“We need what you might call ‘one nation banking’”

Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party, said today in a speech at the Thomson Reuters Building:

This has been a turbulent week for the British banking industry.

On Sunday, Stephen Hester gave back his bonus, and on Tuesday, the forfeiture committee revoked Fred Goodwin’s knighthood.

But these moments do really not change anything in themselves.

This is about more than one man, one bonus, or one knighthood.

These are symbols – and symptoms – of public discontent with a system that is not working as it should.

For our economy.

And for our society.

That is why these moments do not and should not signal the end of the debate.

Because, three years on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the debate is really only just beginning.

We need a banking system that serves a more responsible capitalism, working for the majority of people and enabling us to pay our way in the world.

Everyone can agree that the kind of tug-of-war we have seen in the past fortnight over bonuses is bad for the reputation of the banking sector.
Nobody in this country – neither the banks’ most staunch defenders nor their most outspoken critics – believe that a public argument between executives, shareholders, politicians and the public is the best way for any sector to set pay.

Burnham: “Mental health must move from the edges to the centre of the NHS”

Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, in a speech to the Centre for Social Justice, Rethinking mental health in the twenty-first century, said:

This is my first major policy speech since returning to the Health brief and I was clear from the moment I came back that I wanted it to be about mental health.

That’s because, since my time as Secretary of State was so rudely interrupted, I’ve had a sense of unfinished business and felt the need to say what I’m going to say today.

I can trace it directly back to a moment in the middle of 2009.

It was shortly after I arrived in the Department of Health. I was sitting in the office and was looking through the Bradley Report on Mental Health in the Criminal Justice System, commissioned by Alan Johnson.

To be honest, I wasn’t fully engaged on it. The truth is Ministers often don’t feel the same sense of ownership to things commissioned by your predecessor.

But then a statistic leapt off the page: 70% of prisoners have two or more mental health conditions, but many are undiagnosed or untreated.

I read it, and re-read it. It couldn’t be right, could it? A typo, surely? So I asked officials to check it out.

I was truly taken aback to find it was accurate.

That was the precise moment when I began to think differently about mental health policy.

Ed Miliband: “As a country, we succeed or fail together”

This is the full text of Ed Miliband’s speech in Glasgow earlier today:

Thank you Johann.

And thank you Margaret and Anas for everything you’re doing.

Let me start directly by talking about the developments on the issue of RBS bonuses.

Stephen Hester has done the right thing.

I welcome his decision not to take his bonus.

But I am sorry we have a Prime Minister so out of touch with the British people that he did not act to stop it earlier. He failed to be a responsible shareholder.

It took Labour’s threat of a parliamentary vote for the right thing to happen.

Nobody will think the events of the last few days are a good way to set pay in our banks.

But we can only avoid this kind of story repeating itself if there is a decisive shift in rules and behaviour.

We need a proper debate now about executive pay and responsible capitalism.

My challenge to the Government is to show they understand they got it wrong on RBS and can act differently in the future.

First, the bonus merry go round looks set to continue for a while. They cannot stop bonuses in the private sector banks but they can introduce a bank bonus tax.

They should do so.

This could raise £2 billion a year.

Second, they must now act to change the rules on executive pay so that an ordinary employee sits on every single remuneration committee of every public company.

If the executives cannot look the ordinary worker in the eye and justify the salaries being paid, then they shouldn’t be paying them.

Third, we should change the rules on corporate governance so that bonuses are not for just doing your job but for exceptional performance.

And introduce rules which say one salary, one bonus.

These are three immediate steps the Government must take.

Ed Miliband blogs on the RBS bonus controversy

Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Opposition, writing on his blog today, said:

Having returned from the meeting of business, media and politics in Davos to the storm around RBS bonuses, I would like to offer some broader perspective on this debate.

It was only my second time in Davos, but what struck me was that – even there – the issue of how to make capitalism more responsible is firmly on the agenda. The vast majority of those present seem to realise a certain type of capitalism has been found wanting. The model was too dependent on financial services to the exclusion of success in other industries, too much in grip of certain vested interests, and too often led to huge inequalities of wealth and income.

The reality is that we must – and I think we can – find a better way to live together. One of the most controversial questions is on pay and reward. This has recently focused of the row over bank bonuses in general and the Royal Bank of Scotland in particular. What is the real problem here? In my view, it is based on around three issues: fairness, the link between reward and performance, and public consent.

First, fairness. RBS is state-owned with the Government as the biggest shareholder. That puts a particular responsibility on government to ensure that it participates as an active shareholder as it has urged others to do.

“Politics cannot operate in a democracy without a free press”

Harriet Harman MP, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary said today in a speech to the Oxford Media Convention:

I’m very pleased to be here today – meeting up with those of you I haven’t met before and with many of you who I have known for years – but in my new capacity as Shadow Culture Secretary.

At the age of 61 it’s exciting to be part of Ed Miliband’s new generation. Not so much the face book generation as the face lift generation.

We meet in historic times:

* Never before have the creative industries been so important to help take us through these difficult economic times;

* And never before has the media been under such scrutiny because of the phone hacking scandal;

And all of this against the backdrop of astonishing developments in technology.

One of the things that we are most proud of from our time in government is the support we gave to culture, the creative industries and sport.

From free entry to museums and galleries, to boosting the film industry with tax credits, to winning the Olympics.

Labour supported something that is hugely important to people’s lives, something we are good at in this country and something that has a massive importance in the future.

“We as a Labour Party are determined to be champions of the consumer”

Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party, said at a visit to Which? this morning:

“From bank charges to train costs, from energy companies to low cost airlines and pensions, the Government can act.

