Tag: Theresa May

Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, on 9th April 2014.

His Holiness Pope Francis has described modern slavery as “a crime against humanity”. There can be few descriptions that so aptly match the appalling nature of this crime. The men, women and children who are forced, tricked and coerced into servitude and abuse, are often the world’s most vulnerable.

Many endure lives and experiences that are horrifying in their inhumanity. Some are sold or betrayed by loved ones, others duped, tricked or lured by criminals with promises of a better life. Victims can be exploited and trafficked in their country of origin, or moved across borders. They are preyed upon by slave drivers and traffickers precisely because they are seen to be so defenceless.

Tackling this crime is an immense and complex challenge. The forms of exploitation are frightening. The numbers involved almost unthinkable.

The task is made all the more difficult because victims are usually hidden and rarely visible to society.

But the sheer horror and scale of the slavery and trafficking that takes place in so many of our countries, must not be allowed to overwhelm our determination to stamp it out.

Exploited

Stripped of their freedom, exploited for profit, victims endure violence, rape, hunger, and abuse. Some are forced into a life of crime, and kept in terrible conditions, with no means of escape. The emotional, psychological and sometimes physical damage is incalculable.

It is a crime which has no borders. Humans are moved around as though they are not human at all. This conference sends out such a powerful signal that international action is needed to fight this evil, and stamp out this misery.

I would particularly like to thank His Holiness Pope Francis for the leadership he has shown on this issue, as well Cardinal Vincent Nichols who I know shares my personal commitment to combating this crime. I would also like to thank Bishop Patrick Lynch for organising this conference and Bishop Sanchez Sorondo for hosting it.

Addressing modern slavery and human trafficking will require many different approaches. But as the presence of so many law enforcement chiefs here today from around the world demonstrates, the best way to protect and reduce the number of victims, is to disrupt, convict and imprison the criminal gangs behind much of the modern slave trade.

Anti-slavery legislation

Today I want to share with you the work the UK government is doing to ensure we save victims, put slave masters behind bars where they belong, and increase the number of prosecutions for this hideous crime.

As Home Secretary, I have given UK law enforcement a very clear message that they must make stamping out modern slavery and human trafficking a priority.

Last December, I published in the UK Parliament a draft Bill on Modern Slavery – the first of its kind in Europe – which will ensure the harshest penalties are available for offenders.

The draft Bill consolidates and simplifies existing offences. It toughens sentences for the worst perpetrators to a maximum of life imprisonment, and it introduces a vital policing tool to disrupt criminals involved in this crime. Anyone convicted of trafficking anywhere in the world can be stopped from travelling to a country where they are known to have exploited vulnerable people in the past.

It also creates a new role – an Anti-Slavery Commissioner – who will hold law enforcement and other agencies to account.

Once this Bill goes through Parliament I expect more ways of helping victims can be added before becoming law.

Law enforcement

In the UK, we recently launched the National Crime Agency. It has four commands: Border Policing, Organised Crime, Economic Crime and Child Exploitation and Online Protection. Many of you in this room will have worked internationally with our National Crime Agency officers.

The structure of the National Crime Agency means it is ideally placed to crack down on a complex crime such as slavery. At its heart is the intelligence hub. Everyone in this room will understand that good intelligence is vital in disrupting and prosecuting the crimes involved in modern slavery and human trafficking. That is why we are here today: to work together closely across borders; to share experience; to share intelligence and to work together for the same purpose – putting slave masters behind bars and freeing victims from a horrendous existence.

Police, border officials and others on the frontline must also do more to spot the signs of slavery whenever they come across it. Training is already mandatory for British Border Force officials and the UK’s College of Policing is developing training and guidance for police officers. I have also appointed specialist anti-slavery teams at our borders to help identify potential victims who are being trafficked into the country.

As I have said, modern slavery is an evolving, complex crime, in which criminals are quick to adapt, and change patterns. Expertise can be invaluable. The Metropolitan Police Service’s specialist Human Trafficking Unit led by Kevin Hyland, has built up substantial experience.

The unit is at the forefront of police practice in this field, and has forged relationships with anti-slavery charities leading to increased trust and confidence, and in turn the charities have encouraged more victims to come forward and give evidence, in order to help convict organised criminals.

Our efforts must also focus on going after the profits of those involved, and compensating victims with seized assets.

Protecting victims

But at the heart of everything we do, is the desire to protect and support victims and help them recover from the trauma they have endured.

And much more must be done.

Modern slavery and human trafficking touches the countries of all of us here, the criminals involved operate across our borders, their networks connect across our countries.

And while the scale of this crime shows no sign of decreasing, prosecution and conviction rates remain far too low.

So the message is clear: we must all do more to increase prosecution rates across the board.

Within Europe, traffickers abuse free movement. They con potential victims with promises of employment and opportunities elsewhere.

This is why it is so important that we work to crack down on the criminals and organised crime groups collaboratively.

And in Europe there is a mechanism to facilitate that.

The UK’s Metropolitan Police Service’s Human Trafficking Unit uses Joint Investigation Teams to work with colleagues in other European countries.

This is a valuable tool for tackling crime which stretches across different jurisdictions. And through this mechanism we have secured notable successes.

A few years ago, using the Joint Investigation Team mechanism, the Human Trafficking Unit was able to break up a criminal gang involved in sham marriages and the trafficking of over 100 vulnerable women to Britain for forced prostitution. 12 arrests were made in the UK and abroad, assets seized and nine convictions and three cautions eventually secured.

Numerous women were rescued from appalling slavery.

And the activities of a ruthless gang – who may well have gone on to exploit countless others – were stopped.

We owe it to victims to find practical policing solutions such as this. I believe we need to widen the type of collaboration we have in Europe to the rest of the world.

The spread of organised crime networks through many known trafficking routes, should compel us to work together, so that we can ensure slave drivers and traffickers know there are no safe havens.

Working together

The fight against modern slavery is gathering momentum. But much work remains to be done.

And international co-operation must be at the heart of that work.

This conference will focus on what we can do to fight the crime, support victims and raise awareness.

It is a crucial first step, and one that I hope we can build on.

Following this conference, an international group of senior law enforcement chiefs – the “Santa Marta Group” – will be set up.

Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in the UK, will lead this group.

And as a next step, the Commissioner and I would like to invite members of the Santa Marta Group, to meet again in London in November at a conference hosted by the British government and held in collaboration with the Catholic Church.

I do not believe anyone here is under any illusion about the enormity of the task ahead.

Stamping out modern slavery and human trafficking will not happen overnight.

But the chance to truly make a difference is here. Everyone in this room, and many more beyond, has a role to play. Around the world there is growing awareness that the horrors of slavery have not yet been banished.

Governments must set the lead. Faith organisations can provide guidance and support.

But law enforcement officers must catch the individuals and criminal gangs that trade in this human misery.

The chains of modern slavery may not often be visible, but the suffering is real. This is a moment when together we can take a stand against this evil.

In his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, His Holiness Pope Francis denounces modern slavery and human trafficking and makes the call: “Let us not look the other way.”

Your Holiness, the people here and many more around the world, will look straight into the eye of this crime and we will do everything in our power to free the vulnerable people who find their lives so cruelly stolen from them.

Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, to the Thomsons Reuters Conference on 4th December 2013.

I would like to thank the Thomson Reuters Foundation and International New York Times for organising and hosting the Trust Women Conference.

It is a great honour to be invited to speak to such a distinguished international gathering of women and men, all working together to forge ideas, strategies and commitments to empower women, and to defend their rights across the world.

Can I first say I am proud of the effort being made by the Foreign Secretary to give prominence to women’s rights in foreign policy: from their inclusion in peace processes to his ground-breaking initiative to end warzone rape and sexual violence.

With this initiative, he has shown how it is possible to use the UK’s influence to rally almost the entire world to tackle a problem that it has been unwilling to confront. This campaign has the potential to make a real difference to the lives of millions of men, women and children.

