Keynote speech delivered by Barbara Roche, MP at

DEVOLUTION AND BRITISHNESS CONFERENCE
21 FEBRUARY 2002

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Britain: a diverse nation
Devolution
Women
English Regions
Conclusion

1.    I would like to begin by thanking the ESRC and Professor Charlie Jeffrey for putting today’s event together and for promoting the programme outside the confines of academia.  Devolution and Britishness demand a wide debate.

2.  These issues have been of keen interest to us as a Government since 1997.  They have been relevant to all our work - not just in the debates on our devolution and constitutional change programmes. 

3.    Because Government has to meet the needs of the society that elects it. And as British society becomes steadily more diverse, so the need for Government to take that difference into account – on everything from healthcare provision to education to the democratic system itself – becomes more urgent.

4.    Of course, constitutional issues around devolution are vitally important. But that focus can mean that we neglect the very important wider aspects of these issues – such as our cultural identity and the role of shared institutions. So I am pleased that this conference is considering Britishness in its wider sense.

5.    These are matters that have taken on a new urgency in the light of the findings of the Cantle report following the events of last year in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley.  Those events should act as a wake-up call to anyone who still believes that diversity doesn’t matter.

6.    I believe that modern Britishness is defined in significant part through its diversity, and that is something to be celebrated. That kind of diverse Britishness means reaching out to every community.

7.   That doesn’t mean that diversity is easy.  In the past, Governments have tended to address this issue through civic  integration.  But perhaps the time has come for us to get behind the potential of economic instruments to deliver results.  That is why the Performance and Innovation Unit interim report – which I sponsor - on ethnic minorities and the labour market was published this week.  It highlighted the very varied experience of ethnic minorities in the jobs market, with some groups fairing better than others but all suffering racial discrimination.

8.    In my current role at the Cabinet Office I am Minister for Women and am responsible for the co-ordination of equality issues across Government.  I also have oversight of the Social Exclusion Unit, the Regional Co-ordination Unit and the Government Offices of the Regions.

9.    And before the election I was a Home Office minister, where I was involved in the earlier stages of our work on managed migration, which David Blunkett published earlier this month.

10.    All that said, I do not come here today with a set of easy answers, but rather with a set of questions for you to bear in mind during today’s discussions.  

Britain: a diverse nation

11.    Any consideration of Britishness needs to begin with one simple fact: we are a remarkably diverse nation.  From the vantage point of 2002 this a fairly unremarkable statement. Few would dispute the extent of Britain’s diversity today.  Yet while we hear an awful lot of talk about diversity, there is a risk that the jargon gets in the way of us recognising the very positive reality of diversity all around us every day.

12. So what does that that diversity really mean?  In this city tonight, over 300 languages will be spoken by families over their evening meal at home.  London has over 30 ethnic communities of at least 10,000 residents each and many communities smaller than that. And 1 in 7 workers in the financial services sector of the City of London were born outside the UK. This is not a problem - on the contrary - it is something we should value.  It contributes to the cultural and economic vitality of our nation.

13.   But it is also worth remembering that Britain has always been diverse.  Immigration has not been confined to the last 50 years.  As historians like Norman Davies, Simon Schama and others have demonstrated, the peoples of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been diverse for centuries.

14.  Many are descended from Celts, Romans, Saxons, Normans, Danes.  In more recent centuries we have had migrants from Flanders – in the 14^th and 16^th centuries, Huguenots fleeing persecution in France in the 17^th century, Jewish refugees from eastern Europe – including some of my family - in the 19^th century, and, in the 20^th century, migrants from the Caribbean and Asia.  Indeed one mosque in Spitalfields, East London - where my family come from – personifies this process – it was built by Protestant Huguenots, and became a synagogue before it was a mosque.

15.   But it is not even as simple as that – British identities are more complicated still. The historian Norman Davies dedicated his monumental History of these Isles to his father who he described as: “English by birth, Welsh by conviction, Lancastrian by choice, British by chance.”  Many of us today share that same sense of multiple identity.

16.    John Curtice’s work for the British Social Attitudes survey suggests that almost two out of every three people in England, Wales and Scotland express at least partly a dual identity.  They consider themselves English or Welsh or Scottish and British.  I know that John is speaking next and I am sure that he will touch on this in more detail.

17.    What’s more, people can define themselves as Londoners, Brummies, Mancunians or Geordies first, and English second.  Scots often divide on east-west lines in terms of instinctive local identities.

18.    Britain has long had diverse institutional arrangements to match.  The Act of Union of 1707 saw Scotland keep its separate legal and education systems.  Scottish courts have long been able to return a verdict of “not proven” rather than “guilty” or “not guilty”.  Children raised in Scotland take Highers rather than A-levels.  This is not to say that one system is better than another.  Rather it is say that Scotland has been doing things differently for a very long time before devolution.

19.   Yet despite all this, I believe that Britishness is still a definable characteristic. Others certainly seem to think so. The British Council’s “Through other eyes” survey presents a contradictory picture – but one of a distinctive people with an identifiable culture and characterstics.  We are seen as democratic, yet still hung up on class.  British society is seen as multicultural, yet not always racially tolerant.  Our tradition emerges as both a major asset and our principal liability.

