Conservative - Tuesday Today at Conference

Welcome to Birmingham for another Today At Conference

Tory party managers wanted to move on from Brexit today to the wider

Tory agenda. With the pound plummeting to a 31 year low because

of fears of a so-called hard Brexit, that wasn't so easy. Even so, Health

Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced plans to increase the number of

student doctors so the NHS wouldn't have to depend so much on foreign

doctors. Michael Fallon unveiled measures to protect British troops

from bogus legal claims. And we have asked British Conservatives who they

are backing in the US presidential election. Trump, I think, just so I

can see the president of North Korea's phase when someone whispers

in his ear, Donald Trump is president. -- face. Jeremy Hunt has

had to deal with budgets straight to -- stretched and breaking point and

the unhappiness of staff. He must've been relieved for once to be among

friends. Is it simply isn't acceptable that

according to eight recent studies, we have a weekend effect, which

means mortality rates are up to 15% higher for those admitted on or

around weekend. Our seven-day hospital

plans are simple. The Academy of

Medical Royal Colleges One says that whatever

day of the week it is, highly vulnerable patients

should be checked by a consultant That's because it's vital

to spot quickly if someone But when we last

checked, that happens Another standard says

that whatever day of the week, patients should be checked

by a senior doctor within 14 hours Again, pretty vital

for patients, but when we checked, it was happening in just

one in ten hospitals. These standards are primarily

about consultants, but junior doctors, especially the more

experienced ones, must play their So, whilst we are all pleased

that this week's strike has been called off, I say to the BMA and all

junior doctors, let's not argue about statistics or whether we can

do more to raise standards for The NHS you believe in is the NHS

we are building, so call off the strikes for good and start

working with us to deliver safer care, seven days a week,

for patients and their families. And my job

is to prepare the NHS for the future, and that means doing

something today that we've never Currently, a quarter

of our doctors come from Frankly, the NHS would

fall over without them. When it comes to those that are EU

nationals, we've been clear - we want them to be able

to stay, post-Brexit. But looking forward,

is it right to carry on importing doctors from poorer

countries that need them whilst we turn away bright home graduates

desperate to study medicine? Even if we wanted

to carry on importing The World Health

Organisation says there is a global We aren't the only

country with an ageing fifth largest economy in the world,

so we should be training all the doctors we need, and today I can

tell you that's exactly what we're From September 2018, we'll train up

to 1500 more doctors every year, That's the biggest annual increase

in medical school training in the Of course, it will take

a number of years before these students qualify,

but by the end of the next Parliament, we will make the NHS

self-sufficient in Training a doctor

costs over ?200,000, so, all new doctors to work for the NHS

for four years, just as Army recruits are asked to,

after their training. The result will be more home doctors

and fewer rota gaps in a safer NHS, looking after you and your

family for years to come. Anger has been mounting about legal

claims against British soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan,

fanned by newspaper campaigns and the actions of some ambulance

chasing lawyers. Nowhere is that anger greater than among the Tory

party faithful. So when Michael Fallon addressed them today, he had

to have some solutions to offer. Now, leaving the European Union does

not mean that we are stepping back from our commitments, our commitment

to the security of our continent. We will continue to have the biggest

defence budget in Europe, meeting that 2% Nato spending target. We

will lead in Nato, the cornerstone of our defence, by putting troops on

to its eastern border next year. But we will go one blocking an EU army

that would simply undermine Nato. But we've now seen our legal system

abused to falsely accuse our Armed Forces, so we're doing something

about it. So, let me tell you what we're

doing. Of more than 3000 claims originally lodged, about half have

already been discontinued, and another 1000 cases will be thrown

out by January. Already, one of the firms that file thousands of these

claims, so-called public interest lawyers, has had its legal aid

contract terminated and shut down in August, and it won't be missed. So,

we're working hard to get the vexatious claims thrown out, and

we're taking action to drop a new time limit for bringing claims and

to tackle no-win, no fee deals. But much of the litigation we face comes

from the extension of the European Convention on human rights to the

battlefield. That has been damaging our troops, undermining military

operations and costing the taxpayer millions that should be invested in

defence itself. I can announce today that in future conflicts, we intend

to derogate from the European convention.

