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  • Gordon Brown – 2005 Speech at Advancing Enterprise Conference

    Gordon Brown – 2005 Speech at Advancing Enterprise Conference

    The speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 4 February 2005.

    Let me welcome distinguished guests who have come here today from every continent to join our dialogue on global economic change.

    The starting point of this conference today is that no country can take its future prosperity for granted.

    Nations will rise and fall depending on their willingness and their capacity to face up to the difficult long-term decisions about the future.

    And I believe that if here in the United Kingdom we – business and government – listen and learn from each other, work closely together, and forge a shared long term economic purpose, we have the strength – because of our stability, our scientific and creative culture, our commitment to education, our global reach – to be one of the most successful enterprise centres of the world.

    Over the last year I’ve made it my business to meet as many businesses as possible from as many continents as possible – and many of you are here today. You’ve told me how much you value the stability we’ve created in Britain since 1997. You’ve told me about the importance of removing all barriers to an enterprise culture. And you’ve also told me that change in the new world is so fast in its pace and so pervasive in its impact – and now the rise of China, India and Asia so important – that an economy like ours has to become more flexible, more adaptable, more skilled and more outward looking.

    The facts that we will hear this morning from our guests from China, India and Asia are that within twenty years half the world’s manufactured exports could come from developing countries and within a decade 5 million US and European jobs could be outsourced. Indeed China is already consuming half the world’s cement, over a quarter of the world’s steel and a third of the world’s iron ore. And between them China, India and the rest of Asia already account for nearly a quarter of the world’s trade.

    And so for companies like yourselves, there is hardly a product or increasingly a service you produce that is not subject to global competition. And these global competitive pressures are now such that at every point you have to look not just at where you source your materials, labour and skills but where your competitors source their materials, labour and skills.

    And in this global restructuring that focuses advanced industrial nations away from low skill, low tech products and processes to the technology driven and high value added, Britain will not only have to be more enterprising and recognise there is no escape from an uncompetitive position by resorting to protectionist shelters or tolerating the old inflexibilities but we must also understand that as emerging economies their technologies – even now India and China produce 125,000 computer science graduates a year and Britain only 5,000 – Britain will only attain a new and competitive place for ourselves if we strive for, and win, world leadership in science and skills and enterprise.

    Churchill warned of countries facing change who were so timid that they were ‘resolved to be decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent’. And he also said that instead of building the present upon the image of the past, we must face up directly to the challenges of the future.

    Indeed to those who want to postpone long term decisions and want guarantees about the status quo and then tell us that there should be no change without security, we all know the answer: there can be no security without change.

    So there are important long term choices about our economic future as a nation which – because these decisions need to be made, acted upon and followed through on a sustained basis – require a consistency of purpose and direction in the British national interest that goes beyond one year or even one parliament and demands a shared vision and a common purpose – in a non-partisan way – across all sections of British society: a shared commitment to become world leaders in stability, science, skills, enterprise and the creative industries.

    I can tell you that at a time of rapid global change and uncertainty I agree with Alan Greenspan who will address us this afternoon, with Mervyn King and with all of you who run businesses, that the precondition for Britain’s economic success is locking in economic stability for the long-term.

    To those who question whether Britain’s seven high growth years must inevitably be followed by lean years, let me answer directly: our new monetary and fiscal framework, this British model we have created – strategic decisions we took to make the Bank of England independent, impose a symmetrical inflation target, cut the national debt and entrench long term fiscal rules – will continue to make us well placed to cope with the ups and downs of the economic cycle.

    In the last seven and a half years inflation – once more volatile than almost any other industrial nation – has been consistently nearest to target and the least volatile of any country.

    Of the major industrialised economies, only Britain, once the stop-go economy of the industrialised world, has maintained growth free of recession in every quarter.

    And we not repeat the mistakes of the past and will do nothing to put at risk our new won and hard won stability.

    Any government in which I am Chancellor will complement monetary vigilance with fiscal discipline.

    Let me tell you where we stand today. Debt has risen to 44 per cent of national income in America, 46 per cent in France, 55 per cent in Germany, and 84 per cent in Japan. But in the UK debt is just 35 per cent.

    The deficit in France is 3.7 per cent of national income, in Germany it is 3.9 per cent, in America 4.4 per cent, in Japan 6.5 per cent. Our deficit is just under 3 per cent falling to 2 per cent. 10 years ago the deficit in Britain was the equivalent in today’s money of £90 billion, today it is just a third of that —- and we will meet our fiscal rules.

    So while at this stage in the economic and political cycle past governments have resorted to short-termism in fiscal policy and raised the rate of spending in a pre election spree, I can assure that we will not go down that short term road.

    You – leaders of business – know that it is right to invest sensibly for the long term and that to fail to do so often catches up with you. And if you run a company you know you have to make decisions on priorities. So in can confirm that while we will be prudent in borrowing for investment we will maintain the national debt at a low level and we will achieve over this and the next economic cycle a current balance or surplus.

    But world leadership in stability is not enough to guarantee success in the new global economy. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition for economic prosperity.

    So if I can encapsulate my message today and my mission in government in one thought it is this: we want Britain to be not only the most stable environment but the most attractive location to do business and to create new business.

    And to win this prize, we are prepared to remove any unacceptable barrier, legislate any necessary reforms and introduce far reaching new incentives.

    This is not rhetoric: it is our considered and determined view.

    We have much to build on.

    The fact – and this might surprise you – that of 800 multinational headquarter relocations since 2002 Britain has secured 20 per cent, 50 per cent more than the USA, more than any other country.

    With 1 per cent of the world’s population we have over 11 per cent of the world’s most cited scientific papers.

    And more than at any time since the first decades of the industrial revolution we are now turning our scientific genius into technology led economic growth for Britain.

    I can tell this audience – and this too may surprise you – that today a higher share of our growth is delivered by science-based innovations than in any other industrial nation including the United States of America. And Britain has the highest share of R and D coming from all over the world than any of our major competitors.

    And because of our successes in business and financial services, today the UK exports twice as much business services as we import and four times as much financial services.

    All of this shows us that we in Britain now have the chance, if we make the right long term decisions, to become the best location for scientific research and development and world leaders in the new enterprises of the future.

    Measures I will announce in the Budget will reinforce our determination that our incentives to attract research and development are the worlds best, our universities are world class, and we should aim to lead the world in strengthening the links between higher education and the hi-tech firms of the future.

    I can tell you that more than ever our investment effort, both for inward and indigenous investment, will focus on encouraging and stimulating creative firms that are high value added, research based, and technology led.

    We will continue to welcome qualified people with skills from other nations to study in and contribute to Britain.

    And I want Britain to lead the world in resolving the controversial issues of genetic research, animal experimentation and GM foods — so we can value and celebrate science and the joy and excitement of scientific discovery.

    We are developing plans for science cities. And the ten year framework for the advancement of British science – announced last year and which has already led to £2.5 billion pounds more science investment – will be constantly updated to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world of knowledge.

    As part of our commitment to make the UK one of the leading world centres for pharmaceuticals, biotech and the life-sciences, the newly created UK clinical research collaboration already embraces the NHS, business and universities. Our aim is to make the UK the premier location for new research from medical trials to the tracking of results. And we will also take the necessary steps to become the world’s number one research centre for genetic and stem cell research.

    I want Britain to be not only a centre for the science-based industries of the future but also the hub for creative industries as a whole.

    Here too we can build from solid foundations. In the last decade Britain’s knowledge intensive sector has grown twice as fast as the overall economy.

    By adopting new digital media and harnessing the entrepreneurial flexibility which makes our inner city areas new ‘knowledge factories’, we are creating a critical mass of creative industries with global reach – so that one in every five new jobs here in London is now in these sectors.

    Creative industries from digital electronics and communications to film, design and fashion – once only 1 per cent of GDP – now contribute 8 per cent of the UK GDP.

    This growth highlights extraordinary talent. And the opportunity now is to build on its extraordinary promise —– by backing risk takers with new incentives for new enterprise and with a new generation of venture capital for expanding business.

    And our challenge is not just to encourage creative industries, our priority is to encourage all industries to be creative. It is both about maintaining the entrepreneurship and creativity within established large businesses and about doing more to enable those who want to start up new businesses to turn their ideas and ambitions into reality.

    In Britain today 4,000 new businesses start every week. There are 300,000 more businesses now than in 1997. But with our rate of business creation still half that of the USA, we still have a long way to go.

    If we are to have enterprise in our boardrooms it must start in our classrooms. In 1997 less than 15 per cent of schools offered enterprise education. Now half of all schools do. By 2006 every school will.

    Today only 1 per cent of college or university students are engaged in enterprise. I want to see every college and every university twinned with a ‘business champion’.

    And if the UK could achieve the same levels of female entrepreneurship as the US – and today’s action plan is designed to improve business creation rates – Britain would gain three quarters of a million more businesses.

    I want a Britain of ambition and achievement where there is no ceiling on talent, no limit to potential, no cap on aspiration.

    And, celebrating enterprise, we are today, after a nationwide competition, naming the rejuvenated town of Ollerton in Nottinghamshire as Britain’s town of enterprise for 2005.

    Every one of you here who runs a company – large or small – knows that you must draw on the potential of everyone in your company to be successful; its no different for a country. Skills are the new commanding heights of the economy. And by acquiring better skills employees can become the beneficiaries not victims of globalisation.

    Our mission not just that of British government but that of the whole British society must be to make our people the best educated and most skilled in the world.

    I believe this is the shared and settled view of every section of British society

    And together we are prepared to support the long-term decisions necessary to achieve this aim.

    So I commit us to moving our education system up a gear: demanding, in return for investment, the highest standards in our schools and colleges; making university and college funding a priority in the next Parliament; working with you – the leaders of business in this country – to invest in employee training… all the time encouraging and incentivising a work-your-way-up ethos of self improvement and self reliance.

    What happens in schools is critical to our long-term future. But we cannot just leave education to the schools. Of the workforce we will have in 2015, 80 per cent have left school and are already in work. And it is their skill levels and flexibility that will, over the next decade, determine the prosperity of our country.

    Learning from successful training policies amongst our European competitors, we have already witnessed over 100,000 individual success stories of those given time off for training through the employer training pilots – the majority of them women, the majority of them with no prior skills, the vast majority of them successfully attaining their qualifications. And I would like to congratulate all the businessmen and women who have contributed to this success. Now we are able to go further and announce their roll out to the whole country creating for the first time a national employer training programme.

    I said earlier that the modern task of government is not only to make all necessary reforms but also to remove all unnecessary barriers: with our emphasis on stability, education and science to do what needs to be done but to do no more than what needs to be done.

    So let me tell you how the Budget and our programme will reflect this – our shared agenda.

    Planning: we must make our planning laws quicker, more flexible and more responsive – and we will.

    Transport: we must work with you – private and public sectors together – to tackle decades of under-investment and lack of commitment —- and we will.

    Flexibility: we must and will do more to encourage local and regional pay flexibility.

    Competition: we must and will build upon what we have already created – the most open competition regime in the world.

    Regulation: a problem raised in every industrial country for many years where there is, as you know, always invariably a tension between the flexibility you need and the standards the public request.

    It is because we recognise the limits of government that we have already removed the independent audit requirement on small firms and moved to a more simplified system of VAT.

