 I've always enjoyed the opportunity to take part in events where young people are eager to connect and communicate and in my former life as a member of the British Parliament I was frequently invited to speak to school and college students to talk about my role as an MP particularly in those first few years after my election as I was only a little older than some of the students. I was elected to Parliament as you've heard in 1997 at the age of 24. It was a time of great excitement with the election of a new Labour government led by Prime Minister Tony Blair after 18 years being in opposition to the Conservative Government since 1979 and the country was ready for change. I was incredibly proud to be part of that new dawn. I'd been involved in politics as you heard from an early age as I was always interested in my community and the world around me wondering how decisions were made by governments that could have such an impact on everyday lives and it seemed to me that too often those decisions fail to understand the reality of most people's lives and decisions were taken too far away without real accountability. I grew up in a family where politics was part of family life. My parents were involved in the Labour Party as local councillors and I was encouraged to understand more about the community in which I lived and how decisions were made unlike I think most other young people of my age. From the age of 13 I always took election day off school because it gave me an opportunity to be involved in politics at the heart of election campaigning and when my head teacher at the time approached my father and said to him this is not acceptable that you are taking your daughter out of school every day when there's an election for an election day once a year he said to her my daughter will learn the important aspect of being a citizen in this country and the responsibilities that that holds to vote and I have to say that I think that is absolutely true and far too often we do not invest in our young people to make sure that they understand how the system of democracy the system of government actually works. I believe that we gain so much from working together in our community from our common endeavours than we do alone and that society is an important structure to create fairness and opportunity for all. Sadly society is not always fair and far too many people don't get access to the basic necessities of life and the opportunity to be their best. My education studying law at university and qualifying as a solicitor confirmed to me that education is the key to opportunities for individuals but it's also the key for improving our communities. As you heard I spent 13 years in Parliament as an MP five of those years were in government as a minister in different roles including as a justice minister. One of the roles I held was as Vice Chamberlain to Her Majesty's household. It's a duty placed on a member of the government whips office and in that role I was required to write to Her Majesty the Queen every day to tell her about the activities in Parliament. It's a role that links the Royal Household to Parliament and on the occasion of the state opening when the Queen attends Parliament to make a speech. It's the duty of the Vice Chamberlain to be taken hostage by the palace as a guarantee of the safe return of the monarch. It's one of those strange parts of our tradition and heritage in British Parliament. But I do feel incredibly proud and privileged to have had that opportunity to serve my constituents in Watford and to serve my country. And we all have a part to play in this world and politics should not be something that's confined to those who seek power. Political power should be and is in democracy. It should rest with all of us. Our duty as citizens is to play our part and to take responsibility, to understand how things work, the decisions being made in our name and to hold to account through the ballot box, those who make those decisions. For those of you who like sports, perhaps I can use a bit of an analogy. Politics is like a game of football. You can stand on the sidelines and shout at the players telling them how to score the goals, or you can get on the pitch and be part of the team. And we can all be part of the team if we take a role at whatever level that we can. It might be voting, it might be standing for election, or it might be supporting others that do. One of the things that I miss as I look at all of you on the screen now during this period of lockdown and the pandemic is the opportunity to actually travel and to meet people. Travel helps to broaden the mind and outlook. And I've been very fortunate during my life to have been able to travel to many parts of the world, including to India and to many of the other countries that I see represented here today. Different cultures, backgrounds, experiences, they all help us to grow. And that's one of the reasons why I welcome this event of Pangea, the global village, as a recognition that there is so much that we can learn from each other. In doing so, we begin to learn that the challenges we face as humans have much in common, our love for our families, our desire for safety and good health, our ambition that our planet provides a sustainable environment for us all to prosper. Of course, our access to different resources, to levels of education and to the support of society can be factors that can impact on the achievements of those goals. But there would be few people who would not recognize these as common traits to our human life that is much more than just existence. So we have much in common as we might have done where we part of one Pangea. The challenges of the last year have emphasised that our world is very small and that we cannot insulate ourselves from things that happen in another country. In the UK, we have not only been dealing with the pandemic, but our decision to leave the EU, which took