accusations of ‘evil’. Once again the inference being created is ‘Europe against action in Iraq, US for action in Iraq.’ Again it is a false choice.

    The real option is the sharing with America of the evidence of real threats to international security stemming from Iraq and other similarly ‘rogue’ states, and the shared determination to deal with the problem. Europe and America rather than Europe or America.

    The Europe or America proposition is a dangerous one, particularly when it is posed with anti-American sentiment. Hostile rhetoric is an easy game for some Europeans to play. But it plays straight into the hands of those in the US who rejoice in what they see as their ‘unipolar moment’ and believe that they can go it alone. The truth is that Europe needs the US, and that the US needs Europe. The first because Europe is many years away from having the military resources required for its security and needs American intelligence and manpower. The second because September 11 demonstrated to America that it is now vulnerable and that it needs us and our European partners.

    Which leads directly to the Nations of Europe and America proposition, a partnership not of superpowers but of shared interests and shared objectives. With our close relationships with both, we are ideally placed to help build and secure this proposition. It will require a less introverted and bureaucratic Europe and a sense of shared values around which a renewed Atlantic Charter can be formed.

    It is an opportunity that our current Government cannot grasp. Mr Blair is publicly tholed to the building of a superpower Europe with all that that entails. A common foreign policy, that of the lowest common denominator. A common defence policy whose military capability will not even be fully and effectively operational for a decade. A single currency with the loss of economic self-governance and even greater harmonisation. This superpower Europe would find little to share in partnership with the American superpower with whom it would be designed to compete. It would be Europe or America – and Europe would be the loser.

    Europe and America is an opportunity we should grasp, but to do so we need to redirect the purpose and nature of the European Union. There could be no better moment. Europe, in preparation for the IGC in 2004, is examining its future structures, partly through the Giscard d’Estaing Convention, but more widely as well.

    Too often in the past this process has been caricatured as a fight between those who seek a more integrated and centralised Europe –with the New Labour firmly among them – and those who seek to see Britain withdraw from Europe. The Conservative Party adheres to neither of these positions.

    Where New Labour integrationists look for a pooling of sovereignty in Europe and where the anti-Europeans want no part in any European arrangements, we look for a partnership of sovereignties. We believe we are part of Europe, but that the relationship within the EU must be one in which our sovereignty is not ultimately dissolved by ‘pooling’ or rendered meaningless by a legally binding Euro-constitution.

    Where the New Labour centralists want ever closer monetary union, and ever greater regulation, and where the anti-Europeans want straight-forward divorce, we look for the strengthening of the single market, whilst retaining our own fiscal and macro-economic management.

    We believe that influence comes not from coercion or centralisation or harmonisation, or from hang-ups about single currencies or common foreign policies or European Armies, but from cooperation and mutual understanding. We are neither of the above. We are Constructive Europeans working within a Europe of Sovereign Nation States.

    We understand the present malaise that is afflicting the European Union. We can understand the erosion of democracy and legitimacy that has been allowed to occur. We know that enlargement, which we totally support, is opening up new divisions and in turn making the total reform of the entire Union, its structures and its methods, both essential and unavoidable. This is where from our Conservative European standpoint as Constructive Europeans within a Europe of Nations we have a significant role to play.

    It is our chance in the months ahead to develop and present a raft of new ideas for making EU institutions more accountable to national parliaments in order to strengthen democratic accountability. A Europe Minister based in Brussels but reporting back regularly to Parliament; committees of Parliament shaping the Commission’s agenda; and much earlier and more effective systems of scrutiny of matters European in the national parliaments.

    We should not be afraid to urge the re-opening of the treaties to bring Europe up to date with the modern world. We should seek constructively to reverse its centralising tendencies. We should challenge the aquis and urge repatriation of large parts of agricultural and foreign aid policy. We should be prepared to revisit those areas that have not worked. We would find surprising allies in Europe in so doing.

    We can show that the Lisbon Process is not working. The facts are that unemployment in Europe is still rising, and that the ‘competitive knowledge-based Europe’ simply isn’t happening.

    We can respond. Our constructive plans for European economic reform should be tied to low taxation, to enterprise, to innovation and above all to light regulation.

    All of these can help to lay the foundations for a genuine partnership of interests with the US. By creating a European Union which is genuinely a partnership of its member nations, which does not demand conformity of approach on international relations or in response to American initiatives, where there can be different layers of enthusiasm and participation. By encouraging a common understanding of the importance of America to us and the contribution we can make to America. By building the base of a lasting partnership in which there is competition rather than rivalry and admiration rather than envy; and where advice and consultation occur naturally and mutually from within the partnership rather than as hostile comment shouted from the sidelines.

    As Constructive Europeans who believe in the importance of the sovereign nation state we would be ideally placed to develop even closer relations with the most powerful sovereign nation state of all, the US. Yet to do so we must look at how, as America’s friend and partner, we can best influence how that power can more effectively be deployed to advance the concept of Europe and America.

    The old tried and tested if unwritten formula of the Atlantic Charter– partnership, not subservience – was right, and it still commands the overwhelming support of informed British opinion. We are the colleague and partner who offers advice in the spirit of greatest friendship and well-meaning. This is the basis of our ‘special relationship’ with America, greatly revived since September 11, which I would like now to see strengthened and entrenched as a durable feature of international relations in this new Century. That means not standing aside from America, but being actively involved with her; not indulging in the US-bashing so beloved by the Left, but participating in the delivery of a higher moral responsibility which has fallen upon the US precisely as a result of the overwhelming might which she possesses.

    But America cannot carry forward these responsibilities on her own. Nor can that spirit of openness and freedom, so crucial to American life, be protected by unilateral action. That openness can best be preserved and strengthened by America deploying her undoubted wealth and might not in the style of imperial mastership but in new and imaginative ways. It was President Theodore Roosevelt who identified the need for America to speak softly and to carry a big stick. Never has that advice been more relevant or more difficult to deliver. The big stick is present in unprecedented measure. But there needs also to be a spirit of international partnership and support, well presaged in the international coalition brought together in pursuit of el Qa’eda and the Taleban. America knows only too well that terrorism can never be defeated, or even contained, within the US itself; hence the international campaign against the scourge of international terrorism. Nor however can it be finally defeated from the decks of America’s gigantic carrier fleet. It can be ‘degraded’, if not physically destroyed, by military action; but it cannot be eradicated from the hearts and minds of those who are recruited to terrorism by threat or use of the big stick alone.

    The conditions in which terrorism can flourish and which terrorism seeks therefore to promote must be responded to as well. Terrorism is criminal but it feeds on the society in which it finds shelter and support, and on the prejudices and hatreds and fears and inadequacies of that community. As well as the big stick, this is where the soft talk and imaginative deployment of resources has a role to play, and where we can help America play it.

    Last December I visited Washington and had talks with senior members of the Administration. There was no arrogance of power, there was no desire for American hegemony. There was, and still is, a very clear appreciation of the awesome responsibility that has fallen to the United States through the way in which international events have developed in the last decade. The knowledge that history will judge them by their response is clear in their minds.

    They were examining every option, analysing every nuance, evaluating every possible consequence of every possible action or initiative. They left me very reassured that whatever courses of action are chosen they will be based on some of the most fundamental and comprehensive analyses of the facts and the options ever carried out. The fundamental truth is that being so powerful America is relied upon by much of the world. Often she must act in ways others cannot, and this unfairly attracts the stigma of arrogance. To the contrary, in my view American foreign policy is grounded in realism, with a well-honed understanding of the limitations of their role, and the extent of the world’s expectations of them.

    And that is why we can as America’s friend and partner advise her to look even more widely. The areas for soft talk are numerous and growing. Let me set out a few of those that I see to be most urgent.

    To work with Muslim moderates everywhere, but particularly in the Middle East and especially in Saudi Arabia where efforts to balance Islamic populism with Western values is a cause of potential dangerous instability. And while on the Middle East to help Israel down the difficult road of accepting a viable Palestinian state on her borders in return for guaranteed security for the democratic state of Israel.

    To help Russia overcome its current sense of exclusion by extending the hand of genuine cooperation on security, on internal terrorism and on economic development. Bringing Russia into the big tent and according her the respect and status she should enjoy is an important element of the agile partnerships of nations we should be seeking to create.

    To develop new thinking on global economic development in place of outdated and unsuccessful aid doctrines, especially in Africa, understanding that the keys to development lie in good governance, respect of property rights, the removal of trade barriers and acceptance of the rule of law.

    But most immediately and urgently to work together, and to seek regional support in so doing, to control and remove weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems currently in the hands of unscrupulous regimes which threaten the stability not only of their regions but of the wider international community as well.

    And alongside this we should support the Americans in pressing our European partners in NATO into serious increases in defence expenditure. In the most diplomatic way the US should find the means of explaining to the European Union that the ESDP is an absurd distraction and duplication within the European theatre, and that its real timescale itself indicates that it is both a cover-up for inadequate defence budgets and a faintly pathetic attempt at Euro-machismo. ESDP is symptomatic of a wider malaise, a growing anti-Americanism and introspection. ESDP can be interpreted as advice for too many nations in Europe “to get America off our backs” and a disguise for inaction. America should join us in pressing for a strengthened European capability within NATO, just as NATO has backed America in the global anti-terrorism campaign.

    These are some of those areas which together amount to a powerful agenda of involvement and of partnership that can mobilise America’s wealth and strength in a way which will unite the world rather than divide it. It contrasts starkly with the tone emanating from EU institutions with their talk of a rival currency, of a balancing of superpowers and of challenging American hegemony. This is the language of confrontation, of Europe or America.