    And for all businesses large and small we have removed or reformed over 400 separate regulations; the Financial Services Authority have introduced a series of reforms to reduce compliance costs; and in the budget we will do more.

    I have set in train a major review – led by Philip Hampton – of the complex, often out of date systems by which regulations are inspected and enforced.

    And in the Budget I will set out proposals not just about the burden of regulations but about the volume and flow of regulations.

    My position is that in this new global economy government must of course do all – principally through stability, education and infrastructure – that it is necessary to do but no more – and we will continue to remove barriers that are not justified.

    So it is in the national interest that we continue to resist inflexible regulation from the European Union.

    Flexibility is the best way forward so we have agreed with Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria and Finland to put regulatory reform at the heart of our six EU Presidencies through to 2006, putting every new and existing regulation through strict new tests for their impact on enterprise and competitiveness.

    And in our Presidency of the European Union we not only hope to sign up all 25 EU countries to our deregulation initiative but I want to consult at every stage with you, the businesses of Europe.

    As we tackle regulation to create the best environment for business to thrive, we also have to design our tax system to encourage and reward work, savings, investment and enterprise.

    To pay for improvements in health care we have raised national insurance by 1 per cent – but to put the costs in context, business costs for health care have been rising much faster in the US – by more than 10 per cent each year – and in France employers pay health insurance of around £60 a week for an employee on average earnings and in Germany around £30 a week, compared to just over £10 a week in the UK.

    But as far as corporation tax, capital gains tax, small companies tax and personal income tax, we have cut corporation tax from 33 pence to 30 pence, cut long term capital gains tax for business assets from 40 pence to 10 pence, cut small companies tax from 23 pence to 19 pence and we have also cut the basic rate of income tax by 1 pence.

    And we will continue to look with you at the business tax regime so that we provide incentives for investment in wealth creation and rewards for success.

    Indeed, we have an opportunity before us now to create a consensus on tax as well as well as on stability to make the Britain the best place to do business.

    Twenty years ago companies thought mainly of national markets and were considering new opportunities in European markets.
    Today the success stories are companies who have transformed themselves to succeed in global markets.

    Britain was the pioneer of free and open trade.

    Now to take advantage of the vast opportunities global markets offer we must lead the way again in breaking down international barriers to trade and commerce.

    We are pressing for a successful and ambitious conclusion to the world trade talks.

    Because 55 per cent of our trade is with the European Union we will, in our presidency of the EU, push forward our proposals to liberalise the single market, the greatest single market in the world.

    Because transatlantic economic relations are worth over $2.5 trillion dollars each year, I can tell this audience that we will use our EU Presidency to push forward a new transatlantic trade and investment partnership to remove regulatory and other barriers between the European Union and the USA including in financial services.

    Today we welcome to our conference representatives from four of the major emerging market economies – China, India, Brazil and South Africa. Because only 1 per cent of our exports go to China and only 1 per cent to India – now two of the largest economies in the world – we are instituting a new Asia Taskforce – business and governments together working to maximise trade – and in the fast expanding financial services, we will match the successful UK-China Financial Dialogue with a new UK-India Dialogue that India and the UK are agreeing today.

    Conclusion

    And what has been, and can be, achieved in this area and other areas at the Treasury for employment, investment and prosperity must be centre stage in the national debate on our future in the months to come. And I look forward to it being the central issue we will take forward in the coming Parliament.

    I said at the outset that together we have to rise to the global challenge. And to do so we have to build a shared economic purpose.

    Successful companies achieve this.

    The successful countries of the future will have to achieve this.

    And my vision is that if we, government and business, work together, we can build in Britain a progressive consensus.

    World leaders in stability.

    World leadership in science, skills and enterprise.

    A Britain that looks outwards to Europe and the international economy.

    Then globalisation is indeed made for Britain and British prosperity.

    And we can be one of the global economy’s greatest success stories and look forward to a twenty first century of British achievement.

  • Gordon Brown – 2005 Speech in Beijing

    Gordon Brown – 2005 Speech in Beijing

    The speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in Beijing on 21 February 2005.

    It is a pleasure to be here in Beijing, to have been invited to address this distinguished audience at this distinguished Academy of Social Sciences, and to be able to do so at the end of a memorable day in which I have had the privilege of meetings with Premier Wen Jiabao and Finance Minister Jin Renjing.

    Indeed it is a great privilege to be able to see – even in such a short visit – so many of your historic places; to have the chance to witness at first hand so many of the important developments here in China; to have been welcomed with such kindness for which I am grateful; and to have the special privilege of discussing with your leaders all the important issues that effect the future of our global economy.

    This, I believe, reflects the growing and deepening partnership between China and Britain:

    today there are more than 4000 joint ventures involving UK companies and Chinese partners;
    each year an additional 400 new joint ventures are being entered into;
    the UK is the largest European investor in China – investing almost $20 billion a year;
    indeed trade between our two nations has grown by 230 per cent in the last five years
    bringing to fruition the hope expressed by Premier Wen during Tony Blair’s visit to China two years ago of Britain becoming China’s leading European partner.

    And our partnership is reinforced by the work we have entered into together over the last few years – in financial services, science, industry, the environment, international development and many other areas.

    My theme today is: while the next stage of global economic changes brings insecurities as well as challenges, great opportunities now arise for China and Britain together.

    The context is a global economy undergoing the most rapid and extensive transformation the world has ever seen – in pace of change, in scale of change, in the impact of change.

    It is a measure of the global economic change that is now taking place that over the past decade global trade has increased twice as fast as output.

    In just one decade world trade in services has risen by over 60 per cent and world trade in goods by 70 per cent.

    In 1980 less than a tenth of manufacturing exports came from developing countries.

    Today it’s almost 30 per cent.

    In twenty years time probably 50 per cent.

    So we are witnessing the most rapid shift in the global balance of production the world has ever seen.

    Twenty five years ago, only a quarter of the exports of developing country were manufactured goods: today 80 per cent.

    And with 3.5 million American jobs and as many as 5 million European and American jobs in total likely to be moved offshore between now and 2020, we are undergoing a global economic and employment transformation that will dominate the first decades of the 21st century.

    Twenty years ago, China had less than 1 per cent of world trade. Today it is 7 per cent and Asia now has 23 per cent – soon to equal the euro area.

    So we are seeing economic change on a continental scale – the potential for Asia to be the 21st century’s equivalent of America’s rise in the 20th century.

    Two hundred years ago a British politician George Canning said that the new world had been brought into being to redress the balance of the old.

    Today a new economic world is already in existence challenging the old.

    Globalisation is now rapid in its impact, so pervasive in its effects, that nations will rise and fall with speed depending upon their ability to adapt.

    The rapidity and pervasiveness of change brings both unparalleled new opportunities and an unprecedented degree of insecurity.

    So no country can take its future prosperity for granted.

    All nations must adapt and modernise or fall behind.

    And as global restructuring continues apace – focusing advanced industrial nations away from low skill, low tech products and processes to the technology driven and high value added – all countries will increasingly only have a competitive edge if they develop world leadership in the most technologically intensive and science based industries and services.

    For most of the last twenty centuries China led the world….and so today we are seeing China’s re-emergence to its rightful place as a leading world economy.

    Indeed the scale of this extraordinary change is here for all to see in Beijing.

    This morning I visited Beijing Airport Expansion Project – one of the world’s largest construction projects in the world and one of 50 new airports being built in China.

    I congratulate you on winning the Olympics in 2008. We will attempt to emulate you by winning the 2012.

    Already China is the world’s largest user of cement, steel, copper, iron ore and tin – today now consuming, for example, half the world’s cement, over a quarter of the world’s steel and a third of the world’s iron ore. China has been responsible for one third of the recent growth in demand for oil.

    25 per cent of the world’s washing machines are produced in China
    30 per cent of the world’s television sets
    40 per cent of the world’s microwaves
    50 per cent of the world’s cameras,
    70 per cent of the world’s photocopiers
    90 per cent of the world’s toys

    And the question businesses everywhere around the world are asking before placing a contract is what are the costs of goods produced in China, ‘what is the China price?’

    But China is not just competing on the basis of low costs. You are also already a 21st century player with very significant hi-tech achievements.

    China’s re-emergence as a leader in scientific research should surprise nobody. The country that invented paper, printing, gunpowder and the compass is now producing 2 million graduates a year including 270,000 in science and engineering. In 2003 you put your first person in space. You are decoding DNA. 50 per cent of industrial GDP in the industrial heartland of Shenzhen – which I will be visiting on Wednesday – is now accounted for by hi-tech companies. And with Chinese companies now investing back in Western economies, and with the hi-tech, higher value added sector in China now growing rapidly, this is a global economic transformation that will dominate the first decades of the 21st century.

    Taken together China is now exporting more than France, Italy and Britain and now is the world’s number one destination for foreign direct investment.

    Some people in the advanced industrial economies view the rise of China and the next stage of globalisation as simply an economic threat to the advanced industrial economies.

    That leads to calls for protectionism against lower cost imports and protectionist attitudes against outsourcing and off-shoring.

    But let us be clear that this is not only a sterile attempt to stop the clock and resist inevitable change. This is to also misunderstand the contribution made by the rise of China and in recent years the emerging market economies.

    China has been responsible for keeping the world economy growing as the advanced industrial economies went into a downturn.

    China has itself contributed more growth to the world economy in the last few years than all the G7 combined.

    Indeed without China, world trade growth which slowed more than at any time in recent world downturns would have been negative for more than one year.

    China’s role as a major economic player stabilising the world economy should never now be discounted.

    So I am here not only as Finance Minister of Britain but as Chairman of the International Monetary and Finance Committee to support China’s increasingly important role as a stabilising force in the world economy.

    This year Britain chairs the G7.

    And China chairs the G20.

    And it is right to agree a shared agenda about the challenges – in macro economic policies, in trade, technology, the environment, labour markets, and corporate standards – we – and the whole world economy – face entering the next stage of global economic change.

    But while others may wish to see China and globalisation as a threat, I see the rise of China and the new stage of globalisation not as a threat but as an opportunity.

    An opportunity because China is a huge market with huge opportunities for British companies; a dynamic market which challenges Britain to be equipped for the new world and to respond.

    An opportunity because China’s development helps us understand the need for change and to persuade British people to change.

    In the last century in the last industrial revolution Britain realised all too late that other countries were not only catching up with us but doing better in applying technology to products and processes.

    Now that we can see clearly the challenge ahead – the changes in both technology and in trade – arising from the global sourcing of goods and fast increasing global flows of capital – there are big questions all of us must ask ourselves about how each of us can benefit from the next stage of global economic change and how the benefits of globalisation can flow not just to some people but to all people

    So my task here in China in this speech is to identify how we can together adopt the right global economic policies to help our countries meet and master the challenges of change in this new world – and how can we work together to ensure that globalisation offers opportunities fair for all.

    In a world of ever more rapid global financial flows, the first policy conclusion is the need to entrench stability in macroeconomic policy.
    Capital is, of course, more likely to move to environments which are stable and least likely to stay in environments which are, or become, unstable.

    So for every country, rich or poor, macroeconomic stability is not an option but an essential pre-condition of economic success.

    And for the world economy, creating the conditions for entrenching stability in each continent is an important task for the international institutions.