place on the 1st of January. I deeply regret the decision that the UK took to leave the EU, a democratic decision, but one that I wasn't in support of. But I hope that we maintain a way of working with other countries, both in the EU and beyond. We cannot be completely independent. And the challenges that we face globally, climate change, COVID, poverty are ones that require a collaborative response. The pandemic has changed so much of our lives and the way that we work. Our duty now is to find those changes that improve our lives. For example, as many businesses have moved to communicating through platforms such as Zoom, they recognise that the many hours and days they spent travelling across the world are no longer necessary to the same extent. They can still build relationships and businesses. It's a way to work towards their commitment of reducing their carbon footprint and saving costs. For many people, it will permanently change the way that they work with less time spent in an office or commuting and the potential for a better work-life balance. In some ways, we've seen our communities in the UK coming together, focused on defeating the virus, more people volunteering to help those who are required to stay at home. We've seen superb examples of innovation and collaborative working, companies supporting each other to deliver help because they recognise that life is harder for everyone. And of course, we only need to look at the pharmaceutical and science sector to see the levels of collaboration across so many different countries in so many different parts of the world that are helping to deliver successful vaccines. We just need to look, for example, at the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is already in use in the UK and in other countries. And we see that that's a company which has American, German, Turkish, all sorts of different countries involved in its successful collaboration. So we've also seen, not just in our working lives, but we've seen in our personal lives changes and the use of technology. For those families who've been unable to see each other for many months, the use of technology has been key to maintaining that personal contact. Having more time on our hands has often resulted in long forgotten contacts being resurrected with a call or a Zoom. These are the advantages from the pandemic. But the flip side of the coin may be that we become disconnected on a personal level. We no longer pick up the signals from other people that we might see if we were in the room with them in person, the conversations that we had with people on the margins of meetings or events, which allow us to really get to know and understand each others, those casual conversations that actually often tell us so much more. If I were to be visiting your school or organisation today in person, we would have the chance to talk individually, to socialise over lunch or dinner and in turn to understand each other a little better. So as we start to come out of the pandemic, we need to consider how we build those relationships in a new way. Of course, technology will continue to play a greater part than ever before. But we need to learn to collaborate with each other more successfully. The job that I do now as Chief Executive of the Institute for Collaborative Working and as you will already know, our Chairman is Lord Evans and he's a fantastic Chairman and a great support and champion for collaboration. At the Institute, our role is to promote the benefits that can be achieved through collaboration. The ICW was established 30 years ago to promote collaboration and partnering between businesses. We're a not-for-profit organisation and our members are our companies, organisations and individuals who recognise the value of collaboration and want to be part of a network of like-minded people where they can share and learn from each other. We've recently updated our vision, our mission to include a much wider scope that we want to be able to bring the benefits of collaboration to a wider part of our society, not just to businesses, but to organisations, to public sector and to government so that we can all benefit from understanding it. Our work has led to the creation of the first international standard for collaborative working. ISO 44001 and many companies globally are recognising that by adapting and adopting a more structured approach to collaborative working, they deliver better outcomes and value. We have a number of branches of the ICW around the world who are promoting the benefits of collaboration. And those principles are not simply about the way in which we work together, they are also about the attitudes and behaviours that we bring as individuals to the task of working together. I believe strongly that these are skills that we should be teaching our children and young people so that we can build better ways of working together in all aspects of our life. So if you'd like to know more about our work outside of today's event, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me. Finally, I want to say what a fantastic opportunity this has been today to see so many of you, so many different places, how we can connect to each other and what a fantastic programme that you've all put together for this event. And by being here together, working together, you've already made that commitment to work together for the greater good. So may I wish you all here a very successful event and I hope that one day that many of us can meet in person to continue our journey of collaboration for the greater good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Claire, for sharing your thoughts and for sharing those words, you know, where you're appreciating us. I truly agree that I think we've just said the tone of understanding that children and youth have the power of collaborating for the greater good. And I'm sure by, you know, understanding that with each other, they