Transcript of speech given by Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown, at the launch of Enterprise week and Global entrepreneurship week, in London, Monday 17 November 2008.
Prime Minister:
Can I say first of all what a great privilege it is for me to be at the first Global Entrepreneurship Week, to be at the first meeting of Chain Reaction, to speak before such a large audience of people who are already changing the world by what you do individually and collectively in your communities, and to be able to pay tribute to the social enterprises and the businesses here that now exist, and I can tell you that your growth rate and the expansion that you are achieving makes me confident that we can achieve some growth in the economy at all. You have done a great job and I am very grateful to you.
When I was at school no business ever came to my school classroom, no company ever said that it had a relationship with the school, and we were brought up to believe that only the professions were the way forward, and not enterprise. And I regret that very much. When I went back to my local school a few months ago everything had changed, enterprise was now on the curriculum, they had a competition with people in their classes starting their own businesses and successfully floating their businesses and making profits out of it. Indeed when one of the pupils reported to me about the success of her business during that year, she said proudly to me that she had actually established a company and she was able to say it had paid no corporation tax whatsoever.
You are proving that we link the principles of social action and enterprise, and I believe that this financial crisis is teaching us a very important lesson about the values that underpin the market place for the future. While we have free markets, and it is right to say we should have free markets, we shouldn’t have value-free markets, markets should be underpinned by social purpose.
And some people are drawing the wrong conclusions from this financial crisis and saying you are either for business or against business, for banks or against banks, for markets or against markets. In fact I think when people look at this historic crisis and set of events, they will conclude that the dividing line which makes people angry at the moment is that we want to support markets, businesses, social enterprises that are grounded in celebrating and valuing and rewarding hard work, and effort, and enterprise, and social concern and responsible risk-taking, but what we don’t want to do is to reward, or celebrate or value irresponsible risk-taking and excess.
And so the principles of social action and the principles that govern successful enterprise that we can celebrate and value are indeed coming together.
David Robinson once told me a story about the old days when businesses were corporate entities that really thought of profit and nothing else and didn’t quite understand that social action was part of their agenda too. And he told me the story of Henry Ford when he came to London to open his first car factory in Britain, and it was in Dagenham, and the Mayor of Dagenham thought well here was Henry Ford, one of the richest men in the world, huge amounts of money to be able to give away, so we will take the occasion of the opening of his first car plant as an opportunity to give money to charity. So the Mayor wired Henry Ford, and this is the 1930s in Detroit, and said to him will you give us $20,000 so that we can start and build an old people’s home to celebrate the opening of Ford in this new part of London? And there was no reply from Henry Ford. So the Mayor of Dagenham then took his second course of action and he wired him and he said well will you give us $10,000 for the opening of an old people’s home, and still no reply. And then it was getting to the day where the opening of the factory was just about to happen, so the Mayor took action in his own hands and he simply announced that Henry Ford had decided to give $20,000. And so here the great man, Henry Ford, arrived in Britain, being thanked for his great philanthropy and not sure what to do, so he decided on a course of action. He said to the Mayor, yes I will give you the $20,000 but I want a second condition met when I give you it. I want the plaque when you open the old people’s home to have on it only a few words, the text from the bible, St John Chapter 14 verse 12 - I was a stranger and you took me in.
Now I think the values that link social enterprise and link business together are very clear to us now we have seen what has happened in this financial crisis. And I believe that all of you have got the chance to change the world in a very positive way over the next few years.
You know whatever happens in the next few months with the world downturn, over the next 20 years I believe that the global economy will double in size. It is inevitable that this will happen because of the rise of Asia, because of the rise of emerging market economies and developing countries, so the world economy over the next 20 years you will see double in the opportunities available for businesses, double in the job opportunities that are available for so many people, but probably a billion new skilled jobs created around the world over the next years. And this gives massive opportunities. If you have a product, if you have something to market, if you have invented something that is quite unique, you don’t only now look for a market in Britain, you can look for a market in every part of the world.
So the opportunities for enterprise are just endless and I believe that today you should be thinking that everything that we do will be global in the future.
But the opportunities also for social action are endless as well because we are now beginning to see that we are a global society and there are common and shared values that hold us together. In the past you used to say if only people could communicate across frontiers, if only people could discuss things across nationalities, if only people across religious faiths could understand what each other believes. And now of course technology has made that possible.
