Tag: Speeches

Michelle Donelan – 2023 Speech at PsiQuantum

The speech made by Michelle Donelan, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, at Sci-Tech Daresbury on 4 September 2023.

Today is a landmark moment; obviously not just for PSIQuantum or for Daresbury Lab, but also for British science and innovation – which I am very proud to represent.

The state-of-the-art facility that you’re unveiling this afternoon is testament to the towering strengths of the UK’s quantum sector.

The fact that we rank amongst the fifth in the world is quite remarkable really.

And we boast the largest number of quantum startups. More than any of our European counterparts.

So, as you already said, many would define us as a science superpower but we as a government have a goal to make sure that we are judged that way by everybody by 2030.

The work that you’re doing here is really part and parcel of that agenda.

And look, we are home to some of the very brightest and the best minds in quantum engineering and many of them of course are based here at PSIQuantum. And I’ve had the pleasure of discussing with some of you your incredible work this afternoon. Thank you for sparing the time to show me around your facilities.

I’ve learned about your exciting partnership with the Hartree Centre, and helping businesses to seize the opportunities of supercomputing data analytics and AI to go for growth and create more high skilled jobs that the future needs and requires.

Indeed, as a government. We’ve long recognised the tremendous potential of these technologies to truly transform our economy but also our society for the better…

…So, through the National Quantum Computing centre and the SparQ programme, we have been investing big in piloting [quantum’s] use so that British businesses can stay ahead of the curve; and I know that the Hartree Centre is a key ally in this shared vision.

But what especially impressed me today, however, is hearing about the wealth of benefits PSIQuantum’s research really could deliver for the British people in the future.

I think that is the exciting thing that obviously gets you up every morning and gets you to work, but it’s something that I think that the British public are also excited about and it’s something that we need to be collectively talking about more.

Whether it’s of course, uncovering patterns in genetic data, helping our NHS design treatments that are tailor made to individual patients’ makeup…

…Or whether it is in fact simulating complex chemical processes, allowing us to design ever more efficient batteries and helping us to plot a clear achievable path to net zero.

You are at the forefront of this agenda.

Incredible that PSIQuantum – as the largest privately backed quantum computing company in the world – has chosen Britain and, in fact, this area in the North West to locate…

As a person that originates from the North West I can say I’m extremely proud that you’ve chosen this location.

And it is also a resounding vote of confidence in the plan my department set out earlier this year in our national quantum strategy. A bold vision backed by some £2.5 billion pounds in the next 10 years to drive the adoption of quantum technologies throughout our economy…

…to scale up small quantum businesses into big global players…

And, of course, to keep [the UK] at the cutting edge of this technology now and in the future.

Key to this plan is throwing our full support behind dynamic tech clusters – one of which is Daresbury where we stand today.

And as we’ve already heard about, [it boasts] a very prestigious record of three Nobel Prizes.

That is why we have set ourselves a clear target to spend £20 billion pounds per annum in research and development by next year, which is record levels of funding.

And at the same time, we’re increasing this investment outside the greater South East by a third so areas like the Liverpool City Region, like the Warrington facility, and the rest of the North West remain hotbeds for science, innovation and technology in the decades to come.

You and I know that this investment alone, however great, is no guarantee of success.

As you know transformative leaps in technology like quantum are owed in no small part to our collaboration with international research organisations like CERN.

Every year, in fact, almost 1000 UK based researchers from over 50 institutes carry out work in CERN.

And in the past decade alone over 20,000 UK scientific papers have been cited with CERN articles including many of the UK’s most influential physics papers.

I want the UK to remain at the very forefront of this pioneering research and to ensure that we are leading the way when it comes to remarkable discoveries.

As the second largest contributor to CERN, I’m determined that our return on investment is also maximised and that we unlock the full potential of our membership.

And that is why today my department has published a new UK strategy of engagement with CERN…

…One that will let the UK seize the opportunities, maximise these opportunities, and ensure that our membership really can deliver in five key ambitions – research excellence, skills, the UK’s commercial impact, our international leadership and our ability to inspire our communities.

Practically, this means more high impact papers, more highly skilled technicians, engineers, scientists calling Britain their home.

It means British inventors and innovators being the partners of choice for international collaboration, and the UK taking on more positions of international leadership.

It means more of our children and our grandchildren growing up with a real appreciation of science and technology and the profound impact that they can have on our lives.

That is certainly our vision. But we are under no illusion that it is all of you in this room that are making that a reality and a possibility every single day.

Now, in the run up to today’s events, I was of course reading about PSIQuantum’s meteoric rise over the last few years. How it has smashed investment targets, attained unicorn status and become one of the world’s most truly valuable quantum technology companies on the planet.

This has been a tremendous success story. Everybody who has who has been involved in it should be truly proud of themselves.

With the government working with very best for our scientific community, with industry and with true innovators like PSIQuantum, I do believe that we can solve some of those grand challenges that we’ve spoken about today and truly reshape the world together. Thank you.

October 10, 2023
Ed Miliband – 2023 Speech at Labour Party Conference

The speech made by Ed Miliband, the Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, in Liverpool on 9 October 2023.

I want to thank my shadow ministerial team Sarah Jones, Kerry McCarthy, Jeff Smith and Alan Whitehead and it is a pleasure to follow my friend, our brilliant Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.

We meet here with confidence that there is a spirit of change in the air.

We meet here with the conviction that we Labour are on the side of the British people once again.

We meet here with the belief that we can bring the long dark night of Tory rule to an end.

Listening to the Tories last week it’s clear that they just don’t get the fundamental struggles people are facing.

A deeply painful cost of living crisis; A deeply entrenched economic crisis; And a deeply dangerous climate and nature crisis.

And Rishi Sunak has a desperate and dishonest new line.

That if we dither and delay in tackling the climate crisis we can somehow solve our economic problems.

But friends, he’s wrong. He’s dead wrong.

Their record says it all.

Your energy bills have rocketed because they didn’t build a clean energy future and that left us exposed to Putin’s war

They banned onshore wind and energy bills went up.

They cut energy efficiency and bills went up again.

And just last month they trashed offshore wind, the crown jewels of British energy and bills will stay UP for years to come.

Every time they turn their back on a clean energy future, they leave us exposed to global fossil fuel markets, at the mercy of dictators and petrostates, and they drive up bills and make us more insecure.

And even as you’re paying record bills, they still refuse a proper windfall tax on the oil and gas companies.

So what the Tories call ‘green crap’ is not the cause of the cost of living crisis.

It’s a crap government that will never stand up for working people.

And when Rishi Sunak tells renters they should be forced to live in damp, cold homes and landlords don’t need to insulate them, that won’t cut bills, it will raise them.

When he tells the world that Britain is backing off the global clean energy race, that won’t encourage businesses to create jobs and invest, it will drive them away.

The Tories’ climate culture war is not just anti-planet.

It’s anti-security, anti-prosperity, anti-worker, anti-business, anti-jobs, anti-future, anti-young people, and it’s anti-Britain.

We’re not going to let these Tories cancel our country’s future.

Now Sunak tries to spin that he’s still committed to tackling the climate crisis but look at the people celebrating what he’s done.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Liz Truss, and to top it all, Donald Trump congratulated him.

The British people don’t want a pound shop Republican Party.

They don’t want an energy policy written by Truss and Trump.

Let’s send these Tories to where they belong.

Let’s recycle them from government to opposition.

And chuck them into the 7 dustbins of history.

And let me say this: give me the integrity, decency and values of our leader and my friend Keir Starmer against the weakness of Rishi Sunak any day of the week.

And I am proud that Keir’s 2030 mission is for the greatest investment in homegrown energy in British history.

We’ll double onshore wind.

We’ll treble solar.

We’ll quadruple offshore wind.

We’ll invest in nuclear and hydrogen and carbon capture and tidal power.

That’s the new Britain we can build together.

And with a Labour government, Britain will finally have what the Tories have refused for 13 years— a proper warm homes plan.

Saving hundreds more off your bill.

Creating tens of thousands of good jobs.

Lifting millions out of fuel poverty.

Insulating 19 million homes.

And who will make this happen?

Labour local authorities.

That’s the new Britain we can build together.

Tory energy policy has failed and let’s face it, Tory trickle-down economics has failed too.

So we’re going to do things differently.

Now some people will tell you we don’t have public ownership of energy in Britain.

Of course, we do.

It’s just by state-owned firms from other countries.

France’s EDF, Sweden’s Vattenfall, Denmark’s Orsted.

Other countries own nearly half of our offshore wind because they know it creates jobs and wealth for them.

If it’s good enough for them why not us?

Under Labour, the British people will own things again, build things again, profit as a country from these investments again.

GB Energy, owned by the British people, built by the British people for the benefit of the British people.

That’s the new Britain we can build together.

A key industry of the future is floating offshore wind.

But just get this: under the Tories our largest floating wind farm wasn’t built in Britain.

It was built in Spain, assembled in the Netherlands and then was towed into place off the Scottish coast.

I say: not under Labour.

GB Energy will invest in floating wind so Britain can lead the world.

And as Rachel said this morning, we will ensure we have the grid we need and rewire our country.

Power for Britain, wealth for Britain, jobs for Britain.

That’s the new Britain we can build together.

And this is about a partnership to build the future: public investment unleashing private investment.

Our national wealth fund will invest, alongside the private sector, in our ports, hydrogen and saving our steel industry and communities.

And unlike with the Tories, this won’t be crumbs of help after change has blown through communities.

It’s a proper plan to build our future prosperity for every part of Britain.

Our British Jobs Bonus.

£2.5bn of public money to crowd in and direct the tens of billions of private investment.

To our industrial heartlands, to our coalfield communities, to our coastal communities, to our oil and gas communities.

Not simply leaving it to the market but planning our clean energy future to tackle the inequalities that scar our country.

That’s the new Britain that we can build together.

As an MP for a coalfield community, I know we must have a managed, just and worker-led transition.

And we will.

Let me say to oil and gas workers: We will use existing oil and gas fields for decades to come and we will do whatever it takes so that you can be the people to build our clean energy future: in offshore wind, in hydrogen, in carbon capture.

No community left behind or left out.

No more shutting out of trade unions as we build this future.

No more power in this country without jobs in this country.

That’s the new Britain we can build together.

And under Labour, we will use our energy policy as a tool of economic justice.

Why should only the wealthy have solar panels when they provide cheap, clean energy and cut bills?

So GB Energy will invest £1 billion a year to develop local, renewable power owned by local people.

Thousands of projects across Britain.

Cutting bills, tackling fuel poverty and creating profits not for energy giants but for local communities.

That’s the new Britain we can build together.

In the 20th century through North sea oil, Britain exported to the world.

In the 21st century, with Labour, Britain will be an energy superpower once again, exporting clean power to the world and controlling our economic destiny.

British families and businesses never again held to ransom by Putin.

So the next Labour government will legislate for an Energy Independence Act for Britain.

That’s the new Britain we can build together.

Now, fifteen years ago the Labour government passed the climate change act, a beacon to the world.

So many people that I meet internationally say: we need Britain back leading again.

Not a country missing in action on the most important issues our world faces.

Under Labour, Britain will be leading again.

Holding other countries to account with the power of our example.

Tackling the cost-of-living crisis, building a new economy and showing leadership on the climate crisis.

That’s the new Britain we can build together.

There is so much to fight for in the months ahead.

There is a mood for change in the air.

But a mood is not enough to guarantee victory.

As we saw last week, the Tories and their friends will fight dirty and desperate to hold onto power.

Let us resolve here today.

If these Tories want a fight about who can tackle the cost-of-living crisis, we say – bring it on.

If these Tories want a fight about who can ensure energy independence for our country, we say – bring it on.

If these Tories want a fight about who can stand up for working people, we say – bring it on.

And if, after 13 years of failure and 5 Prime Ministers, these Tories dare to have a fight, about who can really change Britain, we say bring it on.

We are ready to fight.

We are ready to lead.

We are ready to govern.

We are ready to change Britain.

October 9, 2023
Rachel Reeves – 2023 Speech at Labour Party Conference

The speech made by Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, in Liverpool on 9 October 2023.

Conference.

It is a privilege to stand here, as your Shadow Chancellor.

Today, I make this commitment to you, and to the country:

Out of the wreckage of Tory misrule, Labour will restore our economic stability;

We will lift living standards.

Make work pay.

Rebuild our public services.

Invest in homegrown industries in every corner of our country.

And together, we will get Britain its future back.

This is a momentous week.

For too long, we have gathered in these halls with the power to talk, but not the power to do.

Thirteen years of opposition to remind us of that eternal political truth:

That it is only through power that we can put our principles into action.

Under Keir Starmer’s leadership, that opportunity is at last within our grasp.

But only if we allow no complacency.

Only if we fight for every single vote.

Only if we work, every day to show we are the party with the discipline, with the determination and with the vision to rebuild Britain.

Labour’s task is to restore hope to our politics.

The hope that lets us face the future with confidence.

With a new era of economic security.

Because there is no hope without security.

You cannot dream big if you cannot sleep in peace at night.

The peace that comes from knowing you have enough to put aside for a rainy day.

And the knowledge that, when you need them, strong public services will be there for you and your family.

The strength that allows a society to withstand global shocks.

Because it is from those strong foundations of security, that hope can spring.

Conference, the choice at the next election is this:

Five more years of the Tory chaos and uncertainty, which has left working people worse off or a changed Labour Party offering stability, investment and economic security, so working people are better off.

It falls to us to show that Labour is ready to serve, ready to lead and ready to rebuild Britain.

In chess you learn to think several moves ahead.

But even I couldn’t have predicted the mayhem we have seen, week after week, year after year, from this Conservative government.

First austerity.

Then Brexit without a plan.

And then their kamikaze budget.

Growth – weak.

Wages – flat.

Taxes – up.

The price of energy – up.

The price of the family food shop – up.

And mortgage bills, up hundreds of pounds every single month.

Never forget – this time last year, in their clamour to cut taxes for those at the top, the Conservatives caused market chaos, crashed the economy, and left working people to pay the price.

That is why you cannot trust the Tories with our economy ever again.

What did we see from the Tories last week in Manchester?

A government bereft of ambition for Britain.

So ready for opposition, that they are behaving like they are already there.

Looking inwards, not out to the country.

Queueing to cheer the extremists rather than kicking them out of their party.

And telling us what we already know:

Liz Truss might be out of Downing Street but she is still leading the Conservative Party.

The one sensible thing they came up with was their phased smoking ban, which we support.

However, I do fear for the Conservative Party.

With such a shortage of fag packets, what on earth are they going to write their next policy on?

And what about the Prime Minister?

Rishi Sunak had the chance to denounce the politics and policies of Liz Truss.

To make clear that he would never repeat her mistakes.

But he didn’t.

If he’s too weak to stand up to them one year in – what chance do you give him five years in?

