Tag: Tony Blair

Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, on the Teachers Green Paper on 19 January 1999.

NB – the original numbers have been lost from the transcript.

I am delighted to be with you this morning. Education is the government’s top priority. But we can’t achieve our goals without a first-class teaching profession – a profession which is capable, well-led and properly supported.We already have very many excellent teachers and headteachers. But we need more. And we need to make a fundamental change to the status of teachers in our society – putting them where they belong, on a par with doctors and other top professionals.For too long teachers have wrongly been regarded as second class professionals. This must change if we are to succeed in creating a world-class education service for the 21st century.That’s why we are investing an extra �bn in education over the next three years. And why we are devoting part of the money to supporting and improving the teaching profession.Our proposals are set out in the Teaching Green Paper published before Christmas. There has been a huge response from schools and individual teachers. It’s because I want to hear your views first-hand that I am here today for the first in a series of consultation meetings hosted by education Ministers and officials.Before Estelle Morris makes a brief presentation and we take your questions, let me make three points.First, what I call the big picture.A lot of attention has focussed on our proposals for teachers’ pay. This is obviously a crucial issue.But our plans need to be seen in the context of far wider proposals:

• A doubling of investment in school buildings over the next three years.
• A revolution in the provision of IT equipment, and training to see that teachers are confident in using it.
• A big increase in funding for training and back-up in schools, including more support staff and teaching assistants, freeing teachers to teach effectively.
• A range of programmes, spearheaded by the literacy and numeracy strategies in primary schools, to give teachers better support in their jobs.

Our proposals need to be seen as a whole. Greater financial rewards for teachers are just one element. It is taken together – not in isolation- that we believe that they will transform the status and working conditions of teachers. David Blunkett and I have never claimed that there is a single quick fix.Secondly, even in the area of pay, we aren’t only talking about rewards for individual performance. We recognise the importance of team working – and of rewards for successful team working.That’s why, as David Blunkett said, our plans include a new national fund of � million a year to reward all staff at schools which demonstrate excellent performance or significant improvement. Let me stress that we aren’t just talking about the top schools by raw results – but also schools which show the highest level of sustained improvement, whatever their starting point.Third, the question of individual rewards for performance. I know there are concerns, particularly about crude judgements based on exam results, and about comparability between schools.We take these concerns seriously. The Government will want to see appraisal recognise success in improving performance, whatever the starting point. Headteachers and line managers must play an important role in making judgements, as they already do on a host of other matters besides pay. But we will want to ensure proper national standards, with external assessors to ensure credibility and consistency.Let’s be clear why we are doing this. I want a situation where our best teachers – not just a small number at the top, but a large proportion of the profession – are better paid and better motivated. Where more of our best graduates choose teaching and rise faster through the profession. And where successful leadership is better rewarded – particularly headteachers who take on the toughest schools and turn them round.These are urgent national imperatives. Better incentives for performance are one, though only one, way of meeting them.

Teachers have everything to gain from these proposals. So do the parents and pupils who our schools exist to serve.

Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, on 15 January 1999.

NB – the original numbers have been lost from the transcript.

I am delighted to be with you this morning – to see at first hand the good progress you are making in your school and the wider community through your Education Action Zone. And to launch the second round of EAZs nationwide – which have a key role to play in equipping Britain with a world class education service for the 21st century.

I cannot repeat too often that education is this Government’s top priority.

It is central to everything we stand for – making our nation strong and competitive, enlarging opportunity, building successful families and responsible citizens, and eliminating social exclusion.

That’s why we have launched an unprecedented crusade to raise standards. Why we have set ambitious attainment targets for every level of education. Why we are modernising the teaching profession. Why we have launched the New Deal to improve school buildings – from which more than 2,000 schools have already benefited.

Above all, it’s why we took the tough choices needed to re-order government spending so that education could get an extra � billion over the next three years – the best deal education has ever got from the national budget.

This �bn is not a cost, but an investment in our country’s future. It is an investment tied to clear goals. To make good schools beacons of excellence. To turn poor and mediocre schools into good schools. To make children of all backgrounds enjoy learning and achieve their highest potential.

Education Action Zones are a key part of our new investment.

EAZs are local partnerships to raise standards. We don’t have a national blueprint – what matters is what works. We are keen to see EAZs pioneer new approaches to learning and achievement, for the benefit of their own communities and as an example to others.

I know you are taking that mission seriously here in Blackburn. And I congratulate everyone involved in the zone for their energy and commitment.

I have just seen how new ‘whiteboard’ technology – a giant interactive computer screen – can promote new links between teachers and pupils, schools and businesses, and between different schools. The pupils working with engineers from British Aerospace on designing new products are learning skills of real benefit to their future lives and careers.

This is only one of many projects in your EAZ. I was particularly interested to hear about your early intervention team to tackle barriers to learning on housing estates, working with a dedicated Youth Offending Team.

Breaking down barriers is one of our toughest challenges:

• Cultural barriers that make too many children think that success at school isn’t for them.
• Bureaucratic barriers between different state and local agencies which have a shared remit for the welfare of young people
• The barriers between the public and private sectors – between schools and employers, in particular.

Progress will only come from working together. Companies need successful schools in their area, and EAZs are an historic opportunity to play a part in forging them.

When people say ‘keep business out of schools’ I say: ‘the more support and involvement of the wider community – including business – in our schools, the better.’Schools and colleges should be working closely with employers to ensure that young people leave with the right skills and aspirations. The voluntary sector also has a larger role to play.

So I wish you every success as you take forward your EAZ in Blackburn.

Today we are inviting bids for the second round of EAZs. Our expectations are high. Let me emphasise three points.

First, we stand ready to make another significant investment. But we are looking for committed partnerships between schools, businesses and parent and community groups. By committed partnerships, I mean partnerships offering strong local leadership and clear goals.

Second, EAZs are about raising standards dramatically. They are not about innovation for its own sake, or for topping up budgets, but about projects closely targeted on raising achievement within a defined period, particularly in schools which need support over and above that which they are already receiving.

We therefore expect bids to pay attention to achievement targets agreed nationally and locally – not least our targets for raising attainment in English and maths at 11, for improving success rates across the board at GCSE, for cutting truancy and non-attendance, and for promoting participation post-16.

This is not an exclusive list, of course. Plenty of other areas merit attention – for example, projects to encourage very able and talented children to achieve their full potential.

We also expect that many bidders will wish to take forward proposals in the Teaching Green Paper to ensure the highest quality of teaching and leadership in our schools. We are looking for concrete proposals to raise standards – and evidence that they are likely to work.

Third, the role of Local Education Authorities. One of our key principles is that intervention in schools should be in inverse proportion to success. That includes intervention by both central government and by LEAs.

Within this framework, as David Blunkett said last week, we are keen to see modern and effective LEAs help weaker schools raise standards. LEAs which rise to this challenge have an important role to play – including a partnership role in Education Action Zones, as in Blackburn.

But we want LEAs to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Where this isn’t the case, we think it right that schools and other interested parties should be able to forge their own EAZ partnerships.

Partnership is the key. But partnership to modernise – not partnership to drift.

David Blunkett and I have always been clear about our intentions. New investment in our schools. A new voice for education at the heart of government. Bold measures such as EAZs to energise local communities.

But all for a purpose. To raise standards. To eliminate failure. To give us a world class education service, transforming the prospects of our young people.

I know you share that goal. We must work together to achieve it.

Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, at his monthly press conference. The press conference was held on 15 January 2004.

PRIME MINISTER:

Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to this monthly press conference and we are going to start with what will be a short presentation on tuition fees, but nonetheless I think it is worthwhile just going back through the arguments again and John here is going to cope with my lack of technological capability by taking you through the various slides.

Let me just set it out for you again. The purpose is to get a fair future for higher education, and we believe our reform package is better for all students because the up front fees – people won’t pay fees going through University, and there is a fair graduate repayment system, it’s better for poorer students because there is a new £3,000 a year support package for the poorest students, and it is better for Universities because they are going to see a big increase in their funding.

Now why is it necessary to do this? It is necessary because there’s been a 36% fall in funding per student in the 8 years prior to us coming to office, it is necessary because University places are being expanded. We are now at 43% of under-30’s in University, but that is projected to rise. There’s a misunderstanding here sometimes. People say we have set some sort of arbitrary target. The reason we have an aim of 50% is that it is actually projected that it will rise to 50% by 2010 in line with both rising school standards and employer demands, and it is necessary to make these changes also because even with this expansion we are still getting far too low participation rates from the poorest families.

Now this actually shows graphically why it is that we need change because what you will see is that the blue line is University funding, and you will see that that University funding, particularly after we came to office in 1997, has been rising so we have been putting more State money into Universities, but the pink line is the funding per student. That fell, as I say, dramatically before we came into office. All we have been able to do, because student numbers are still expanding, is to keep that static, but it is still significantly below where it was 15-20 years ago.

Now the student support. What are we doing here? Obviously first of all there is the fee deferral, so this is a completely different concept from tuition fees that a family has to find whilst their children are going through University. They won’t have to find that money at all now. No family will have to do that whilst going through University. We’ve also then made a higher repayment threshold for the loans, starting at £15,000 not £10,000 per year as now, and actually a more generous system as well, as I will come to in a moment. We are writing off the loans after 25 years, and the maintenance loans will be increased to cover average living costs, so that is a very significant package of student support that will help us widen access.

Now, for the poorest however there will be a £3,000 a year package for those studying the more expensive courses – half of it will be pure grant – and no student from a poorer background need take on extra loans. So how do we compare with the two proposals, if you like, or the two schemes. What happens now and what happens under the new system. Well first of all obviously under the new system there’s no payment up front and the effect is actually far better obviously because people don’t pay the fees on their way through University. Then secondly the writing off of the loans, at the moment for the maintenance loan, remember most students, about 80% of students, have got the full maintenance loan. I think the average is round about £10,000 of debt now, so it’s not as if this is an unknown concept, but that loan is only written off on reaching age 65 or death. Now it is going to be automatically both maintenance and fee loan written off after 25 years. This particularly means that for example if a woman goes to University but decides she wishes to stay at home to look after the children and decides not to go back to work again, then that is written off, and the effect obviously is a fairer system. And then finally there’s the grants for poorer students. This maintenance grant is being reintroduced in line actually with the original Dearing recommendations of some years ago and that of course is a substantial change. One substantial measure of support is that for the first time in years poorer students are actually going to get maintenance support, and that is at £1,500 a year, and together with the rest of the package, as I say, it is a support package of £3,000 in total.

And then what that then means is for student loans, the interest charge continues to be no real interest rate which is obviously very important, and the graduate contribution is a graduate contribution that is obviously over a longer period of time with better systems of repayment.

And then finally, if I could just show you two other things, that sets out the scheme for you where you see how much more beneficial it is the new scheme than the old scheme because for example under the existing scheme the maintenance loan that a student will pay off if they earn £20,000 a year after graduation they will be paying £17 a week at the moment, but under the new scheme combined fee and maintenance low will be round about half that, so it is far more generous to people in the early stages of their graduation when they may be earning less money.

QUESTION:

(Indistinct)

PRIME MINISTER:

Well of course you have to pay back the amount of the loan that is true, but what it means is that in the early stages of your work you’re actually better able to pay it off, and you’re not subject to the same financial pressures as when you will be paying off at the moment on £20,000 a year £17 a week.

Then the final thing which I think is an important point to make because this is all about in the end obviously this is a debate in the House of Commons and that is tremendously important. We have to get the Bill through, of course we do, but I think the other thing is that that is in part influenced by the debate in the country and I think this is both a very interesting and important set of figures because what it shows is what we actually invest in the education of our young people at each stage and what it shows is that in the early years we invest least, and we actually invest £5,300 a year for each University student, which we will continue to do, that’s the public money that goes into it, and that is actually more than we invest in Primary or Secondary education per child. Now the reason we put this up here is to say surely it is fair therefore if you are going to increase University funding, to ask for a balance back from the student after graduation because otherwise that set of figures that already means that we put a higher investment as taxpayers into University students than we do into Primary or Secondary schoolchildren, then that imbalance would be even greater. And that’s why I say in the end it is fair, particularly in circumstances where 80% of the taxpayers in this country have not been to University, that we do ask from graduates a bigger proportion of the investment back. It doesn’t mean to say that the government and the taxpayer is still not going to make a major investment in their education. We are going to do so, but we will balance the contribution so that it is not just from the general taxpayer, it is also from the University student.

One final point I would make as well, and that is that the interesting thing is if you look round the world today those countries that are making the biggest improvements in their higher education systems are ones with schemes similar to the one that we are proposing here. And that’s why I think this debate is important. It’s important for the future of the country because University education is of increasing importance. It is important to the reform of public services because we are showing how public services can be reformed in a modern progressive way for today’s world – not 30 or 40 years ago – and it’s important because in the end it allows us to put together the two essential concepts which is to meet future challenges in a way that is fair for all people, not simply a few, and for that reason I think whatever the difficulties in the coming weeks I believe that we will win this argument, but I believe that as each day passes it is more obvious how important it is that we do win this argument for the future of the country.

QUESTION:

Prime Minister, we are as you have just shown us into the detail of this argument now. So could you possibly tell us your own view about the idea of switching £1,200 towards the maintenance grant for poorer students from the discounted fees that the money is used for at the moment?

PRIME MINISTER:

You mean that you roll up more of the fee remission into maintenance grant?

QUESTION:

For poorer students you are able therefore to give them an extra £1,200 up front. It’s something Charles Clarke’s been talking about?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well I would express it in exactly the way Charles did when he did his package. We are now going to give a £3,000 per year support package to poorer students. As Charles rightly says however it may be that some of those students would prefer to take this money more in maintenance than in fee remission. Now he said that over time we will look at how we move to that. At the moment what we’ve got is a £1,500 maintenance grant for poorer students and then the rest of it in fee remission. But yes it is perfectly possible to move towards a different system in the future.

QUESTION:

You wouldn’t be against that yourself?

PRIME MINISTER:

No, no on the contrary I think there is everything to be said for it.

QUESTION:

Prime Minister, if the case that you’re setting out for a new system of University funding is as powerful as you say it is, why are so many of your own MPs refusing to accept it? Could it be that they are just being cussed, or could it be that they want to undermine your authority and get rid of you?

PRIME MINISTER:

It’s a big reform and these reforms are always difficult, and if you look back on the history of big social, economic, political reform in the past 20 or 30 years, they have always caused controversy because we’re asking people to think anew and there are two elements of argument against us at the moment. One is to say, look University education should be free and therefore the whole concept of fees is wrong. Now I believe it is not fair to put all the burden on the general taxpayer, and I think the country will understand that as you expand higher education places it is fair to ask for the graduate to make a contribution back into the system once they graduate, but we have got to win that argument. And the second argument is on the variability of the fee and there I think it is important to stress that to force all Universities to charge the same for every course and every University to be treated the same is just not either realistic or fair. There will be 2-year foundation courses that Universities will want to charge less for, than say a 3 or 4-year science or engineering degree, and I think that’s perfectly sensible. Or a law degree. And I think to encourage that diversity is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Now the battle is still there to win. It is true the argument is moving our way, but the battle is still there to win. We need to make sure that people understand that this is a genuine attempt to get a fair solution to a problem that is of huge importance to future prosperity in Britain. These reforms are always difficult, but it’s interesting, isn’t it, that when you see today the reports on specialist schools and how well specialist schools are doing, and two or three years ago I was told that they would be elitist, that they would end up with a system that would return to selective education. Actually what has happened is these specialist schools are making huge improvements in results, with mixed ability intake, because they are teaching in a different way and because the system is working better. Now, that reform argument today has been won. But two years it was highly controversial. And I believe the same will be here for University finance, but I don’t underestimate it, it’s always a difficult call.

QUESTION:

But what about the motivation of those who are opposing? Are some people fighting other arguments using this as a cloak?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think it is probably not wise for me to get into speculating about people’s motives and just try, whatever their motives are, to shift the vote the right way.

QUESTION:

On Andy’s point, just a point of detail, you talked about it in terms of the future this question of converting the remission into an up-front payment. Is it something that you would contemplate doing at the start of student loans, or do you see that much further down the track? And just going back to Robin’s point, do you now regret having made this such a confrontational argument, having put your authority on the line as you did at the last press conference, and in fact if you did lose the vote, would you feel you could continue to lead a Party that clearly didn’t want to go along with the kind of market reforms you have in mind?

PRIME MINISTER:

On the first point that Andy raised – and incidentally there has actually been some wrong speculation in the papers about what this involves this morning – actually this is precisely what Charles was talking about when he launched his package. When we could do it. I don’t know. I can’t be sure at this stage. But there is merit in at least giving people the option as to whether they want to take more in fee remission or more in maintenance grant.