That is what this conference is all about: ‘taking action’. This conference motto does strike a deep chord with me; never has action been more urgently needed to tackle modern slavery.

We will have all read, and been appalled by, the news referenced earlier of three women had been kept imprisoned for 30 years in horrific conditions, in London in the 21st century.

And, last week, seventeen, seventeen – people were rescued in Leeds, in the North of England. They were forced to live in poor housing conditions, with no access to local support services, and little, if any, income to exist on. And we all know that there are countless more examples of this hidden crime at this very second, in this very country.

So, taking your motto to heart, I want to talk today about the UK government’s efforts to wipe out modern slavery; a specific form of abuse of women’s rights and denial of their liberty. This horrific crime is a key priority for me personally and is also a priority for ministers across government.

Modern slavery is a brutal crime which knows no boundaries and does not discriminate on gender, age, creed, culture or race. Traffickers and slave masters exploit whatever means they have at their disposal to coerce, deceive and force individuals into a life of abuse, servitude and inhumane treatment.

Hidden crime

It is impossible to know the true scale of modern slavery in the UK, and indeed the rest of the world. It is a hidden crime and many victims suffer in silence. We do know that last year nearly 1,200 potential victims of human trafficking were referred to the UK’s central body for the collection of this information, the National Referral Mechanism – a number 25% higher than 2011 and set to increase.

We also know that in two-thirds of cases, the victims were women, often abused physically and sexually in the course of their enslavement. This is simply unacceptable in modern day Britain. We will not and cannot let this continue.

I am determined to do more. That is why I have committed to introducing a Modern Slavery Bill to strengthen our response and reduce the number of victims of this abhorrent crime. This flagship Bill will be the first of its kind in Europe, it sends a strong message, both domestically and internationally, that the UK is determined to put an end to modern slavery.

The Bill will clarify legislation, increase sentences for slave drivers and enable the courts to restrict activity that puts others at risk. This will mean that more traffickers are identified, disrupted and brought to justice. It will also create an important new role – an Anti-Slavery Commissioner – who will galvanise our collective response to these terrible crimes.

We will need to make sure that the Bill will have the impact we want, and I am keen to hear from the front-line workers who see the reality of trafficking everyday. They know what will really help victims and stop traffickers and that’s why I have asked Frank Field, a highly respected Parliamentarian, to lead a series of evidence sessions over the course of the autumn to hear from experts, on how we can make this Bill really work.

National Crime Agency

In addition to the Bill, earlier this autumn, I launched the National Crime Agency. Organised criminals are often behind modern slavery, and the National Crime Agency has created a strengthened central focus for the UK’s response to this disgusting crime.

Utilising its enhanced intelligence capabilities, the National Crime Agency will be able to identify the routes and the methods used by human traffickers. Working across law enforcement agencies – in the UK and internationally – the National Crime Agency will relentlessly pursue these organised criminal gangs. The new agency will also improve our international response to human trafficking, which is critical to stopping this horrific trade in human beings.

Working collaboratively

If we are to fight individuals who wish to enslave others, we have to work collaboratively across law enforcement agencies, and with the international community.

These measures focus on improving the law enforcement response to modern slavery, and, this is being done with the victims very much in mind. Indeed, at the Home Office, I have set up a Modern Slavery Unit, who will be dedicated to strengthening our efforts on this important issue.

The new Unit will include police officers, as I believe that by pursuing organised crime gangs we will be: stopping them at their source, controlling the routes that traffickers use, and tackling the demand for these illegal services. The result of which will be: more arrests, more prosecutions, but most importantly, more people released from slavery and more prevented from ever entering it in the first place.

Legislation is only one way of combating this. So, beyond the Bill I want to emphasise the importance of training, of awareness and of other non-legislative actions which will make a fundamental difference to how we tackle human trafficking and modern day slavery, and help those victims so desperately in need of our help.

We will be expanding our prevention efforts in source countries to alert potential victims and to disrupt the monsters who exploit them. We will work with foreign governments to strengthen their knowledge and understanding of modern slavery and empower them to stop it.

And, we will be lobbying for changes in countries’ laws and practices that allow this crime to flourish. There is much we can do internationally. I have asked Anthony Steen, CEO of the Human Trafficking Foundation, to report back to me following a series of international visits on how we can work multi-laterally to strengthen the global response to Modern Slavery.

I hope that you can see that my government is seriously committed to developing a comprehensive approach and response to tackle this growing evil. However, this is not an easy task. Addressing human trafficking and modern slavery brings with it great complexities and challenges and I believe it is important to be honest about these.

But at the heart of everything we do, we must remind ourselves of the vulnerable men, women and children who are being enslaved against their will.

Being a victim of this heinous crime is unique. Perversely, victims do not always recognise that they are victims or that they have been trafficked. Victims are bought and sold as commodities, kept in servitude and they have little chance of escape. Because they are often forced into a life of crime, they fear not just their traffickers but the people who should be there to help them – the police and the authorities.

When victims are identified, we have found that there are a number of issues that often need to be addressed. Most have been subject to horrendous psychological, physical or sexual abuse. They may have been betrayed by their family or friends who were involved in their enslavement. And in some cases, they may be worried that their family or friends will be in danger if they speak to the authorities. This can lead to victims missing out on vital support that is available to them.

The needs and interests of the victim

That is why at the heart of tackling this heinous crime, must be the needs and interest of the victim. What choices the victim can make and what we can do to support them.

The National Referral Mechanism, or the NRM, which I mentioned earlier, is a key to this. It was set up to ensure that victims of human trafficking and modern slavery are identified and given the support they need. I want to make sure that the NRM is operating as effectively and as supportively as possible. That is why I will be reviewing the operation of the NRM, including its structure and decision making process.

If an adult is identified as a potential victim of human trafficking or modern slavery, they are given access to tailored government-funded support and assistance which is coordinated by The Salvation Army. A victim is required to have a minimum of 30 days of this. However, we are funding an additional 15 days on top of that. But of course, we need to keep looking at the right length of time for this. At the end of this time, a final decision – known as a conclusive decision – is made on their victim status. Since this government came into power, more victims have received support than ever before, helping them to recover from their terrible ordeal. Where the victim is a child, local authorities have well-established child support arrangements and a statutory duty under the Children Act 2004 to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children in need of protection, including trafficked children.

We have put in place a major programme of reform to transform the care system. We want to see: stable permanent placements; high quality education and health support; and better support to care leavers as they make the transition to adulthood. We will ensure that as we implement these programmes we take account of the particular needs of trafficked children.

We will also be doing more to help victims return home to ensure they resettle in the best way possible, and in a way that mitigates the risk of re-trafficking.

What more can we do together?

This is what the UK government has committed to do. What more can we do together?

We want the private sector to play its part. Companies must be confident that they do not conduct business with suppliers involved in trafficking. The Home Office will work with businesses and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to prevent the exploitation of workers. But I would also like companies to take the initiative themselves. Household names such as Ford, Coco-Cola, Microsoft and Hilton are already doing so. And, I would like this list of businesses to grow and grow. I do not think any of us want to rely on legislation. We would all like to see immediate action. We would like a commitment from each and every business in this room to look into their supply chain and make sure that there are no instances of labour exploitation.

The travel industry also has a role to play. With the help of Virgin Atlantic and Thomas Cook, we have developed a human trafficking training package for flight attendants, who will be more empowered to report unusual behaviour and I would strongly encourage others in the travel industry to follow the excellent example set by these two companies.

We urge the voluntary sector to play their part too. It is absolutely vital that we are all joined-up, that means that third-sector organisations must look at how best to share intelligence with the police, for the sake of current victims, for the sake of future victims and for the sake of justice.

This is why it is absolutely vital that there is an Anti-Slavery Commissioner to ensure that everyone is doing as much as they can to cut Modern Slavery. We need a more cohesive and joined-up approach, leading to better outcomes thanks to the efforts of the private sector, charity sector, but also to frontline staff in law enforcement, health and local government. This will ensure all who are involved in combating this evil are doing all they can to reduce the number of victims.