That will protect in future our Armed Forces from many of the

industrial scale claims we've seen arising out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I want to be clear - this is not about putting our Armed Forces above

the law. They wouldn't want that. They have to comply with the

criminal law of this country, and of course, with the Geneva conventions.

Serious claims must be investigated, but spurious claims will be stopped,

and our Armed Forces will now be able to do their job fighting the

enemy and not be lawyers. -- and not the lawyers.

After he made his speech, I spoke to Mr Fallon,

and I began by suggesting to him that as the Government can

already chose to opt out of the European Convention

when going into a conflict, there wasn't actually much new here.

We have to get Parliament to vote on an amendment to the Human

Rights Act allowing us to take the power to derogate in future

conflicts, so this is a big decision today.

It means we'll be asking Parliament to ensure that in future

conflicts, the Government of the day will have the power to derogate.

And what do you do if Parliament says,

no, we don't want to give you a blank cheque.

We'll just vote on a conflict by conflict basis?

Don't forget, it allows you to derogate.

That was for the French state of emergency, not a foreign

Let's not forget, the convention wasn't drawn up to deal with foreign

conflict, it was drawn up, as you will well

know, after the war, for

those countries that had been fighting with each other.

Why do you think that no country has sought a

They haven't been subject to industrial

Several thousand allegations have been made up and

pushed through the system against our troops years

If they are spurious, why has your department paid out so much

Because under the convention, you have to do that,

otherwise the court would rule against you.

And that is precisely the point - we will save in

I think we've paid out some ?20 million in some 300 cases.

Which we shouldn't have had to settle because the convention has

We're going to disapply the convention in the most

obvious area, for example, the right to liberty.

If someone is firing on

British troops and they then detain them, they shouldn't be able to sue

for loss of liberty while you are arresting them,

trying to find out who they are, who they are working

So we must stop that kind of nonsense.

Are you telling our viewers this morning that your

million in compensation to people who don't deserve it?

We've had to, because of the court system, because

That's precisely why we're action today to make sure that

defence budget money is spent on the Armed Forces,

But there were cases where our army detained people

Where there are serious allegations, they need to be

No one is saying they should be above the law.

But there is the criminal law of the

United Kingdom, and there are the Geneva conventions.

Our Armed Forces have to respect them and will go on

respecting them in the future after we have derogated.

What do you say to the army's former chief legal adviser in

Iraq who said that if it wasn't for the ECHR, genuine cases, real

grievances, would never have come to light?

There are plenty of ways in which grievances can be pursued.

You know, they can't be investigated when you're

cluttered up with several thousand allegations that really have no

If there are serious allegations, they will be pursued.

Tory Home Secretary 's are often unpopular, even in their own party,

but Amber Rudd has a special problem. She campaigned for Remain

in the referendum. She is broadly liberal in Outlook, and her

predecessor was in the job for six years and is now her boss. That

would be Theresa May. It was probably wise to make the main theme

of her speech today about immigration.

It's no secret that, earlier this year, I campaigned

on behalf of the Remain side in the EU referendum.

I travelled the country, setting out my views and reasons.

I sparred with the Foreign Secretary live and television.

Now he keeps on offering me lifts in his car.

But it comes down to the fact that the British people

made their wishes very clear, and I absolutely accept the result.

While we are still members of the EU, there are things

we can get on with immediately, and there are things

which the EU is currently considering which we can support,

particularly those measures to tackle crime and terrorism.

Many of them were our idea in the first place.

So we are going to overhaul our legislation to make it easier

to deport criminals and those who abuse our laws.