QUESTION:

It is reported this morning that the Chancellor is against that because of the cost implications.

PRIME MINISTER:

I thought it actually reported the other way round, but I don’t know.

QUESTION:
Well which way round is it?

PRIME MINISTER:
Whatever way it is reported isn’t actually correct. It has not been a discussion between the Education Secretary and the Chancellor. This has been something that the Education Secretary actually set out right at the beginning. And what you find in this is a constant running sore about who is agreeing with who and who is disagreeing …..

QUESTION:
What is the position then?

PRIME MINISTER:

The record is exactly what I have just said which is that as Charles said when he announced the package we are at the moment doing this. We are splitting it up into some fee remission and some maintenance grant, though you can use the maintenance grant to put towards the fees, but as Charles said when he launched the package, there is merit in moving over time to a situation where you could take more of that in maintenance if that’s what you wanted, and it all depends on what you think is the problem for poorer students. Is it the fee, or is it the maintenance? Now, I have some sympathy with the view that actually it is the maintenance that the poorest student worries about. How am I going to pay my way through University, because after all the fee is deferred, and the repayment of the fee is not a function of the family income from which they came, but the income that they will earn after graduation. So I think there is merit in moving towards this. This has not been a bone of contention at all within government. Everybody wants to move in that direction but we need to work out …. not so much cost issues actually, it is work how you manage to do that, how you make that system work, and also how you do it without maybe taking the choice that some people may decide they would prefer to put that money into fee remission. Do you see what I mean.

Now, in relation to the other point. Why is this so important? You’ve got to take a decision as Prime Minister about what the purpose of being in government is, and the purpose of being in government is to take difficult decisions that you believe to be right in the interests of the country and to see them through, and the reason why I have put so much effort into University reform is that I genuinely believe in the future the only economic course for this country is to get a better and better educated workforce and we have to pay for that in a fair way, and whereas 6 or 7 years ago when I was elected and said education is the number one priority I meant, and everyone believed I meant, schools. If you talk about education today, you have also got to talk about adult skills, University education, and educating children even before they get to Primary school. And therefore this is part of trying to meet future challenges in a different way. And that’s why it’s important and I actually have a great confidence in this argument. I think the more the argument has gone on, the more people have seen that this is a bold reform, yes, but also an important one and a right one. And there’s no point in doing the job unless you carry these things through, and that’s why we will do it.

QUESTION:

Where would you go? You say there’s no point in doing the job if you can’t do these things. Would you go if the Party say we are not prepared to do it? We don’t share your view.

PRIME MINISTER:

I think I’ve often said that it is not intelligent really to speculate on what might happen, but I believe that we will win the vote. There’s a lot still to do mind you, but I believe that we will win it.

QUESTION:

What do you say today to Samantha Roberts, whose husband was killed serving in Iraq after he had been told to hand over his body armour, after he had complained that he was going into battle without the correct equipment? He believed, and she clearly believes, that British soldiers like her husband were going to fight in Iraq without the proper equipment. Is she right, and if she is, should Geoff Hoon resign?

PRIME MINISTER:
First of all let me express my sympathy and condolences to Mrs Roberts and to say to you I totally understand the concerns that she has expressed. As you will know, there is an inquiry being conducted now by the Ministry of Defence and I know that they are keeping Mrs Roberts closely in touch with the process of that inquiry, and of course they will with the outcome as well. And when we have all the facts before us then I think we can comment on it.

QUESTION:

I know that if I ask you about the substance of the Hutton Inquiry you will say wait for the report to be published.

PRIME MINISTER:

Or indeed the process.

QUESTION:

I think, if I may, there are some important questions on the process. The first is that the whole question what you said to us on the plane, bearing in mind that you are telling everyone else not to comment on the Hutton Inquiry until it is published, do you accept that in principle you were wrong to make that categorical denial on the plane, whether it was true or not? The second question is you said at a previous one of these news conferences that after the Hutton Inquiry was published that would be the opportunity then for us to question you on what it contained. Will you give us a guarantee that you will hold this next news conference within a week or the publication of the Hutton Report? And thirdly, the whole question of other people getting access to the Hutton Report under embargo. In the interests of equity, will you join in the various appeals being made to Lord Hutton to allow the press and the opposition limited pre-access to the report before it is published so that spin operations don’t dominate?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think it is important first of all that we wait for Lord Hutton’s Report and then people can make their judgments, not on the basis, to put it frankly, of speculation by parts of the media or party politics on any side, but actually on the basis of the facts that the judge finds. We should await the outcome of that. As for the process, I think that is entirely a matter for the judge and I am content to let him do that, and I think it is right that he does do it.

QUESTION:
Why is it different from Scott then?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well for the very reason that I have just given you, that I think the judge should be allowed to decide these things and we would be very happy to abide by whatever decisions he takes.

QUESTION:

But you objected the last time round.

PRIME MINISTER:

Well let’s wait and see what actually happens Adam before we criticise. I think the most important thing with this is to understand that we set up this inquiry, I actually set up the inquiry with an independent judge because I thought it was important that the public be given the facts, not speculation by this part of the media, or that part of the media, or as a game of party politics, but actually the facts, and I think he should be allowed to make his judgment and I am not going to comment further on it until he makes his judgment.

QUESTION:

If I can turn to another subject and ask for your views on the current status of European integration. Europe can’t agree on a constitution, Europe is split down the middle on Iraq, France and Germany are flouting budget limits, there is talk of a two speed Europe. What is going on? Has integration run out of steam?

PRIME MINISTER:

I don’t think that the process of European cooperation has run out of steam at all because Europe is expanding to 25 and there is still an awful lot that Europe can do, and you just had recently agreements reached on European defence that are very important. But there are tricky issues to resolve in respect of the constitution I don’t think it is any surprise that it is taking time to resolve. My own judgment about this is that of course we have to resolve these constitutional questions, but it is also important to have a forward political programme for Europe that demonstrates to the European citizen what Europe at its best should be about, which is better jobs, better economic performance, higher living standards, improved security for our citizens. And that is why part of the discussions that I will be having, not just with France and Germany but with others in the weeks to come will be focusing of course on how you resolve some of these outstanding constitutional issues, but also will focus on how we make Europe genuinely more relevant to the citizens of Europe, and that I think is the biggest task that we face.

QUESTION:

You say there is an agreement on European defence, but Germany has just planned to slash its defence budget.

PRIME MINISTER:

Well it is for countries to decide their defence budget, and we are increasing ours here, as you know. But I think there are two quite separate issues: one is the overall level of defence spending, but the other is frankly how efficient is the defence capability that we have for the money we spend in Europe, and even within existing defence spending there are many, many efficiencies that I think could be got into the system. Now without me commenting on German defence or anyone’s defence, but if you look around Europe and see the number of troops that are actually able to conduct and mount effective operations, certainly fighting operations, they would be a lot less, a lot fewer than the numbers in uniform. So I think there are issues there that are very important too.

QUESTION:

Returning to fees, Ron Dearing last week estimated that the funding gap between what is raised from general taxation and what the universities say they need has now risen to £11 billion. If I understand it correctly, and I think Charles Clarke accepted that figure, the new proposals will raise about £1 billion, where are the other £10 billion going to come from?

PRIME MINISTER:

You can argue about where the funding gap is going to be over the years to come as you expand student numbers, but what we can for a certainty say at this point is that universities under our proposals will be able to increase funding per student by about 30%, and you can see from the chart I put up earlier, that will be the first effective increasing in funding per student for many, many years. Now there is all sorts of speculation on funding shortfalls, there is an infrastructure backlog that has to be improved, but that can be done over time. The most important thing however is to get in place a system that allows the universities to know that they are going to be able to increase significantly the amount of funding available to students.

QUESTION:

And increase their fees, after the end of the next parliament …

PRIME MINISTER:

We have made two things very clear, James, on this. The first is that these fee levels are maintained for the next parliament; but secondly, and more important than anything else, that there will be no increase in fees without explicit parliamentary authorisation. So I think that is very, very important.

QUESTION:

Can I ask in the wake of the Kilroy affair, do you share the growing public concern about the erosion of freedom of speech? Is investigating Mr Kilroy Silk really a sensible use of police time? Is the government still wedded to the notion of a poll tax as the best way to fund the BBC, and does not such a funding system place a duty on the corporation to incorporate a wide array of views?

PRIME MINISTER:

Mark, would you like to answer that one on behalf of the BBC? Look I think it is important that obviously people take care in what they say, but it is important to have freedom of speech as well, and I think people can work out in their own minds what the balance of those things should be, and I think this is one controversy, if you don’t mind, that I will not enter into. And as for the BBC’s future, that is being looked at under the discussions of the BBC Charter and that will happen on the basis of what is good, not for the BBC simply, but for the public as well. So make what you will of that one.

QUESTION:

Will Gordon Brown make a good Prime Minister?

PRIME MINISTER:

For God’s sake, Nick. You have been sitting there thinking about this all the way through. I have been through these questions and those types of questions so many different times and I think at the moment if you will just let me get on with the job.

QUESTION:

Can I ask you one on tuition fees now?

PRIME MINISTER:

You can ask me one on tuition fees, Nick, as a reward for the ingenuity of your first question.

QUESTION:

I just wanted to give you a chance to give a better answer.

PRIME MINISTER:

Which I failed to take the opportunity of, but never mind.

QUESTION:

We will both go to the back of the class. You have just given once again a promise that the cap on tuition fees won’t be raised. Given people heard you promise that tuition fees wouldn’t be introduced at all when they read your manifesto, wouldn’t they be wise to be a little suspicious about that promise?

PRIME MINISTER:

First of all just let me make it clear, we will not have this new system in this parliament, this new system will be in the next parliament. Now I agree we are legislating to do it, but an election comes inbetween. And secondly, and this is very important to emphasise, what was being talked about was the idea of variable fees in the existing fees system. What we are introducing now is a graduate repayment system in place of university fees paid as you go through college. Now in any event the legislation will have in that legislation a clause expressly making it clear that raising fees has to be done by parliamentary approval, and that is why I think and hope and believe people will accept that.

QUESTION:

But MPs hearing you know that the people who persuaded you of the case for increasing fees simply don’t believe in this £3,000 cap. Every single one of them says it will have to be lifted and it will be lifted. So people will be deeply suspicious that in your heart you know it will have to be lifted too.

PRIME MINISTER:

No, because I think that what has happened is that we have introduced a system, it is not true that everyone has been saying to us you have got to lift the cap and have no cap at all. You look around the world today at the other systems I am comparing us with, in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, there are often caps in those countries too, I think I am right in saying that all of those three countries have a cap on it. And it is not true to say that all universities have told us to have no cap, some of them have been very, very specific they would want one. And what I am saying to you is that we have set this for the foreseeable future, and remember this system doesn’t even come into effect until after the next election, but it is also the case that we will be making it clear in the legislation that it needs explicit parliamentary approval, and I think and hope that that is enough for people. And the reason why it has been important to deal with this is because unless we give the universities some clear certainty about the system that is coming forward in years to come, they can’t plan for it, and in the end the important thing is to do the right thing for the country. And I hope people understand that the system we are putting forward is not simply “top-up fees”, it is a different system altogether, it has completely different elements from the system we have in place at the moment.

QUESTION:

But some of those potential rebels, and indeed some people who like the policy, say part of the problem is what is happening now. Two weeks away from the vote and you are intensively explaining it that concessions are being made, and they feel this was a policy dropped on them from Downing Street without going through the proper procedure. Do you think mistakes were made?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well you can always look at how you present these things better, although my experience of these difficult reform issues is that they always begin with a difficult context, and then you have to get into the argument, and then as the argument unfolds people start to get persuaded. And certainly the MPs I have talked to in the past few days are increasingly saying well actually now that we see the whole package we do understand that it is not a bad package, on the other hand we have said that we are going to vote against it, so they are looking for a way to get out of that situation. But it is very important as well to recognise, sometimes I read that we have made concessions to get this package through. We have made no concessions. The package of student support is right in its own interest and right, it is not right simply because it helps to get the package through. I think it is important that we reintroduce support for poorer students, and it is important that we relieve all families of the burden of finding money for university education as their children go through college. And the fact is if you are a middle income family, so you don’t qualify as a poorer family that gets the support, if you are a middle income family in middle Britain and you have got one, perhaps two children going through university at the same time, at the moment you are having to find over a three year period maybe £6,500 out of taxed income to get your child through university. That is a lot of money to people on incomes that are actually still …

QUESTION:

It was your decision originally, the upfront fees?

PRIME MINISTER:

Of course, I totally agree with that, and the fact is we would have been unable even to sustain universities in the position they are in unless we had taken that decision. That is why, remember how this all began, it didn’t begin under this government actually, it is a programme of change that has been going on for probably 15 – 20 years because people have recognised that more and more people will go to university, we first of all then had maintenance loans introduced by the previous government. Then you had before the 1997 election an understanding that universities were in dire trouble still, so Ron Dearing was then commissioned to do his report with cross-party support at the time. He came forward and said you are going to have to introduce tuition fees, and so we did and we were the government that did that. But I said straight after the last election, I said that one of the things that did impress me and worry me on the doorstep was people saying to me if you are from, you know not a poor income but a middle income family, it is a lot of money to find out of your taxed income to put your children through university. And that is where we came, not arising out of a few people in Downing Street, we came to the conclusion that we were best to move to a situation where you don’t have to pay any fees going through university but the graduate makes a repayment afterwards. And when you look round the world and see the countries doing best in higher education – Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States of America – this is the system, with variants, that they have got and that is why we have done it.

QUESTION:

You met with Mariano Rajoy on Tuesday and you told him that you were prepared to continue conversations about Gibraltar after if Party au Popular came back to victory. That has caused a lot of excitement in Spain because people understand that you are committed to restarting conversations that are “dead” since the summer of 2002. Can you confirm that please?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well they have never been dead at all. We have continued to discuss the issues relating to Gibraltar, it obviously forms part of the conversations I have had with President Aznar over the past few months. But it is important that we carry on – Britain and Spain – trying to reach agreements that of course in the end have to be subject to the consent of the people of Gibraltar, but it is important that we carry on trying to reach agreement on this issue because I think that relations between Britain and Spain are immensely important and we need to do everything we can to try and resolve this in a sensible way. And therefore what I said to Mr Rajoy is exactly what I have said to President Aznar, and that situation will continue.

QUESTION:

To return to the death of Sergeant Steve Roberts, looking back to this time last year when you were sending troops to fight in Iraq, did you know, or did Geoff Hoon know then that there were some of them facing problems they characterised as disgraceful over the kit? And now do you accept or agree with that that indeed those problems were, to use Sergeant Roberts’ words, disgraceful?

PRIME MINISTER:

We have to wait for this inquiry to report to the MOD because they are looking into the specific case. I know it is unsatisfactory in a sense to have to say this, but it nonetheless is really the only proper thing to do. And in a situation like this, particularly when someone has died in circumstances where there is this issue over whether they had the proper equipment or not, I would prefer to make a comment to you once we get the report back from the inquiry.

QUESTION:

Gerry Adams is saying this lunchtime that he believes the forthcoming review will end in a stalemate, and he is talking about the government taking the initiative and bringing about some other process outside the review to break the deadlock. Is that viable? And secondly, could I ask you, considering that we now know that Judge Corrie has recommended four inquiries into his findings, when do you intend to publish the Corrie Report and what sort of inquiry do you eventually envisage considering the considerable cost of the Bloody Sunday inquiry?

PRIME MINISTER:

On the issues to do with Corrie, we will publish it as soon as the outstanding legal issues are resolved and then we can make decisions about inquiries and the nature of them at that stage. In respect of the first point, well I hope everyone goes into the review with the idea of making it work. But let’s be quite clear what the two issues are going to be. The two issues are going to be: one, is it clear that on behalf of the Unionist majority there is a willingness in principle to share power and to work in the executive, together with all parties that are abiding by the Belfast Agreement; and two, in respect of the Republican Party – Sinn Fein – is there a clear understanding that we cannot have a situation where any party that is in government is associated with active paramilitary organisations. Now those are the two issues that the review has got to resolve, and I hope that rather than people predicting there is going to be a stalemate, that on the Unionist side they go in resolved to share power provided everyone is in accordance with the Good Friday agreement, and on the other side, the Sinn Fein side, a recognition that we do have to be clear that peaceful and democratic means is what is going to be used.

QUESTION:

It is 13 months since your speech in Belfast at the Harbour Commission and we are still waiting on these acts of completion.

PRIME MINISTER:

Yes, exactly.