Serious and Organised Crime Strategy

A few weeks ago the Home Office published its Serious and Organised Crime Strategy, in which tackling human trafficking was a key component. However, given the importance of the issue and to demonstrate my commitment and the commitment of this government, I can announce today that I will be publishing a new strategic action plan in the spring that sets out what we are doing across government to address this issue.

The steps we are taking will help this country reach the point where we never ignore this evil, never allow slave masters and those who look to exploit other women, men and children to think that the UK is a safe space for them to operate in and never allow the needs of victims to go ignored.

We have the tenacity and focus to get us where we want to be. I urge all who are involved in combating modern slavery to continue doing the excellent work you are doing, but to also work more closely with Government, and law enforcement agencies. Because together we can do so much more.

I know there are people here from all over the world and as I said earlier, no-one is immune from this disease. But we in the UK are working on a cure and I’d urge you all to go back to your countries and call upon your governments to do the same. I am in this for the long term. Each step that we take contributes to the eventual eradication of slavery from our country.

Together, we’re going to shine a light on slavery and its evil. And the world is going to be a better place for it.

Thank you.

Below is the text of the speech made by the Home Secretary, Theresa May, to the 2013 National Conservative Convention on 19th March 2013.

It’s just 47 days until the local elections.

Many of you in this room will be on the ballot paper on 2 May…

…Others will be knocking on doors and delivering leaflets for those who are.

After 2009, when these councils were last up for election, the map of county councils was a sea of blue.

We won Lancashire and Derbyshire for the first time in 28 years.

Staffordshire for the first time in 32.

And Somerset and Devon from the Lib Dems.

In 47 days’ time, we’ll be defending those councils and the great work they’ve done.

This time, we’re in government, and taking the tough choices needed to turn our economy around.

But we’re on the right course.

The deficit is down by a quarter.

Benefits have been capped.

And businesses have created over a million new jobs.

So there’s a clear choice on 2 May…

…the Labour Party, led by Ed Miliband, who got us into this mess – and whose answer to the debt crisis is more spending, more borrowing and more debt…

…or the Conservatives, led by David Cameron, who are dealing with the deficit so we pay our way in the world, and supporting aspiration – so people who work hard can get on in life.

We are delivering on crime

Those tough choices aren’t stopping us from delivering on the things that matter.

At the Home Office, we are cutting spending by 23 per cent.

That’s involved some hard decisions.

But we’ve also cut the thing that really matters – crime.

Since the election, recorded crime is down by more than 10 per cent.

Under the Crime Survey for England and Wales, it’s at its lowest ever level.

And I want it to keep falling.

When I became Home Secretary, I told the police I was scrapping all the national targets Labour used to give them, and setting the police just one objective – to cut crime.

They’re doing precisely that.

And rather than watching over their shoulder from Whitehall, we’ve introduced Police and Crime Commissioners – a single, local figure who you can hold to account.

For the first time ever, people in England and Wales have a local law and order champion – one person who sets the budgets and the priorities, and brings people together to get things done.

To help people measure how well they’re doing, we’ve brought in street-level crime maps.

The Police.uk website went live two years ago. Since then, it has received over 548 million hits.

At the click of a mouse, it has given you the information you need to hold your local force to account and ensure that crime continues to be driven down.

Recently, we’ve added a new ‘draw your own area’ function allowing you to create your own crime map.

So rather than trawl through meaningless statistics, you can now check the safety of your village, estate, or route to work…

…Or even your county council division.

One of the crimes we’re tackling is the growing problem of metal theft.

It’s a crime which blights communities across the country, delaying commuters on their way to work, and desecrating cherished buildings like churches, village halls and war memorials.

We’re acting to stamp it out.

We’ve stopped the ‘no questions asked’ cash payments which allowed unscrupulous traders to evade checks.

We’ve increased the financial penalties for illegal traders – who now face fines of up to £5,000.

And we’re creating a tougher, locally administered licence regime.

But there’s more.

Two weeks ago, the Scrap Metal Dealers Act became law.

It was introduced by a Conservative MP – Richard Ottaway – and backed by the Government.

For the first time, it will allow local councils to suspend or revoke metal trader licences where they suspect illegal activity.

Thanks to this Conservative law, the metal thieves who blight our communities won’t be able to profit from their ill-gotten loot.

So thank you, Richard.

Just as PCCs are working hard to fight crime at a local level, so we’re making sure that our police can rise to the national – and international – challenges we face.

We’ve set up the College of Policing.

It will help to forge a police force fit for the 21st century…

…building on the professionalism of our police officers and ensuring that our police remain the envy of the world.

We are also creating the National Crime Agency.

I’m afraid that Labour neglected the problem of organised crime.

For too long, large numbers of organised criminals have been able to get away with it.

That’s something the National Crime Agency is going to change.

More than 30,000 people and 5,000 gangs are involved in organised crime in the UK. They cost our economy up to £40 billion every year.

Ours is the first Government to have an organised crime strategy. It will enable us to bring to bear the full power of the state against organised criminals.

We’re already recovering more criminal assets than ever before. And later this year, the National Crime Agency will take on the organised criminal gangs directly.

So: whether it’s the petty criminals who make life a misery in your neighbourhood…

…or the gangs arranging crime on a global scale, we are on their case – and we are delivering.

We are delivering on immigration

We are also delivering on one of the issues that matters most to voters: immigration.

It’s an issue I hear about on the doorstep too.

Between 1997 and 2010, net migration to Britain – the difference between people coming and people leaving – totalled more than 2.2 million.

That’s more than twice the population of Birmingham.

When we came to power, we made a clear promise to the British public…

…After thirteen years of uncontrolled mass immigration, this government would reduce and control immigration.

Since then, we’ve taken action across the board.

We’ve capped economic migration, reformed family visas, and cut out the widespread abuse of the student route into the country.

And the results show that our policies are working.

The most recent set of official statistics were published just over a fortnight ago.

They showed that annual net migration is down to 163,000.

That’s down by almost a third since the election

I see that Yvette Cooper has tried to rubbish that achievement.

She claimed that the recent falls are due to British people leaving the country.

But the facts don’t fit.

The Office for National Statistics made clear that net migration is down because the number of people coming to Britain is ‘significantly lower’ than the year before.

So Yvette needs to check her facts.

But I’m not surprised she doesn’t want to believe them – because Labour still won’t back our policy of reducing the level of net immigration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands.

And they’ve opposed all the measures we’ve taken to do it.

So there’s a clear choice. The Labour Party, who let immigration get out of control, and who still haven’t learned…

…or the Conservatives, who want to get net migration down to the tens of thousands, and who’ve already cut it by a third.

There was more good news in the recent immigration statistics.

The number of people in work is up by well over half a million compared to last year…

…And in sharp contrast with what happened under the last government, 88 per cent of that increase was ccounted for by British-born workers.

We want to make sure that our immigration system works in the national interest.

We have always been clear that we want Britain to attract the brightest and best talent from around the world…

…the top academics, the brightest students, the best businessmen, investors, skilled workers and entrepreneurs

who will contribute to our society, our economy and our way of life.

But that is not what the system we inherited from Labour did.

They claimed they had introduced a points-based system that would only let in highly-skilled workers.

We looked into some of those people.

A short investigation revealed that thirty per cent of people here on a visa supposedly reserved for the ‘highly killed’ were working as shop assistants, security guards, supermarket cashiers and care assistants.

One was working as the duty manager at a fried chicken restaurant.

Those are all valid jobs – but they’re not highly-skilled, and we have people here already who could do them.

That’s why we replaced Labour’s system with a simple requirement…

…for a work visa now, you need a proper job offer with a minimum salary.

Our reforms to economic migration have a clear message: If you have skills we need, and a company is willing to give you a job, come to Britain.

If you have an investment to make, do it in Britain.

And if you have a great business idea, bring it to Britain.

But Britain doesn’t need any more unskilled immigration. And our reforms to the immigration system have already reduced it very significantly.

We’ve taken the same approach to student visas. Again, the system we inherited from Labour was a mess.