    I conversely have sought to set out a path for the nations of Europe and America. A Europe which in terms of the relationship with America is not a rival but a complement, not a critic but a counsellor. We here in Britain can lead the way, bringing America and Europe closer together on the basis of the common interests which we epitomise. A partnership of true friends. Europe and America together, with us at the hinge. A partnership for freedom, prosperity and peace.

  • Oliver Letwin – 2002 Speech to Conservative Mainstream

    Oliver Letwin – 2002 Speech to Conservative Mainstream

    The speech made by Oliver Letwin, the then Shadow Home Secretary, on 19 March 2002.

    The Frontline Against Fear: Taking Neighbourhood Policing Seriously

    Introduction

    In this speech I intend to set out a vision for the future of policing. But before I describe that vision, I want to say something about our overall philosophy on law and order.

    The neighbourly society – Beyond the causes of crime

    Back in January I delivered a speech at the Centre for Policy Studies, in which I set out a framework for Conservative thinking on law and order.

    The opposite of crime

    I called the speech Beyond the Causes of Crime, because the central thesis was that – just as in economic policy we need to direct ourselves towards identifying and promoting the causes of wealth-creation rather than the causes of poverty – so, in the field of law and order, we need to direct our efforts towards dealing not with the causes of crime but with the causes of the opposite of crime – in other words, all those assumptions, attitudes and actions that make for what I call the neighbourly society.

    Overcoming crime

    The neighbourly society is the most important defence we have against crime. A neighbourly society is built upon strong and supportive relationships within families, between neighbours and throughout the wider community. A united, concerned and vigilant community not only guards against the depredations of the established criminal, but also prevents the development of criminality in its young people. A neighbourly society is self-sustaining because its responsible, adult members provide their young with a proper start in life and, thereby, a cycle of responsibility which sustains the neighbourly society from generation to generation.

    The frontline against fear

    Crime against community

    But there can be no neighbourly society without community, by which I mean the human networks that make a neighbourhood out of a physical network of streets and houses. And there can be no community without security, by which I mean, principally, the safety of the shared spaces of a neighbourhood where community takes root.

    The unequal struggle

    We need to understand crime and community as two opposing forces, one of which will overwhelm the other. In this struggle, crime has powerful weapons at its disposal: above all, violence and the threat of violence. In the face of such violence and intimidation, the peaceful community can only retreat, ceding more ground to the criminal, exposing young people to values wholly opposed to those of the neighbourly society. If crime wins the struggle and criminals take possession of the streets, the cycle of responsibility is thrown into reverse, with the result that neighbourhoods decay; the young are corrupted; people who can, get out; and people who can’t, live blighted lives. All this, because decent people are afraid.

    Crime in the real world

    The cause of this fear isn’t just the headline offences of rape and murder, or even the more common offences of mugging and burglary. It is also all the other crimes and near-crimes that affect the quality of life, conveniently filed away under the term social disorder: graffiti, vandalism, petty theft, fly tipping, drug dealing, intimidation, bullying, racial abuse, the corrupting influence of gangs, and the underlying, but entirely viable, threat of violence against anyone who stands up to the wreckers. Yes, of course, people do fear the headline crimes, but in many neighbourhoods there is another kind of fear, closer to despair, born of the knowledge that we must limit our lives or become victims; that the street is owned by the criminal, not by the citizen; that vandals can do what they will, even if everyone knows who they are; that thugs may torment their neighbours with only retaliation guaranteeing a decisive police response; that the gang is a stronger influence on our children than the school; that in the frontline against fear no one is on our side; that we are right to be afraid.

    Taking back the ground

    I have spoken of the struggle between crime and community. It is a struggle that the community is losing and the evidence of defeat can be seen most starkly in Britain’s poorest neighbourhoods. There is something desperately wrong with our society when the people we put in the front line against fear are those least able to stand up to the thugs – the poor, the very old and the very young. They need some one to fight for them, not just holding the line against fear, but taking back the ground lost to the forces of disorder.

    The role of the police

    Conventional policing

    Who will take on this role? In my view it should be the police. But the conventional view is that the proper role of the police is to confront serious, organised crime through the discipline of criminal intelligence.

    The strength of conventional policing is the development of high-tech, intelligence-led methods that seek out connections and pursue them to the criminals at the other end. But its strength is also its weakness – the targets are now so selective that the police can confront crime without engaging with society. Conventional policing in the UK has, I believe, ignored the deeper connections that lead back to the frontline against fear.

    The one-legged police force

    Do you remember the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch about the one-legged man who auditioned for the lead role in a Tarzan film? The casting director tries with great diplomacy to tell the aspiring actor that he is unsuitable for the part. Accentuating the positive he tells him that he likes his left leg: “it is a great leg, I have nothing against your left leg… the trouble is neither have you”.

    I have nothing against conventional policing methods. Indeed, I believe that they are integral to the vision of a neighbourly society. We need a combination of high-level policing, criminal intelligence and tough sentencing to take out the organised criminals whose interests are wholly opposed to the creation of the neighbourly society. But however intelligent the criminal intelligence, however tough the tough sentencing, high-level policing will never be sufficient on its own. And as long as it is on its own, we will only have half a police service.

    Community policing

    Whether crimes occur singly or in some organised fashion, they do not arise out of nothing – nor do they return to nothing after the recorded event is over. For every crime there is a criminal, and for every criminal there is a personal history of unchallenged anti-social behaviour degenerating into a lifetime of crime. For every crime scene there is a neighbourhood, and every neighbourhood has its story too – one in which social disorder is allowed to multiply and feed upon itself as it feeds upon the community. In terms of both people and places, every crime is the product of a complex web of events, decisions, relationships and conditions – stretching back for years, even generations.
    This is a view of crime that defies conventional attempts to record, but any one of us would recognise the phenomenon in a neighbourhood that just isn’t safe anymore. The corollary is a view of policing which regards social engagement as necessary and inevitable.

    To distinguish this role from conventional policing, the catch-all term of community policing is often used. But this term is woefully insufficient, and the activities it represents are nothing like the serious engagement which I have in mind. At its best, community policing can involve worthwhile activities like harm avoidance education in schools. At its worst, community policing can amount to little more than putting PR consultants in epaulettes. But both forms of what we have come to call, in the UK, community policing suffer from an overwhelming deficiency. Just as conventional policing in the UK confronts crime without engaging with society, community policing engages with society, but without confronting crime.

    Neighbourhood policing

    What I want to talk about is distinct from conventional policing. It is also much more than what is commonly understood by community policing.

    I want to talk about something that is currently being practised only in small areas or for brief periods in the UK – something that, if practised universally, would constitute a virtual revolution in British policing. This is a type of policy that relates to real lives, led in real homes, in real neighbourhoods. I am going to call it neighbourhood policing.

    Neighbourhood policing is distinct because it both engages with society and confronts crime – and can do so because it operates within a tangible geographical area. Neighbourhood policing is integral to the Conservative vision of a neighbourly society.

    Fundamental reform – the extent of change

    We must view conventional and neighbourhood policing as two halves of a whole. Of course, this is a simplification; the conventional and neighbourhood methods of policing are not mutually exclusive and there are many overlaps. Nevertheless, the emphases are very different: One deals with specific crimes, the other with general disorder; one targets major offences, the other minor offences; one is reactive and remedial, the other proactive and preventative.

    I don’t think that anyone could reasonably claim that these respective emphases form two halves of a whole in today’s police service. Neighbourhood policing can only be restored to its rightful position through fundamental reforms that transform the police service from top to bottom. What I am proposing is the biggest change to policing since the foundation of the police service by Robert Peel.

    Returning to the root

    Appropriately it was Robert Peel who enshrined the ideal of neighbourhood policing in his nine principles of policing. For instance, the first principle is about prevention: “The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.”

    And the ninth principle sets out the ultimate objective of neighbourhood policing: “The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder.”

    Whatever happened to neighbourhood policing?

    These are not just the words of a long dead politician, but the basis of a system of policing that endured into living memory. So whatever happened to neighbourhood policing? The simplistic answer is that policing has moved on, because crime has moved on: There is more crime than ever before; it is more sophisticated than ever before; it is more brutal than ever before. But some things never change – it is still the case that failure to deal with minor crimes will create the conditions from which major crimes arise. We must continue to advance those conventional policing methods that deal most effectively with the major crimes, but unless we return to the roots of the police service we will never effectively deal with the roots of crime.

    Moving Forward to neighbourhood policing

    How are we to achieve this effect?

    I do not believe it can be done by re-visiting our own past. Circumstances, when we last took neighbourhood policing seriously in Britain, were too different from those we face today. We cannot go back to Peel.

    Instead, I think we need to invoke Peel’s near-contemporary, Canning. We need to call “the New World ……to redress the balance of the old.” It is American cities that have shown, over the past decade, how a true combination of conventional policing and neighbourhood policing can be used to crack crime.

    The achievement of the NYPD

    Two weeks ago, I was in New York as the guest of the NYPD.

    What did I see there?

    I saw policemen walking the streets.

    I saw patrol cars, which patrol small areas on a continuous, 24-hour basis.

    I saw the teams available to move in behind the beat-cops and the patrols to tackle crime on the street.

    I saw how the NYPD provides transparent diagnosis of street crime and forces policemen at all levels to produce strategies for dealing with it through the so called Compstat which is much more than just a matter of comparative statistics.

    I saw how the Police Department and other agencies tackle quality of life issues as well as crime.

    I saw a criminal justice system which exhibits vitality and a sense of urgency at all levels.

