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  • Tim Yeo – 2002 Speech to the Social Market Foundation Conference

    Tim Yeo – 2002 Speech to the Social Market Foundation Conference

    The speech made by Tim Yeo to the Social Market Foundation Conference on 19 June 2002.

    1. INTRODUCTION

    I am grateful to David Lipsey and the Social Market Foundation for this opportunity to set out my thoughts about the future of broadcasting and public service broadcasting (PSB) in particular.

    Television and radio touch all our lives. Their influence on social, cultural, commercial and political activity is far reaching. Every man, woman and child is a consumer of television and radio.

    Decisions on how they are regulated, on controls over ownership, on digital switchover, on the BBC Charter, and many other matters don’t just concern every family in the land. They affect how Britain exploits the huge economic opportunity which broadcasting represents.

    I’m on the early stages of a journey of exploration which started last September when I took on the DCMS portfolio within the Shadow Cabinet. Today what I want to do is float ideas, share thoughts, not set out Conservative Party policy. I will do that at a later date, after I’ve attended a few more events like this one.

    I start from the position of being on the side of the consumer. I want more progress to higher quality, better value, more control for viewers and listeners. Delivering these aims will open up greater opportunities for broadcasters.

    In charting a course for broadcasting’s future we mustn’t be prisoners of the past. Harnessing new technology for the benefit of consumers as well as suppliers involves new ideas and concepts.

    Trusting consumers doesn’t always come easily to powerful people in either politics or broadcasting. Viewers and listeners weaned on an out of date model of passive consumption of television and radio deserve to be treated better.

    Now is the time to move towards a market in broadcasting where viewers pay for what they choose to watch and not for much else; time to reduce the distorting effects of the BBC licence fee; and to set the BBC itself free to grow in competition with other suppliers.

    Let me, at the outset, salute the industry’s considerable achievements. The BBC has a distinguished history. It set high standards which were rightly and widely admired. ITV opened up new horizons, Channel Four provided an innovative model of a publicly owned television channel and Sky TV enormously enhanced viewer choice. The newcomer, Channel Five, has its own angle on news and arts coverage. As it happens all these success stories have been facilitated by applying Conservative philosophy to a rapidly changing industry.

    2. BACKGROUND

    Broadcasting is and will remain one of the most important industries in the twenty-first century. Fortunately it’s an industry where Britain enjoys advantages – a large pool of entrepreneurial and creative talent, a fine record of public service and other broadcasting, the English language and a country in which people from all over the world like to live and work. British influence on the development of the media industry should be considerable.

    Now viewers and listeners enjoy wider choice decisions about ownership of media companies should be left to the competition authorities. The market will protect consumer interests provided there is competition between suppliers. If unfair, monopolistic or anti-competitive practices creep in the authorities have backstop powers to intervene.

    On matters of taste and decency regulators should concentrate on the prevention of harm rather than offence. This may sometimes involve taking a stronger line than now, for example, over material which may encourage aggressive or violent behaviour.

    The present structure of broadcasting in Britain is a historical accident. Radio, and television, developed as state-owned monopolies funded by the licence fee, a television tax which is highly regressive. Gradually this monopoly evolved into a comfortable duopoly and eventually into today’s multi-channel environment.

    But payment methods haven’t expanded to match the range of channels. Broadcasting companies and programme makers exercise great power over consumers. There’s been an assumption that schedulers know best, that the consumer is a passive creature, content to flop down in front of the screen and accept a diet someone else has chosen.

    Today some viewers are starting to consume television when it suits them, choosing from a bigger menu and exercising more control, maybe accessing one item in a news bulletin and pursuing it in more depth. In future more people will do this and it’s time to throw overboard outdated assumptions about how television should be paid for.

    3. THE FUTURE

    The future is digital. The Government must drive the switchover from analogue to digital more effectively than they have done so far. Without real leadership their target date for switchover won’t be achieved. As a Sky subscriber and a former customer of ITV Digital I know how unreliable the reception of the terrestrial service was, a failing for which Ministers cannot entirely escape responsibility.

    The extra quality, choice and potential for interactivity on digital justifies moving ahead quickly, regardless of any residual value in the analogue spectrum. Britain’s leadership of the digital television revolution must not be thrown away.

    Switchover requires a thriving terrestrial platform, alongside satellite and cable. Without that the exclusion of many homes from cable by geography would mean that satellite exercised a monopoly over much of Britain.

    Ideally all three platforms will offer viewers free to air and pay TV channels, even if in the short term the survival of digital terrestrial television involves a limited period of only free to air. However viewers shouldn’t be encouraged to buy equipment which denies them the chance to upgrade to pay channels at a later date.

    An all digital Britain will widen the range of payment options, for the benefit of both viewers and suppliers. It’ll end licence fee evasion, saving £140 million a year, more than 5 per cent of the BBC’s total income.

    Radio is a very important part of PSB and I’ll speak in more detail about it on another occasion. For today let me just say that Britain enjoys high quality radio. Wider choice and higher standards will be possible as digital radio becomes the norm.

    As far as possible the future of broadcasting should be determined by consumers not politicians. The market is the best guarantor of efficient delivery.

    If the market is to work properly changes are needed. The distorting effect of the television tax must be reduced. Consumers must increasingly pay for what they watch, not for what suppliers choose to sell them.

    4. PAYING FOR BROADCASTING

    No other industry prices its products in the way broadcasting does. All viewers pay the television tax even if they never watch the channels it pays for. Severing the financial relationship between consumers of a product and its suppliers is seldom helpful.

    Buyers of books aren’t forced to pay an entry fee to get into a bookshop before they know what books are on sale. Lovers of music don’t pay a lump sum covering the cost of dozens of compact discs even though they know they will only want to listen to a handful. Theatre tickets aren’t sold in a block which gives entry to certain plays selected by someone else before the theatregoer has been told which they are.

    The structure of the publishing, music and theatre industries isn’t the same as television but there are enough similarities to question why television is sold this way.

    The answer lies in history. To get broadcasting going the television tax (originally a radio tax) was introduced. It may have been right in the early days that this tax funded all broadcasting. Today the situation has changed.

    The television tax affects the behaviour not just of the BBC but other broadcasters too. It limits the power of consumers to determine what they are offered. It’s a crude and undiscriminating way to charge for television. It wouldn’t survive if consumers were used to paying for what they want and nothing else.

    The television tax provides a smokescreen behind which other broadcasters price their products in a similar way. Sky has revolutionised viewer choice, winning a large market share on the back of a bold and well judged strategic gamble. It’s been able to bundle its product, like that of the cable companies, in a way which does not suit all consumers, partly because the market has been conditioned by the television tax.

    Let’s take this a stage further. If the consumer, having paid the television tax, equivalent to the price of entry into the bookshop, is a sports lover, he or she is then asked by pay television suppliers for a further entry fee to get inside the section containing sports books. There is no opportunity to state a preference for, say, tennis and rugby over golf and cricket.

    Pay television subscribers, unlike television taxpayers, do at least buy their product voluntarily. For many people a single comprehensive subscription may be convenient. But now digital makes pay per view (PPV) easy, subscription to a pre-packaged bundle of channels shouldn’t be the only option.

    PPV should be widely available so consumers can access programmes individually. Subscribers to one sports channel, for example, should be allowed to buy individual sports programmes on other channels on PPV in the same way subscribers to The Economist who receive a discount by buying a year’s issues at a time can buy a single issue of the Spectator at the full cover price when they want to.

    The present system restricts choice and insults the viewer’s intelligence. It could be replaced by one which gives viewers and listeners the power that cinema and theatregoers, that readers of books, magazines and newspapers take for granted. PPV isn’t a burdensome addition to charges already levied but an alternative which enhances viewer choice and control out of all recognition with past practice.

    It’s time for boldness and imagination. Why shouldn’t quality programmes be made in a freer market? The free market in book publishing doesn’t mean only trashy books get published. Trashy books do get published but quality books emerge as well.

    At present the sole recipient of the television tax is constantly accused of dumbing down. It’s hardly surprising the BBC is tempted to compete for audience but it cannot be said too often that ratings are a lousy guide to whether the BBC is carrying out its PSB role.

    The success of Hello Magazine hasn’t put The Economist out of business. Suppose, however, both were published by one tax funded organisation and supplied free to all readers. It is a sure bet The Economist would be the one threatened with the chop when a commercially orientated chief executive took charge.

    Promoting a television market where consumers are king requires a fresh approach to the television tax and a rethink of the role of PSB.

    5. PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING

    PSB is a public good on which public money can properly be spent. There’s a debate to be had whether that money should come from a hypothecated television tax or from general taxation, which is how the excellent BBC World Service is funded. However, the constant struggle of the World Service for proper funding isn’t an encouraging precedent for the general taxation option.

    A twenty first century model of PSB may still involve, at its core, an organisation whose main purpose is the delivery of certain specified obligations. But other channels apart from the BBC have an important PSB role and I applaud how they discharge their responsibilities. The public interest in the new century will only be properly served if there continues to be the widest possible choice for consumers, catering for all manner of individual tastes. However this morning I want to focus on the BBC.

    Many attempts have been made to define PSB and it’s often easier to say what it is not rather than what it is. I certainly don’t regard all the BBC’s output as constituting PSB. Plainly many viewers and even some BBC management don’t think so. Gavyn Davies didn’t claim it was in his 1999 Report on Future Funding.

    An important function of PSB is to remedy market failure. Taxpayer’s money can justifiably be used to fund broadcasting to ensure the supply of programmes which serve a public interest but which would not get made if the free market alone determined supply.

    Annex B of the Government’s own document – rather grandly entitled “The Policy” – refers to the General Public service broadcasting Remit whose first provision is “disseminating information, education and entertainment”.

    Back in the days of the BBC monopoly –as it happens anxieties over concentration of ownership weren’t so widely aired then, those concerns have grown louder as ownership has become more, not less diverse – back in those far off days, entertainment deserved inclusion within this definition of PSB.

    Today, however, the duty of a public service broadcaster to entertain is dramatically less now so much entertainment is available on other free to air channels. Market failure no longer applies.

    Information and education have stronger claims for inclusion within PSB, as does news and current affairs. Although Sky News has emerged as a valuable additional news provider alongside BBC and ITN, the regional news coverage of both BBC and ITV fulfils an important PSB function and might not be supplied by the market.

    The same is true of serious current affairs programmes. On The Record may not reach those elusive younger viewers who increasingly don’t vote but does contribute to political discussion. Regular viewing of Channel Four News and Newsnight not only allows time for dinner but also keeps viewers in touch with what’s happening at home and abroad. Neither would necessarily survive without a PSB obligation.

    In assessing where market failure applies there is a distinction between what the market supplies free to air and what it supplies on pay TV. This is more difficult territory. If croquet is covered on a pay channel does a free to air channel need to do so? Is croquet PSB? If it isn’t what difference is there between croquet and cricket, or golf, or rugby, or tennis? Or even, dare I say it, football?

    It’s doubtful if much sport can still be defined as PSB. And one model for the BBC I’ll float in a minute would allow viewers to enjoy the same sports coverage as now without paying more.