Be in no doubt: the biggest risk to Britain’s economy is five more years of the Conservative Party.

In contrast, Labour’s defining economic mission is to restore growth to Britain.

But it is no use simply claiming we want economic growth without new ideas for how we can achieve it.

That starts with understanding the world as it is today.

A world that has been reshaped by new technologies, by the pandemic by war, by great power rivalries and by the climate crisis.

In short: globalisation, as we once knew it, is dead.

Disruption to supply chains that span the globe has revealed the perils of prizing only the fastest and the cheapest.

And our ability to make the things essential to our national security has been depleted.

Great gaps have been allowed to open up between different parts of the country.

And we have, time and time again, been buffeted by global forces.

In this new age of insecurity, it is no longer enough – if it ever was – for government to turn a blind eye to where things are made and who is making them.

To run an economy based only on the contribution of only a few people, a few industries, and a few parts of the country.

A changed world demands a new business model for Britain.

It is an approach that I call ‘securonomics’.

That means government putting economic security first.

Security for family finances.

And security for our national economy.

It means we must rebuild our ability to do, make and sell here in Britain so we are less exposed to global shocks.

Governments around the world have come to understand, as our government cannot, that wealth does not trickle down from a few at the top, but rests on the contribution of the many.

On the skill and dedication of those who work in our everyday economy:

Careworkers, postal workers, supermarket workers and on entrepreneurs, innovators and scientists.

Growth from the bottom up and the middle out.

An economy rebuilt in the interests of working people.

Because from security, comes hope.

Labour will commit itself to rebuilding that security.

To restoring that hope.

Labour is ready to serve.

Ready to lead.

Ready to rebuild Britain.

Conference, I do not underestimate the scale of the task ahead of us, nor the problems we would inherit in government.

They demand hard work, determination, and tough decisions.

The exhaustion of Conservative ideas does not give us the freedom to push through programmes detached from our present economic reality.

Or to take for granted the people we seek to represent.

Change will be achieved only on the basis of iron discipline.

Working people rightly expect nothing less.

Because when you play fast and loose with public finances, you put at risk family finances.

When the prices of food and energy and housing soar, it is working people who pay that price.

Like the mum I met in Scarborough earlier this year.

A mental health nurse, who had moved back home with her mum for five years with her young family, to save for a deposit to buy a home of her own.

Only to find, when she was about to fulfil that dream, after all that sacrifice, that the mortgage costs she would face had outstripped her income.

And she had no way of meeting them.

This is one of thousands upon thousands of similar stories.

Stories I hear wherever I go.

Of people who have worked hard, done all the right things;

But whose dreams have been dashed by the choices of this Conservative government.

People who we must not, and will not, let down.

So, a Labour government will not waiver from iron-clad fiscal rules;

Nor play the Tory game of undermining our economic institutions.

The last Labour government granted operational independence to the Bank of England.

I started my career as an economist at the Bank, and I saw the lasting contribution that made to Britain’s economic success first hand.

So, we will protect the independence of the Bank, the Office for Budget Responsibility and our civil service.

And, as Chancellor, I will put forward a new Charter for Budget Responsibility, a new fiscal lock.

Guaranteeing in law that any government making significant and permanent tax and spending changes will be subject to an independent forecast from the OBR.

Never again will we allow a repeat of the devastation Liz Truss and the Tory Party have inflicted on family finances.

Never again will a Prime Minister or Chancellor be allowed to rush through plans that are uncosted, unscrutinised, and wholly detached from economic reality.

But let me address directly those who say that to make hard choices is to make the same choices as the Tory party.

To them I say:

Economic responsibility does not detract from advances for working people.

It is the foundation upon which progress is built.

Hard choices, but Labour choices.

The choice to back our high streets and small businesses by requiring online tech giants to pay their fair share.

The choice to levy a proper windfall tax on the huge profits the energy giants are making, so that working people do not bear the brunt of a crisis they did not create.

The choice to abolish the non-dom tax status and put that money into our national health service.

Because conference, if you make your home in Britain, then you should pay your taxes here too. And with Labour, you will.

And another choice.

In my first budget as Chancellor I will end the tax loophole which exempts private schools from VAT and business rates and we will put that money into helping the 93% of children in our state schools.

And if Rishi Sunak wants a fight over this.

If the party that has herded children into portacabins while school roofs crumble, wants a fight about who has the most aspiration for our children then I say: Bring. It. On.

We are ready to serve.

Ready to lead.

Read to rebuild Britain.

I didn’t come into politics to raise taxes on working people.

Indeed, I want them to be lower.

But the Tories have piled twenty-five tax rises on the shoulders of working people and businesses, while allowing the wealthiest to avoid taxes, keeping loopholes open, and letting government waste spiral.

Taxpayers’ money should be spent with the same care with which we spend our own money.

I remember my mum would sit at the kitchen table, with her bank statements and her receipts.

We weren’t badly off, but we didn’t have money to spare.

To my mum, every penny mattered.

I learned that same lesson at the Bank of England:

Responsibility must always come first.

But for too long, Tory governments have allowed money to be wasted and taxpayers defrauded.

So, Labour will wage a war against fraud, waste and inefficiency.

Today I can announce three further fronts in Labour’s war on waste.

First, we will crack down on Tory ministers’ private jet habit.

What is Rishi Sunak so scared of up there in his private jet?

Meeting a voter?

We will enforce the ministerial code on the use of private planes and save millions of pounds for taxpayers in the process.

Second, we will slash government consultancy spending, which has almost quadrupled in just six years.

Consultants can play an important role, but taxpayers must get value for money.

So, we will introduce tough new rules.

If a government department wants to bring in consultants, they must demonstrate the value for money case.

And if they cannot, then that request will be denied.

We will aim to cut consultancy spending in half over the next Parliament.

And third, we will go after those who profited from the carnival of waste during the pandemic.

Today, the cost to the taxpayer of covid fraud is estimated at £7.2 billion.

With every single one of those cheques signed by Rishi Sunak as Chancellor.

And yet just 2% of all fraudulent covid grants have been recovered.

So, I can announce today that we will appoint a Covid Corruption Commissioner.

Supported by a hit squad of investigators, equipped with the powers they need and the mandate to do whatever it takes.

To chase down those who have ripped off the taxpayer, take them to court, and claw back every penny of taxpayer’s money that they can.

That money belongs in our NHS.

It belongs in our schools.

It belongs in our police.

And conference, we want our money back.

We are ready to serve.

We are ready to lead.

We are ready to rebuild Britain.

Labour will tax fairly and spend wisely.

But conference, I must tell you:

You cannot tax and spend your way to growth.

The lifeblood of a growing economy is business investment.

It is investment that allows businesses to expand, create jobs, and compete with international rivals, with new plants, factories and research labs coming to Britain – not Germany, France or America.

But today, we lag well behind our peers for private sector investment as a share of GDP, with tens of billions of pounds less spent on new machinery and infrastructure.

Is that because British people aren’t as hard-working?

Or as creative?

Or as enterprising?

No.

British businesses – from life sciences to the creative industries, from digital to financial services – can and do lead the world.

But they have been held back by the chaos and instability of this government.

So Labour will aim to restore investment as a share of GDP to the level it was under the last Labour government, to bring us in line with our peers.

Adding an additional £50 billion to our GDP every single year.

Worth £1,700 for every household in Britain.

But we know too that asking business to do all the heavy lifting, while government steps back, is not an option.

As our competitors understand, there is a role for government in encouraging and de-risking investment in new and growing industries.

So, we will provide catalytic investment through a new National Wealth Fund.

Financial responsibility means knowing when not to spend.

But it also means making sure that when you invest, you get bang for your buck.

So we will set that new National Wealth Fund a target:

For every pound of investment we put in, we will leverage in three times as much private investment.

And conference, be in no doubt:

No matter what political games the Tories are willing to play over our energy transition.

No matter how willing they are to ignore the warnings of businesses, investors and trade unions.

No matter how many times they put short-term political calculation over the security and prosperity of the British people;

Labour will make the long-term decision – and invest in British industry;

Driving down bills and creating new jobs;

Jobs for plumbers, builders and electricians;

Jobs for scientists, designers and engineers;

In green hydrogen and carbon capture and storage, in Grangemouth, Middlesbrough, Swansea and Hull;

In steel in Sheffield, Scunthorpe and Port Talbot;

In offshore wind in Fife, Plymouth and Newport;

Making electric car batteries in Coventry, Sunderland and Blyth.

And jobs retrofitting homes in Keighley, Rochester, Warrington, and in every village, every town and every city across our country.

Ready to serve.

Ready to lead.

Ready to rebuild Britain.

And conference:

If we want to spur investment, restore economic security, and revive growth, then we must get Britain building again.

The Tories would have you believe we can’t build anything in Britain anymore.

In fact, the single biggest obstacle to building infrastructure, to investment and to growth in this country is the Conservative Party itself.

Just look at the fate of HS2.

A major transport project lost, another promise broken;

Because the government could not keep costs under control.

By the time the government even recognised they had a problem, the project was already £30 billion over budget.

The question must be:

How was it ever allowed to get to that point?

If I were in the Treasury, I would have been on the phone to the Chief Executive of HS2 non-stop;

Demanding answers – and solutions – on behalf of taxpayers, businesses, and commuters.

But with this government, it has become a pattern.

When it comes to getting things built and projects delivered, Britain has become the sick man of Europe;

With HS2 coming in at ten times the cost of the French equivalent.

And that is why our Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh will commission an independent expert inquiry into HS2 to learn lessons for the future.

Because many more major government capital projects running over time, over budget and in danger of going undelivered.

It is incumbent on government to make sure major projects are delivered on time and on budget.

I will not tolerate taxpayers’ money being treated with the disrespect we have seen over recent years.

I will not turn a blind eye to dither, delay and incompetence.

I will hold those responsible to account.

And I will demand action when they are not delivering value for money.

So I have tasked Darren Jones, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury;

To work closely with industry experts;

And to examine, line by line, every ongoing major capital project;

To make sure that, on day one of a Labour government, we are ready to get Britain building again.

If the Tories won’t build;

If the Tories can’t build;

Then we will.

We will take on our antiquated planning system.

Since 2012, decision times for national infrastructure have increased by 65%, now taking four years.

With Labour, that will change.

So today I am announcing our plans to get Britain building.

A once in a generation set of reforms, to accelerate the building of critical infrastructure for energy, transport and housing.

To fast-track battery factories, life sciences and 5G infrastructure – the things we need to succeed in the decades to come.

And to tackle the litigation which devours time and money before we even see shovels in the ground.

And to make sure that when a local community hosts national infrastructure, they will feel the benefits;

Including through lower energy bills.

Conference, it is time we had a government that matched the ambition that people have for their families and communities.

A government siding with the builders not the blockers.

A government that will get Britain building again.

And with Labour we will.

Let me give you one example:

Our energy grid.

Today, new developments are being forced to wait up to 15 years – until the late 2030s – to connect to the grid.

£200bn worth of projects stuck in limbo.

So today, working closely with Ed Miliband, I can announce Labour’s plans to rewire Britain:

Securing the supply chain we need for lower bills.

And to build faster and cheaper, opening up new grid construction to competitive tendering.

And because the British people should own a stake in their energy system, the publicly owned Great British Energy will look to bid into that competition.

220,000 new jobs.

Lower bills, for good.

And energy security for Britain.

And there is more.

We will invest in expanding local authorities’ planning capacity, to speed up decisions.

And here is how we will pay for it:

Rocketing interest rates have dealt a hammer blow to the dream of millions of people who want to own their own home, when already that dream was far too remote for far too many people.

It is not right that, while so many people are struggling, many homes are bought by overseas buyers, who may own a property but leave it vacant;

Driving up prices, while families and young people are desperate to get onto the housing ladder.

So because, one year ago, Keir Starmer set out the ambition for the next Labour government to make 70 percent of British households homeowners;

Because a house should be a home not an asset;

And because, conference, it is time we built the homes our young people need;

We will raise the stamp duty surcharge on overseas buyers to get Britain building.

Conference:

Labour is the party of builders not blockers;

Labour is the party of economic growth;

And it is now beyond doubt:

It is Labour that is the party of homeownership.

Working people need the skills to succeed in the modern economy and the security to utilise them.

From security, hope.

The parents struggling to balance caring responsibilities and work;

The key worker struggling to pay the rent;

The would-be entrepreneur struggling to access the finance to turn brilliant ideas into commercial reality;

A productive economy cannot be built on such fragile foundations.

Because there is now a mountain of economic evidence;

That higher wages and greater job security have real benefits for business.

And there is also a mountain of human evidence:

Of too many children growing up in poverty;

Too many parents skipping meals;

Too many people waiting by the phone to find out whether they’ve got work that day or not.

So, as Angela Rayner set out yesterday;

The next Labour government will offer a new deal for working people:

Zero hour contracts, banned;

Fire and rehire, gone;

Sick pay, strengthened;

And basic rights from day one.

And conference:

It was the last Labour government which finally delivered on the promise of Keir Hardie to implement a national minimum wage.

The fight against poverty pay has been at the heart of our movement from the beginning.

And so the next Labour government will go further:

Not a rebrand of the minimum wage, like the Tories;

A minimum wage taking account of the real cost of living and finally we will have a genuine living wage.

The post of Chancellor of the Exchequer has existed for eight hundred years.

In that time – not one single woman has held that post.

Conference, when we next meet, I intend to address this hall as Britain’s first female Chancellor of the Exchequer.

To do so would be the privilege of my lifetime.

But more important than that, it would come with a great weight of responsibility.

The responsibility to show our daughters – to show my daughter – that they should not place any limits on their ambitions.

And the responsibility too, like Labour women before, to drive progress for women.

Still, half a century after the Equal Pay Act, women in Britain earn on average 15% less than men.

On current trends it may take until 2044 for that gap to disappear.

Women cannot afford to wait that long.

And nor should we have to.

The work of women has been undervalued for too long.

That is why I have asked Frances O’Grady to examine how we can go further and faster so that the next Labour government makes the next great strides towards ending the gender pay gap once and for all.

Ready to serve.

Ready to lead.

And ready to rebuild Britain.

We have changed this party so that we may have the chance to change our country.

Labour will fight this next election on the economy.

Every day we will expose what the Conservatives have done to our country.

Because the questions people should ask themselves ahead of the next election are simple:

Do you and your family feel better off than you did thirteen years ago?

Do our hospitals, our schools and our police work better than thirteen years ago?

Frankly, is there anything in Britain that works better than when the Conservatives came into office thirteen years ago?

If you do feel Britain is better off after thirteen years;

If you think our country is as good as it can be;

If, after all this, you want to leave your future, your children’s future, our country’s future in the hands of the Conservative Party;

Then I may not be able to persuade you.

