 pleasure to introduce to you all today our Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. Thank you, thank you, thank you Sarah, isn't she great ladies and gentlemen, she's fantastic MP. Right it's really great to be with you, let me get straight to it, 2023 last year was not an easy year for anyone, we were still dealing with the legacy of Covid and the impact that was having on backlogs and our public services, the war in Ukraine, still driving up everyone's energy bills and the dangers of a new conflict in the Middle East. But we have made progress and at the start of this year we are heading in the right direction. The choice now is whether we stick with the plan that is starting to deliver the long-term change that our country needs or go back to square one with no plan, no progress, with borrowing taxes increasing and the country heading in the wrong direction. Now I am determined ever since I first got this job to govern in the national interest not to take the easy way out, to do what's right, to do what's necessary and that's why I set out a year ago five priorities, those five priorities weren't just my priorities, they were your priorities, they were the country's priorities, and they were about our economy, our borders and our NHS, they were the most important issues facing our country then and they are the most important issues facing our country today and I wanted to start by giving you an update on how we're doing and the plan for 2024. So in a nutshell on all five priorities we have made progress but I know there is more to do in the years ahead. Let's start with the boats and stopping the boats. Last year the number of people coming here illegally was down by over 35%. In the last quarter of the year it was down by over 50%. So that shows that we're making progress, particularly when you consider when I got this job the numbers had quadrupled in the past few years, they had never gone down and everyone said to me you can't do anything about this problem, it's insoluble, but we cooperated more closely with the French, got a new returns agreement with Albania, increased the number of raids we were doing to tackle illegal working, arrested hundreds of people connected with this trade, that's how we got the numbers down. But there is more to do but it's really important, it's essential that we stop people coming here illegally because it's simply not fair. It should be us, your government who decides who comes to our country and not criminal gangs. Now the long term solution to this problem is to have a deterrent. People need to know that if they come to our country illegally they won't get to stay and they will be removed. That's why Rwanda is so important and we'll be bringing that legislation to parliament in the coming weeks and if Kierstammer really cared about this issue he would back that bill instead of playing political games but we all know he's not actually interested in stopping the boats, he's more interested in stopping the flights that are trying to remove people who shouldn't be here illegally. Next the NHS and waiting lists, I come from an NHS family and over the past year we have put record resources into the NHS, more money than ever before but more doctors, more nurses, more ambulances, 200 community diagnostic centres and surgical hubs. That's why the NHS today is treating more people than it is ever done in its history but we have to be frank, although we virtually eliminated the people waiting the longest we haven't yet made a significant enough dent in the waiting lists. Now partly that is due to industrial action although I am pleased that we have managed to reach reasonable and fair pay settlements with over a million NHS workers including on nurses, midwives, therapists, paramedics and most recently consultant doctors and specialty doctors and we saw towards the end of last year that when there was a period with no industrial action in fact waiting lists came down, they fell by 65,000 so that shows that this is possible but while we're waiting to resolve that we're getting on and doing the things that will strengthen our NHS for the long term. We all know we need to train more doctors and nurses so for the first time in the NHS is 75 year history we have given the NHS a long term workforce plan and funded it so we will train considerably more doctors, nurses and everyone else we need at home and enable them to work better over the years to come and when smoking accounts for almost one hospital admission every minute we're now going to raise our first smoke-free generation to ease those pressures and we're empowering all of you giving patients choice of where they get treated because that's how we can drive up standards and quality now none of those things are overnight fixes but those are exactly the kind of long-term decisions that will strengthen the NHS for the future. Now three of the five priorities were economic it's not an accident it's because the economy is the foundation of everything that we want to achieve in our country now we're here we have made good progress debt as measured by the independent office for budget responsibility is on track to fall as we said that's important it's not abstract it's about financial security for our country for our public services we remember a while back when you get that wrong what happens now we all want the economy to grow faster of course we do but when I got this job people were predicting that last year we would see a year long deep recession we did much better than that and we outperformed countries like Germany in the process wages are now growing faster than inflation we've got a bigger manufacturing sector in this country than France we've just overtaken them thanks to fantastic companies like the one I was just visiting down the road with Anthony and we've got more successful tech companies in our country than France and Germany combined and our first priority was about halving inflation it was the most important one I'm pleased that we've delivered that ahead of schedule because that is easing the burden of the cost of living on all of you and everyone else in our country it was a most important priority it gives people financial security now that didn't happen by accident it happened because we took difficult responsible decisions to control spending and borrowing and welfare and allow the Bank of England to get on and do its job and because we did all of that and successfully halved inflation we are now in a position where we can cut your taxes that's what I always said that we would