Genre: Opinion/Argumentation

...I say -- there is a global battle out there to win jobs, orders, contracts... ...and in that battle I believe in leading from the front. To get our economy on the rise there's a lot more to do -- and frankly a lot more fights to be had. Because there are too many of what I'd call the "yes-but-no" people. The ones who say "yes, our businesses need to expand... ...but no we can't reform planning." It's simple. For a business to expand, it needs places to build. If it takes too long, they'll just build elsewhere. I visited a business the other day that wanted to open a big factory just outside Liverpool. But the council was going to take so long to approve the decision that they're now building that factory on the continent -- and taking hundreds of jobs with them. If we're going to be a winner in this global race we've got to beat off this suffocating bureaucracy once and for all. And then there are those who say "yes of course we need more housing"... ...but "no" to every development -- and not in my backyard. Look - it's OK for my generation. Many of us have got on the ladder. But you know the average age that someone buys their first home today, without any help for their parents? 33 years old. We are the party of home ownership -- we cannot let this carry on. So yes -- we're doubling the discount for buying your council house... ...we're helping first-time buyers get a 95 per cent mortgage... ...but there's something else we need to do -- and that's accept we need to build more houses in Britain. There are young people who work hard year after year but are still living at home. They sit in their childhood bedroom, looking out of the window dreaming of a place of their own. I want us to say to them -- you are our people, we are on your side, we will help you reach your dreams. WELFARE If we want our people to rise so Britain can rise, we must tackle welfare. Here's two facts for you. Fact one.  We spend 90 billion a year on welfare for working-age people. Not pensions. Just welfare for working age people -- and that's one pound in every eight the government spends. Fact two.  More of our children live in households where nobody works than almost any other nation in Europe. Let me put it simply.  Welfare isn't working. And this is a tragedy. Our reforms are just as profound as those of Beveridge 60 years ago. He had his great evils to slay. Squalor. Ignorance. Want. Idleness.  And Disease. Here are mine. First, unfairness. What are hard-working people who travel long distances to get into work and pay their taxes meant to think when they see families -- individual families -- getting 40, 50, 60 thousand pounds of housing benefit to live in homes that these hard working people could never afford themselves? It is an outrage. And we are ending it by capping housing benefit. The second evil: injustice. Here's the choice we give our young people today. Choice one: Work hard. Go to college. Get a job. Live at home. Save up for a flat. And as I've just said, that can feel like forever. Or: Don't get a job. Sign on. Don't even need to produce a CV when you do sign on. Get housing benefit. Get a flat. And then don't ever get a job or you'll lose a load of housing benefit. We must be crazy. So this is what we've done. Now you have to have to sign a contract that says: you do your bit and we'll do ours. It requires you to have a real CV and it makes clear: you have to seek work and take work -- or you will lose your benefit. And we're going to look at ending automatic access to housing benefit for people under 25 too. If hard-working young people have to live at home while they work and save, why should it be any different for those who don't? The next evil: bureaucracy. Sign on. Sign here. Come back in a fortnight. Repeat as required. What does this do for the guy who's been out of work for years, playing computer games all day, living out a fantasy because he hates real life? For people like him we're doing something new. The Work Programme takes the money we're going to save from getting people off the dole... ...and uses it today to get them into work, with proper training. We're spending up to 14,000 on one individual to get them into work -- and already almost 700,000 people have got onto the Work Programme. So let's be clear: in British politics today it is this party saying no-one is a write-off, no-one is hopeless... ...and with Iain Duncan Smith leading this revolution let this be the party that shows there is ability and promise in everyone. And just one more thing on welfare. You know our work experience programme, where we give young people the chance to work in a supermarket, a shop, an office? Here's what one union official said about it. I quote: "The scheme belongs back in the nineteenth century, along with Oliver Twist and the workhouse. It is nothing short of state sponsored slavery..." Honestly. What an appalling, snobbish attitude to the idea of work. We're not sending children up chimneys, we're giving them a chance. What's cruel isn't asking something of people -- it's when we ask nothing of them. Work isn't slavery, it's poverty that is slavery... ...and again it's us, the modern compassionate Conservative party, who are the real champions of fighting poverty in Britain today. EDUCATION To help people to rise, to help Britain rise, there's a third -- crucial -- thing we must do. Educate all our children. And I mean really educate them, not just pump up the grades each year. In maths, in science, in reading, we've fallen behind... ...not just behind Germany and Canada but Estonia and Australia too. This is Britain's real school report and the verdict is clear: must try harder. You've heard of pushy parents, sharp-elbowing their way to a better education for their kids? Well -- this is a pushy government. My approach is very simple. I've got two children in primary school, and I want for your children what I want for mine. To go to schools where discipline is strict, expectations are high and no excuses are accepted for failure. I don't want great schools to just be the preserve of those that can pay the fees, or buy the nice house in the right catchment area... ...I want those schools to be open to every child -- in every neighbourhood. And