    The lessons of New York

    It is difficult to convey the full extent of the difference between what I saw and heard in New York and what one sees and hears in Britain. Let me try to illustrate some of the differences.

    Let me start with what we would call “the bobbies on the beat”. Every policeman in New York starts by walking the streets. A policeman typically has about four blocks to walk. There are no set hours. The beat-cop is regarded, from the first day, as a professional, entrusted with a task – the task of accumulating low-level intelligence that will enable the NYPD in his Precinct (and, if necessary, on a wider scale) to trace disorder and crime. If that beat-cop needs to deal with specific circumstances that require unorthodox hours, that is his or her decision.

    I also rode along with a patrol car. We moved, very slowly, up and down the narrow area, patrolled day after day by the two cops in the car, in one of three shifts, providing 24-hour surveillance of a small area. Drivers showed no surprise at seeing the slow-moving police car – it was evidently a sight with which they were fully familiar. Passers-by joked with the officers at traffic lights (perhaps it is significant that some of these passers-by were black and the cops, in this case, white; perhaps it is also significant that many of the policemen I saw in the Precinct Headquarters in North Harlem were black). As we went along, the patrolmen pointed out to me individuals with specific criminal histories: they knew them by sight. When I asked how long it would take to reach the scene of a reported crime if one came through on their radio, they said “a couple of minutes.” I assumed this was hyperbole. I was wrong. A call came through; a couple of minutes later, without even the need for a siren, we were at the scene.

    Back in the Precinct – and in other precincts – there were groups of policemen, some specialist, some generalist, ready to move in, or taking proactive steps to prevent crime and disorder identified by the beat-cops and the patrolmen, or through wider intelligence. Nowhere did I see evidence of a divide between conventional, high-level intelligence-led policing and neighbourhood policing. The two were interdependent. Neighbourhood policing was understood to be an intelligence-accumulating activity as much as any other – the focus of crime and disorder was specific and local – but the specific and local was tied into the fabric of general intelligence.

    At Borough Headquarters, I sat through a Borough compstat meeting. This was exactly as described in the literature. A Precinct Commander, whose precinct showed increases in particular types of crime over the previous week, was being subjected, in front of the other Precinct Commanders in the Borough and in the presence of representatives of other agencies, to a cross-examination by the Borough Commander and other senior officers, on the basis of statistics and maps showing the particular crimes committed on particular streets in that precinct over the previous week. The Precinct Commander and his two senior assistants were having to give (and were giving) a detailed account of the specific measures they were taking to apprehend the villains in question and to prevent recurrences of these types of crime in these and other nearby streets. To appreciate the full force of this experience, one needs to understand that the Borough Commander – who had spent a good part of the previous week, he told me, as in every other week, studying for this session – was in charge of 2,300 policemen and was therefore equivalent to a Chief Constable of a mid-sized UK Police Force: he ranked as a “2-star Chief” broadly equivalent to an Assistant Commissioner at the Met. He himself feared that, at little or no notice, he might be subjected to a similar demand for explanations from the Chief of the Department (broadly equivalent to the Deputy Commissioner at the Met).

    The transforming effect of a few simple statistics available and published on a weekly basis, transformed into maps showing exactly the hot-spots, and allied to a system of open and accountability was evident. Right from the top to the bottom of the NYPD attention is focused on crime, where it is occurring, when it is occurring – and on what is being done to stop it.

    I saw this same phenomenon played out at the lowest level when I met officers in the North Harlem Precinct, who had donned plain clothes in order to mount a immediate operation to deal with a specific form of crime that was occurring in a small area within the precinct. When I asked if this was because that form of crime had shown an increase in the compstat statistics, they explained to me that it had not because it had only occurred in the last couple of days. Their intention, they explained, was to stop this becoming the cause of an increase which would embarrass their Precinct Commander the next week in the compstat meeting.

    Neighbourhood policing – in the sense of directly addressing crime on the streets of New York and other American cities – is not an idea or a theory: it is a reality which has focused the attention of policemen at every level of the force on crime and on stopping crime, in real time.

    But the neighbourhood policing I saw in New York goes beyond attention to episodes of crime. New Yorkers have their equivalent of our 999 number – 911. But they have something we don’t have: they have a 311 number, for citizens to make complaints about quality of life issues. These are not regarded as unimportant, insoluble or low priority. The broken windows theory which governs policing in New York and many other American cities today – and which has very often been misrepresented as aggressive “zero tolerance” – stems from the progressive and liberating idea that citizens do not need to tolerate low-level disorder and that in order to reclaim the streets for the honest citizen from the criminal or low-level disorder needs to be tackled with the same energy that is applied to dealing with episodes of crime. Once again, I did not find any of the NYPD regarding low-level disorder as something separate from crime. I met police officers at all levels who saw these phenomena as intrinsically intertwined with one another, and who understood very well that low-level intelligence, derived from street-cops and continuous patrolling was intrinsically related to an understanding of the location and causes of low-level disorder.

    Finally, I saw something that would have warmed the cockles of the heart of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. I spent time in the District Attorney’s office, and I talked to police officers responsible on a daily basis for arrests and for taking people to court. The sense of co-operative effort and of urgency was unmistakable – and very different from the pattern obtaining in the UK. The aim of the system as a whole, from the moment of arrest, was to achieve speedy justice. I stress both elements of that proposition. There is a deep and fine tradition of civil liberties in the United States and perhaps the strongest concept of due process in the world. The aim of the system is to deliver justice, not arbitrary punishment. But the aim is to deliver speedy justice. And that is just what happens.

    In timescales that would seem impossible in Britain, arrests are turned into arraignments, summary justice, or indictments and plea bargaining, or trials. The police have not given up on the courts, and the prosecutors and the courts have not given up on the citizen. There is a sense of common purpose to identify, comprehend and convict the guilty.

    Does all this mean that, in New York and other cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, San Diego as well as other municipalities on a much smaller scale, such as Lowell in Massachussetts, the result is unpleasant, aggressive, intolerant policing? The mythology on this side of the Atlantic would often have it so. But that was not my experience in New York. You will recall the black officers of whom I spoke: the NYPD has a record of employing black officers of which we would be proud in the UK and which we have yet to achieve. I spent instructive time in the Community Affairs Department – I was told of activities mirroring the best practice in the UK used to establish and maintain appropriate relations built between the police and the communities they serve. New York, unlike some English cities, has not seen riots in recent years.

    The cities I have mentioned where the model first initiated by William Bratton has been implemented are cities in which policing is conducted very largely by common consent. You have only to walk the streets of North Harlem, or drive with the cops at night, to see, as I saw, a city in which the police benefit from far higher public esteem than our own.

    Does it work? The figures speak for themselves. Over 9 years, murder in New York has reduced by 80%; robbery, burglary and car theft by over 70%; theft by just under 50% and rape by just under 40%. Across these crimes as a whole, the reduction is 60% since the new methods were introduced. New York is now noticeably a safer and more pleasant city to live in than London. The city is cleaner; there is less low-level disorder. The morale of the ordinary policeman is far higher. Ordinary New Yorkers report vast improvements. The crime surveys show a trend that matches those of the official figures.

    Are we dealing with cause and effect? New York and other American cities have seen the reinvention of neighbourhood policing and, with it, the prevalence of transparency and accountability throughout the force – together with the provision of low-level, continuous, timely intelligence allied to the 311 reports. Has all this been responsible for the significant decrease in violent street crime? No doubt this will be debated for many years to come. But in a ground-breaking study produced last December by the Manhattan Institute, Kelling and Sousa subjected the disaggregated New York statistics to rigorous analysis – using the fact that the various precincts have significantly differing social compositions – to eliminate non-predictive variables. Their work deserves intense study from anybody interested in such analysis. Its results can, however, be summarised in one sentence: “the average NYPD precinct during the 10-year period studied, could expect to suffer one less violent crime for approximately every 28 additional misdemeanour arrests made.” If anyone needed to put a nail in the coffin of scepticism about the effectiveness of the broken window thesis and of properly organised neighbourhood policing, that does it.

    How do we apply the lessons in England?

    Let us, then, turn our attention from the United States to our own little island.

    What do we need, here in the UK? We need that same virtual revolution in policing which American cities began to undergo a decade ago.

    What does it take to foster such a revolution?

    Let me start with what it does not require. It does not require – and, indeed, it cannot be achieved by – Clauses 5 and 7 of the Police Reform Bill, which give the Home Secretary the power to intervene at every level of the police force and, in effect, seek to run the police forces of this country from a desk in Whitehall. I know of no reason to suppose that an effective revolution in policing methods can be delivered by the Home Office, which has given us an Immigration and Nationality Department that cannot process applications in a timely fashion, an asylum system that is, by the Home Secretary’s own admission, in a state of chaos, a prison system whose recidivism rates, particularly for young people, are the envy of criminals everywhere.

    I do not believe that a revolution can occur in any way except through enthusiastic sponsorship and initiative by the Chief Constables and their senior officers, supported and enthused by Police Authorities. Such enthusiasm will not occur if efforts are made to achieve this virtual revolution through bureaucratic imposition.

    Nor will this virtual revolution be brought about by trying to achieve neighbourhood policing on the cheap through community support officers with limited training, limited powers and limited duties. I see no reason to suppose that such people can properly do the job of the policeman on the beat. But, beyond that question, lies the far deeper question: How can our police forces be expected to take neighbourhood policing seriously if it is plastic policemen who are to carry it out? On the contrary, if neighbourhood policing is to be taken seriously in the UK, as it is in American cities, the very best people entering our police forces will need to see the accumulation of low-level intelligence, the provision of rapid response and the taking of effective action against localised crime as part of the essence of good policing, and will need to see training in such activities as fundamental to the achievement of the glittering prize of the policeman’s profession. To be taken seriously by policemen, neighbourhood policing needs to be policing by policemen.