But if, like me, you think Britain can do better;

That Britain can be better off;

If you, like me, believe that it is time to put security first and reject the risk of five more years of chaos and decline, then join us.

Join us in our mission to rebuild Britain.

Join us in our mission to give Britain its future back.

Creating new jobs;

Driving down bills;

Reviving our high streets.

Rescuing our public services;

More teachers in our schools;

More police on our streets;

More doctors and nurses in our hospitals.

Lifting families from poverty.

Achieving energy security.

And bringing growth back to Britain.

We are here:

Ready to serve.

Ready to lead.

October 9, 2023
William Hague – 2000 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

The speech made by William Hague, the then Leader of the Conservative Party, on 5 October 2000.

This has been the best, the most upbeat and the most successful Conservative Conference in years.

This week the people of Britain look to us to see if we are ready to be a Government.

And with the policies we have presented and the purpose we have demonstrated, we have shown beyond doubt that we are ready for Government.

This week the people of Britain look to us to see if we have the right team to run the country.

And with brilliant platform speeches we have shown beyond doubt that this Shadow Cabinet, with its breadth of vision and its depth of talent, is the best team for Britain.

The breadth of vision to help hard working families; and depth of talent too. Didn’t Michael Portillo make a fantastic speech and show what a brilliant Chancellor of the Exchequer he’ll be?

The breadth of vision to preserve our independence in a flexible Europe; and the depth of talent. After years of Robin Cook wouldn’t it be great to have a real Foreign Secretary like Francis Maude?

The breadth of vision to rejuvenate our inner cities, set our schools free, help our pensioners and improve the NHS; and the depth of talent with people like Michael Ancram, Archie Norman, Theresa May, David Willetts and Dr Liam Fox ready to take up the challenge of government.

The breadth of vision to win the war against crime; and the depth of talent that would give us a great crime-fighting Home Secretary in Ann Widdecombe.

Our Conference has looked like a Conference for the future. Labour’s looked like a Conference from the past.

After all the years of trying to control the trade unions, it was back to beer and sandwiches in Brighton last week. Tony Blair likes beer and sandwiches without the beer. I like it without the sandwiches. Come to think of it, I like it without the unions.

And throughout this week, we have shown the British people beyond doubt that we can win the next general election.

Thanks to the Deputy Prime Minister we now know when that election is planned to be. Last week that political titan was asked a trick question: has Labour’s disastrous performance changed your plans for an election in six month’s time? John Prescott innocently replied: ‘no it hasn’t’.

But even without John Prescott helping us out, we’re ready for that election whenever Tony Blair now dares to call it. We’re ready for it next autumn, we’re ready for it next May, we’re ready for it now. Go on Tony, call it now.

We all remember the armchair critics who told us after the last election that we could not recover. Don’t even bother they said, for we have entered a new world in which Tony Blair can do no wrong and New Labour will rule forever.

But New Labour was not a philosophy, it was a fashion. And nothing is more unfashionable than a fashion that’s out of fashion.

We saw them last week, divided, arrogant and out of touch. What a bunch they are – this soap opera of a government.

In last week’s episode of the Neighbours from Hell: Robin has fallen out with Peter. Peter won’t talk to Geoffrey any more. Geoffrey won’t lend his holiday home to Tony. Mo has been sent to Coventry. Clare doesn’t like the tent run by Tony’s crony. Tony’s crony blames Chris and Peter. Tony rows with Gordon. Peter won’t speak to Gordon. And Gordon won’t speak to anyone at all.

Last week in Brighton the security was so tight it was Wednesday before they stabbed each other in the back.

No Ministers in recent times have lost touch so rapidly with the people who elected them.

When an angry pensioner sent a cheque for 75p to Gordon Brown, he cashed it.

When Baroness Jay was asked if she understood the desperate crisis in farming, she said she knew all about it because she “had a little cottage in the country”.

Cocooned in Whitehall they have retreated into a world where they never have to make do with a failing school, or witness a crime, or pay for a tank of petrol.

It is fundamental to their decline that they have betrayed and forgotten the real people of this country. And it is fundamental to our recovery that we have become the champions of the common sense instincts of the people of our country.

And it is you, the people of this country, who do wait for hospital treatment, and do see crime on your street, and do pay for your tank of petrol, that I have in my mind as we fight the next election – It’s you that I’m in it for.

For all the people who can’t afford to pay more in tax to a Government that squanders their money – I’m in it for you.

For all the people who want classrooms where teachers can apply reasonable discipline to children without fear of ending up in court – I’m in it for you.

For all the people who despair at the neglect and poverty and waste of human talent in our inner cities and want to do something about it – I’m in it for you.

For all the people who think it’s a scandal when a patient’s throat cancer operation is cancelled four times because of political targets – I’m in it for you.

For all the people who think that the law should be on the side of the house-owner and not the house-breaker – I’m in it for you.

For all the people who can see that our asylum system is in chaos and want political leaders with the courage to get up and say so – I’m in it for you.

For all the people who believe that we shouldn’t be handing over more of the rights and powers of this country – I’m in it for you.

For all the people who want to keep the Pound – I’m in it for you.

For all the people who are sick of the spin and the waste and the lies and the cronies and the sycophants, sick of the arrogance and the high-handedness, sick of the contempt for our traditions and for our Parliament, sick of a Chancellor too out of touch to listen and of a Prime Minister too arrogant to apologise, for all those people – we are all in it for you.

For all the people who really hoped that they had elected a Government that would deliver on its promises and have been so bitterly disappointed – we are in it for you.

These are people who look to us to give them back their country. And we will not let them down.

When Tony Blair declared war on the forces of Conservatism, he declared war on all these people.

Last year, in his Conference speech, he said defeating the forces of Conservatism was his great mission for the twenty first century. Last week, nine months into the twenty first century, he didn’t mention the forces of Conservatism at all.

We really do have a Prime Minister who is prepared to say whatever will please his audience without the slightest consistent thought or principle entering his head.

But just because he’s stopped talking about the forces of Conservatism, it hasn’t made us go away. Just because he’s paranoid about the forces of Conservatism doesn’t mean we’re not out to get him.

Because what will bring this Government down is its arrogant contempt for the views of real people.

You know the precise moment when everyone started to see through New Labour? Midnight. December 31st last year. You probably all had a good time on New Year’s Eve. Ffion and I, we went to the Dome.

What did Tony Blair tell us about the Dome? ‘I’m absolutely sure that this is going to be a startling and exhilarating success … it will be the most famous new building in the world in the year 2000’. Well he wasn’t wrong about that.

And then there was John Prescott: ‘if we can’t make the Dome work, we’re not much of a Government’. Whatever would we do without him?

Tony Blair told us that the Dome would be ‘the first paragraph of Labour’s next Election Manifesto’. What a good idea.

In fact such a good idea that I thought I’d help him out by drafting it for him: ‘Our New Labour Government, by wasting vast sums of money on something shiny and glitzy on the outside, empty and meaningless on the inside, with no understanding of our history, no vision of our future, and with so much hype followed by complete and utter failure, have successfully built the perfect monument to the way we have governed Britain for the last four years’.

There it is, the Dome: the first paragraph of their Manifesto and the last word about their Government.

For the real lesson is even more serious than the failure of the Dome. It is that the Prime Minister who now admits that Governments can’t run visitor attractions still thinks that Governments know best how to interfere in every classroom, manage every hospital ward, regulate every business and spend everyone’s money.

You’ve seen how New Labour said the Dome was going to be a success, and poured your money into it, put their cronies in charge, denied there was a problem, and how at the end it was the people of this country who had to pick up the bill.

That is New Labour. That’s what they’re doing to our schools. That’s what they’re doing to our hospitals. That’s what they’re doing to our police force.

With the Dome it’s taken nine months to see that these interfering busy bodies didn’t know what they were doing. Don’t give them five more years to prove that they don’t know what they’re doing with our schools and our hospitals and our police.

Peter Mandelson said recently: something’s gone seriously wrong with this Labour Government, but what is it?

Shall we tell him?

Tax is rising faster than anywhere in the developed world. Hospital waiting lists are up 87,000. Secondary school class sizes are bigger. Welfare bills are soaring. Crime is rising after years of falling. The transport system is at a standstill. Petrol taxes are the highest in Europe. Red tape is prolific. Waste is endemic. The bureaucracy is bloated. Political correctness is rampant. The countryside is in crisis. The cities are neglected. Our independence as a nation is being given away and the Prime Minister is spending millions of pounds trying to con us all into abolishing the Pound when we all want to keep it.

That’s what’s wrong with this Government.

Three years ago at this Conference I made a prediction. I said: ‘New Labour have certainly changed politics for the time being. Their politics without conscience brought fascination to begin with. Then admiration. But next it will bring disillusion. Finally it will bring contempt’.

We remember the fascination. We endured the admiration. We have seen the disillusion and now, like millions of our fellow citizens, we feel the contempt.

In his speech last week, Tony Blair announced again: ‘I will act’. Well, of course he will. It’s all been an act. It’s only ever been an act. He’s the biggest actor in town.

But no amount of acting can save him from the truth spelt out in one of those famous Downing Street memos: ‘TB’ – a clever disguise – ‘is not believed to be real. He lacks conviction, he is all spin and presentation, he just says things to please people, not because he believes them.’

TB spent thousands of pounds getting that advice. WH could have told him it for nothing.

The only person in the country still stuck in the fascination stage with New Labour is the Leader of the Liberals. But of course we’ve witnessed the four stages of the Liberal Party too. Irrelevance, irrelevance, irrelevance, and irrelevance.

So people now look to us. They’ve seen through the Labour Party and its Leader. Millions are coming to know that not only has Labour failed to deliver, but that they are never going to deliver.

This week, and in the coming weeks, people want to know what the alternative will be. They look to us. They want to know if we’re ready. They want to know what drives us, what motivates us, what we would be like in office. They want to know where we come from and where we’re going to.

And they want to know what motivates me.

Come with me to the Rother Valley, to the heart of South Yorkshire. See Rotherham, the industrial town I was born in. Visit Wath Comprehensive, the school that gave me a chance in life.

Come and meet the people I grew up with. Children of proud mothers who struggled with small budgets, who relied on the local health service, and who hoped for a better life for their sons and their daughters. Children of fathers who worked hard in mines and on farms and in steel works, who never knew the security of owning a home or saving for a pension, who had no choice but to live from one week’s pay packet to the next.

Those children I grew up with have families of their own now. Many are better off than their parents. They own their own home and they’re saving for a pension. Their jobs are in supermarkets, in high street banks, in telephone call centres; they’re nurses and teachers and self-employed builders. And the girls in my class are now juggling with all the competing pressures of being good mothers and holding down a good job.

But these people, the children I grew up with in South Yorkshire, want the same things as their parents did. They want security and stability for themselves and their families. They want a better life for their own children.

Don’t think that because they holiday in Tenerife and not Tuscany that they don’t have aspirations for a better life.

Don’t think that because they’ve moved to Ilkley and not Islington that their voice can be ignored.

The people I grew up with, and millions like them, are the mainstream of our country. They are the people who motivate me.

And I know that they have almost given up on any politician from any political party standing up for them.

For they see their modest incomes eaten away by more taxes every time they fill up their car or tear open their pay slip, and they wonder if any politician knows what its like to raise three children on a family budget that just won’t stretch any further.

They see young thugs walking free from our courts, and they wonder if any politician knows what it’s like to live on a council estate where the criminals take control after dark.

They see the independence of the country they love cast aside, and they wonder if any politician shares their patriotism and their pride in being British.

These people, the people I grew up with, the mainstream people of this country, are the people who motivate me.

And these are the people we will govern for. We will govern for hard working families. We will govern for people of every community and background. We will govern for the mainstream that New Labour has ignored. We will govern for all the people.

For when New Labour say to us that we’re only appealing to core Conservative voters when we talk about crime and asylum and tax and Europe, I say to them that they have completely lost touch with the hard working families of this country.

I say to hard-working families everywhere: I know that you are looking at our Party and judging whether we are ready for government.

You know that we are tough on crime, and I tell you this: no government in recent times has been as tough on criminals as we will be.

You know that we want to reduce taxes, and no government in recent times has been as committed to cutting taxes as we will be.

You know that we believe in Britain, and no party will stand up for the rights and independence of our country with as much resolve and fortitude as we will.

You know all this, but I want you to hear something else you may not know.

The Conservative Party in Government will direct its energies to improving the schools that are the most hopeless, to bringing life to inner city areas that are the most bleak, to helping pensioners that are the least well off, to tackling drug problems that scar the least fortunate, to addressing family break down in the most dislocated communities, and to improving the health care for those most dependent on the NHS.

And it is because we are ready to do all these things that the message coming loud and clear from this Conference is that we are ready for government.

There are some who say there is a contradiction between traditional Conservative issues and winning new Tory audiences; between tolerance and mutual respect for all people, and championing the mainstream values of the country.

There is no contradiction. I say being tough on crime, believing in lower taxes and the robust defence of our nation’s independence are not in contradiction with wanting better schools and hospitals and thriving inner cities; they are an essential part of achieving all those things. I say defeating political correctness and refusing simply to accept every demand from every pressure group is not in contradiction with respecting the differences between individuals; on the contrary, the championing of mainstream values is the championing of tolerance, mutual respect and the rich diversity of our country.

Only by trusting the instincts and the individuals and the institutions and the independence of the people of this country can we hope to seize the opportunity that this Government is so tragically squandering.

That’s why we’re going to lead a Common Sense Revolution.

That’s why we’re going to govern for the hard working, hard pressed, decent law abiding people of this country and bring an end to the rule of the small out-of-touch New Labour clique that thinks it is so much better than the rest of us.

We’re going to govern for the families who’ve earned every penny they’ve got and need every penny they earn and want a Government that will cut taxes.

Three weeks ago we experienced something in this country we hadn’t seen for more than 20 years. The pumps ran out of petrol, the shops ran out of bread, and the country came to a standstill. Labour governments, don’t you just love ‘em?

Tony Blair and his Government say we mustn’t give in to pickets.

What a nice little lecture from the same Labour politicians who led the seamans’ strike and encouraged the miner’s strike and supported the secondary pickets.

If he’d really been listening, he’d never have introduced his stealth taxes and he’d never have had blockades and he’d never have had the vast majority of the people of this country join in a taxpayers’ revolt.

Well if they don’t understand the taxpayers revolt, we do. If he’s not in sympathy with it, we are. And if he won’t cut taxes, we will.

This Government has contempt for those who want low taxes. They think that wanting lower taxes is selfish and greedy.

Wanting to pay less tax isn’t greedy. The truck driver who told me how he had to work day and night and sleep in his cab just to feed a family he scarcely got to see wasn’t being greedy.

He was just desperate and angry to see that hard earned money he’d scraped together disappear in stealth taxes.