the reason I know that every child can go to a school like that is because with this Government, more and more new ones are opening. We've heard from some of them this week... ...not just the 79 new free schools -- with over a hundred more to come... ...but from some of the more than 2000 academies we've helped create -- state schools given all the freedoms, and carrying all the high expectations, of private schools. Yes -- that's my plan -- millions of children sent to independent schools... ...independent schools, in the state sector. That's the genuine revolution that's now underway. The Harris Academy in Peckham has increased the number of students getting five good GCSEs -- from 12 percent when it was under local authority control to almost 90 percent now. The transformation has been astonishing -- and the methods have been Conservative. Smart uniforms, teachers in suits. Children taught physics, chemistry and biology not soft options. Children set by ability -- with excellence applauded, extra resources for those most in need but no excuses for slacking. When you see a school like that succeed it prompts the question: Why can't every school be that way? Why can't every child have those chances? It's not because parents aren't ambitious enough -- most of these schools are massively over-subscribed. It's because the old educational establishment -- the left-wing local authorities, the leaders of the teachers unions, the Labour party theorists -- stood in the way. When we saw a badly failing school in Haringey and wanted to turn it into an Academy, the Labour authority, the Labour MP and the teaching unions said no. When inspirational teachers and parents -- in Hammersmith, in Norwich, in Bristol and in Wigan -- wanted to open free schools, the left-wing establishment said no. When we proposed: More pay for good teachers... Getting rid of bad teachers... ...Longer school days to help children learn... Flexible school hours to help parents work... When you ask them: why is a school failing? Why aren't the children succeeding? You hear the same thing over and over again. 'What can you expect with children like these?' they say.  'These children are disadvantaged.' Of course we want to tackle every disadvantage. But isn't the greatest disadvantage of all being written off by those so in hock to a culture of low expectations that they have forgotten what it's like to be ambitious, to want to transcend your background, to overcome circumstance and succeed on your own terms? It's that toxic culture of low expectations -- that lack of ambition for every child -- which has held this country back. Well, Michael Gove and I are not waiting for an outbreak of sanity in the headquarters of the NUT or an embrace of aspiration in the higher reaches of Labour before we act. Because our children can't wait. So when people say we should slow down our education reforms -- so adults can adjust to them, I say: I want more free schools, more Academies, more rigorous exams in every school, more expected of every child. And to all those people who say: he wants children to have the kind of education he had at his posh school... ...I say: yes -- you're absolutely right. I went to a great school and I want every child to have a great education. I'm not here to defend privilege, I'm here to spread it. CONCLUSION I don't have a hard luck story. My dad was a stockbroker from Berkshire. It's only when your dad's gone that you realise -- not just how much you really miss them -- but how much you really owe them. My dad influenced me much more than I ever thought. He was born with no heels on his feet and legs about a foot shorter than they're meant to be.  But he never complained - even when he lost both those legs later in life. Because disability in the 1930s was such a stigma, he was an only child.  Probably a lonely child. But Dad was the eternal optimist.  To him the glass was always half full.  Usually with something alcoholic in it. When I was a boy I remember once going on a long walk with him in the village where we lived, passing the church he supported and the village hall where he took part in interminable parish council meetings. He told me what he was most proud of. It was simple -- working hard from the moment he left school and providing a good start in life for his family. Not just all of us, but helping his mum too, when his father ran off. Not a hard luck story, but a hard work story. Work hard.  Family comes first.  But put back in to the community too. There is nothing complicated about me. I believe in working hard, caring for my family and serving my country. And there is nothing complicated about what we need today. This is still the greatest country on earth.  We showed that again this summer.  22 nd in world population.  3 rd in the medals table. But it's tough.  These are difficult times.  We're being tested. How will we come through it?  Again, it's not complicated. Hard work.  Strong families.  Taking responsibility.  Serving others. As I said on the steps of No10 Downing Street before walking through that door:  Those who can should, those who can't we will always help. The job of this party ... of this government ... is to help to bring out the best in this country.  Because at our best we're unbeatable. We know Britain can deliver because we've seen it time and again. This is the country that ... invented the computer, defeated the Nazis, started the web, saw off the slave trade, unravelled DNA and fought off every invader for a thousand years. We even persuaded the Queen to jump out of a helicopter to make the rest of the world smile .... there is absolutely nothing we cannot do. Can we make Britain the best place in the world to start a business, grow a business and help that business take on the world and win?  Yes. Can we -- the people who invented the welfare state in the first place -- turn it into something that rewards effort, helps keep families together and really helps the poorest with a new start in life.  Yes. Can we take our schools and turn out students that will take on the brightest in the world?  Yes. Of course we can. Let us here in this hall, here in this government, together in this country make this pledge -- let's build an aspiration nation...