    What the virtual revolution for which I am calling does require is a fundamental cultural change in our police forces, led from the top, achieved by consent and pursued with enthusiasm. I have no doubt that the Home Office will need to play its part in increasing transparency and accountability – perhaps through its own version, on a national scale, of real-time compstat. I have no doubt that the Home Office will need to provide better means of opening up to public and professional view examples of good and bad practice. I have no doubt that the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor’s Department will need to look at serious changes in the methods employed by our criminal justice system. Very possibly, we may need to look again at the internal structure of our Police Authorities to see how they can be provided with the means to hold Chief Constables to account.

    All of these questions – and many more beside – will need to be addressed if we are to create and then to sustain the virtual revolution that I have described. But I am sure that, so far from moving towards the establishment of a single national police force in the way prefigured by the Police Reform Bill, we should expect to see, and we should welcome, the blooming of many different flowers. In the United States, there are about 20,000 police forces. We have less than 50. There is every reason to suppose that we shall see 50 different models emerging – and every reason to suppose that the virtual revolution will be best achieved in 50 different ways, each responsive to the differing configuration of the area and population served by the police forces in question.

    I argue for common aims: a level of attention to neighbourhood policing not seen in this country for many years; a level of attention to the timely identification, analysis and effective resolution of street crime and disorder not witnessed in our police forces today, and a sense of urgency to address crime and disorder through the criminal justice system which we do not have today. But I do not argue for uniformity of method.

    There is one enemy. But against that enemy many battles must be fought on many different turfs under many different generals. Victory will be achieved only by the implementation of tactics suitable to each turf.

    Unless we begin to achieve that victory, we will never reclaim our streets for the honest citizen. We will never recreate a neighbourly society for Britain. We will fail this generation and the next. We cannot let that happen. This is a war we have to win.

  • Nick Gibb – 2011 Speech to Stonewall’s Education for All Conference

    Nick Gibb – 2011 Speech to Stonewall’s Education for All Conference

    The speech made by Nick Gibb, the then Education Minister, on 8 July 2011.

    Thank you very much, Ben, and thank you everyone at Stonewall for your kind invitation. It is always a pleasure to work with Stonewall, and I am delighted to be here today.

    I’m also very happy to be here with Gok, who is doing excellent work on body image in schools. Although, talking of body image, I have to admit that sharing the stage with a style expert has made me feel slightly self-conscious – I’ve never spent longer picking out a shirt and tie…and yet I still chose this one.

    Today’s conference is addressing a hugely important topic. Tackling poor behaviour and bullying are top priorities for this Government, and we are supporting schools to take action against all forms of bullying, particularly prejudice-based bullying and homophobic bullying.

    Pupils have the right to come to school and focus on their studies, free from disruption and the fear of bullying. Schools should be happy and safe places for children to learn, and parents expect nothing less from our state education system.

    But the 2009/10 Tellus survey found that 28% of children had been bullied in the preceding school year, 21% had been bullied outside school, and 17% had been victims of cyber-bullying.

    Overall, just under half (46%) of pupils have experienced bullying at school at some point in their lives – and Stonewall’s research has found that two thirds of lesbian, gay and bisexual pupils have been victims of bullying, one of the highest figures for any particular group of children.

    We need to send the message that homophobic bullying, of any kind and of any child, is unacceptable. No child should have to suffer disruption, victimisation or fear as a result of bullying, whether on or off school premises.

    But I believe bullying can be tackled. Successful schools have clear policies, developed with pupils and parents, so that pupils understand what is expected of them.

    The best schools have gone beyond that to create an ethos of good behaviour where bullying is less likely to occur in the first place…

    …Where pupils treat each other, and staff, with respect; where teachers proactively talk to pupils about social and cultural differences, and what behaviour is acceptable; where pupils understand the impact that their actions can have on others.

    That culture extends beyond the classroom into the corridors, the canteen, the playground, and beyond the school gates.

    The schools and local authorities taking part in Stonewall’s Education Equality Index are making real strides towards this kind of culture, and Stonewall is, I believe, playing an important part in encouraging and promoting best practice.

    One issue which I find particularly concerning is the casual use of homophobic language – for example, using the word “gay” in a pejorative sense.

    We shouldn’t underestimate the impact of language in our society, and already, Stonewall has found that 98% of young gay pupils hear the word “gay” used as a form of abuse at school.

    Even when this language is used pejoratively without thinking and without intended homophobic prejudice, it is still offensive and still unacceptable. We have to show that this use of language is as unacceptable as racist slurs in our schools and in our society.

    Teachers have a huge role to play in changing how language is used within a school. There’s a school in the East of England, where behaviour was generally good and homophobia and transphobia weren’t a problem, which identified that the unthinking and derogatory use of words like “gay” was widespread.

    They sought specialist support from an outside organisation, Gendered Intelligence, to work with groups of secondary boys on issues of identity and gender. As a result of this work, the school removed the stigma from gender-related terms so that pupils could use language without embarrassment or negative association.

    I know that there may be some here may be thinking, “this is all very well, but how is the Government going to make a difference and what is it actually going to do?”.

    Well, we know that we can’t just set a target, order an inspection or pass a law and expect all homophobic bullying to disappear. There are some things that can’t be prescribed from the centre. If we could, we or the previous Government would already have done it. Unfortunately, there are no short cuts or silver bullets.

    But we will use all the tools at our disposal to send a clear and unequivocal message that homophobic bullying is unacceptable. That means hammering home our message at every opportunity.

    Whether in speeches like this to specialist organisations and people working in the front line, in detailed discussions with Parliamentary committees, in wide-ranging speeches to teaching unions or political Party conference set pieces; week in, week out, year in, year out, education ministers in this administration will keep saying that homophobic bullying is not acceptable in our schools.

    We are working with schools in a new way, by putting more trust in teaching professionals to find the best solutions for their schools, rather than dictating from the centre what they should do.

    That also means a change to the way in which schools work with organisations like Stonewall, EACH and the Anti-Bullying Alliance. This is a real opportunity for specialists in this area to work with schools and give teachers the benefit of their experience.

    When it comes to homophobic bullying, for example, the Government is not the expert. Stonewall is, and so are other LGBT organisations working directly with school staff and young people every day.

    Our role in Government is to help schools to find and use these expert organisations – not just Stonewall, but also groups like Schools Out, EACH and Gendered Intelligence.

    The role of schools is to concentrate on their core business – educating children to become knowledgeable, responsible adults who make a positive contribution to society.

    The role of organisations like Stonewall is to help schools, and help us, to create one of the most inclusive education systems in the world.

    Schools have a specific legal duty to tackle bullying and we know that schools need clear anti-bullying policies and procedures. Teachers need to feel confident about using the powers available to them to tackle bullying both on and off school premises.

    But I think Government does need to be careful in prescribing to schools and local authorities exactly what to include in their anti-bullying policies. Different schools across the country will need different approaches, and teachers should feel empowered to find the right solution for their pupils and their school.

    We believe that anti-bullying strategies need to be led and initiated by staff, rather than relying on the courage of individual children to make the terrifying admission that they’re being picked on. By its very nature, bullying often happens in secret, so teachers need to gather intelligence about what is going on in their schools, how and where.

    It’s also vital that pupils feel they can report bullying, and the most successful schools are developing creative ways for children to do this.

    Bradley Stoke Community School in South Gloucestershire is what we call a lead behaviour school – rated outstanding by Ofsted. Realising that children can be reluctant to report bullying in person (and even a “bullying box” for pupils to drop notes into is too conspicuous), they have developed a new online reporting system. Anonymous messages like “there’s going to be a fight at the shops after school tonight”, or “I’ve seen someone being bullied on the playing fields”, will mean that bullying can be addressed without identifying which child is being victimised and which child has made the report.

    While individual schools are developing their own strategies to tackle bullying, there are important changes that we need to make in Government. The last thing we want is for teachers, for example, to waste their valuable time wading through pages of overlapping and repetitive government guidance.

    We have already issued new and clearer guidance to help teachers to tackle poor pupil behaviour, cutting more than 600 pages of guidance down to 50. Anti-bullying guidance has been reduced from 481 pages to less than 20, including shorter, sharper advice on schools’ legal obligations and powers to tackle bullying, the principles underpinning the most effective anti-bullying strategies, and further resources for school staff to access specialist information on different types of bullying. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Stonewall for their valuable input and advice during the development of this document.

    Our Education Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament, will give heads and teachers a range of powers to put them back in control in tackling bad behaviour and bullying.

    These powers are not mandatory, and we do not want to create a punitive culture in schools – but we want teachers to be able to use their judgement, and to have wider powers available when they need them.

    To measure the impact of all these changes, we are creating a sharper focus in Ofsted inspections on behaviour and bullying. Ofsted will now look at behaviour as one of only four important core areas, rather than as one of 27 different and equal headings in the inspection framework at the moment.

    So we are working more closely with experts, empowering teachers and school staff to take the lead in anti-bullying strategies, and stripping back the cumbersome bureaucracy.

    But Ben, if there is any message that leaves this conference today, I hope that it is this.

    That while Michael Gove and I are Education Ministers at the Department for Education, the education world should be clear that it is our express intent that the use of the word “gay” as a pejorative adjective is as unacceptable in our schools as any racial slur. And we expect teachers and head teachers to react to it as they would to the use of any of the worst racial slurs.

