Tony Blair's Bornemouth Speech

Why, when we have known all our lives the importance of the 3 Rs, is it only now that we have put in place the literacy and numeracy strategies to get those basics taught properly? And look at the results for 11 year olds: maths up 10 per cent, reading up five per cent, a tribute to our children, to their teachers and to David Blunkett.

Why has it taken this government to set about ending the culture of failure in our inner city comprehensives?

Doubling the number of specialist schools; creating 1,000 beacon schools; every run down school getting help with buildings, equipment, facilities from the £5bn modernisation programme: LEAs with a track record of failure taken over and run by people with a track record of success.

Why is it only now, we have lifted the cap on student numbers and 100,000 more will go to university in the next 2 years, 700,000 more to further education. So today I set a target of 50 per cent of young adults going into higher education in the next century.

Why if education is the key to success do we allow so many children to leave school at 16 when we should be doing all we can to get them to stay on. Today we are announcing a smartcard to offer all 16-18 year olds who stay in education cut price deals at shops, in theatres and cinemas and on trains and buses.

Only now can this happen because there is a Labour Government that cares about educating the many and a Labour Party with the courage to reform the system to do it.

And critical to reform are our teachers. I appeal to them.

You do a great job in our schools. We know how important it is for you to work as a team. But if we are to get the real step change in your pay you and we both want, we have to link it to performance. We have to raise standards, and we have to remove those who really cannot do the job.

And if a Head Teacher transforms a school and so transforms the life chances of our children, aren’t they worth as much as a good doctor, banker or lawyer?

In 10 years we will have transformed our schools. And our NHS too.

And I know the impatience here is at its highest. After all, we created the NHS. It has to be us that rebuilds it.

And yes it needs money. And yes, the first two years were tough.