    It is important therefore that as we look forward to the coming challenges Britain and China as Presidents of the G7 and G20 in 2005 work together to address these challenges.

    And I am pleased that today we have agreed to work together to study and address macroeconomic and structural vulnerabilities in the world economy.

    A joint policy paper from Britain and China will be submitted to the G20 Meeting in October.

    This paper will analyse the global economic challenges that we are facing,

    The paper will identify areas where countries can learn from each others experience.

    And it is already clear that if we are to maintain stability and growth, each continent has a role to play: America in addressing its deficits; and Europe and Asia in addressing the vexed questions of structural economic reform.

    In the new global economy there will be a changing role for the international institutions. Founded sixty years ago, they must continue to adapt to support the stability that is vital to the modern economy. And as G20 and G7 Presidents we are committed to re-examining the strategic role of the IMF and World Bank for the years to come – in particular the importance of a more independent role for the IMF in the vital task of the surveillance of the world economy.

    Greater stability in world economic arrangements should be accompanied by greater attention to policies for national economic stability.

    Starting with the independence of the Bank of England and then the adoption of new British monetary and fiscal objectives, rules and systems of accountability, Britain has sought to develop a modern British way to economic stability that make sense for the far more open liberalised capital markets of an increasingly globalised economy.

    I know that China is pushing forward fundamental reforms to expenditure management and the banking sector.

    And I welcome your Government’s decision to publish the IMF Article IV reports on your economy for the first time.

    The debate continues on the importance of codes and standards. The agreed position of the membership of the International Monetary Fund is that – because for every country, rich or poor, macroeconomic stability is not an option but an essential pre-condition of economic success – it is in the interests of stability that we seek a new rules-based system for the global economy: a reformed system of economic government under which each country, rich and poor, has a responsibility to adopt agreed codes and standards for fiscal and monetary policy for the financial sector and for corporate governance.

    In a modern open economy capital account liberalisation is the way forward but so that it is not destabilising it will be best achieved in a sequenced way.

    So from experience a sequenced approach can benefit not only China but the global economy as a whole.

    Second, openness to trade is crucial if the world economy is to expand to the benefit of all.

    The importance of open trade is a lesson we have learned from our own history.

    In December in Hong Kong vital decisions will have to be made to finalise a global trade round. And as globalisation continues apace, it is not protectionism but trade – and competition – that will be the main drivers of productivity, growth and economic development.

    So 2005 is a crucial year for making progress towards a freer and fairer world trading system that delivers real improvements in market access. Like our Agricultural Minister Margaret Beckett, I want to tackle the waste and excesses of agricultural protectionism. And I believe that it is critical that China and the UK continue to work together to achieve an ambitious outcome to the Doha development trade talks by the WTO Ministerial in December.

    People often talk of trade as a global public good because all of us can gain when trade flows successfully. In the modern world the same can now be said of structural economic reform. As we consider the global economic imbalances and differential growth rates between continents the importance of structural economic reform can no longer be discounted. Balanced growth will arise when continents like Europe enhance their structural economic reform with greater labour, capital and product market flexibilities and when continents like Asia engaged in wider and deeper structural economic reform to substantially raise their productivity levels.

    Indeed today, more so than even trade, innovation is the driver of change, forcing structural reform on to the agenda. It took nearly forty years for the first 50 million people to own a radio, just 16 years for the first 50 million people to own a PC, but just 5 years for the first 50 million to be on the internet.

    Seven years ago when we came into government in Britain there were no DVDs, no digital TV, no broadband, a fraction of the number of people with mobile phones.

    And the speed of change in the next ten years will be even more dramatic. Indeed people think it will be even more dramatic than the changes of the last two hundred years.

    With the global sourcing of goods and now services, the nations that are the most innovative and flexible will be the most successful in securing comparative advantage and value added.

    So the advance of science, technology and innovation will be absolutely crucial in determining which nations are successful and which fail in the next stage of globalisation.

    And it is because I am clear that the nations that are the most innovative, enterprising, adaptable and flexible that will be the winners that we must push forward with new policies to become world leaders in science, technology and creative industries.

    I do not believe that in the next stage of the global economy success for one country need mean failure on the part of the other.

    Globalisation is not a zero sum game where one country or continent will only succeed at the expense of another.

    But I do believe that if we are to make the most of the opportunities that arise from global economic change wide deep and extensive structural economic reform will be essential.

    Indeed to be successful each country must summon up the resolve and demonstrate the strength of character and economic purpose to meet and master the challenges ahead – seeking out what gives it comparative advantage.

    And I believe that if we do so and make the right decisions this next stage of globalisation is made for Britain and China.

    As I have said, the UK comparative advantage in the 21st century starts with the strength that comes from our economic stability.

    But to succeed we must become world leaders not only in stability but in science, enterprise, education and trade.

    So Britain must make the right decisions in its policies to promote science, enterprise, skills and trade – to make globalisation work for us

    We must be prepared to make any necessary reforms, implement any legislative changes, and introduce any additional incentives to secure the comparative advantage we seek.

    And we want to work with business – often getting out of the way and concentrating on what government can do best – education, public investment in science, skills, our infrastructure and welfare – to ensure businesses and people can respond.

    So in the globalisation game, we see Britain’s comparative advantage as our stability, our scientific genius, our world class universities and our global connections. But if Britain is to continue to thrive in the future, it is not enough just to rely on established historic advantages.

    It is also in our nature as British – and part of the British entrepreneurial spirit – always to explore, to seek out new markets, to boldly search out new opportunities where others have hesitated to go. We look out not in. And we have done so for many centuries.

    Strongly anti-protectionist on trade, we are pioneers of free and open trade and today its greatest exponents.

    And we are fiercely anti-protectionist too in our attitudes and open to new ideas, new influences and new people and we seek to be a beacon for talent not just British but from the rest of the world. And it is precisely because we are anti-protectionist that we are aware too of the continuing need to be flexible.

    So while Britain has always been internationalist in its approach to the world and has always seen the English Channel as a highway and not a moat, I want us to think of a Britain in this new global age that leads the world in championing free trade against protectionism and that is open to new ideas new influences and new people – a Global Britain always looking outwards with connections in every continent and seeing change not as an enemy but as a friend. Indeed our commitment to the future of the European Union is because we want Europe to be less like a trade bloc looking in on itself and more like a Global Europe looking out to the rest of the world.

    So one of our greatest comparative advantages in the new global economy could be our ability to respond flexibly, quickly and openly to global change.

    And I can say that this Global Britain will show by the structural economic reforms we are prepared to make that we can and will respond to change with enhanced flexibility and through structural reform we will encourage the expanding elements of the new global economy where we can secure comparative advantage – to celebrate and not constrain scientific exploration and discovery, to nurture the new creative industries, to continuously innovate in new financial products and services and to create a skilled and adaptable workforce in a Britain of ambition and aspiration where there is no cap on potential and no ceiling on talent.

    Over the next few days, as part of these structural economic reforms, I am publishing plans in three areas – financial services, science and education – showing where Britain is and plans to be a world leader in the future and showing in particular where cooperation with China will yield beneficial results for both economies. Their development will help us double exports to China by 2007 and quadruple exports by 2010.

    Our financial services sector is the best in the world – London, a pre-eminent financial centre. We are already taking our skills and knowledge to the rest of the world and the rest of the world is coming to us. And we are determined to lead in the new services that will be a feature of the decades to come.

    Tomorrow I will publish our plans for developing our financial services links with China.

    I am delighted that our banks and insurance companies sell products here in China. I am delighted that China’s companies list on the London Stock Exchange.

    Now we wish to see more companies from China and around the world listing in London.

    And we will also seek to develop from the City of London our financial services, and business and management services.

    My speech by video to a science conference in Manchester in Britain earlier today highlighted our ambitions for scientific and medical research – that Britain lead the world as a location for R and D, for world class universities, and for effective technology transfer between education and business.

    While today more Nobel prices than any country except America and a higher share of British growth delivered by science-based innovations than in any other industrial nation including the United States of America, Britain is determined to win in the science based and high value added products and processes of the future. And we are determined to drive up our lead in creative industries from film, fashion and design to communications and digital electronics, now in total accounting for 8 per cent of our national output.

    And the proposals I am outlining tomorrow will make it possible for more British universities and research institutes to develop links with their counterparts in China, more British high-technology firms to develop links with their Chinese counterparts and more skilled researchers and students to move between our two countries, making the best use of the facilities we both have to offer.

    Britain is determined to lead the world in the provision of educational services. In future years we see it as one of our greatest export earners.

    In just five years the value of British education as an export has almost doubled, from £6.5 billion to £10.3 billion. Education and education related services are our fastest growing export earner and have already eclipsed food, tobacco and drink exports, insurance, and ships and aircraft. Indeed, I believe that if we continue to make the right decisions, by 2020 education exports could contribute over £20 billion a year to the UK economy.

    Nowhere is the expansion of education as a British export happening more quickly and with greater results than here in China.

    Today English language lessons are a requirement from age six in Chinese schools with 20 million more children a year starting lessons. In Beijing alone 200,000 people also take English lessons outside the school system. It is estimated that over 300 million Chinese people currently speak English. And in twenty years time the number of English speakers in China is likely to exceed the number of speakers of English as a first language in the all of the rest of the world.

    I believe this is a huge opportunity for Britain and I am today setting out proposals to make education one of Britain’s lead exports.
    UK education and training providers providing education abroad – facilitated by new technology and offshore campuses – could rise from the 200,000 students covered today to more than 800,000 by 2020…an increase of more than 300 per cent.

    And, if the sale of education products overseas including books, IT packages and broadcasting follows the overall trend in export growth it could be worth £10 billion by 2020.

    Our aim is to encourage UK education and training providers to work internationally in partnership with business

    We want to make the UK an international leader in the creative and supportive use of IT for education

    We want to promote the role of our universities as international hubs for learning and research

    And we want to promote further expansion in the number of international students at UK further and higher education institutions – both in Britain and in off-shore campuses abroad like those already being pioneered here in China by Nottingham University and Napier University.

    Education exported to Europe. Education exported to America. Education exported to Asia.

    And today I am setting out a five point plan to raise Britain’s earnings from exporting education, particularly in the Chinese market.

    First, our ambition is that every school college and university in England to be ‘twinned’ with a school college or university overseas within the next five years. This is made possible by the expansion the Department of Education is announcing of our global gateway – an international website providing a one-stop shop for schools – and from this year universities and colleges – seeking a twinning partner. 150 schools in Britain already have links with schools here in China – and I saw one such link-up in practice today.

    Second, we will expand English language teaching overseas and in particular expand the ‘in2english’ website run by the British Council, the BBC and China Central Radio and TV – set up to help people in China learn English – which is already attracting 60,000 unique visits per month.

    Third, we will help universities, colleges and business providers of educational products to win in the growing market in English education abroad. To make this happen, the brand Education UK website has a fully searchable database of 240,000 courses in the UK and offers students from across the world the opportunity to enquire about and apply for a course online.

    Fourth, our aim is to establish the UK as an international leader in the use of ICT for education. We will invest £2.5 million in the E-China scheme which enables English Higher Education institutions to work with their Chinese counterparts to develop joint e-learning programmes.