Students were coming to Britain not to study but to work. Many colleges were selling not an education but immigration.

And students, supposedly temporary visitors, were staying here permanently.

When we came to government, we found ‘students’ turning up at Heathrow unable to answer basic questions in

English or even give simple details about their course.

These students weren’t the best and the brightest, they weren’t coming to Britain to study, and they weren’t making a meaningful contribution to our economy.

So we clamped down on that abuse.

We required any institution that wanted to bring foreign students to Britain to pass inspection checks to prove they were selling education, not immigration.

We changed the immigration rules to make clear that if you want to study here, you have to be able to speak English, support yourself financially without working, and prove that you’re studying a legitimate course at a genuine college or university.

And to prevent people switching courses – a tactic that kept some students here for years – we set maximum time limits for study.

But while our reforms have been stripping out abuse, we are making sure that Britain remains open to the brightest and the best.

So while the overall number of student visas has fallen, there has been an increase in applications to the university sector.

Because we have always been clear that in cutting out the abuse of student visas, we want the best minds in the world to come to study in Britain, and we want our world-class universities to thrive.

Just like our changes to economic immigration, our changes to student visas strike a balance, and send a clear message…

…If you can speak English, and you can get a place on a legitimate course at a genuine university, you can come to study in Britain…

…But student visas are not a backdoor route into working in Britain, and we will not tolerate the kind of abuse we saw under Labour.

I know a lot of people are concerned about the ending of transitional controls on Romania and Bulgaria at the end of this year.

From January, people from those two countries will be able to exercise their right to free movement – just as Britons can travel freely across the EU.

Back in 2004, when Poland and other Eastern European countries joined the EU, we campaigned for transitional controls – but Labour refused, allowing more than a million workers into the country.

Labour left us exposed – and we all saw the results.

This time round, we have had restrictions – Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007 – but we’ve extended them for as long as we can.

And it’s important to remember that we won’t be the only country relaxing them at the end of the year.

Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands and Spain will all be lifting them by the end of this year.

But we’re not simply sitting back and waiting like Labour did.

The last Government spent their time trying to predict how many people might come to the UK – and got their guesswork horribly wrong.

We’re spending our time tightening up the ‘pull factors’ which attract people to Britain for the wrong reasons.

We’re making sure our benefits system sends the message that Britain is not a soft touch for low-skilled or unemployed migrants.

We’re making clear that the NHS is a national – not an international – health service.

We’re pushing local authorities to publish the number of people from overseas who are taking social housing ahead of those who have waited a long time in the queue.

And we’re working with other European governments to cut out the abuse of free movement and other scams such as sham marriages.

So when the transitional controls are lifted at the end of this year, we will have a clear message to Romania and Bulgaria, as to the rest of the world:

Britain is an aspiration nation – a place where those who work hard can get on in life – but we are not a soft touch.

And we will not tolerate abuse of our immigration system.

When Labour were in Government, they let immigration get out of control and ignored people’s concerns.

Now that the Conservatives are in Government, we are getting a grip on immigration and answering those concerns.

We listened. We promised to cut immigration. And the figures show that we are delivering.

So as you return to that sea of blue councils – whether you’re battling to defend a seat, or fighting to gain it – take pride in that record.

Crime cut by 10 per cent.

Net migration down by a third.

And a quarter of the deficit already cleared.

That’s a record to be proud of.

A record of delivery.

And one worth fighting for in May.

Below is the text of a speech made by the Home Secretary, Theresa May, in the House of Commons on 12th February 2013.

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about our work to ensure the highest standards of integrity in the police.

We are fortunate, in Britain, to have the finest police officers in the world. They put themselves in harm’s way to protect the public. They are cutting crime even as we reduce police spending. And the vast majority of officers do their work with a strong sense of fairness and duty.

But the good work of those thousands of officers is undermined when a minority behave inappropriately. In the last year, we have seen the Leveson Inquiry, which cleared the police of widespread corruption but called for greater transparency in policing, and the shocking report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel.

We have seen the sacking of PC Simon Harwood and the investigation of several chief officers for misconduct. And yesterday, I told the House about the investigation now led by Chief Constable Mick Creedon into the work of undercover officers from the Metropolitan Police.

Mr Speaker, I want everyone to understand that I do not believe there is endemic corruption in the police, and I know that the vast majority of police officers conduct themselves with the highest standards of integrity.

This was confirmed by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in their report last year. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the fact that when it does occur, police corruption and misconduct undermines justice, lets down the decent majority of officers, and damages the public’s confidence in the police.

We need the police to become much more transparent in their business. We need clearer rules for how officers should conduct themselves. We need to open up the top ranks so policing is less of a closed shop. We need to make sure officers who do wrong are investigated and punished. And we need to make sure that the organisations we ask to police the police are equipped to do the job.

Now, many of our existing police reforms address these challenges. The new College of Policing will improve the quality of police leadership and drive up standards. Police and crime commissioners are making the police more accountable to their communities. Direct entry into the senior ranks will open up the police to talented outsiders. HMIC is more independent of the police and for the first time it’s led by a non-policing figure.

These reforms will help but we also need to take further, specific measures to root out corruption and misconduct from the police.

First

First, and in line with the recommendations made by Lord Justice Leveson, national registers of chief officers’ pay and perks packages, gifts and hospitality, outside interests including second jobs, and their contact with the media will be published on-line.

Second

Second, the College will publish a new code of ethics, which will be distributed to officers of all ranks. In addition, the College of Policing will work with chief officers to create a single set of professional standards on which officers will be trained and tested throughout their careers.

Third

Third, to prevent officers who lose their jobs as a result of misconduct being recruited by other forces, we will introduce, for the first time, a national register of officers struck off from the police. The list will be managed and published by the College of Policing.

Fourth

Fourth, to introduce a sanction for officers who resign or retire to avoid dismissal, hearings will be taken to their conclusion notwithstanding the officer’s departure from the force. And where misconduct is proven, these officers will also be struck off by the College of Policing.

Fifth

Fifth, the College will establish a stronger and more consistent system of vetting for police officers, which chief constables and police and crime commissioners will have to consider when making decisions about recruitment and promotions. And every candidate for chief officer ranks will need to be successfully vetted before being accepted by the Police National Assessment Centre.

Sixth

Sixth, Lord Justice Leveson’s report made several recommendations in respect of policing, focused on providing greater transparency and openness and the Government accepts what has been recommended and the College of Policing, ACPO and others have agreed to take forward the relevant work which falls to them. I will place details of the Government’s response to each of the Leveson report’s recommendations on policing in the libraries of the House.

Finally

Finally, Mr Speaker, I want to make sure that the Independent Police Complaints Commission is equipped to do its important work. Over the years, its role has been evolving and the proposals I announce today develop it further. Public concern about the IPCC has been based on its powers and its resources, and I want to address both issues.

Regarding its powers, last year Parliament legislated – with welcome cross-party support – to give the IPCC the ability to investigate historic cases in exceptional circumstances. In the same legislation we gave the IPCC the power to compel police officers and staff to attend interviews as witnesses.

In addition, I have already said that we will legislate as soon as Parliamentary time allows, to give the IPCC the power to investigate private sector companies working for the police, along with other powers the IPCC has asked for to improve its effectiveness and increase public confidence. I am prepared to consider any further legislative changes that the Commission says it needs.

But I believe the main difficulty for the IPCC is its capacity to investigate complaints itself. Last year, the Commission investigated just 130 of the 2,100 serious or sensitive cases that were referred to it independently, whilst supervising or managing another 200. Individual police forces investigated the remainder. But 31 per cent of appeals against forces’ handling of complaints were successful and that is simply not acceptable.

I will therefore transfer to the IPCC responsibility for dealing with all serious and sensitive allegations. I also intend to transfer resources from individual forces’ professional standards departments and other relevant areas to the IPCC to make sure it has the budget and the manpower to do its work.