    Thank you very much.

  • John Hayes – 2011 Speech to the Association for Careers Education and Guidance Annual Conference

    John Hayes – 2011 Speech to the Association for Careers Education and Guidance Annual Conference

    The speech made by John Hayes, the then Education Minister, in Thame, Oxfordshire on 7 July 2011.

    Introduction

    Good morning everyone and thank you for inviting me.

    I’m glad to be here for many reasons. Not the least of them is the fact that I think careers education and guidance in schools has had a rough deal for longer than most of us would care to remember. And I want to assure you in person of my commitment to playing my part in putting that right.

    The esteem, or lack of it, in which careers teachers have sometimes been held is in inverse proportion to their influence over young people’s lives and prospects. Many teachers have viewed being handed the careers brief as drawing the short straw in the curriculum lottery.

    But you know better. And so do I.

    Importance of guidance

    It was that most down-to-earth of Dominicans, St Thomas Aquinas. who once said that it is “better to illuminate than merely to shine”.

    Eight hundred years on, the work of your Association continues to demonstrate how right he was. Indeed, there can be few roles more important than that of helping to set young people’s feet on the right path as they set out in life and of helping them to understand where the choices they are making could lead.

    As any good teacher can confirm, offering guidance implies far more than just conveying information. It also implies illumination.

    Plans for reform

    So I want to begin by saying something about the Government’s plans for reform in this area.

    Our aim is not, as some have mischievously claimed, to diminish or deprofessionalise careers education and guidance, but the very opposite.

    Our approach to careers provision in schools is based on two very clear principles.

    First, we believe that schools should have the freedom and flexibility to take decisions in the best interests of their pupils.

    That means focussing schools on securing access to advice on the full range of academic and vocational options but giving them freedom to determine how best to do this. That includes recognising that legal constraint is not necessarily the most effective way of ensuring pupils receive careers education and other wider support they may require.

    Second, we believe that young people will benefit from high quality external sources of guidance – free from any vested organisational interests – to complement any in-house arrangements. Schools must be able to commission any specialist support that they need from a strong and diverse market in careers guidance.

    Cultural change

    I recognise that this move away from central Government control will be a significant cultural change and, in at least one sense, a step into the unknown for some schools.

    But at the same time, I’m confident that empowering schools and setting them free from bureaucratic oversight is the right way forward. Independent schools have been using a wide range of services and advice for many years and now we want all schools to enjoy that same freedom of choice.

    Of course, schools must be accountable for the quality of what they achieve. So we should expect them to answer for outcomes, not inputs such as the use of a particular service or a specific approach to providing careers guidance.

    The increasing amounts of information that are becoming available not just about different careers, but also about the comparative benefits of different higher education courses and of the comparative merits of choosing an academic route or a vocational option like an Apprenticeship post-18, are making the guidance young people get in schools more vital than perhaps ever before.

    That is why I regard the development of reliable destination measures as increasingly crucial – and not just in schools, but in further and higher education, too.

    If used properly, they will provide clear and comparable information on the success of schools in helping their pupils to progress to university, into further education or into employment.

    Role of the careers sector

    I want the careers sector to be at the forefront of showcasing the benefits of careers guidance. And I want to say here and now how grateful I am for the work already under way to strengthen the evidence base and bring together the very best examples of interventions that have a positive impact on young people.

    I want to go further and ensure that we do all we can to celebrate the very best in high-quality careers education and guidance and the good work that many schools are doing to support the young people in their care.

    I recently announced my intention to establish a network of school leaders to develop and share the most effective practice in securing careers guidance for pupils.

    I hope that your Association will play a prominent role in identifying and sharing those inspirational examples that will demonstrate the value and benefit of careers provision.

    But as well as individual examples of excellence, we will need to gauge how the system as a whole is responding to the changes.

    Review of careers guidance

    That is why we have promised to commission a thematic review of careers guidance by Ofsted. This will help us to establish a baseline for future policy development and to understand whether there are areas that are not delivering the key outcomes of achievement and progress for young people. If the review uncovers problems then I will not hesitate to consider what could change for the better and what further support might be necessary.

    I know that working your way through this difficult transitional period is a challenge. But I see a real opportunity to reach a point where the careers profession is restored to the position it deserves.

    Next steps

    By adopting a relentless focus on quality, on outcomes and on promoting the benefits of independent, impartial guidance we can build a careers profession that is stronger and better equipped to face the future.

    An important element of this new world of opportunity will be the opening up of the market for careers guidance. And whether your position is one of a careers professional, or a school-based practitioner involved in the day-to-day management or delivery of careers education and guidance, I would urge you all to think carefully about the opportunities that will open up through this new way of doing things, and how you can best take advantage of that.

    Of course, significant progress has already been made in the development of the careers sector as one that can stand comparison with other respected professions.

    For example, the main professional bodies for careers are working for the first time as a unified force for professionalism. The Careers Profession Alliance is committed to developing a register of careers professionals, and wishes to achieve chartered status for careers professionals over the next three years.

    The Alliance is working with the professional bodies to establish common professional standards, so that everyone signs up to the same code of ethics as well as to the same standards of practice. Those common standards need to be supported by continuing professional development, and organisations in the National Careers Service will be required to support their staff in meeting these standards. The Alliance will support this process by putting a range of new resources including resources online, for careers advisers to use as an integral part of their professional development.

    Moreover, a new National Careers Service will lead the way on quality and standards. Young people will be able to access the National Careers Service through its online and telephone channels.

    Schools can, of course, commission organisations that are part of the National Careers Service to provide independent, impartial careers guidance. The Service will not be funded to provide that support but I have outlined the steps we are taking to strongly persuade schools of the merits of investing in professionally delivered face-to-face guidance.

    This approach reflects the fact that the needs of young people and adults are different. It would be strange to give teachers clear responsibilities for the careers guidance of their pupils and then provide a public service that attempted to replicate part of that function. So the Service itself will not be centrally funded to provide services direct to schools.

    Conclusion

    My colleagues and I are clear that there are few tasks in our education and skills system that are more important than helping young people to understand as early as possible the full implications of the choices they are asked to make.

    We know that enlightenment is a prerequisite of empowerment. But, even so, we do not pretend to have all the answers. So I would like to close by encouraging you to take advantage of three forthcoming opportunities to feed you views and experiences into the reform process.

    First, we will be hosting a careers guidance transition summit, jointly with the Local Government Association on 15 July. I am delighted that ACEG will be represented alongside a range of school and local authority representatives. This will provide an opportunity to focus on issues of transition from the current arrangements. We are keen to facilitate the exchange of good practice between local authorities and will share effective delivery models – examples such as those in Swindon and Northamptonshire where authorities are already using the greater freedom afforded by the Early Intervention Grant to develop integrated, efficient support for young people. Following the event we will set out key milestones for the transition period up to September 2012, to support local authorities’ transition planning. You may wish to refer to the Local Government Association’s Communities of Practice website where a detailed summit agenda and attendee list will be available from tomorrow and where we will place outputs shortly after the event.

    Second, we have begun initial conversations with stakeholders on the question of extending the duty to secure independent careers guidance down to school year 8 and to young people up to the age of 18 studying in schools and further education settings. I am delighted to confirm that a full public consultation on this issue will take place in the autumn and I very much hope you will take part.

    Third and finally, it is important to me to hear your immediate reactions to the progress that has been made to date and the immediate challenges we face. So I look forward to your questions.

    Thank you.

  • Pola Uddin – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baroness Uddin)

    Pola Uddin – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baroness Uddin)

    The tribute made by Pola Uddin, Baroness Uddin, in the House of Lords on 9 September 2022.

    My Lords, Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un: to God we belong, and unto God we shall be returned. As a Muslim, these are the first sentiments that we utter on hearing news of deaths. So it was that I learned of Her Majesty’s death and shared the same words with my friends and family.

    I stand in deepest sorrow and share all the condolences to His Majesty King Charles III and Her Majesty’s beloved family—our sincerest sorrow and deepest sympathy. Being respectful of all the eloquent contributions before me, I speak as her Peer, a woman, a mother and grandmother, in expressing my deepest gratitude for her lifelong service to our nation and the Commonwealth—indeed, the longest serving woman leader of any nation. Her presence will have inspired umpteen generations of younger women and emerging leaders in their communities and countries. We cannot overestimate the impact on the young of Her Majesty’s encounter, with natural ease, with Paddington Bear, or of her bus ride on a Peppa Pig bus booked to Buckingham Palace. I can share with noble Lords the endearment with which Her Majesty is held by the generation of my seven year-old granddaughter, Imaan, who wants to meet Her Majesty the Queen on the next red bus ride.

    On a very personal note, I had the honour of receiving Her Majesty the Queen for the first time as deputy leader of Tower Hamlets Council during her visit to a London hospital. I had just given birth and left a breastfed baby behind. The royal visit was a little delayed and, as I got a call, I stepped out of this huge building with a heavy wooden door and shielded myself behind the entrance. As I was there for a few minutes, the door was flung open, exposing me with a little telephone to my ear. I was petrified. Her Majesty opened the door and said, “Who are you?”. I curtsied and said, “Your Majesty, I am the deputy leader of the council, here to welcome you, to receive you, and I am really sorry. I had to step out because I have a screaming baby and a distressed husband.” She asked me how many children I had: was this the first? I said, “No, Your Majesty, this is my fifth.” She said, “For God’s sake, tell him to get a bottle and feed him.” Remarkably, a few years later, in the Royal Gallery, when I was introduced as the first Muslim woman appointed by her to this House, she asked me if we had met before. I dared to explain where I had met her and she asked where the babies were. I said, “Unfortunately, still with the same man.”