    Fifth, with global demand for international higher education student places forecast to grow from 2.1 million in 2003 to some 5.8 million in 2020, I can announce that we will make it possible for Chinese students to stay and work in our economy for a year after Higher Education. I have proposed a reciprocal arrangement for China so that British students can stay here in China for a year to work. We will also expand scholarship programmes such as the Chevening Programme and Overseas Research Students Award Scheme, which fund students from overseas to study in the UK.

    Stability. Open trade. Structural economic reform. But it is also essential for governments such as ours to do all we can to ensure opportunity, prosperity and the chance of a good life is available not just to some of our citizens but to all of our citizens.
    And our desire for a globalisation that works for everyone in all parts of the world means we must all take into account the inequalities that globalisation brings and the needs of all developing countries.

    There are those who define the next stage of globalisation as an inevitable growth in insecurity and inequality.

    This depends on the decisions we make.

    I believe that with the right decisions globalisation can address inequality, tackle economic discrimination and root out unacceptable unfairnesses. Properly managed globalisation has the potential to make the world a safer place, breaking down boundaries and uniting people. And I believe that in the long run that prosperity like peace is indivisible — and that to be sustained it has to be shared.

    So we must address the problems that arise when a rapid opening up of the global economy brings in its wake extremes of inequality both between and within countries.

    And we must ensure that developing countries can participate in the global economy with both a level playing field and on terms that address the needs of their most vulnerable

    When Premier Wen visited the UK last year, the UK and China committed to work together to help developing countries in addressing poverty and other development-related problems so as to better manage challenges posed by globalisation.

    We welcome China’s support for the UK’s proposal for an International Finance Facility which would leverage up development aid commitments on the international capital markets to raise an additional $50 billion dollars a year to enable us to tackle global poverty and meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goals for education, health, gender equality and reductions in deprivation.

    And today I can tell you that China and the UK have agreed to work towards a joint statement by the Spring Meetings setting out the objectives and priorities we have on international development and achieving the Millennium Development Goals, including progress on innovative financing mechanisms such as the International Finance Facility.

    So I propose greater cooperation on economic stability, the opening up of trade, on structural economic reform and on a new deal for the poorest of the world.

    Just last month your Finance Minister spoke at a conference I chaired in London. He spoke of enterprise and of global trade. We both shared strong and positive ideas. And it is strengthening cooperation between Britain and China that can enable Britain to make the most of its advantages.

    That is why I have committed Britain to make all the changes necessary to become more enterprising, flexible, creative, adaptable, skilled and educated a nation than ever before.

    If we get it right the benefits are huge.

    Britain and China have much in common. Together we can show that globalisation can deliver real tangible benefits.

    Benefits that make us stronger.

    Benefits that bring us closer.

    A shared long term economic purpose.

    My message is of optimism and opportunity. We should not fear globalisation. We must embrace it. But we must all make the necessary changes to make globalisation work for us.

    Thank you.

  • Gordon Brown – 2005 Speech at Opening of Wolverhampton Learning Quarter

    Gordon Brown – 2005 Speech at Opening of Wolverhampton Learning Quarter

    The speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in Wolverhampton on 28 February 2005.

    I am delighted to be here today to open a major path breaking initiative in education which will be viewed with interest from around the whole of the United Kingdom.

    The Wolverhampton Learning Quarter is a pioneering development for education in our country.

    Adult education and further education brought together – creating a one stop learning centre for all men and women in Wolverhampton that is already raising the numbers of adults training and acquiring skills.

    And I can confirm that it is our ambition that nationally we follow the lead you in Wolverhampton are today giving the country.

    The higher ambition for the Britain of the future is

    that every young person has training throughout their teenage years;
    that every adult without skills has the guarantee of training for basic qualifications in work; and
    that – modelled on this initiative here in Wolverhampton – every town and city has its one stop learning centre.

    Here in Wolverhampton you have recognised that for Britain to have the future skills that we need, all agencies must come together and all skills must be catered for.

    You are showing that Wolverhampton works best when Wolverhampton works together.

    And – building on the excellent work already being done by Wolverhampton College and the Adult Education Service – the new Learning Quarter is

    helping nearly 500 students with specialist vocational training to prepare for service sector jobs;
    making available courses from health to hairdressing, tourism to textiles, beauty to baking;
    providing genuine lifelong learning – for people of all ages and from all walks of life; and
    playing a key role in the regeneration of the city.

    And we can already see the success you are having. Since the Learning Quarter started taking in students, there has been a 50 per cent growth in learners at the college.

    The next challenge for Britain – and for every advanced industrial nation – is to meet and master the next stage of global economic change, and the rise of China, India and Asia as manufacturing and industrial powers.

    And the central issue of the Budget and our programme for the next five years – indeed the central issue of the coming decade – will be how Britain and the British people can be best prepared, equipped and ready to meet today’s global economic and educational challenges, and how to build the best long term future for the British economy and for Britain’s hard working families.

    A few days ago in China, my eyes were opened to the dramatic challenge that Britain faces from emerging economies.

    We cannot ignore or succumb to the challenge from China and Asia – but must seize it.

    China and India are not only producing an ever higher share of the world’s manufactured goods from electronic goods to clothes, they are is also upgrading their skills at an astonishing pace – producing between them 4 million trained graduates every year.

    120,000 of India and China’s new graduates are computer science graduates, compared to just 18,000 in Britain.
    And in China alone there are nearly 300,000 new science and engineering graduates each year, compared to 100,000 in Britain.

    So seizing the China challenge means that we in Britain simply cannot afford to waste the potential of any young person or discard the talents of any adult.

    And we must help men and women make the transition from low skilled to higher skilled work.

    This requires a transformation in the way we think: using not some of the talents of some of the people but all of the skills of all of the people.

    And making education for the majority no longer a one-off pass-fail event between the ages of 5 and 16 but making it lifelong, permanent and recurrent: making it about encouraging adults in any course and at any age they want to study.

    Compared to 1997 1.2 million more adults a year now participate in learning; 750,000 people are now benefiting from basic skills training; around 250,000 young people are participating in apprenticeships today compared with 87,500 in 1997.

    And since 1997 long term youth unemployment – once 350,000 in the mid eighties – has been reduced to 6,000, an average of less than 10 per constituency.

    But I can tell you our aim is not to congratulate ourselves on what we have achieved but to consider what we now can achieve.

    We are determined to continue to take the tough decisions necessary – in our schools, colleges, and workplaces – to ensure that more people to achieve their full potential and play their full part in their communities.

    That is why – alongside the new deal for jobs, we want a new deal for skills.

    That is why we will, in the next Parliament, offer every adult without skills, in or out of work, not only a skills check up, but also free training provision to achieve Level Two qualifications.

    It is why we also plan for the first time a national employer training programme – with – in every area of the country and in small and medium as well as large businesses –

    employers recognising their responsibilities to offer time off;
    employees recognising their responsibilities to take up the opportunities; and
    government recognising our responsibility to fund the training.

    And it is why, building on reforms already undertaken, and following the Tomlinson review, we are putting in place high quality options for vocational education throughout the secondary curriculum.

    And we know that we must do more.

    So our Government wants teachers to be encouraged to use their teaching skills in all areas of Britain.

    And we want, modelled on experience in the United States, to look at the case for a “Teach for Britain” programme with new incentives for teachers to teach in all the high unemployment areas of Britain.

    We want a one stop centre for adult learning in every community.

    And we also want to push up quality and standards in further education, with new incentives for institutions to improve the standards of lecturers.

    And this is essential because 80 per cent of the 2015 workforce has already left school and is today in the world of work and we must offer the chance to upgrade skills to every adult already in the workforce.

    And I can tell you today that our promise to the British people is that for the first time in Britain not just some but every teenager after the age of 16 will have the right to education, training or work.

    And in the next Parliament

    no teenager should ever again be unemployed;
    for the first time in Britain every adult will have the guarantee of training for work; and
    no adult will ever again be denied the chance of basic skills for work.
    Our consistent continued fiscal discipline – yesterday, today and tomorrow – is not only the real key to meeting our fiscal rules but also to entrenching the economic stability that is the foundation of prosperity.

    It is also right that mothers and fathers can balance work and family life. That is why we have extended opportunities for maternity benefit and maternity leave, made it easier for employees to have flexible working arrangements and improved the quality and quantity of affordable and available child care.

    And Patricia Hewitt and Ruth Kelly are today announcing new proposals to ensure greater flexibility in the workplace to allow mothers and fathers to balance the needs of their family with the demands of working life.

    Here in Wolverhampton the Learning Quarter will play an essential frontline role in delivering better skills for people.

    So it is a great honour to be here today to declare your new building open and to wish you the very best in all your work and study in the future.

  • Boris Johnson – 2022 Speech at the Ukrainian Embassy in London

    Boris Johnson – 2022 Speech at the Ukrainian Embassy in London

    The speech made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, at the Ukrainian Embassy in London on 5 May 2022.

    Thank you very much, what an honour to speak after my friend Volodymyr Zelenskyy, truly one of the most incredible leaders of modern times.

    What a blessing for Ukraine and for the world, and what a disaster for Putin that he should now be leading Ukraine in Kyiv.

    It is almost exactly 80 years ago, 1942, that the BBC first broadcast Shostakovich’s Leningrad symphony to the world. This was played by a half-starving orchestra during the siege of Leningrad, while it was being pounded by the Nazis, and that symphony became a symbol of resistance to fascism, and the power of the human spirit.

    I do not know whether Vladimir Putin is a Shostakovich buff or not, but is it not a tragic irony that a Russian leader, himself from Leningrad, should now be laying waste to cities in Ukraine as Volodymyr has just described.

    Starving civilians, bombarding their homes, driving them underground, forcing families to huddle together in cellars, or as we have seen, in that giant steel plant in Mariupol.

    But no matter what Putin tries to do to Ukraine’s people, what the exhibition that we are opening tonight shows, is that he will never break their spirit. He will never overcome those indomitable armed forces, who have already repelled the Russian army from the gates of Kyiv, and therefore achieved the greatest feat of arms of the 21st century.

    That is why I’m more certain than ever that Ukraine will win. Ukraine will be free, and a sovereign Ukraine will rise again.

    And it’s because this struggle is so clear cut, and without any moral ambiguity that I can see, a struggle between freedom and oppression, between democracy and tyranny, independence and imperialism, light and darkness, good and evil, that is why I think it speaks so deeply to us.

    That is why here in the UK, you can see blue and yellow flags flying everywhere, from town halls and church spires and front gardens and children’s playgrounds, and we in the United Kingdom, of every political party, all backgrounds, we are proud to be friends of Ukraine.

    When Russian troops were massing on the frontiers of Ukraine in January, we were among the first European countries to send anti-tank missiles. I want you to know, and I told Volodymyr this earlier on today in our conversation, we will continue to intensify this effort for as long as Ukraine wants and needs our help.

    And it is precisely because the Ukrainian people refused to surrender and precisely because they resisted so heroically that their suffering today is so severe.

    Putin has driven at least one Ukrainian in every four from their homes, including two thirds of all Ukrainian children.

    And just as we must help Ukraine to defend herself against aggression, so we must also do everything we can ease the terrible burden of suffering imposed on an innocent people.