By setting out in legislation what is in the fundamental

interests of the UK, we will make it easier to deport EU criminals,

aligning their fortunes more closely with those from outside the EU.

for the first time, we will deport EU nationals

that repeatedly commit so-called minor crimes in this country.

So, conference, today I'm setting out

how we will get immigration under control.

In the long term, by reducing the numbers that come from Europe.

In the mid term, by reforming the student and work route of entry.

And in the short term, taking action to help communities

affected by high levels of immigration,

and stopping people coming here that threaten our security.

I am not interested in people using cultural differences

as an excuse, telling us that so-called honour-based violence

is something not to be interfered with.

This is the United Kingdom - it has an unequivocal rule of law.

If you want to live here, you abide by it -

We are also making huge investment in our police and security services,

both in monetary terms and with the recruitment

of nearly 2000 additional staff at MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.

our vital network of counterterrorism experts

in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

it is our duty, conference, to fight the threats of today.

I spoke to former Immigration Minister Damian Green,

and I put it to him that even if there was no immigration

net migration would still be way above the Government's target.

It's like pushing a balloon - you push in one side

and another side comes out, it's a permanent struggle

to keep immigration numbers at an acceptable level.

No, well, it's a struggle that you have to keep at.

and that was higher than the year before,

and that was higher than the year before that.

And then went up again for four years.

That is four years, by my arithmetic!

It came down and went up again, and it went up again

partly because our economy was growing much faster

than the economy of many other European countries.

So now, in some ways, of course, that makes it more difficult

to control immigration, but I don't think

anyone's complaining about the fact that we had a higher growth rate

than many of our comparable countries.

Can you give us any idea when you might get close to your target?

It will take time, I mean, I'm not the Immigration Minister

any more, so I don't... But beyond 2020?

It will be a few years yet, yes, but it depends how fast

the relative economic growth is in other countries.

I would love other countries in Europe to get to grips

with their economies, particularly inside the eurozone,

so if their economies were growing, so the very many young people

who come to this country from Spain and Italy and so on

You put the doctors and other medical people

who are here working already, who came of their own volition,

you've put them on deportation notice.

No, we haven't, we've just said we're going to train more doctors.

Really? Hold on, the Prime Minister on the BBC this morning, when asked,

would foreign doctors already here be allowed to stay,

her answer was, quote, until further numbers

When we train our doctors, they will want to find jobs...

That is a deportation notice warning to doctors already here.

Would you like to clarify that any doctor or other trained medical

person who's come to this country, regardless of the doctors

that we train in the future, we'll see if that happens,

They are welcome while they are doing a job,

and they'll be necessary, and they'll want to carry on

doing those jobs, and different people

reach the number of years they've been here

which give them indefinite leave to remain...

One of the phrases I used incessantly as Immigration Minister

was we don't just want our fair share of the best and brightest,

we want more than our fair share of the best and the brightest,

we want to make this a really attractive country to come to.

Boris Johnson has said he wants more Australians to come,

Mr Hammond thinks the City should be exempt

from any kind of immigration controls,

and Sajid Javid says we need more foreign builders.

So if all these extra people are coming into the country,

who is not going to come in? Well, it's not extra people,

these are people who are already coming in.

No, Mr Johnson said he wants more Australians coming,

Sajid Javid said, we need more foreign builders.

One of your other colleagues said we need more farm workers!

If you're thinking that we need all these extra people

to come into the country, who are you not going to let in?

Are you ever going to get the numbers down to 100,000?

I think the basis of any sensible immigration policy,

and it's what we seem to do, is to try to bring people in

who are highly skilled, who are world-class,

or who are filling gaps in our labour market.

Now, one of the tasks of other ministers, including me

at the Department of Work and Pensions, is to make more

highly skilled our own workforce so that British workers are trained up

to do jobs that would otherwise have to be done by workers from overseas.

Damian Green. And it was a packed schedule today.

He had his own speech to give as Work and Pensions Minister,

along with Education Secretary Justine Greening.