QUESTION:

How long? Do you go ahead without Sinn Fein? It is hard. The Irish government are saying that they wouldn’t have Sinn Fein in government at the moment because of paramilitary activity. Is it fair, for example, they ask the DUP to go into government, into executive with Sinn Fein in the same circumstances?

PRIME MINISTER:

That is precisely the reason, the reason why we have been in this position for the past 15 months is because we haven’t had the acts of completion. And the reason why the executive was not up and running at the time of the Assembly elections is because it was impossible to satisfy, not just Unionism I have to say but a broader swathe of opinion than that, that all paramilitary organisation and activity had ceased. And we cannot have a situation where people are expected to sit in government with political parties attached to active paramilitary organisations. When people say to me, well you said people wouldn’t be in government if they were linked to active paramilitary organisations, that is precisely the reason we have not had a functioning devolved government in Northern Ireland, because we have not been satisfied about that. Now on the other hand I do believe that the Sinn Fein leadership are committed to making this process work, I do believe they have come a very, very long way, but we have got to have no ambiguity about it. What I said 15 months ago I repeat now, there was a time when ambiguity in Northern Ireland was our friend, a necessary friend. It is now the enemy, an opponent of this process working. It has got to be clear, you cannot expect after five and a half years of the Good Friday agreement, you cannot expect people to sit down in government unless they are all playing by the same rules, and there is no way round that.

QUESTION:

To return to Europe for a moment, what is your reaction to Bertie Ahern when he says that any understanding on parts of the deal reached between EU leaders before the constitution talks collapsed in Brussels last December, any understanding that you had of a deal is now irrelevant and that all those so-called red line issues, like foreign policy, taxation and defence, that you thought you had some agreement on, will go back into the melting pot if the Irish EU Presidency can get the talks going again?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think people are making a little bit more of this than need be. It is a statement of fact, as we said at the time, that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. But on the other hand, the fact that there was a summing up by the previous Presidency that indicated that areas like foreign policy, and tax and defence should remain intergovernmental, unanimous, I think is very persuasive and obviously our position remains the same. And I would be quite surprised if the broad understanding that we had before was overturned. But of course the Irish Presidency is absolutely right, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and the negotiation has to be agreed on all points and I wouldn’t expect them to say anything different from that.

QUESTION:

Could I take you back to the case of Sergeant Roberts and the inquiry, I know there is an inquiry. What his widow, Samantha, wants to know is a guarantee from you that this inquiry will be genuinely thorough-going, that if it finds that there were severe equipment shortages then there will be resignations at a high level. And isn’t there frankly already enough evidence to offer her not just your sympathy but an apology as well?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think really what I would say is this, that an inquiry has been appointed to look into this case. I am sure it is going to be a thorough inquiry and it is really for them to say what has happened and to apportion blame out of it. And it is a question of wanting to wait until we have that before I start not simply prejudging it, but maybe saying things that the inquiry says aren’t actually the case. So I think it is best that we do it in the way I have described, really.

QUESTION:

Yesterday at Prime Minister’s Questions you trumpeted the latest fall in national levels of unemployment, when at the same time regional unemployment in the north east has risen yet again, and today we have had confirmation by Samsung on Teeside, that it is to close its plant with a loss of 425 jobs. What is your reaction to the Samsung decision and the wider problems facing manufacturing in regions like the north east?

PRIME MINISTER:

First of all, Gerry, I deeply regret the loss of jobs at Samsung, this will have an impact on my constituency and others in the area, and Samsung employment was good employment, skilled employment, and we can badly afford to lose it. What I would say is, as we did when Fujitsu closed some years ago, we will work with the company and with the employees concerned to make sure that they will get other job opportunities. And I am pleased to say that Fujitsu a few years ago, and actually to an extent in Siemens, that was achieved, and that this a part I am afraid of the world economy in which we live. We are lucky that in this country we have some I think 130 Korean companies operating, we have a third of all European Union investment, Korean European Union investment here in Britain, but there will be occasions when companies will close plants. The only honest way of spelling this out to people is that we remain ready then to help them get new jobs, but this is part of a series of changes happening in the economy the world over. And it is true that there has been I think a rise in the claimant count in the north east, but overall unemployment is way down from where it was a few years ago, and I think as the economy picks back up again, and there are significant signs that it is, then the outlook will be better.

QUESTION:

Scottish universities are increasingly concerned that your plans for England and Wales are going to have a detrimental effect on Scottish education, and today Peter Hain, your Cabinet colleague, has said that devolution is detrimental to the Scottish economy. Have you abdicated all responsibility for Scotland, and if not what are you doing to address the concerns of the universities in Scotland, the economy in Scotland and people in Scotland that actually voted for you as their Prime Minister?

PRIME MINISTER:

They also voted for devolution, Catherine, and people in Scotland wanted devolution, and it is important that we maintain devolution. Actually the Scottish economy has done extremely well over the past few years and there are problems there as there are in any other part of the UK, but I certainly wouldn’t want to disturb the devolution settlement, on the contrary I think what has happened with devolution is that whereas in 1997 we were warned that would lead to the break-up of the UK, the opposite has happened, nationalism is on the defensive and actually devolution on the whole has worked well. There will be an impact of course. University finance is an area where there is bound to be an impact between what happens in Scotland and what happens in England, and it is an interesting reflection actually of in a sense the generosity of the package that we are putting forward for universities here that people, whereas a few years ago were saying well the Scottish system was better than the English system, those arguments are turning round. But I think in the end devolution works precisely because there is an element of diversity there and I don’t think that is a bad thing at all and I wouldn’t want to disturb it.

QUESTION:

Having just come back from Israel, there is incredulity in Israel at the fact that the Syrians have yet to recognise the new changed order in the Middle East. I know the British government, amongst others, have been attempting to persuade the Syrian government to face new realities, but there is still sponsorship of terrorism within Israel itself, there is still a flow of weaponry going through from Iran to Israel to the terrorist groups, and there are the overtures which have been made by Israel in recent days to renew the peace process. Nothing has been done, what can be done?

PRIME MINISTER:

The only thing that can be done is to restart the process, but after key security steps are taken to limit terrorism insofar as it is possible to do so, and to have a sufficiently robust security plan for the Palestinian authority that will allow not just Israel but the outside world to judge that every effort is being made to suppress terrorism. But as you know, I have been critical of certain aspects of Israeli policy, but I do honestly believe that it is impossible to get this process restarted unless there is a credible security plan that allows people to believe genuinely that every attempt is being made to stop the support of terrorism, the flow of terrorists into either the Palestinian Authority or into Israel, and to give a clear message that terrorism is the enemy of progress for the Palestinian people. And that is just so obvious, and what you see right round the world at the moment is that I think there was an argument that terrorists mounted that used to have some support within certain sections of the community, it is not one I ever agreed with myself, but terrorists used to say look without the terrorism people will never listen to our argument. There was something of that that used to go on in Northern Ireland too. In today’s world, particularly post-11September, terrorism is the obstacle to political progress, and it is the obstacle to political progress whether it is in Northern Ireland, or it is in the Middle East, or it is out in Kashmir, or it’s in Chechnya, or it is any of the difficult trouble-spots of the world. And that is why, you ask what can be done, the only thing that can be done is get a sufficiently robust security plan under way that allows people to say not that all terrorism is going to stop, but that everything possible is being done to stop it and that states that have got an ambivalent attitude towards sponsoring terrorism are states that are way out of line with the rest of the international order.

QUESTION:

What about the Syrian dimension though?

PRIME MINISTER:

It is important, as we have always said, that Syria understands its international responsibilities and keeps to them.

QUESTION:

The government set a target four years ago in GCSE results that no school should be spending more than 1 in 5 of its pupils out into the world with fewer than 5 good GCSEs. The tables of results published today suggest that there are still 135 schools in that position and that the target looks now likely to be missed. Is it a mistake to be setting targets that then get missed? And isn’t it a case that tens of thousands of children particularly in inner cities in inner London are being let down by schools with low standards?

PRIME MINISTER:

It is not a mistake to set targets. I think it is entirely sensible to set targets. I hope we will meet these targets incidentally. But without setting targets I think it would be a lot harder to raise standards. Now you have got to have not too many of them, they have got to be sensibly worked out in line with people in the particular professions operating in a particular area. But let’s be quite clear about this, there has been in London significant improvement in some of the worst schools. If you look at London’s secondary schools there has been very substantial improvement in many of those schools, but we need to do far more. But I don’t apologise for setting targets, I think it is important because they keep the system up to the mark and they make people focus on raising standards. And you know sometimes people say well it is a scandal, you have got 25% of 11 year olds in this country who still don’t pass their literacy and numeracy tests. I agree, we have got to get those figures down, but when we came to office it was almost 50% that didn’t. And the numbers of failing schools have been round about halved. Now I think as we develop specialist schools and the city academies which will be very, very important in London and are already massively over-subscribed, we will get to the right set of reforms and changes along with the investment that will make a difference. But I think we have got to carry on very much focusing on raising standards and I think that if you look at today’s secondary school tables, yes we have got very challenging targets to meet, but what is beyond doubt is that there is improvement now happening year on year and the fastest improvement has been with some of the schools that were the worst performers a few years ago.

QUESTION:

Your government has been silent as the pound hit a 12 year high against the dollar. Do you share the concerns of the German Chancellor and the French Prime Minister that the strength of the euro, the weakness of the dollar, is going to hurt industry and the economy here in Europe? Or are you in the Alan Greenspan camp expressing optimism that it will be no problem?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well I am certainly in the camp that says that so far as Prime Ministers speculating on the levels of the currency, it never seems to be a great idea. And I think in the end the most important economic issue – this is not the answer you really want from me, but the answer I will give – I think the most important economic issue for us here in Europe is economic reform, to be honest, and I think the currency will vary according to market perceptions, but the most important thing for us to do as a group of countries in Europe is to concentrate on becoming highly competitive vis the outside world, and that means taking seriously economic reform.

QUESTION:

I want to ask you about the Delivery Summit tomorrow, no doubt an opportunity for you to give some lovely more powerpoint presentations. Which area of delivery are you personally most disappointed by? I don’t think the Transport Secretary is going, is he?

PRIME MINISTER:

The Transport Secretary I will be seeing next week, and this is an opportunity for us to review the plans that are being drawn up by departments for the forward programme. Obviously the problems of transport are clear, which are partly to do with the aftermath of rail privatisation, under-investment in the infrastructure, and to do with the fact that all that has happened at the same time as you have had a massive increase in usage. So the transport problems are very particular and of course we would have wanted more progress, but there have been very particular reasons for the difficulties there. In respect of the other areas, I do say to you we now have a situation where in the National Health Service there is not a single national indicator that is not in a better place than in 1997. Cancer and cardiac services are probably the fastest improving in Europe with cancer deaths down by 9% and cardiac by almost 20%. We have in our school system, as you see from today, specialist schools but also schools generally performing far better than they did 7 years ago, and crime according to the British Crime Survey is down, not up. Now that is not to say there aren’t still big problems, but I think there are also big changes happening. And I will just tell you I had a meeting on the criminal justice system the other day when several of the practitioners were telling me that for the first time in years they actually felt the system was starting to work together properly. And so I think there is a long way to go, but we are further ahead than sometimes we are given credit for.

QUESTION:

I asked you which ones you were personally disappointed by, not …

PRIME MINISTER:

I know you did, and I answered about transport first, didn’t I, and explained the reasons why there wasn’t as much progress as we would like to see. But I think in the interests of balance and fairness, whether you would like me to or not, I would also like to say that there are areas where we have made significant progress too, and actually there are areas of transport where that is the case. The Channel Tunnel rail link is one very obvious example.

QUESTION:

Almost 600 pensioners in Devon and Cornwall are refusing to pay council tax because of the levels, they say it is too high. They could well be demonstrating on Saturday. What is your message and how concerned are you about this grass roots revolt in the south-west?

PRIME MINISTER:

We are concerned about levels of council tax last year. The average rise was about 13% and it is difficult to justify that in circumstances where government is actually increasing its support centrally to local government. This year we have made available even more cash and we have lifted some of the ring fencing, which should make it easier for local authorities, and there really is no justification for high council tax rises, absolutely no justification at all. Now in the end central government doesn’t set the council tax, but we have made it clear we are prepared to use capping powers if necessary if there are unreasonably high levels, and I hope that local authorities, given more money from central government, will listen to the concerns of pensioners and others, and I do understand the problem that you have if you are a pensioner and a big rise in council tax takes away the rise in your basic state pension. I understand that, it is precisely for that reason, because we listened to that, that we took the measures that we did.

QUESTION:

I would like to ask two questions. The Syrian President called last month for starting again negotiation with Israel, and now the Israelis are calling for the same thing. However at the same time the government of Sharon announced something very provocative, which is the expansion of Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights which is going to be a big problem. What do you think of this issue? And the second one is about the British soldiers in southern Iraq, they have been a model for taking care of the security issues there, but lately they have been reacting quite a little bit more like the Americans in the Sunni triangle. Are there changes in the rules of engagement in that area?

PRIME MINISTER:

No, there are no changes at all, but it is important that the troops keep order. And I would just emphasise to you that the demonstrators are a small minority of the local Iraqi population. Now they now have the freedom to demonstrate, they never had it under Saddam but they have got it now, but from my experience in Basra a few days ago, I can assure you I think there are very significant improvements to the living standards of Iraqi people down in the south. Where there are particular issues that people are worried about, we have to take care of them, but in the meantime it is important that we do keep order. And I was just hearing a report this morning actually that Jack Straw gave to Cabinet that a lot of local Iraqis feel very strongly that the British troops should maintain order and that people of course can demonstrate that that does not mean to say those demonstrations, if they become violent, should not be properly dealt with, and I think you will find that that is probably supported by most of the Iraqi people down in the south. And certainly I can tell you that all the Iraqis that I spoke to when I was in the southern part of Iraq were fully behind the efforts to rebuild their country, they want us to go as soon as it is right and safe to do so, so that they run their own country, they want to run their own country, but we are going to make sure they get the chance to do that with some stability and prosperity and democracy. In respect of the first thing, I think the only thing I would say to you about this is that obviously I would welcome any attempt to restart negotiations in any of the tracks of the peace process, but I think it is better if you allow me to let the parties try and resolve their differences without entering into that particular argument.

Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair to Trimdon Labour Club in 2009.

When I was Prime Minister I was known as an optimist. I still am. I’m optimistic about Britain, its future and the opportunities the world holds for us. Provided we take the right decisions, imbued with the right attitude of mind.

Strange as it might seem, the financial crisis does not diminish this optimism. The way we are coming through the crisis instead reinforces it. We are not out of the woods yet; but we are on the path out.

This did not happen by chance; but by choice. Think back 18 months, think back to the collapse of September 2008, and where the world was. It was poised on the brink of catastrophe. The prediction indeed of many – economists, commentators, even at least in private, leaders, was that we were doomed to repeat the collapse of the 1930’s. The spectre of prolonged recession stalked the corridors of economic and political power.

Britain, like all other major nations, was hit hard by the crisis. In a deluge such as this, no one escapes. But now, March 2010, Britain has just had a Budget signalling a return to growth, a slow, difficult recovery, but a recovery nonetheless. The world economy is now similarly poised: not for catastrophe but for recuperation. It will mean here and elsewhere adjustments, tough action on deficits, changes in the way both public and private sectors work. All round the globe, in Cabinets, in boardrooms, at work places such a debate is happening about how best to proceed. We cannot understate the pain some people have gone through as a consequence of the global crisis or the insecurity they now face. For many young people and equally young families or people whose livelihoods have been badly hit, the anxiety has not abated, it continues. What we can say is compared to the fear of what might have been, we have emerged better than virtually any predicted. Hard decisions l ie ahead undoubtedly. But though the sea is still rough, the storm has subsided.

This is for a simple reason, both in respect of Britain and of the world. The right decisions at the outset of the crisis were taken. Governments were mobilised, the financial sector put on emergency support, demand stimulated and most of all, there was an immediate recognition that decisive action was necessary and urgent. At the moment of peril the world acted. Britain acted. The decision to act, required experience, judgement and boldness. It required leadership. Gordon Brown supplied it.

Since then, Gordon and Alistair Darling have been striving to keep the country moving, capable of meeting not just future challenges, but seizing future opportunities.

The issue for the future is very clear: how does Britain emerge from the financial crisis; how do we compete in the new markets; how do we re-energise our dynamism, enterprise and sense of possibility?

This is not just about policy, but about mindset. Who “gets” the future? That’s always the political question. Who understands the way the world is changing and can be comfortable in it? Who sees the excitement where others see the fear?