    Harder to judge is the extent to which drama, music and the visual and performing arts are PSB. Maintaining a significant British production capacity in these areas is desirable and reliance on the market may not achieve this goal. How these important elements are defined within a PSB remit requires further consideration.

    There is also the question of how the PSB package should be delivered. Should it be divided up into a series of individual components and bids invited from broadcasters able to deliver them? Or should PSB be bundled as a single package and put out to tender?

    This might appeal to free market theorists but it wouldn’t recognise reality. The BBC, despite faults which its detractors are quick to highlight, would deservedly have a head start in bidding to perform the PSB roles. A tender process would be cumbersome and expensive.

    The aim must be to deliver PSB as efficiently as possible. A new approach to BBC funding, overhauling the television tax, can encourage this.

    6. THE FUTURE OF THE TELEVISION TAX

    Much discussion over BBC Charter renewal will concern funding.

    I want the BBC enjoy the potential for a greater increase in its income than the television tax could ever provide. It is, after all, an internationally recognised brand, capable of considerable growth.

    Unlocking this potential depends on reforming the television tax. I hope the Secretary of State’s mind isn’t as closed as her recent FT interview suggested when she was quoted as saying that a significant change to the funding of the BBC lies “somewhere between the improbable and the impossible”.

    The BBC receives approximately £2.1 billion direct from television tax payers and another £390 million paid by the Treasury on behalf of households exempt from the tax, giving a total income of around £2.5 billion.

    Various options exist after the present Charter expires. At one extreme the BBC could be funded from advertising. But advertising revenue, as recent events have shown, is not infinitely expandable. This option would be unpopular with existing advertising funded channels and would not promote consumer choice. I do not support it.

    An alternative would be for the BBC to rely entirely on subscription or PPV. This would reduce its audience and unless those viewers who remained paid a higher subscription than the present television tax, money for programmes would be reduced.

    At the other extreme the television tax could continue, maybe growing in real terms as it has done recently. This alternative enjoys some support but is hard to justify unless everything the BBC does constitutes public service broadcasting.

    Changes to the present funding arrangements are therefore likely and I want to explore another option – shall I call it the Middle Way – because unlike the Secretary of State I want the BBC released from the shackles of the television tax.

    There’s nothing magical about an income figure of £2.5 billion. Could a high quality PSB function be provided for £2 billion? Or £1.5 billion? Perhaps PSB only needs one national television channel, not two?

    Now is the time to examine just how much television taxpayers should have to pay for the BBC’s PSB functions. I suspect that most television taxpayers believe it’s significantly less than £2.5 billion.

    Once a figure is decided the BBC would sign a public service agreement committing them to providing the core public service programmes. Its finances would be subject both to external audit and scrutiny by Parliament through the Public Accounts Committee and the Select Committee.

    But as I said a moment ago, I want the BBC to have more income, not less, so in addition to receiving this slimmed down television tax, it would be given new freedom to offer consumers additional television and radio channels on subscription or PPV.

    Under the Middle Way there’d be no ceiling on the BBC’s income. Its substantial reputation and assets could be exploited at home and overseas, creating new opportunities for programme makers and management. The BBC could grow without artificial constraints, develop new markets and improve services to consumers.

    A whole range of specialist new television channels and radio stations could emerge. All viewers would have more to spend as a result of the lower television tax. The market for pay television is growing. Would consumers not gain from competition, for example, between a subscription funded BBC Sport channel and other sports channels?

    No doubt it will be claimed that EU rules make it hard for the BBC to operate a dual structure of this sort. As Commissioner Reding pointed out recently to the Joint Scrutiny Committee examining the draft Communications Bill, total transparency is needed if a state controlled taxpayer funded body starts to compete in the market place. I hope that regulatory structures will not impede the evolution of the BBC.

    How far the BBC would grow under this model would depend on how successful it was at making programmes which consumers were willing to pay for. If its output is as good as its champions say, it has much to gain from greater exposure to the market. Timing the introduction of this new model would depend in part on the progress towards digital switchover and the start of the new Charter period is probably too soon for such radical changes. In any case they could be introduced gradually. But the time to debate whether they are desirable is now.

    7. CONCLUSION

    In considering the future of broadcasting generally and the renewal of the BBC Charter in particular our aims should be:

    1) to enhance viewer choice and control

    2) to help the BBC exploit its unique assets and reputation at the same time as preserving a properly funded PSB role

    3) to ensure that other broadcasters are free to develop as they wish

    4) to encourage a diversity of payment methods so that viewers increasingly watch what they pay for

    5) to help Britain maintain a leading role in broadcasting.

    Tessa Jowell’s rejection of changes to BBC funding must not be the last word on this important issue. Viewers and listeners deserve better. The ideas floated above are just that – ideas.

    I hope they will stimulate debate, enhance consumer power, widen the influence of the BBC and ensure that British broadcasters are leaders in this century as they were in the last.

  • Tim Yeo – 2003 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    Tim Yeo – 2003 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    The speech made by Tim Yeo, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, at the Conservative Party conference on 8 October 2003.

    Party conferences are when politicians set out their stall at the seaside.

    Two weeks ago we learned that the Lib Dems won’t let you smack your children

    Even if they’re seven years old and miss a sex education class.

    With Labour the trouble is what they do doesn’t get mentioned at Conferences.

    Last week Tony Blair didn’t tell us about Labour’s sixty tax increases.

    The tax increases on health and pensions and insurance and investment.

    Tax increases on petrol and cars and lorries and diesel.

    Tax increases on jobs and self-employment and marriage and mortgages.

    You name it and they’ve increased the tax on it.

    You can avoid tax increases under Labour

    As long as you don’t save, don’t insure, don’t have a pension, don’t have a job, aren’t self-employed, don’t drink, don’t bet, don’t drive, don’t get married don’t buy a home, if you do buy a home, don’t have a mortgage.

    It could be worse, though.

    Yes, really.

    If the Lib Dems had their way tax would be even higher.

    Let me make one thing clear

    I will never agree to a rise in damaging business taxes

    I’ll tell you what else we won’t do.

    I won’t tell people how to run their businesses.

    I won’t second-guess markets.

    I won’t intervene in relations between employers and employees any more than is absolutely necessary.

    But under Patricia Hewitt there are more laws telling employers how to treat their workforce than ever before.

    Patricia Hewitt learned her politics under Neil Kinnock.

    That’s a bit like being taught to ski by Eddie the Eagle.

    If the Cabinet were in Celebrity Big Brother

    She’d be out first.

    Unless of course Gordon Brown had the vote.

    Then she’d be out second.

    Because we all know who Gordon wants to get rid of.

    This week we’ve set out how we’ll make Britain a better place to live in.

    Making our streets safer with 40,000 extra police.

    Helping sick people with our Patients’ Passport.

    Giving parents more say over schools.

    Ending Labour’s war on the motorist.

    Making everyone more secure in retirement.

    Restoring trust in government.

    But we can’t make Britain a better place to live in unless we also make it a better place to do business.

    Delivering a fair deal for everyone depends on wealth creation.

    A fair deal for business and enterprise isn’t just crucial to business people, it’s crucial to everyone.

    We believe in business for its own sake.

    Unlike Gordon Brown, who sees business only as a milchcow from which to extract more and more tax.

    Instead of helping business create wealth for everyone’s benefit.

    He wants business to provide wealth he can spend for Labour’s benefit.

    Do you remember how Tony Blair and Gordon Brown posed as the friends of business?

    Six wasted years later

    After £47 billion of new business taxes

    Hasn’t that turned out to be the biggest spin of all?

    Nothing less than a cynical fraud against Britain’s hard-working business people.

    Gordon Brown talks about his golden rule.

    There’s only one golden rule for business when it comes to Labour.

    Don’t believe a word they say.

    Like many of you I’ve been in business myself.

    I remortgaged my home to start a business.

    I woke up in the night wondering where the next order was coming from.

    I worried about the people whose jobs depended on me.

    I worked in service industry and manufacturing, for companies small and large.

    I learned first-hand the challenges business faces.

    Today investment and jobs are more mobile than ever before.

    Businesses are moving from Blackpool to Bangkok.

    Norwich Union staff now process insurance claims more quickly and more cheaply in East India than East Anglia.

    Industries where Europe used to lead the world are migrating to the Asia Pacific region.

    And sadly, Britain faces this challenge weaker than it should.

    After six years Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have squandered their golden economic inheritance.

    Britain’s deficit in traded goods is the worst since records began in 1697.

    Business investment is collapsing.

    Productivity has risen only half as fast as it did under the Conservatives.

    More days were been wasted through strikes last year than in any year for over a decade.

    More than 2,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost every single week since Labour came to power.

    Worsening trade, collapsing investment, slowing productivity, more strikes and haemorrhaging jobs.

    Is this what Tony Blair meant when he said things could only get better?

    And surprise, surprise, even the low unemployment total Tony likes to trumpet is more spin than substance.

    Jobs in the productive, wealth-creating part of the economy are falling.

    A fall that’s hidden by the huge rise in the number of Government bureaucrats.

    That can’t go on forever.

    You can’t conceal a loss of manufacturing jobs by manufacturing new jobs for pen pushers in the public sector.

    Under Labour Britain has become a worse place to do business.

    In four years small business failures have trebled.

    More businesses went bust in 2002 than in any year since 1994.

    Company profits have fallen to its lowest level since 1993.

    That’s the dossier on business even Alastair Campbell couldn’t sex up.

    No wonder foreign investment in Britain, which boomed under the Conservatives, has halved in the last two years.

    Never mind, the DTI are on the case.

    Or a case, anyway.

    While business struggles, DTI bureaucrats have drawn up a new foliage strategy.

    I’m not kidding.

    I’ll quote the document:

    “Where an area has moved to New Ways of Working (defined as open-plan, having new-style furniture and soft seating (break-out areas)) funded displays will be allocated only to the break-out areas. Any movement of plants outside of these areas must be agreed prior to its happening and will be subject to Health and Safety restrictions”.

    There’s a complete chain of command to determine where the office yucca plant should go.

    The DTI may not do much for business

    But they’re obviously keen on pukka yucca.

    Don’t we all know exactly where business would tell Labour to stick its yucca.

    Unlike Labour, we’ll make Britain a better place to do business.

    We’ll restore the competitive advantages Margaret Thatcher won when she transformed Britain from being the sick man of Europe into a country which held its head high.

    We’ll cut regulation, which the Institute of Directors says costs Britain £6 billion a year.

    We’ll halt the rise in business taxes.

    We’ll rebuild our infrastructure.

    And we’ll give our workers the skills they need.

    You’ve heard the pledges Michael Howard, Tim Collins and Damian Green made about tax, transport and education.

    I’ll now make a pledge about regulation.

    Within days of taking office I’ll lighten the burden.

    Because regulation hurts every business, raises prices for every consumer, cuts returns for every saver.

    And it harms especially small and medium sized businesses, the engines of job creation.

    The British Chambers of Commerce say that employment admin costs the smallest companies 50 times as much per worker as the largest.

    We will never regulate disproportionately to risk.

    We will never regulate by law if a voluntary approach is possible.

