In full: Ed Balls’ speech at the Labour Party Annual Conference 2012
Conference, we meet here in Manchester, two years on from our
leadership election, a contest held in the shadow of a General
Election defeat.
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Hide AdAnd we all know what’s supposed to happen when political parties lose
elections: acrimony and division, the party turning in on itself, out
of touch with the views of the country.
Well Conference, two years on, in this generation, we have bucked that
trend. I can’t remember our party ever being so united, so determined
to win back the trust of the people.
And with our economy in recession, and the unfairness and incompetence
of this Tory-led coalition now laid bare, let us show we are the
people to rebuild Britain, strong and fair for the future.
And Conference, making the case for change, setting the agenda - on
reform of our media, and banks, responsibility in our economy from top
to bottom; showing the strength of purpose and moral
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Street; Conference, let us pay tribute to my friend, our leader,
Britain’s next Prime Minister, Ed Miliband.
Conference, I am proud to serve in Ed’s Shadow Cabinet - now with more
than 40 per cent women, the first time that has ever happened in
British politics.
And what a contrast to David Cameron’s Cabinet: where the men get the
jobs, the women get the sack and only the chaps get the knighthoods.
Let me ask you this: what does it take to get sacked from David
Cameron’s Cabinet?
Swear at a police officer and call him a ‘pleb’? And you’re defended
to the hilt.
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International? You get promoted.
Flat-line the economy and deliver the most unfair and shambolic Budget
in living memory? And you stay in post - more than that, you’re
allowed to do it part-time.
Do all those things and David Cameron will let you keep your job. But
not if you’re a woman.
Conference, what kind of Prime Minister thinks it’s fair to sack a 54
year old woman from his Cabinet because she’s ‘too old’ - and then
give the job to a 56 year old man instead?
Let me tell you: a Prime Minister who only appoints five women in the
first place, sacks three of them, demotes the other two - and then
attacks the Labour leadership for not being ‘butch’ enough.
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Hide AdButch? Butch? Whatever did he mean? And if David Cameron is butch,
where does that leave George Osborne?
Perhaps this is why George Osborne will never be sacked. A Prime
Minister and a Chancellor destined to go down fighting together. And
this time, let’s see them riding off into the sun-set. Butch
Cameron and the flat-line kid.
And Conference, doesn’t it feel good to be back here in Manchester?
Or, should I say, to be back here in Labour Manchester: four Labour
MPs, three world class universities, two world-beating football teams,
one Labour Council. And not a single Tory Councillor in this
whole city - not a single one.
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Hide AdLet us pledge today to keep it that way, and elect the brilliant Lucy
Powell as Manchester’s first ever Labour woman MP.
And let me say too, I can think of no-one better to be Manchester’s
first ever Police and Crime Commissioner than the wise and highly
respected Tony Lloyd.
And Conference, at a time of such tragedy for policing in this city,
our whole country remembers two brave officers who lost their lives
doing their duty, and we pay tribute to all those public
servants up and down the country - police officers, fire-fighters, our
armed forces - who every day put their lives on the line to keep us
safe.
And Conference, as we rightly praise the success of London 2012, let’s
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Hide Adnot forget it was Manchester’s hosting of the 2002 Commonwealth Games
which showed the way, proving that Britain was ready to
stage the biggest international sporting events.
So Conference, we salute Graham Stringer and Sir Richard Leese as we
salute all those people who brought the Olympics to London, and made
them such a success - Tony Blair and Prince William, Ken
Livingstone and Gordon Brown, Lord Coe and Boris Johnson, too many
others to mention.
But let us remember that none of them would have been able to play
their part if not for the one person who made it all possible.
Conference, please join me in thanking Dame Tessa Jowell.
Conference, it was Tessa’s officials who told her it would be a
disaster to bid for the 2012 Games. It would cost too much, the
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Hide Adstadiums would never be ready, London’s transport wouldn’t cope,
the security would be a nightmare.
Tessa could have listened to all those concerns, but she didn’t. She
persevered. We won the bid. And the rest is now part of our national
history.
