I want to congratulate your president, David Dimbleby, on surviving his busiest day of the year—Budget Day—yesterday.
I don't think we knew this important occasion was going to be the day after the Budget when I accepted your invitation to lunch last autumn. [end p1]
But I'm sure David, as a seasoned broadcaster, doesn't mind. There's a lot to be said—as we so often say in politics—in getting it all over with at once.
Budgets are, of course, about raising the revenue to cover your expenditure. So we might rather neatly describe today as your Budget Day. [end p2]
For this gathering is the launching pad for a one million pound appeal to put the immensely valuable charitable work of the Association of Combined Youth Clubs among children and young people in London's inner city areas on a sound footing. [end p3]
At the outset I want to wish your appeal every success; and to commend it most warmly to business and commerce and retailing who will rely so much on the young people coming up in the inner cities for their future success.
As you know, immediately after the last election I expressed my determination to tackle and solve the problems of our inner cities. [end p4] To change the face of our urban environment over ten years. To seek the rebirth of our ancestors' cities for today's people.
The action programme which I launched two years ago had three objectives: — to step up the momentum of our drive to make the decay of our inner cities a thing of the past [end p5] — to involve industry and commerce without which no city can thrive — and to improve city life as a whole.
To these ends we, the Government, are committing four billion—four thousand million pounds—of taxpayers' money to the effort. [end p6] In view of the John MajorChancellor's prudence yesterday I should perhaps remind you that that sum is worth 2p in the pound on income tax.
It is no mean commitment.
But what we are also seeking to do is to use Government money to provide the leverage—the encouragement—for much bigger sums of private investment. [end p7]
We are being tremendously successful in this. Let me give you just one major example: the £800 million of public money provided by our urban development corporations has generated more than seven thousand million pounds of private sector investment; getting on for £10 of private money for every £1 put in by the taxpayer. [Following page missing]. [end p8]
Two years ago, in launching the drive, I said “It can be done” . Today, you can all see it is being done. And that is only the physical side of our inner cities.
We have been able to do this because, whatever our temporary economic difficulties, the nation has created the necessary cash. [end p9]
And it has done that because, from the very moment I entered No 10 nearly eleven years ago, I've been trying to bring about an enterprise, wealth creating society. And a society in which the wealth that is created is ever more widely spread among the people. [end p10]
As I told a conference in Bradford a few weeks ago: I am determined that every part of Britain—yes every part, including our inner cities—will share in our rising prosperity.
You can't rebuild our inner cities without money. But you can't reinvigorate them without people. [end p11]
So what we have tried to do—and tried very hard indeed to do—is to have a comprehensive approach to improving life in our inner cities.
Here our housing, education and health reforms are designed to increase people's choice, raise standards of quality and attainment and create new opportunities. [end p12]
And when your economic and social policies work hand and hand, and complement each other, you can bring new hope to people; new self esteem; new confidence;: and a passion for self improvement.
Then we've provided Government help in the form of institutions and people: — ten urban development corporations to get things moving [end p13] — city action teams to pull things together — estate action to improve housing and living conditions — the safer cities campaign to tackle crime [end p14] — and City technology colleges and partnerships between companies and schools to give young people a good start in life.
All this is about teamwork—about Government co-operating with: — local councils — local industry, commerce and retailers [end p15] — local schools — local police — and with local people by giving them a bigger say and greater choice. [end p16]
But none of this—however broad the front over which the Government's attack is mounted, or however deep down Government co-operation reaches into the community—is a substitute for voluntary effort; the voluntary effort that keeps the Association of Combined Youth Clubs afloat from the humblest voluntary worker in one of your 130 affiliated youth clubs to your David Dimblebypresident—indeed to your patron, the Princess AnnePrincess Royal. [end p17]
It is organisations like your Association, built on the bedrock of the volunteer, which lead children to the first rung of the ladder of opportunity. It is the massive Government commitment and co-operation of the kind I have outlined which extends that ladder ever further upwards. [end p18]
Between us—and between us there are many others working in their different ways to the same end—we are trying to liberate people from the limitations of their environment; to give them a sense of achievement; and to inspire them to improve their own lot.
That is how I see the service of your volunteers on housing estates and in clubs often housed in the basements of blocks of flats. [end p19]
You are the grassroots of the inner city revival. You have been nurturing these roots for thirty years and, notwithstanding the demise of the ILEA which may initially tighten your purse strings, you are better placed than ever to grow. [end p20]
You know, how to organise a youth club; how to mix its appeal to youngsters across leadership, sports, arts and crafts, education, standards of behaviour, and values.
You know how to take children out of themselves and to give them a breath of fresh air in the country on a holiday they otherwise would not have had. To extend their horizons. [end p21] You know what it is like to be in the front line against the drug, vandal and litter cultures.
You know how to train people in youth and community work—and indeed how to give youngsters a grounding in office work and such crafts as painting and decorating. I am delighted to hear your training programme for unemployed youngsters has a 98%; success rate in placing them in jobs. [end p22]
Your fame is such that only recently, for example, a team from Johannesburg came to find out how to set up a similar network and umbrella organisation in South Africa.
You also know how to do it on a shoestring—indeed with those invaluable half people who are such a feature of management accounting. [end p23] An HQ staff of two and a half, including your Chief Executive, Ernie Randall, and half a secretary.
In total you service your 130 clubs on £75,000 a year.
And you regularly raise £50–60,000 by such things as fun runs to help fund your work. [end p24]
But understandably you want to put yourself on solid foundations.
Hence the appeal for one million pounds which is being launched here today.
I very much hope that all the firms represented here today—and many others—will respond generously. There can be no greater service to the community than helping a child to realise his or her full potential. [end p25]
I am of course aware that some companies take the view that their responsibility is to make profits for their shareholders and that it is up to their shareholders to decide how to spend them.
As one who believes fundamentally in the acceptance and exercise of individual responsibility, I have much sympathy with that approach. [end p26]
But there is another side to the coin. Firms do not exist or make profits in the abstract. Quite apart from satisfied customers, inner city firms also need employees who usually live in the inner cities themselves. Their success is therefore firmly founded in their relationship with the community in which they conduct their business. [end p27]
Sainsbury's have recognised this to the tune of £30,000 for the Association over three years. Other major firms, I know, see the Association as a potential recipient of their support for the community. I hope that potential is realised. [end p28]
But, most important, I hope that businessmen will increasingly have regard for the welfare of the people who are living and growing up in the inner cities. They can demonstrate this by their generous support for the Association of Combined Youth Club's anniversary appeal.
The Budget yesterday certainly offered encouragement and support. [end p29] The John MajorChancellor's Gift Aid Scheme will for the first time give tax relief for large donations both from individuals and companies to charities. This relief will be available on one-off gifts from £600 up to an annual ceiling of £5 million per individual donor.
This is well beyond your Association's ambitions and I commend the Gift Aid Scheme to your supporters. [end p30]
For those of you who might be teetering on the brink of writing a handsome cheque let me just add one final word.
All of us are depressed and even angry at the litter and untidyness of even refurbished inner cities—not to mention other places like motorway verges and the countryside. [end p31]
This Association is also appalled by litter. Recently it took four hundred youngsters to Morden for a cross country event. They cleaned up after themselves.
What is more, the Association runs a collect-a-can campaign—for every penny on a returned can counts to an organisation like this. [end p32]
This is the spirit of the Neater Nineties.
I hope you will agree with me, this Association deserves your support and encouragement. I hope you will help. I shall certainly keep my eye on the progress of your appeal, David DimblebyMr President.
Good luck. You deserve it.