    The smaller the organisation, the lighter our touch.

    So a business with two employees has a lighter burden than one with two hundred thousand.

    That’s why I’ll make sure firms with fewer than twenty workers are exempt from the most onerous burdens.

    Some people claim all this red tape comes from Brussels and there’s nothing we can do about it.

    That’s not true.

    At Maastricht we won the opt-out which kept the pound and the opt-out from the Social Chapter, which Labour threw away,

    Conservatives proved that a Government determined to defend British interests can do so.

    The trouble is that Ministers often make European regulations tougher when they’re applied here in Britain.

    Like the charges slaughterhouses pay for health inspections – optional in France and Germany and Italy and Spain but compulsory in Britain.

    When I’m Secretary of State I’ll never destroy British jobs by forcing our people to play by rules other countries are flouting.

    Because when a British small business pays a compulsory charge, it can’t take on the extra workers its continental competitors can.

    When paying that charge involves form-filling British business people are stuck in the office at 10 o’clock on Friday night ticking boxes on a form for faceless bureaucrats to file while their continental competitors are at home with their families.

    When a voluntary code is replaced by a compulsory one British ceramics companies find a nine-page guidance document turned into a ninety-page Directive

    Which Labour Ministers haven’t looked at

    Which needs more bureaucrats in Whitehall to enforce and more inspectors in the regions

    To monitor the way business monitors its own workforce.

    And all this is paid for by you and me.

    The new Proceeds of Crime Act requires retailers to report every individual theft to the National Criminal Intelligence Service. This will cost £50 for each of the seven million retail crimes each year.

    In the rest of Europe only the largest crimes are reported individually. The others are aggregated together.

    But here in Britain retailers and shoppers face a £350 million bill simply because labour says we must.

    And that’s before Tony Blair’s thrust the EU constitution down our throats.

    The one he won’t let us vote on.

    When I exempt the smallest firms from the most onerous laws

    When I apply sunset clauses to Labour’s Employment Acts so we can find out if they’re creating jobs or destroying them

    I’ll do it not for the sake of employers but for employees.

    To help workers of all ages, both sexes and any skill level find decent, satisfying work.

    To make sure no business is held back.

    And no worker is left behind.

    I’ve talked a lot about regulation but I’m concerned about consumers, too.

    The DTI is responsible for one industry where each of us is a consumer.

    Energy.

    We’ve been reminded lately what happens when the power fails.

    Chaos on the streets. People stuck in the Underground. Offices in the dark. Old people injured at home.

    Modern life, at home and at work, depends on electricity.

    Yet Labour have let the safety margin of generating capacity fall to its lowest level for years.

    The experts fear this means more cuts.

    If your house is cold this winter, if your child is sent home from school because the lights go out, you’ll know who to blame.

    And looking ahead, it’s not getting any better.

    Britain has used up its cheap North Sea oil and gas and soon we’ll be importing gas on a huge scale.

    Half all of our needs in 2010. Ninety per cent in 2020.

    Most of it from Russia, Algeria and Iran, funny countries on which to depend to keep the lights on.

    And Ministers are ignoring climate change, too.

    Right now, Britain’s carbon dioxide emissions are going up, not down.

    We’re failing to meet our international commitments to reduce them.

    Despite all those bright sparks at Number Ten, Labour haven’t a clue what to do about energy.

    There’s another thing the DTI is responsible for, that we all use every week.

    The Royal Mail and the Post Office.

    Under Labour the Royal Mail has lost £1.8 billion in the last two years.

    Three thousand post offices are being closed.

    To make matters worse, Ministers cancelled our plans to let every pensioner go on receiving their pension in cash at their local post office.

    Over the next couple of years that’ll make life hard for thousands of vulnerable people.

    And because someone who gets cash at a post office counter often spends a bit of it in the same shop Labour’s policy will force more post offices to close.

    Next month I’ll set out a better future for Royal Mail and Post Office workers and pensioners and for Post Offices, without spending a pound of taxpayers’ money.

    And when I am Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, I’ll cut the bureaucracy in the DTI itself.

    I’ll bang on the desks of my Cabinet colleagues

    To make sure they know what they’re doing to business.

    Under the Conservatives everyone in Whitehall will know that Britain must be made a better place to do business

    So we can achieve the other things we want.

    We’ve got a message for Tony Blair.

    Instead of increasing National Insurance Contributions he should cut the tax on jobs.

    Instead of taxing pensions he should encourage saving.

    Instead of forcing universities to dumb down he should back our world class institutions.

    Instead of abolishing the House of Lords and ignoring the House of Commons he should answer for his Government’s mistakes.

    But Tony Blair’s had his chance

    And he’s squandered it.

    Lost the trust of the British people.

    Voters are fed up with all the broken promises.

    Fed up with the arrogance and the lies and the spin.

    Fed up with a Government that says it’s listening but goes on lecturing.

    Fed up with a Third World transport system.

    Fed up with a Government that’s destroyed the security of every pensioner.

    Fed up with a Prime Minister who’s corrupted our constitution and now wants to give Brussels more power under a European one.

    In 2003 Britain is a nation yearning for politicians who provide leadership they can trust.

    A nation yearning for a Government that has integrity.

    A nation yearning for Ministers who show courage.

    A nation yearning for policies that are honest.

    As I look around this hall I see people who yearn for the Conservatives

    To provide that leadership

    To offer that integrity

    To display that courage

    To deliver that honesty.

    Iain Duncan Smith and the Conservative Party are rising to that challenge.

    Our task is urgent.

    We must begin today.

    He that hath no stomach to this fight: let him depart.

    To everyone else I say

    Together we can drive Tony and his cronies out of Downing Street.

  • Tim Yeo – 2004 Speech at Conservative Party Spring Conference

    Tim Yeo – 2004 Speech at Conservative Party Spring Conference

    Below is the text of the speech made by Tim Yeo on 6 March 2004.

    Welcome to this session – delighted to have David Davis and Shailesh Vara with me. You’ll be hearing from them soon and later from four of our outstanding PPCs.

    “Young and hopeful” – I think that includes us on the platform.

    It certainly includes most of you in the audience.

    But it’s really the millions of young people who are the future of our country.

    Who are being let down by this Labour Government.

    We can all remember Tony Blair’s promise that education, education, education would be their priority.

    Seven years later what has Labour delivered?

    Take class sizes. An important issue for parents.

    Labour promised to reduce them.

    But the number of secondary school classes with 30 pupils or more has gone up by more than half since 1997.

    That’s 130,000 more young people in classes with over 30 pupils than when Tony Blair gave that pledge.

    What about exam results?

    Ministers try to persuade us standards have risen.

    But the truth is that one in three 11 year-olds leave school unable to read, write or count properly.

    That’s a fact that ought to shame even Tony Blair.

    And here’s another one. Last year more than 33,000 young people left school without a single GCSE.

    Maybe that’s partly because the number of pupils bunking off from school has risen more than a fifth since 1997, despite more than £600 million of spending on various Ministerial initiatives and gimmicks.

    For those who are at school the situation inside the classroom isn’t always good. According to the teaching union NASUWT there’s an attack on a teacher every seven minutes.

    A year ago a poll showed that one in three teachers are considering leaving the profession within five years, because of the target-driven culture and lack of discipline.

    And for youngsters going to university, Labour’s broken promises on top-up fees means they’ll start their working lives burdened with huge debts.

    As for bureaucracy, under Labour non-teaching staff are recruited faster than teachers.

    So Tony Blair’s school report is not good.

    Meddling Ministers.

    Money wasted.

    Frustrated teachers.

    Stagnating standards.

    So much for Labour.

    What will we do to put this right?

    Our plan is radical. It has three elements.

    First, we believe it’s time to give pupils and parents much greater control over how the Government spends their money on their children’s education. I’ll come back to this in a moment.

    Second, we will give schools more freedom. We know it’s the commitment of teachers that determines the quality of education.

    It’s time to get the target-obsessed bureaucrats off their backs.

    To set teachers free.

    To be accountable first and foremost to parents.

    Free to restore discipline in schools and stop the small minority of disruptive pupils from wrecking the chances of their classmates.

    Free to do what they do best – teach.

    Which brings me to the third element.

    Restoring confidence in standards.

    Whatever the spin about better exam results, we know Labour has downgraded the system with its culture of prizes for all which undermines students’ real achievements.

    Universities and employers tell the same story of falling confidence in the qualifications young people acquire at school.

    We will make the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority institutionally independent like the Bank of England, to prevent political manipulation.

    We will address other problems too. Wearing my health hat for a moment, I know that physically active young people are healthy too.

    Because of that we will bring sport back into the schools, something Labour has been too busy flogging off school playing fields to attend to.

    As a parent myself I know what benefits sport can bring.

    Labour’s failures are not confined to schools.

    Our universities are under-funded.

    Labour’s solution will saddle students with huge debts.

    By contrast, we will keep our promises on top-up fees and tuition fees, while giving universities the cash they need.

    That’s good news for students and universities. Bad news for Labour MPs who have to explain why they broke their manifesto promises.

    And under the Conservatives universities won’t be told by yet another bureaucrat, appointed by the Minister, who they can admit and who they can’t.

    But fixing the funding of our universities is not enough.

    We need vocational training that stimulates and skills up those young people who don’t go to university.

    Labour’s system of vocational training is an expensive mess – respected by neither students nor employers.

    Later this year I will set out our Conservative framework for skills training which will address this fundamental failing, a failing that becomes more and more critical as international competition for jobs and investment intensifies.

    Let me close by returning to my first element – the core of our strategy to improve standards in schools.

    The Pupil Passport.

    The right for every parent to choose the school their child goes to.

    Take the example of a child in an inner city borough, with two secondary schools in the vicinity, one good and one bad.

    Currently if the good school is full and the bad one has empty seats then parents may be compelled by the surplus places rule to send their child to the bad school, regardless of their wishes.

    The only way parents can avoid this is to appeal against the decision.

    But although appeals have risen 50 per cent since 1997, only a third are decided in the parents’ favour.

    The Pupil Passport means that child would be able to attend the good school, which itself could expand.

    I can announce today, following Oliver Letwin’s speech setting out the spending plans of the next Conservative Government, and confirming that extra cash will be available for schools, that the Pupil Passport will not be confined to inner city areas as we originally envisaged.

    Instead it will be rolled out progressively across the whole country.

    Because we want every family to be empowered.

    To have the choices which in the past have been available only to the better-off.

    People who could afford to move to the catchment area of their favoured school.

    Under the Conservatives you’ll be able to go to the right school even if your family lives in the wrong street.

    Good schools will attract more pupils.

    And since every girl or boy who is accepted by a school will have funding that goes automatically with her or him, that school will be able to expand in response to demand.

    A popular faith school, for example, within the maintained sector, will be able to grow. So would a successful comprehensive.

    In some areas, completely new schools will spring up. The other side of this coin is that schools which few parents choose for their children will find their numbers decline.

    That will put pressure on budgets.

    It will provide a spur to encourage those schools to improve.

    No longer will they be able to rely on the LEA to ensure that their classrooms are filled with youngsters whose parents have been ordered to send them there.