will be able to achieve a lot more is the beginning of what we will see as that borderless world of opportunities. I'm quoting Gary here and, you know, referring to his line of actually exploring this borderless world of opportunities. Thank you so much, Claire. If anybody has any questions for our chief guest today in the Zoom meet or our audiences who are watching us live on Facebook, please feel free to put them on the chat or you can raise hands via Zoom. I'm sure Claire will be very happy to answer a few questions if you're having any. Yes, Shifali, please carry on. Yeah, hello, everyone. Thank you, Claire, for that wonderful and a phenomenal introductory speech. I have a small question for you. How do you see education in the light of politics and what is your idea when the merger happens? What an interesting question. I think that we need to make sure that our children and our young people are equipped with all sorts of skills for the future. And maths is important, English is important, geography is important, all of these things. But sometimes we forget that actually they need to know how to operate within their own communities and their societies. And we don't teach them some of those fundamental basics about how politics works, how democracies works and how they can have their voice and how they can make sure that they can communicate with other people and they can work together. And so education has got to be much wider than simply learning the books and the core subjects. And I think some schools, certainly I know in the UK, some schools are doing that, but I don't think we do it early enough and I don't think we embed it into our children's education early enough. And the consequences of that is that when they grow up and they need to understand the basic things about getting their voice heard, they don't know who to turn to. They don't know the difference between their local council and their MP. They don't know where responsibility sits. And because they're disenfranchised, it means they don't actually have a real voice. And therefore, because they feel turned off, they decide it's not worth voting because they don't understand what difference it's going to make. And that's actually in the end is what keeps people, particularly from some of our most disadvantaged communities in that same place, because they are not getting the chance to use their fundamental right to vote and to have their say because they don't really understand the structures and how it works. And that has got to change in this country and it's got to change in other countries. Yes, Lord Evans. Claire, I'd just like to thank you so much for a fantastic presentation. I was really thrilled to hear you talk about your background. Entering Parliament as the youngest member of Parliament was such a fantastic achievement. Claire, you have two children which are studying at home now. I wonder if you talk to everyone here about how you're finding that experience and the pros and cons as you see it. Well, I think it's tough time for any parents with children at home. I have a daughter who is 14 and a son who's 12. So in some ways I'm quite fortunate that they're not in that primary school age where they need me to be there actually teaching them and sitting with them all the time. They're very good at being quite disciplined and following the school lesson plan. And they are having lessons wherever they possibly can online the same as many other children. But it's really tough. They miss the social aspect. They miss their friends. They miss the opportunity to get out of the house and just go somewhere and have a purpose. And I think one of the things that we've often forgotten perhaps or maybe we haven't valued so much about education is that education isn't just the math and the English and the subject. It's everything else that comes with it, socialization. The recognition that there are things that my children won't learn from me but they'll learn from their friends. There are conversations that my children will have their friends that they won't have with me because that's part of life, isn't it? And I think that we're in a situation now where as a whole generation of young people and of children who potentially will be quite damaged by what's happened over the last year and what's happening potentially over the next few months our children won't be going back to school for many weeks or potentially months yet. And we need to find as a society a way to support them and to recognize what they've been through and to give something back to them. And I think part of that is to understand that we can never be in this situation again where children who don't have access to the internet, children who don't have access to technology are probably already disadvantaged in many aspects of their lives and we have just trebled or quadrupled or more those disadvantages and that isolation. And we have to do much more to tackle that and to understand that and to put more resource into it. So yes, it's been tough, although as I say, my children are very fortunate and they're pretty, not every day but they're quite self-motivated. We all get fed up. And my daughter is particularly keen on learning languages. So she set herself a task, a lockdown challenge which is to teach herself Mandarin. And that's her task at the moment. So I'm very pleased to encourage as much of that as possible. Again, another opportunity to learn to communicate. Given the fact that today's politics is based off polar opposite views, how do we make sure that the environment for collaboration always remains open? Claire, your thoughts on that? Well, I think one of the advantages that the international standard has brought is to provide a talking point, to provide a structure that we can follow. It's a bit of a root map to understand how to collaborate because it takes into account the sort of attitudes and behaviors that you need