The New Industries, New Jobs paper from Peter Mandelson, for me, correctly identifies both challenge and opportunity. It is the right judicious mix of Government and market, reserving for the first the role only it can play, and giving the second the help it needs to prosper. It represents a vision of how Britain can do well and how individuals and families can do better. It’s a platform for the hope of prosperity to come.

So now our country has to debate the direction for our future. It’s a big thing for Labour to win a 4th term. Remember prior to 1997 Labour had never won two successive full terms. Now we have won three. So it’s a big moment for the Party; but of course, most of all, it is a momentous decision for the country.

The tough thing about being in government, especially as time marches on, is that the disappointments accumulate, the public becomes less inclined to give the benefit of the doubt, the call for a time to change becomes easier to make, prospect of change becomes more attractive. But as I always used to say when some in our ranks urged a mantra of “time for a change” in 1997, it is the most vacuous slogan in politics.

“Time for a Change” begs the question: change to what exactly? And the reason an election that seemed certain to some in its outcome, is now in sharp contention, lies precisely in that question.

As the issue has ceased to be “what makes me angry about the government”, and has focused instead on “if I get change, what change exactly am I getting”, so the race has narrowed. Because that is not a question readily or coherently answered; and in so far as it can be answered, gives as much cause for anxiety as for reassurance.

On some issues like racial equality the Conservatives have left behind the prejudices of the past. I welcome that.

But when it comes to the big policy issues, there is a puzzle, that has turned into a problem that has now become a long hard pause for thought: Where are they centred?

Is there a core? Think of all the phrases you associate with their leadership and the phrase “you know where you are with them” is about the last description you would think of. They seem like they haven’t made up their mind about where they stand; and so the British public finds it hard to make up its mind about where it stands. In uncertain times, there is a lot to be said for certain leadership.

What happens after a long period of one party in Government, is this: the flipside of change being attractive, is that the public put a question mark over the Party seeking to be the change. It is not a cynical question mark. It is not loaded. It’s just a simple inquiry: what is it that I am getting?

Prior to 1997, Gordon and I were acutely conscious of this. We sought to answer the question by saying, again, then again, then further again, that we were a new and different progressive force, that we would combine ambition and compassion, that we understood why Labour had been rejected and we had learnt. Even when we were 20 points ahead in the polls and some of my colleagues would say “oh come on, Tony, ease off now” I would say: no it is at the very moment when we are ahead, that we reinforce and repeat the message that our agenda is different from the past and we reassert New Labour.

However, more than that, we had worked out a set of positions – not always defined policy but positions – that were clear and mutually coherent. We advocated a New Labour policy on the economy and also on law and order; we aimed to be as forward-looking on defence as on public services. We were New Labour throughout. It was a philosophical concept woven across the whole fabric of the case we were putting to the people. We re-wrote the Party constitution; changed policy on education, Northern Ireland, trade union law, crime. There was no compromise with the essential manifesto of New Labour. This was for a straightforward reason: we believed in it. We wanted to define not only our case for government but the way we would govern.

So over time, the question mark faded and was answered. The question mark over the Tories has gone into bolder print. It has grown not faded. They look like they’re either the old Tory Party, but want to hide it; or they’re not certain which way to go. But either is not good news.

On Europe, they’ve gone right when they should have gone centre. On law and order, they’ve gone liberal when actually they should have stuck with a traditional Conservative position; and on the economy, they seem to be buffeted this way and that, depending less on where they think the country should be, than on where they think public opinion might be.

The Europe policy is really not trivial. It is bad enough to end up trying to form an alternative far right group to the mainstream Conservatives like Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. That really isn’t smart. Of course those leaders will work with whichever Party is elected; but forfeiting goodwill in such a spectacular fashion won’t be a great beginning. Withdrawing from the Social Chapter will expend vast amounts of political energy and capital. It is a truly regressive step and for what? The feeling I get is that this is all a sop to the Tory Party. But that’s worrying at two levels. The issue is too important to be a sop, so that’s not good judgement and if it is a sop, what does that say about the Tory Party? Either way, Britain will pay the price, as it did before 1997. And by the way, no Party has won an election in Britain on an avowedly anti Europe platform since we joined the Common Market in the 1970’s.

On law and order the Tories have opposed the stronger anti-terrorism measures and much of the anti-social behaviour agenda. They even want to restrict the use of the DNA database. This employs the advanced technology of DNA tracking and matching, to provide incontrovertible evidence of guilt or innocence. Its use so far has resulted in extraordinary breakthroughs. Old crimes, whose victims or their families never received justice, can be solved and perpetrators brought to book. Innocent people have been freed. As the database builds up, it becomes an invaluable crime fighting tool. In time, it will also be a fierce deterrent, since criminals particularly murderers, rapists and those who commit violent assault, will know they run a big risk of detection. It is an absolutely sensible use of modern technology. It can actually help prevent abuses of civil liberties. Yet the Tories oppose it.

Everywhere you look, where you want certainty, you get confusion.

So the Conservative leader speaking about his policy on the NHS a few weeks back spoke of his pride at how his party members “wrote out the placards, marched on the streets, campaigned to save our community hospitals, our maternity units, our GP’s surgeries.” Well, ok. That’s a policy of preserving the status quo in the NHS.

But here’s Oliver Letwin, now Shadow Cabinet member in charge of policy for a Conservative Government speaking yesterday in the Wall Street Journal: He talks of bringing transformational free-market principles to public services and says: “We will implement a very systematic and powerful change agenda where hospitals compete for patients, schools compete for pupils, welfare providers compete for results…”

That’s also clear. That’s a policy of radical transformation of the status quo.

Or on economic policy, one week the absolute priority is deficit reduction. Ok, again clear. But yesterday a big tax cut became the centrepiece and not a vague ‘when things are better’ aspiration; but a full-on pledge.

Leave aside for a minute, the rights and wrongs of the policies. What can’t be left aside is that they are plainly diametrically opposite. So why the confusion?

The benign but still disqualifying explanation is that the policy-makers are confused, not just the policies. The less benign one is that one set of policies represents what they believe in; the other what they think they have to say to win. That’s not a confusion, actually; that’s a strategy and the British people deserve to have that strategy exposed before polling day.

By contrast, Labour has chosen its path. It is mapped out. It is consistent. It is solid. It matches a strong commitment to public services with a strong commitment to reform. It is clear on crime. The economic policy is measured and set out by the steady hand of Alistair Darling. The package is coherent and thought through.

It does two other things that are defining. It acknowledges completely that difficult choices lie ahead. But it seeks to do them fairly, to balance the tough medicine with the compassion. There are policies to cut the deficit but also to help the unemployed, to protect pensioners from poverty, to ensure that opportunity is spread as widely as possible and today a new plan to provide a National Care Service. It seeks to keep Britain together as a nation through troubled times.

But it does something else. It recognises that we must make these choices and map out our path in a world whose challenges are increasingly global and whose solutions therefore must be. It is outward not inward looking.

Thirteen years of power has seen its share of bad times and good, for the people and for the government. That’s for sure.

But just cast our mind back and recall the change for the better. Not just the pledges on the famous pledge card back in 1997, every one met and more.

Remember how people used to wait 18 months queuing on a hospital waiting list. Now it is a maximum wait of 18 weeks from GP to operation. Delivered by a Labour Government.

Thousands fewer deaths from heart disease and cancer. Delivered by a Labour Government.

In 1997 half of all schools got fewer than 30% of their pupils 5 good GCSEs. Today it is only 1 in 12. Delivered by a Labour Government.

And the biggest schools and hospitals re-building programme since the Welfare State began. Delivered by a Labour Government.

New services like Sure Start.

New frontline workers.

Help for families through tax credits and the winter allowance.

Delivered by a Labour Government.

Crime down, having doubled in the 18 years of the last Tory Government, the chances of being a victim lower than at any time since the Crime Survey began.

Delivered by a Labour Government.

Then the changes that we delivered and that would never have happened under the Tories: a minimum wage, flexible working, devolution, a ban on handguns. And how do we know they wouldn’t have happened under the Tories? Because in each case they opposed the change.

Then there are the things done which define the spirit of the society we believe in: civil partnerships, the Human Rights Act, the boost for arts and culture and yes even bringing the Olympics to Britain in 2012.

This has been part of a global vision. One of my charities today works in Africa. We have teams in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Liberia. In each country, Britain’s role is celebrated as a leader in the fight against global poverty. We can be proud of what we done in development. Our troops continue to perform heroically and brilliantly in Afghanistan. And just recently in Basra, we have seen the huge change in the local economy, due in part to the way British troops held the line there through the most fraught times and of course the Iraq election. In Europe, Britain is standing up for our interests but reckoned and respected as a sound partner for Europe’s other nations. When Gordon sought to bring the world together to act in the financial crisis, it came naturally. He understands it.

Which leads me back to the central point of the election: who “gets” the future? This is not a matter of age or personality. It is a matter of comprehension. This is a very, very important moment in which to exercise understanding. Since leaving office, and spending much time abroad, I can tell you one thing above all else. The characteristics of today’s world are: it is interdependent; it is changing; and power is moving East. And all of this is happening fast, faster than we can easily imagine. Britain’s challenge is not a 20th Century one and its politics cannot afford 20th Century political attitudes. The country has to go forward with energy, drive, determination and above all understanding. Closed minds close off the future. That would mean the challenge is failed, but it would also mean the opportunity is squandered.

This country faces big challenges in the futures.

I want this party to be the one able to meet those challenges.

This country needs strong leadership.

I want our leadership to be the one that gives it.

There is still vast potential and promise in our nation.

I want our government to be the one that develops it.

I want a future fair for all.

I believe a 4th term Labour Government can deliver it.

Below is the speech of the text made by Tony Blair in Washington DC, USA, on 21 April 2008.

The transatlantic alliance is, of course, a product of historical connection, culture, language and tradition. But most of all it is an alliance of belief, of shared values, of a common outlook not just about nations and their common interest but about humanity and its common destiny. Out of the travails of the twentieth century, the alliance drew its history and its strength. In the fight against fascism, and communism, it confronted and defeated totalitarian ideology. Millions of our citizens died for the victory. Through their sacrifice, we gained our freedom.

More than that, we came to a profound understanding about what it is to be free. We realised through the pain and suffering, the difference between deferring to those in power and deciding who they are; between the rule of law and the caprice of dictatorship; between the right to speak out and the silence of the fearful.

Now with those twentieth century battles over, it is tempting to think that this alliance has served its purpose. But here is the important point about it. It was never, and is not now, an alliance only of interests. It was and is an alliance of conviction. We, in the West, don’t own the idea of freedom. We didn’t fight for it because of the happenstance of birth in Europe or America. It is there, in the DNA of humankind. It is universal in nature and appeal. We developed it but we didn’t invent it.

Now is the time to stand up for it. If we want our values to govern the twenty first century, we must combine hard and soft power. We must show unhesitating resolution in the face of threats to our security; and we must show that our values are indeed universal, that they encompass not only freedom but justice, and not for us alone but for the world as a whole. We must show these values are global. And build alliances accordingly, starting with the renewal of our own. And we need to do it with energy and urgency. In the Middle East this is time critical. We must act now.

Two things I now perceive more clearly than in office. The first is: the fundamental shift of the centre of gravity, politically and economically, to the East; to China and of course India, but more broadly to the Middle and Far Eastern nations.

This evening I will focus elsewhere, but suffice it to say that we are still, in the West, not in the state of comprehension or analysis we need to be, fully to grasp this shift. China and India together will over the coming decades industrialise on a scale, and at a pace, the world has never seen before. In China especially, the implications are huge. Whatever the present controversies, a strong strategic relationship with it is vital; as it is with India. We are so much better able to fashion the terms of such a relationship if we do it in unison. That alone would justify and re-justify our alliance.

This is a challenge of diplomacy and statesmanship of one kind.

The other challenge arises from the security threat that occupied so much of the last years of my premiership. Today, as we meet, our armed forces face the prospect of a continuing campaign in Afghanistan and Iraq. I hope one thing unites us all. Whatever the debate about the decisions that brought us to these countries, there should be no debate about the magnificent and sustained heroism of our armed forces. British and American troops and the forces of other allied nations deserve our full support and our gratitude.

But this struggle is not limited to those fields of conflict. Out in the Middle East, it is there in the activities of Hezbollah in Lebanon, of Hamas in Palestine; it is played out in the street of Arab opinion every day. It has spread across the world. More than a score of nations have suffered terror attacks in the last year, still more have foiled them. They do not include only the usual list, but Thailand, Nigeria, China itself.

In the Middle East, the ideology that drives the extremism is not abating. The Annual Arab Public Opinion survey published last week was not striking simply for its specific findings – but for its overall picture. The basic ideological thrust of the extremists has an impact way beyond the small number of those prepared to engage in terror. In sum, it shows an alarming number of people who buy the view that Islam is under attack from the West; the leaders to support are those like Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad who are perceived to take on the West; and there is a contrast between Governments and their people that is stark.

The extremism is a tiny minority activity; the ideas, prejudices and sentiments that drive it, are not. The truth is that the roots of this global ideology are deep, far deeper than I first thought in the aftermath of September 11.

I believe the eventual outcome is not in doubt. But it is possible, dangerously, to underestimate the size of this challenge. And it is possible completely to misunderstand its origins.

This global ideology is based on a total perversion of the true faith of Islam. Its revolutionary rhetoric and attachment to so-called liberation movements is a sham designed to hide its profoundly reactionary and regressive character. It is totalitarian in nature and compromising with it will lead not to peace but to a ratcheting up of demands, none of which are remotely tolerable.

But it plays cleverly on the insecurities and uncertainty deep within Islam. It speaks to a sense that the reason for its problems is not to be found within, but as victims of outside aggression.

So today the issue hangs in the balance. The Middle East is without doubt a region in transition; but in which direction will it travel?

Like it or not, we are part of the struggle. Drawn into it, Europe and America must hold together and hold firm. Not simply for our own sake, but for that of our allies within Islam. If we do not show heart, why should they?

If they don’t see our resolve, how much more fragile is theirs?

So how is this battle won?

We have to recognise that though the circumstances and conflicts of the twentieth century are very different from ours, nonetheless, one thing remains true in any time and for all time: that if under attack, there is no choice but to defend, with a vigour, determination and will, superior to those attacking us. Our opponents today think we lack this will. Indeed they are counting on it. They think that if they make the struggle long enough and savage enough, we will eventually lose heart, and our will fade. They are fanatics but they have, unfortunately, the dedication that accompanies fanaticism.

We cannot permit this to happen. Where we are confronted, we confront. We stand up. And we do so for as long as it takes. This ideology now has a nation, Iran, that seeks to put itself at the head of extreme Islam. They need to know what we say, we mean and, if necessary, will do.

If we exhibit this attitude, peace is more likely; because they will not miscalculate or misread our character. But if they think us weak, they will fight all the harder and risk all the more.

They need to see our belief. We should not apologise for our values, but wear them with pride, proclaim their virtues loudly; show confidence; ridicule the notion that when people choose freedom this is somehow provocation to terror; and do so together, one alliance.

This struggle did not begin on September 11th 2001. It isn’t the fault of President Bush, of Israel, or of Western policy. The idea that we suppress Muslims in the West is utterly absurd. There is more religious freedom for Islam in London than in many Muslim countries.

You can argue about the rights and wrongs of the military invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan, but to allow for a single instant that this action justifies not simply terrorism but the idea that the West is innately hostile to Islam, only has to be contemplated, rationally, momentarily, for its nonsense to be manifest. We get rid of two brutal dictatorships; put in place a UN led democratic process; plus billions of dollars in aid: Where exactly is the hostility to Islam? And the only reason our troops are forced to stay is because of terror attacks carried out by this ideology in defiance of the democratically expressed wishes of the Muslim people of both countries.

And if it is hard and bloody, how bizarre to blame the allied forces, there under a UN mandate and who are trying to keep the peace, rather than those using terror to disturb it.

Yet this paradigm that it is ‘our’ fault that this terror threat is with us, has infiltrated a large part of Middle Eastern public opinion and actually influences significantly a large part of our own. It has to be taken on.

And here is the good news. The same poll shows most Muslims want peace. Most support a two state solution in Israel and Palestine. The modern minded rulers of the successful Arab economies are also admired. People in Iran don’t hate America even if its leader does. Go beneath the surface and there are allies out in the region and within Islam; people who believe strongly in their faith, but know that the twenty first century is not about civilisations in combat but in alliance. In other words people are open to persuasion.

And here is the point. To win this struggle, we must be prepared to confront; but we must also be prepared to persuade.

This is a battle that can take a military or security form. But it can’t be won by military or security means alone. It is a battle of ideas. To win, we must persuade people of what we stand for and why; and we must do so in a way that answers their concerns as well as our own.