    Unlike Labour a Conservative Government will not reward failure.

    Because we will abolish the surplus places rule.

    The rule which enables the council to decide the school your child goes to, even if you know it’s the wrong one.

    We are talking to local government colleagues and others about what this means for the future role of LEAs.

    And about how money will be allocated.

    About how the value of the Passport will be set.

    Our aim is to give every family the power now enjoyed by a few.

    Because we know the power of choice is the power to force improvement.

    At the next General Election we will offer the country a clear choice.

    Either continue down this Labour path of stagnating standards where Ministers know best, where you take what you are offered. Don’t you dare ask for anything different.

    An education system in which the State looms too large and people are too small.

    Or follow the new Conservative path.

    Bigger citizens who have more control. Where you choose what you want.

    A path which leads to higher standards.

    Transforming the way public services are delivered.

    That’s the choice we’ll offer the next generation of young and hopeful Britons to help fulfil their aspirations.

    Together our task is to help them choose the right option.

  • Tim Yeo – 2004 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Tim Yeo – 2004 Speech on the Loyal Address

    Below is the text of the speech made by Tim Yeo, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 25 November 2004.

    On Tuesday we heard the last Queen’s Speech before the general election. It was given after seven and a half years of a Labour Government. So it is fair to say that this is a time to pass judgment first on the Government’s record and secondly on their intentions. I am genuinely sorry—because it matters very much to this country—to say that the Government’s record is a bad one.

    Our transport system increasingly resembles that of a third-world country. The Government’s failure to bring roads and railways into the 21st century is damaging business. The Confederation of British Industry has estimated that the cost of congestion is £15 billion per year. It damages the competitive position of British firms and makes Britain a less attractive country for new investment.

    Congestion does not hurt just business; it hurts families. Although Ministers like to talk about the work/life balance, they seem to have their heads firmly in the sand when it comes to transport policy. One simply cannot put a price on the time that mums and dads lose because the train has let them down again or the road is too congested and they are not home in time to say good night to their children.

    Let us look at the facts. We will start with roads. In Britain, the proportion of road links that are congested for more than an hour a day is three times greater than in Germany and five times greater than in France. Our motorway provision per head of population is less than half the European average. We have a lower motorway density than any of our European competitors. That is despite the fact that motorists pay £8 billion more in vehicle excise duty and fuel duty than in 1997. Indeed, the Treasury now takes more than £40 billion a year in tax from road users, but the Government spend only £1.6 billion on new trunk roads and motorways and only £10 billion a year on all road infrastructure. Some of the extra tax goes to subsidise bus services. Although subsidies to buses have doubled to more than £1.4 billion a year, outside London bus use is falling.

    The picture on railways is similarly depressing. Twice as many trains run late now as in 1997.

    New rail schemes have been kicked into the long grass, even though rail subsidies have soared from more than £1 billion a year in 1997 to more than £3.5 billion now. Fares have risen faster than inflation, despite the Government’s promises to the contrary. Nothing that we have heard in the Queen’s Speech addresses those failings. The Crossrail Bill will have our support, but as everyone knows, and the Secretary of State acknowledged, it does not advance the starting date for that important project by a single day, because the Government are still dithering over the funding.

    I will deal with the Railways Bill in detail in a moment, but let me say initially that it is hard to see what the Bill contains that will improve the lot of passengers. Its central feature and the reason why it is being introduced is the abolition of the Strategic Rail Authority. The House will remember that two years ago the Department of Transport’s own review of the 10-year transport plan said that the SRA would provide the

    “firm leadership envisaged for it: that of providing strategic direction and funding for the rail industry.”

    The Labour general election manifesto said that the body would provide

    “a clear, coherent and strategic programme for the development of the railways so that passenger expectations are met.”

    Now, having consumed £237 million of taxpayers’ money, that very body is being abolished. The Secretary of State’s only strategy for the railways is one of utter incoherence.

    To be fair to the Secretary of State and the Government, we should judge them according to the performance criteria that they set out. The 10-year plan launched with such fanfare four years ago by the Deputy Prime Minister—and I am sorry that he is not here to enjoy the debate—contained a number of commitments.

    According to the plan, congestion on Britain’s roads was to be reduced by 2010. In practice, it has got worse. According to the plan, trains were to be made more punctual. In practice, they have become less punctual. According to the plan, rail passengers were to increase in number by 50 per cent. In practice, the increase has been 5 per cent. According to the plan, bus travel throughout England was to grow by 10 per cent. In practice, outside London, it is falling. According to the plan, the maintenance backlog on local roads was to be eliminated. In practice, that target has been dropped.

    According to the plan, Thameslink and the East London line were to be built by 2010. In practice, those targets cannot be met. According to the plan, rail freight was to increase by four fifths. In practice, the amount of freight carried by rail in the past two years has fallen. According to the plan, passengers were to travel by train more quickly and comfortably. In practice, as those of us who use the railways regularly will know, overcrowding has reached chronic proportions and is likely to get worse, while reliability is worse than in 1997. According to the plan, the east coast main line was to be modernised and capacity increased. In practice, that scheme has been put on ice. According to the plan, local roads were to be improved. In practice, the Freight Transport Association reports that their condition is worse than a decade ago.

    Not one of those 10 failures was mentioned by the Secretary of State today, but they are what concern road and rail users every day. Their consequence is an economy whose competitive position is being steadily worsened by this Government’s refusal to address them. Absolutely nothing in the Queen’s Speech suggests that the Government have any idea about how to tackle those problems, or even any intention of trying to do so. Let us look at what the Secretary of State is proposing.

    When it comes to new roads, the most decisive step that he can muster is more talk about road pricing, along with yet another consultation exercise about a possible extension northwards of the M6 toll road. Yet the Secretary of State told the House on 20 July that

    “Doing nothing would be the worst possible option.”

    Yet that is the very option that he is pursuing.

    A carefully argued study by the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Automobile Association, the FTA and other organisations identified the need for improvements to key motorways and trunk roads, but it is simply being ignored. The only certain consequence of this Queen’s Speech and of the actions of this Secretary of State is that road congestion will get worse.

    When it comes to the railways, now that the SRA has been condemned to death, power is shifting decisively back to civil servants in the Department of Transport and Network Rail. None of that bodes well for passengers, but I suppose that we should not be surprised that this Government should want to give more power to a body such as Network Rail, which is not directly answerable to anyone—least of all to its customers or the paying public.

    There will be anxiety too among train operators about how decisions over the allocation of franchises will be taken under the new regime. Most alarming of all, however, is the Government’s proposal to hand more power over the railways to Ken Livingstone.

    Two out of three train journeys begin or end in London, so that proposal is worrying indeed, especially for passengers travelling to or from stations outside the area for which Ken Livingstone is responsible. Passengers may now find that it suits Ken to stop their fast trains on the edge of London to pick up a few of his voters. They may also find that their fares go up because Ken says so.

    Just this week, Ken Livingstone’s officials at Transport for London caved in to trade union demands for tube workers to be given longer holidays than anyone else in the country. That is a warning of what lies ahead. I wonder whether it was Ken’s attitude to cost control that tipped the balance when Ministers in the Department of Transport were deciding about handing over to him a bit more say about how our railways are run. Giving Ken Livingstone power over how trains are run is a sure-fire way to discourage the extra private investment that railways need to attract.

    Where will it all end? Will the local councils in Birmingham, Rugby, Milton Keynes and Watford all be given a say over the trains that run from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden to London? Will all those councils be involved, too?

    The Railways Bill has exposed the Government’s complete disarray over the strategic direction of the rail industry. It will increase the extent to which politicians and bureaucrats interfere in the running of the railways. For that reason, the Conservative party will oppose it.

    We look forward to the imminent publication of the road safety Bill. I welcome the Government’s acceptance of many of the measures for which the Conservative party has been calling for some time. They include measures such as a crackdown on uninsured drivers—long overdue—and action to tackle the disappointing upturn in drink driving. Other measures include the introduction of variable penalty points to reflect the relative seriousness of different traffic offences.

    I was not entirely surprised that the Secretary of State got on to the subject of money in his speech, but he did not mention the cuts that he has made in transport spending. They must be something of an embarrassment to him. The spending plans that he inherited were set out in the 2002 spending review. That document said that, in the current year, 2004-05, the Government would spend £11.2 billion on transport. In the 2003 public expenditure statistical analysis, that figure was cut to £10.75 billion, and in the 2004 spending review, there is a further cut in transport spending for this year. The figure is now down to £10.4 billion—a reduction of 7 per cent. from the planned total for spending in 2004-05 that was announced before the Secretary of State took over.

    Breaking a pledge so spectacularly is not unusual for this Government, of course, but it is a reason why we cannot rely on any promise about future spending increases from this Secretary of State. It makes a total mockery of the right hon. Gentleman’s attempt to attack the Conservative party’s transport plans when he has personally overseen a cut of nearly £1 billion in transport spending for the current year.

    In any event, almost everyone—and I suspect that that includes the Secretary of State—recognises that taxpayers alone cannot fund the improvements needed in Britain’s transport infrastructure. The key to a modern transport system is more private investment. Unfortunately, even if he realises that, the Secretary of State is not taking the necessary action to encourage it. Instead of getting on with extending the M6 toll road northwards, he is conducting yet another consultation process. That is another example of how this Government are all talk.

    The M6 toll road was first approved when my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) was a Transport Minister, and it took more than a decade to complete. The need for immediate action is therefore obvious.

    On railways, the Government’s insistence on short-term contracts for train operators is an obstacle to increased investment. The bungled renationalisation of Railtrack is another deterrent to private investors. At the same time, the potential to bring vastly more private capital into the railways by unlocking the huge development potential in and around our stations, which are adjacent to some of the most valuable brownfield sites in the country, remains shamefully unexploited.

    Unlike the present Government, the next Conservative Government will have a timetable for action. That will include longer contracts for the best train operators and a major programme. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Jamieson) appears to think that that is amusing, but he did not hear the earlier part of the debate. We will also have a major programme of investment in stations which will bring benefits to passengers without any contribution from the taxpayer or any increase in fares.

    I turn now to the other subject for today’s debate. It would have been too much to hope that the Queen’s Speech would include a reference to farming. After all, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs could not bring herself to mention farming in her speech to this year’s Labour party conference. Nevertheless, everyone involved in agriculture has plenty about which to be concerned.

    We are at a potential turning point in the industry. The effect of the mid-term review is to break the mould of 40 years of supporting farming by linking payment to production. Now that link is broken. I am not against that change in principle, but the potential consequences for the industry are far reaching. We may not see the changes take effect until 2006, because the Government’s incompetence in sorting out the rules under which the new arrangements will work mean that, for the time being, farmers have to operate in a climate of uncertainty.

    The difficulty that the Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality had last week in answering my question about whether the Government have assessed the likely impact of the changes in the method of farming support on British agricultural production was revealing. Clearly, the Government have not assessed that. I ask again today: does the Minister agree that it is now possible that over the next five years farm output will fall dramatically? Are the Government happy to see Britain become more and more dependent on imports for more and more of its food needs? Does the Government regard farming as a strategically important industry. What assessment have Ministers made of what all that will do for jobs in the countryside, the effect on the rural economy and how our rural landscape will look?

