Sometimes people tell me, as I’m sure they tell you, that there’s not enough hope in our story. Not enough ambition, not enough vision. So let me start with a story.
About Alan, an FE teacher I met back at home in Sunderland. Alan had taught for over 30 years. The lads that came through his classes hadn’t come from much.
For many, Alan was the first father figure they had ever known. For many, their background dictated their destiny. No one had given those lads a chance. Now so many of you know that story. For so many of us, that is our story.
But Alan was different. Alan gave them a chance. He didn’t just teach them a trade. He taught them to believe in themselves when they had given up. He taught them the power of opportunity, of education. To give them the freedom to choose their own path in life.
And one day in the supermarket, Alan told me he got a tap on the shoulder. It was one of those students, one of those lost boys that Alan had nurtured.
One of the many he had given the chance to train on a building project started by the last Labour government.
The years had passed by, but the path Alan set him on had brought him success. He had worked his way up through a local firm.
And Alan’s guiding hand meant he could start his own business, take on jobs not just in the North East but further afield. It meant he could buy his first house – for him and for his wife.
Without Alan, he said, he just wouldn’t have made it. He would have ended up like too many young people in our country – denied the freedom to choose their own path.
‘Our country has a bright future’
And that story is the story of education, of opportunity, of the change Labour brings. Of government not as something to be feared, but to be welcomed. Not something to be cleared out of our lives, but as a force for good, for each of us and all of us.
And our Labour government is our chance to show that our country, with its proud history, has a bright future too. A chance at last to turn our values — equality, fairness, social justice — into action. A chance to show that education means opportunity – for each of us and for all of us.
Because extending opportunity, above all, means spreading the freedoms that for too long were the privilege of the lucky few.
That is my mission. It is our shared mission. The freedom to choose your own path in life. The freedom to succeed whatever your background, whoever your parents, and wherever you are from. The freedom to do the work that you love.
Freedom from ignorance, freedom from poverty, freedom from fear. The freedom to understand our culture and others. The freedom to spend time with your family and with your children.
Because it is Labour, only Labour, that sees the role of government as empowering, as liberating. Those are our values. That is our socialism. And that is our dream.
‘Education is about the people of tomorrow’
And, Conference, something else. It is only Labour that sees education, sees those opportunities, as about the people of tomorrow, not just the workers of tomorrow.
The artists and the scientists. The teachers and campaigners. The match-goers and the museum-goers. Carers and parents. The activists, the volunteers, the voters.
The Britain that we are building is a Britain rich for them, rich in every way, and rich for their families. That is our vision and that is our dream.
And conference, in a darkening world, I am proud that our Labour Party, the greatest vehicle for social justice this country has ever known, is in government and is delivering so much of that dream.
And just look at what we have already achieved together. Free breakfast clubs rolling out across the country. Hundreds of new school based nurseries opening from this autumn. Best Start Family Hubs — reviving Sure Start for a new generation.
And ended the tax breaks which private schools enjoyed. New Technical Excellence Colleges — open for learning. 30 hours free childcare for working parents. Tackling top-up fees in our nurseries.
‘Promises made, promises kept’
Thousands of new teachers recruited. The largest ever uplift in the early years pupil premium. Turning the tide on school absence with five million more days at school last year. Opening up access to tens of thousands more apprenticeships.
Proper pay rises for our teachers — two years running. Promises made, promises kept. Our values in action.
And so much more for us to look forward to. Gender Pay Gap action plans — coming soon. New rules to control the cost of school uniform —so they make children smart, not poor. New controls on profiteering in children’s social care, where the market fails.
And a new voice for school support staff, through our pathbreaking Employment Rights Bill. And free school meals for another half a million children. The change we are bringing today, so our children have a brighter future.
Conference, this is what we have already done together. Fixing the foundations, clearing up the mess the Tories left behind. And we are moving to tackle the generational challenges in our system.
Supporting children with SEND to succeed, with fresh investment and new facilities.
Supporting their parents, their families, doing all that they can to get their best for their children with additional needs, while Reform tell them that their children are just badly behaved, that their parenting is poor.
Turning the tide on how working-class children do at school. Because no one -no one – should be left behind because of their background.
‘Come to a primary school if you think we lack vision’
And when people tell me, as I’m sure they tell you, that there’s not enough hope, not enough ambition, not enough vision. I say – come with me to a primary school. Come with me to a new free breakfast club Come with me to a nursery.
See the light in children’s eyes as Labour’s choices light their world. See the relief in their parents’ faces that they have, at last, a Government driving down costs and on their side.
See the way staff talk about having, after 14 long years, a government that backs them and trusts them.
And last week I was in Kettering, one of the seats that we won last year, visiting over a hundred children at their free breakfast club. I saw the difference that we are making.
Calmer classrooms, higher standards, happier children. Staff who see the change. Parents who feel it. And children’s life chances transformed.
Conference, those little smiles don’t just melt our hearts. They light the way. They remind us that in this country, the progress we are making, the change that we are bringing.
That the hope and optimism that took each and every one of us into politics are a beacon through dark times.
A light on the hill for the values that sustain us all. But conference, for that hope to be sustained, change must come and people must feel it.
Breakfast clubs national rollout from March
Three years ago, stood on this stage, I promised you that we would deliver free breakfast clubs in every primary school.
Last year, I told you the first wave would begin this year. Conference, we have now served two and a half million free breakfasts to England’s children. Setting them up to succeed. Giving their parents work choices, and our children life chances.
And this year I am proud to tell you the full national rollout of our free breakfast clubs will begin from April with more schools joining then, and even more from September.
Our values in action. The heart and soul of Labour in government.
And that is why I am proud that we are going further to spread opportunity. Conference, the Tories treated our amazing universities as a political battleground, not a public good.
Labour is putting them back in the service of working-class young people.
Last year, I took the decisive steps we needed on university finances so opportunity is there tomorrow, for all who want it.
But I know, you know, that we must do more.
Reintroducing uni maintenance grants
So that is why today I’m announcing that this Labour Government will introduce new targeted maintenance grants for students who need them most.
Conference, their time at college or university should be spent learning or training. Not working every hour God sends. That is the difference that this Labour government makes.
Conference, all of these changes, all this delivery – we do these things not simply to win elections. We do them because they are right. Because we believe in them. Because time and again we turn our values into action.
In education, across government, in our mayoralties and our councils. And nowhere is that more important than bringing down child poverty, the moral mission of our time.
For too long poverty has cascaded down the generations. A stain that scars and shames our brilliant country. It is not inevitable and tackling it is a choice. Labour chooses to drive it down, to end it. I choose to drive it down, to end it.
It is a scourge I grew up with, it is a scourge I want to end. And that is why we launched the Child Poverty Taskforce, which I am proud to chair.
Conference, I am determined that child poverty will be lower at the end of this parliament than at the start. And more than that, Conference, I guarantee it.
By giving every child the best start in life — my focus in government, my lodestar. And the driving moral purpose of our party. Conference, their dream, their better tomorrow. That is Labour’s dream, and their future, ours to win.
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