    The smile that I saw everywhere yesterday on television was exactly the smile that was so endearing and so loving. It was almost as though you knew her, although those moments were so little, so unimportant, in the greater scheme of things.

    I am thankful for this opportunity to express my humblest gratitude for Her Majesty’s life of service and dedication to all her people. As a mother, I feel confident that Her Majesty’s teaching and indelible wisdom will be imprinted in the footprints of His Majesty King Charles III: duty to our whole country as defender of all people, of all faiths. Long may he reign, and may Almighty God bless our Queen, eternal guardian of peace beside her beloved rock.

  • Michael Howard – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baron Howard of Lympne)

    Michael Howard – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baron Howard of Lympne)

    The tribute made by Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne, in the House of Lords on 9 September 2011.

    My Lords, at this stage in your Lordships’ proceedings, it is not easy to say very much that is new. However, I want to echo in particular the words of the right reverend Prelate who led our prayers and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, in suggesting that our mourning for the longest-reigning monarch in our history should be infused with a spirit of gratitude. For it is we, the people of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, who are the beneficiaries of that sense of duty, devotion to service and dedication to the well-being of her subjects about which so many have spoken. She applied those principles in practice in a way that provided inspiration and leadership without ever trespassing for a second into the realm of party politics. In the words of my noble friend Lord Forsyth, she never put a foot wrong.

    Much is said these days about soft power: the way in which a country can influence events without necessarily relying on military or even economic clout. It is impossible to exaggerate the extent to which Her Majesty influenced across the world a positive perception of the United Kingdom. She was soft power personified.

    Much has been said about the way she put people at ease, and I had the privilege, with my wife, of spending a night at Windsor Castle when I was leader of the Opposition. I was amazed to find in the library the trouble that had been taken to assemble a collection of objects which related to my constituency, Folkestone and Hythe—objects I had known nothing at all about and which were quite remarkable.

    Perhaps the most telling example of the way she could put people at ease occurred when a friend of mine who had been subject to much trauma was invited to lunch at the palace, sat next to the Queen and, in the middle of the lunch, froze. The Queen sent for the corgis and, together, they fed the corgis, and my friend unfroze and was able to continue the conversation.

    Much has been said about the way Her Majesty was regarded with such enormous respect and admiration far beyond our shores. I finish with one reminiscence. I was in a Caribbean country when a new governor-general had just been appointed, and the local newspaper published an article giving advice to the new governor-general. It said: “You will have many difficult decisions to make, and we suggest that when you are confronted with those decisions, you ask yourself one question: what would Her Majesty do?”

    My Lords, we have lost a great monarch, a great friend and, as she described herself, a servant—our country’s greatest and most faithful servant.

  • Michael Gove – 2011 Statement on Industrial Action in Schools

    Michael Gove – 2011 Statement on Industrial Action in Schools

    The statement made by Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, in the House of Commons on 30 June 2011.

    On Tuesday I gave a statement to the House on this Government’s response to the planned industrial action by two of the teaching unions. In that response I outlined the action I had taken and I also provided data on likely closures based on early estimates from local authorities and Academies.

    We now have a fuller picture, updated this morning, based on data from all 152 local authorities and all 707 Academies.

    Our data show that 5,679 local authority schools were closed, 4,999 were partially open and 5,860 were fully open, while the situation with a further 4,320 has not been reported to us or the local authority did not know.

    The figures also show that of the 707 academies and City Technology Colleges, 201 were closed, 235 were partially open and 271 fully open.

    This means that 27% of all Local Authority schools were closed, 24% were partially open and 28% were open. Data were unavailable for the remaining 21%. 28% of Academies were closed, 33% were partially open, and 38% were open.

    I know that many teachers are concerned about the changes that have been proposed to their pensions. But I believe that we must resolve these differences through discussions and that the action today, while discussions are still going on, was disappointing and unnecessary. I am grateful to headteachers and governors who have worked hard to keep schools open. And I am particularly grateful to all those school staff who – while they may also have concerns about pensions – have decided to go into work today to minimise the impact on pupils and their parents. However I am also disappointed that there has been disruption to the lives of so many parents across the country. The Government remains committed to discussing pension reforms with all the teacher unions openly, honestly and constructively.

  • Nick Gibb – 2011 Speech to the Reform-AQA Conference

    Nick Gibb – 2011 Speech to the Reform-AQA Conference

    The speech made by Nick Gibb, the then Education Minister, at the Reform AQA Conference held on 28 June 2011.

    Thank you very much, Andrew, and thank you to AQA and Reform for hosting this conference, for your kind invitation to speak today and for your kind words just now. This is the last day of this year’s GCSE examinations, and I’d like to take this opportunity to wish pupils the very best of luck for their final exams, and a well-earned rest after all their hard work.

    It is always a pleasure to attend a Reform conference. Last year, I said confidently that I knew Reform would be a friend to the Coalition Government but, like the best of friends, wouldn’t be afraid to tell us when you thought we had got things wrong or could do better.

    Well, I think it’s fair to say that, by that measure, you have been a very good friend indeed…

    As you say, Andrew, I have been Minister for Schools for just over a year now, and Shadow Minister for Schools for five years before that. During that time I have visited hundreds of schools, observed hundreds of lessons, and listened to hundreds of teachers.

    So much of what I’ve seen has been deeply impressive. As we said in our White Paper in November, there is much in the English school system of which we can be proud.

    This country has some of the very best schools in the world. Every day, thousands of pupils receive stimulating, engaging and rigorous lessons. We already have thousands of wonderful teachers, and more are joining the profession every year.

    But among these examples of excellence, we know that some schools are struggling.

    The Secretary of State has established floor standards for both secondary and primary schools. We’ve raised the floor for secondary schools to 35 per cent of pupils achieving five GCSEs at grades A*-C including English and Maths, and at least as many pupils making good progress between KS2 and KS4 as the national average. Next year that floor will rise to 40 per cent. Our aim is to raise the standard to 50 per cent of pupils at each school achieving that floor by the end of the Parliament.

    At primary level we have introduced a floor standard for the first time. 60 per cent of pupils achieving Level 4 in English and Maths at Key Stage 2 and at least as many pupils making the expected levels of progress between KS1 and KS2 as the national average, will be the new floor for every primary school in the country.

    That means there are 216 secondary schools below the secondary floor standard at the moment, and around 1,400 primary schools below the primary floor – of whom more than 200 have been under the floor for five years or more. Raising standards in these schools is a priority for the Department.

    The UK is dropping down the PISA international rankings, falling from fourth to sixteenth in Science; seventh to 25th in literacy; and eighth to 28th in Maths. Our 15-year-olds are two years behind Chinese pupils in Maths, and a year behind their peers in Korea or Finland in reading.

    We’re not preparing our school leavers sufficiently well to meet the expectations of employers. The CBI’s annual education and skills survey just last month found that almost half of top employers are forced to invest in remedial training in literacy and numeracy when they hire someone straight out of school or college.

    And the attainment gap between rich and poor and between the state and private sectors remains, in our judgement, unacceptably wide.

    In 2010, 80.3 per cent of children achieved level 4 in English at the end of primary school – but only 55.6 per cent of white boys on free school meals achieved this level. In other words, only around half of white boys from the poorest backgrounds started secondary school able to read and write well enough to access the secondary curriculum.

    This isn’t a one-off occurrence, but a worrying pattern. Last year, 55 per cent of all pupils achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A*-C including English and maths. But the number of children on free school meals who achieved the same level was just 31 per cent.

    Whilst GCSE results go up every year, the gap of 28 percentage points between children from the poorest backgrounds and the rest of the population remains stubbornly wide.

    Figures released by the OECD this month have shown that poor children in this country are less likely to exceed expectations for educational performance than their deprived peers in most other developed nations. Britain’s record is well below the global average, coming 28th out of 35 leading nations in terms of social mobility on that measure – below countries like Estonia, Latvia, Mexico and Slovenia.

    These are the statistics which are driving us to make radical reforms.

    Reducing the gap in attainment between pupils from rich and poor backgrounds is a key moral objective of the Coalition Government. Children only get one chance at their education, but we believe these results show that too many of the poorest children are still being let down in English schools.

    Evidence from PISA, the OECD, McKinsey and others shows that the strongest education systems around the world – the education systems which are racing ahead of us in the rankings – are those which recruit and develop the best teachers.

    In the highest performing education systems around the world, teachers are consistently drawn from the brightest and best graduates . In Finland, for example, teachers are selected from the top 10 per cent of graduates. In South Korea, teachers come from the top 5 per cent.

    In these high-performing countries, there are strong systems of professional development, and teachers’ performance is carefully monitored. Teachers learn from successful teachers and schools learn from successful schools.

    And because the profession is so highly valued in those countries, it is seen as high status. In Finland, more than a quarter of young people describe teaching as their number one career choice . Yet in this country, only 2 per cent of first class honours graduates from Russell Group universities choose to teach after graduating .

    The quality of our teachers matters because international research shows that it is the single most important factor in determining a pupil’s progress. A report from McKinsey in 2007 found that “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers” .

    Studies in the United States have shown that an individual pupil taught for three consecutive years by a teacher in the top ten per cent of performance can make as much as two years more progress than a pupil taught for the same period by a teacher in the bottom ten per cent of performance.