And what I believe people are finding, and we have Global Fellows here who have gone out from Britain to every country, every major country in the world, we are finding that we have a huge amount in common, we are finding that each of the major faiths is based on the same idea of responsibility - do to others as you would have done to yourself - but there is a common moral sense that links the world together and that we can build a truly global society where we can communicate with each other, discuss the great issues with each other, find what we have in common and then act on it and upon this inter-dependent society we can build a truly connected global community for the future.
So whatever the difficulties of today, and the lessons that we have to learn, there are huge opportunities both for enterprise and for social action in the future. And I hope you will all recognise that while this is a difficult time, and it is a downturn that we are having to go through because we have got to sort out problems in the global economy that have essentially arisen because we are a global economy, that we cannot be a truly global economy unless we have a financial system that deals with all the failings and weaknesses that arise when you have global flows of capital.
But we can’t be truly a global economy unless we deal with the energy and environmental problems that make us one world, but we don’t yet act as if we are one world. And you cannot truly become a global economy unless you spread the opportunities by open trade and giving people the chance to sell and to market their products across frontiers.
So this is a huge time of opportunity but it is also a time when we should press the whole international community to work with us for common ends.
One of the most terrible stories I have ever read is from a young boy in Rwanda at the time of the Rwanda killing and where nearly a million people were massacred in so many short numbers of days. And in the museum in Rwanda which commemorates the terrible loss of life at that time, as you go through the museum the last place you come through is the children’s section, and in that children’s section there is the life story of one boy - David - and what is says on the memorial plaque is: David, Aged 12. Favourite Subject - reading and history. Favourite sport - football. Last words, the UN are coming to help us.
And we must never be in a situation where through our indifference or our inability to act together we cannot find the means by which a true international community can protect people in difficulty.
So here we have this excellent chance working together, all of you here today, to combine the spirit of enterprise which we hold important, with the need for social action reflected in large numbers of social enterprises that exist in every part of the country and now run round the world.
I would just end with one story that sums it all up. When Nelson Mandela came to London to celebrate his 90th birthday, he gave a speech at the dinner and then he went to a concert that was held in his honour in Hyde Park. And Nelson Mandela spoke to the conference and then spoke to the pop concert and then he came up and I had the privilege of speaking next to him. And I had to do a lot of explaining to him as all the different pop stars came on to the stage and explained who they were, and then Amy Winehouse came on and I had quite a difficult job explaining to Nelson Mandela who Amy Winehouse was, what she had done, the music she specialised in. And Amy Winehouse was telling her friends that her husband and Nelson Mandela had a great deal in common, she said that both had spent a long time in prison. And when they were singing at the end ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, she was actually singing Free Blakey My Fella.
But there is a point in this story. At that concert Nelson Mandela, aged 90, he spoke to the audience and he said I have climbed one great mountain in my life, the ending of apartheid, dealing with the racial prejudice and segregation that divided southern Africa and indeed divided the world for many decades because of apartheid, he said that even at 90 there is another mountain we have to climb, and the mountain that he was talking about was how together we can build an international community founded on the principles of justice. And I believe that today, meeting together, thinking of global enterprise and global social action, we do have an historic opportunity, founded on the knowledge that there are shared ideas held in every part of the world, founded on our ability to communicate through the internet, email and all modern means of communication, founded on the recognition that the principles that govern enterprise and social and community action are not at odds with each other, but together rewarding and celebrating hard work, and effort, and enterprise, and responsibility, and concern is actually the way forward for every modern society.
We have a great deal to look forward to. This Global Entrepreneurship Week, and the Chain Reaction, are the start of great things to come. I want to thank you for all being here today and wish you all well for the future.