And I tell him now that the Conservative Party understands the life he’s living and we see his desperation and we share his anger and we will govern for him.

Wanting to pay less tax isn’t greedy. The young software consultant that I met who shook his head as he talked of his plans to move abroad because of the stealth taxes he now faces wasn’t being greedy.

He just can’t understand how this country can ever succeed if he’s being taxed out of work in an era when business can go anywhere in the world and we need innovators so badly.

And I tell him now that the Conservative Party can see the damage being done to the economic future of our country and we see our talent going abroad and we share his belief that our country cannot afford it and we will govern for him.

Wanting to pay less tax isn’t greedy. The countless hard working families whom I meet everywhere I go who talk of how difficult they find it to save money and keep their families together and live on just one income while bringing up children aren’t being greedy.

They just feel betrayed by a Government that promised no tax increases at all.

And I tell them now that the Conservative Party understands their sense of betrayal and we know how difficult high taxes have made their lives and we are on their side – and we will govern for them.

All these people are looking to the Conservatives now and they want to know what we’re going to do for them.

We know what we’re going to do for them.

We’re going to cut fuel tax. Three pence off a litre of petrol. Three pence off a litre of diesel.

We’re going to restore a married couples allowance – because I believe marriage is the bedrock of a secure and stable society.

We’re going to bring an end to the era of stealth taxes and start cutting the taxes paid by hard pressed families.

And we know how we’re going to pay for it too.

We’re going to make sure billions of pounds in surplus taxes raised by Gordon Brown goes back to taxpayers who earned it.

We’re going to reform the welfare system so that we stop losing billions of pounds in fraud and so that those who can work must work.

We’re going to stop wasting money on worthless Government schemes that are only designed to win headlines for Tony Blair.

We’re going to reduce the number of Ministers, cut the size of the House of Commons, halve the number of political advisers and cut the whole size of Whitehall so that there aren’t so many politicians going around dreaming up expensive meddling schemes to interfere in everybody else’s lives.

Tony Blair may think his made-up numbers about Tory cuts will win him back a few votes. He couldn’t be more wrong. People don’t believe the phoney statistics and falsehoods he tells about his own policies and so they certainly won’t believe the phoney statistics and falsehoods he tells about ours.

The British people know we can have lower taxes and better public services if we spend wisely. They know it can be done.

And we’re going to do it.

For we’re ready to govern for all the people.

We’re going to govern for the parents who want their children to get the best chance in life, who want a Government that will deliver on education.

Last week I visited the largest comprehensive school in Birmingham. And the reporters said to me – “There’s a grammar school nearby, why didn’t you visit that?”

And I said “I’ve visited grammar schools and they do a superb job. But our task now is to raise standards for that vast majority of parents and pupils who haven’t got a grammar school to choose from.”

So I’ve been going to the inner city schools and talking to the pupils and the parents and the teachers.

I’ve been hearing the pupils talk about their hopes and their dreams and how determined they are to better themselves:

parents talk of how they want the right to choose the best schools for their children but feel that choice is denied to them;

teachers talk of how frustrated they are to spend so much time filling in forms and how difficult they find it keeping discipline when the Government tries to stop them excluding troublemakers;

head-teachers talk of the money that gets wasted on bureaucracy when it could be spent improving our schools.

It’s time someone listened to these people. The Conservative Party is listening to these people and I am determined that we will govern for them.

All these people are looking to the Conservatives now and they want to know what we’re going to do for them.

We know what we’re going to do for them.

We’re going to take the money that’s spent by politicians and bureaucrats and let the schools spend it instead. £540 for every pupil.

We’re going to endow our universities and set them free to be the best in the world.

We’re going to create Free Schools that can determine their own ethos and decide their own admissions policy and set their own pay policy.

We’re going to have tougher discipline in our schools because we’re going to end the ridiculous situation where schools are penalised by the Government when they exclude pupils and are forced by politicians to take back those who disrupt classrooms. This is a policy that undermines discipline and makes teachers lives impossible and it’s going to stop.

The British people know these things can be done.

And we’re going to do them.

For we’re ready to govern for all the people.

We’re going to govern for the people who rely on the state pension and the National Health Service and think everyone should share in the growing prosperity of our country.

The Government seems confused at why pensioners are angry. But the reason is simple.

Pensioners don’t like being treated with contempt by people like the Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party who said they were all “racists”.

They don’t like being talked down to by people like Peter Mandelson who said that they’re not worth bothering with because they’re not ‘aspirational’.

I reject this language. Our pensioners should be treated with dignity and respect.

And they don’t like being treated as charity cases by a Chancellor of the Exchequer who prefers to go on handing out means tested benefits and one off gimmicks because he thinks he knows best.

Labour has not governed for them. We will govern for them.

All these people are looking to the Conservatives now and they want to know what we’re going to do for them.

We know what we’re going to do for them.

We’re going to take Gordon Brown’s gimmicks and the administrative costs wasted on them and put that money back into the basic state pension. £5.50 more a week for every pensioner; £10 for an older pensioner couple.

We’re going to match Labour penny for penny on the NHS and sweep away Labour’s dogmatic opposition to private provision.

We’re going to make sure every penny is spent on clinical priorities rather than the political priorities of Labour politicians.

We’re going to give every young person in the country the chance to have a pension of their own far greater than the current state pension.

The British people know these things can be done.

And we’re going to do them.

For we’re ready to govern for all the people.

We’re going to govern for the law abiding people of this country who have sometimes felt there wasn’t a politician left prepared to champion their common sense values and instincts.

It’s time we halted the march of political correctness.

Can you believe that Birmingham’s Labour Council decided to rename Christmas ‘the Winterval’?

Can you believe that Education Ministers supported a ban on musical chairs because they think the game encourages aggression?

Can you believe that they used Number 10 Downing Street to hold a summit on how many thin and fat people should appear on television?

I want all these people who despair of this politically correct idiocy to know that we’re going to govern for them.

I want all the parents who think schools should respect their values and don’t want Section 28 abolished to know that we’re going to govern for them.

I want all the people who are angry at the way our asylum system is in chaos and just want enforcement of the rules – I want them to know that we’re going to govern for them.

But nothing angers or frustrates the law abiding people of this country more than the failure of this Government to get a grip on rising crime.

Like the group of black teenagers I met in a Lambeth comprehensive four months ago. We got around a table in their classroom, and do you know what they said to me? ‘The police have got their hands tied and they’ve lost it. Crime is rising and we’re most likely to be the victims’.

These people are looking to the Conservatives now and they want to know what we’re going to do for them.

We know what we’re going to do for them.

We’re going to restore Labour’s cuts in our police force.

And we’re going to stop tying their hands with red tape and politically correct nonsense. We’re going to have less PC and more PCs.

We’re going to have no more of Labour’s early release schemes for rapists and burglars and muggers.

We’re going to overhaul the law to make sure that it is on the side of the people defending their homes instead of the criminals breaking into those homes.

We’re going to step up the war against drugs, not surrender to the drug dealers.

We’re going to make sure that prisoners don’t idle around in their cells but do a full working day.

We are going to give full force to the common sense instincts of the British people and we’re going to win the war against crime.

The British people know these things can be done.

And we’re going to do it.

For we’re ready to govern for all the people.

And we’re ready to govern for all parts of the country.

Earlier this year, I went to inner city housing estates in London and the north of England

I saw there how too many of their schools are failing, there aren’t enough jobs available, the shops have gone, and the sprawling tower blocks are rabbit warrens for crime. It’s the same story in many of our cities.

The people who live on these council estates have never looked to the Conservative Party for support, but I believe passionately that we still have a duty to help them.

We are going to reclaim their streets from the drug dealers and car thieves.

We are going to bulldoze the worst of the concrete tower blocks and ensure that there are new low rise homes where the criminals won’t be welcome.

And by bringing life back to our inner cities, we will ease the relentless pressure of the developers on our countryside.

Only the most out of touch, metropolitan elite could regard the attack on our rural life and the desperate plight of our farmers as a source of amusement. Yet, in speech after speech, and joke after joke in Brighton last week, New Labour poked fun at the anger and hardship of the people of the countryside.

This Government thinks it is attacking only a small rural minority. In fact it is attacking the values of tolerance and respect, the values of the mainstream majority.

Rural people look to the Conservative Party to represent them and stand up for their way of life – and we will not let them down.

For we are ready to govern for all parts of the country – and by country I mean the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

But a Conservative Government will only be able to do all of these things, and govern for all the people, if we still have a country left to govern at all.

For this Labour Government is taking us down the road to a European superstate.

Britain is uniquely placed to take advantage of the opportunities of the twenty-first century.

We have a unique relationship with the United States, a unique relationship with Europe and a unique relationship with the Commonwealth.

Our language is the global language of the new economy.

It seems to me to be blindingly obvious and basic common sense that with so many opportunities opening before us, we should not hesitate to make the most of being British.

And the advantages of independence seem to have been blindingly obvious to the Danes too.

The result of the Danish referendum last week has once and for all demolished Labour’s bogus arguments and scare tactics.

In a Europe where so many decisions are taken by bureaucratic elites, we should be celebrating the fact that at least in one country the people have spoken.

It now gives us a renewed opportunity to press the case for a different kind of Europe.

Now we must champion the cause of a flexible, free trading, low tax, lightly regulated Europe. A Europe that goes with the grain of the new global economy, in which nations combine in different combinations for different purposes to different extents.

We will be the champions of that flexible Europe. And we will be the champions of Britain’s right to govern itself. For we believe in being in Europe not run by Europe.

So we will write into the law of our land the powers and rights that we hold today and which we will pass to the next generation, so that no stroke of a pen from Brussels, or retrospective court judgement, can take those rights away.

And we will champion the common sense instincts of young people who know that the idea of creating artificial, centralised supra-national superstates is an idea left behind in the twentieth century as they plan their lives in the twenty-first.

They too believe passionately that we should be making the most of being British. So I say to them, whatever else you might have thought about the Conservative Party and what we’ve done for Britain, it is only by coming with us that you can make sure that there will still be a Britain.

Making the most of being British means that if taxes are lower in Britain than elsewhere in Europe we should be making them lower still to ensure that we keep our competitive advantages.

Making the most of being British means that if our regulations are lighter than in Europe they should be lighter still for British businesses.

And making the most of being British means that if other countries give up their currencies and take on the job of applying one set of rules to every economy across Europe, we should say: good luck, we wish them well, but we will keep our Pound.

At the coming election, we will be the only Party committed to keeping the Pound, just as we will be the only Party committed to common sense on the countryside and on our inner cities, on crime, on education, on pensions, on health and on tax.

As we approach this election, conscious of our responsibility to provide a new government, clear in our principles for which only we can stand, resolved in our purpose to serve the people of our country, we know who we are and what we promise to be.

I don’t promise the earth.

I don’t think we’ll solve every problem.

I don’t think we’ll avoid every mistake.

I won’t try to start new fads or fashions.

I won’t claim to be creating a new era.

I just want to govern with the common sense instincts of the people of this country.

I just want to govern with the common sense instincts of a proud people who believe in Britain.

In place of squandered opportunity and high taxation, the determination to seize the opportunity of a new economy.

In place of dogmatic interference and Whitehall knows best, the certain belief in the freedom of people to make their own choices about their schools and hospitals.

In place of political correctness and the noise of the pressure group, the quiet trust in the tolerance and mutual respect of the British people.

In place of fear on our streets and the menace of drugs, the absolute conviction that the war against crime can be won.

In place of the cringeing surrender of our rights as a country, the confident assertion of our right to be a nation.

I just want to govern with the common sense instincts of a people that believes in Britain and its values and institutions.

I just want to bring to a people so deeply disillusioned by its Government,

A Party that understands their concerns.

A Party that shares their values.

A Government that believes in our country.

A Conservative Government, ready to govern for all the people.

October 8, 2023
Angela Rayner – 2023 Speech to Labour Party Conference

The speech made by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, in Liverpool on 8 October 2023.

Good morning, Liverpool. And welcome.

This year’s Conference comes at a momentous time for our Party, and a pivotal moment for our country, just days after Labour’s huge win in Rutherglen.

Anas, my friend, we are all so proud of the positive campaign you and Michael ran. Years of hard work led to the people of Rutherglen putting their faith in Labour this week – a watershed moment.

Now, Conference – no offence. But I hope this speech is the last one you’ll hear from me, on this podium before the General Election.

Because just like you, I am sick of being in Opposition!

When you elected me three and a half years ago, it was the honour of my life.

But you didn’t elect me to be Deputy Leader of the Opposition, you elected me to be Deputy Prime Minister of a Labour Government.

One that will transform people’s lives, like the last Labour government changed my own.

Now, we have a great week in store. But it comes after one where we saw the chaotic face of today’s Tory Party.

They’ve had quite a year since we last met. The Leader who lost to a lettuce. The Chancellor who forgot his own tax return, and forgot to declare it too.

Gavin Williamson, forced to resign because it turned out he was a bully. Who knew? Dominic Raab… also forced to resign as a bully.

I think everyone knew that one… Except the Prime Minister, apparently.

Then there was the Home Secretary, sacked as a threat to national security. The same Home Secretary, reappointed the next week.

I think they call that ‘time served’. Apparently she believes in the rehabilitation of offenders after all.

Now we have the Prime Minister refusing to hand over his WhatsApp messages.

I assume Jacob Rees-Mogg has also refused to hand over his carrier pigeon.

Throughout all of it, the Prime Minister simply can’t stand up for the country against his party.

Apparently he’s planning another reshuffle. Maybe that’s why he thinks we were offering him seven different bins for different kinds of rubbish.

And at their Conference, Liz Truss was back. So one thing did become clear, we all know that he’s just Ken in her Barbie-world!

What a contrast we are to the Tories. With Keir at the helm, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet is hungry for change.

And I might be biased, but I think my team are shining stars.

I lead a formidable frontbench with Matt, Sarah, Flo, Paula, Mike, Nav Mary, Sharon, Sue and Waj.

With Justin and Imran leading on our New Deal for Working People.

I also want to pay tribute to the woman who paved the way for Labour’s bold housing and levelling up vision with grit and determination – Lisa Nandy.

The reality is Labour is already delivering in power. From our elected mayors, our local authority leaders, or the Labour government in Wales.

Our movement has never been so united, so focused. Around one aim. To give Britain its Future Back.

But the Tories also have one singular focus. To desperately cling onto power.

That’s why the Tories’ levelling up project was dead on arrival.

You cannot level up from the top down. The Tories only know how to centralise power and hold wealth where it benefits them.

And it’s under their watch, the places that once built Britain have been abandoned. Communities crumbling. High streets emptying. Crime rising.

Streets that were once bursting with pride. Shut down. Boarded up. Denied a brighter future.

Rents skyrocketing. Mortgages soaring.

Where work doesn’t pay.

There’s that lingering sense that Britain is broken. Collateral damage from the swing of the Tories’ wrecking ball.