We believe in freedom and democracy. We also believe in justice. We believe in equality. We believe in a fair chance for all, in opportunity that goes beyond an elite and stretches down into the core of society. That, after all, is the American dream; free not just in politics but free to achieve, to fulfil your ambition by your own efforts and hard work, to make something of yourself, to give your children a better start than you had.

To win this battle, we must demonstrate these values too. That is why the Middle East peace process matters. It is the litmus test of our sincerity. We should not in any way dilute our commitment to Israel’s security. We simply have to show equal commitment to justice for the Palestinians.

In the coming months, we have a chance to put it on a path to peace. It will require Israel to do more to lift the burden of occupation and give the Palestinians a sense that a state is possible. It will require the Palestinians to do more to get the robust capability on security to give the Israelis a sense that a state is permissible. It will require a different and better strategy for Gaza. And it will require a relentless, insistent focus on the issues, from the U.S. and the international community, macro and micro managing it as necessary, to get the job done. President Bush and Secretary Rice have made that commitment. This can be done. It has to be done. It is not optional. It is mandatory for success.

The origin of this extremism does not lie in this dispute; but a major part of defeating it, lies in its resolution.

Then, wider than this, we have to work with the modern and moderate voices within Islam to help them counter the extremism and show how faith in Islam is supremely consistent with engagement in the twenty first century, economically, politically, and culturally. There is a vast amount of toil and time and energy to be expended in building bridges, educating each other about the other, creating the civic and social networks of reconciliation.

I would go further still.

In Africa, we have a cause of justice which cries out to be pursued; one that is, at the same time, a moral imperative and a strategic investment; one that needs the attention of East and West. In climate change, we have an issue that demonstrates that justice is also part of the compact of responsibility between this generation and those of the future.

My argument is therefore this. The struggle can be won. But it can only be won by a strategy big enough and comprehensive enough to remove the roots as well as the branches. The battle will, in the end, be won within Islam. But only if we show that our values are theirs also.

The problem with so much of Western politics is that the argument is posed as one between the advocates of hard power and soft power, when the reality is, we need both.

This is where America and Europe, united, should act. America has to reach out. Europe has to stand up. Not a single one of the global challenges facing us today is more easily capable of solution, if we are apart; if we let the small irritants obscure the fundamental verities; if we allow ourselves to be assailed by doubt about the value of our partnership, rather than affirm, albeit self-critically, its strengths.

We need now a powerful revival of our alliance. In the world so rapidly changing around us, we cannot take a narrow view of our interests or a short-sighted view of our destiny. We can’t afford to take fright at these changes and go back into isolationism. We can’t avoid the challenges. But we can master them. Together.

The transatlantic partnership was never just the foundation of our security. It was the foundation of our way of life. It was forged in experience of the most bitter and anguished kind.

Out of it came a new Europe, a new world order, a new consensus as to how life should be lived.

Today times are different. Every era is different. What is necessary is to distinguish between what endures for one time and what endures for all time.

In our history, we discovered the values that endure. We learnt what really matters and what is worth fighting for.

And we learnt it together.

Today, the challenge to those values is different. But it is no less real. Our propensity to avow those values will shape the way the twenty first century is governed. Will these values become, as they should be, universal values, open over time to all human beings everywhere; or will they be falsely seen as the product of a bygone age? That is the question. It is fundamental. It is urgent. It is our duty to answer it.

Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, in 2007.

There’s little doubt that Jim Callaghan had the character of a great Prime Minister. But he had neither the luck nor the time nor, in the 1970s, the Party he needed. This much most people would agree with.

However, there is another, more interesting side to the politics of Jim Callaghan. To a far greater extent than is ever reflected in commentary on him, he both analysed correctly the changes that were coming in the country and had worked out the answers. His lecture on education, launching the great debate, was remarkably prescient in predicting that the mere abolition of selection would not of itself change educational opportunities for the poorest in society. His speech recognising the limits of Keynesianism in an era of stagflation, in fact predated later Conservative analysis. He was fiercely patriotic not in a gung-ho, militaristic sense, but in the quiet but clear and determined way of someone who had actually seen military service and knew what it was about.

He also – and this is very seldom realised – got completely the social movement that was, even in his time, producing what we would today call the Respect agenda. His values were simple, straightforward and some would say, old-fashioned. There is an interesting exchange he had with Austin Mitchell MP in the 1980s when during a Select Committee hearing, he was asked about how Ministers should behave towards civil servants:

“Callaghan: It is your responsibility to be polite, to be courteous, to listen to what is said to you and absorb it and be loyal to your Private Office so they can serve you to the best of their ability.

Mitchell: It sounds like a Boy Scout code.

Callaghan: What is wrong with the Boy Scouts?”

To Jim, there was nothing to be ashamed of in the code of the Scouts; on the contrary, to him such self-discipline, the giving back of something to society, were of the essence.

He also saw something else before his time. He realised that though social conditions could play a major part in shaping an individual’s life chances – which was why he was in the Labour Party – it could not determine their life: that was their responsibility. He was the living proof. He never took the view: I did it, so why can’t everyone else. But he was not soft on law and order; on the contrary. He also rightly sensed that though the years of Roy Jenkins at the Home Office had been stellar in their action on discrimination – and he was fully supportive of that; liberalism was not necessarily the correct response to the growing disrespect and lawlessness that in the 1960s and 1970s saw crime rise.

In other words, what appeared quite old-fashioned – respect for others – he saw as the answer to a growing modern phenomenon. I believe he was right in this. He saw – and I agree with him – no contradiction between a liberal view of personal lifestyle or action against prejudice; and a tough view of violence or wrong-doing that harmed others.

None of this made him harsh on penal policy. He was a deeply humane man who made prison reform one of his early priorities. But he described – at the time of the “permissive society” – the word “permissiveness” as “one of the most unlikeable words invented in recent years”. He powerfully opposed calls to legalise cannabis. And he described his commitment to order and authority in ways that at that time seemed old-fashioned but in 2007 seem remarkably close to where the consensus is.

Above all, he saw the society and the public realm as more than just the public services, the public spaces, the bricks and mortar. He also saw it as about shared values, respect for others, a certain discipline and rigour in how we comported ourselves.

That is the theme of the lecture today. We need the investment in the public realm. But on its own it is not enough. We have seen over the past decade a renaissance in our cities, like Cardiff. But we are still too often missing the component that cannot be delivered by money alone: the basic, mutual respect that makes a community work.

By the late 1980s many of our cities were in decline.

But now, just look at Cardiff.

In the old days, the rapid growth of Cardiff was based on its development as a major port for the transport of coal. With the fall of the industry, unemployment used to blight Cardiff. Now it has fallen 54% since 1997. There has been major redevelopment, which has led to Cardiff being one of the fastest-growing cities in the UK. It is certainly one of few with an expanding population. On March 1, 2004, Cardiff was granted Fairtrade City status.

Cardiff has the UK’s largest Film, TV & Multimedia sector outside London. Employment in the sector has grown significantly in recent years, and currently provides employment for thousands of the City’s workforce. Cardiff is home to BBC Wales, S4C and ITV Wales. Cardiff is home to Cardiff Castle, the National Museum and Gallery, the Museum of Welsh Life and Llandaff Cathedral. The Welsh National Opera moved into the Wales Millennium Centre in November 2004.

Cardiff is now, on any basis, one of the foremost cities of Europe. But the revitalisation of this city is not unique.

Our major cities have recovered after years of decline.

In total more than £20bn has been invested. The New Deal for Communities supports 10-year regeneration strategies in 39 of the poorest neighbourhoods in the country. The Neighbourhood Renewal Fund has focused on the 88 most deprived local authority areas. The Coalfields Regeneration Trust provided regeneration projects in declining coalfield areas. There have been a myriad of initiatives from the European Union, from Regional Development Agencies, from Urban Regeneration Companies, from English Partnerships.

Work has, for two centuries or more, driven migration to urban areas. It still does. Almost 80 per cent of new jobs in the six years to 2003 were created in city-regions. This is a long-term, global pattern. In 1901 25% of the world’s population lived in a city. Now 80% does.

Despite a very powerful myth of the pastoral, especially in England, this has been an essentially urban country since the Industrial Revolution. Over 80% of the UK’s population lives in an urban area.

The cities of Britain that are prospering are often those that are leading growth in knowledge intensive business and financial services. As well as services, the benefits of cities are important for a number of manufacturing businesses – notably in the case of high-tech modern manufacturers who invest heavily in knowledge, innovation and creativity. Again Cardiff is a prime example.

Previously lagging cities in the North are picking up. The ex-industrial cities in the North have found new economic niches. Derby, Northampton and Manchester all have a rate of change in productivity higher than the English average. Rates of employment have improved in those cities that started with the lowest employment rates at the beginning of the 1990s such as Wigan, Grimsby, Middlesbrough, Sheffield and Hull.

What made the Victorian cities of the Industrial Revolution so grand and so proud was a sense of civic pride in the public realm inculcated, and acted upon, by powerful local government. Cities around the world are citadels of power.

Strong civic government in Cardiff, nationally in the Welsh Assembly, have taken decisions closer to the people and generated a genuine sense of local determination and leadership.

In addition, there has been an immensely healthy and sensible partnership between the private and public sector. The years of division, suspicion occasionally hostility have been put behind us. Again, the Cardiff Bay Barrage and its attendant development shows precisely what the modern relationship can bring.

The redevelopments of the past decade are all partnerships across the traditional boundaries. National leadership is needed, often with the stimulus of public regeneration projects. Then private enterprise joins in, to create jobs and make places work, underpinned by strong local leaders, with a durable commitment to seeing a place come to life.

The renaissance has been spectacular. Here in Cardiff, the waterways have come back into use; we have world-class arts venues and there is the massive redevelopment of the city centre, the largest-ever private investment in Wales, now underway.

London has seen rapid employment and population growth in recent years, mostly in knowledge-based and creative industries. Manchester has seen huge investment in the city centre, particularly in retailing and housing, with over 13,000 jobs created over the past 5 years. In 2008 Liverpool will be the European City of Culture. The city’s total population has now stabilised after many decades of decline. Derby is proving that that there is a future for high-calibre manufacturing in this country. It is home to the Headquarters of aerospace giants Rolls Royce and also Bombardier rail engineering. Leeds is now the UK’s largest financial services location outside London. It is home to Opera North, the Henry Moore Sculpture Institute, the West Yorkshire Playhouse and a wider, thriving cultural scene. After a decline of traditional industries, Sheffield has experienced an economic revival in the last six years, driven by strong local authority leadership. There are exciting plans for redevelopment of the Gloucester Quay that will create 1,000 new homes and 800 new jobs. The Middlehaven project in Middlesbrough will include a new primary school, a new theatre or arena, a museum and apartments set in ‘living piers’ that stretch into the water and provide leisure facilities for all. It will combine public and private sector investment of £500 million and create up to 3,000 new jobs.

These changes are wonderful. But empty places are no better for being new. A city needs citizens. It is really encouraging that Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle have all moved up steadily from their high population losses of the early 1990s. We have seen people come back to the centre of the city, often on the waterfront: Albert Dock in Liverpool, Salford Quays, the Quayside in Newcastle and canal-side schemes in Leeds and Birmingham.

A city cannot function unless its services are good enough. A lot of previous redevelopment has left monuments to good intentions rather than a revived city in its wake. Economic regeneration will fail if it is separated from education, health, housing and the transport network.

Here the public realm we inherited was in a state of considerable disrepair. We have, in fact, gone through perhaps the most intense period of public services construction there has ever been. There has been as much school-building since 2001 as there was in the preceding 25 years.

Ten years ago half of the NHS estate was built before the NHS itself; it is now down to a quarter.

Wales has seen its largest-ever school investment programme. In the last 3 years more than £660 million has been invested in 1,400 school building projects across the country.

In the Welsh health service, we have exceeded our commitment to invest in hospitals and GP surgeries. 7 new hospitals have either been built or are on the way. Investment in dentistry is up 89% since 1999 and free nursing care has been introduced.

Of course this creates demands for staff. There are 1,700 more teachers and 5,700 more classroom assistants than in 1998. There are also over 8,000 more nurses and a 28% increase in NHS staff overall.

Investment in transport in Wales is up 150% since 2001. More than half a million pensioners and disabled people benefit from free bus travel. There are more rail journeys than at any time since the 1940s. We recently announced a £1bn programme to add 1000 new carriages to our rolling stock.

On social housing, we have reversed years of neglect. In the UK as a whole, over £20bn of public money has been spent on improving council housing since 1997. In Wales, the Social Housing Grant will increase 62% between 2005 and 2008. The HomeBuy scheme for first-time buyers has been launched. There has been a ten-fold increase in investment to tackle homelessness in Wales which is down by 35% since 2005.

Health spending in Wales has doubled since 1999; investment in new buildings and equipment has trebled; schools have been refurbished; new hospitals have sprung up. The physical stock that we have today is unrecognizably better than that we inherited.

Primary schools in the areas of highest poverty have improved at nearly twice the rate of schools in the most affluent areas. There has been a 23% increase in the number of pupils achieving the expected grades in the basic subjects in Welsh primary schools.

In the Welsh health service, waiting times are down. Nobody now expects to wait longer than 8 months for an outpatient appointment – 92% now wait less than six months, with the majority waiting less than 3 months. For inpatient treatment, nobody now expects to wait longer than 8 months and 89% wait less than six months.

Perhaps the most important success of all has been the reduction in crime. The chances of being a victim of crime in Wales are at their lowest since 1981.

There are almost 1,000 more police officers and over 600 more Community Support Officers.

However, it doesn’t always feel like that.

Without safe streets the public realm is an unattractive place. Cities are living places, arenas for people rather than things.

But it is in respect of this latter point, that success has been much more elusive. It is not for want of trying. ASB laws have made a huge difference to many communities, notably here in Wales. Never forget, the crimes most people experience are down 35% since 1997. Violent crime has fallen 28% in the last five years.

But it is not how people feel. And in part, this is precisely because the physical aspect of regeneration is so clear and so obvious. People see no reason why the less tangible but still critical aspect – behaviour towards others – should not also be regenerating.

Alright, it may be the fear of crime rather than simply crime. But fear is a very real emotion. And it diminishes severely the quality of people’s lives.

This manifests itself in everything from City Centre disturbances through binge drinking to the recent spate of killings of young people in our inner cities.

I have come to the conclusion that we are in danger of completely misunderstanding the nature of what we are dealing with. In this instance, we need less Jenkins and more Callaghan. We tend to see this as a general social problem which, with the right social engineering, we could cure.

More and more, I think this is not just wrong but misleading; I mean literally misleading us to the wrong answer.

In truth, most young people are perfectly decent and law-abiding, more likely to be victims than perpetrators of crime. Most families are not dysfunctional. Most people, even in the hardest communities, are content to play fairly and by the rules. Most young black boys are not involved in knife and gun gangs.

Pace the recent unrest at football matches, on the whole, even at the height of football “hooliganism” most football fans were proper fans, not hooligans.

What we are dealing with is not a general social disorder; but specific groups or people who for one reason or another, are deciding not to abide by the same code of conduct as the rest of us. This came home to me when, at the recent summit I held on knife and gun crime, the black Pastor of a London church said bluntly: when are we going to start saying this is a problem amongst a section of the black community and not, for reasons of political correctness, pretend that this is nothing to do with it.

The fact is you can talk to a teacher who will tell you that at the early stages of primary school it is perfectly plain which kids will be going off the rails a few years later.

In the end, football hooliganism was dealt with by a combination of tougher laws, intensive police work, and reducing the possibilities of organised violence. It worked. But it only worked when people stopped pretending it was a problem of football fans.

We need to do the same in dealing with these latest manifestations of severe disorder. In respect of knife and gun gangs, the laws need to be significantly toughened. There needs to be an intensive police focus, on these groups. The ring-leaders need to be identified and taken out of circulation; if very young, as some are, put in secure accommodation . The black community – the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law-abiding people horrified at what is happening – need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids. But we won’t stop this by pretending it isn’t young black kids doing it.

In the same way, at the risk of again being misrepresented, as advocating baby ASBOs, or some such nonsense, those families known to the social services, health workers, often the law enforcement agencies, who are dysfunctional and whose children are being brought up in chaos, need to be identified early and put within a proper structured disciplined framework where in return for their state benefits, they get the right mix of pressure and support to change.

Likewise for those people who, unlike the majority, can’t have a good time in the City Centre without getting into a fight, the new powers should be used to the full, against licencees encouraging excessive drinking, against under-age consumption and against those who drink and are violent. Violence when drunk should not be seen as a mitigating element but as an aggravating one. Courts should deal out tough sentences to those that engage in such violence.