    At secondary level, in particular, research in this country indicates that teachers’ knowledge of their subjects will determine their pupils’ success, especially in the sciences and maths.

    For Physics, the subject expertise of the teacher is one of the most powerful predictors of pupil achievement at GCSE and A level. Similarly, in Maths, pupils taught by teachers with a high level of subject knowledge have been proven to achieve better results.

    Yet over a quarter of Maths teachers in years 7 to 13 in English schools do not hold a post-A level qualification in a subject relevant to Maths.

    40 per cent of teachers of Physics and Chemistry do not hold undergraduate degrees in subjects relevant to Physics and Chemistry. Half of all teachers of French or German do not hold undergraduate degrees in subjects relevant to French or German .

    We want to learn from the highest-performing education systems around the world to improve our own performance. To learn from those countries which are now out-performing us. And while they continue to reform and improve, we want to improve more quickly. As President Obama has said: “the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow.”

    All the evidence points in the same direction. As the most recent PISA briefing note on UK schools repeated: “the bottom line is that the quality of a school system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.”

    The Government’s priority is to deliver high quality teaching to all children. This is why we called the White Paper which we published last year, “The Importance of Teaching”, and why we have focused on improving the quality of teaching.

    So the question is how: how do we “raise the bar” on teacher quality? We believe it’s a question of rebalancing the system in favour of teachers. We need to improve the support and opportunities available to teachers. And remove the obstacles that are hindering them.

    We want to make teaching more attractive to high-quality entrants and help teachers to develop their skills further still.

    We have expanded Teach First into the North East, so that it now operates across the whole country. We’ve also taken Teach First into primary schools so that children of all ages can benefit from some truly excellent young teachers.

    We’ve launched the Teachers’ Standards Review Group under Sally Coates, the principal of Burlington Danes Academy, to rewrite the QTS and other standards for classroom teachers, focusing them on the key skills and attributes effective teachers need.

    But we also want schools to take the lead in creating more opportunities for teachers to learn from their peers in continuing professional development and leadership training.

    We are establishing new centres of excellence in teaching practice – called Teaching Schools, modelled on Teaching Hospitals – where both new and experienced teachers can learn and develop their professional skills throughout their careers. Over 300 schools have applied to become Teaching Schools so far and we look forward to designating the first 100 Teaching Schools next month.

    Alongside Teaching Schools, yesterday we launched a discussion document about our strategy for reforming initial teacher training to focus on key teaching skills, including managing behaviour and handling pupils’ Special Educational Needs. We want to give schools a stronger influence over the recruitment and selection of trainees and the content of their training; and we want to allow schools to lead their own high quality initial teacher training in partnership with a university.

    In particular, we will ensure that teachers are trained to teach reading, to prevent the tragedy of thousands of children leaving primary school every year unable to read properly. Last year, 9 per cent of pupils started secondary school functionally illiterate, unable to read either for school or for pleasure. Over 15,000 children did not reach the lowest marking level in the Key Stage 2 reading test. Over 20,000 children could not even read well enough to take the test.

    Without the ability to read what’s on the interactive whiteboard or in their textbook, these children end up falling further behind their classmates, more likely to become disillusioned, disengaged and disruptive.

    Research overwhelmingly shows that the most effective method of teaching children to read is systematic synthetic phonics , but at present only half of newly qualified primary teachers rated their training as good or very good in preparing them to teach reading and phonics. We will ensure that teachers are properly trained so they can successfully teach early reading using synthetic phonics, and we’re working very closely with the university education faculties to achieve that.

    We are also proposing to offer financial incentives of up to £20,000 to attract more of the best graduates in shortage subjects into teaching; and enable more talented career changers to become teachers.

    We will no longer provide Department for Education funding for graduates to enter initial teacher training without at least a 2:2 degree, and we will require trainees to pass tougher literacy and numeracy tests before they start training – without the option of unlimited resits, as they have now.

    Finally, we know that teachers want opportunities for further study and continuing professional development to focus on enriching and enhancing their subject knowledge.

    We have therefore introduced a new, competitive £2 million Scholarship Scheme. This fund will enable a number of teachers every year to pursue post-graduate qualifications or other rigorous study in their subjects.

    Applications are being invited now with the first round of funding to be awarded in December. Funding in the first year will focus on the core subjects of Maths, English and Science, as well as special educational needs, where we also have shortages.

    Giving teachers and head teachers their professional autonomy is the driving force behind the acceleration of the Academies programme.

    One of our first priorities in office was to pass the Academies Act and one year on, 704 academies are now open – over twice as many as a year ago. By the end of the year, over a third of all secondary schools will be academies . Teachers in these hundreds of new academies enjoy greater professional freedoms, so that they can concentrate on doing their jobs as they know best.

    We’re encouraging new free schools to be established in areas of need – set up by groups of teachers, parents or educational foundations. In the latest 2012 round we received 281 applications. We expect between 10 and 20 new free schools to open this September. Of the 32 Free Schools that the Department is currently progressing, 2 are located in the most deprived 10 per cent of Lower Super Output Areas; a third are in the most deprived 20 per cent of such areas; and 59 per cent are in the most deprived 50 per cent of Lower Super Output Areas.

    We also want to sweep away the bureaucratic burdens being heaped onto teachers which consume energy and time, and sap morale.

    In just one year, under the last Government, the Department produced over 6,000 pages of guidance for schools – more than twice the length of the complete works of Shakespeare but, I would argue, somewhat less inspiring.

    Teachers in all types of schools told us that one of the biggest drains on their time was wading through overlapping, over-prescriptive diktats from the centre.

    We’ve started to cut this back by scrapping unnecessary bureaucracy and streamlining the duties, guidance and paperwork piled onto schools.

    We are also slimming down the Ofsted inspection regime. Rather than examining schools against 27 different headings, it will now focus on the four important core areas: quality of teaching, pupil achievement, leadership and management, and pupil behaviour and safety.

    Pupil behaviour affects both the current and the future teaching workforce. A survey of undergraduates found that the greatest deterrent to entering the teaching profession was the fear of not being safe in the classroom , while two-thirds of teachers say that poor pupil behaviour is driving teachers out of the profession .

    We have issued new and clearer guidance to help teachers to handle poor pupil behaviour, cutting more than 600 pages of guidance down to just 50.

    The Education Bill (currently going through the Lords) will further strengthen teachers’ powers so that they can control classrooms effectively.

    Reducing and simplifying guidance will greatly reduce the burdens on teachers’ time, and will enable them to spend more time focusing on actually teaching. Over the next few months we will be publishing shortened guidance in a wide range of areas. In total, departmental guidance will be more than halved.

    As well as guidance, we want to remove unnecessary central prescription and allow head teachers and governing bodies of maintained schools more freedom to manage their schools.

    The current arrangements for dealing with teacher performance are too complicated and fragmented and more than half of teachers and headteachers surveyed by the Sutton Trust last year agreed or strongly agreed that there was not enough freedom for schools to tackle under-performing teachers.

    We are currently consulting on new arrangements which will make it easier for schools to identify under-performance and to tackle it quickly, effectively and fairly.

    We’ve launched a review to slim down the National Curriculum. We want to move it to a clear, concise specification of core academic content, for teachers to teach in whatever way seems best to them – again, sweeping away reams of paper and lever arch files that specify the content of lesson plans and how to teach. How teachers teach should be left to their professionalism.

    We’re also concerned about the standards in our public examinations, and want to see A levels re-connected with the universities and with the learned societies. We want GCSEs to increase the emphasis on spelling, punctuation and grammar, and we’ve asked Ofqual to advise us on that.

    In the Economist this week, the Bagehot column cites Westminster School where in 1994, 21 per cent of GCSEs taken achieved the top A* grade. By 2004, 59 per cent of the grades at that school were A* and in 2009, 81 per cent.

    No one argues that pupil selection or the work ethic at Westminster School has changed since 1994, certainly not to this degree. We need to restore integrity and confidence in our GCSEs.

    In conclusion, Andrew, in essence our education policy has 3 overarching goals:

    to close the attainment gap between those from poorer and wealthier backgrounds
    to ensure our education system competes with the best education jurisdictions in the world
    and to trust professionals and raise the esteem of the teaching profession.

    It’s an ambitious programme and although self-praise is no praise, I hope you’ll agree that in the first 12 months of this administration we have made an energetic and expeditious start to achieving these goals. Thank you very much.

  • Mark Prisk – 2011 Speech to the UK Contractors Group Annual Lunch

    Mark Prisk – 2011 Speech to the UK Contractors Group Annual Lunch

    The speech made by Mark Prisk at Hyatt Regency Churchill hotel, London on 28 June 2011.

    Introduction

    Thank you for that introduction, James [Wates; chairman].

    It’s a real pleasure to join you for your annual lunch today. The UK Contractors Group has had a good a year – under the leadership of James and Stephen [Ratcliffe, director], the organisation has been a tireless and effective advocate for contractors and for the wider UK construction sector.

    You have helped the Government, as we have got on with our central task – putting economic growth right at the heart of our programme of work.

    And that matters, because the construction industry is a critical engine for growth. As a former chartered surveyor, and as someone who started my own business, I understand just how important it is – contributing 8% of the UK’s Gross Value Added; employing around 3m people; and keeping over 300,000 firms in business.

    Importance of construction industry

    This is the reason we want to build on our partnership, and ensure the whole of Government works with the industry to forge an even closer relationship. Because we are committed to taking practical action to help the sector grow in future.

    That approach is already yielding real results. Our collaboration on the construction strategy is an excellent example of what we have achieved together.