And Conference, this is the lesson we all should learn. With wise
leadership and long-term vision and a strong partnership between
government and citizens, business, trade unions and the voluntary
sector, we can do great things, we can lead the rest of the world and
we can rebuild Britain for the future.
But if you listen to the doubters, if you never take a risk, if you
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Hide Adflinch when obstacles are in the way, you will never get anything
done.
And if you spend your whole time fighting short-term political battles
- Dave versus Boris, Boris versus George, George versus Vince - you
will never rise to the long-term needs of the country. And in
the end, you let people down and lose their trust.
And nowhere is that more obvious than in our economy today.
Thank goodness the Olympics has given us a short-term shot in the arm,
that might just be enough to take us out of recession this quarter.
But that is no substitute for a long-term strategy. Not when families
are struggling to make ends meet. Not when food and fuel prices are
going up, but wages are frozen and tax credits cut.
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Hide AdNot when so many young people have been unable to find work or stay-on
in education. Not when so many small businesses are struggling to
raise finance so they can survive until the year-end.
Not when so many working people in the private sector and public
sectors are worried about their jobs and their pensions - the human
cost of this economic failure.
Remember what David Cameron, and George Osborne and Nick Clegg
promised: that faster tax rises and deeper spending cuts would secure
the recovery and make Britain a safe haven; that theirs was the
only credible plan to deal with the national debt; and that we were
all in this together.
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Hide AdConference, the recovery secured? We’re just one of only two G20
countries in recession - the longest double-dip recession since the
Second World War.
A credible plan to deal with our debts? Because we are in recession,
the deficit is now not going down, it’s going up - up by 22 per cent
so far this year. Rising borrowing not to invest in the
jobs of the future but to pay for the mounting costs of this
government’s economic failure.
Conference, there is nothing credible about a plan that leads to: a
double-dip recession, thousands of businesses bust, a million young
people out of work, billions wasted on a soaring benefits bill,
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Hide Adand borrowing going up not down. That’s not credible, that is just plain wrong.
And as for ‘we’re all in this together’, we don’t hear that line anymore.
Not from a Chancellor who presented the most unfair and unpopular
Budget in a generation. A Chancellor who tried to raise taxes on
pasties, caravans, churches and charities, but who refuses to look
seriously at proposals for a mansion tax.
A Chancellor who in six months’ time will raise taxes for pensioners
on the very same day he cuts the top rate of tax for the very richest
- a £3 billion tax cut, giving £40,000 a year to a
millionaire.
Conference, what kind of government asks millions of pensioners to pay
for a tax cut for millionaires?
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if you take away their tax credits and make them worse off, but
millionaires will only work harder if you give them a tax cut to
make them better off?
Conference, isn’t this the truth, we know what kind of government this
is: failing on the economy, failing on the deficit, hitting the many
to help a privileged few. Arrogant, complacent, out of
touch.
Conference, it’s the same old Tory government. David Cameron, George
Osborne, Nick Clegg. The same old Tories, every one of them.
But you know what the worst thing is? For two years they’ve told us
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Hide Adall this pain will be worth it in the end, that it’ll be short-term
pain for long-term gain.
But what we are now seeing is short-term pain already doing long-term damage.
Look at the facts: over 33,000 companies already gone bust since the
General Election; investment plans cancelled - or diverted overseas;
our economy weaker, capacity lost, more prone to
inflationary pressures when the recovery finally comes; child poverty
rising, and long-term youth unemployment becoming entrenched,
damaging them for the rest of their lives.
And Conference, if we carry on like this - a divided coalition,
muddling through, no vision, waiting for something to turn up - the
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Hide Addanger is that two lost years becomes three and four and that we
slip into a lost decade of slow growth, high unemployment and stagnation.
Lost investment, lost output, lost jobs, lost exports, lost tax
revenues - a decade when we fail to make the investments and the
reforms we need to make our economy stronger and fairer for the
future.
And Conference, it doesn’t have to be this way.
