Thank you very much Shabana, and good afternoon Conference.
Can I start by thanking my fantastic Ministerial team who were
arrayed before us at the front of the hall. Emma, Sue, Daniel and
Mary who's not with us. She's on her way to address the UN
General Assembly about our ambitions for nature.
Conference, so many of our earliest and happiest memories are
about exploring the great outdoors.
As a kid, I loved splashing about in the waves on a beach.
Watching the fish and crabs darting around a rockpool. Climbing
trees in the woods at the end of our road.
But parents today worry their kids may not have the same chances.
Our rivers and seas are polluted. We see fewer birds and
butterflies in the garden.
Nature is in trouble.
Ask people what makes them most proud to be British and our
beautiful countryside is right up there.
This ‘green and pleasant land' celebrated in poetry and song is
our shared inheritance and our shared
identity.
But after fourteen years under the Tories, half our bird species
and a quarter of our mammal species are at risk of
extinction.
Our once-pristine waterways are overflowing with raw, toxic
sewage.
There are many times in history when Labour's had to clean up the
Tories' mess. But never quite as literally as this.
The Tories boasted about their bonfire of the regulations as they
shredded the rules that protect us. This led to abuses in
so many sectors, including water regulation.
The Conservatives just stood back and watched as raw sewage
polluted our rivers and customers' money was funnelled into
multimillion pound bonuses and dividend payments while our sewage
system crumbled.
I'm calling time on all that today.
This government of service will fix the foundations and clean up
our waterways.
Money ringfenced for investment will be spent on fixing broken
water infrastructure and refunded to customers if it's
not.
We will ban the multimillion pound bonuses water bosses paid
themselves for overseeing repeated illegal sewage
dumping.
Bosses who cover up what's going on will face personal criminal
charges – including jail
time.
And we'll power up the regulator with more staff and give them
the teeth they need to prosecute the polluters - and it will be
paid for by the polluters themselves.
The work to fix our broken sewage system starts immediately with
tens of billions of pounds of private-sector investment that will
create good, well-paid jobs in every single part of our
country.
That's the biggest-ever investment in our water sector and the
second biggest in any part of the economy during the lifetime of
this government.
We'll back our farmers in the fantastic work they do to feed our
nation. And we'll work with them to restore nature and stop
animal waste, fertiliser and pesticide pollution running into our
waterways.
We will protect bees, butterflies and the pollinators that
sustain healthy ecosystems.
We'll plant more trees along our riverbanks to help the land hold
more water and stop flooding.
And we'll plant three new national forests as we restore the
woodlands that are the lungs of our planet, inhaling carbon and
breathing out clean air.
As life returns to our waterways, we'll celebrate with nine new
national riverwalks and open up more of our countryside for every
family to enjoy.
We'll end the throwaway society by creating new jobs reusing and
recycling materials as we work towards a circular economy that
protects nature and our precious climate.
Conference, this is where change begins.
We'll clean up our rivers, back our farmers, restore habitats for
wildlife, and end the throwaway society.
There's no foundation we have to fix that's more important than
nature because everything else depends on it. The next
generation must have the same chance we had to look up at the
night sky and wonder.
Our legacy will be to give our children back the natural world
that is their birthright.
Thank you.