    If we are to import more and more of our food, it is even more urgent that we require honesty in food labelling by law. British consumers are entitled to know where the food they buy comes from and how it was produced. British farmers are entitled to know that when food grown abroad—often to lower environmental and animal welfare standards—is sold in British shops, consumers will be informed of the differences between British methods of production and those overseas. Why are the Government so afraid of what Brussels might say that they continue to shirk their duty to consumers and producers alike on the vital question of labelling?

    Will the Minister confirm that, because of the Government’s failure in yet another computer project, farmers are likely to suffer severe cashflow problems? The Rural Payments Agency will be unable to make payments due to farmers when the single farm payment comes in, because of the Government’s failure to complete the necessary preparations.

    Why on earth have the Government not abolished the over-30-month scheme? Even the European authorities now accept without qualification that British beef is safe, but Ministers are unwilling to take the action that is needed to relieve our beef producers of a burden that could and should have been lifted a considerable time ago.

    Will the Minister confirm the report in The Daily Telegraph today about the European Commission’s refusal to allow two thirds of Britain’s claim for help with the costs of foot and mouth disease? It appears that British taxpayers must pay an extra £600 million towards the £8 billion cost of foot and mouth disease because the Government refused to respond to the outbreak in a timely and prompt manner. The House will recall that in the last few days of February 2001 and the first three weeks of March 2001, my colleagues and I constantly urged the Government to take the steps, such as bringing in the Army, that were needed to bring foot and mouth disease under control. Because the Prime Minister did not want to admit the scale of the crisis in the run-up to the general election, he refused to act until forced to do so in the face of overwhelming evidence. That failure—those lost weeks during which I and others set out day after day exactly what needed to be done—cost our farmers, the countryside, the tourism industry and the country very dear. Today we learn that it will cost the taxpayer another £600 million on top of the billions of pounds already wasted. If the Minister says just one thing when he winds up, will he say sorry to all those people who suffered because of the way in which the Government bungled the handling of foot and mouth disease?

    The Government now propose an integrated rural agency. That proposal will weaken both the important statutory functions carried out by English Nature and the rural advocacy role performed by the Countryside Agency. I do not believe that making greater use of regional development agencies to deliver rural services will help the countryside or the people who live and work there.

    We support the principles behind the animal welfare Bill, although we have some concerns about the extent to which it will give Ministers powers to act through secondary legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Meriden will refer in more detail to the clean neighbourhoods and environment Bill when she winds up later. Those measures are certainly necessary. Fly-tipping has increased by two fifths since 2001, littering increased by 12 per cent. last year, and the number of abandoned vehicles increased by 39 per cent. in two years. Unlike the present Government, we will take environmental crime seriously and we will start by making fly-tipping an arrestable offence.

    I now turn to what was not in the Queen’s Speech. There was a serious omission from the programme, which I hope the Minister will address: the absence of a marine conservation Bill. Will he explain the reason for that extraordinary omission? Is it, as many people fear, that his Department has simply been outgunned by the Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry? If so, it is another worrying sign that on environmental matters the Government are all talk and lack real commitment. The Bill is urgently needed and, if introduced, would have our support.

    I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall), who has worked tirelessly on that subject. His early-day motion 171 in the last Session attracted the support of about half the Members of the House. Both that early-day motion and his private Member’s Bill in 2001 enjoyed all-party backing, as well as the endorsement of many outside organisations, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the World Wildlife Fund, the wildlife trusts and the Marine Conservation Society. It also enjoyed endorsement from the Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs. The absence of any marine equivalent to the sites of special scientific interest, despite the fact that more than half our biodiversity is in the marine environment, is scandalous. Furthermore, a marine spatial planning framework would enable rational decisions to be made about the priorities to be attached in different places to development, nature conservation, fisheries and so on. The Government’s attitude to that Bill is a litmus test of whether they take environmental issues seriously. What the Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality says this afternoon will show whether the Government have passed or failed that test.

    I turn to a subject that did get a mention in the Queen’s Speech: climate change. I am pleased that the Prime Minister intends that to be a theme of both Britain’s chairmanship of the G8 and our presidency of the EU, but I should be much more pleased if he backed his fine words with a bit of action. On climate change, so far the Government have been all talk. Let us consider carbon dioxide emissions, on which Britain is committed to a reduction of 20 per cent. by 2010. Up to 1997, under the last Conservative Government, carbon dioxide emissions were falling; over the first six years of the Labour Government, they have risen. Unless there is an urgent policy change, Britain has no chance of meeting its targets for cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

    To make matters worse, the Prime Minister has failed to show the international leadership that Baroness Thatcher provided. When my noble Friend Baroness Thatcher was Prime Minister, she was the first Head of Government of any substantial country to take the issue of climate change seriously. The Prime Minister has failed, too, to use his unique relationship with President Bush to persuade the United States Administration to address the issue of climate change constructively. As Stephen Tindale of Greenpeace said recently:

    “The Prime Minister can no longer be given the benefit of the doubt. So far his record on climate change is almost entirely a record of fine words and no action. His repeated failure on this issue is undermining his diplomatic efforts . . . Fancy speeches are not enough.”

    Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth was equally forthright:

    “The leadership position of the country is jeopardised by the position at home.”

    He went on to say that

    “Britain’s credibility is essentially derived from the policy choices taken by the Conservatives in the 1980s.”

    His predecessor at Friends of the Earth, Charles Secrett, summed it up when he said:

    “Blair thinks he can get away with boosting his green credentials by making a big speech every year on climate change. When it comes to putting his own house in order it’s always business as usual.”

    In the transport sector, the Government’s efforts to encourage greener practices are pitiful. The Conservative party is looking at how we can encourage a much faster switch to more environmentally friendly vehicles. We have already advocated colour-coded licence disks so that the public can instantly recognise which vehicles are environmentally friendly and which are not. We are now examining how the tax system can be used much more extensively to encourage the purchase and the use of greener cars. We want Britain to be in the forefront of the trend, which is already under way, for hybrid vehicles that do not run at all times on fossil fuels.

    Aviation is the fastest growing single source of carbon-dioxide emissions in the transport sector. It is an area where international leadership is desperately required to move the world towards recognition of the need for an agreement on an aviation fuel tax—leadership which Britain could provide if we had a Government who took climate change seriously.

    Progress in curbing emissions from aircraft depends on international agreement, and sadly the Government have neglected this subject entirely. One step forward would be the inclusion of aviation within the EU emissions trading scheme. Why on earth are the Government giving the go-ahead for further expansion of runway capacity in south-east England before agreement has even been reached on a robust European emissions trading regime for aviation? The Department for Transport’s own survey in 2002 shows that only one person in eight is aware of the link between aviation and climate change. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has commented that

    “rapid growth in air transport is in fundamental contradiction to the Government’s . . . goal of sustainable development.”

    On this issue, the Government are not even all talk; they are no talk. Surely it would be a start if air travel documents contained information similar to that which now appears in car advertisements, disclosing the emissions that the relevant flights caused.

    Home energy efficiency is another crucial aspect of the solution to climate change, and it is another area where the Government’s approach has been lacklustre. The domestic sector accounts for a quarter of all UK carbon dioxide emissions, largely from heating homes and generating electricity for appliances. Households could cut their bills by one third through energy efficiency measures.

    Under pressure from the Conservative party and others, amendments to the recent Housing Bill, now the Housing Act 2004, have finally forced the present Government to accept a target for improving domestic energy efficiency equivalent to that set under the last Conservative Government. The next Conservative Government will make it easier for homes to be powered by clean, green, renewable energy and to save on energy consumption. Fiscal instruments can promote those aims, whether in the form of lower stamp duty for energy-efficient homes—an option that we are now examining—or through council tax concessions for tenants and owners who have invested to make their homes more energy efficient. The scheme pioneered by Centrica with Conservative-led Braintree district council, under which householders who install cavity wall insulation can claim a £100 council tax rebate, is a good model that could be replicated elsewhere. More could be done in the social housing sector too, where faster progress is needed to bring all social housing up to an energy-efficient rating of 65, to reduce fuel poverty and to comply with the law.

    Another area of Government neglect is micro-generation. To realise the enormous potential that that could make, changes to the distribution network would be needed, and discussions with the industry and with Ofgem about how to promote those changes should be underway now. The role that combined heat and power schemes can play has been well demonstrated in Woking, and it is disappointing that that model has not been more widely followed.

    That leads directly to the topic of renewable energy. The Government’s fixation, which I mentioned, with covering our countryside with onshore wind farms at the expense of encouraging other renewable energy technologies is undermining both our ability to raise the proportion of Britain’s energy derived from renewable sources and our chances of gaining a commercial advantage by leading the world in the development of offshore wind, wave and tidal power. Our island status gives us a big natural advantage, which Ministers are busy throwing away.

    Biofuels and biomass could also make a bigger contribution than they currently do, and at a time when farm output is likely to fall, biofuels could take up some of the slack. If that is to happen, more encouragement, whether in the form of a further duty cut or through a renewables transport fuel obligation, is needed. As usual from a Government who are all talk, nothing is happening.

    In conclusion, let me just say that the issues for which the Department for Transport and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are responsible affect every family and every business in the country. They affect Britain’s reputation abroad and the influence we can exercise, as well as our ability to attract new investment and to compete internationally. Sadly, the failure of Ministers, from the Prime Minister downwards, to tackle these challenges with the urgency needed is damaging our economy, our environment and the quality of life of every man, woman and child in the country.

    Instead of action, we have consultation. Instead of decisions, we have delay. Instead of leadership, we have posturing. This is a Government who are all talk, and they must be replaced at the earliest opportunity.

  • Tim Yeo – 2004 Speech on Patient Choice

    timyeo

    Below is the text of the speech by Tim Yeo made on 10th May 2004.

    I am delighted to have this chance to attend your Congress. Not just to speaking this session but also to meet many of you as I have been doing since I arrived in Harrogate. I have already had valuable discussions with Beverly Malone and I look forward to continuing those in coming weeks and months.

    Later this week we will recognise Nurses day. Today I would like to pay tribute to the tremendous work you carry out in the NHS, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and to express my appreciation of the huge contribution which nurses and all health professionals working in the NHS make to our society.

    I am well aware that over the past few years your job has got harder. Despite the increase in staff numbers which ministers so much like to trumpet, there are still too few nurses working in our hospitals.

    Equally important there are too few nurses working in our communities.

    As nurses you are caring for patients who have more complex illnesses than ever before.

    Alongside this you are expected to treat patients faster. There are fewer beds in the NHS today than there were a decade ago. Demand for these is high and great pressure is put on managers to move patients on so others can take their place.

    And as things stand, that pressure is going to increase.

    As a nation we are living longer. The number of pensioners has already overtaken the number of children in this country for the first time. It will be a major challenge to provide the next generation of elderly people with the services they require. All the more so as a result of 70,000 care home places lost since 1996.

    I am here today to give you a better understanding of what you can expect from the Conservatives.