“You’ll have noticed that it’s not just me talking about irresponsible capitalism.

“We had a speech earlier this week from the Deputy Prime Minister and today we have a speech from the Prime Minister.

“I welcome the fact that other leaders are coming onto the ground that I set out in my Labour Party conference speech about the need to tackle predatory capitalism.

“But what I say to David Cameron is:

“Let’s judge you on your deeds and not your words.

“If he is serious about tackling irresponsible capitalism he needs to clamp down on the fact that train companies are ripping people off.

“If he is serious about tackling irresponsible capitalism he needs to take action to break up the rigged energy market.

“If he is serious about tackling irresponsible capitalism he needs to take action to stop those exorbitant bank charges.

“That’s the proof that he is really serious about this agenda.

“Credibility is based on trust and trust is based on honesty”

This is the full text of the 2012 Fabian Society annual conference speech by Ed Balls MP, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer:

Thank you Suresh and Andrew – and to all of you for coming along today and giving up your Saturday.

And let me start by saying – after over 20 years of attending the Fabian annual January conference – what a great honour it is to be invited to give the opening speech.

I first spoke at this conference in January 1993 – when I was a junior leader writer at the Financial Times.

It was a very different conference then – not the huge event it has become – with perhaps 100 or so people gathered at Ruskin College, Oxford, including among them the leader of the Labour Party, John Smith.

That conference was held the January after Labour’s election defeat in 1992 – an election in which the Labour opposition had failed to pass either of the two necessary political economy tests for electoral success:

- neither having a real alternative to the straitjacket of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, which could meet the aspirations of anxious voters on growth and jobs;

- nor a credible approach to tax and spending which could win public trust.

“Excessive pay and rewards for failure are undoubtedly bad for business”

Chuka Umunna MP, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, in a speech to the High Pay Commission and Institute for Public Policy Research today, said:

Thank you for that introduction Michael and to the ICAEW for hosting this event.

And thank you too to the High Pay Commission and the Institute of Public Policy Research for inviting me to speak.

All three organisations have made major contributions to informing and stimulating the national debate on this issue which has dominated the news agenda since the year started, the High Pay Commission in particular.

The headlines and clipped news reports do not do justice to this issue so today my aim is:

* to explain why excessive pay and rewards for failure matter from the point of view of our businesses, those who own them and society at large; and,

* to get to the heart of the problem and outline the solutions as we see them in Her Majesty’s Opposition.

The economy is the issue of this parliament not simply because of the lack of growth and the highest rate of unemployment for 17 years which people are experiencing in the here and now. But also because of the long term structural trends in an economy which has failed to deliver incomes to keep pace with rising living costs, a pattern repeated in other developed economies.

What do I mean by this? Not enough of the reward from rising productivity has found its way into the wage packets of average earners with the result that middle income earners have actually seen their wages stagnate from 2003, whilst high earners have seen their wages soar. Consequently many people have come to feel that, in the good times the economy did not really work for them, while in the bad times they were being made to carry much of the risk.

“Whoever governs after 2015 will have to find more savings”

Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party, said today in a speech to London Citizens at the OXO Tower:

Thank you for that inspiring introduction Richard, and thank you for everything you do to showcase the great things young people do across our capital city.

And thank you all for coming this morning.

It’s great to see so many members of Citizens UK here.

Every day, you take action to change communities for the better, from the CitySafe initiative to campaigning for the Living Wage.

Thanks to you, the cleaners at the Queen Mary University are earning a Living Wage.

And they’re not the only ones.

From KPMG to the Olympic Delivery Authority – working men and women are now being paid enough to cover the essentials of life.

Citizens UK don’t just read about problems in society, you get organised and lead change.

You know that with a bit of optimism, coordination, and persistence, we can change the world around us, one fight at a time.

Those are your values, and they are mine as well.

A lot of people will hear me talk about values and say:

“Welcome to the real world: values cost money, but right now the government just doesn’t have money to spend.”

A lot of people say:

“These are tough times. It’s easy to talk about fairness, but how are you going to achieve it when there’s less money around?”

That’s the challenge for Labour.

And it’s a challenge for me as the leader of the party.

A challenge I relish.

Labour would protect commuters from rocketing rail fares

Labour today called on the Government to ban train operating companies from raising rail fares above strict limits.

The measure, which Labour would implement now urgently if it was in government, is part of a package being designed to prevent commuters and other hard-pressed passengers being exploited so that fairness and simplicity are restored to rail fares.

Under Labour’s plan, no fare could rise next week by more than 1% above inflation. However, because of decisions taken by this Tory-led government, a number of the most popular routes will see fares soar by as much as 9% in the New Year.

Although ministers claimed they were limiting fare increases to an average of 1% above inflation, the reality is that they have quietly reversed decisions by the last Labour government to enforce such limits.

By giving train companies the ‘flexibility’ to add up to 5% to some fares, on top of the inflation-plus-1% increase already announced by George Osborne, it is possible that some ticket prices will increase by up to 11 per cent.

The cap on average fare rises has been set even higher at 3% above inflation in future years, meaning passengers may face fare rises of as much as 13% in 2013 and 2014.

David Cameron’s decision to side with the powerful private train operator lobby against commuter and passengers shows he is desperately out of touch with the spiraling cost-of-living crisis facing so many hard-working families.

The National Audit Office this month warned that the increases in rail fares were likely to lead simply to higher profits for private train companies – with no benefit to the Exchequer.

The urgent action Labour is proposing to help passengers now follows a warning from Ed Miliband in September that he would set tough new tests for train companies wishing to retain or apply for franchise – in the same way that he has signaled his determination to tackle predatory practices by banks and energy companies.