This is the missing dimension to the regeneration of our towns and cities. The years of underinvestment have gone. Business is thriving. Culture and art is one of the real success stories of the last decade. The physical infrastructure of public services is getting better all the time. But the behavioural problems of the minority – which may have a myriad of causes but have one effect, namely hell for the rest of us, blight this otherwise optimistic story of renaissance. We need to stop thinking of this as a society that’s gone wrong – it hasn’t – but of specific groups that for specific reasons have gone outside of the proper lines of respect and good conduct towards others and need, by specific measures aimed at them, to be brought back within the fold.

Jim Callaghan would have understood this. He was quintessentially the common sense politician. He grasped the reality of life because he had lived it from humble beginnings to great office. I remember his 90th birthday party which we gave for him in Downing Street. At the time, Audrey his wife was suffering from Alzheimers. She barely recognised anyone, even him, but he visited her every day. When she died, he died 11 days later. At the party in Downing Street, he gave the most beautiful and moving speech about her, their life together and how it had sustained him. He had a simple, clear code by which he lived.

Of course the modern world is different. Our mores are different. The opportunities and also dangers present in the lives of our children different to the nth degree. What is acceptable, what goes, would, indeed does, shock older generations. But we still know that the public realm is about shared public values as well as shared space and buildings. Enforcing those values is not an attempt at nostalgia. It is the way to make our public realm ours.

Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, announcing his resignation as Prime Minister in June 2007.

I have come back here, to Sedgefield, to my constituency, where my political journey began and where it is fitting it should end.

Today I announce my decision to stand down from the leadership of the Labour Party. The Party will now select a new Leader.

On 27 June I will tender my resignation from the office of prime minister to the Queen.

I have been prime minister of this country for just over 10 years. In this job, in the world today, that is long enough, for me, but more especially for the country.

Sometimes the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down.

Great country

It is difficult to know how to make this speech today. There is a judgment to be made on my premiership. And in the end that is, for you, the people, to make.

I can only describe what I think has been done over these last 10 years and, perhaps more important, why.

I have never quite put it like this before.

I was born almost a decade after the Second World War. I was a young man in the social revolution of the 60s and 70s.

I reached political maturity as the Cold War was ending, and the world was going through a political, economic and technological revolution.

I looked at my own country, a great country – wonderful history, magnificent traditions, proud of its past, but strangely uncertain of its future, uncertain about the future, almost old-fashioned.

All of that was curiously symbolised in its politics.

You stood for individual aspiration and getting on in life or social compassion and helping others. You were liberal in your values or conservative.

You believed in the power of the state or the efforts of the individual. Spending more money on the public realm was the answer or it was the problem.

None of it made sense to me. It was 20th Century ideology in a world approaching a new millennium.

Of course people want the best for themselves and their families, but in an age where human capital is a nation’s greatest asset, they also know it is just and sensible to extend opportunities, to develop the potential to succeed, for all – not an elite at the top.

People are, today, open-minded about race and sexuality, averse to prejudice and yet deeply and rightly conservative with a small ‘c’ when it comes to good manners, respect for others, treating people courteously.

They acknowledge the need for the state and the responsibility of the individual.

Living standards

They know spending money on our public services matters and that it is not enough. How they are run and organised matters too.

So 1997 was a moment for a new beginning, for sweeping away all the detritus of the past.

Expectations were so high, too high – too high in a way for either of us.

Now in 2007, you can easily point to the challenges, the things that are wrong, the grievances that fester.

But go back to 1997. Think back. No, really, think back. Think about your own living standards then in May 1997 and now.

Visit your local school, any of them round here, or anywhere in modern Britain.

Ask when you last had to wait a year or more on a hospital waiting list, or heard of pensioners freezing to death in the winter, unable to heat their homes.

There is only one government since 1945 that can say all of the following: ‘More jobs, fewer unemployed, better health and education results, lower crime and economic growth in every quarter,’ – this one.

But I don’t need a statistic. There is something bigger than what can be measured in waiting lists or GSCE results or the latest crime or jobs figures.

Look at our economy – at ease with globalisation, London the world’s financial centre. Visit our great cities and compare them with 10 years ago.

No country attracts overseas investment like we do.

Think about the culture of Britain in 2007. I don’t just mean our arts that are thriving. I mean our values, the minimum wage, paid holidays as a right, amongst the best maternity pay and leave in Europe, equality for gay people.

Or look at the debates that reverberate round the world today – the global movement to support Africa in its struggle against poverty, climate change, the fight against terrorism.

Britain is not a follower. It is a leader. It gets the essential characteristic of today’s world – its interdependence.

This is a country today that for all its faults, for all the myriad of unresolved problems and fresh challenges, is comfortable in the 21st Century, at home in its own skin, able not just to be proud of its past but confident of its future.

I don’t think Northern Ireland would have been changed unless Britain had changed, or the Olympics won if we were still the Britain of 1997.

As for my own leadership, throughout these 10 years, where the predictable has competed with the utterly unpredicted, right at the outset one thing was clear to me.

Without the Labour Party allowing me to lead it, nothing could ever have been done.

But I knew my duty was to put the country first. That much was obvious to me when just under 13 years ago I became Labour’s Leader.

What I had to learn, however, as prime minister was what putting the country first really meant.

Ultimate obligation

Decision-making is hard. Everyone always says: ‘Listen to the people.’ The trouble is they don’t always agree.

When you are in opposition, you meet this group and they say: ‘Why can’t you do this?’ And you say: ‘It’s really a good question. Thank you.’ And they go away and say: ‘Its great, he really listened.’

You meet that other group and they say: ‘Why can’t you do that?’ And you say: ‘It’s a really good question. Thank you.’ And they go away happy you listened.

In government, you have to give the answer – not an answer, the answer.

And, in time, you realise putting the country first doesn’t mean doing the right thing according to conventional wisdom or the prevailing consensus or the latest snapshot of opinion.

It means doing what you genuinely believe to be right.

Your duty is to act according to your conviction.

All of that can get contorted so that people think you act according to some messianic zeal.

Doubt, hesitation, reflection, consideration and re-consideration, these are all the good companions of proper decision-making. But the ultimate obligation is to decide.

Sometimes the decisions are accepted quite quickly. Bank of England independence was one, which gave us our economic stability.

Sometimes, like tuition fees or trying to break up old monolithic public services, they are deeply controversial, hellish hard to do, but you can see you are moving with the grain of change round the word.

Sometimes, like with Europe, where I believe Britain should keep its position strong, you know you are fighting opinion, but you are content with doing so.

Sometimes, as with the completely unexpected, you are alone with your own instinct.

Global terrorism

In Sierra Leone and to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, I took the decision to make our country one that intervened, that did not pass by, or keep out of the thick of it.

Then came the utterly unanticipated and dramatic – September 11th 2001 and the death of 3,000 or more on the streets of New York.

I decided we should stand shoulder to shoulder with our oldest ally. I did so out of belief.

So Afghanistan and then Iraq – the latter, bitterly controversial.

Removing Saddam and his sons from power, as with removing the Taleban, was over with relative ease.

But the blowback since, from global terrorism and those elements that support it, has been fierce and unrelenting and costly. For many, it simply isn’t and can’t be worth it.

For me, I think we must see it through. They, the terrorists, who threaten us here and round the world, will never give up if we give up.

It is a test of will and of belief. And we can’t fail it.

So, some things I knew I would be dealing with. Some I thought I might be. Some never occurred to me on that morning of 2 May 1997 when I came into Downing Street for the first time.

Great expectations not fulfilled in every part, for sure.

Occasionally people say, as I said earlier: ‘They were too high, you should have lowered them.’

But, to be frank, I would not have wanted it any other way. I was, and remain, as a person and as a prime minister, an optimist. Politics may be the art of the possible – but at least in life, give the impossible a go.

So of course the vision is painted in the colours of the rainbow, and the reality is sketched in the duller tones of black, white and grey.

High hopes

But I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right.

I may have been wrong. That is your call. But believe one thing if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country.

I came into office with high hopes for Britain’s future. I leave it with even higher hopes for Britain’s future.

This is a country that can, today, be excited by the opportunities not constantly fretful of the dangers.

People often say to me: ‘It’s a tough job’ – not really.

A tough life is the life the young severely disabled children have and their parents, who visited me in Parliament the other week.

Tough is the life my dad had, his whole career cut short at the age of 40 by a stroke. I have been very lucky and very blessed. This country is a blessed nation.

The British are special. The world knows it. In our innermost thoughts, we know it. This is the greatest nation on earth.

It has been an honour to serve it. I give my thanks to you, the British people, for the times I have succeeded, and my apologies to you for the times I have fallen short. Good luck.

Below is the text of the speech made in the House of Commons by Tony Blair on 14th July 2004.

Lord Butler’s Report is comprehensive, thorough; and I thank the members of his Committee and their staff for all their hard work in compiling it. We accept fully the Report’s conclusions.

The Report provides an invaluable analysis of the general threat in respect of WMD; of the potential acquisition of WMD by terrorists; and though it devotes much of its analysis to Iraq, it also goes into detail on the WMD threat posed by Iran, Libya, North Korea and A Q Khan. Some of the intelligence disclosed is made available for the first time and gives some insight into the reasons for the judgements I and other Ministers have been making. I hope the House will understand if I deal with it in some detail.

The hallmark of the Report is its balanced judgements.

The Report specifically supports the conclusions of Lord Hutton’s inquiry about the good faith of the intelligence services and the Government in compiling the September 2002 dossier.

But it also makes specific findings that the dossier and the intelligence behind it should have been better presented, had more caveats attached to it, and been better validated.

It reports doubts which have recently arisen on the 45 minute intelligence and says in any event it should have been included in the dossier in different terms; but it expressly supports the intelligence on Iraq’s attempts to procure uranium from Niger in respect of Iraq’s nuclear ambitions.

The Report finds that there is little – if any – significant evidence of stockpiles of readily deployable weapons.

But it also concludes that Saddam Hussein did indeed have:

a.         “the strategic intention of resuming the pursuit of prohibited weapons programmes, including if possible its nuclear weapons programme, when United Nations inspection regimes were relaxed and sanctions were eroded or lifted.

b.         In support of that goal, was carrying out illicit research and development, and procurement, activities, to seek to sustain its indigenous capabilities.

c.         Was developing ballistic missiles with a range longer than permitted under relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions;”

Throughout the last 18 months, throughout the rage and ferment of the debate over Iraq, there have been two questions.

One is an issue of good faith, of integrity.

This is now the fourth exhaustive inquiry that has dealt with this issue. This report, like the Hutton inquiry, like the report of the ISC before it and of the FAC before that, has found the same thing.

No-one lied.  No-one made up the intelligence. No-one inserted things into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services.

Everyone genuinely tried to do their best in good faith for the country in circumstances of acute difficulty.  That issue of good faith should now be at an end.

But there is another issue.  We expected, I expected to find actual usable, chemical or biological weapons shortly after we entered Iraq.  We even made significant contingency plans in respect of their use against our troops.  UN Resolution 1441 in November 2002 was passed unanimously by the whole Security Council, including Syria, on the basis Iraq was a WMD threat. Lord Butler says in his report:

“We believe that it would be a rash person who asserted at this stage that evidence of Iraqi possession of stocks of biological or chemical agents, or even of banned missiles, does not exist or will never be found.”

But I have to accept: as the months have passed, it seems increasingly clear that at the time of invasion Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy.

The second issue is therefore this:  even if we acted in perfectly good faith, is it now the case that in the absence of stockpiles of weapons ready to deploy, the threat was misconceived and therefore the war was unjustified?

I have searched my conscience, not in a spirit of obstinacy; but in genuine reconsideration in the light of what we now know, in answer to that question.  And my answer would be: that the evidence of Saddam’s WMD was indeed less certain, less well-founded than was stated at the time.  But I cannot go from there to the opposite extreme.  On any basis he retained complete strategic intent on WMD and significant capability; the only reason he ever let the inspectors back into Iraq was that he had 180,000 US and British troops on his doorstep; he had no intention of ever co-operating fully with the inspectors; and he was going to start up again the moment the troops and the inspectors departed; or the sanctions eroded. And I say further: that had we backed down in respect of Saddam, we would never have taken the stand we needed to take on WMD, never have got the progress for example on Libya, that we achieved; and we would have left Saddam in charge of Iraq, with every malign intent and capability still in place and every dictator with the same intent everywhere immeasurably emboldened.

As I shall say later: for any mistakes, made, as the Report finds, in good faith I of course take full responsibility, but I cannot honestly say I believe getting rid of Saddam was a mistake at all.  Iraq, the region, the wider world is a better and safer place without Saddam.

The Report begins by an assessment of intelligence and its use in respect of countries other than Iraq.  It points out that in respect of Libya, the intelligence has largely turned out to be accurate especially in respect of its nuclear weapons programmes; and those are now being dismantled.  In respect of Iran, the Report says Iran is now engaged with the IAEA, though there remain ‘clearly outstanding issues about Iran’s activities’.

About North Korea, the Report concludes that it ‘is now thought to be developing missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons as far away as continental US and Europe’.

The Report goes on at para 99: ‘North Korea is a particular cause for concern because of its willingness to sell ballistic missiles to anyone prepared to pay in hard currency’.

The Report also discloses the extent of the network of A Q Khan, the Pakistani former nuclear scientist.  This network is now shut down largely through US and UK intelligence work, through Pakistani cooperation and through the dialogue with Libya.

The Report then reveals for the first time the development of the intelligence in respect of the new global terrorism we face.  In the early years, for example, in the JIC assessment of October 1994, the view was that the likelihood of terrorists acquiring or using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons was, whilst theoretically possible, highly unlikely.

However, as the name and activities of Usama Bin Laden became better known, the JIC started to change its earlier assessment.  In November 1998, it said:

[UBL] has a long-standing interest in the potential terrorist use of CBR materials, and recent intelligence suggest his ideas about using toxic materials are maturing and being developed in more detail. … There is also secret reporting that he may have obtained some CB material – and that he is interested in nuclear materials.

And in June 1999:

Most of UBL’s planned attacks would use conventional terrorist weapons.  But he continues to seek chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear material and to develop a capability for its terrorist use.

By mid-July 1999 this view hardened still further:

There have been important developments in [Islamist extremist] terrorism.  It has become clear that Usama Bin Laden has been seeking CBRN materials … . The significance of his possession of CB materials is that, in contrast to other terrorists interested in CB, he wishes to target US, British and other interests worldwide.

A series of further assessments to the same effect issued in January 2000, again in August 2000, and in January 2001.

To anyone who wants to know why I have become increasingly focused on the link between terrorism and WMD, I recommend reading this part of the Report and the intelligence assessments received.

It was against this background of what one witness to Lord Butler called the ‘creeping tide of proliferation’ that the events of September 11th 2001 should be considered.  As the Report says, following September 11th, the calculus of the threat changed:

I said in this House on the 14th September 2001:

“We know, that the terrorists would, if they could, go further and use chemical or biological or even nuclear weapons of mass destruction.  We have been warned by the events of 11 September.  We should act on the warning.”

I took the view then and stand by it now that no Prime Minister faced with this evidence could responsibly afford to ignore it.  After September 11th, it was time to take an active as opposed to reactive position on the whole question of WMD.  We had to close down the capability of the rogue states – usually highly repressive and unstable – to develop such weapons; and the commercial networks such as those of A Q Khan helping them.

Again my clear view was that the country where we had to take a stand was Iraq.  Why?

Iraq was the one country to have used WMD recently.  It had developed WMD capability and concealed it.  Action by UN inspectors and the IAEA had by the mid to late 1990s reduced this threat significantly; but as the Butler Report shows at paras 180-182, by the time the inspectors were effectively blocked in Iraq (at the end of 1998) the JIC assessments were that some CW stocks remained hidden and that Iraq remained capable of a break-out chemical weapons capability within months; a biological weapons capability, also with probable stockpiles; and could have had ballistic missiles capability in breach of UN Resolutions within a year.

This was the reason for military action, taken without a UN Resolution, in December 1998.

Subsequent to that, the Report shows that we continued to receive the JIC assessments on Iraq’s WMD capability.  For example, in respect of chemical and biological weapons it said in April 2000:

Our picture is limited.

It is likely that Iraq is continuing to develop its offensive chemical warfare (CW) and biological warfare (BW) capabilities.

In May 2001, the JIC assessed, in respect of nuclear weapons:

Our knowledge of developments in Iraq’s WMD and ballistic missile programmes since Desert Fox air operations in December 1998 is patchy.  But intelligence gives grounds for concern and suggests that Iraq is becoming bolder in conducting activities prohibited by UNSCR 687.