    It’s just over six months since Michael Howard phoned me and asked me to take on my present role in the Shadow Cabinet. I was thrilled to be offered the chance to return to the health field, in which I have had a long standing interest.

    My last full time job before entering politics was as Chief Executive of The Spastics Society, now called Scope. The Society’s activities included the provision of long term care for adults with disabilities, short term respite care for both adults and children, and the sponsorship of medical research.

    I went on to start the successful campaign to keep open the Tadworth Court Children’s Hospital – the country branch of Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children – and became the first Chairman of the Trust set up to manage the hospital.

    After entering Parliament I became a member of the Health Select Committee and later one of my ministerial posts was at the Department of Health where I was responsible under Virginia Bottomley for social services, mental health and children.

    Inevitably that experience has shaped my perspective on the challenges we face now to sustain a world class National Health service.

    Let me make clear at the outset that the Conservative Party is totally and utterly committed to the founding principles of the National Health Service.

    We will maintain a service that provides care which is free to patients at the point of use. Which is available to everyone on the basis of need , not of ability to pay.

    That is Michael Howard’s view.

    That is my view.

    That will be the basis of our policy when we form a Government

    Our aim is to improve and strengthen the NHS, not to destroy it as some of our opponents try to claim.

    When we highlight some of the major problems, we are not talking the NHS down

    We know full well that much of what goes on in the health service is excellent. Every day thousands of people are satisfied with the care and treatment they receive. Genuine progress is being made in many areas, not least in cancer, most of it the result of tremendous hard work and dedication on the part of those who work at every level in the Health Service.

    But in our view these improvements are happening despite the system and not because of it.

    And the plain truth is that things are not as good as they should be

    If they were, why do over a quarter of a million NHS staff – 22% of the total- leave each year and have to be replaced at a annual cost of £1.5bn – before you take into account the cost of lost experience?

    While I welcome recent announcements on reductions in waiting lists, I still ask myself – Why is it that we should have to put up with health rationing in this country when for example in France the concept of a waiting list does not exist?

    And I share the public’s cynicism about statistics emerging from this Government . Average waiting times have not improved . We are all aware that data can be manipulated by delaying scans or access to consultants. More people are resorting to paying rather than waiting like the former fireman in Wiltshire who used his redundancy money for his wife to be treated privately when she was told she would have to wait 18 months for an hysterectomy.

    Whether you believe the spin or not, there is growing consensus that one consequence of Government focus on waiting lists is that the needs of the 17 million people with long term medical conditions have been neglected. Similar concerns exist over mental health.

    And the shocking report produced recently by the European Respiratory Society confirmed that Britain has one of the worst records on respiratory disease, with death rates twice the EU average.

    Not only is Britain lagging behind other countries. In some areas of public health, things have clearly got worse since 1997.

    Obesity rates in both adults and children are increasing. Rates of sexually transmitted infections are getting worse. Notifications of tuberculosis are up by over twenty per cent in the United Kingdom since 1999.

    And I know that it’s as worrying for nurses as it is for patients that on average, 13 people a day die from MRSA, caught in hospital.

    Figures published by the Health Protection Agency this Spring show that the number of people dying from the MRSA ‘hospital superbug’, has increased by 106 per cent since 1997 in England and Wales.

    Most people in the country will agree with The Chief Medical Officer who described the figures as ‘shocking and unacceptable’ .John Reid’s answer is to introduce some more bureaucrats and give nurses badges saying ‘ Ask me if I have washed my hands’.

    It’s time to get serious about the basics. I believe nurses in charge of wards should be given the authority to ensure that wards are clean, with the power to stop payments to cleaning companies if the job has not been done properly.

    I’ve drawn attention to these shortcomings not because I believe that all the news about the NHS is bad, but because to hear some of the claims made by Ministers, you’d think everything was perfect.

    Far from it. My diagnosis points to three failings.

    Yes, welcome new investment is going in but too much money is being wasted on layers of administration that don’t add value to patients.

    Secondly there has been too much interference from politicians in the running of the NHS. Too many initiatives driven by the needs of spin-doctors not patients. Too little trust in the competence and judgement of qualified professionals in the front line

    And thirdly as a result of that political inteference, a culture has grown up which too often seems to treat patients as statistics and the people we rely on to deliver care as just cogs in a vast bureaucatic machine.

    These are not failings of the professionals who work in the NHS but of the politicians who have got their priorities wrong.

    Let me illustrate some of these concerns

    I am concerned about waste because the more money that’s wasted, the less there is to recruit and retain permanent nurses and doctors. The less there is to support Agenda for Change.

    That’s why I’m horrified by the increased cost of the NHS Administration and Estates Staff in England from approximately £3 billion to £5 billion since 1997. A jump of almost two billion pounds in five years – all spent on bureaucracy.

    Over the last year the number of managers has increased at almost double the rate of nurses.

    And Department of Health administration costs have increased by £40 million since 1998.

    Then there’s the Modernisation Agency, introduced as a result of the NHS Plan, with a staff which grew to 760 in three years and consumed an annual budget of £230 million. It will soon cease to exist in its current form.

    What have these millions of pounds spent on bureaucracy delivered in terms of improved patient care?

    Last month a leaked ministerial document in the Sunday Times revealed that since 1997, Health productivity as measured by consultant episodes has actually fallen by 15%. Productivity may not be a useful measure for nursing, but the report, and the way the Government sought to conceal this information, suggests that something may be amiss.

    How did ministers respond? By asking that the basis of calculation be changed to make them look better.

    Which brings me on to my second concern , the level of political interference in the NHS .

    We did a consultation exercise last year. From the hundreds of letters we received from health professionals , one consistent message came through loud and clear.

    Leave us alone to do our job!

    I agree.

    It is time for politicians to stop trying to micromanage the NHS.

    With over 400 targets in Labour’s NHS plan ,we are in danger of forgetting what the Health Service is for.

    We know how this target culture takes up your time and the time of other professionals.

    We know how it distorts clinical priorities and demotivates staff.

    Last year, a House of Commons Committee heard evidence from Dr Richard Harrad of the Bristol Eye Hospital who explained that waiting time targets for new outpatient appointments at the Bristol Eye Hospital had been achieved at the expense of cancellation and delay of follow-up appointments. The result was that 25 patients went blind.

    And the chilling words from Ian Bogle, outgoing Chairman of the BMA Council who said,

    ‘The one memory that will linger long …. is the creeping, morale-sapping erosion of doctors’ clinical autonomy brought about by micro-management from Whitehall which has turned the NHS I hold so dear into the most centralised public service in the free world.

    He continued:‘We now have a healthcare system driven not by the needs of individual patients but by spreadsheets and tick boxes.

    What a damning indictment of the environment you are being asked to work in !

    Nothing is more important to the quality of patient experience than the role of nurses.

    But as a result of added bureaucracy and continued staff shortages, nurses still experience difficulty in finding sufficient time to attend to the needs of patients.

    Yes there are more nurses, but not as many as the Government would have us believe.

    Within some categories there are in fact fewer numbers of staff now than in 1997. For example the number of health visitors has decreased since Labour came to power, as has the number of district nurses working for the NHS.

    And the statistics, if not my eyes, tell me that nurses are getting older.

    According to an RCN study , 100,000 nurses are due to retire in the next 5 years .Combine that trend with the current 15% fall out of trained and student nurses each year , and it is clear that the Government is running hard to stand still on nurses numbers.

    It is typical of them to go for the quick fix. You know better than I how increasingly reliant we are on agency staff and on nurses from overseas, often from countries that cannot afford to lose them. These are unstable props on which to build for the future.

    Meanwhile this country continues to export qualified health professionals. Last year, for example, the number of nurses leaving the UK to work in the USA doubled.

    We need to show much greater urgency in addressing the reasons why nurses are leaving and why the Government has failed to persuade them to return to the NHS.

    Yes, I recognise there are real issues around pay and access to affordable housing.

    As with all professions, nurses need to feel that they have a career ladder to climb should they wish to do so. And this should not mean having to move away from patient care and into management. In this context I see Agenda for Change as a step in the right direction.

    We need to look creatively at ways to incentivise experienced nurses to defer their retirement plans whether it be through more flexible hours or financial rewards, linked to length of service.

    And we need to pay particular attention to how we encourage future generations into nursing. I particularly want to understand why so many students drop out of training. Is it because courses focus too much on the academic aspects of nursing rather than the practical elements? Or because nurses struggle to find convenient clinical placements to complete their training ? And when they do find such placements, are they being adequately supported and supervised? Or are the hours so inflexible that they can not accept them?

    And last but by no means least , we must address the workplace issues that frustrate what I am sure remains the core instinct of every nurse – the desire to give the best possible care to people who can’t help themselves.

    Too much form filling; too much inteference; confused layers of authority; insufficient resources to do the job.

    These are some of the responses I have received, but it’s not for me to tell you – its for you to tell me.

    So what difference would the Conservatives make? What can you expect from us?

    First, we recognise that the National Health Service has been subjected to continuous reform over the last few years and the last thing it needs is further root and branch upheaval.

    That is why our policies for the health service propose a change in approach rather than disruptive structural reform.

    Politicians talk too much about structures and about money. These issues are important but we must not lose sight of what matters to patients. Everyone would rather be healthy than be ill so Government’s first aim should always be to improve our prevention strategies, something that Ministers lose sight of if they become bogged down in trying to micro manage the NHS.

    And when people do become ill they want fast access to consistent , high quality care which treats them with dignity as individuals. This is what the people who pay for the NHS deserve .

    Our plans for helping the NHS deliver that on a more consistent basis reflect tough lessons learnt in the past – both in Government and opposition .

    They are built around three interdependent pillars.

    Firstly, we are committed to invest the money that will give you the tools to do the job.

    Secondly, we see our mission as taking the politics out of an NHS that has been a political football for too long.

    We are determined to free qualified professionals from the bureaucracy that too often gets between you and the patient who needs your help.

    Thirdly, we want to give those patients much greater say over where they are treated. With that power of choice we believe comes the power to get quicker treatment and to force improvement in the service they receive.

    Let me give you a clearer idea of what that means.

    Underlying our commitment to the NHS is the promise made by my colleague Oliver Letwin, Shadow Chancellor last February.

    In the first two years of the next Parliament a newly elected Conservative Government will match Labour’s spending on the NHS.

    This means that regardless of who wins the election, spending on the NHS will increase by broadly the same amount.

    So the debate is not about ‘ How much money? ‘ but ‘ How will you spend it?’

    And we are determined to spend it better , with much fewer layers of administration to divert money from the front line.

    Our mission to give hospitals much greater freedom means that many more decisions about investment will be taken locally by people who are closer to patient needs. Labour talk about this but will not deliver. The instinct of Gordon Brown’s Treasury is to control everything from the centre and drive improvement through national targets. I believe very strongly that this is wrong. The system was too centralised when I was a Minister twelve years ago. It’s far more centralised today.

    That has to change. It’s not the job of the Secretary of State to be Chief Executive of the NHS. It’s time instead that he and other politicians admitted the damage that results from incessant interference

    So we will scrap targets and star ratings. Standards will continue to be monitored by CHAI within a framework set by Government but Hospitals will become accountable to patients not bureaucrats.