Grammar schools have a track record of closing the attainment gap

between children on free school meals

That's because, in grammars, those children on free school meals

progress twice as fast as the other children, so the gap disappears.

And 99% of grammars are rated good or outstanding.

Labour's approach to grammars is to close the schools down.

And, conference, it's rank hypocrisy, because Labour ministers

And it's classic Labour - do as I say, not as I do.

We all know that children develop at different speeds,

so let's be flexible on which age children can go to grammars.

So let's be clear - this is not about a return

And our universities, our independent schools

and our faith schools will have their part to play too,

working with other schools in the system.

All of this is about more and better choices for parents.

So today I'm announcing the first six opportunity areas

I talked about our education system needing to give children

and young people three things - knowledge and skills,

the right advice, and great life experiences.

Opportunity areas will have a push on all of these three.

And our approach will be tailored to each area's needs,

and that is how we'll really make a difference,

and that is what opportunity areas will do.

It's going to take teachers and schools, communities,

I'm committed to helping disabled people.

We will soon publish a green paper, together with the Department

of Health, setting out a range of policy ideas to help them

And we're launching a competition for small businesses

to help anyone diagnosed with a health condition to stay in work.

There will still be some who can't work,

and it's our duty to support them properly.

In particular, we should sweep away unnecessary stress

and bureaucracy which weigh them down.

If someone has a disease which can only get worse,

making them turn up for repeated appointments

to claim what they need is pointless bureaucratic nonsense.

That is why I've announced that we will stop requiring people

with the most severe, lifetime conditions

to be assessed again and again for the out-of-work benefits.

If their condition is not going to improve,

it is not right to ask them to be tested after time.

Of course, we still need to look after

the 13 million people who are receiving the state pension.

In the 1980s, 40% of our pensioners lived in poverty.

We committed in our manifesto to help older people.

That means protecting pension benefits and uprating

the state pension by the triple lock, because our parents

and grandparents deserve to have a city work retirement.

British Conservatives tend to be closer to American Republicans than

Democrats, but is this still true in this extraordinary American election

year? We sent out our Adam with his mood box to find out who the Tory

faithful were backing, Donald Trump all Hillary Clinton?

Most people here don't have a vote in the American

presidential election, but we're not letting that stop us,

who do people prefer? Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?

This is going to be awesome, so awesome.

Clinton, she is the lesser of two evils.

Grab a ball and put that in the Clinton box.

It would be great to have a female president.

I'm going to go for Trump, because I hate every Clinton.

She is a liar, and she will say anything for votes, and I think

Trump has a bit more credibility, and I would go for him.

It is a kick in the face or a kick in the crotch,

and Clinton would probably kick me in the crotch.

I share the same hairdresser as Donald Trump,

You wear it better. Mine is just as false.

I'm not sure Clinton will do the best for America.

It is like the Iran-Iraq war, I want them both to lose,

but I think if I was an American citizen,

I'm afraid it would have to be, for world peace, the safer world.

This rolling ball is for Gary Johnson,

Trump, I think, just so I can see the President of North Korea's face

when someone whispers in his ear that Donald Trump

Do you think I could have a career as a game show host? You have a

perfect chance! What is there now to compete with?

Jim Davidson, News At Ten, Conservative conference.

Who are you going to be announcing as the winner?

I don't want a madman and an idiot running

I give this to the Republican candidate, Donald Trump.

I won't vote for a very left-wing Democrat.

I'm doing some writing about this, about the US election,

and in that position, I have to remain neutral.

but the majority went for Hillary Clinton.

We have made the mood box great again,

Tomorrow is our last Today At Conference.

The set piece event is Theresa May's major keynote speech, we will bring

you that live and uninterrupted. We will also bring you the warm up act,

Ruth Davidson, the woman who was maybe Scottish Conservatives the

number two party in Scotland. You'll be able to watch that

live and uninterrupted starting at 11 tomorrow

morning on BBC Two. And then we will be back tomorrow

night after Newsnight, don't let the plummeting pound bite.