    We wanted the process to be challenging and rigorous and the UKCG helped make sure it was both, giving us real insights into the obstacles hampering your members’ plans to grow.

    I am grateful for that, because sustainable growth has to come from private enterprise – from businesses investing, hiring, exporting and expanding.

    Of course, I am well aware that construction has experienced very tough times in recent years, with the recession choking demand across all markets. I don’t underestimate for a moment how difficult it has been.

    So it is a positive sign that the most recent data from the Office for National Statistics suggest the picture is beginning to brighten at last, with output rising by 5.5% in the three months to April.

    It is still very early days – so I shall avoid making ill-advised comments about green shoots. But this Government’s decision to commit to a number of crucial capital projects should make a contribution to that improvement.

    Because – despite the record budget deficit we inherited, and the very difficult choices we have had to make on public spending – we are prioritising essential investments in the economic fabric of our nation.

    Government investment

    We have published the first ever National Infrastructure Plan for the UK, which outlines the scale of the challenge and how we will unlock £200bn worth of public and private sector investment over the next five years to deliver it.

    The Spending Review provided a settlement of over £10 billion for maintenance and investment in key road and local transport schemes across the country, including Crossrail.

    And it allocated £1 billion to fund commercial scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects.

    Investments such as these will help generate new business for contractors. But this by itself is not enough. Government also has a responsibility to work with the construction sector, and help it prepare to grasp these and other opportunities in the years ahead. We can do this in a number of ways.

    Plan for growth

    Our Plan for Growth, which was launched alongside the Budget in March, identified construction as a priority sector for the UK economy. It set out our plans to make sweeping changes to the planning system, which has been a brake on growth for too long.

    So we are introducing a powerful presumption in favour of sustainable development, in order that in future the default answer to planning proposals is yes.

    We intend to introduce a number of measures to streamline the planning applications and related consents regimes, removing bureaucracy from the system and speeding it up.

    This will include a 12-month guarantee for the processing of all planning applications, including any appeals.

    We will also pilot a land auctions model, starting with public sector land. And we will ensure a fast-track planning process for major infrastructure applications.

    Construction Strategy – next steps

    It is also essential we provide certainty about the pipeline of future public projects- that’s a message we have been getting loud and clear from the whole of the construction industry.

    So we have committed to publishing a long-term forward view of projects and programmes in the autumn, as part of the National Infrastructure Plan. And we want to see a similar approach for general construction.

    We will start, this autumn, by publishing each quarter a rolling two-year programme of infrastructure and construction projects where public funding has been agreed. And if it transpires that 90% of this work is already contractually committed, we will think again.

    We want to do all we reasonably can to ensure you have the clearest possible picture of projects coming up.

    This will help give companies the certainty and confidence they need to invest in their business – whether that’s in capital projects, innovation or skills.

    The plans we outline will complement and reinforce the work we are already taking forward as a result of the Construction Strategy.

    The other important part of the equation is to reduce the costs associated with construction and infrastructure procurement. So we have given a clear commitment to cut costs by 20%.

    We aim to achieve this through measures such as encouraging standardisation rather than bespoke designs. But this does not mean a Stalinist, monolithic system of centralised design. It’s a question of striking a sensible balance – still making room for the vernacular, while avoiding needless repetition and its associated costs.

    Costs will also be cut by setting clear criteria for asset performance; and introducing new models of procurement.

    In addition, we are committed to the phased introduction of Building Information Modelling, moving towards a requirement for fully collaborative 3D BIM – encompassing electronic project and asset information; documentation; and data – by 2016. This clear requirement should boost the adoption of BIM throughout the construction supply chain.

    Low carbon

    We also need to keep a sharp eye on what will be needed in the future – in particular the need to transform our built environment so it is fit for a low carbon future. Retrofitting the existing building stock is a huge challenge in this respect.

    But we also have a great opportunity for growth, created by this and many other emerging low carbon markets.

    They will require innovation in everything, from designing low-carbon building products and processes, to finding more efficient ways of working. And not just for the way we construct buildings, but also the way we use them when finished.

    Many of you will know that the Low Carbon Innovation and Growth Team, led by Paul Morrell, looked at all of these for the Government and made a series of recommendations in a very thorough report. We will be giving our formal response to their findings tomorrow.

    Exports

    Let’s not forget that there are substantial and growing global markets for low carbon construction and its associated services. So it’s vital that the UK industry harnesses its undoubted strengths in design, consultancy and contracting and markets them abroad.

    Our ability to grasp new opportunities in expanding overseas markets will be critical to the UK’s long-term growth prospects. UK Trade and Investment is refocusing its efforts to help UK firms seek them out.

    They include setting up a High Value Opportunities Programme, to identify the biggest growth opportunities around the world and help UK companies of all sizes to access them.

    And trade promotion and export opportunities are now benefiting from strong leadership across the whole of Government.

    Indeed, the Prime Minister has made it a personal priority, leading a high-profile trade mission to China in November, during which a Sustainable Cities Memorandum of Understanding was renewed.

    In March, the Deputy Prime Minister led a mission to Mexico, during which the UK-Mexico Business forum was launched, identifying infrastructure as one of the key sectors for future collaboration.

    In future, creating new commercial opportunities will be at the centre of British diplomacy, and at the heart of bilateral relations with our international partners.

    London 2012

    And the next year offers us a once in a lifetime opportunity to advertise British contracting know-how to the rest of the world – the London 2012 Olympic Games.

    The eyes of the world will be upon us next July and August – and the UK construction industry can take enormous pride in what, collectively, it has achieved.

    It is a hugely complex site which has thrown up a host of challenges, in terms of engineering, finance and logistics, to name just a few. What we see taking shape in East London are a chain of world-class venues, with all the necessary infrastructure to support them.

    So this is the time for us to get out and sell the expertise of our companies around the globe – from the contractors building the facilities, to the SMEs all along the supply chains that end in the venues.

    British construction has proved conclusively that its ability to procure, design and manage facilities is second to none. In the next twelve months we must make the most of this chance to showcase just what we can do here in the UK.

    Conclusion

    As we are meeting in the Churchill Hotel today, it seems apt to quote the man himself. He once said: ‘We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.’

    I believe the London Olympics, and its venues, are an unrivalled opportunity to shape the future of UK construction – using the Games as a springboard into new markets overseas.

    If together we seize this opportunity, I have every confidence the industry will emerge stronger from what has undoubtedly been a difficult period.

    Many challenges still remain – promoting low carbon construction; improving Government procurement; and creating the environment in which UK construction can flourish.

    They are all vital issues. But collectively they add up to a compelling case for the Government and the construction industry to work together to bring about real and lasting change.

    I am sure it will take a while to get this right; but it’s vital we do, so a resurgent construction industry thrives in the years ahead.

  • Jim Wallace – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baron Wallace of Tankerness)

    Jim Wallace – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baron Wallace of Tankerness)

    The tribute made by Jim Wallace, Baron Wallace of Tankerness, in the House of Lords on 9 September 2022.

    My Lords, I was born two and a half years after Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth ascended the Throne. Until yesterday, in common with the majority of people in this country, I had known only one monarch. For so many of us, the Queen alone represented what we think of as and understand by the concept of monarchy. She was “the Queen”. Her reign was one of exemplary, selfless and faithful service, sustained by a profound Christian faith—a life of service inspired by following the way of Jesus, the Servant King.

    However, it was not a slavish adherence to duty. Many people have commented on the late Queen’s pertinent comments on visits, her informed observations and the real interest she showed in people and communities. She engaged with these people and their communities on visits for 70 years and more, and invariably left them feeling much better for having met her. It is testimony to the gracious manner in which she fulfilled her role as our Queen.

    Comments have been made today and in many of the commentaries over the past 24 hours about the dramatic changes that have taken place in our country, across the world and in society since the Queen ascended the Throne in 1952—things that almost certainly would have been unimaginable in that year. I recall reading somewhere that, at the age of 50, she was the first head of state ever to send what we now call an email. The Scottish Parliament was probably only a twinkle in the eye of some political activists, but the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, recalled her visit to the Scottish Parliament’s Sitting in Aberdeen on the occasion of her Golden Jubilee in 2002. She gave so much encouragement to those of us who had been in there from the beginning and had taken some brickbats from the press for what we were doing. I also recall that, when she opened the new Scottish Parliament on 1 July 1999, she referred to the

    “pragmatic balance between continuity and change”.

    Truly it was her ability to achieve and maintain that pragmatic balance over seven decades, not least in political and constitutional relationships, that was one of the key hallmarks of her reign.

    I first met the Queen in Kirkwall in 1987 when she unveiled a new stained glass window in St Magnus Cathedral on the 850th anniversary of the cathedral’s foundation. When I last met her, less than three weeks ago, she referred to that visit. As a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, a church in which she always showed a keen interest, I had been asked to preach the sermon at the Sunday morning worship in Crathie church. The Queen graciously invited me to spend two nights at Balmoral Castle on her beloved Deeside—but no barbeques. It was a privilege to have had such quality time talking to her. Her mind was sharp. She had a keen interest in what was going on. I experienced the warmth of her personality, which so many people have talked about. She so readily put me at my ease.

    It was also a privilege to engage with close members of her family over those two days, who also did so much to make me feel welcome. It is them—the family to whom the Queen was a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt and mother-in-law—I have particularly been thinking about over the past 24 hours. As we give thanks for the life of the Queen—a remarkable life of humble leadership and service—I know that we will want to keep in our thoughts and prayers her close family, especially His Majesty King Charles, for whom her death is so very real and personal. May they know the comfort that Jesus promised to those who mourn.