    And the money will follow the patients. So that success will be rewarded and failure will not be tolerated for so long.

    And because we are determined to give patients more choice, we need to invest in making more capacity available to them . Critically that means a quantum leap in the number of qualified permanent doctors and nurses. We do not underestimate the challenge but know that we can go much further than Labour in stripping away the red tape and bureaucratic interference that is so damaging to job satisfaction. Indeed I know from my seven years as Chairman of the Tadworth Children’s hospital that when nurses and other professionals are set free from artificial external controls,job satisfaction and staff morale increase dramatically. The whole of my experience – in business and politics- convinces me that the more you trust professionals to do their job the better they will do it.

    That will be our way.

    Both Conservatives and Labour talk about extending choice. The difference lies in scope and commitment.

    Our programme of choice goes with the grain of Government initiatives to establish a national tariff and electronic patient records. But we intend to go further than them in extending choice. We have called our instrument of choice – the Patient’s Passport.

    Any patient requiring elective treatment will be able to use the passport. We intend the passport to be just as relevant to those with chronic conditions as it is for those who require hospital treatment. Of course the choice of pathways for someone with a chronic condition will be more complicated to map, and in some cases the framework of standards is not yet clear. So this is why we have already started our discussions with the relevant organisations on how best to translate our policy into action for those with chronic conditions.

    The passport will enable the patient, usually in consultation with a doctor or another professional, to decide where they go for treatment. That may still be their nearest hospital, but it could be another hospital where the waiting time is shorter, or which is more convenient for their family, or where clinical expertise is greater.

    Choice will be informed with information on waiting times, treatments and outcomes available to them and their advisers.

    But the choice will be theirs.

    Our proposals represent a comprehensive of programme of patient choice. This means that, for the first time NHS patients can choose to be treated in an alternative setting to the NHS.

    Should they decide to do so, our proposals will allow them to take a proportion of the NHS cost to assist them with the payment of their treatment elsewhere.

    Not only does this give patients more control over where they are treated, but it will also help those who elect to stay within the NHS by giving them faster access to NHS treatment. It is not about taking resources from the NHS. It is about taking pressure off the NHS.

    Labour can hardly criticise this aspect of our policy. After all they are now buying services from the private sector at an ever increasing rate

    Our choice agenda will cut waiting times because patients will have the right to go where the waiting list is shortest.

    Because the money goes with them , their right to choose will make providers of care more responsive to their needs.

    It will stimulate new provision both inside the NHS and outside. As long as we maintain a service that provides care to an acceptable standard , which is free to patients at the point of use, then we have no political obsession with who owns that capacity.

    But we are committed to help the NHS respond to this new environment.

    Through a massive programme of investment to make sure the resources are there .

    Through immediate withdrawal of politicians from day to day management of the NHS , giving qualified professionals the freedom to address patient needs.

    It boils down to where trust is best placed.

    After 7 years, it is clear that Labour places its trust in Whitehall.

    Our vision, born of experience, is different.

    Trust is best placed with patients and the people they trust. You.

    Our vision is to give Britain a truly National Health system in which every patient has access to any doctor and any hospital , and where doctors and nurses choose to stay because they are respected and given the freedom to deliver a standard of care that they are proud of.

  • Tim Yeo – 2000 Conservative Party Conference Speech

    timyeo

    Below is the text of the speech made by Tim Yeo at the Conservative Party Conference on 4th October 2000.

    This debate has shown which party is the true champion of the countryside.

    It’s shown that Labour’s claim that it represents rural Britain is utterly bogus.

    Last week John Prescott, the true voice of Labour, said supporters of the countryside had contorted faces.

    I suppose life looks different through the windows of two Jags.

    But John Prescott’ll soon find out that insults like that simply mean that rural Britain will make sure that after the next election he’ll be driving his own car and buying his own petrol.

    Maybe by then he’ll be backing Michael Portillo’s tax cuts.

    Let me introduce my team.

    Our spokesmen in both Houses. Jim Paice, Malcolm Moss and Hazel Byford.

    And our whips Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Arthur Luke.

    Last year Tony Blair set out his vision of the countryside.

    A giant theme park, a rural version of Labour’s Millennium Dome.

    Where the past is forgotten, traditions mean nothing, and the future is bleak.

    By contrast we believe in a living and working countryside.

    A countryside for all the people.

    For us the survival of farming is part of Believing in Britain.

    Without farming the rural economy will decline.

    Without farming our green and pleasant land will fall into decay.

    We will never let that happen.

    When I finish I want you all to come with me to our Country Fair, just outside the Conference Hall.

    To demonstrate our support for the countryside.

    Our belief in a sustainable agricultural industry.

    Because sustainability is the key to the future.

    As the world’s population grows, as living standards rise, how do we leave our children and grandchildren a better planet than the one we inherited?

    How do we stop using resources selfishly for ourselves alone?

    These are the questions we must answer.

    The questions Labour is ignoring.

    But before we can achieve our long-term vision short term problems must be tackled.

    And as speakers have pointed out this morning these problems have not just been neglected by Labour.

    They have been made worse by Labour.

    When nice Nick Brown took over from Junket Jack Cunningham there was a sigh of relief.

    Nice Mr Brown went round appearing to listen to farmers.

    The trouble is that’s all he did.

    At last week’s Labour conference he talked about shipbuilding.

    About coal mining.

    About the steel industry.

    But he didn’t once mention dairy farmers, or pig farmers.

    That’s why he isn’t fit to be Minster of Agriculture.

    He’s not nice Nick any longer.

    He’s Nasty Nick.

    And if the Cabinet were in Big Brother.

    Nasty Nick would be thrown out first.

    Unless of course Chatshow Charlie Kennedy was one of the other contestants.

    For him, and for the rest of Chatshow Charlie’s barmy army, the ones who were here in Bournemouth two weeks ago, politics is just another chatshow where the audience is bored with getting the same answer to every question.

    Whatever the question, Charlie’s answer is a tax increase.

    More tax on income.

    More tax on petrol.

    You name it, they’ll tax it.

    But let’s give credit where it’s due.

    The Lib Dems say they want to help the countryside.

    And they’ve certainly thought up some new ideas.

    Like getting rid of the Queen.

    Like promoting gay marriages.

    Like setting up an asteroid task force.

    They’re really in touch.

    So closely in touch their agriculture spokesman says, “overall it would be churlish to say [Nick Brown] hasn’t been pretty successful.”

    The truth is Nick Brown has been disastrous.

    Disastrous for dairy farmers whose income under Labour has fallen by 70 per cent.

    Disastrous for cereal farmers whose income under Labour has fallen by 75 per cent.

    Disastrous for pig farmers whose income under Labour has disappeared altogether.

    Last year sixty people left farming every day.

    Gordon Brown boasts of ending boom and bust.

    But in the countryside he’s started bust and bust.

    And all Nasty Nick offers is a sticking plaster for an industry that’s bleeding to death.

    To make matters worse they’re strangling farmers and small businesses with red tape.

    Burying them under a mountain of paperwork.

    Forcing small abattoirs to close.

    Applying regulations more toughly here than elsewhere.

    Regulations like a Nitrates Directive which hardly any other country enforces.

    An Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive, which was never intended to apply to farming at all.

    I give you this promise.

    When William Hague is Prime Minister and I am Minister of Agriculture we won’t enforce European rules any faster than France, than Spain, not even than Italy.

    And we’ll do our damnedest to stop any more needless regulation from being introduced in the first place.

    But it isn’t only Nick Brown’s actions which damage farmers, consumers and the countryside.

    It’s his inaction too.

    Take beef exports.

    Last year Labour claimed they’d ended the export ban.

    Even though they hadn’t ended their own ban on beef on the bone.

    France didn’t agree.

    They illegally blocked the export of safe British beef.

    In response Nick Brown did nothing.

    As the crisis got worse he stopped speaking to his French counterpart.

    At the Anglo French summit British beef wasn’t on the agenda or the menu.

    Instead of confronting France Nick Brown sat cringing in Whitehall.

    And today, fourteen months after Tony Blair boasted that the beef export ban was over, exports are less than one per cent of what they were.

    Is that what Tony means when he says, “by playing by the rules it is possible to win in Europe”?

    Sadly it isn’t only beef farmers Labour has betrayed.

    Pig farmers have also been condemned – often to bankruptcy.

    Pig farmers who rear their pigs more humanely than many farmers abroad; who pay for extra health measures because of BSE, a problem they did not cause.

    Labour doesn’t care how much bacon or ham or pork is imported from countries with lower health and animal welfare standards.

    Other farmers have suffered, too.

    Dairy farmers like Graham Bigwood, the Somerset tenant farmer, who is with us today.

    Two weeks ago I had a letter from Graham. He said:

    “We have now reached the sad stage of talking to the Crown Commissioners about our future. We are a year behind on our rent and our debts are steadily rising.

    “Yesterday I spoke to the Tenant Farmer’s Association who advised me to try and negotiate a package with the Crown to leave Binham Farm. For the last twenty five years I have worked for eighty plus hours a week in dairy and face financial ruin as a result of this crisis.”

    In March Graham invited me to his farm where I helped milk his cows at five in the morning.

    He invited Nick Brown, too.

    But Nick didn’t go.

    He didn’t want to talk about Tony Blair’s cave in last year on milk quotas or about how he smashed up Milk Marque.

    And Labour’s damaged other farmers too.

    Sheep farmers have been betrayed because Labour feeds the army South American mutton rather than good British lamb.

    Arable farmers, like those in Tony Blair’s own constituency, who I’m visiting next month, have been betrayed by Labour’s refusal to claim agri-monetary compensation.

    Hill farmers have been betrayed by Labour’s skewing of the rules to hurt the most vulnerable.

    Horticulture farmers are burdened with Labour’s bogus Energy Tax, which we will repeal.

    Fruit growers like one I visited in Kent who had to leave fields of fruit to rot because Labour won’t let him employ the people he needs to pick his crops.

    You’d think Tony Blair wants to put Britain’s farmers out of business.

    And if that’s the case Nasty Nick’s the right man for the job.

    It’s a scandal that Britain’s rural communities are being destroyed.

    And it’s a scandal that Labour is letting down consumers too.

    In March when Parliament debated a Conservative Bill requiring labels to say where food comes from and how it’s produced, a Labour Minister deliberately talked it out.

    Tony Blair is too scared of what Brussels might say if Britain stood up for honesty in food labelling even to let Parliament debate the subject.

    So consumers continue to buy food labelled British even if the ingredients were grown abroad.

    This is a fraud on consumers.

    A fraud which Labour refuse to stop.

    A fraud we will end.

    A fraud made worse because Nick Brown’s too weak to stop sub-standard food entering Britain.

    Like the poultry produced in the Far East using growth-promoting drugs banned in Europe on health grounds.

    Last year the European Commission found some French livestock was fed on human sewage.

    But when I demanded that British consumers should be protected Nick Brown did nothing.

    Is there a single person in this hall who believes that if it had been British farmers feeding their animals human sewage, Labour would not have cracked down?