20.   Britishness is expressed through both shared values and shared institutions. 

21.    For example, when we think of the National Health Service in this context, we think of it as being first and foremost a British institution. Policy, organisation and management of the NHS are now devolved, but there remains broad consensus on the NHS as a service funded by general taxation, accessible to all, and free at the point of delivery.

22.   The BBC too provides a forum through which people across the UK come together to celebrate, mourn or simply have a good time.  And while the days of the family regularly gathering round the “wireless” or the flickering telly on a Saturday night may have long gone, that unifying role remains.

23.    But I believe that it is ultimately not shared institutions that bind us together, important as these are.  It is shared values - democracy, the rule of law, the importance of strong communities; and above all, tolerance and respect. These are what Britishness is ultimately about.

Devolution

24.     Devolution is a way of strengthening those shared values – not of weakening them. It means that people can now seek solutions to the problems they face at several levels: local, regional, national or European.

25.   Under devolution, Scotland’s distinctive institutions are now, for the first time in three hundred years, accountable to a Scottish Parliament directly elected by the Scottish people. Devolution is closing the democratic deficit that existed in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  Yes, the three bodies have different powers.  But that reflects in part the different societies and their civic institutions before devolution.

26.   The creation of the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales allows both nations to choose the policies that are right for them through their own democratic structures.  In Northern Ireland, devolution was also needed for a different reason – to enable the communities of a divided society to share power and work together to build a common future.

27.   Some have suggested that devolution is the beginning of the break up of Britain. I couldn’t disagree more. I believe that the devolution settlement we have enacted so far strengthens the UK not weakens it.  I believe it renews the idea of Britain, not as of old, as England writ large, but as the well spring of a common identity built around diversity.

28.   By way of comparison, I have just come back from Spain, where their asymmetric settlement has been working well for nearly 20 years.

 29.   In Spain, Catalonia, the Basque country and Navarre have greatest degree of independence from Madrid.  Other regions of Spain have a less developed sense of identity and accordingly fewer powers.  The Spanish settlement allows regions to move ahead at different speeds.

30.   But even in Catalonia, they see advantages of remaining part of Spain.  Catalan writers can publish in both Catalan and Spanish.  The former gives them distinct cultural identity; the latter enables them to reach a wider audience.

Women

31.    Devolution has not only brought power closer to people - it has brought different people into public life, many of them for the first time.  The number of women has increased dramatically.  37% of the Scottish Parliament and 40% of the Welsh Assembly members are women.  The Westminster Parliament’s equivalent figure - just 18% - is simply not good enough. That is why we are legislating to allow political parties to take positive measures to ensure that our political process better reflects our society.

32.    The picture is less positive in Northern Ireland, where only 14% of assembly members are women. I hope that Elizabeth Meehan will have some interesting thoughts on that later today.

33.   The Scottish and Welsh experience illustrates just what is possible in promoting an equality agenda.  The National Assembly for Wales has secured the second highest proportion of women elected to a national government body in Europe.

34.    However, we clearly have much further to go in improving the representativeness of all our parliaments and assemblies in respect of Britain’s ethnic minorities – both men and women.  Perhaps it is worth reminding ourselves, for example, of the black community in Cardiff, which has been there for generations.

35.    I also believe that by bringing government closer to people we can begin to reengage with the electorate.  The new parliaments and assemblies – both those already established and those new - will be at the forefront of that task.

English Regions

36.    It has been often said that devolution is a process not an event. The next stage in our reform agenda proves the point - the development of a devolution settlement for the English Regions.  It will take time, but we are committed to offering the benefits of devolution to the English as well as the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish.

37.    We have already laid the foundations for a new regional policy for England based on improving regional competitiveness and strengthening regional governance.  The Regional Development Agencies will act as instruments for wealth creation in the regions.  We have supported the development of regional chambers to work with the RDAs and other partners, expanded the regional Government Offices and introduced a regional dimension to policy making and service delivery.

38.    The White Paper on English Regions carries this reform agenda forward and will give effect to our Manifesto commitment for directly elected regional assemblies to go ahead in regions where the people decide to vote for them in a referendum.

39.    As many of you know, assessing the demand for regional assemblies is difficult.  Support varies according to how the question is asked.  What does seem clear, is that demand varies according to the degree of regional identity, with the North-East, North-West and Yorkshire and Humberside leading the way.

40.   The English Regions are all different: they have different priorities, different strengths and different aspirations.  Our job is to establish a settlement that enables local people to express those differences, should they wish to do so.  To seek, where it makes sense, their own solutions.

Conclusion

41. That is one of the most fundamental principles of devolution - and it is also why devolution has thrown the question of Britishness into sharper relief. Looking for your own solutions involves asking yourself what you want and who you are. That can surely only be a healthy process, for the British as a nation just as much as for its constituent peoples. So let me end by suggesting three questions for you to consider today and for us all to debate as devolution unfolds:

- To what extent has devolution changed the meaning of “Britishness?

- What now binds us together as British citizens?

- How can the four nations of the United Kingdom now relate the whole?

42. If we can be clear and honest about Britishness, about the institutions and values that bind us together, then I believe that devolution will help us forge a new Britain - a strong, multi-ethnic Britain with a renewed sense of democratic purpose. A Britain whose strength stems not from uniformity but from diversity,democracy and tolerance. I hope today's conference helps us all work our way a bit closer to that goal.