For the Conservatives, “growth” isn’t for everyone. It means jobs for the boys. A free ride for vested interests.

The super-rich.

Non-doms.

Water bosses.

But our proud United Kingdom that once spearheaded the industrial world was not a trickle-down nation.

It was a country where innovation and growth rose up from the ports, factories and warehouses…

In Hartlepool, Humber and Teesside. In my lifetime, growth used to be in the hands of the workers and the communities that built Britain. From their graft, came wealth.

But today, working people are grafting while Ministers sit in their ivory tower in Whitehall.

The truth is – and I’m not afraid to say it – a responsible government recognises their role in providing stability in people’s lives.

But stability has been smashed at the hands of this Prime Minister.

Who – in his conference speech, spent an hour, rallying against plots and controversies that don’t exist.

Worshipping at the altar of Liz Truss.

A Government that has gone off the rails – quite literally in the North!

The Prime Minister’s speech didn’t even mention ‘housing’ once. No doubt that’s because his housing policy is the same as his new smoking policy – increase the price year on year, so eventually no one can buy!

The truth is, looking down from his private jet, Rishi Sunak can’t understand why young people can’t get on the housing ladder.

Don’t forget – this is the man who boasted about snatching taxpayer’s money from deprived areas and funnelling it into wealthy ones.

He tells working people they’re just lacking aspiration – They aren’t working hard enough.

All while people are kept up at night by the pit in their stomach about whether their pay cheque will cover the bills, or be enough to keep a roof over their heads.

Or whether their children will ever earn enough to be free from the same anxiety which keeps them up at night.

That’s because Rishi Sunak and his party have taken a sledgehammer to the foundations on which a good life can be built.

And now the simple things in life are crumbling.

A decent job.

A secure, affordable home.

And a strong community.

Simple things this government has snatched away from working people.

Conference, we can’t go on like this any longer. The Tories are not only talking Britain down. They’ve dragged us down. And they’re holding us back.

This is why Labour’s first and most important Mission in Government is to grow the economy.

Growth – under a Labour government – will be in all places for all people.

Growth in the hands of the communities and people that built Britain. To once again provide decent work, secure homes and strong communities. To truly level up our country.

Building a strong community doesn’t mean making everywhere look the same.

It means real choices put in people’s hands.

Giving powers to our elected local leaders – the people who know their communities best.

New devolved powers on skills, employment support, transport, and of course, new housing.

This is how Labour will give local people control of their futures. We know this can and will work, because the march to devolution of the last Labour Government has been an almighty success.

Our Mayors, Sadiq, Andy, Steve and Tracy continue to champion locally-controlled transport, delivering cheaper tickets at a time when everything is getting more expensive.

Mark Drakeford, our First Minister for Wales, has shown the power of devolved leadership on skills, with bold action to ensure young people across Wales have access to work, education and training.

We seek power so we can hand it back to the people.

That is the Labour way. It belongs to them – not us.

But that also means recognising who is in the engine room of Britain’s economy.

Labour has a long and proud history of being the party of working people. And the Party for working people.

Because we believe everyone deserves a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

And to have enough spare at the end of the month to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

For bread and yes, roses too.

But under the Conservatives too often work doesn’t pay.

The Tories’ low wage economy, stagnant productivity and tumbling business investment.

Everything about this is bad for workers, bad for businesses and bad for our economy.

Now, Conference.

I’m proud that the last Labour government created the national minimum wage.

Back then the Tories hated it, they said it would crash the economy.

How wrong they were.

But so much of Labour’s progress has since been reversed.

Young adult workers are getting a raw deal, when their bills are as high as everyone else’s.

There’s no doubt we need to raise the floor on wages – and build lasting change.

But it’s only Labour that can make work pay.

With a genuine living wage that working people can actually live on. We will change the Low Pay Commission’s remit so that the minimum wage will for the first time take account of the cost of living.

Conference, I’ve heard some rumours that we’ll be watering down our New Deal for Working People.

Be in no doubt, not with Keir and I at the helm.

We’ll ban zero-hour contracts.

End fire and rehire.

And give workers basic rights from day one.

We’ll go further and faster in closing the gender pay gap.

Make work more family friendly.

And tackle sexual harassment.

And we won’t stop there.

We’ll ensure that unions can stand up for their members.

We will boost collective bargaining, to improve workers’ pay, terms and conditions.

Make no mistake, this is an agenda that we will deliver hand in hand with the trade union movement.

As we will work with business too. Because they know a good modern labour market is good for growth.

Labour’s New Deal for Working People is our plan to boost wages, make work more secure and support working people to thrive.

This is how Labour will make work pay!

And this is what Keir has asked me to do. The work has already started.

But it can only be completed with Labour in power – and as Deputy Prime Minister, I will personally table the legislation implementing our New Deal, within 100 days of taking office.

Let no one doubt our determination.

And I have no fear of winning that argument in an election either.

Last week, the people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West voted to make work pay.

Let’s give the people of our whole country the chance to do the same.

But Conference, good wages and protections aren’t enough if every penny goes simply on keeping a roof over your head, if you live in damp, cramped housing – or have no home at all.

Safe, secure, affordable housing is no longer the foundation on which people can rely.

That foundation of a good life – decent wages, strong communities, and affordable homes – crumbles in Tory Britain.

Too many people are stuck paying unaffordable private rents.

Or living the nightmare of a home wrapped in flammable cladding.

While leaseholders linger in a system left over from the Middle Ages, the dream of homeownership is slipping away as more than a million families wait for social housing.

Over the last 13 years, Tory Ministers sold or demolished more than double the number of social homes than they’ve delivered.

Families who need a council house are often stuck in cramped temporary accommodation or at the mercy of private landlords.

And this summer Michael Gove handed back almost two billion pounds destined for affordable housing to the Treasury… because he couldn’t spend it.

A Labour Government will right this wrong.

We know a secure home, like a secure job, is a crucial foundation for a good life.

That’s why we will get social homes built, brick by brick.

Building not just homes, but also communities.

And I’ll get out my hard hat and hi vis if needs be!

I pledge to you today, Keir and I will deliver the biggest boost in affordable and social housing for a generation.

And Conference, that includes council housing!

The Tories look down on people living in social housing.

Well I say, let’s stare right back.

And never be ashamed.

A council house changed my life.

And so here’s what Labour is going to do.

We’ll start by salvaging the system that the Tories have taken a sledgehammer to.

Where the Tories have snatched billions from affordable housing, Labour will unlock government grants to deliver new homes by making the Affordable Homes Programme more flexible so that every penny gets out the door to build the homes people need.

And by working with the local leaders – who know their areas best – we’ll use these funds more effectively.

Second, we will strengthen the rules to prevent developers from wriggling out of their responsibilities and we will speed up the building of new social and affordable housing.

We will do this by reforming the planning system.

Elected local leaders will be given the powers they need to stand up to vested interests in building new developments, through a specialist government Take Back Control Unit that will work with them to rebalance the scales.

And, Conference, we will provide stability and certainty for the affordable and social housing market so there is confidence to invest.

Affordable, social and council houses aren’t just a nice add on.

They’re fundamental to securing decent homes for all.

A hammer to smash the class ceiling.

And a lynchpin of the economy.

They are quicker to occupy and build, and to get the growth we need.

Creating reliable, well-paid, and highly skilled jobs in the process.

But that’s not all.

Labour will achieve rental reform where the Tories have failed for four and a half years.

Finishing the job by banning ‘no fault’ evictions.

We’ll give first-time buyers ‘first dibs’ on new developments in their communities.

With a comprehensive mortgage guarantee scheme for those who don’t have access to the bank of mum and dad.

We’ll end the mediaeval leasehold system, with root and branch reforms.

We will deliver planning reform to build the houses the next generation so desperately needs.

It’s Labour that is the party of home ownership.

Because we understand what it means.

To make your home. To start a family. To get on in life.

And I know the difference a decent wage and a secure home can have.

It was a Labour Government that introduced the minimum wage that improved my income.

A Labour government built council houses. I got the keys to my first home, to security.

A Labour government introduced equal pay. I started saving money.

The Labour Government took me from a council estate to the parliamentary estate.

And that’s where my Labour values come from.

And my confidence to succeed.

Ever since those days – to all those people who’ve underestimated me throughout my life.

I’ve always said: ‘Watch this space’.

So, I say to anyone who feels written off or looked down on.

I’ve got your back.

Labour is on your side.

Conference, the Tories last week not only showed they’re not on your side.

They showed they’re not fit to govern.

It’s not just that they don’t have a plan – frankly they haven’t got a clue.

They can’t solve the country’s problems.

Because they are the problem.

They’ve broken Britain.

And left working people paying the price.

We don’t just know Britain can be better than this.

We have a plan to make it better.

Not short-term sticking plaster solutions, but a mission-driven government

So you’ll see that plan from us this week.

A different kind of economy.

Where better living standards for all are how we drive growth…

And why we drive growth.

That repairs and revives our broken public services and provides a secure job, decent pay, a strong community, and a home of your own.

The foundations on which a good life is built.

Conference, earlier I quoted one of the great anthems of our movement.

It was a woman trade unionist, Helen Todd, who first demanded bread, and roses too.

A century ago, she wanted the right to vote.

And something worth voting for.

In her words, that bread and roses be “the heritage of every child that is born in this country, in the government of which she has a voice.”

Conference, our mission as a movement is the same now as it was then.

So let us fulfil it.

Let’s make that our legacy for every child in our country once more.

And let us be the government where they can find their voice and follow their dreams

Thank you.

October 8, 2023
Ed Davey – 2023 Speech to Liberal Democrat Party Conference

The speech made by Ed Davey, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, in Bournemouth on 26 September 2023.

Thank you friends.

I’m afraid I have to start this afternoon with an apology.

You might remember –

After our incredible victory in Somerton and Frome in July –

When the amazing Sarah Dyke overturned a Conservative majority of nineteen thousand –

I said it’s time to get these clowns out of Number Ten.

We even wrote it on the side of a big blue cannon.

Do you remember?

Well, a party member got in touch afterwards, to say he is an actual clown. And he took great offence at being compared to this Conservative Government.

On reflection, I have to admit, he’s got a point.

Clowns didn’t crash our economy and send interest rates soaring.

Clowns didn’t let water companies make billions in profits while dumping filthy sewage into our rivers and onto our beaches.

Clowns didn’t plunge our NHS into crisis, pushing waiting lists to record highs.

Clowns didn’t waste billions of pounds – of our money – on dodgy PPE contracts.

Clowns didn’t prop up a lying, law-breaking Prime Minister – and then put his cronies in the House of Lords.

Clowns didn’t do it. The Conservatives did.

So let me take this opportunity to apologise unreservedly to that party member, and to the whole clowning community.

I’m sorry. I used the wrong c-word.

Let me try again:

It’s time to get these Conservatives out of Number Ten!

And Liberal Democrats, we’ve made a great start.

Sarah Green in Buckinghamshire. Helen Morgan in Shropshire. Richard Foord in Devon. And now Sarah Dyke in Somerset.

And next up, of course, the wonderful Emma Holland-Lindsay in Mid Bedfordshire.

Friends, our by-election record in the last two and half years is nothing less than historic.

And so too have been our fantastic local election results.

This May, we gained an incredible four-hundred-and-seven councillors right across England – from Sunderland to South Hams, from Lewes to Lancaster.

And gained control of twelve more councils.

In Scotland last year, we boosted our councillor base by a third. We’re growing back strongly there too as we hold the Nationalists to account for the total mess they have made of everything.

In Wales, we took control of Powys Council for the first time ever.

Liberal Democrats – right across our United Kingdom – you should all be so proud of what we’ve achieved together.

Our campaigns – our victories – are changing the future of British politics and turning the tide against the Conservatives.

We’ve shown the next election won’t be all about the Red Wall.

It’s about the Blue Wall too. Former Tory heartlands where we’ve shown we are the only ones who can win.

The only ones who can bring the change people crave.

And even better. With Richard’s win in Devon, Sarah’s in Somerset and superb local government success, we can now say proudly:

The Liberal Democrats are back in the West Country!

A second front against the Conservatives, where every Liberal Democrat vote is the powerful vote for change.

But now comes the big one.

The General Election.

For the British people, the next General Election can’t come quickly enough.

People are desperate for change.

And while Rishi Sunak clings on – out of touch and out of ideas –

Our job – our responsibility – is to show the British people that positive change is possible.

And that we are ready to fight for it, whenever the election comes.

And this week, we’ve done just that.

We’ve shown we have the policies, the passion and the people – not just to get the Conservatives out, but to deliver the real change people want.

The fair deal people deserve.

Our task is to get more brilliant Liberal Democrat MPs elected – so they can be strong local champions for their communities. And lead the change our country needs.

Bringing real hope to millions in this economic crisis.

Hope to people struggling to get by and struggling to get on.

Cleaning up our environment.

Rescuing our NHS and care system.

Transforming our politics for good.

Remember at the start of the year, Sunak gave a big speech where he told the country “we’re either delivering for you – or we’re not”?

Well, in fairness to Rishi, he was telling the truth.

It is one of those two things.

And friends, I think we all know which one.

His Government is failing to deliver, and what’s so horrific is the sheer scale of their failure.

In so many ways, our country today just isn’t working the way it should.

It’s not working as it should for the parents forced to travel two hours just to find their kids an NHS dentist. Or skipping meals so their children can eat.

It’s not working for the couple in my constituency, who fear losing their home of thirteen years as their mortgage payments have shot up by more than four hundred pounds a month.

It’s not working for the teaching assistant and her young family, evicted from their home in Ambleside so the landlord could turn it into a holiday let.

It’s not working for the pensioner going without heat in the winter.

Or the commuter left on the platform by yet another cancelled train.

It’s not working for the swimmer who spent thirteen days in hospital with cellulitis after swimming in sewage-infested water.

Conference, I have never known our country so badly governed.

Crimes unsolved. Backlogs in our courts. Delays to get a passport.

Crumbling school buildings. High streets in decline. And potholes, everywhere.

Now, there are many reasons why all these issues have got so bad, of course.

But there is one fundamental cause.

The Conservative Party.

Britain isn’t working, because the Conservatives aren’t working.

They’re more like a bad TV soap than a functioning government.

The factions and the feuds.

The personal vendettas.

The shock exits. And unwelcome returns.

Each episode worse than the last.

Well it’s time to change the channel.

The corruption of Boris Johnson. The chaos of Liz Truss. The carelessness of Rishi Sunak.

This whole Conservative shambles.

They all have to go.

And Liberal Democrats, our task is to get them out. And then get Britain working again.

And that of course starts with the economy.

We need to get our economy growing strongly again.

Conservative Ministers might think zero percent growth and seven per cent inflation are numbers to boast about – but the British people certainly don’t.