    Let me conclude by saying: take part in today’s charity auction. Whether you are bidding for Volodymyr’s fleece – a snip at £50,000, I want much higher bids than that, or you are bidding for a tour of Kyiv with Mayor Klitschko, I have had a tour of Kyiv with Mayor Klitschko, it’s a beautiful city. Well worth it, dig deep.

    Support Ukraine tonight my friends so that that great ancient European capital Kyiv can never be threatened again, and that Ukraine can be whole and free once more.

  • James Heappey – 2022 Speech at the Sir Henry Leach Memorial Lecture

    James Heappey – 2022 Speech at the Sir Henry Leach Memorial Lecture

    The speech made by James Heappey, the Minister for the Armed Forces, in London on 5 May 2022.

    Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much indeed for inviting me to come and speak today. I know that there was at least one other who would have been invited in front of me and he sends his apologies, but that is the role of the deputy and I am grateful for the opportunity nonetheless, to come and enthuse about all that a retired soldier has learned about the importance of maritime power projection in my time as the Minister for the Armed Forces. And to be invited to do so as the Sir Henry Leach lecture is a real honour and particularly to have Sir Henry’s daughter and family in the room.

    It would be remiss I think, not to reflect on the fact that this is the 40th anniversary of the Falklands conflict. Sir Henry made his name both as a maritime commander during the Cold War, but also in the advice that he gave around to the use of maritime power in the Falklands. This is a good moment I think to reflect to the Falklands generation of veterans, that, although the news agenda is elsewhere, right now and I think we would probably have all thought when we were looking at the news grids back in and sort of October, November last year that the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Falklands would be very high profile and it’s not. And I don’t want anybody in the wider Royal Navy community to think that that is because our thoughts are not with those who, those eighty-five Royal Navy personnel, twenty-six Royal Marines and eighty Royal Fleet Auxiliary personnel who gave their lives in that conflict. It is an act of great sacrifice. And I think that where there is the parallel is that 40 years ago, the British public knew that the right thing to do was to sail an awfully long way to stand up for the rights and the freedom of Falkland Islanders, and to accept all of the risks that that brought with it. And what we’ve seen over the last three months is the British public are every bit as resolved to do the right thing, no matter what the risks may be to the United Kingdom. And so whilst the conversation is dominated by Ukraine, I just wanted to open this lecture by making sure that everybody in the Royal Navy community, in the Royal Marines community, knows that absolutely nobody in Her Majesty’s Government has forgotten that this is a very important anniversary and that our thoughts and admiration are with all who fought so valiantly on the sea and from the sea, in that conflict.

    Now, the other thing that I think Sir Henry would appreciate about the world in which we live today is that we have returned to a period of systemic competition. Now the IR foresaw that and the IR started to re-gear the British Armed Forces to be a set of armed forces that could persistently be present in parts of the world where we are challenged and to compete, but when it was in the IR, it was just words, it was just policy. What’s happened over the last year and particularly in the last three months, has brought that into very sharp focus. But I think what’s interesting is when you stop and think about it, in the maritime domain, everything has changed but yet nothing has changed. The UK’s geography hasn’t changed. We still sit, from the Russian perspective, at the left hand gate post of their routes into the North Atlantic. The Greenland, Iceland, UK gap hasn’t changed in its strategic importance. It is still hugely important that you have the ability to protect your fisheries and your oil and gas assets at sea, both in home waters and in the waters of overseas territories, in the waters of allies and partners. And of course, it’s hugely important that you can protect to defend your trade routes. Although a big difference since the end of the Cold War, is that the offshoring of manufacturing and the globalisation of supply chains has meant that those sea lines of communication are now even more important to Western economies than they were 30 or 40 years or so ago. So no change in that sense. Geography hasn’t changed, the resources of the ocean and of our seas and our requirements protect them hasn’t changed, and sea lines of communication for the purposes of trade, no change. But what has changed is the existence of undersea infrastructure and the threat that can be posed against that, that is material to our national security and the existence of our liberalised global economy. 97 per cent and rising of global data travels and cables under the seas and trade worth $10 trillion per day.

    So too, is there a renewed challenge to the rules based international system and with that, the governance and protection of rights on the global commons. And that is not just about how we do our business on the high seas but so too, and this was put into a very sharp focus when I was in the office of Commander of the 5th Fleet in Bahrain, where he was showing me the three pinch points in his patch – the Suez, the Bab-el-Mandeb and the Straits of Hormuz. And you realise that it doesn’t take much in the way of maritime power or even indeed in the Navy, missile power, in order to hold at risk and entire global order at certain points of geography around the world.

    The other thing that has really changed is the geopolitics of some of the key seas in our near abroad. During the Cold War, the Black Sea had just Turkey as a NATO member, and then Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, as part of the Warsaw Pact, or the Soviet Union. Now it’s the complete inverse. Romania, Bulgaria have joined Turkey. Georgia is a NATO aspirant, Ukraine remains we think a NATO aspirant, we’ll see how that shifts. Also, Russia stands alone in the Black Sea, where previously it was the opposite way around for NATO. Exactly the same, I think that the geopolitics of the Baltic. In the Cold War, the Baltic was West Germany, Denmark and Norway, in NATO. Sweden and Finland, non-ally, but then the Soviet Union in St. Petersburg, and in Kaliningrad, and then Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and East Germany, around the rest of the coast. Completely inverted if, as looks likely, Finland and Sweden decide to make a bid to join NATO. All of a sudden in the Baltic, St Petersburg’s and Kaliningrad stand alone around a coastline that would otherwise be NATO. That’s a massive geopolitical shift in two really important European seas. Then there is the change of climate and with that the opening up of a sea route in the high north, and how we will stand up for a rules based international system and freedom of navigation rights, between east and west, across Russia’s northern coast. So our interest in the maritime remains enormous, self-evidently so and as an island nation with global ambition, how could it be anything but. But our competition in our near abroad through NATO, in reacting to changing geopolitics and changing security situation in the Euro-Atlantic is a great challenge for the Navy, for the Fleet Commander and Charlie Stickland, Chief of Joint Operations, is here as well. How does NATO reassure its allies in seas that are now predominantly NATO coastlines, but where a belligerent Russia will seek to challenge. That requires naval resource, that requires a presence. That’s a resource and a presence that can be internationalised, but it requires a clear commitment from us to be there, and to stand up for the rights of our NATO partners in those seas.

    So too, however, must we not be fixed, I liken it to watching my son play under-tens football, where the style is very much to chase the ball. All 20 players on the pitch are within about 10 yards ball at any one time. And there’s a danger that just as last year, on the eve of HMS Queen Elizabeth and her Strike Group sailing, all of the conversation was about the Indo Pacific tilt and the opportunities there, there’s a danger that this year, we focus exclusively on sub hunting in the North Atlantic, standing up for our neighbour, for our allies and partners in the Baltic and the Black Sea, competing in the Mediterranean and then everything reverts to being about the Euro-Atlantic. But that would be a massive mistake because we have an obligation as a global trading nation and just because of the nature of modern competition between states, to also compete for influence, prosperity and to protect our friendships in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, South- East Asia, South Pacific and the Caribbean.

    And it was fortuitous that she was in the right place at the right time but in the South Pacific, take that as an example, about as far away from the UK as you could get but where the UK through the Commonwealth has partnerships and friendships that have lasted decades, but that we have been failing to meaningfully service for decades as well. In fact, we’ve be relying, I would argue, entirely on the Australians and New Zealanders to carry on flying the flag for the Commonwealth with countries in the South Pacific. Well, how fantastic that literally months after the offshore patrol vessels arrive in the Indo Pacific we have exactly the sorts of moments where the danger was that China would be the first to arrive in Tonga with aid and China becomes the person who helped Tonga in their hour of need. But instead, a Royal Navy offshore patrol vessel was two days sail away because she was forward present, ready to react whatever the situation was. And she was there alongside the Australians and New Zealanders reacting to that moment. I thought that was the most brilliant vindication of why we do forward presence, why we need to operate, why we need to be constantly recognising that we are in a competition, and that point of competition changes all the time from the humanitarian, to the opportunity to develop capability together and to share aligned inventories and ways of operating all the way through to the more hard edged competition that is the business of naval power.

    I think the case for naval power is clear, obviously, I’ve eulogised already about the threats from the sea and our opportunities around the world. But the challenge is what sort and how much of it. Now I was warned passionately, strongly, by every sailor I’ve spoken to – do not read anything into the Moskva because they will start telling you about the position that the radars were in at the time that it was hit and that therefore, crew error, so I won’t. I also phoned up Ben yesterday morning and alongside that warning, I said yeah, but why is everything constantly bigger? Why is a destroyer now the size of a cruiser and why is a frigate now the size a of destroyer? Why is the answer to everything in the naval world, what you need minister is bigger and more expensive. There followed naval architecture 101 around height of mast, beam and therefore length and tonnage. So I sort of get that these things are more complicated than a simple former soldier might have initially thought. But I do think there are some realities that we would be failing ourselves if we weren’t to challenge ourselves over. Missile technology, on land and at sea, appears to be a ascendant. Industrial base, particularly in the UK, but actually you could argue across the West compared to China, particularly, our industrial base is limited. And supply chains are increasingly challenging and raw materials increasingly expensive. So in those circumstances, surely there is a conversation to be had about a more disruptive approach to maritime power projection. Is the answer really ever bigger ships, ever bigger submarines? Now for what it’s worth, this isn’t me saying that we’ve made mistakes or the things we’re buying are not right. I think the UK’s current fleet and our planned acquisitions over the next decade or two are right. I think that the Carrier Strike Group deployment was a huge success and proof that projection of air power from the maritime remains a hugely persuasive hard tool power that can be projected anywhere in the world. And when you get to that amazing elysian field of interoperability with your key allies as we proved in the Mediterranean and in the Philippine Sea, then it can be a really, really persuasive reminder of those who seek to challenge the rules based international system, just how much power can be brought quickly to bear against them on a sovereign piece of territory that can self-propel anywhere in the world.

    But I’m interested in how we put alongside that Carrier Strike Group vision, and these amazing destroyers and frigates that we will buy over the next decades, a dispensable, dispersible, autonomous capability that makes the challenge for our adversaries was even harder, that poses them with real dilemmas. I also want to see the Royal Navy lead the way in lethality. I thought that Andrew’s predecessor Jerry Kyd, in his haul-down letter, wrote some really persuasive things about the importance of the lethality. And I think it is quite interesting when the US and the UK send ships into the Barents Sea it is the American DDGs that attract attention because of their lethality and their ability to project power from the maritime to the land domain. Our frigates clearly have an important role in protecting those destroyers so our presence was very necessary. But prickly, more lethal naval platforms that pose adversaries challenge at sea and from the sea to land, I think are conversations that we need be having ourselves and challenging ourselves to get right. I also think that we need to rediscover and all these people with beards who spend their life beneath the ocean or deep in bunkers at Northwood are effusive about this, but we’ve got to listen to them, that the submarine domain is less well understood than space. And we have to invest in the advantage that you can find beneath the oceans because I continue to believe that it is a place from which you can do all manner of stuff in a way that your adversaries don’t get a say in what so ever.