Chairman:
Thank you very much indeed Prime Minister. I want to pick up on a number of the points that you have raised for us, but first I want to invite back on to the stage two people who have already contributed to our conversations today. In case you have not been in the sessions that they have been a part of, I will introduce you to them very quickly. Jane Tewson, Jane is the founder of Charity Project, co-founder of Comic Relief, Pilot Light, Time Bank and currently founder and director of Pilot Light Australia. Jane is best known for pushing the boundaries of philanthropic thinking and creating a new concept of charity as active, emotional, involving and fun. She is also a member of the Virgin Unite Board and has been an inspiration to me and I know to you Prime Minister as well as to many others here today. And also Peter Jones who has been a part of this session with us this afternoon. Peter is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of a portfolio of businesses ranging from telecoms and leisure, publishing, media and recruitment. His interests in social action include the Peter Jones Foundation, forgotten children, and also the new national enterprise academy - another project launched with the Prime Minister earlier this year. And to describe Peter, I don’t know whether I should say this if James is still in the room, but I heard him described behind me in someone in the lunch queue at lunchtime as the Buff one in Dragons Den.
Platform speaker:
Well there is not a lot I can say to that. I am sorry James.
Chairman:
Prime Minister I would like to involve Jane and Peter in answering these points as well, so please have a conversation with us, don’t wait for me to ask you the questions. But I just wanted to pick up right away on what you said about the economic downturn and I suppose there are two versions of how we might imagine this to unfold for social change. One is that it could provide bitterness, division, social exclusion, another is that it could deliver an imperative for us to work closer together to collaborate and to move forward in partnership. And I suppose the key question for governments, for social leaders, for business, is how do we ensure that we are there indeed, opportunities in this world to exploit, and if so how do we ensure that we exploit them, or is this simply a problem that we have to face and struggle through as best we can?
Prime Minister:
Well I think, as I was saying, this is the first financial crisis of the global age, it is also the first resources crisis of the global age because we have had the oil price problem, commodity price problems, we have had people, I am sorry to say, dying because of the lack of food and the demand for food has exceeded the supply of food. And we are beginning to recognise that this is a global economy and we have got to act as if it were a global economy and not just a group of separate national economies.
And so at the moment people may think that all we are doing is muddling through a crisis, a sort of temporary but deep problem that we have got to deal with. I think these are the transition phases into the wider global economy that we have got to create by global action together. So if you think of the problems that we have got and are having to deal with, they are problems we would have had to deal with anyway, even if there was not a financial crisis we would still have to deal with the fact we have global sources of capital, but simply national systems of supervision. Even if there wasn’t an oil price crisis with the price rise and spiralling oil price rises, including commodity prices, we would still have to deal with the fact that there is a long term higher demand for energy than there is supply of it, unless we are able to diversify into renewables, into environmentally friendly fuels that the world can use.
And even if there hadn’t been a food crisis we would have to recognise that in this new world where expectations are higher, we would have to deal with the need for higher quality and more food production. And it is a tragedy that Africa, with 70 per cent of the people on the land, is actually a net importer of food from the rest of the world. And when we talk about feeding the world, I think in future by investment in agriculture in Africa it should not be necessary for us to feed Africa, it should be necessary for us to put the money in to enable Africa itself to produce enough food to both feed itself and to feed the world.
So whether there had been a financial crisis, or a food crisis, or an oil crisis, these are problems that are intrinsic to becoming a global economy and a global society, and these are problems we have to deal with anyway. And that is why in a sense it is a challenge and an opportunity to get this right by global cooperation to do the things that need to be done so that everybody, and not just some, can benefit from the existence of a global society.
And that is why you do need first of all to reform the financial system and it has got to be done at a global level and not just at a national level, you do need to have a programme to deal with the shortage of food, which is a long term problem that we will have to deal with, so we must invest in agriculture in the developing countries and you do need to solve the energy and environmental problems. And we must therefore understand that there are three problems that come together in energy and the environment, and that is the cost of energy, which is too high for ordinary people in our country, the security issues attached to dependence on unstable parts of the world for your energy, and the climate change imperative, which we have got to deal with, otherwise the global economy will face a huge and catastrophic environmental crisis in the years ahead.
So this is the challenge and the opportunity, not to see this as a financial crisis where we have simply got to muddle through and see whether we can just get through it, but to see this for what it is - the birth pangs of a new global order, a transition that we are making through a different kind of global economy and a challenge to make the adjustment that is necessary for us to succeed in this global society. And that means people with skills and people with ideas will have the ability to sell their products globally, but it also means we need international systems of cooperation so that we can solve the problems that we have together.