to have as individuals and as teams to be able to successfully collaborate. So I think that that is one of the ways in which we can understand better the value and the benefits of collaboration. It's an absolute delight. I agree with Lord Evans. I'm absolutely delighted to hear you speak this morning. I do remember you as a serving MP. I just want to heart back to the early days of Tony Blair and the mantra of education, education and education. And that spurred me on into leadership in my career. And these are the fantastic times. You and I, like Lord Evans, align very politically regarding Brexit, by the way. So look, come and visit my school and I'll show you around and lunch and dinner both thrown in if you like. I just wanted to say one thing about, you mentioned before about young people and how potentially damaged they've been through this dreadful experience of coping with pandemic. And we've worked so hard as a school and I'm sure everybody here today as leaders in education have worked immensely hard to keep re-engaging with young people at home, their families making sure they're safe, secure, as happy as they possibly can be in this awful situation. But I wanted to offer actually, and this is for everybody, how miserable teachers have been without the contact with young people. Even senior staff like myself with very small timetables. We've really missed those young people. And I want to say that to every student that's joined us today, that that's how we feel as staff. And as I wrote to parents yesterday and spoke very proudly about how passionate I am about, I get the earliest start possible for young people in however that can be, as long as we keep each other safe. And I just wanted to make that point to you. So we're just missing the kids as much as they're missing us and missing each other. Thanks very much. And you know, I think one of the challenges is that all the schools seem to be operating differently. And I think what we're not doing is my sense, is that we're not sharing best practice well enough about what's working and what's not working. I think one of the criticisms or the kind of feedback that my child has given is that she spends all day on the screen and she often feels she's being talked at, that the opportunities for the engagement because the class is a large 30 kids because of the distractions, means that there isn't that interaction. And I think that's hugely damaging because they're not getting enough opportunity to interact with other pupils, but also with the teachers. So best practice is, you know, if we can have more engagement with our teachers and we definitely want to see the teachers and I know the teachers want to see the kids. So we need to share some of that. Thank you. And it was really enlightening to hear you speak and I got a lot of amazing ideas and a lot of interesting issues that are going on around the world. So I wanted to ask you, in your opinion, what is the impact of politics on the world, on societies or as communities or on the masses of people? So let's say legislation goes wrong, that affects the lives of thousands of millions of people. So what's your opinion on the impact, on the huge impact that politics has on the world today? Well, I think politics is a fascinating subject. And people you say, you know, you go to schools and sometimes say, oh, but politics is boring. But politics affects everything that we do. Its impact is immense. There isn't a single thing that we do in our lives that hasn't been influenced in some way by politics. The food that we eat has been determined about the regulations through legislation in parliaments. And that's determined by politics, where we can travel, what we can do, what we study at school, what our life is going to be like, what our health services provision will be. All of that is politics. And whichever view you take in politics, whether it's on the left of the spectrum or the right of the spectrum or somewhere around it, at least you are trying to shape the outcomes of a view. And debate is good because debate in politics is helping us all to understand really difficult issues sometimes and help to shape our views on them. So I think the impact of politics can be for good or for bad sometimes. Sometimes people's politics creates wars. It creates all sorts of damage. It creates genocide. It creates terrible things in our world. But it can also be for the good. And that's where we need young people to be focusing now. My question is that, why do you feel it's important for young people to socialize with people their own age? Oh, that's an interesting question. That's really interesting. Because I think you need to have a mixture. So some of the discussions that I have with my children, they say I'm old-fashioned. And I think I kind of remember me saying that to my parents because each generation has a different outlook on life and things that views that I might have been brought up with because society was slightly different even though, and the same would be David. David's views on things perhaps might have been slightly different when he was brought up with different generations. Inevitably, life moves on. People's understanding of things of life move on. And I think that you need to be able to share some of those views with people of your own generation with peers as well as being intergenerational. Because I think it helps you to build confidence and to build an understanding of your ability to communicate. So I'm quite certain that there are conversations that my kids would much rather have with their friends than they would with me. You talked about how you were just 24 when you took up one of the most important positions in your country. And my question is coming from the perspective of students often suffer from the imposter syndrome. Students who often struggle with the fear of being judged, the fear of inadequacy which is very common especially when