There is evidence of increased activity at Iraq’s only remaining nuclear facility and a growing number of reports on possible nuclear related procurement.

In February 2002, the JIC said:

Iraq … if it has not already done so, could produce significant quantities of BW agent within days.  …

The Report specifically endorses the March 2002 advice to Ministers which states that though containment had been partially successful and intelligence was patchy, Iraq continues to develop WMD:

Iraq has up to 20 650km range missiles left over from the Gulf War.  These are capable of hitting Israel and the Gulf states.  Design work for other ballistic missiles over the UN limit of 150km continues.  Iraq continues with its BW and CW programmes and, if it has not already done so, could produce significant quantities of BW agents within days and CW agent within weeks of a decision to do so.  We believe it could deliver CBW by a variety of means, including in ballistic missile warheads.  There are also some indications of a continuing nuclear programme.

The point I would make is simply this.  The dossier of September 2002 did not reach any startling or radical conclusion.  It said, in effect, what had been said for several years based not just on intelligence but on frequent UN and international reports.  It was the same conclusion that led us to military action in 1998; to maintain sanctions; to demand the return of UN Inspectors.

We published the dossier in response to the enormous Parliamentary and press clamour.  It was not, as has been described, the case for war.  But it was the case for enforcing the UN will.

In retrospect it has achieved a fame it never achieved at the time.  As the Report states at para 310:

It is fair to say at the outset that the dossier attracted more attention after the war than it had done before it.  When first published, it was regarded as cautious, and even dull.  Some of the attention that it eventually received was the product of controversy over the Government’s further dossier of February 2003.  Some of it arose over subsequent allegations that the intelligence in the September dossier had knowingly been embellished, and hence over the good faith of the Government.  Lord Hutton dismissed those allegations. We should record that we, too, have seen no evidence that would support any such allegations.

The Report at para 333 states that in general the statements in the dossier reflected fairly the judgements of past JIC assessments.

The Report, however, goes on to say that with hindsight making public that the authorship of the dossier was by the JIC was a mistake. It meant that more weight was put on the intelligence than it could bear; and put the JIC and its Chairman in a difficult position.

It recommends in future a clear delineation between Government and JIC, perhaps by issuing two separate documents. I think this is wise, though I doubt it would have made much difference to the reception of the intelligence at the time.

The Report also enlarges on the criticisms of the ISC in respect of the greater use of caveats about intelligence both in the dossier and in my foreword and we accept that entirely.

The Report also states that significant parts of the intelligence have now been found by SIS to be in doubt.

The Chief of SIS, Sir Richard Dearlove has told me that SIS accepts all the conclusions and recommendations of Lord Butler’s report which concern the Service.  SIS will fully address the recommendations which Lord Butler has made about their procedures and about the need for the Service properly to resource them.  The Service has played, and will continue to play, a vital role in countering worldwide the tide of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, its successes are evident in Lord Butler’s report.

I accept the Report’s conclusions in full.  Any mistakes made should not be laid at the door of our intelligence and security community.  They do a tremendous job for our country.

I accept full personal responsibility for the way the issue was presented and therefore for any errors made.

As the Report indicates, there is no doubt that at the time it was genuinely believed by everyone that Saddam had both strategic intent in respect of WMD and actual weapons.

 

I make this further point.  On the sparse, generalised and highly fragmented intelligence about Al Qaida prior to September 11th, it is now widely said policy-makers should have foreseen the attacks that materialised on September 11th 2001 in New York.  I only ask:  had we ignored the specific intelligence about the threat from Iraq, backed up by a long history of international confrontation over it, and that threat later materialised, how would we have been judged?

I know some will disagree with this.  There are those who were opposed to the war, remain so now and will forever be in that position.

I only hope that now, after two detailed Parliamentary Committee reports, a judicial inquiry more exhaustive than any has ever been in examining an allegation of impropriety against Government and now this voluminous report, people will not disrespect the other’s point of view but will accept that those that agree and those that disagree with the war in Iraq, hold their views not because they are war-mongers on the one hand or closet supporters of Saddam on the other, but because of a genuine difference of judgement as to the right thing to have done.

There was no conspiracy.  There was no impropriety.

The essential judgement and truth, as usual, does not lie in extremes.

We all acknowledge Saddam was evil and his regime depraved.  Whether or not actual stockpiles of weapons are found, there wasn’t and isn’t any doubt Saddam used WMD and retained every strategic intent to carry on developing them.  The judgement is this: would it have been better or more practical to have contained him through continuing sanctions and weapons inspections; or was this inevitably going to be at some point a policy that failed?  And was removing Saddam a diversion from pursuing the global terrorist threat; or part of it?

I can honestly say I have never had to make a harder judgement.  But in the end, my judgement was that after September 11th, we could no longer run the risk; that instead of waiting for the potential threat of terrorism and WMD to come together, we had to get out and get after it.  One part was removing the training ground of Al Qaida in Afghanistan.  The other was taking a stand on WMD; and the place to take that stand was Iraq, whose regime was the only one ever to have used WMD and was subject to 12 years of UN Resolutions and weapons inspections that turned out to be unsatisfactory.

And though in neither case was the nature of the regime the reason for conflict, it was decisive for me in the judgement as to the balance of risk for action or inaction.

Both countries now face an uncertain struggle for the future.  But both at least now have a future.  The one country in which you will find an overwhelming majority in favour of the removal of Saddam is Iraq.

I am proud of this country and the part it played and especially our magnificent armed forces, in removing two vile dictatorships and giving people oppressed, almost enslaved, the prospect of democracy and liberty.

This Report will not end the arguments about the war.  But in its balance and common sense, it should at least help to set them in a more rational light; and for that we should be grateful.

Below is the text of the speech made by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on 19th July 2004.

Today sees the publication of the third 5 year strategy – this time for the Criminal Justice System and Home Office. The NHS strategy built on the investment and reforms of the past seven years; and indicated a step change to a de-centralised, non-monolithic consumer and patient driven NHS. The result will be an NHS true to its founding principle of healthcare available according to need not wealth; but radically changed for the world of the early 21st century.

Likewise the education strategy signalled a move to a new era of secondary education beyond the traditional comprehensive model towards independent specialist schools.

Today’s strategy is the culmination of a journey of change both for progressive politics and for the country.  It marks the end of the 1960s liberal, social consensus on law and order.

The 1960s saw a huge breakthrough in terms of freedom of expression, of lifestyle, of the individual’s right to live their own personal life in the way they choose. It was the beginning of a consensus against discrimination, in favour of women’s equality, and the end of any sense of respectability in racism or homophobia. Not that discrimination didn’t any longer exist – or doesn’t now – but the gradual acceptance that it was contrary to the spirit of a new time.  Deference, too, was on the way out and rightly.  It spoke to an increasing rejection of rigid class divisions.

All of this has survived and strengthened in today’s generation.  But with this change in the 1960s came something else, not necessarily because of it but alongside it.  It was John Stuart Mill who articulated the modern concept that with freedom comes responsibility.  But in the 1960’s revolution, that didn’t always happen.  Law and order policy still focussed on the offender’s rights, protecting the innocent, understanding the social causes of their criminality.  All through the 1970s and 1980s, under Labour and Conservative Governments, a key theme of legislation was around the prevention of miscarriages of justice.  Meanwhile some took the freedom without the responsibility.  The worst criminals became better organised and more violent.  The petty criminals were no longer the bungling but wrong-headed villains of old; but drug pushers and drug-abusers, desperate and without any residual moral sense.  And a society of different lifestyles spawned a group of young people who were brought up without parental discipline, without proper role models and without any sense of responsibility to or for others.  All of this was then multiplied in effect, by the economic and social changes that altered the established pattern of community life in cities, towns and villages throughout Britain and throughout the developed world.

Here, now, today, people have had enough of this part of the 1960s consensus.  People do not want a return to old prejudices and ugly discrimination.  But they do want rules, order and proper behaviour. They know there is such a thing as society.  They want a society of respect.  They want a society of responsibility.  They want a community where the decent law-abiding majority are in charge; where those that play by the rules do well; and those that don’t, get punished.

For me this has always been something of a personal crusade. I got used to the society of fear in the 1980s canvassing on the Holly Street estate in Hackney (now thankfully greatly improved); when people were too scared to open the door and the letterboxes had burn marks round them where lighted rags had been shoved through them.

Later still, as an MP, I realised to my shock that this wasn’t confined to inner-city London. In the shire county of Durham, it was the same. I wrote a piece about it in The Times in April 1988, the first time I remember using the phrase “anti-social behaviour”.

Then as Shadow Home Secretary, I had the chance to campaign on it. At the time the shift in Labour’s stance on law and order was seen as clever politics. Actually I just worked through instinct; and discovered that all over progressive politics, including in the 1960s generation, the same anger and concern was felt.

But in Government, of course, the issue is not what to say, but what to do. Looking back, of all the public services we inherited in 1997, the one that was most unfit for purpose was the criminal justice system. Police numbers were falling. Though recorded crime had begun to fall, it was still double what it had been in the 1970s. Detections and convictions were going down. Trials often collapsed. Fines were often not paid.  Probation training had stalled. 1 in 6 CPS posts were vacant. There were literally no computers for frontline prosecution  staff.  But above all, there was a resigned tolerance of failure, a culture of fragmentation and an absence of any sense of forward purpose, across the whole criminal justice system. And anti-social behaviour was a menace, without restraint.

In the first few years we took some important first steps.  We stopped the fall in police numbers, once free of the spending constraints of the first two years.  We halved the time to bring persistent juvenile offenders to justice.  We introduced the first testing and treatment orders for drug offenders.  We introduced and implemented a radical strategy on burglary and car crime which cut both dramatically.  We toughened the law.

As a result, on the statistics we are the first Government since the war to have crime lower than when we took office.  But that’s the statistics.  It’s not what people feel.

Building on these foundations, we started to become a lot more radical in our thinking. We introduced the first legislation specifically geared to ASB.  We asked the police what powers they wanted and gave them to them.  The latest Criminal Justice Act is a huge step forward. We put a £1 billion investment into CJS technology. We have introduced mandatory drug testing at the point of charge in high crime areas. We have established the first DNA database. There will be a new framework for sentencing. Probation and prisons are to be run under one service. Community penalties are being radically re-structured. And we have 12,500 more police than in 1997. There is a real feeling within the CJS that change is happening.

But as fast as we act, as tough as it seems compared to the 1970s or 1980s, for the public it is not fast or tough enough.

What we signal today is a step-change. It has three components to it.

First, we seek to revive community policing. People want not just the bobby on the beat, but a strong, organised uniformed presence back on the streets.  And the local community itself wants a say in how they are policed. They want to be in charge. Our proposals for police, CSOs and neighbourhood action do that.

Second, we are shifting from tackling the offence to targeting the offender. There will be a massive increase in drug testing and drug treatment, with bail and the avoidance of prison being dependent on the offender’s co-operation.  Sentencing and probation will likewise focus on the offender; and just paying the penalty will not be enough.  For as long as they remain a danger, the most violent offenders will stay in custody.

Thirdly, we are giving local communities and police the powers they need to enforce respect on the street. ASB measures will be strengthened. Summary justice through on-the-spot fines, seizure of drug dealers’ assets, closure of pubs, clubs and houses that are the centre of drug use or disorder, naming and shaming of persistent ASB offenders, interim ASBO’s, will be rolled out.  Organised criminals will face not just the pre-emptive seizure of their assets, but will be forced to cooperate with investigations and will face trial without jury where there is any suggestion of intimidation of jurors.  Abuse of court procedures, endless trial delays, the misuse of legal aid will no longer be tolerated.

The purpose of the CJS reforms is to re-balance the system radically in favour of the victim, protecting the innocent but ensuring the guilty know the odds have changed.

I know this is a lot to promise and to deliver.  But there is change underway.  For the first time in years, people’s fear of crime, and of ASB and of their satisfaction levels with the CJS are moving in the right direction.  I want this to be a major part of our offer to the people of Britain in the time to come.  We can’t do it on our own.  We need the police to use the powers.  We need the public to get engaged.  But for the first time in my political lifetime the politicians, police and public are on the same side.  We are providing help with the causes of crime: big investment in the poorest communities; extra family support for the most disadvantaged families; the New Deal; Sure Start; more drug treatment.

We understand criminal behaviour often has complex and tragic antecedents.  But out first duty is to the law-abiding citizen.  They are our boss.  It’s time to put them at the centre of the CJS.  That is the new consensus on law and order for our times.

Below is the text of a speech made by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on 23rd May 2002 to the Royal Society.

When 12 men founded the Royal Society in 1660, it was possible for an educated person to encompass all of scientific knowledge. In fact, that was probably true for more than half of this body’s existence. It was only in 1847 that the Royal Society decided to restrict its membership to working scientists.

But in the last century, and in particular in the last 50 years, such has been the pace of scientific advance that even the best scientists cannot keep up with discoveries at frontiers outside their own field. More science is being done, it’s more global and it’s faster to impact on our lives.

Given the great advances of recent years, it would be easy for non-scientists to think that the great scientific problems have been solved, that today’s work is filling in minor gaps. But we stand on the verge of further leaps forward in scientific endeavour and discovery.

Now I know there are scientists here who can explain with far more insight than I the challenges and wonders that are emerging. But there are three main reasons why I want to address the potential of this new age of discovery.

First, science is vital to our country’s continued future prosperity.

Second, science is posing hard questions of moral judgement and of practical concern, which, if addressed in the wrong way, can lead to prejudice against science, which I believe would be profoundly damaging.

Third, as a result, the benefits of science will only be exploited through a renewed compact between science and society, based on a proper understanding of what science is trying to achieve.

The idea of making this speech has been in my mind for some time. The final prompt for it came, curiously enough, when I was in Bangalore in January. I met a group of academics, who were also in business in the biotech field. They said to me bluntly: Europe has gone soft on science; we are going to leapfrog you and you will miss out. They regarded the debate on GM here and elsewhere in Europe as utterly astonishing. They saw us as completely overrun by protestors and pressure groups who used emotion to drive out reason. And they didn’t think we had the political will to stand up for proper science.

I believe that if we don’t get a better understanding of science and its role, they may be proved right.

Let us start with the hardest thing of all to achieve in politics: a sense of balance. Already some of the pre-speech criticism suggests that by supporting science, we want the world run by Dr Strangelove, with all morality eclipsed by a cold, heartless test-tube ideology with scientists as its leaders.

Science is just knowledge. And knowledge can be used by evil people for evil ends. Science doesn’t replace moral judgement. It just extends the context of knowledge within which moral judgements are made. It allows us to do more, but it doesn’t tell us whether doing more is right or wrong.

Science is also fallible. Theories change. Knowledge expands and can contradict earlier thinking.

All of this is true, but none of it should stop science trying to tell us the facts. Yet in every generation, there are those who feel that the facts may lead us astray, may tempt us to do wrong. And in one way, they are right. There is a greater capacity to do wrong with scientific advances because we have greater technological capability – for example, nuclear weapons.

But the answer is not to disinvent nuclear fusion. The answer is that with scientific advance, we need greater moral fibre; better judgement; and stronger analysis of how to use knowledge for good not ill.

The balance is that better moral judgement goes hand-in-hand with better science.

But first why is science important to our economic and social future?

Current state of science

There are many issues of gravity in our world, of danger, of difficulty. But I think scientific discovery is one of the most exciting developments happening in the world today.

The biosciences are, rightly, drawing much admiring attention at the present time. But huge advances continue to be made in the physical sciences and the interdisciplinary areas between them. Indeed, increasingly, physical and life sciences are inderdependent.

The current work in nanoscience – manipulating and building devices atom by atom – is startling in its potential. From this we now see emerging nanotechnology, the ultimate in miniaturisation. Programmable and controllable microscale robots will allow doctors to execute curative and reconstructive procedures in the human body at the cellular and molecular level. Visionaries in this field talks about machines the size of a cell that might, for example, identify and destroy all the cancerous cells in a body. Nanomachines might target bacteria and other parasites, dealing with tuberculosis, malaria and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

I saw a demonstration last week of some of the pioneering work being done in Cambridge in light-emitting polymers. Imagine a thin, flexible sheet of plastic coated with flexible semiconductors. This kind of disruptive technology may create whole new industries and products we can’t begin to imagine. And it’s revealing that this sort of work requires the collaboration of physicists, chemists, material scientists and engineers.

Meanwhile, climate change presents one of the greatest challenges. Science alone can’t solve the problem. But I’m encouraged by the work in Britain on improved solar panels, better fuel cell technology, and more efficient means of tapping tidal and wave energy. Note for example that our tidal rip – if harnessed – could provide ten times our current energy needs.