    But it’s how we operate too. And I think that our competition for relationships, for inventory with partners around the Gulf of Guinea, along the East African coast in the Caribbean, in the Arabian Gulf and in the South Pacific are opportunities to compete to maintain the UK sphere of influence and to push back against the growing Chinese influence, particularly in many parts of the world, but actually Russia is active in many parts of the world too with similar ambitions. And that doesn’t mean that we are there as a guarantor of their security. It is that we engage them as partners, as equals without creating debt dependency, without demanding basing rights in return. The deal that we do is that we have a set of values that we espouse, and we have a willingness to have a relationship as equals, that in my experience, when I have seen Royal Navy training teams around the world doing this with our partners in the Commonwealth and beyond, our people just instinctively get it and when they do, it is brilliant. It is powerful. It is wonderful. And it stands in stark contrast to the way that the Chinese do their business with chequebook and stick.

    And we mustn’t be dismissive. There’s a tendency because we did the Carrier Strike Group and it went so well with the Charles de Gaulle and with the Reagan to say that’s how we operate, a carrier Navy and that’s what matters. Of course we are. But there are a network of patrol boat navies with security challenges in the maritime domain of their own in seas around the world where the white ensign has a place and where British naval expertise is a currency that is hugely admired and where there’s an appetite to partner. So I’m every bit as excited about HMS Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales as I am HMS Spey, Tamar, Medway, Forth and Trent. And there will be a moment where those switch to be the Type 31s, but I hope that they don’t switch completely because in some parts of the world Type 31 is too big. It’s over roaring. When you turn up, you’re not being a partner, you’re being the boss. And so I hope that the Navy strikes a balance between putting Type 31 out in replacement to the batch two OPVs but also in addition to the batch two OPV. So the right platform with the right profile is in the right place, flying the flag for the UK. And for what it’s worth since the Secretary of State wasn’t available and the speech is mine, the thing that I really interested in is for those patrol boat navies, given the role that we have that is non-discretionary in home waters, how do we, the Royal Navy here in the UK, use a set of smaller simply maintained, highly exportable patrol vessels in our home waters that then have the RN seal of approval for which the export market – and the Secretary of State for International Trade nods enthusiastically – there are dozens of navies in the market to buy that sort of platform. And it would be great if we could operate it in home waters too. As the First Sea Lord said yesterday, all great minister, but it’s going to cost you but it’s a conversation to have.

    Ladies and gentlemen, over the last 18 months or so I had the huge pleasure of seeing the Royal Navy deployed on its Littoral Response Group experimentation deployment into the Mediterranean. I have had the pleasure of sitting in the ops room of a Type 45 destroyer where they have shown me the air picture that they saw as they sailed across the bottom of Crimea. I have stood on offshore patrol vessels in Curaçao, Cartagena and Dhaka. I have stood on minesweepers in Bahrain, I have been on a submarine on the first day of fresh air after its deployment with our continuous at sea deterrent. I’ve been in bunkers being briefed on the incredible spooky stuff that our SSNs is do day in day out. I have been briefed by frigate and destroyer crews that have been in the high north, the Black Sea, the Baltic and the North Atlantic. The Royal Navy is operating the world over with huge success. It is magnificent, it is ready to fight. The maritime contribution to our national security right now is inescapably important and I am so proud of the work that our men and women who wear dark blue at work are doing. I want them to be busier yet. I want them to continue to be Europe’s foremost Navy with a war-fighting capability that makes our adversaries take note. But so too, do I want to see the white ensign flying in all corners of the world as partners to nations big and small, reminding them that in the UK they have a real friend and from the sea we do things best, thank you.

  • Jeremy Quin – 2022 Speech at the Defence Procurement, Research, Technology & Exportability (DPRTE) Conference

    Jeremy Quin – 2022 Speech at the Defence Procurement, Research, Technology & Exportability (DPRTE) Conference

    The speech made by Jeremy Quin, the Minister for Defence Procurement, on 5 May 2022.

    It’s a pleasure to be here in Farnborough this morning and I want to start by thanking all of you for everything you do for our forces.

    In my view the Defence sector is the jewel in the crown of our country’s economy – maintaining hundreds of thousands of jobs, developing rich skills bases and boosting our global influence.

    And while your immense contribution often goes unsung, the world has been reminded of that value in recent months as a result of Putin’s illegal and unprovoked war.

    The UK, as you all know, has been at the forefront of efforts to support Ukraine and, as the Prime Minister announced to the Ukrainian parliament on Monday, we will be delivering £300m more in military aid in the coming days, making us the biggest supplier in Europe.

    But delivering and maintaining this equipment has been a huge logistical feat and it wouldn’t be possible without an agile and resilient supply chain.

    Which is where all of you come in.

    Firms like yours have helped build, maintain and transport the thousands of anti-tank and anti-air missiles which have helped protect Ukrainian towns and cities.

    Of course, this is just one of a number of recent supply chain successes.

    You came to the fore during Op PITTING, providing the logistical backbone and equipment for the largest ever peacetime airlift.

    And you showed your mettle throughout the pandemic, from manufacturing ventilators to helping establish Nightingale hospitals.

    But you will be aware that the challenges we face in Defence procurement are growing quickly in this new era of constant competition and rapid technological advancement.

    The current cost of living crisis has placed the emphasis on value for money for the taxpayer as never before.

    And those reminders of the failures of Russian kit – tanks stuck in the mud for days, soldiers’ cheap handheld radios discarded – have underlined the need for resilience.

    That doesn’t just mean building equipment to last but ensuring we have access to the specialist parts required to maintain and repair those platforms at all times.

    More than anything though, we need to make the whole acquisition process simpler and quicker, so that we can spend less time hacking our way through red tape and more time delivering on what counts.

    So how can we respond to these multiple challenges?

    Well, a year ago we published DSIS, the Defence and Security Industrial Strategy, which set out to transform the way we do business while also attracting the best suppliers into our supply chains, including non-traditional and smaller firms.

    Today I want to take the opportunity to remind you of those key pillars of DSIS that we believe will help transform procurement.

    First, in this age of rapid technological advance, we are injecting pace and clarity into our processes so we can deliver capability at the speed of relevance.

    We are reforming the Single Source Contracts Regulations and the Defence and Security procurement rules – making them more flexible and more agile for buying the right capability.

    And we are giving industry more notice about the kit we’re going to need, so you have the time to upskill and invest in the right areas.

    Shipbuilding is a case in point – we’ve just announced a new strategy which will create jobs and boost skills with a 30-year pipeline of 150 government vessel procurements, backed by £1.7 billion a year specifically for Royal Navy shipbuilding.

    Meanwhile, we are rolling out a Category Management system which will take a pan-Defence approach to buying goods and services instead of MOD organisations operating on an individual level – cutting costs and delivery times.

    But we recognise the best way to improve procurement is by improving our relationships with those with whom we do business.

    That’s why we have also strengthened the Defence Suppliers Forum by broadening and deepening the industry membership.

    That’s why we are using our National Security Technology and Innovation Exchange to give industry and academia the world-class facilities they need to succeed.

    And that’s why we are making it easier for you to export, developing our government-to-government frameworks to better support Defence exports while unplugging bottlenecks in our own system.

    The second pillar of DSIS, a critical pillar, is innovation.

    This government is determined to reverse the long-term decline in R&D in this country.

    So we’re ring-fencing £6.6bn for Defence R&D to produce game-changing capabilities that help the UK become a global science superpower. We’re already seeing successes across every domain and in all corners of the UK.

    The Army BattleLab in Dorset is enabling Defence personnel to work with academic institutions and private sector companies to trial cutting-edge tech.

    The new AI centre in Newcastle – which I had the pleasure of opening a couple of months ago – has a team of scientists exploiting the latest developments in the use of Defence AI.

    While the National Cyber Force in Lancashire will strengthen our already significant capability in the digital domain.

    But to really succeed, we need to be tapping into the talents of our SMEs – the backbone of our economy. Last month’s inaugural report from the Joint Economic Data Hub showed that more than a fifth of Defence procurement spending is with SMEs.

    We believe we must up that contribution further if they are to help spearhead our innovation revolution.

    That’s why in January we published the SME Action Plan, which sets out plans to improve engagement with SMEs in the defence supply chain by speeding up technology pull-through and providing focused investment to support innovation.

    We’ve also created a specific SME working group within the Defence Suppliers Forum, which is increasing access to opportunities and improving how we measure and report SME engagement.

    And our Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is helping turn private sector innovation into military capability, with Defence Innovation Loans to SMEs to help commercialise their products.

    These relationships are being further strengthened at a local level through our new network of Regional Defence and Security Clusters which allow industry and government to share ideas and work together, thus promoting collaboration and commercialisation into the supply chain.

    And the pilot cluster in the Southwest is already proving a hit, with 140 organisations signed up, including 90 SMEs, 45 of which have never previously worked with Defence.

    Critically, getting innovation right will also help strengthen great British companies in the export markets, where the clamour for Defence services in an ever more competitive world is growing louder.

    The third pillar for DSIS that is critical to our procurement approach is social value.

    At the start of this speech, I mentioned the enormous benefits Defence brings to every part of the country.

    We need to ensure that with every Defence procurement we are asking the wider strategic question of what else we can gain as a country alongside excellent kit.

    We recognise that our onshore Defence industry has a strategic value in its own right.

    To ensure we get the most from our new model we have established a Social Value Centre of Expertise, which will drive added value for Defence and the wider economy by embedding social value in acquisition.

    So those are three DSIS pillars that are designed to make our procurement and supply chains faster, more innovative and more socially valuable. But given that today’s theme is about building back better together, let me finish by turning the tables on you.

    After all, I’m sure many of you in the room have enterprising and innovative solutions to some of the challenges I set out. And perhaps even more answers to those I have not.

    So, as you go off and make the most of today’s conference, please do consider how you would get more out of your partnership with government.

    What more can you do to collaborate on research and development with us?

    How can we encourage companies with niche skills who might not be part of the existing Defence supply chain to come on board?

    How could you contribute to a Defence and Security Cluster in your area?

    What more support would you like to see from government on exports?

    How do we keep manufacturing lines open through the lifespan of a platform so we can ramp up production when called upon?

    Those are just a few questions that we’re going to be grappling with in the coming years and I’d love to hear from you your answers.

    If recent events have taught us anything, it’s that success from battlefield to boardroom rests on us working together.

    So thank you for coming and listening today and I look forward to working together with you and to continue to keep together our country safe and secure.

  • George Banton – 1922 Speech on Old Age Pensions

    George Banton – 1922 Speech on Old Age Pensions

    The speech made by George Banton, the then Labour MP for Leicester East, in the House of Commons on 4 April 1922.

    I hope that the House will allow me the indulgence which is usually accorded to a Member who addresses it for the first time. I take the opportunity of speaking upon this particular Resolution, because I have within the past few weeks had some experience in dealing with old people employed in a large concern with which I am connected. These old people number between 20 and 30, and range in age from 84 down to 70 years. The firm were anxious to give these old veterans of labour a rest, and they were willing to make their latter years as comfortable as possible. They investigated the cases, and they were willing to be generous, but they found that the standard of life at which these men had been living would be diminished seriously if the allowance given to them did not exceed £1 per week. They would have been willing to grant more than 10s., but it was argued that every shilling granted above the 10s. would be subsidising the Government. They did not feel disposed to take the money of that particular firm to subsidise the Government. They were put in this dilemma—to maintain these old men at an economic loss, or reduce their standard of living, which was a necessity they did not wish to face, or let them go to the guardians, and by going to the guardians they, as ratepayers, would have had to bear the cost, and it would have been a greater cost to the community than if they had been allowed the old age pension without these restrictions which are at present imposed. The question is whether it is possible for the Labour Benches to indicate some means by which they could economise so as to recompense in some way for the extra amount that would be called for.