you assume positions of importance at younger ages. We see a lot more leaders across the world. We have Sanaa Maareen of course in Finland, the Finnish PM, the prime minister who's also doing us proud at the age of 34. We have young leaders like Jacinda Ardern too. But there are a lot of cases of this sort where students when they take up positions often suffer from an imposter syndrome and are not sure about how to go about things. I'm sure you would have also faced some questions in your mind when you took up those important positions at 24. How did you deal with them? And what would you like to tell students who face these kinds of issues? Okay, so you can imagine in a parliament and in society being a young MP, there were many people who would question how I could possibly contribute or know about things at that age. And I think at the end of the day you cannot experience everything about life. I will not be male, I will not be black, I will not be Asian, I will not be so many different experiences or different lives. So the important thing is to be able to understand and have empathy and to be able to be a good communicator of those issues, to listen to people. And I think, I always just say it's not about how old you are or how young you are, it's about whether or not you can do the job. And in a parliament, which is meant to represent our country, we need people of all ages. I don't think it would be a good idea to have a parliament full of 24 year olds, but in the same way, I don't think it would be a good idea to have a parliament full of 70 year olds. We need to have a mix, we need to have a balance and we need to have men and we need to have women and we need to have people from all different walks of life and different backgrounds and different experiences because that's what our country is. And we need to be able to each of us bring our own experiences, but to be able to understand and to vocalise other peoples as well. So when you're young, I think it's about skills. And I go back to the issue of, what are we teaching our children in schools? Are we teaching them the skills that they need for life? And there are lots of ways in which we can do that, that build around the core curriculum. So how do we make sure that we have school councils, that we have representative bodies of students, that we have elections within those that encourage young people to come forward, to make speeches, to think about their ideas, to be able to communicate with other people and to express those ideas, to build that confidence. So schools are a huge part of young people's lives and formative parts. And we need to use all of those opportunities to develop those skills for the future. And then, it isn't then about imposterism, it's about making sure that they feel confident. And when they have those skills, they will feel confident. My question goes, we are from Brazil, we are from South America. And currently, as in many parts of the world, we are facing lots of different issues that we are dealing with in this pandemic. But one topic which has really led me to become more and more inclined into working with education is exactly something that you probably know a lot of, which is female presence in companies, as well as in politics. And my question to you would be, what can you tell our female students, young students, which are coming to become professionals in a very short period of time or in the coming years, what is one or a few important aspects of overcoming the traditional barriers that we as females, we face? And also to our male students, how can they best support our female public as well for students as well as parents? What can you tell us about your own experience? You were so young, you were only 24 years old when you joined the parliament. And that's a great winning for us. And I would love to hear that from you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I think that in politics and in business, if you have a family, you need to have support, have supportive families as well. If you, to do the things that you want to do sometimes, that helps, but not everybody's gonna be in that position where they've got somebody, a husband or a wife or a partner who is supportive or perhaps members of their family can help with children. But that's one thing that can help. But I think it's also about supporting each other. Business is not all about competition and networks of people who can share and support each other is really important. So I am a member of an organisation called Women on Boards which supports other women to let them know about vacancies and roles, but also to provide education and skills and learning opportunities as well. And to network, to share experiences, to be able to ring up and say to somebody, look, I've had this as a challenge. What would you do? And I think those sorts of things are really important to build those peer networks for young people. I think it's important to find mentors sometimes and to learn from others. I mean, I'm very fortunate. I've had some fantastic mentors in my life, one of whom, Lord Evans here, who's on our screen has been one of those. People who can support you and encourage you as well. And I think that that's an opportunity. And I think for other younger people and for women, it's about making sure that they speak up and that they're not frightened to say what they think, to build allies, not just with other women, but with men too, to campaign for fairness and equality because everybody wants to be treated fairly and equally. And we all have different points in our lives where that might come into play. And it isn't just mums who want to have flexible working times in businesses. Fathers want that too now and quite rightly so. And so building those alliances, looking at different things where we can adapt and be more flexible in how we work is really important to be able to bring people on board, I think.