While Britain has been stalled over the past two years, other
countries have been forging ahead. Last year private investment in
Germany rose by over seven per cent. One million extra students
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Hide Adenrolled in university in America. China is building 80,000 miles of
roads a year and is now planning 70 new airports.
And here in Britain? Private investment? Down over 2 per cent last year.
More students? No, over 50,000 fewer.
And not one of the road projects David Cameron announced last year
even started in construction.
And when you look at this picture of stagnation and inaction in our
economy, it’s no wonder the deficit is now rising.
We warned two years ago that drastic spending cuts and early tax rises
- too far, too fast - risked choking off the recovery and making a
difficult situation worse. We warned that you either learn the
lessons of history or you repeat the mistakes of history.
Because this is the fundamental truth: if more people are on the dole,
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Hide Adnot paying taxes, you can’t get the deficit down. If businesses are
going bust, not hiring new workers, you can’t get the
deficit down. If the economy’s not growing, you can’t get the deficit down.
And that is why we must act now to kick-start the recovery, tackle the
causes of rising borrowing and start to make our economy stronger for
the future.
A year ago, we set out five actions the government should take - then
and now - to boost growth:
Tax bankers’ bonuses and build 25,000 social homes for rent and
guarantee a job for 100,000 young people.
Genuinely bring forward long-term investment in infrastructure.
Temporarily reverse the damaging VAT rise.
Give every small firm taking on extra workers a one year national
insurance tax break.
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Hide AdAnd cut VAT to 5 per cent for a year on home improvements and repairs.
But Conference, since last year David Cameron’s government has done
next to nothing.
Their economic plan is failing - and they don’t know what to do. Plan
A, Plan B, Plan A plus - with this government, I just don’t see any
plan at all.
Conference, one year on, the need to kick-start the economy is even more urgent.
So we must go further. With 119,000 construction jobs lost in two
years and a 68 per cent fall in the number of affordable homes being
built, we need bold and urgent action now.
So with Hilary Benn and Jack Dromey, this is what I propose. The
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the 4G mobile phone spectrum.
In the good times, Labour used every penny of the £22bn from the sale
of the 3G licenses to pay off national debt. But in difficult times,
we urgently need to put something back into the economy.
So with this one-off windfall from the sale of the 4G spectrum, let’s
cut through this Government’s dither and rhetoric and actually do
something. Not more talk, but action right now.
Let’s use that money from the 4G sale and build over the next two
years: 100,000 new homes - affordable homes to rent and to buy -
creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and getting our
construction industry moving again. Add to that a stamp duty holiday
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Hide Adfor first time buyers buying homes up to £250,000 and we can deliver
real help for people aspiring to get on the property ladder.
Conference, a clear and costed plan to kick-start the economy and get
people back to work. Building the homes that we need now and for the
long-term. Building our way out of recession and re-building
Britain for the future.
And we also need reform to boost long-term investment and skills - the
only routes to rising living standards for working families.
Chuka is right to say we need a modern industrial policy to support
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Hide Adlong-term wealth creation, with strategic support for our advanced
manufacturing and service industries.
And we need to work and campaign together to tackle tax avoidance, end
bogus self-employment, prevent a race to the bottom through regional
pay; and enforce the minimum wage, help parents balance work
and family life and make sure our labour market is genuinely flexible
and fair to working people, and let’s go further and promote the
living wage.
And we know too our banking system needs cultural change and radical
reform - reform which this Government is only interested in watering
down.
That is why Ed Miliband and I are clear, we do need:
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practices of our banking system.
Radical reform to separate retail and investment banking.
Active support for mutuals and co-operatives.
A continued campaign for an international financial transactions tax.
And a proper British Investment Bank - fully backed by the Treasury.
And Conference, let me say this about the hundreds of thousands of
working people, earning ordinary salaries, who work hard every day
behind the counters of our high street banks.
They were as shocked and dismayed as everyone else at the gross
irresponsibility and greed of a few millionaire bankers at the top who
caused such damage and gave their industry a bad name. Working
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long-term interests of our economy, and who do not deserve to be
pilloried for their hard work and service.