    But when it’s a French farmer Nick Brown’s the farmer’s friend.

    The Minister who lets British consumers eat sub-standard food – as long as it’s produced abroad.

    The Minister who lets British farmers be destroyed by unfair competition.

    But it isn’t only farmers and consumers that Labour is betraying.

    It’s the environment, too.

    Labour’s shambolic handling of GM crop trials threatens the integrity of organic and conventional farmers alike.

    And they’re rushing ahead with commercial planting regardless of the effect on wildlife.

    In July I launched our policy document “A Fair Deal for Farmers”.

    At its heart is our belief that the job of farmers is producing high quality food for British consumers.

    As well as looking after our rural environment.

    “A Fair Deal for Farmers” is full of positive ideas.

    Common sense ideas.

    Deliverable ideas.

    A retirement scheme for tenant farmers, like those Philip Cochrane and I met two weeks ago in Stafford, the seat Philip will represent in the next Parliament.

    A common standard for organic food so consumers know that items labelled organic mean what they say wherever they come from.

    Planning guidance to make it easier to reuse old farm buildings for new small businesses.

    These policies will be introduced in the first months of the next Conservative government.

    Along with lower fuel taxes so country people can afford to use their cars.

    Honesty in labelling so mums and dads know what they’re giving the kids.

    Less red tape so farmers can get on with what they’re good at instead of filling in forms in triplicate.

    An end to substandard imports so we can trust all the food we eat.

    So competition is free and fair instead of being loaded against British producers.

    “A Fair Deal for Farmers” also sets out our commitment to sweeping reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, which has failed consumers, failed taxpayers, failed farmers, and failed the environment.

    Farm policy must move more towards the market.

    But it must also reflect the unique nature of the industry and its impact on the environment.

    If agriculture declines the fabric of our countryside is damaged, wildlife suffers, and the rural economy gets weaker.

    So I’ve got a message for Tony Blair.

    Instead of banning hunting he should be tackling the real issues.

    Instead of raising fuel taxes he should be helping rural business.

    Instead of building all over the green fields he should be protecting the environment.

    Instead of shutting down the post offices he should be breathing life into villages.

    Instead of stripping the countryside of policemen he should be tackling rural crime.

    Instead of introducing the right to roam he should be defending private property.

    But Labour have had their chance.

    And they’ve squandered it.

    And the last few weeks have shown voters know that too.

    The seeds of Tony Blair’s downfall have been sown in rural communities up and down the land.

    A winter crop which will yield a rich harvest.

    A harvest of new Conservative MPs.

    Who understand farming.

    Who care for the countryside.

    When the election comes rural Britain will deliver a damning verdict on Labour and its Liberal Democrat lackeys.

    Because they’re fed up with all the broken promises.

    Fed up with the arrogance and the lies and the spin.

    Fed up with a Government that says it’s listening but goes on lecturing.

    Fed up with Ministers who preach to us about the environment as they cruise in their chauffeur driven gas-guzzling limos.

    Fed up with the highest fuel taxes in Europe, with queues at the pumps and buses that are cancelled.

    Fed up with a Government that let’s terrorist murderers out of jail but wants to imprison people who go hunting.

    Fed up with the billions wasted on spin-doctors salaries and Dome bail outs while pennies are denied to disabled people and pensioners.

    Fed up with a Government that is soft on crime cuts the police force.

    Fed up with a Government that says taxes are going down when we all know they are going up.

    So whether it takes eighteen days, or eighteen weeks, or eighteen months.

    With your help this Conservative Opposition is going to drive Tony and his cronies out of Downing Street and save Britain’s countryside before it’s too late.

  • Tim Yeo – 1983 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    timyeo

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Tim Yeo in the House of Commons on 5th July 1983.

    I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for calling me to make my maiden speech on a subject which affects far more people than the obscure title of the order suggests and which has become controversial.

    I declare an interest as the director of the Spastics Society which is one of the charities that derives substantial revenue from a football pool that is operated under the Pool Competition Act 1971. I hope to remain employed by the society until the end of this year and thereafter to serve it in a voluntary role.

    Although my constituency is new, it comprises some of the oldest and most beautiful villages in East Anglia. About two thirds of my constituency formed part of the old Sudbury and Woodbridge constituency. I pay warm tribute to Mr. Keith Stainton, the former Member of Parliament for that constituency. He had a distinguished war record and served the constituency most conscientiously for almost 20 years. I can testify to the loyalty and respect that he commanded in the constituency.

    Suffolk, South is an area of sharp contrasts. The other one third, which was part of the old Bury St. Edmunds constituency, contains Haverhill, a town with a substantial GLC overspill population, and many rural villages. It is a reflection on the excellent work of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths), who supported me generously before and during the general election campaign with time and advice, that he is spoken of as highly on the GLC estates in Haverhill—where there is now a rapidly growing element of owner-occupation — as in the villages by people who are Suffolk born and bred.

    The Pool Competitions Act is an important measure for several of the leading charities. The Spastics Society, the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, the National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases, better known as Action Research for the Crippled Child, are the best known, and each derives substantial revenue from the pools that operate under the Act.

    Over the past 25 years, the Spastics Society has received almost £40 million from that source, making it the most important single source of revenue. Those who decry the operation of the football pools ignore the tremendous benefit that has been conferred not just on the charitable organisations, but on the thousands of families who have reason to be profoundly grateful for the income received by charities from the operation of the Spastics Society, football pool and other charity pools.

    The relative importance of the pools has declined. The Spastics Society football pools contributed 44 per cent. of total voluntary income in 1973–74 whereas the figure for 1982–83 was down to 6 per cent. However, £500,000 still comes to the society from the football pool. That is three times the amount received by direct grant from central Government.

    The society paid £483,000 last year in unrecoverable VAT. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will have the opportunity to remind his Treasury colleagues about the burden that VAT imposes on charities. The sum of £500,000 is a substantial one in charity terms. It is enough to pay for the whole of the Spastics Society’s social work service of 30 specialist workers assisting families in England and Wales. It is sufficient to cover, in running 33 centres for spastic adults, the difference between the cost and the fees received from local authorities. The money from the football pool is financing worthy activities.

    Apart from the income that the charities receive, there is another aspect of the football pools that has so far been overlooked this evening. They provide a means for 1.5 million people every year to make a small contribution to charity while at the same time enjoying, quite legitimately, a modest flutter with the possibility of sizeable, although not sensational, financial gain. Although it may be held that gambling is in one sense an undesirable activity, I do not believe that the participants in such football pools, by staking perhaps 15p or 20p a week, are endangering their family budget. The operation of the pools may mean that among the 1.5 million weekly subscribers are some who would not otherwise be aware of the charities that they are supporting and the work that those organisations are doing.

    There has been a general recognition for a number of years that the existing position, requiring the renewal of the order every year, is unsatisfactory not only for the Government and the House but for the operators of the pools who cannot make any long-term plans, and for the charities who are uncertain about the security of the income. Therefore, I welcome without reservation the statement by my right hon. Friend that the Act will be renewed annually throughout the life of the present Parliament. As we all know, this will run for a full five years. The Government have given the pool operators and the charities a longer period of secure operation than at any time since the original passage of the Pool Competitions Act 1971. For that reason I know that the charities will be grateful to my right hon. Friend for his assurance.

    My right hon. Friend will also know that extensive consultations have been held over the past few years with the Home Office, and the charity pool operators, and the charities were fully involved in those consultations. The charities and pool operators made clear their preference for new legislation that would permit the continued operation of charity pools on a permanent basis. If that is not possible, I hope that my right hon. Friend will hold discussions with all the parties involved to ensure that any damage to the charities’ incomes, following the ending of the present basis of pool operation, will be minimised.

    Bringing the present charity pools within the scope of the 1976 Act would be difficult to achieve without some adverse impact, but if it cannot be done. I hope that my right hon. Friend will argue even more strongly with his Treasury colleagues about value added tax.

    The Pool Competitions Act enshrines what seems to be an anomalous position, because it restricts the charity pools to a small number of specified operators. I stress that that restriction has been the wish of successive Governments since 1971. The charities concerned have no desire to be part of an exclusive group. At all times, the charities and pool operators have been at pains to stress that they would be happy for the Act to be amended to allow other charities to compete on an equal basis.

    When the matter was discussed in the past—the point was raised again this evening—concern was expressed about the expenses of pool operators. I stress, for the benefit of those who do not understand the nature of these pools, that the pool operators are commercial companies which are separate from the charities. The Spastics Society, for example, exercises no management control over the Spastics Society football pool, and has no legal responsibility for its administration.

    To some extent, I share the concern about the expense ratios. However, the circumstances of the pools have to be borne in mind, in particular the proportionate cost of running a football pool with a small weekly stake. It is 16p in the case of the Spastics Society football pool. The cost of running such a pool will inevitably be much higher than the cost of running a pool that has a weekly stake of, say, £1. Moreover, all subscribers should be aware how much of their stake — in the case of the Spastics Society football pool, it is 15 per cent. — goes to the charity, how much goes to the prize fund, and how much to expenses. Pool subscribers will also be aware that after the charitable donation has been deducted from their weekly stake, one third of what remains goes to the Customs and Excise in betting duty.

    The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) may have talked to a number of leading fund raisers during the past week, but he has not attempted to talk to me, or to my colleagues who are involved in fund raising, and whom I see in the Gallery. As I run one of the largest fundraising operations in the country, raising about £10 million a year from voluntary sources, it is a shame that the hon. Gentleman made no attempt to talk to me if there is as much concern about fund-raising methods and costs as there seems to be. We in the Spastics Society are perfectly happy with the present system of pool operations.

    I hope we shall find a way forward that does not damage the financial position of the charities over the longer term. The voluntary sector plays a major part in the life of our country, and unusually, it enjoys the support, both practical and philosophical, of most, if not all, sections of the community. The true size of voluntary organisations is not known precisely, although the Charities Aid Foundation is sponsoring research, the results of which will be available later. It is likely to show that in economic and financial terms the voluntary sector is a force to be reckoned with.

    The Government have expressed their enthusiasm for the voluntary sector on many occasions and have backed their words with deeds such as increasing direct Government grants and fiscal concessions in the form of covenants, legacies and relief from stamp duty. That has demonstrated tangibly the Government’s remarkable support for the activities of many leading charities. Bearing in mind that every pound of direct Government support is boosted by voluntary donations and that in addition to expenditure by voluntary charities considerable real value is obtained through the work of unpaid volunteers, there is a substantial multiplier effect at work, converting each pound of Government assistance into several pounds’ worth of activity.

    The voluntary sector is one of the most cost-effective areas for Government expenditure. With the severe limitations that will now exist, quite rightly, on both central and local government expenditure over the next few years, the significance of the voluntary sector is likely to grow.

    By giving his assurance, my right hon. Friend the Minister has given some short and medium-term help to the charities. But the long-term anxiety is perhaps now more pronounced. It is in the interests of the community for the House to approve legislation that allows some modest form of gambling to be promoted for the benefit of charity. By doing so, the voluntary sector, which we are all so anxious to encourage, would receive continuing benefits.