So the immense opportunities that exist for cooperation I believe are things that we have got to take up.
Now take the final one - I will just be very brief - on unemployment. Unemployment is rising and that is why I am very pleased that Peter Jones and Jane Tewson are here today because both of them have contributed to showing young people in Britain that there are better ways than simply leaving school without qualifications, not taking up opportunities that may be available for people. In 1997 I wanted to create the New Deal for young people so that young youth unemployment was eliminated in Britain and I went to Jane and said, look, tell me what you think young people need as part of this New Deal programme, and Jane said I can’t tell you but I will put you in touch with a number of young people. So within a few days a dozen young people descended on Downing Street - courtesy of Jane - to explain what they wanted in the form of a New Deal so that their unemployment could be either avoided or it could be ended, and out of that came the New Deal that has actually been responsible for helping 2 million people and has brought youth unemployment down by 80 per cent.
Now it is the ideas of Peter on enterprise, Jane on new ways of dealing with social action to combat unemployment, that we are looking at now, and of course all of you have a part to play. This is not one nation’s financial crisis, this is a global financial crisis, it will not be solved by one measure alone but many measures, but if we look at this as making this transition to the new global economy and the new global society then we can be positive that if we can solve these problems, and I believe we can, because these are not insoluble problems, they are problems that can be solved, climate change, energy, food and the economy, if we can solve these problems then as I said earlier the opportunities from a world economy that will definitely double in the next 20 or 25 years for British businesses, British people, but for people all over the world are far greater than in any previous generation.
So I would approach the problems we face with confidence that we can stop division, confidence that we can actually do something about it if we act together, and confidence that out of this by working together we can build a better society.
Chairman:
Jane, these are global issues that the Prime Minister is talking about, but in the specific example about the development of new deals, Prime Minister you spoke about learning from the experience of young people and that is something you passionately believe in, isn’t it. How do we connect the individual, the local, with this huge globalisation?
Jane Tewson:
I think you are right. I mean I believe passionately that everybody can make a difference, but it is really important that we take risks and we reach out and we connect with one another, and that means connecting with people that you wouldn’t normally spend time with. I mean I wouldn’t normally sit here in front of all of you, but I am doing it because I feel it is important in terms of moving forward.
I spoke earlier today about a young man called Roger who had been in prison several times. I had the privilege of meeting him with one of Australia’s leading businessmen, and Roger said his life changed when for the first time, and he was 20, somebody asked him how he was, and that was a fellow prison mentor. And that completely changed Roger’s life, he is now working for that businessman, he is looking after 100 prisoners who are now working for that business, and he spends his time saying: How are you?
So I think it is really important that we create bridges to allow people perhaps who haven’t got as much as we have, to connect, we need to listen to them.
Chairman:
And Peter I suppose the same question to you, but are there opportunities here as well as challenges?
Peter Jones:
Yeah, I feel like the sort of person as I said earlier, sort of out there, sort of trying to keep the levels of confidence up. One thing I would like to say, and I am not going to talk about change because I think we have done that earlier today, but one particular thing is that there was a lot of discussion about innovation today and there was a lot of discussion about making a difference, especially on the global scale. And I think one of the things we don’t want to lose sight of actually is in the creation of when you have innovation, scarcity drives innovation. We are able, and do have to do a lot more with less. And actually I think that is a really, really key message in times of a downturn at the moment, not to lose sight, especially when you are an entrepreneur out there, don’t lose sight of the fact that actually scarcity drives innovation. It makes you step up. So I think there is a lot we can do and I am on the positive band wagon here.
But I do think, as the Prime Minister rightly said, these are difficult times but I think it is the way to react to these difficult times and the opportunities that present themselves, particularly for people in the audience today and especially some of the global ambassadors that we are seeing coming through. It is about the interconnectivity, it is about opening and reaching our arms out and learning from all experiences, and actually small businesses out there not getting too hung up about the fact that they are struggling in difficult times. They should be communicating within their businesses, they should be reaching out within their communities and they should be doing more from a corporate responsibility perspective because if they do they will learn more about their own business and what their customers really want.
Question:
Prime Minister, Peter speaks about the role of entrepreneurs in society, in wider society. Is there a role also for social leaders in helping to build a stronger economy?