Inflation’s still higher than any time since Black Wednesday. Worse even than the height of the financial crisis.

Food prices up thirty percent in just two years. Energy bills almost doubled. Mortgage rates through the roof.

And Rishi Sunak says this all shows his plan is working.

Honestly, the Prime Minister sounds so complacent, so out of touch, sometimes I think he must be reading the graphs upside down.

Well Rishi, if this is what it looks like when your plan is working, I think we need a new plan.

And that’s what the Liberal Democrats have been putting forward.

A real plan – not just to stop things getting worse, not just to return to business as usual – but to build the economy of the future.

To build an economy that is genuinely innovative, prosperous and fair.

An economic plan that gives everyone the chance to get on in life, and see their hard work and aspiration properly rewarded.

A plan that backs entrepreneurs to grow their small businesses and create worthwhile, well-paid jobs in their communities.

And yes – a plan to tackle the climate crisis, reach net zero, and embrace the clean technologies of the future.

To lead the world, instead of trying to hide from it.

Conference, after Rishi Sunak’s disgraceful speech last week, the contrast between our approach and his could not be clearer.

We already knew he doesn’t care about tackling climate change. That’s no surprise.

But what about the damage his U-turns will do to our economy? To our car industry? To people’s jobs right across the UK?

Doesn’t Sunak care about any of it? Apparently not.

Frankly, instead of delivering that speech, Rishi should have torn it up and thrown it away.

If he’s got seven bins, he might as well use them!

His small-minded and backward looking approach is simply not worthy of our great United Kingdom.

From the steam train to the internet, Britain has always led the world with ingenuity and innovation.

We are a nation of pioneers and inventors. Not just in our history, but in our present and our future.

Liberal Democrats understand that.

In Government, we made Britain the world leader in offshore wind.

We invested early. We had an industrial strategy. We showed we were serious.

We attracted global firms to come to the UK, and spend tens of billions of pounds to build factories and windfarms and create thousands of clean, secure jobs.

And thanks to Liberal Democrat policies, the price of wind energy has more than halved.

So now renewables are by far the cheapest form of electricity. And the most popular.

We could be doing the same with so many other new technologies.

Tidal power. Clean flight. High-speed rail.

Creating jobs and cutting prices.

But Rishi Sunak says no.

We say: build Britain’s economic future here in the UK. Rishi Sunak says: outsource it to China.

That is a dismal failure of leadership. And we can do so much better.

Britain led the world, and we can lead it again.

But not with the Conservatives squabbling amongst themselves and clinging to the fossil fuels of the past.

And not with the Prime Minister refusing even to attend the United Nations General Assembly last week.

Instead of standing at his lectern in Downing Street single-handedly trashing our economic future,

Rishi Sunak should have been in New York working with global leaders to tackle this crisis together.

Britain can be an incredible force for good when it stands tall on the world stage.

But Rishi Sunak doesn’t seem to care about that either.

He’s getting it wrong at home, and he’s getting it badly wrong abroad too.

Our vision is for a Britain that leads the world as we embrace the economy of the future.

The Conservatives would only shackle us to the past.

And there’s another crucial part of our economic vision. Another area where we are different from this Government.

Something that would so obviously make an enormous difference to our economy and our standard of living.

Something we have always been proud to champion, even when no one else even dared whisper it.

Fixing our broken relationship with Europe.

The Conservatives botched the deal with Europe, and it’s been a disaster for the UK.

They sold out British farmers and fishers.

They tied up British business in red tape.

And they pushed up food prices in our supermarkets.

So much unnecessary pain inflicted on so many by so few.

And only the Liberal Democrats have consistently stood up against it.

Only we have set out a plan to tear down those trade barriers, fix our broken relationship with Europe and get a better deal for Britain.

Yes – only we.

Because Labour’s plan – if you can call it a plan – is nowhere near that ambitious.

To be fair, they’ve come a long way from when they voted for Boris Johnson’s terrible deal.

But Labour has a long way still to go.

Which means it’s up to us to lead the way.

A better economy. A better future. With Europe.

Opportunity. Investment. Innovation. Trade.

That’s the Liberal Democrat recipe for economic success.

And one more ingredient:

People.

Because at its heart, what makes our approach different is that we understand that the economy isn’t just a series of abstract percentages and meaningless slogans.

It’s all of us.

It’s the things we do every day, together.

It’s the jobs we do. The services we rely on. The food we eat. The homes we live in.

It’s the TV shows we watch. The places we visit. The presents we give each other.

We understand that, when you strip everything else away, an economy is its people.

And if we want to get our economy growing strongly again, we need to focus far more on our people.

That means investing in people through education. Training. Skills. Of course.

But today I want to talk about another investment in people.

An investment that too often has not been linked to economic growth – even though it’s central to growth.

And that’s an investment in people’s physical and mental health.

Because we can’t build the economy we need, with seven million people stuck on NHS waiting lists.

We can’t grow the economy with two and half million people shut out of the labour market by long-term physical and mental illness.

When people aren’t supported to recover from long Covid.

Wait weeks for a GP appointment.

Can’t get basic help, so they can get back to work, feed their families and get on in life.

A healthy economy needs a healthy population…

And a healthy NHS.

I am so proud that we Liberal Democrats have consistently led the way in highlighting the crises in the NHS and proposing solutions.

Reversing cuts to GP numbers and guaranteeing an appointment when you need one.

Tackling life-threatening ambulance delays, and improving access to NHS dentists.

There are so many parts of our NHS plan that would both treat people better and boost our economy.

And today I’d like to focus on one particular, awful part of this health crisis. That shatters lives, and takes people in their prime.

It can be very difficult to talk about. It’s difficult for me, and I know it’s difficult for many of you, but we do need to talk about it.

And that’s cancer.

As many of you know, my brothers and I lost both our parents to cancer when we were young.

My dad died aged thirty-eight, just a few months after being diagnosed with a cancer called Hodgkin lymphoma.

I was only four, so I don’t remember it very well.

What I do remember is my mum’s grief. And her incredible strength in the months and years that followed, after being widowed so young, with three boys under ten.

Then, when I was nine, cancer came for mum too.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I do remember how that felt.

She had treatment, including a mastectomy. But three years later, they found secondary breast cancer – metastatic cancer – in her bones.

And they told her it was incurable.

Yet mum refused to accept that it was incurable. She battled it for three years. For her boys.

She tried everything – including a naturopath – while we looked after her.

It was hardest of course in the last eighteen months or so, as she became bed-ridden and the pain became excruciating.

For me, caring for her became my life. Before school and after school.

I’d sit for hours on her bed, talking to her. Telling her about my day, listening to her stories. Trying to make the most of every minute.

When she was fighting the cancer with the naturopath, my top task was mashing up carrots and apples for the healthy juice drinks she lived on.

Then there was helping her with the pain. Pouring out doses of morphine from this big bell jar we had in the kitchen. I don’t think they’d allow that now.

Putting pads on her legs and sides so she could give herself small electric shocks when the pain got really bad.

That was a tough period as a teenager. But of course it was much tougher for mum.

Yet those years were also special. They gave me an incredible bond with my mum.

She was so strong, so resilient. Fighting to be with her boys, even in the face of such a cruel disease.

I like to think I learnt a lot from her.

I was fifteen when she died.

They’d put her on a totally unsuitable dementia ward in Nottingham General Hospital.

I was visiting her. On my way to school. In my school uniform. By her bedside.

When she died.

Now I don’t tell you all this because I want you to feel sorry for me. It was a long long time ago and I’ve been very lucky since.

But I do tell you all about it because actually too many families have their cancer stories. Like mine. Today.

My family’s story isn’t unique: there are millions of us whose lives get turned upside down by cancer.

This very day, across the UK, a thousand people will hear that fateful diagnosis.

A thousand people, choking back tears as they try to process what it means for them.

A thousand people, trying to figure out how to tell their loved ones.

How to break the news to their partners. To their parents. To their children.

And then, a thousand people wondering what comes next.

Now, we are fortunate in this country that there are brilliant people in our NHS and in charities like Macmillan.

And there’s a story of progress. And hope.

Cancer mortality rates have fallen by twenty-five percent in the last thirty years.

Ten-year survival rates have doubled in the last forty.

Diagnoses like both my parents were given are no longer necessarily the death sentence today that they were back then.

Science, and universal healthcare, really are wonderful things.

But I still think we could be doing so much better on cancer.

Far too many people are still waiting, far too long for a diagnosis. Or to start treatment after being diagnosed.

And I’m afraid to say, they’ve been let down and forgotten by this Conservative Government.

Last year, the Government promised a new Ten-Year Cancer Plan.

It was supposed to be “a searching new vision for how we will lead the world in cancer care”.

This year – after two changes of Prime Minister and three changes of Health Secretary – that plan has been junked.

Yet another casualty of all the Conservative chaos.

Hopes raised. Only to be cruelly dashed.

Because we do need a cancer plan.

Despite all the progress, our survival rates still lag behind France, Germany, the US and Japan.

And the Government is now missing every single one of its waiting time targets for cancer.

Not by a little. But by a lot.

Right now, there are more than twenty thousand people across England who’ve been told they have suspected cancer –

Who have been referred for urgent treatment by their GP –

But who’ve been waiting more than two months to start treatment.

More than two months.

Just imagine the fear. The anxiety. The helplessness.

Knowing you need treatment. Knowing every day could make a difference.

But powerless to do anything but wait.

Like Ian. An engineer who I was speaking to just last week.

Ian lives in Nottingham, just down the road from where I lived with mum before she passed away.

And like me, Ian lost both of his parents to cancer when he was young too.

Ian had been fit and healthy all his life, but he was diagnosed with bowel cancer two years ago, in his mid-sixties.

The national screening programme caught it early. It was a small stage one tumour.

Crucially, it was operable.

Ian needed chemotherapy and surgery – as quickly as possible.

But he was kept waiting for four months before starting any treatment.

Now his cancer has progressed to stage four and spread to his liver.

Now it’s inoperable.

Ian calls those four months of waiting the worst time of his life.

He said “I would wake up every morning wondering if I had a future.”

And he told me how preventing those delays could not only have saved his own despair, but also saved the NHS so much money.

Conference, it’s just not right to keep people in such limbo, for so long.

We owe patients better than that.

We owe their families – their children and their loved ones – better than that.

We owe Ian better than that.

We must, must, must do better than that.

But here again, there is hope.

Just in the last few months, we have seen incredible breakthroughs that could revolutionise the way we diagnose and treat many types of cancer.

Trials of a new blood test that can detect more than fifty types of cancer are encouraging, and the head of the NHS says it could “transform cancer care forever”.

A simple blood test you could even carry out at home.

Or the new breast cancer drug trialled at the Royal Marsden hospital.

It’s been shown to slow the growth of tumours – and even shrink them in many cases. With far less debilitating side effects than chemotherapy.

Just think what a difference breakthroughs like these could make.

Think how much time they could save.

How much misery they could prevent.

How many lives they could save.

It’s the job of government to back research like this, so scientists and doctors can make the next breakthrough, and the one after that, and the one after that.

It’s the job of government to make sure that – whenever those breakthroughs happen – the NHS rolls out the benefits to patients as quickly as possible.

If someone’s life can be saved by a new blood test or a new drug, no unnecessary delays should stand in their way.

And it’s the job of government to make sure that we are diagnosing cancer as early as possible, that patients are starting treatment as early as possible, and that every patient gets the ongoing care and support they need.

Now, friends, none of this should be party political.

I know there are MPs in every party who have lost loved ones to cancer like I did, or who’ve battled it themselves.

So I fervently hope we can build a consensus across politics to make cancer a top priority in the next Parliament.

But as Leader of our party, I can at least promise you this:

For Liberal Democrat MPs, it will be a top priority.

And that’s why today I am announcing our new and ambitious plan to end unacceptable cancer delays and boost survival rates.

We will hold the Government to account, for every target it misses and every patient it fails.

We will never stop fighting for better care for you and your loved ones.

Of course, it’s not just cancer where the Government is letting patients down.

It’s pretty much everything.

The Conservatives have broken promise after promise on the NHS.

From their forty new hospitals. To six thousand more GPs. To Rishi Sunak’s pledge to bring waiting lists down.

All of it – just meaningless noise.

All a total con.

Perhaps there should be a warning on the ballot paper, like there is on cigarette packets:

Voting Conservative is bad for your health.

So it falls to us to rescue the NHS, and make sure everyone can get the care they need, when they need it.

We know it won’t be easy, but we see a bright future for the NHS.

Not because we are blind to the scale of the crisis,

But because we are clear-eyed about the solutions:

More GPs, so that everyone can get an appointment within seven days, or twenty-four hours if it’s urgent.

More investment in the latest technology from MRI scanners to radiotherapy machines.

And, crucially, more carers.

Conference, we know that the crisis in the NHS is inextricably linked to the crisis in care.

We know that you can’t fix the NHS without fixing social care.

We know you can’t fix the NHS without valuing family carers.

Fix care and you fix the NHS.

Better social care, with many more care professionals, better paid.

More support for family carers, so people can cope better looking after loved ones.

These are low-tech, affordable ways to save our NHS – investing in care.

So people can be discharged more quickly. Or don’t need hospital care in the first place.

So pressure on overstretched hospitals can be reduced.

So patients aren’t stuck for hours waiting to be seen in A&E.

So ambulances aren’t stuck for hours waiting outside A&E to hand over patients.

It’s all connected.

Our plan for social care and family care is a central part of our plan for the future Health Service.

And remember – in turn, health and care both are key parts of our plan for the economy.

The Conservatives broke our economy with their carelessness.

Liberal Democrats will fix our economy with care.

As we make our pitch to people, we need to show such real change is possible. We need to restore hope.

For when you look at the harm these Conservatives have done to people, done to our country, one of their worst is this.

Cynicism.

When I speak to people on the doorstep or in my surgeries, I get a very clear impression of this.

The idea that nothing can be done. That people in power don’t care. And won’t fix things.

A sense of hopelessness.

The toxic brew of incompetence, scandal and chaos served up by this Government has poisoned not only people’s view of the Conservatives, but their trust in politics as a whole.

Frankly, it’s the only weapon the Conservatives have left: convince people to expect less from government.

Now, there are two ways to respond to the widespread cynicism the Conservatives foment.

One way is simply to accept it.

That’s the path that the Labour Party sadly seems to have chosen:

Lower your sights. Give up on really changing things. Make your pitch nothing more than “Not as bad as the Tories”.

Half-heartedly oppose what the Conservatives are doing, and then shrug your shoulders and say “we’d pretty much do the same thing”.

That’s one way of responding to it. But it is not the Liberal Democrat way.

Our ambition for our country is much greater than that.

Our faith in the British people is much stronger than that.

Our path – the path we have always chosen – the path we walk today – is to confront that cynicism head on, and to offer people hope.