Meanwhile, hydrogen technologies offer the potential of zero-pollution transport. The vision of the scientists and engineers developing this technology is of clean and safe cities, without the air quality and health impacts of conventional vehicles.

What is particularly impressive is the way that scientists are now undaunted by important complex phenomena. Pulling together the massive power available from modern computers, the engineering capability to design and build enormously complex automated instruments to collect new data, with the weight of scientific understanding developed over the centuries, the frontiers of science have moved into a detailed understanding of complex phenomena ranging from the genome to our global climate. Predictive climate modelling covers the period to the end of this century and beyond, with our own Hadley Centre playing the leading role internationally.

The emerging field of e-science should transform this kind of work. It’s significant that the UK is the first country to develop a national e-science Grid, which intends to make access to computing power, scientific data repositories and experimental facilities as easy as the Web makes access to information.

One of the pilot e-science projects is to develop a digital mammographic archive, together with an intelligent medical decision support system for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. An individual hospital will not have supercomputing facilties, but through the Grid it could buy the time it needs. So the surgeon in the operating room will be able to pull up a high-resolution mammogram to identify exactly where the tumour can be found.

We already enjoy many of the fruits of biomedical science. In Shakespeare’s day, life expectancy in Britain was only 30 years. Even by the 1880s, for the malnourished working class, it was still under 40. Today, life expectancy at birth is nearly 80 years, and we can expect many of us to live healthily into our eighties and nineties and even hundreds. The availability of this extraordinary progress is largely a direct result of advances in the life sciences and improved diets.

As we move into what Sir Paul Nurse calls the post-genomic world, we can anticipate that healthcare will undergo enormous change. Some diseases can be directly linked to the presence or absence of particular genes or gene sequences. The new field of pharmacogenomics will vastly increase the efficiency of medication. Drugs will be tailored to an individual’s genetic make-up.

Beyond that, we can now see a future where the doctor will swab a few cells from inside your cheek, put them into a DNA-sequencing machine and a computer will spit out a complete reading of your unique genetic makeup – all 30,000 or so genes that make you who you are. From that, doctors could pinpoint flawed genes and gene products and predict what diseases you are likely to develop years in advance of any symptoms – and how to help you avoid them.

As scientific understanding develops, we may even be able to change the fate of individual cells – which could mean breakthroughs against diseases like Alzheimer’s, diabetes, Parkinson’s and cancer.

We have a unique resource in this regard in the National Health Service. There are crucial issues of privacy of genetic information that we need to deal with. But our national, public system will enable us to gather the comprehensive data necessary to predict the likelihood of various diseases – and then make choices to help prevent them.

Everything I’ve mentioned is already work in progress in laboratories in Britain and elsewhere. But what is most exciting is that science creates possibilities that were not imagined previously. After all, only ten years ago researchers in elementary particle physics were determined to find a way in which they could share information more effectively. Out of this seemingly simple aim, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.

This is the best recent example of the hidden power of science. We use these devices and don’t even think about them being creations of science. In the case of the Web, particle physicists created a great equalising, democratic force.

Britain’s special position

So: what can all this mean for Britain’s future well-being and prosperity?

We are fortunate to have a long science tradition, perhaps best represented by the history of this very institution. Newton, a former president of the Royal Society, and Darwin are acknowledged as two of the epochal scientists of human civilisation, and are probably – with Shakespeare – Britain’s greatest contributors to human civilisation. I would also cite Faraday, Thomson, Dirac, Crick, Perutz, Nurse and many others. As Bob May has said, “creative imagination at and beyond the frontiers simply is something we are good at”.

By any measure, our record is outstanding. With 1% of the world’s population, we fund 4.5% of the world’s science, produce 8% of the scientific papers and receive 9% of the citations.

The strength and creativity of our science base is a key national asset as we move into the 21st century. Britain has produced 44 Nobel laureates in the last 50 years, more than any country except the US. But this statistic does conceal a problem we must acknowledge. Only eight of those laureates are in the last 20 years. We have relied for too long on tradition and sentiment to aid our scientists. We need strong funding and strong public support, not just the warm glow of our traditions.

I don’t want our next Nobel laureate to echo the tale of Tim Hunt, who – in the moment of his Nobel triumph last year – told the story of how he and his colleagues had to scrape together money to buy a telephone for their lab.

When the Government came to power science was suffering from a lengthy and disastrous period of underfunding and neglect. Scientists were increasingly going abroad to do their research; our laboratories were in an appalling condition and the inept political handling of the BSE crisis meant that there was a growing distrust of science and scientists.

The Government has taken major steps to improve the funding of science. In the 1998 comprehensive spending review we increased the science budget by 15%, the largest increase of any area of Government expenditure. And in the 2000 Spending Review we took further steps, so that today the science budget is increasing by 7% a year in real terms.

As part of this increase, in a highly valuable partnership with the Wellcome Trust, we have invested £75bn for the renewal of science research infrastructure in the last 2 spending reviews.

And it isn’t just the sums of money that are important. The Research Assessment Exercise and the thousands of hard working scientists who have responded to these incentives have fostered excellence and driven up the quality of research in universities. But we realise the need to do more still to promote world class excellence and this will be a priority for us in the period ahead.

As a result, we are seeing an improvement in the quality of our laboratories, and instead of seeing a continuing “brain drain” we may be seeing the beginning of a “brain gain”. Sir Gareth Roberts’ report for 2001 estimated a net inflow of 5000 scientists and engineers to the UK. But there is a long way to go.

Also, science is a thoroughly globalised endeavour, one in which Britain can and must play a key role.

A considerable amount of scientific effort today occurs on a pan-European scale. There’s the research at CERN, the fusion work at Culham and the experiments organised through the European Space Agency.

It is typical in today’s research to have British scientists working with other European, American and Asian colleagues on a common problem. In radio astronomy, for example, UK scientists at Jodrell Bank collaborate in a network of antennae spreading across Europe, China, Australia and the US. This is truly an example of global science, with free access to the facilities and to the science.

Science is both internationally competitive and internationally collaborative. If we are to remain an innovative, forward-looking nation, we need to retain the capacity to do this work, both on our own and in collaboration with scientists in other nations.

High technology industries

Government and business support for scientific research is not enough on its own. We also need to make sure that scientific innovation gets translated into applied uses in business.

We are already leaders in science-based industries including pharmaceuticals, aerospace, biotechnology and opto-electronics. But there are many more that could benefit from our world-class science and technology.

So we are establishing strong links between universities and business through specific schemes – such as University Challenge, Link, the Faraday Partnerships and the Higher Education Innovation Fund.

But more general initiatives too are helping lead to a major cultural change in higher education. A recent survey showed that in 1999-2000, 199 companies were spun off from our universities, compared with 70 a year on average in the previous five years. In relation to the amount of research we do, this was a better record than even the United States. The number of patents filed was also sharply up. And the percentage of university research funded by industry was higher than in the US.

Cambridge Science parks and the surrounding area now house about 1,400 high-tech companies, and some of the top companies are worth over 1 billion Euro. Science parks and incubator laboratories for start-up companies have now sprung up around many of our universities.

We have also just introduced a new tax credit for research and development: a boost to innovation, affecting expenditure by 1,500 large companies in the UK.

Biotechnology is at the forefront of these developments. The biotech industry’s market in Europe alone is expected to be worth $100 billion by 2005. The number of people employed in biotech and associated companies could be as high as three million, as we catch up with the US industry – currently eight times the size of Europe’s.

And Britain leads Europe: three-quarters of the biotechnology drugs in late-stage clinical trials in Europe are produced by British companies. With our excellent science base, our sophisticated capital markets and venture capital industry, the large number of skilled scientists and managers in our pharmaceuticals sector, and the investment in research by the Research Councils, Wellcome Trust and others, Britain is well placed to keep and extend its lead.

What’s more, the other disruptive technologies that I have already mentioned – nanotechnology and plastics electronics – have the potential to penetrate global markets in the same way.

The ideas recently put forward for a Nanotech fabrication plant and for investment by a public/private partnership in “proof of concept” work to demonstrate the potential of new scientific discoveries, are well worth examining.

Science and Government

So Britain can benefit enormously from scientific advance.

But precisely because the advances are so immense, people worry. And, of course, many of these worries are entirely serious. In GM crops, I can find no serious evidence of health risks. But there are genuine and real concerns over biodiversity and gene transfer. Human cloning raises legitimate moral questions. Advances in arms technology makes the world less safe. Humanity has, for the first time, the capacity for vast prosperity or to destroy itself completely.

People have an understandable concern about the pace of change, about the new and the unknown. They are concerned that technology dehumanises society. They are concerned by their belief that scientists contradict each other, or can be unreliable. And about what they see as the inability of Government to regulate science properly.

In some cases, these concerns descend into a fear, which is amplified by parts of the media.

Some of these concerns are not new. You don’t need to go back to Galileo for examples. Lightning conductors, invented by Benjamin Franklin, were initially torn down, even from churches, because it was believed they thwarted God’s will. There were riots in the streets when the smallpox vaccine was introduced. Smallpox has now been eliminated. In the early days of heart transplants they were attacked as unnatural or dehumanising, but in surveys today heart transplants are seen as one of the most beneficial results of modern science.

Sometimes science is wrongly blamed for the faults of others. Take BSE. Science in this case correctly identified a new problem. The American Scientist Stanley Prusiner won the Nobel Prize for discovering prions, and establishing the link between BSE and CJD. Bad science didn’t cause the spread of BSE; it was bad agriculture and poor government.

The response of the government must be to encourage openness, transparency and honesty. The Food Standards Agency, which operates in an area of particular public concern and sensitivity, holds meetings in public and publishes minutes on the Web. The Human Genetics Commission and the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission are other examples where we are spearheading this approach and the Chief Scientific Adviser has established an independent voice in Government as an important part of this process.

And there are lessons to be learnt from the way that we handled the embryonic stem cell debate. Firstly, we established the scientific facts very carefully, with the authoritative report by the Chief Medical Officer in August 2000.

There was then a lengthy discussion which gave time for all groups, including the medical charities, to make their views known, and this led to a very balanced debate in Parliament, resulting in carefully framed legislation. As a result we have an intelligent, stable regulatory regime for this crucial field.

Nowhere in the world has what one might call a community of stem cell experts yet – the science is too new. But Britain starts with a strong reputation in developmental biology and a number of institutes with worldwide reputations. I want to make the UK the best place in the world for this research, so in time our scientists, together with those we are attracting from overseas, can develop new therapies to tackle brain and spinal cord repair, Alzheimer’s disease and other degenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s.

It is also critically important that the Government are given the best possible advice on science, engineering and technology through Government departments. We are currently looking at ways of improving Government science.

The recent appointment of Professor Howard Dalton, a Fellow of this Society and a much respected microbiologist, as Chief Scientific Adviser to the Secretary of State for DEFRA, is an example of this in action. Drawing on the successes of the Research Assessment Exercise in the University sector, we are looking at introducing a programme of external benchmarking and review of the way Government departments use science.

The revised Government Foresight Programme has just been launched by the Chief Scientific Advisor with two examples of scientific horizon scanning. A Foresight project on cognitive neuroscience will bring together experts in IT and in brain research to seek out new technological opportunities for exploitation.

And a project on flood and coastal defences will examine increasing threats to our country over the next 50 to 100 years arising from predicted changes in climate. Here the predictive capability of the science will be evaluated alongside science and engineering possibilities of mitigating against the worst effects. Environmentalism is strongest when allied to hard science and empirical testing.

Science and Society

But this isn’t just about Government and science. Its crucially about society. We need better, stronger, clearer ways of science and people communicating. The dangers are in ignorance of each others point of view; the solution is understanding them.

The fundamental distinction is between a process where science tells us the facts and we make a judgement; and a process where a priori judgements effectively constrain scientific research. We have the right to judge but we also have a right to know. A priori judgement branded Darwin a heretic; science proved his tremendous insight. So let us know the facts; then make the judgement as to how we use or act on them.

None of this, incidentally, should diminish the precautionary principle. Responsible science and responsible policymaking operate on the precautionary principle. But that principle should make us proceed with care on the basis of fact; not fail to proceed at all on the basis of prejudice.

There is only a small band of people, I believe, who genuinely want to stifle informed debate. But a small group can, as has happened in our country, destroy experimental crops before we can determine their environmental impact. I don’t know what that research would have concluded. Neither do the protestors. But I want to reach my judgements after I have the facts and not before.

Of course there must be constraints that we properly place on scientists, through health and safety regulations, through legislation controlling animal experimentation, and, most recently, through the ban on human reproductive cloning. There are strong ethical reasons why we have one of the world’s strictest, most regulated regimes for animal experimentation. The Government is also at the forefront of pan-European efforts to ensure that there is no unnecessary duplication of animal experimentation. But if we had stopped all animal experiments in recent years we would not have developed a meningitis vaccine or combined drug therapy for HIV infection.

We’re faced with a current example, where Cambridge University intends to build a new centre for neurological research. Part of this would involve using primates to test potential cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. But there is a chance the centre will not be built because of concerns about public safety dangers and unlawful protests. We cannot have vital work stifled simply because it is controversial.

We need, therefore, a robust, engaging dialogue with the public. We need to re-establish trust and confidence in the way that science can demonstrate new opportunities, and offer new solutions.

This task will be aided if we can embed a more mature attitude towards science in our society. I absolutely reject notions of two cultures. There is a deep human need to understand, and science has revealed so much of our extraordinary world. Science is a central part, not a separate part, of our common culture, together with art, history, the social sciences and the humanities.

Conclusion

All of this adds up to a clear challenge for Britain over the next 10 years.

We need to ensure our bright young people share our excitement about the potential of science and the role they can play. We particularly need to reverse the decline in maths, physics and engineering, and make science a career to aspire to, for girls as well as boys.

We have recently reversed an eight-year decline in teacher training applications for science subjects, partly through ‘golden hellos’ for science and technology teachers. But we are not complacent – recruiting and retaining more science teachers remains a key priority.

We’ve also concentrated on establishing a network of specialist schools that share their best practice with other schools in the locality: of the 1000 we expect by this September, around 500 will be in scientific disciplines, of which about 25 will be specialist science colleges. We have proposed a new National Centre of Excellence in Science Teaching. We have created a network of Science and Engineering Ambassadors to support science teachers. And we have provided millions to refurbish school labs and modernise the learning infrastructure.

We have also ensured that science remains a core subject until 16. From September 2002 there will be a new applied science GCSE to offer pupils a new route into science as a career. Science is also at the heart of our programme to develop the potential of the very brightest pupils through the Academy for Gifted and Talented pupils at Warwick University, which will open next year.

We also need to deepen school specialisation in science, in particular by seeking new forms of collaboration involving colleges and Higher Education institutions. I would like to see many more universities sharing their facilities and teaching expertise with secondary schools, as well as linking up with the private sector to maximise our national scientific capability.

We should not ignore our strengths in science education. The recent, highly respected OECD PISA study ranked British 15-year olds fourth internationally for science literacy, well ahead of most of our competitors.

However, I am concerned about the findings of the Roberts report on skills shortages in the sciences and engineering. We will be looking very carefully at his recommendations as part of the Spending Review 2002.

I want to make sure the UK is one of the best places in the world to do science. For that we need our people, equipment and infrastructure to be properly funded. And we should continue to promote British science abroad.

We need to continue our improvements in Government handling of science, where public trust is particularly low. All departments need strong systems for managing research and handling advice. Scientific information and advice to Government should be freely available and accessible. Open and informed public debate on key scientific issues will be an integral part of our approach.

We need to go further in our drive for successful knowledge transfer. Our goal is prosperity for all through successful business using excellent science.

We need to ensure that Government, scientists and the public are fully engaged together in establishing the central role of science in building the world we want.

If we can succeed in producing a confident relationship between scientists and the public, the promise is that Britain can be as much of a powerhouse of innovation – and its spin-offs – in the 21st century as we were in the 19th and early 20th century. The benefits in industry, jobs of quality, healthcare, education, and the environment can transform our future. Of course, we must exercise the care and judgement to make scientific discovery a liberating, civilising force not a leap into the unknown.

But let the debate be one between open minds, not a retreat into a culture of unreason. I want to prove those entrepreneurs in Bangalore wrong. I want Britain and Europe to be at the forefront of scientific advance. But its no exaggeration to say that in some areas we’re at a crossroads. We could choose a path of timidity in the face of the unknown.

Or we could choose to be a nation at ease with radical knowledge, not fearful of the future, a culture that values a pragmatic, evidence-based approach to new opportunities. The choice is clear. We should make it confidently.