    If hon. Members who talk upon this subject were acquainted with some of the great number of people who cannot maintain themselves upon the meagre allowance granted to them, and who have therefore to call upon the Poor Law for aid, they would realise that if these people were kept from the Poor Law a great economy to the State would result. That is one consideration, quite apart from any humanitarian feeling. It is said that all Members of the House are sympathetic towards the claims of the poor. We do not claim to have the monopoly of sympathy, but on public bodies I have heard of sympathy so many times that I am rather chary of giving credence to what is expressed. We want to extend our sympathies to those who need it most. Our old people need it most. The seconder of the Amendment reminded us that there were injunctions laid down that we should clothe the naked and feed the hungry, but that there was no injunction that we should grant old age pensions. One of the earliest injunctions laid upon mankind was that we should honour our fathers and our mothers. The State would show appreciation of that very old injunction by conceding the request of the Labour party, and allowing the old age pension to all, irrespective of their incomes. It has been suggested that that would not be wise, because millionaires might participate. I should not be surprised if millionaires, composed as they are to-day, did participate. They are of that particular kind which will take what is available from whatever source it comes, and they would most likely go for their 10s. a week, or they might make arrangements to have the money forwarded quarterly by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. At any rate, I would not penalise the needy old people because of the few millionaires.

    It is also suggested that we might make changes in the law more beneficial than this proposal to the poor. I have just been returned by an electorate which is not small, and I have made much of a point regarding the old people employed by the best employers of labour. There are many good employers of labour who are willing and anxious to help their old workpeople, but they do not feel justified in subsidising the Government. We are often charged with fighting for class legislation. We repudiate that charge. We find that in the granting of pensions there is class legislation at present in operation. When I read the list of pensions that this House has granted, I find there are some people participating in the generosity of the public to the extent of many thousands a year, but I have never read that there have been any inquiry into any recipient’s income, or any investigation as to whether the income would maintain them. The pensions seem to be granted “for services rendered.” I submit that the old people for whom I am pleading have rendered services to the State.

    Mr. JAMESON

    Why!

    Mr. BANTON

    They have rendered services to the State. An old writer has told us that there are; the soldiers of the ploughshare as well as soldiers of the sword. These poor old people have served their country. I notice that one hon. Member opposite shakes his head. I do not desire to raise any class antipathy, but I would appeal to the kindly sympathies of the House to realise that in the lower walks of life there are men and women who have served the State to the best of their ability.

    Mr. HAILWOOD

    On a point of Order. May I ask whether—

    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir E. Cornwall)

    It is usual when a new Member makes his first speech, to allow him to do so without interruption.

    Mr. BANTON

    I appeal to the best that is in the House. I do not wish to arouse the worst. I claim that hon. Members should extend their sympathy to many of the best of our people. There are thousands and tens of thousands in the ranks of the middle class whom this comparatively small dole would enable to end their last years in decent comfort. A poor woman came to me within the past fortnight. She was 74 years of age, and had been at work. In ignorance of the law she had been drawing 12s. to 14s. a week in addition to the 10s. a week from the State. The State discovered what she had done, and sent notice to her of the crime she had committed. The threat was held over her of punishment and she feared coming before the magistrates. On her behalf I interposed with the pensions officer, and here I may say that the officials in the Pensions Department I have always found sympathetic. But there the law stood. This woman received a demand made for the restoration of over £17. Her pension has been stopped, and the old lady is now in the workhouse. That is only one case that has come under my observation in the past few days. If hon. Members were only made more directly acquainted with the poverty of many of the most deserving of our people I am sure there would not be so much difficulty about changing the law. At the beginning of my speech I referred to 20 men. They are at work to-day. There are out of work strong, able-bodied men who are walking the streets. From the economic point of view it would be far more desirable to let the old men take their well-earned rest and to allow the strong and able-bodied to take their places. From the point of view of political economy it would mean a great saving to the public purse. I support the Resolution and I hope the House will realise that the old people deserve better treatment. We do not want to wait until the dreamed-of time when everything will be flourishing.

  • Tom Myers – 1922 Speech on Old Age Pensions

    Tom Myers – 1922 Speech on Old Age Pensions

    The speech made by Tom Myers, the then Labour MP for Spen Valley, on 4 April 1922.

    I beg to move

    “That, in the opinion of this House, the recommendation of the departmental committee on old age pensions in favour of the repeal of the provisions in the Old Age Pensions Acts as to calculation of means should be adopted and the Old Age Pensions Acts amended accordingly, thereby enabling applicants for and recipients of the old age pension to derive the full benefit of their thrift and personal provision for old age, and to receive assistance from friends, employers, and organisations, without reduction of or disqualification for the full pension.”

    In submitting to the House this Motion on behalf of the party with whom I am associated in this House, I would ask permission to make one personal reference, and one only. From the date of the inception of the Old Age Pensions Act to becoming a Member of this House, I served continuously as a member of an old age pensions committee. Perhaps what is more to the point, I was a member of a small sub-committee which was entrusted with the responsibility of adjudicating upon the appeals that were made by old age pensioners against the decision of the Committee. From that experience one could justify every syllable of the proposal before us. Fortunately we are strengthened in our attitude by the Report of the Departmental Committee, which has gone into the whole question of old age pensions. We upon this side of the House, and particularly the party with whom I am associated, have long held the view that an advance in the amount given for old age pensions, and a reduction in the age at which these pensions are made available, could both be justified having regard to existing circumstances.

    The proposal, however, which we make on this occasion does not make any suggestion in the direction either of reducing the age or increasing the amount. What we do most emphatically say is that the method of administration of the present Act of Parliament and the hardship it imposes upon many a recipient of the old age pension is of such a nature that some very drastic alteration is essential. In a word, we would make the birth certificate of the applicant for an old age pension the sole test upon which the decision is made. Anyone who comes and presents evidence of the fact that he is of the stipulated age to receive an old age pension, that, I say, should be and could be, the sole test imposed. The evils of the existing system are legion. The first one is the irritation which is caused to a large number of old age pensioners. Most old people look forward for a considerable period to the time when they will be entitled to their pension, which will go to relieve their family, frequently, from a responsibility which they have voluntarily undertaken. No sooner is their application presented, and they are looking forward to its being honoured, than they have a visit from a strange individual. This individual enters the household of these old people—I believe he looks upon this duty as a very unpleasant one, but he has to carry out the law—with a view of ascertaining what are the means of income of these would-be pensioners. But the annoyance and irritation, and even worse, that is caused to many of these old people is well known to those who have been entrusted with the responsibility of administering the Act.

    Questions are directed to these old people to ascertain their income and they cover a wide field. I could give instances where the old people have been primed before the visit of the official so that they may prevent disclosures being made as to their income. Any system or any method which drives old people to that expedient in order to protect their livelihood stands condemned from that point of view alone. Questions are asked about any extra meal they may be given by some friend. I have also heard of instances where inquiries have been made from the old people as to how many fowls they had, what their upkeep cost, and what was the egg-producing capacity per week, and then an average was struck between the cost of the upkeep and the market value of the produce, the amount being put down as part of the income of the old people. Then inquiries are made as to what they made out of their allotments, what they are receiving from friends, what voluntary assistance they get from relatives—these and similar inquiries are made by officials who have the backing of the law. Here and there are people who have at least some small accumulation. Even then the thing is inequitable, for it is very difficult to defend a system which permits cases like this. One person, say, has £400 in the bank, and there is 5 per cent interest calculated, or £20 per year, to be included in the income. Another person has £100, the interest on which is £5, but in this case he draws upon his little capital to augment the £5, so as to keep body and soul together. Every penny of that which is taken from the capital is included as income against that person. This is not so in the other case. This is one of the factors in the interpretation of the Act which cannot be justified.

    But the principal objection to the administration of this Act is the penalty which it imposes upon thrift. We have had during this past fortnight voluminous correspondence and communications from all sorts of voluntary organisations in the country—those organisations that we have been taught in days gone by to support and to be associated with—trade unions, friendly societies, and the like, where life-long contributions have been made by men and women in the hope and belief that at the back-end of their days they would reap the advantage of those contributions of a lifetime. But when the old age pensioner goes round he is informed that if he has a few shillings per week superannuation allowance from a trade union, or a few shillings a week from a friendly society, or some allowance from a benevolent employer after long service at a factory or from a colliery company—if such a person happens to have free coal allocated after a long life at the colliery, or a free house—all those considerations are at once seized upon by the Pensions Department and a penalty is imposed upon the Old Age Pension arising therefrom. These are factors which are objectionable to all self-respecting people, and they are having the effect of stopping those avenues of generosity which in the past have been so much in evidence.

    There is another point. Is an old age pension a test of poverty, or is it a reward for service? Do we grant it because people at the age of 70 are poor, or because they have rendered service to the community? The present administration of the law makes an old age pension a poverty test. The Report of the Departmental Committee is very definite upon this point. It says:

    “The existence of the means limit really introduces the old pauper taint and brands the Old Age Pension as a compassionate grant.”

    That ought not to be so, and we say very emphatically that if the birth certificate was made the claim for an old age pension being granted, great economies would be effected. If the birth certificate were made the test we could dispense with the Old Age Pension Committee, and all that would be necessary would be merely to check the age of the applicant, and we could effect all those economies which now involve so much expense by the employment of an army of officials, who at present do little more than impose a sort of inquisition upon these poor old people.

    With regard to our Motion, the principal argument which will probably be urged against it will be that there is no money to be had, and the country cannot afford it. We heard that story in the past, when old age pensions were advocated in the first instance. We heard it then at the street corner, and it was only when the pressure of public opinion made the claims as the old people irresistible that old age pensions were granted. There is just as strong a feeling to-day for the removal of those limitations as there was in the old days for the institution of the principle of old age pensions. We shall be told by the Government that there is any amount of sympathy for this proposal, but that there is no money to back it. We cannot accept sympathy without something practical behind it. Sympathy is useless unless backed by something of a substantial character.

    I am not going to accept any argument advanced from the point of view that we cannot find the money while we are able to point to avenues of expenditure of a much less desirable kind. If we seek such avenues of expenditure they are legion. While we are expending large sums upon the fighting forces which are very largely futile and all of them wicked, while we are expending the national substance on wicked and futile objects and upon our fighting forces, I decline to listen to any argument which is supported only by the statement that no money can be found for this purpose. We have to look at this question from the point of view of every old person in the country, whether they have a little accumulation of wealth or none at all, because when they reach the age of 70 they have made a definite contribution towards the well-being of the State. Even if they are wealthy people who can meet the test we are entitled to assume that people who do not want the old age pension will not apply for it.

    On the Old Age Pension Committees we have plenty of experience in regard to men waiting until they were 72, 73, and even 76 years of age before applying for an old age pension. We are entitled to assume that that state of things will prevail even if our proposal is put into effect. I appeal to the House, having regard to the tremendous volume of opinion in the country in favour of this proposal, to take a broad view and declare an old age pension to be a reward for service to the State, and not a poverty test. Let us encourage those who have served their country well to believe that the country is going to stand by them in their old age.