Mr Speaker, the Government’s police reforms are working well. Crime is falling. Corruption and misconduct are thankfully the rare exception and not the norm in our police, but that does not mean we should not act. I believe this is a comprehensive plan to address public concern about the integrity of the police, and I commend this statement to the House.

Below is the text of the speech made by the Home Secretary, Theresa May, on the subject of immigration. The speech was made on 12th December 2012.

A clear promise

Two and a half years ago, the coalition government was formed, and we made a clear promise to the British public. After thirteen years of uncontrolled mass immigration, this government would reduce and control immigration.

As yesterday’s census statistics show, the legacy we’ve been left with is a substantial one. Between 2001 and 2011, more than half of the growth in the population of England and Wales was accounted for by immigration.

Since we came to government, we’ve taken action across the board. We’ve capped economic migration, reformed family visas, and cut out the widespread abuse of the student route into the country.

And the results of those changes are beginning to show. Official statistics, released two weeks ago, show that in the year to March, we cut net immigration to Britain by one quarter – that is, by 59,000 people. That’s the biggest fall in net migration since 2008.

And we can expect immigration to continue to fall. Home office visa statistics, which are more recent than the net migration figures, show falls of four per cent in work visas, fifteen per cent in family visas, and 26 per cent in student visas.

The benefits are beginning to show. The number of people in work is up by more than half a million compared to last year. But in contrast with what happened under the last government, 87 per cent of that increase was accounted for by British-born workers.

So our policies are beginning to bite – but we are not yet all the way there. With annual net migration still at 183,000 we have a way to go to achieve my ambition to reduce that number to the tens of thousands by the end of the parliament.

I want to talk today about the measures we’re taking to make sure that the immigration system truly works in our national interest, by bringing down net migration to sustainable levels, while still attracting the brightest and the best talent from around the world.

In particular, I want to talk about measures we’re taking to make us more discerning when it comes to stopping the wrong people from coming here, and even more welcoming to the people we do want to come here.

Why we need to control immigration

But before I do that, I want us to remember why it’s important that we do control immigration. I believe there are three main reasons: its effect on social cohesion, on our infrastructure and public services, and on jobs and wages.

First, social cohesion. The debate around immigration often focuses on its economic costs and benefits, but the social consequences are often ignored. This is a big mistake, because not only is the social impact significant and important in itself, it’s often what bothers the public the most.

As Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator of the financial times, says: ‘The desirability of sizeable immigration is a matter more of values than of economics. It is not a choice between wealth and poverty, but of the sort of country one desires to inhabit.’

The point is quite simple. It takes time to establish the personal relationships, the family ties, the social bonds that turn the place where you live into a real community. But the pace of change brought by mass immigration makes those things impossible to achieve. You only have to look at London, where almost half of all primary school children speak English as a second language, to see the challenges we now face as a country.

This isn’t fair to anyone: how can people build relationships with their neighbours if they can’t even speak the same language? After years of mass immigration, we now face the enormous task of building an integrated, cohesive society. Allowing more and more immigration would make that impossible.

The second reason we need to control immigration is its impact on infrastructure and public services. It seems obvious that immigration should have an impact on things like the availability and cost of housing, the transport system, the National Health Service or the number of school places. But in the past, government impact assessments didn’t measure the effects of more immigration or determine where its effects would be felt the most.

That’s something I plan to fix – but in the meantime we are left to deal with the consequences of more than a decade of uncontrolled, mass immigration.

One area in which we can be certain mass immigration has an effect is housing.  More than one third of all new housing demand in Britain is caused by immigration.  And there is evidence that without the demand caused by mass immigration, house prices could be ten per cent lower over a twenty year period.

Facts like these need to be carefully considered, and I look forward to seeing the results of the work we’re doing in the home office, but I think we can already be confident that mass immigration puts pressure on infrastructure and public services.

Even if you accept that immigrants contribute to an increased tax take, there will be a ‘congestion effect’, that is, a significant lag between the increased demand for services and the distribution of those funds. And services in the parts of the country that experience the most sudden and sustained increase in immigration will suffer the most.

The third reason we need to control immigration is its effects on jobs and wages.  Again, when we arrived in government, we found that the official impact assessments assumed that the job displacement of British workers by immigrants was zero.

Now, we all know that the ‘lump of labour’ argument – that there is a fixed number of jobs to be divided up and handed round – is wrong, and that things are far more complicated than the idea that all immigrants come to Britain and ‘take British jobs’. But it was surely wrong that those impact assessments assumed absolutely no job displacement of local workers.

So we asked the migration advisory committee to look at the effects of immigration on jobs, and their conclusions were stark. They found a clear association between non-European immigration and employment in the UK.

Between 1995 and 2010, the committee found an associated displacement of 160,000 British workers. For every additional one hundred immigrants, they estimated that 23 British workers would not be employed.

So, there is a ‘lump of labour’ fallacy in the immigration debate, but there is also a ‘zero displacement’ fallacy. And government must never again make the mistake of falling for it.

There is evidence, too, that immigration puts a downward pressure on wages.  Drawing on several academic studies, the committee found that immigration can increase wages for the better-off, but for those on lower wages, more immigration means more workers competing for a limited number of low-skilled jobs.

The result is lower wages – and the people who lose out are working-class families, as well as ethnic minority communities and recent immigrants themselves.

So uncontrolled, mass immigration is damaging to social cohesion, puts pressure on public services and infrastructure, and can lead to job displacement and undercut wages, particularly for the lowest paid.

And yet one of my predecessors used to talk about the ‘purity of the macroeconomic case for migration’. As a result of that mistaken belief, the last government presided over total net immigration of 2.2 million – the equivalent of two cities the size of Birmingham.

That is evidence of an immigration system that does not work in the national interest.

But to say we want to reduce and control immigration is not to say that we want no immigration. We have always been clear that we want Britain to attract the brightest and best talent from around the world – the top academics, brightest students, the best businessmen, investors, skilled workers and entrepreneurs who will contribute to our society, our economy and our way of life.

Family visas

So when we reformed family visas, we introduced a new requirement to the immigration rules. If you want to sponsor a spouse or partner who wishes to come to Britain, they will have to prove they can speak English, and you will have to prove that you can provide for them. A minimum income level for family visa sponsors – of £18,600 for a spouse or partner with additional requirements for children – will protect the taxpayer by making sure that family migrants pay their own way.

Work visas

We wanted to make sure that economic migration works in the national interest too. But that is not what the system we inherited did.

To be frank, that system was a joke. Tier one of the points-based system – supposedly reserved for high-skilled immigrants only – allowed people to work in unskilled jobs. I remember the ‘highly-skilled’ immigrant who we discovered was working as the duty manager at a fried chicken restaurant. But he was no one-off – we found that thirty per cent of people here on a tier one visa were working as shop assistants, security guards, supermarket cashiers and care assistants.

That’s why we closed down the tier one general route and said if you want to come to Britain on a work visa, you need to have a proper job offer with a minimum salary. Business told us they prioritised the tier two route – for skilled workers with specific job offers – and we listened.

So even though we delivered our manifesto promise to cap economic migration, and bring the overall numbers down, by clamping down on the abuse of tier One we were able to set the tier two limit at 20,700, higher than the number of people who came to Britain through tier two the year before.

Business also told us they valued intra-company transfers, and we took the decision to exclude them from the limit. But to make sure that these transfers would not be abused, we raised the salary limit for intra-company transferees coming to Britain for more than a year to £40,000.

As a result, ICT numbers have remained steady and business tells us that our ICT system is one of the most user-friendly in the world.

And, to make sure that we could still attract the best experts, scientists, artists and performers, we created a new route, consisting of a further 1,000 visas for people of exceptional talent. Take-up in that route has been low, and I’m looking forward to working with UK trade and investment to encourage more exceptional people to take advantage of it.

But I also want to build on the principle of appealing to exceptionally talented people, so I intend to add a further 1,000 places a year for MBA graduates who want to stay in Britain and start up businesses.