Conference, the financial crisis did expose deep-rooted problems in
our economy.
After the global financial crash, it was always going to be difficult
to get the deficit down. And even if we do get the economy growing
again, even if we do reform our banking system for the future,
we’re still going to face tough choices in the years ahead.
But the longer this Government staggers on with a failing economic
plan, the worse it will get and the harder the job will be. Hard times
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to put everything right straight away.
That is why, however difficult this may be, when we don’t know what we
will inherit, we cannot make any commitments now that the next Labour
government will be able to reverse particular tax rises
or spending cuts. Because, unlike Nick Clegg, we will not make
promises we cannot keep.
Of course we’ll make different choices - we’ll do things in a fairer
and more balanced way and put jobs and growth first.
But Conference, as I said to the TUC, we must be upfront with the
British people that under Labour there would have been cuts and that -
on spending, pay and pensions - there will be difficult
decisions in the future from which we will not flinch.
Before the next election - when we know the circumstances we will face
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country’s current budget back to balance and national
debt on a downward path.
Not a meaningless fiscal rule like George Osborne’s - a promise to
balance the books in five years time, with that five year period
moving forward every single year.
Conference, our fiscal rules will be monitored, independently, by the
Office for Budget Responsibility, and we will take the action required
to meet them. And when we sell off the Government’s
shares in the banks every penny will go to repay the national debt.
Conference, fiscal responsibility in the national interest.
And because we all know there can be no post-election spending spree,
in our first year in government we will hold a zero-based spending
review that will look at every pound spent by government:
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rooting out waste and boosting productivity, building on the work that
Rachel Reeves and Jon Trickett are leading.
But we will do things differently to this Government. Not slashing
budgets without a care in the world - damaging the economy, hitting
women harder than men - but assessing every pound of
taxpayer’s money including for its impact on growth and fairness.
Not opting for short-term cuts that look ‘easy’ but which end up
costing more in the long-term - like deep cuts to youth services, to
adult mental health services and to public health.
And not ducking the hard long-term issues we know we haven’t properly
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Hide Adfaced up to and which transcend parties and parliaments and where we
badly need a cross-party consensus. So let us get a
long-term plan to support the most vulnerable in our society -
looked-after children and adults needing social care.
Because this is not just about policy, but about the kind of country
we want to be and the way we do our politics.
Where we face important long-term challenges, we must seek a consensus
that puts short-term politics aside and puts the national interest
first, just as we did over a decade ago when we made the Bank
of England independent.
And nowhere is such a consensus more essential than on our national
infrastructure.
The lesson of the Olympics is that if we approach major long-term
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Hide Adinfrastructure projects by building a cross-party sense of national
purpose then we can deliver.
And yet, it took 13 years from the opening of the Channel Tunnel to
complete the High Speed Rail link to London. Crossrail was delayed for
decades.
And why is this so often the case? Yes, our cumbersome planning
system. Yes, legitimate concerns for the environment. Too often in the
past, governments have assumed that vital public infrastructure
can only be funded by public investment - and then baulked at the bill.
But, above all, successive governments - including our own - have
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Hide Adducked or delayed vital decisions on our national infrastructure,
allowing short-term politics to come first.
And just look at this government: will Boris or Dave win on Heathrow?
Will Conservative MPs block High Speed rail? Will George see off Zac
on renewable energy?
What a ridiculous way to run the country. No wonder business is fast
losing confidence in this government’s ability to make long-term
decisions.
But Conference, it is not just a problem of this government or this
parliament - and we have to be the party to break this cycle.
Because if we don’t, if we put off major decisions for another
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the consequences.
Let me give you some examples. We must decide how and when we are
going to deliver super-fast broadband across the whole of the UK and
avoid a two-tier Britain.
We must decide whether we need to replace our antiquated National
Grid, or risk more power cuts in the future. We must decide as a
country on a clear plan to invest in nuclear power, wind and tidal
power and other renewables so we can lead the world in delivering
clean, de-carbonised energy and green jobs.
