The whole of the UK is faced with a similar challenge - the productivity challenge. We must all face up to the fact that we are not as productive as our major competitors. There is now a 40 per cent performance gap between the UK and the US and a 20 per cent gap between us and France and Germany. We must make closing this gap a national priority because increasing our productivity is central to promoting growth, creating jobs and building an enterprise culture. It's about working better - encouraging enterprise and innovation, improving our education and skills base, increasing access to finance for investment and intensifying competition.
Improvement is needed across the whole economy, from manufacturing to services.
This cannot be achieved by Government or business alone. We must all raise our game. To encourage businesses and entrepreneurs to set up here, we need stability. Not only the stability that comes from lasting peace, but also economic stability. We have already put in place the right framework for this.