We also want to be more proactive in attracting the wealth creators of the future.  We have made changes to the investor and entrepreneur routes to make it easier for major investors to settle in the UK. We have introduced a new prospective entrepreneur visa and a graduate entrepreneur visa. And last week, the chancellor announced that we will work with UK trade and investment to extend the graduate entrepreneur scheme to the best overseas talent.

And we want to make sure that people in emerging markets continue to see Britain as a place to visit and do business.

That’s why we’ve made it easier for Chinese visitors to come here, by simplifying documentation requirements, establishing a new business network across China, extending our express visa service, and introducing a new passport pass-back scheme for visa applicants.

So our reforms to economic migration have struck a balance, and they send a clear message. If you have skills we need, and a company is willing to give you a job, come to Britain. If you have an investment to make, do it in Britain. And if you have a great business idea, bring it to Britain.

But we are also clear that Britain doesn’t need any more unskilled immigration. The abuse of tier one has been ended. And work visas are capped, with the number of visas down by four per cent in the last year.

Student visas

The principles we applied to work visas we have applied to student visas too.  Again, the system we inherited was a mess, and it was abused on an industrial scale.

Students were coming to Britain not to study but to work. Many colleges were selling not an education but immigration. And students, supposedly temporary visitors, were staying here permanently in huge numbers.

When the last government capped unskilled economic immigration at zero, all that happened was student visas rocketed by thirty per cent to a record 303,000. The surge in numbers meant that in some parts of the world the Border Agency had to suspend student applications altogether.

When we came to government, we found ‘students’ turning up at Heathrow unable to answer basic questions in English or even give simple details about their course.  We found colleges that sent students on ‘work placements’ hundreds of miles away from where they were meant to be studying.

And of course, in each case we’re not just talking about one bogus student working in Britain – often they would bring their whole family with them, who would also work here, use public services here, and accrue the legal right to settle here.

These students weren’t the best and the brightest, they weren’t coming to Britain to study, and they weren’t making a meaningful contribution to our economy. So we changed student visas to make sure that while we still attract the brightest and the best, and we still protect our world-class education establishments, we eradicate this kind of abuse from the system.

The first thing we did was to require any institution that wanted to bring foreign students to Britain to pass inspection checks to prove they were selling education, not immigration.

Overnight, more than 150 colleges – one third – chose not to undergo the checks.  To date, almost six hundred institutions have been removed from the tier four sponsor register.

We also took action to make sure that students who want to come to Britain really are students. So the new immigration rules make clear that if you want to study here, you have to be able to speak English, support yourself financially without working, and prove that you are studying a legitimate course at a genuine college or university. In addition, there are new restrictions on the right to work and bring dependants. To prevent switching courses – a tactic that kept some students here for years – we set maximum time limits for study.  And to make sure that only those who contribute can stay at the end of their study, we set a minimum salary level of £20,000 and a requirement to get a real graduate job for students who want to work in Britain after their studies.

Our policies are starting to bite, and they prove the massive scale of abuse in the student visa system. Just by cutting out abuse, we have reduced the number of student visas by 26 per cent – that’s almost 74,000 – in the year to September.  And what is more, we have cut the overall numbers at the same time as the number of foreign students coming to our universities has increased.

Because we have always been clear that in cutting out the abuse of student visas, we want the best and the brightest minds in the world to come to study in Britain, and we want our world-class universities to thrive.

So today I can announce a further measure to encourage top students to come to Britain and, if they have something to contribute, to stay in Britain.

In future, all PhD students who have completed their studies will be allowed to stay here for longer to find skilled work or set up as an entrepreneur within the rules.  From April, all such students will be allowed to stay in Britain for twelve months after they have completed their PhD before having to find a job or start a business.

We want to work with our universities to continue to protect not just the integrity of the immigration system but the reputation of the British education system around the world. We will continue to monitor strictly the adherence of universities as well as colleges to our rules that make sure only legitimate students come here.

Where universities don’t meet those standards, we maintain the power to suspend highly-trusted status, as we did with the Teesside university and Glasgow Caledonian university, and even where appropriate to revoke a university’s right to sponsor foreign students, as we did earlier this year with London metropolitan university.

Since then, as a result of their compliance checks, colleges and universities have informed the border agency of some 90,000 notifications about foreign students whose circumstances have changed and who may no longer have any right to be here. We will work with those universities – and indeed the whole sector – in a system of co-regulation to make sure we enforce student sponsorship obligations and protect the interests of legitimate students.

Welcoming legitimate students and identifying and rejecting bogus students is at the heart of our changes to the student visa regime. And I want to announce today a further change in the border agency’s operational policies to make sure we get even tougher on bogus student applications.

Last year, I instructed the border agency to undertake pilots in which high-risk student visa applicants would be interviewed, rather than undergo the usual paper-based checks. Starting first in Pakistan and moving to other countries, more than 2,300 prospective students were interviewed. The lesson from that pilot was clear – abuse was rife, paper-based checks weren’t working, and interviews, conducted by entry clearance officers with the freedom to use their judgement, work.

So I can announce that, from today, we will extend radically the border agency’s interviewing programme. Starting with the highest-risk countries, and focusing on the route to Britain that is widely abused, student visas, we will increase the number of interviews to considerably more than 100,000, starting next financial year. From there, we will extend the interviewing programme further across all routes to Britain, wherever the evidence takes us. I believe this new approach will help us to root out the abuse of British visas, and improve the integrity of our immigration system.

So, as with our changes to economic immigration, so our changes to student visas strike a balance, and send a message. If you can speak English, and you can get a place on a legitimate course at a genuine university, you can come to study in Britain. There is no cap on the number of students able to come here – and there are no current plans to introduce a cap.

But we are also clear that student visas are not a backdoor route into working in Britain. We are clamping down on that kind of abuse. Colleges have lost their right to sponsor foreign students. Bogus students have been turned away. And, through more and more interviewing, we are getting better at identifying and rejecting people we don’t want to come to Britain.

The official statistics show that we are achieving what we set out to achieve.  The number of student visas issued is down, while the number of successful applicants to study at British universities is up. That success means we can now look forward to a period of stability on student migration policy.

Tackling some misconceptions

But those statistics also show that there are some misconceptions about our immigration policies that need be corrected.

One, that all foreign students coming to this country are good for the economy. In fact, many so-called students have been applying for low-grade courses at bogus colleges in order to work here in low-skilled jobs.

Two, that foreign students are only temporary visitors, so they’re not really immigrants. In fact, one in five foreign students are believed to stay here for more than five years.

Three, that our student visa regime is damaging Britain’s universities. In fact, while we have cut the number of student visas, just by tackling abuse, the number of foreign applicants to British universities is up.

Four, that the cap on economic migration is hurting British businesses. In fact, because of the abuse of the old tier one system, we’ve been able to set a reasonably generous limit for tier two visas, and that limit has not yet been reached.

Five, that you can’t control immigration without hurting the economy. In fact, uncontrolled, mass immigration displaces British workers, forces people onto benefits, and suppresses wages for the low-paid. Controlled immigration means you can attract the brightest and the best who genuinely contribute to our economy and society.

Six, that wanting to control immigration in future is an attack on people who have already settled here or their children. In fact, the evidence suggests that recent immigrants and ethnic minority Brits are amongst those who lose the most from mass immigration.

Seven, that you can’t control immigration because you can’t do anything to restrict European immigration. In fact, net British and European migration is broadly in balance. And we can introduce transitional controls on new member states, we can take action to restrict the demand for European workers from British employers, and we can be smarter about the benefits and services we provide for foreign nationals. These are all issues I plan to return to in the new year.

Conclusion

But overall, the biggest misconception is that by saying some immigration can be good for Britain, we shouldn’t try to control it at all.

Our record is disproving that false belief. We’re proving that it is possible to get the immigration system to work in our national interest. We are bringing down the numbers to sustainable levels, and we are continuing to attract the brightest and the best talent from around the world. And we are doing that by making the system much more discerning – we’re welcoming the people we want to come to Britain, and we’re stopping the wrong people from coming here.