Prime Minister:
Absolutely. I counted up in my own constituency, which is in Fife in Scotland, and is not necessarily recognised to be one of the areas where you have got the most amount of small businesses or business activity, and that there were 400 social enterprises. And we called a meeting of these social enterprises in my own constituency, and the contribution that social enterprises are making in a whole range of different areas is something that I think is not wholly recognised, not just locally but in our economy as a whole. And so many of the great new ideas about the future have come out of people who have formed the social enterprises, many of the developments in our public services are now actually the most innovative ones, coming from social enterprises taking over or running parts of our public services.
I went down to see a group of nurses that had taken over as a social enterprise the caring duties in a particular area for old people and you know in different parts of the country there are social enterprises running not just social services, but running education, running health services, running a whole range of different services.
So the scope for social enterprise is I think very, very big indeed. And we are trying, as some of you may know, to create a social enterprise bank that would allow the financing of social enterprises, because so many simply have capital or funds to last only a few weeks, when they actually need to have the ability to plan long term to do things that are absolutely necessary. And I think it does come back to this thing that Peter was talking about, people realising that they can make a huge difference. And I think social enterprises show to great effect that one or two people working together can actually make a huge difference in our society.
So I think we need to publicise the achievements more, celebrate the values that underpin social enterprise, and particularly at this time when the debate is on about what enterprise contributes to our society as a result of our financial crisis where people are doubting how our banks in particular, but our institutions, have performed, it is important to say that enterprise based on hard work and effort, but also people having the challenge and having the talent and the ability to do things new. My father used to say everybody has the talent but everybody should have the chance to develop that talent and everybody should be encouraged and even challenged to develop that talent, and by doing so I believe that we could create more social enterprises to the benefit not just of our society, but to the benefit of our economy.
Chairman:
I know Prime Minister you have got to hurry back in a moment, but if I may ask just one final question in conclusion of this conversation, and perhaps I could start with Peter and work the way down the line so you can have the final word Prime Minister on this. About 20 per cent of our audience today and tomorrow are under 21 and I wonder what would be the message of all three of you to those of us who aren’t running governments or big companies but are determined to make a big difference in the world from wherever we are with whatever it is we have got.
Peter Jones:
I think the Prime Minister has touched on it for me, there is a self-belief I think that all of you out there, you must believe and start to believe that the opportunities are not just there to be found, but they are over-intensified in times such as these. So as an opportunity you are the new wave, the new crest of the future. We have said earlier that we know that if you accept that enterprise drives economies then you will accept that entrepreneurs are the ones that create enterprise. So whatever you do I wish you the best of luck. And for me it is about my one wish to you is go and make your dreams a reality.
Jane Tewson:
I would second that. I would also say that anything is possible and don’t be afraid to ask, and don’t be afraid to show your vulnerabilities as well. And I remember so well setting up Comic Relief in my early 20s as a dyslexic young woman without any qualifications and without any contacts, people were wonderful because I just asked, I said please will you help, I have got no skills? And people rallied round and I think we all need to help and we all need to be asked.
Prime Minister:
I think discover your talent and use it to best effect. My school motto was in Latin - I will strive my utmost. Then in the 1970s and ‘80s a new regime came in and they re-translated it from the Latin to say everybody does better …. And then in 2008 a new headmaster came back and said no, I will strive my utmost. So use your talents, make sure that you ask for advice about how you can make the best of your opportunities. The next … to mine had a motto, rise to the light, and just to repeat Jane, one of the nearby schools had a motto, anything is possible. And I think if you recognise that and stretch yourself to the limit, aspire high, aim high, have ambition about what you can do, you will be able to prove that everyone can make a difference.
Edison actually was the man who, as many of you will know, invented the light bulb and he invented the light bulb after 100 failures in trying to do so, and someone said but you have had 100 failures, why so? And he said: I didn’t have 100 failures, these were 100 steps to success. And I think if you look at that, never be discouraged, make sure that you use your talents to best effect and strive your utmost.
And I think Global Entrepreneurship Week is about that and I think the Social Action Week that is about Chain Reaction is also about that, in the community and in the economy do your best, recognising the difference you can make not only to yourself but to improving the whole community.
End.
delicious
digg
facebook