  • Ursula von der Leyen – 2022 Speech on Social and Economic Consequences of Russian Invasion

    Ursula von der Leyen – 2022 Speech on Social and Economic Consequences of Russian Invasion

    The speech made by Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, on 4 May 2022.

    Madam President, dear Roberta,

    Honourable Members,

    Next week, we will mark Europe Day. The 72nd birthday of our Union. This Europe Day will be all about the Union of the future – how we make it stronger, more resilient, closer to its people. But the answer to all of these questions, we cannot give alone. The answer is also given in Ukraine. It is given in Kharkiv, where Ukrainian first responders venture into the combat zone to help those wounded by Russian attacks. It is given in small towns like Bucha, where survivors are coping with the atrocities committed against civilians by Russian soldiers. And it is given in Mariupol, where Ukrainians are resisting a Russian force, which greatly outnumbers them. They are fighting to reaffirm basic ideas: That they are the master of their own future – and not some foreign leader. That it is the international law that counts and not the right of might. And that Putin must pay a high price for his brutal aggression.

    Thus, the future of the European Union is also written in Ukraine. And therefore, today, I would like to speak about two topics. First about sanctions and second about relief and reconstruction. Today, we are presenting the sixth package of sanctions. First, we are listing high-ranking military officers and other individuals who committed war crimes in Bucha and who are responsible for the inhuman siege of the city of Mariupol. This sends another important signal to all perpetrators of the Kremlin’s war: We know who you are, and you will be held accountable. Second, we de-SWIFT Sberbank – by far Russia’s largest bank, and two other major banks. By that, we hit banks that are systemically critical to the Russian financial system and Putin’s ability to wage destruction. This will solidify the complete isolation of the Russian financial sector from the global system. Third, we are banning three big Russian state-owned broadcasters from our airwaves. They will not be allowed to distribute their content anymore in the EU, in whatever shape or form, be it on cable, via satellite, on the internet or via smartphone apps. We have identified these TV channels as mouthpieces that amplify Putin’s lies and propaganda aggressively. We should not give them a stage anymore to spread these lies. Moreover, the Kremlin relies on accountants, consultants and spin doctors from Europe. And this will now stop. We are banning those services from being provided to Russian companies.

    My final point on sanction: When the Leaders met in Versailles, they agreed to phase out our dependency on Russian energy. In the last sanction package, we started with coal. Now we are addressing our dependency on Russian oil. Let us be clear: it will not be easy. Some Member States are strongly dependent on Russian oil. But we simply have to work on it. We now propose a ban on Russian oil. This will be a complete import ban on all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined. We will make sure that we phase out Russian oil in an orderly fashion, in a way that allows us and our partners to secure alternative supply routes and minimises the impact on global markets. This is why we will phase out Russian supply of crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of the year. Thus, we maximise pressure on Russia, while at the same time minimising collateral damage to us and our partners around the globe. Because to help Ukraine, our own economy has to remain strong.

    With all these steps, we are depriving the Russian economy from its ability to diversify and modernise. Putin wanted to wipe Ukraine from the map. He will clearly not succeed. On the contrary: Ukraine has risen up in unity. And it is his own country, Russia, he is sinking.

    Honourable Members,

    We want Ukraine to win this war. But we also want to set the conditions for Ukraine’s success in the aftermath of the war. The first step is immediate relief. This is about short-term economic support to help Ukrainians cope with the fallout of the war, like we do with our macro-financial assistance package and with direct support to the Ukrainian budget. In addition, we recently proposed to suspend all import duties on Ukrainian exports to our Union for one year. I am sure the European Parliament will put its weight behind this idea. But this is not enough for the short-term relief. Ukraine’s GDP is expected to fall by 30% to 50% this year alone. And the IMF estimates that, from May on, Ukraine needs EUR 5 billion each month, plain and simply, to keep the country running, paying pensions, salaries and basic services. We have to support them, but we cannot do it alone. I welcome that the United States announced massive budgetary support. And we, as Team Europe, will also do our share.

    But then, in a second phase, there is the wider reconstruction effort. The scale of destruction is staggering. Hospitals and schools, houses, roads, bridges, railroads, theatres and factories – so much has to be rebuilt. In the fog of war, it is difficult to come up with a precise estimate. Economists are talking about several hundred billion euros. And costs are rising with each day of this senseless war.

    Honourable Members,

    Europe has a very special responsibility towards Ukraine. With our support, Ukrainians can rebuild their country for the next generation. That is why today I am proposing to you that we start working on an ambitious recovery package for our Ukrainian friends. This package should bring massive investment to meet the needs and the necessary reforms. It should address the existing weaknesses of the Ukrainian economy and lay the foundations for sustainable long-term growth. It could set a system of milestones and targets to make sure that European money truly delivers for the people of Ukraine, and is spent in accordance with EU rules. It could help fight corruption, align the legal environment with European standards and radically upgrade Ukraine’s productive capacity. This will bring the stability and certainty needed to make Ukraine an attractive destination for foreign direct investment. And eventually, it will pave the way for Ukraine’s future inside the European Union.

    Slava Ukraini and long live Europe.

  • Volodymyr Zelenskyy – 2022 Speech to the Parliament of Albania

    Volodymyr Zelenskyy – 2022 Speech to the Parliament of Albania

    The statement made by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, on 3 May 2022.

    Dear Mrs. Speaker of Parliament!

    Dear Mr. Prime Minister!

    Dear ladies and gentlemen, deputies!

    The people of Albania!

    Yesterday, Muslims around the world celebrated Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting for Islam. And I congratulate you on this holiday.

    I wish you what all Ukrainian men and women wish for each other – peace.

    During this month, the Muslims of Ukraine and our entire society have not seen a single calm and peaceful day. That’s how we live after February 24. Exactly like that. Russia has turned all our days into a mortal danger.

    Yesterday, a 14-year-old boy died as a result of a missile attack on our Odesa, our southern city. A 17-year-old girl was also wounded. Every day we have such a reality.

    Every day Ukrainians lose children because of Russian strikes. And more than 600 children have fallen victim to this Russian invasion. 220 children were killed and 406 were injured.

    Today is a farewell ceremony for journalist Vira Gyrych who was killed by a Russian missile at her home in the capital of our state, Kyiv. The missile hit her house. An ordinary multi-storey building near the downtown of the capital.

    The Russian army is firing at our cities and villages with artillery and aircraft. Does not spare missiles.

    In our largest city in the east of the country, in the city of Kharkiv, a fifth of all houses was destroyed. This is more than two and a half thousand houses.

    They were burned, destroyed or damaged by Russian shelling.

    Once one of the most developed cities on the shore of the Sea of Azov – the city of Mariupol – is completely destroyed. There are no undamaged buildings. None, imagine!

    This half-million city has been under siege by the Russian army since early March. They didn’t allow water, food, medicine – nothing and no one. And they didn’t stop bombing it. This is literally a scorched city. But you can take any Ukrainian city or village where the occupiers came and there will be very similar messages.

    About destruction and about murders. About tortures. About forced deportation of people to Russia. About total looting of everything on our territory.

    Older people who survived two occupations – the Nazi occupation during World War II and now the occupation by the Russian army – say they did not see such atrocities 80 years ago.

    Now they saw the Russian military shooting children in the face. Now they saw ordinary people – peasants who had been taken prisoner – being forced to lie on the ground day and night in sub-zero temperatures. It turns out that the Russian troops have a special method of “fighting” the escape of prisoners in the cold season: they are forced to pour water into their shoes, put the shoes on and lie on the ground in the cold.

    People stopped feeling their feet, their toes froze. But the occupiers did not even allow them to stand up, let alone to warm up.

    In the areas liberated from the Russian army, we constantly find graves of tortured people. They have their hands tied, traces of shots on their arms and legs, and broken ribs. Many were shot in the back of the head.

    Often the occupiers did not even allow the bodies of those killed to be buried. Bodies are found in forests, fields, basements, wells.

    Retreating from our land, the Russian army left the dead just on the streets as well.

    Russia was offered to cease fire at least on Orthodox Easter. There was no answer. It was also offered on Pesach – there was no answer. Russia has also ignored the sanctity of the month of Ramadan.

    Just think about it: 86 religious sites were destroyed or damaged by shelling. These are churches, mosques, houses of worship. The Russian army is not trying to protect even the facilities of the Russian church from its shelling!

    This is a complete abandonment of morality. Complete rejection of universal values. Complete non-recognition of life as an unconditional value.

    And they do not want to stop in Ukraine. They want to go further.

    In an attempt to revive the worst-level tyranny seen in the twentieth century, Russia has become the greatest threat to the entire free world.

    And I am grateful to every nation that is fighting this tyranny with us.

    Because only if we stop Russia now in Ukraine will we be able to save Europe from the coming of a new era – the era of non-freedom.

    Save it from what your people had to go through, in particular.

    Ladies and Gentlemen!

    The people of Albania!

    I am grateful to you for not hesitating who to support in this struggle. You are definitely on the side of freedom and truth. Thank you for concrete steps for Ukraine. For defense assistance. For supporting sanctions on Russia. For taking care of our people and hosting our children, especially in Durrës.

    This attitude of yours towards Ukrainian men and women in difficult times reminds me of St. Mother Teresa. An Albanian woman whose life has become a symbol of humanism for everyone in the world.

    She taught people that good daily efforts can defeat evil and bring them closer to the holiness that people will remember from generation to generation.

    I believe that by working together with all Europeans in this way – by our daily good efforts, we will be able not only to stop this war waged by Russia, but also to protect Europe in the future from the recurrence of such a threat.

    As the sixth package of sanctions against Russia’s aggression is being discussed in the European Union, we must all insist that it includes an oil embargo and a real blockade of any schemes that Russia uses to deceive the free world and ignore sanctions.

    Russian banks must be completely disconnected from the global financial system.

    However difficult it may be, it is necessary to deliberately restrict trade with the Russian Federation. Because if not today, then tomorrow Russia will consciously use trade ties to hit your market when it wants some political concessions from you. You need to deprive it of this tool in time.

    I ask you to close the ports for Russian ships. And limit the arrival of Russian tourists. Because you can never know who came to you… Maybe the killers who were in Bucha? Or maybe the tormentors of Mariupol? Or maybe someone who is already working to undermine your country?

    I am grateful to Albania for its cooperation within the United Nations platform. Especially now when your country is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.

    We need to do a principled thing and stop using UN funds to sponsor Russia. If it violates the UN Charter, threatens the world’s food security and destroys peace in Europe, it has no right to receive a single cent from the UN.

    Since 2014, when Russia seized our Crimean peninsula and started the war in Donbas, the UN has purchased goods and services from it for at least two and a half billion dollars. This is simply unfair. Wrong.

    Decades ago, Ukraine and Albania chose the path of democracy and European integration. We did not deviate from this path. Together we are committed to the development of freedom and a united Europe. And I believe that when the time comes to decide on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, your vote will be able to sound in our support.

    I am sure that right now everyone in the world is showing their true character.

    Someone is big in size, but very small when you have to be bold. And someone is small on the map, but its cordiality is one of the greatest.

    Thank you, Albania!

    Thank you for your support. Thank you for your cordiality.

    Glory to Ukraine!