With family visas, the applicants must speak English, and the sponsors must prove they can provide for them.

With work visas, if you have the skills we need and a proper job offer, you can come to Britain. If you have an investment or a business idea to bring here, you can come to Britain. But we don’t need any more unskilled immigration, and we are closing down the routes – both formal and informal – for unskilled workers to come to Britain.

And with student visas, there is no cap on the number of legitimate students able to come here to study legitimate courses at genuine institutions. But we’re cutting out abuse and stopping the student visa system being used as an easy route to working in Britain.

The evidence is vindicating the government’s policies. The rise in employment over the last year has benefited British workers, not migrant workers as has happened in the past. Net immigration is down by one quarter in a single year. The visa statistics suggest further falls in net immigration to come.

Two and half years ago we made a clear to the promise to the British public. We still have some way to go, but we’re delivering on that promise.

Thank you very much.

Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, to the Police Federation on 19th May 2010.

There is no greater act of humanity than to put your life on the line to protect others.

And there’s no starker or more tragic reminder of the risks you take; and of the courage and dedication that you show every day to keep us safe in our homes and on our streets, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.

So I would like to add my tribute, to:

– PC Gary Toms

– PC Christopher Dent

– PC Phillip Pratt

– PC Michael Johnson

– Sgt Iain McLay

– PC Bill Barker

– PC Daniel Cooper

– PC Daniel Gibb

– PC Sean McColgan

The word “hero” is used too easily these days.

But these officers died doing the job they love, protecting the public they serve; they are real heroes.

Being Home Secretary is a great privilege. And I do not underestimate the challenges that I am going to face.

There will undoubtedly be difficult times ahead … with an economic crisis that limits our resources and breeds uncertainty … at a time when the challenges of fighting crime are ever expanding in a world of global terrorism.

But my focus is clear: you are the professionals and I want to help you do what you do best.

You do an amazing job

I know I’ve got a lot to learn from you – to really understand the challenges you face.

But let me be clear – I know what an amazing job you do.

Every single day, you do extraordinary things.

When others would step aside – it’s you who step in.

When people are running away from danger, you are running towards it.

Day in and day out; in fair weather and foul; it’s you who maintain the law and order that is so fundamental to our free and civilised society.

This isn’t the glamorous fiction portrayed in TV programmes that romanticise the work of detectives, crime scene investigators and SWAT teams.

It’s about you, the constables, sergeants, inspectors and chief inspectors who are the face of the police service for every man, woman and child in our country, including the millions of tourists who flock here every year.

And it’s about the work you do.

Preventing and detecting crime.

Intervening in violent situations.

Responding night and day to the public.

Making it safe to enjoy our great national events – from taking the kids to the football to watching the Queen open Parliament.

Keeping our traffic flowing and our streets and highways safe.

And keeping the peace at public demonstrations.

These are fundamental to our free society – and you make it all possible.

You put up with abuse and worse, but you do so to keep us free and allow us to live and work together in safety on this crowded island.

You do an amazing job – and it’s time we gave you all the respect you deserve.

For your courage, your dedication to duty and your sheer hard work – I want to say, thank you.

You do an important job

As Home Secretary I will never underestimate the importance of the job you do.

Some of the challenges you face are different from before and changing every day.

Fighting serious and organised crime – especially the battle with drug trafficking.

Fighting terrorism – the new and biggest policing challenge of the 21st century.

And you are facing other challenges which have been around for longer but are no less difficult and no less important.

Disorder and anti-social behaviour blight far too many communities and cause misery for far too many people – and you’re on the frontline in the fight back.

We all know crime is too high; and we know the damage that the fear of crime is causing in our communities.

As the incidence of crime breeds fear – so our society begins to break down.

How many people walk away from a gang of young people on their street and just assume they’re up to no good?

How many parents will keep their children away from the local park because they’re worried about them being confronted by drug dealers?

How many elderly couples hesitate before leaving their homes for fear of being mugged?

How many people avoid making eye contact with strangers for fear of how they might react?

What do these things say about our society?

This is not the Britain that we want – and we must fight to change it.

We need to mend our broken society and build instead the Big Society.

In the broken society … too many families break down, children are brought up in households where nobody works, and they go to school with little hope of good grades and a better life.

In the Big Society … we tackle these root causes of poverty and criminality.

In the broken society … we put up with crime and anti-social behaviour because ‘that’s just the way things are’.

In the Big Society … we say enough is enough and we come together to reclaim our communities for the law-abiding majority.

In the broken society … people live in fear of criminals.

In the Big Society … criminals will live in fear of the people – because there is nowhere for them to hide.

Our communities will stand tall – because we’re all in this together.

You can’t be expected to do this on your own.

Wide-ranging reform

We need to reform our courts, probation services and prisons. And I know that Ken Clarke, the new Justice Secretary, agrees with me.

That is why Nick Herbert has been appointed as Minister of State for Policing and Criminal Justice -working not just in the Home Office but in the Ministry of Justice too, looking not just at Criminal Justice System issues but also at issues like rehabilitation to reduce offending.

Paul said about the number of people who have been Home Office ministers. Nick Herbert is somebody who has been in this area for a number of years. He has a commitment to helping you do your job, as I do.

I would also like to welcome James Brokenshire, who was also part of the shadow Home Affairs team.

Somebody once said you need to be ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’.  And, for once, he was right.  He just didn’t really do it.

But we will be tough on the causes of crime.

That’s why the new Education Secretary, Michael Gove, will set about the most exciting programme of school reform for a generation … so our children are given the hope of a better future.

That’s why the new Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, will pick up our plans for welfare reform … to get people into work and lift children out of poverty.

And, as Home Secretary, make no mistake: I will be tough on crime.

I know I’m a new Home Secretary.  I know that many of you don’t know me.  And I know that you want to know what sort of Home Secretary I will be.

So let me begin by saying this: I’m not interested in running the police.

If I’d wanted to run the police, I’d have done what you all did and join the police force.

That is not the Home Secretary’s job.

That’s not something many of my predecessors have understood. They just didn’t get it.

They reached for what they thought was the lever but only found a clamp.

Tying you down in more and more red tape.

Issuing central government diktats. .

Inventing more criminal offences.

Undermining your professional responsibility.

Destroying your morale and devaluing your vocation.

They treated you as pen-pushers not police officers.

They imposed standardised national targets without prejudice for the vastly differing needs of local areas – so the police in a seaside town such as Bournemouth are set the same objectives as those in Brixton.

They assessed you against key performance indicators which rewarded you for recording crime not cutting crime.

They failed to tackle the bureaucracy around charging which keeps you off the streets.

They promoted a “one size fits all” Whitehall-knows-best brand of policing that rides roughshod over the experience and professional expertise of local officers.

And what I’m sure was most maddening of all, they spun endless gimmicks and initiatives – marching yobs to cashpoints, night courts, ASBOs for unborn children – that were forgotten about as quickly as they became tomorrow’s fish and chip paper.

I won’t tell you how to do your job

I didn’t go into politics to run public services.

That’s the job of the professionals like you.

So I’m not going to presume to tell you how to do your job … anymore than I would tell a surgeon how to operate – or an engineer how to build a bridge.

Professional policing means policing run by you, the professionals, not us, the politicians.

I believe it’s time for a whole new approach.

What that approach is, how it will be delivered and what it means for the job you do is what I now want to focus on.

But before I get into the specifics, it’s important I set out the philosophy underpinning our new approach – and indeed, underpinning so many of the changes this new Government will undertake in reforming our public services.

Our starting point is that public services should serve the public – meeting their needs, responding to what they want, answering directly to them.

Of course, in an ideal world, what the public wants from the police is no crime, no violent crime, no homicides, no thefts and no drunken louts.

But that is not the world we live in.

Most of us live in big cities – sharing scarce space with people with diverse backgrounds and diverse interests.

That is the reality of our world.  The world in which you have to operate.

That’s why we want to change the way the police forces of our country are managed.