Not with yet more platitudes and promises. Not by announcing another nebulous “mission” that’s immediately forgotten when the speech is over.

No. By fighting for the big changes. The changes needed to restore people’s trust in politics and rebuild their confidence in our public services.

And that starts with real political reform.

Liberal Democrats have long known that Britain’s political system is broken.

Millions of people – powerless and excluded. Robbed of their rightful say and unable to hold the powerful to account.

And we’ve always fought to change that.

But the Conservatives… Instead of fixing our broken politics, have shattered it into pieces.

Their constant attacks on the rule of law and traditional British freedoms.

Their betrayal of integrity, truth and honesty.

Stuffing the Lords with Boris Johnson’s lackeys.

Handing out billions in contracts to their cronies.

One rule for them, another rule for the rest of us.

And it wasn’t just Boris Johnson.

Owen Paterson. Nadhim Zahawi. Matt Hancock. Dominic Raab.

So much sleaze. So many scandals.

No wonder people are cynical.

Clearing it up is no small task.

It will take more than tinkering around the edges.

We need to transform the nature of British politics itself.

To make it more relevant, engaging and responsive to people’s needs and their dreams.

To bring together our great family of nations, instead of tearing it apart.

And yes, at the heart of those reforms must be a fair electoral system.

Proportional representation, so everyone’s vote counts equally.

Because we know that the antidote to cynicism is not defeatism. It’s empowerment.

Putting real power in every voter’s hands, to elect MPs who can’t take them for granted, who have to listen to their concerns, who must work hard for them.

Real power to hold politicians properly to account when they fail to deliver.

Real power to demand better schools and hospitals, affordable housing and safe communities, and a clean, healthy environment.

That’s why fair votes is such an important part of the fair deal we’re fighting for.

Empowering people at the ballot box is the only way to make the big changes we need as a country.

It’s the only way to mend our broken politics, restore trust, and offer real hope.

But when we listen to people, we get it: it is hard to hope right now.

With everything we’ve been through, the years of Conservative neglect and the multiple crises we face.

And with a terrible war still waging on our continent.

It’s hard to hope.

So I don’t blame anyone for feeling cynical.

I blame the Conservatives for spreading cynicism – I don’t blame anyone for feeling it.

But for myself, I’m still incredibly optimistic about our future as a country.

Because everywhere I go, I see the amazing strength, decency and courage of the British people.

And because my life has taught me that, no matter how tough things get, you can get through them. Brighter days can follow even the darkest.

That was true for me as a teenager, and I know it’s true for our country today.

Our future is bright.

Better days lie ahead for our country, and – Liberal Democrats – we know what must be done to reach them.

Mend our broken politics. Put real power in people’s hands.

Support people through this awful cost-of-living crisis.

Save the NHS, fix care, and make cancer a top priority.

Clean up our rivers and protect our precious environment.

Build the economy of the future, lead the world, and spread prosperity and opportunity to all.

This is our vision.

These are our priorities.

These are the big changes our country needs.

So let me be crystal clear:

Whenever the next election comes, every vote for the Liberal Democrats will be a vote to make these changes happen.

And every Liberal Democrat elected to Parliament will fight tirelessly to make them happen.

That is how we rebuild trust, restore hope and repair our country.

So Conference,

We have our policies.

We have our priorities.

And very soon, we will have our election.

And I know you’re ready.

I have seen you on the streets of Shropshire and the doorsteps of Devon.

I have seen your determination and dedication, and it makes me so proud to be one of your number.

And I firmly believe that, together, we are the strongest campaigning force in British politics.

We have taken chunks out of the Blue Wall.

We have made it start to crumble.

So now let’s smash it for good.

The British people are desperate for hope.

The British people are desperate for change.

The British people are desperate for a fair deal.

And we are the ones who can make it happen.

So let’s get to it!

Thank you.

October 8, 2023
Anneliese Dodds – 2023 Speech to the Labour’s National Annual Women’s Conference

The speech made by Anneliese Dodds, the Chair of the Labour Party, in Liverpool on 7 October 2023.

Thank you for that introduction, Angela.

And thank you for all the great work you do for women, not least on the New Deal for Working People which will massively improve women’s working lives.

Speaking of great work for women, wasn’t this a brilliant summer for women’s sport?

The Lionesses’ amazing run to the World Cup final. The thrilling Women’s Ashes series. England reaching the Netball World Championship final.

I want to congratulate these women for smashing through barriers in sport. And send my solidarity to Jenni Hermoso and her Spanish teammates.

These women faced open misogyny in their moment of ultimate triumph and said: we won’t stand for it. Sisters, we stand with you.

I also want to send my solidarity to the women of Ukraine and Afghanistan, who have showed such courage in the face of oppression, harassment and violence.

And for those women and their children who have fled their home to seek refuge in our country – you are welcome here.

Friends, we gather today for our first in-person women’s conference since 2019.

The last four years have been immensely challenging.

First Covid-19. Then the cost of living crisis.

Thanks to the Conservatives, women paid the price for both.

Who stood by while women bore the brunt of rising poverty before the pandemic?

The Tories did.

Who left women hundreds of pounds a year worse off today than they were in 2010?

The Tories did.

Who allowed the gender pay gap to rise?

The Tories did.

This is the cost of the Conservatives – and women can’t afford another five years of it.

Politics is about priorities. And the Conservatives have deprioritised women.

Just look at the ministerial merry-go-round in the Government Equalities Office.

At our last women’s conference in March 2022, Liz Truss was Minister for Women and Equalities – remember her?

By this time last year, ‘Lettuce Liz’ had replaced herself as Minister for Women and Equalities with Nadhim Zahawi – but never bothered to allocate him any responsibilities.

Today Kemi Badenoch holds the role – a Minister who, when faced with the epidemic of violence against women and girls, soaring NHS waiting lists for women and the pernicious gender pay gap, is nowhere to be found.

She does, however, have time to pursue her top priority – appointing a toilet tsar.

And she’s supported in that vital work by Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor who did nothing to help women brutally exposed to the cost of living crisis.

Well, today I have a message for them both:

You can’t try and claim ownership of women’s equality if your party has been failing women for thirteen years.

It’s Labour that is the true party of women’s equality. The party of the Equal Pay Act. The party that supported women to exercise bodily autonomy with the right to choose. The party of the Equality Act. And so much more.

We’ll take no lessons on women’s equality from the Conservatives.

Instead, we learn from those who actually delivered for women in government. Leaders like Harriet Harman, the architect of our Equality Act.

Harriet is standing down at the next election after more than forty years as an MP. The Mother of the House. The second woman Leader of the Opposition. A woman who has done so much to advance women’s equality.

Harriet, you have been a brilliant servant to our party and our country. I’m sure the whole hall will join me in thanking you for that service.

Harriet’s achievements remind us of the progress we have made for women’s equality. And the need for strong women in Parliament to deliver it.

Because as Harriet herself said: “There are some things only women MPs can do, and without women, they will not be done”.

That’s why women’s representation in Parliament is so important. And why I’m so proud that Labour is the first political party to reach parity in terms of men and women MPs.

A great example of how positive action works.

Action that was taken by Labour. But opposed by the Tories. The same old story.

And for 13 years this useless Conservative Government has failed to do anything to boost diversity in politics. So as usual, it is left to Labour to put that right.

I can announce today that the next Labour Government will enact Section 106 of the Equality Act. We will require political parties to publish anonymised data on the diversity of their candidates – so that every party competing for elections to Westminster, to Holyrood or to the Senedd has a duty to demonstrate progress.

The Conservatives could have done this years ago, but they didn’t have the guts. Only Labour will act to make politics more representative of the country we serve.

To bring people with different experiences and backgrounds into Parliament, to do the things that only women MPs, Black, Asian and ethnic minority MPs, disabled MPs and LGBT+ MPs can do.

Take the menopause. This is a condition that affects 51% of the population. If it happened to men, there would be outrage. Research. Policy solutions. And action. Instead, change has happened at a glacial pace.

Six months ago, I started a national conversation about how we properly support women in their 40s, 50s and 60s.

Women of our age do a lot, and complain little.

We’re often holding down a job, going through menopause, caring for elderly parents, supporting older children and more. The pressure is immense – and our potential too often untapped.

If women aged 50-64 had the same employment rate now as before the pandemic, they could be contributing up to £7 billion more to the UK economy – £7 billion worth of untapped contribution and creativity.

It’s a tragedy that one in ten women experiencing menopause leave their jobs and 14% reduce their hours due to the lack of support in the workplace.

The Conservatives don’t care about this. But Labour does – and that’s why I announced this year that Labour will require large employers to publish menopause action plans to support their women workers.

It’s also why I can announce today that the next Labour Government will produce menopause workplace guidance to help women working for small and medium-sized businesses too.

Conference, with the right support we can unleash the talent and creativity of women across our country. That’s good for women. Good for business. And good for the economy too.

Because we know that women’s equality and economic growth go hand in hand.

That’s why the last Labour Government legislated to support women to reach their full potential.

Legislation like our Equality Act, which is still protecting women from discrimination in countless ways every day.

The Conservatives will never understand that success is not achieved by pushing people down – but by pulling everyone up.

For them, equality is just an afterthought or a fight to pick. But for Labour it is fundamental to who we are.

That’s why it’s such an honour and a privilege to do this job. If Labour wins the next election, I will become the UK’s first ever Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, with a seat at the top table, dedicated to advocating for women in all their diversity in every Cabinet conversation.

That alone though won’t be enough to give women their future back. To do that, we must harness the talent, creativity and brilliance of every woman in our country.

How? With Labour’s mission-driven agenda for a better Britain.

Because to deliver the highest sustained growth in the G7, we will create better workplaces for women.

We’ll start with our New Deal for Working People. From flexible working to stronger equal pay rights to tackling workplace harassment and so much more, this will transform the lives of working women everywhere, including LGBT+, Black, Asian and ethnic minority, and disabled women.

And we will tap into the talents of women of all ages, whether by supporting start-ups and female entrepreneurs or by bringing in that better workplace support for women experiencing menopause.

We’ll also tackle the Gender Pay Gap, building on the findings of the review currently being led by Baroness Frances O’Grady, supported by Rachel Reeves, Angela and myself.

We will make Britain a clean energy superpower, ensuring women benefit from the good, new jobs the transition will create.

We will build an NHS fit for the future to support women with their health and wellbeing, from cutting gynaecology waiting lists to delivering better access to mental health support.

And we will incentivise continuity of care in maternity services to reverse the shameful increase in women dying in childbirth – and set a target to close the shocking gap that leaves Black women four times more likely to die while giving birth.

We will deliver safer streets, homes, and workplaces – and use every lever to halve the level of violence against women and girls, making this a government-wide strategic commitment.

We will make hatred against women the hate crime we know it to be, and strengthen existing laws so that hate crimes against LGBT+ and disabled women attract the same, tough sentences.

We will break down barriers to opportunity at every stage by enacting the socio-economic duty in the Equality Act and introducing a Race Equality Act to tackle the structural racial inequality that scars our society.

And we will oppose any Conservative attempt to undermine Labour’s Equality Act, and protect and uphold it in government.

Sisters, this is Labour’s plan for women.

To put women at the heart of our mission-driven agenda for government.

To provide every woman with a fair shot at life, in every part of our country.

To give women their hope, their optimism and their future back.

Thank you.

October 8, 2023
Angela Rayner – 2023 Speech to the Labour’s National Annual Women’s Conference

The speech made by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, in Liverpool on 7 October 2023.

Good morning Ladies of Liverpool!

It is an honour to stand here today, as your Deputy Leader, and look out at so many inspiring women.

Let’s face it – sometimes it’s tiring being a woman in this world.

Especially under a Tory Government!

But that is why it falls upon us to continue the work the last Labour government started, standing side-by-side, so that all of us succeed in battling inequality, together.

I want to start today with a story.

Picture the scene.

A baby boy is born.

Destined for Eton, or Harrow or Winchester.

Then PPE at Oxford.

When he walks into the Houses of Parliament he feels no imposter syndrome.

Only the feeling that he is home. He is exactly where he should be.

He doesn’t struggle to make his voice heard.

No hesitation to steal a well-made point and call it his own.

On the other side of the country, a girl is growing up on a council estate. In poverty.

Taught that women do certain things, and men do others.

To put everyone else first.

Overlooked, undervalued, underestimated.

She’ll never walk in the corridors of Westminster.

It’s not the place for her.

Only that isn’t what happens.

She joins a union.

She learns the power of workers coming together… to fight for more.

A Labour Government introduces the minimum wage. She can afford more than one meal a day.

A Labour government builds council houses. She gets the keys to her first home, to stability.

A Labour government introduces the equal pay act. She gets a pay rise – enough so she can save.

A Labour government builds a sure start centre at the end of her road, where she learns how to be a good mum. She meets other young mums and they find power in each other.

And in the end, that girl goes from her council estate to the parliamentary estate!

Conference, like so many of us in this room today, I wouldn’t be standing here today without a Labour government.

Labour is the Party of equality. Of the Equality Act. Of Equal Pay. Of Sure Start.

I’m proud to say that in the Labour Party today, we now have more women MPs than men.

With Rachel’s eyes fixed on being the first woman Chancellor.

We are turning the tide of history.

But the battle isn’t won. There still aren’t enough women around the table.

It is not enough for us to cling onto our seats and celebrate the fight it took to get us here.

You only need to look at the horrific acts of powerful men abusing young women and hiding in plain sight.

This is why the next Labour government will fight for every girl in this country to have a bright future.

To stand up for every woman.

To break the glass ceiling and the class ceiling.

Our New Deal for Working People will make work more family friendly, crack down on unfair pay and improve access to justice for those discriminated against at work.

And as I was pleased to announce today Labour would properly tackle sexual harassment at work

A shocking two-thirds of young women have been sexually harassed at work. This must change.

That’s why the next Labour government will amend the Equalities Act to introduce a legal duty for employers to take all reasonable steps to stop sexual harassment before it starts.

But that’s not all.

We’ll make misogyny a hate crime, toughen sentences for perpetrators of rape and stalking, and halve the level of violence against women and girls.

Women suffering the awful symptoms of menopause at work will get the support they deserve.

We will empower women entrepreneurs.

And we’ll tackle the crisis in women’s health by training 7,500 more doctors and 10,000 more nurses and midwives each year.

When it comes to building a better future for women – we won’t just talk the talk. We’ll walk the walk.

Because our lives, our careers, our futures depend on it.

We can’t continue down the path we are on.

Women unsafe on Britain’s streets. Two-thirds of us harassed in our workplaces.

We must get into government and build on the legacy of the last Labour Government. We must get into government and continue the fight for equality.

And Conference, Labour must get into government to give that young girl living in poverty her future back.

Now, without further ado.

I want to introduce one of the most formidable women in our movement.