We must decide how we are going to protect our country from rising sea
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Hide Adlevels and exceptional rainfall, including whether we need to replace
or reinforce the Thames Barrier to prevent London from
flooding.
And we must decide, alongside vital decisions on rail and airport
capacity, how we are going to get more freight off the roads and onto
the railways - it won’t help that our grand-children are all
driving electric cars if they are still sat in gridlock on the M6 or the M25.
On all these issues, if we don’t start to plan now, what will we say
in 30 years’ time when our children ask: ‘why didn’t you act when
there was still time?’
That is why we need a comprehensive long-term plan to rebuild
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consensus to deliver it.
And it is why, too, at a time when Government budgets are tight, we
must think innovatively about how we can finance these vital projects
over the coming decades, drawing on the private sector and
long-term pension savings.
So Ed Miliband and I have asked Sir John Armitt, the chair of the
Olympic Delivery Authority, to consider how long-term infrastructure
decision-making, planning, delivery and finance can be radically
improved.
And I can announce today that Sir John has agreed to lead this work
and to draw up plans for a commission or process, independent of
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infrastructure needs of our country over the coming decades and help
build that consensus.
Not repeating the mistakes of the past, but learning from them.
Building a consensus which crosses party lines, without chopping and
changing one parliament to the next. A consensus to re-build
Britain for the future.
And Conference, there is another lesson we must learn from our history.
Many people have said over recent weeks: ‘this has been Britain’s
greatest ever summer’.
But let me remind you of an even greater summer still: the summer of
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Hide Ad1945 - the end of six hard years of war - when our nation welcomed its
heroes home from the battlefields of Europe, Asia and
the Atlantic, and celebrated together the defeat of fascism.
Conference, our predecessors were elected that year to rebuild a
country ravaged by conflict.
They faced even greater challenges than we face today: an economy
enfeebled by war; a national debt double the size of ours today. And
they made tough and unpopular decisions: to continue with
rationing; to cut defence spending; and to introduce prescription charges.
But that Labour Cabinet also remained focussed on the long-term task
ahead. And they learned from history and rejected the failed austerity
of the 1930s.
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Hide AdAnd that meant they could put in place long-term reforms, enduring
achievements, vital to our country’s future: the Beveridge report; new
homes for heroes; the school leaving age raised; and, for
the first time ever, a National Health Service free to all, based on
need not ability to pay - over 60 years later, celebrated in our
Olympics opening ceremony for all the world to see, still today
the greatest health service in the world.
Conference, they were very different times. But it is our task to
recapture the spirit and values and national purpose of that time.
Just think of the people in whose footsteps we now follow. Working men
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Hide Adand women who, in the years before, had see a hardship many of us will
never experience.
But their suffering did not teach them selfishness, it taught them
solidarity. And they never settled for second best in the struggle for
education for all, free health care and proper rights at work.
Conference, we owe it to them - but more than that, we owe it to our
children and their children to come - to learn from that example, to
make the tough decisions but not to sacrifice their
futures.
Because when our grandchildren look back at us, what will they say?
Will they say we cast a generation of young people on the scrapheap of
unemployment?
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Hide AdWill they say we dismantled the NHS and made it harder to go to university?
Will they say we plunged Britain into a decade of economic stagnation
while other countries raced ahead? Will they say we left Britain less
prosperous, more unequal, more unfair?
Or will they say - even as we made tough and painful decisions - that
ours was the generation that got a record number of young people into
apprenticeships as well as university.
Ours was the generation that safeguarded the NHS, and started the
rebuilding of our national infrastructure.
Ours was the generation that tackled our debts by growing and
reforming our economy - and making sure the banking crisis that caused
those debts could never happen again.
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Hide AdOurs was the generation that broke from the cycle of political
short-termism and started to rebuild Britain anew in the long term
national interest.
So let us go forward. Not flinching from tough decisions. Giving our
young people hope. Rebuilding Britain for the future.
That is our challenge. That is our mission. Let us rise to it together.
Thank you.