We want to replace the big government, bureaucratic accountability that has been grown in recent years…

…where police officers are forced to answer to politicians through a range of inspections, targets, gimmicks and performance indicators…

…with democratic accountability that reflects the fact that not all communities in our country are exactly the same and have the same policing needs…

…where you are accountable to the people you serve.

That way, we can help to build confidence in the system and deliver policing that meets local priorities.

In practice, this means striking a new deal with you, the police service.

I want to give the service back its professional responsibility…

… getting rid of the centralised bureaucracy that wastes money, saps morale and crushes innovation … and freeing the men and women of our police forces to do what they are trained to do, want to do and the public expects them to do – make our society safer.

But in return for this new freedom, the police service must accept a transfer of power over policing from Whitehall to communities…

…by giving local people a real say over how their streets are policed.

Let me take each in turn.

Professional responsibility

First, professional responsibility.

I’ll always remember that police recruitment campaign with people like Lennox Lewis and Simon Weston saying how they’d struggle to cope with the pressures of being a police officer.

It ended with them saying: “I couldn’t do it. Could you?”

You could. That’s why you chose this job.

You do. That’s why you still do this job.

Each one of you has taken an incredibly brave decision to put yourself in harm’s way to protect the public.

I said it was time we gave you the respect you deserve.

That means giving you the responsibility you deserve.

It means trusting you.

Because if government won’t trust you, then what kind of message does that send to the public?

So we want to give you back that trust, restore pride in your job and bring some common sense back to policing.

How you operate is for you to decide with your leaders – that’s what professional responsibility means.

So we will return some charging decisions to the police.  Instead of waiting around police stations for a charging decision, you the officer will be given the responsibility to decide whether to charge for minor offences.

We will also look at untangling the knot of health and safety rules.

At the moment, legislation tilts too far in favour of discouraging officers from intervening.

We want to tip the scale back, while at the same time ensuring your safety.

Dismantling targets

We will also look at dismantling the targets in disguise – the Key Performance Indicators – which set national, one-size-fits-all priorities for local forces and instead allow you to pursue the crimes and criminals you believe you should.

And I am determined that we will be the government that finally gets to grips with all that paperwork you find so frustrating.  So we will scrap the ‘stop’ form in its entirety and reduce the burden of the ‘stop and search’ procedures.

I understand that some of the paperwork is necessary, to provide intelligence, to protect you and protect our civil liberties.

But there is far too much.

So in the weeks, months and years ahead I want to work closely with you to reduce the amount of paperwork that comes across your desk.  If there is bureaucracy that you think is unnecessary and time wasting then I want to hear about it and stop it.

Let me be absolutely clear: I want the police to be crime fighters not form fillers; out on the streets as much as they think necessary, not behind their desk and chained to a computer.

Perhaps most importantly of all, I want to free you by stopping all the initiatives and gimmicks that emanate from central government.

When policing priorities are dictated by the news-cycle rather than what works, you only get the most superficial, short-term change.

We’ve got to entrench long-term thinking, working with laws that we’ve got and the powers that you already have to score the line between right-and-wrong in our neighbourhoods.

This is a question of implementing what exists, not legislating for something new.

And I believe it will mean you can go about your job without worrying about the next edict to come from on-high.

With these changes, we will give you the licence to police.

But you will understand the need for an appropriate system of checks, so this new freedom must come with strings attached.

I can assure you, these will not come in the form of bureaucratic meddling from Whitehall.

Instead, they will come from greater accountability to the public you serve.

You will have read about the changes we propose, you may even be worried about what they mean for you, but these will largely affect your chief constables.

Instead of having them answer to Whitehall, we will make them answer to police individuals with a mandate to set local policing priorities.

That mandate will have been earned through election – and those policing priorities will have been developed with the consent of local people.

This is what we mean by democratic, not bureaucratic, accountability…

– directly involving local people in developing local policing strategies…

– providing a clear and visible link between the police and the public…

– and, of course, giving communities the power to kick people out of office if things go wrong.

Won’t politicise police

I know the concerns you have that individuals might result in the politicisation of the police force or, worse still, interfere with your operational independence.

I want to put your mind at rest.

The truth is that constant interference by previous Home Secretaries has caused the real politicisation of policing – and locally-elected individuals are a giant step in the right direction.

And let me make it absolutely clear – elected individuals will in no way undermine your operational independence.

They will not manage their forces and they will recognize that the only way of making a police force effective is by letting the professionals get on with it.

The duty and responsibility of managing a police force will fall squarely on the shoulders of its chief constable – as it always has done.

The job of the elected individual is to ensure the policing needs of their communities are met as effectively as possible…bringing communities closer to the police, building confidence in the system and restoring trust.

But quite apart from these high level changes, you will need to accept greater accountability too.

Parents expect to be able to compare standards between schools in their area, patients between the performance local hospitals, and residents should be able to do the same with local police forces.

So we will give the public much more information about crime in their streets, with each neighbourhood having a detailed crime map of the crimes in their area.

And with this information in hand, they will then be allowed to challenge you, and your performance, in local beat meetings every month.

What is happening about the dark alleyway where people keep on getting mugged?

What are you doing about the spate of shoplifting that happens after school?

Why are these crimes happening and what are you going to do about it?

These reforms add up to a massive transfer of power from me, the Home Secretary, to the people.

They will be in charge, and everyone – from commissioners, to chief constables to you on the street – will have to answer to them in a big way.

So, this is the deal

So, this is the deal – more freedom to the police professionals; more power to the people.

And if we do these things, I believe there will be one extra massive benefit.

We all know there are tough times ahead.  And I know that you are concerned about police officer numbers and pay.

The country faces the worst budget deficit it has ever had.

So the Government’s priority is to cut the budget deficit and get the economy moving again.  We need to be honest about what that means for us: the Home Office and the police will have to bear a fair share of the burden.

As part of the coalition agreement, we will have a full review of the remuneration and conditions of service for police officers and staff.

My priority as Home Secretary is to help you to do your job.  That means I will do all I can to make sure we maintain a strong police presence on our streets.

And as Nick Herbert told you yesterday, we will honour the remainder of the three-year pay deal negotiated by the last government.

But we’re going to have to deliver real value for money.  And I can’t do this without your help.

A big part of the answer comes from finding the waste and cutting it out.

I know how much the police is already doing through shared procurement – but we’re going to need to do more.

The scale of our country’s deficit makes the challenge we face very severe indeed.  We’ve all got to pull together to get Britain back in the black.

I will fight to ensure your voice is heard, but like other departments and organisations, we need to make sacrifices too.

But the bigger argument I want to make is this.

If we take on this deal I have outlined today.

Cutting bureaucracy and freeing you to do your job…pushing power down and giving people control over policing…we’ll get new ideas, new ways of doing things, real innovation.

We’ll get better results. And we’ll save money too.

So yes, there will be tough times ahead, yes the decisions will be difficult…but if we come together and embark on this change we’ll be able to look after the public, save money and protect the resources that are key for you to do your job.

I believe that under this new coalition government we have a unique opportunity to effect real and lasting change.

With a five year parliament we can get on with the job, without the ‘will he, won’t he call the election?’ sort of uncertainty and distractions we’ve had for the last three years.

Instead the focus will be on bringing in good, sound legislation that has common sense and better governance at its essence, and not just a good news story.

A constantly changing political landscape isn’t good for the country.

I truly believe that this government will bring some much needed stability and focus;  allowing us all to get on with making Britain a better, brighter and safer place.

Let me end by saying this.

We could go on as we are.

We could on with the paperwork, the diktats, the bureaucracy.

We could go on with crime too high and public confidence too low.

Or we could do things differently.

If you want to get rid of interference from bureaucrats in Whitehall …

If you want your judgement and discretion back …

If you want to answer to the people you signed up to serve and protect… then come with me.

And if you come with me, I will make this promise: I will always back you, I will always support you, I will always fight for you.

That’s the deal I am offering today.

It offers radical change – real change. And I hope you accept it.  Together we can make sure that British policing remains the envy of the world.