She is working across our movement – the Shadow Cabinet, members and activists – to build on the legacy of the last Labour Government and empower women everywhere.

Anneliese Dodds.

October 8, 2023
Benjamin Netanyahu – 2023 Statement on Attack on Israel

The statement made by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, on 7 October 2023.

Citizens of Israel. We are at war, not an operation, not an escalation, a war.

This morning Hamas launched a murderous surprise attack against the state of Israel and its citizens. We’ve been at it since early morning.

I convened the heads of the security system, first of all I instructed to cleanse the settlements of the terrorists who had infiltrated – this operation is being carried out during these hours.

At the same time, I ordered an extensive reserve mobilisation and a retaliatory war with a strength and scope that the enemy had never known.

The enemy will pay a price he has never known. In the meantime, I call on all citizens of Israel to strictly obey the instructions of the army and the instructions of the Home Command.

We are in a war and we will win it.

October 7, 2023
Gillian Keegan – 2023 Speech at the Confederation of School Trusts

The speech made by Gillian Keegan, the Secretary of State for Education, in Birmingham on 5 October 2023.

To start, I want to say thank you. For your leadership, your resilience, your incredible work.

I really mean this because I do see your work as incredible and achievements as outstanding. It has been difficult, especially as we continue to recover from the pandemic, nobody in this room thinks it’s anything but, and most recently as we have grappled with the RAAC (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) issue.

I want to put on record my thank you to Baroness Barran for her brilliant leadership on RAAC. She’s done a really amazing job.

I’m here today with a simple message. I promise that I will do everything I can to support all of you. I see that as my job; to minimise the disruption our kids face, and to keep them in the classroom and get a great education.

But there is another reason it’s really great to be here today and that is because I look at the theme on your banner today we’ve spoken about it, about ‘belonging’, and how important that is.

It’s not often that conference themes really hit the mark but for me, this one does.

Because I can bet that at one moment, every one of us has felt that we don’t belong.

I’ve felt it in the world of business where I spent 30 years. It is hardly dominated by people who started on the factory floor.

That can be hard enough for an adult but when you’re young, if you don’t feel like you belong, everything becomes that bit harder.

It’s thanks to you, your staff, your teachers, that kids feel not just that they are there to learn, but that schools are happy places, safe places, places for them to explore, to grow and places for them to flourish. That is the environment you create day in and day out.

Belonging is not only fundamental within schools. Our entire education system needs to prepare young people to find their place and thrive in a complex and ever-changing world.

A child starting school today at the age of five will join a labour market that will be unrecognisable to us.

Their jobs will be shaped by artificial intelligence and quantum. They will need to have the skills to deliver the net zero transition that we have legislated for. They could be part of profound advances in life sciences or leading the way with advanced forms of manufacturing.

Around the world, students need their options open, not narrowed. We must harness everything we know that drives high quality education for every young person up to the age of 18 and beyond.

There is strength, not just in depth, but also in breadth.

This means strengthening teaching and achievement in maths and English as well as science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects. It means offering breadth as well as rigour. It means achieving genuine parity between the academic and technical routes.

That is why we have announced that we will introduce a new Advanced British Standard (ABS) for 16–19-year-olds. I’m sure you’ve got many questions around that and we can work together to answer those questions.

This is the next chapter in our reforms.

It builds on a journey that we started together. Between 2005 and 2010, Michael Gove and Nick Gibb did a lot of work to prepare for what we thought was going to make a massive different to our children’s education.

You have all been instrumental in making huge strides over the last decade to drive up standards in our schools.

88% of schools are now Good or Outstanding. Our 9 and 10 year olds are the best in the west at reading. You did that, our children did that.

You have worked with us as we have introduced rigour and new standards to post 16 education in this country. We worked together to update and overhaul A Levels, introduce T Levels and build a world class apprenticeship system which you’ll know is very dear to my heart.

But still we know that between 16 and 19 our young people study fewer subjects compared to their peers in other countries. And they have far fewer contact hours in which they can learn from the experts – their teachers. And still too many young people leave at 18 without the critical maths and English they need.

We need to build on those reforms and we need to go further. Because the world is changing faster than we’ve ever known. We have to lift our sights. We have to be bold and even more ambitious about what our young people need, what will help them succeed.

The new Advanced British Standard will expand the range of what our 16 to 19 year olds learn, increase the amount of time they spend with their teachers and finally end the artificial divide between academic and technical education – crucially, we will build on the strong foundations of A Levels, and on the high quality, employer-led occupational standards, underpinning T Levels.

I am under no illusion about the scale of these changes. They are profound and they are long-term. I’ve only come here to do difficult things because difficult things make a difference.

They will take time and care to implement well. We will need to work together to develop our plans with schools, colleges, further education providers, unions, employers and the high education sector. With all of you.

But there are some things we need to start straight away to lay the groundwork for this plan. So we have announced that we are investing over £600 million, over the next 2 years, to improve the recruitment and retention of teachers of key shortage subjects in schools and colleges, strengthen support to those pupils who need to resit GCSE maths or English, and spread teaching excellence.

To improve the recruitment and retention of teachers in key shortage subjects, this package includes investing around £100 million each year to double the rates of the Levelling Up Premium and expand this to include FE (further education) colleges. All teachers who are in the first five years of their career, teaching shortage subjects and working in disadvantaged schools, will be paid up to £6,000 per year tax-free.

This package also includes £60 million over two years to improve maths education, including through expanding teaching for mastery approaches across the country, using our maths hubs and increasing access to core maths. All of which revolutionised maths and the teaching of maths.

In developing this plan we will continue to build-upon the knowledge rich focus of our reforms so far. Because we know a knowledge rich curriculum is what builds understanding and unlocks the skills needed for problem solving, reasoning and critical thinking.

We will continue to be evidence led. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), which was established in 2011 and didn’t exist before, sets the standard now across the world on better use of evidence to improve education. From them, we know what works to improve teaching and learning. That is why our funding package includes an additional £40m million for the EEF so they can create and share high quality evidence of what works at 16 to 19, particularly what works to close the gap for disadvantaged pupils at that age.

Thanks to you and your trusts we have a tried and tested model of improvement for our schools. You have led the way in changing the landscape of the school system over the last decade – sometimes let’s be honest in the face of resistance.

We were talking in the cabinet about new ABS and at that point we were reminded of the resistance that Michael Gove and Nick Gibb faced trying to reform our school standards and school system. It’s never easy. Change that is truly worth it is never easy but the results are worth it. But we are really confident having seen the results that you have delivered over the past decade and more that I can ask you once again to work with us to turn that same focus to our 16 to 19 year olds.

I have heard those who say that now is not the time for long term ambitious reform. That we have plenty of challenges in the system today. Change is already here. We sometimes don’t get to set the agenda because it’s being shaped by everything around us and technological advances is definitely one of those.

If we want an education system in 10, 20, 30 years’ time that ensures all young people leave education better prepared to find their place in the world then we can’t afford to wait.

A functioning society and a growing economy relies on an education system that delivers for everyone. Even today in our country we have a massive skills gap that is slowing down our growth which is a lot faster than anyone predicted. But still it would be even faster if we had the skills and talent that we need.

I agree we must work relentlessly on today’s challenges in our schools, which we will continue to respond to. But it would be wrong to ignore the future. These reforms will help pave the way. We always have to deal with the now while looking towards the future.

The pandemic cast a long shadow. It changed everything. You worked tirelessly to support schools, teachers, pupils and parents throughout.

I know we have not yet recovered. I look at the data all the time, I go into schools all the time.

Particularly for the most disadvantaged kids. You made so much progress closing the disadvantage gap between 2011 and 2019 it narrowed by an outstanding 9% at secondary and by 13% at primary school. But it’s true the pandemic set us back and we need to rebuild.

I believe in life that you don’t write anyone off. It’s a personal belief, and in this case it means one thing which is reducing the disadvantage gap. It is the only option.

The kids who are struggling don’t have any less potential.

As I hope I have demonstrated already, I will continue to argue the case for what schools need. I do understand. That’s one of the benefits of having a Knowsley comprehensive school education myself.

I know that funding won’t fix everything, but I’ve made sure that from next year overall school funding will be more than £59.6 billion, the highest per-pupil figure in real terms ever.

But that will only take us so far.

It’s people who make belonging happen. Its people who make sure all children get the opportunities to succeed. And only with people, including every single person in this room, can we solve the challenges we face.

Take one that we always talk about – workload. It’s a word, but what it really means is teachers feeling tired, unsupported, overworked. Doing tasks which they don’t feel are even that useful.

We need to support teachers. They are our most vital assets. It’s not the buildings and it’s not even all the other things that we provide. It is teachers. They want to focus on what they do best which is teaching, changing lives.

I was at a school in the Wirral yesterday and there were five of us in a room and we were all in our 40s and 50s and I said I strongly believe every single person in our whole country can talk about a teacher who changed their lives. We went around the room and every single one came up with one immediately, not even with a seconds hesitation. 40 or 50 years later.

Mine is a teacher called Mr Ashcroft who stayed behind after hours in my comprehensive school so he could teach me technical drawing and engineering – unbelievably it was a subject that only boys were allowed to study.

So I really believe in teachers. I really believe that what they do with most of their time is change lives. Our Workload Reduction Taskforce which met for the first-time last month will get results. We’ve done it before.

This isn’t one of those things where we kick the can down the road. They will report their interim findings to me shortly, and we’ve set a deadline of spring so that we can work out what is needed to further reduce working hours by 5 hours per week.

I’ve asked for proper solutions. We did it before the pandemic, we can do it again now. Absolutely reason why not.

Because no other profession is as important in shaping the lives of the next generation. In shaping the future.

I pay tribute to every single teacher, and I mean every word I say – but I also know – thank you isn’t enough.

We need to ensure teachers feel valued and supported when they join, and to stay in the profession. Indeed, we will need even more teachers in order to meet our longer-term ambitions for the Advanced British Standard.

We are offering new teacher starting salaries of at least £30,000. But we must and we will go further. The world has changed following the pandemic.

Flexible working is an example. You can love it or hate it, there’s a great debate on the pros and cons, but you can’t deny that expectations are changing.

Some of you are already adapting. You tell me that expanding and promoting flexible working opportunities for staff can help you get the right people and keep them.

To support this, we are funding a programme to embed flexible working in more schools.

But there is more we can do. Mental health is another area.

I know the value that you in this room, and so many school and trust leaders across the country place on having a whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing.

You are already making a difference. Nearly 3,000 schools and colleges have already signed up to our wellbeing charter.

You’ve told us that technology could have a potentially transformative effect on reducing workload and help on wellbeing and mental health. I hope to be able to say more shortly on how we will explore the potential impact of generative artificial intelligence on education, including reducing time spent by teachers on administrative tasks.

We will bring all of this together by updating our teacher recruitment and retention strategy. I want to make sure this reflects the real context you face.

I’ve not come into this job to write bits of paper that don’t make a difference to you. I want to make sure we can continue to recruit and retain the best teachers.

But great teaching doesn’t matter unless the kids are in the classroom.

People make a community, and children make a school.

It’s so important that every child attends school every day. That they’re supported to feel that they belong.

Too many children are missing school regularly, or are persistently absent. More children are missing school more often than before the pandemic.

As I have said before, solving this is one of my top priorities. Because nothing would be worse than giving up on those children.

I know that the challenge has grown since the pandemic and made your jobs more challenging. Thank you for the hard work you are doing to tackle the absence problem. It is slowly starting to make a difference but we know the size of the challenge.

Only you will know how to best deal with the individual issues each child will face. But I am here to help you.

Leora, through her membership of our attendance action alliance, rightly challenges me on what you need to support you.

Attendance needs to be everyone’s business. So we have set out new stronger expectations to work together to improve attendance and a support-first approach.

We’ve also expanded our attendance hub programme. We have launched 14 hubs, supporting around 800 schools, and launched our attendance mentors pilot in Middlesbrough, Stoke, my home borough of Knowsley, Salford and Doncaster.

We have to get this right. I believe that by working together and supporting families, we will build that sense of belonging and get children into school with the support and stability they deserve. But we do know it’s more challenging, we do know children have lost their confidence, they are more anxious and they need help to take that step back into school, to feel they belong.

I truly believe that ability is spread evenly, but opportunity is not.

I know that because I’ve lived it, it’s in my DNA. If you sat next to kids in a Knowsley comprehensive school every day and you see the outcomes of their lives 40 years later, you know that is true.

That’s why a high-quality curriculum matters, because we just can’t just let ourselves have the soft leadership of low expectations for those children.

That’s what we had. We were not deemed to have as much potential because of postcode. We had that in the past, we had that when I was at school. It will not happen on my watch, on Nick Gibbs’s watch or Diana Barran’s watch.

It’s why sports and activities matter, because they offer an opportunity to get involved, to feel like you’re part of something bigger and find something you’re good at.

These are the things that boost confidence, improve mental health, and grow friendships. They’re the things that mean you live a healthier and happier life in the future.

It’s about making sure kids, including kids with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), get the support they need. There’s a lot of children now with children who have an additional need. I’m pleased that next year, high needs funding will rise to £10.5 billion. That’s 60% more than it was just five years ago.

But it’s not just about funding – it’s also about how we use it to provide support in the right place at the right time.

Tailoring our support matters, and it helps kids with special education needs and disabilities to access full-time education. That’s their right, and it’s what ensures they can fulfil their potential.

Through our SEND change programme we’re testing our improvement plan reforms. This includes supporting mainstream schools to meet the needs of an increasing number of pupils.

But we know we can go even further to create a sense of belonging for pupils with SEND. The professional community, the CST, has established on SEND and inclusion, alongside the five principles of inclusion are a fantastic place to start.

For some pupils, timely access to local special schools will be the right approach. That is why we are building 7 new special free schools alongside 83 already committed to opening so that so that every child’s needs are met.

These are some of the challenges I am focused on today.

But I see opportunities too. I recently visited Exeter University to open their new Centre of Degree Partnerships. A few years ago I opened one at Warwick University.

Degree apprenticeships can be transformative. I know, I did one. And it is excellent to see such a prestigious university showing such a strong commitment to apprenticeships by making it a strategic priority. Because working with employers is strategic. It will strengthen research, it will strengthen those bonds and improve the academic offer.

Some may say it is unrealistic to reach into these new spaces when the day job is so full on. But I know that together we can face down the challenges we have today and build towards an ever stronger education system for our children in the future.

We must do this. We must ensure our children can compete globally with the best education we can provide by providing them with the best opportunities. There is no other option.

I will back you, and I will make sure that you and your staff have what you need to succeed.

If the prize is a country where every child feels that they belong, they can build their confidence and be the very best they can be and they will succeed, then the challenge must be worth it.

Thank you very much for all the work you’re doing. Let’s keep on going, together.

October 7, 2023