do change economic gears once we've got inflation down and just this past weekend we introduced a tax cut for millions of people in work reducing the rate of national insurance from 12 to 10 percent meaning for a typical worker on 35,000 pounds they will see a tax cut worth 450 pounds extra in their bank accounts now we also are able to cut taxes for businesses hundreds of them wrote to us at the end of last year and said the single most transformational thing we could do to drive investment growth and productivity was to cut taxes on business investment and we delivered a massive 11 billion pound tax cut to do that to spur them on to invest more in our country's growth and prosperity and you can start to see that this is working the announcement of Nissan investing in Sunderland to build next generation of electric cars Microsoft doubling its footprint in the UK or stood building the world's largest offshore wind farm just off the East Coast so that is all starting to head in the right direction now you might have heard that later this year there's going to be an election now the choice facing our country of that election is do we stick with the plan that is starting to deliver the long-term change that our country needs or do we go back to square one I want to deliver the peace of mind to all of you that will come from knowing that we are building a brighter future for your children and grandchildren and I want to deliver a renewed sense of pride in our country now the alternative is Kirstama who would just take us back to square one he's been leader of the opposition for four years now and in that time he hasn't said what he would do differently that's because he doesn't have a plan he just snipes from the sidelines instead he can't tell you how he's going to stop the boats because he doesn't have a plan to do that he can't tell you how he's going to control welfare because he doesn't have a plan he can't tell you how he's going to fund his 28 billion pounds a year spending spree because he doesn't have a plan to pay for it but we know what that means you'll pay for it in higher taxes he doesn't have a plan for Britain because he's more interested in political game playing and saying as little as possible to get votes now look that's not my approach I'm prepared to take the difficult decisions for the long-term benefit of our country and you solely do that after the pandemic making decision to reduce overseas aid given the other demands we had on our public finances being restrained and fair on public sector pay charting a new pragmatic course on net zero that gets us there but saves you thousands of pounds all making a big decision to reinvest the money from HS to in local transport across the country I don't shy away from those things I'll always level with you even if it makes my life trickier and when I see a challenge I can take it on and fix it no matter how difficult it is if it's good for our country and that's the approach you need as Prime Minister if you want to build a brighter future now my vision is of a country where hard work is always rewarded where ambition and aspiration are celebrated where we have security at home and abroad where young people get the skills and the opportunities they need to succeed in life where families are supported and people who have worked hard all their lives have the dignity they deserve in retirement I want to bring you the peace of mind that you can look to the future with optimism and a renewed sense of pride in our country the alternative is that we just go back to square one instead we should stick with the plan that is starting to deliver the long-term change that our country needs and that means a brighter future for all of you for everyone in our country for all your families and a brighter future for Britain thank you all right okay right let's open up take all your questions I think we've got some mics floating around here we go over here our hosts that seems appropriate thanks for going to act into the Stanley it's appreciated and good to see my question is about the independent regulator that laid from the family review and it's simple really it's do you support an independent regulator if you do how are you going to break the impasse between the Premier League and EFL and if in the event that you can't do that will the regulator have the powers to intervene yeah well first of all can I say thank you for having us it's absolutely fantastic to be here can everyone just join me in saying thank you so I absolutely love football I grew up with football I'm from Southampton I'm a passionate lifelong Saints fan and I understand how important football is to our communities now look of course the Premier League is an incredibly important asset of our country it is a global asset that we want to make sure we promote and protect but equally football is incredibly important in communities like this up and down the country and we need to make sure that fans have the appropriate amount of participation and say in the sport that they love in the communities that they call home that's why we did the fan led review that's why we're implementing all its recommendations and crucially why in the King's speech my first King's features Prime Minister we announced that we would have a new bill to introduce the independent regulator for the industry to protect fans and their voice and the heritage of our clubs and crucially to your last point it's important that the incredible financial success that we enjoy at the top end of football is shared throughout the football pyramid so clubs like this and across the country can benefit from that and we can nurture the sport for generations to come when I'm looking forward to seeing some of your youths afterwards and that's why the regulator will have the powers if needed to impose financial redistribution settlements now my hope is the Premier League and the EFL can come to an appropriate arrangement themselves that would be preferable but ultimately if that's not possible and the regulator will be able to step in and do that to ensure that we have a fair distribution of resources across the football pyramid of course promoting the Premier League but supporting football and communities like this up and down the country because it's a sport we all love and we've got to protect it properly for the future. Right, where are we going? You're heading somewhere. Right, ma'am, hi, miss, hi. My name is Prime Minister. You talked about long-term change a lot in your introduction just now. I'm wondering if, I'm the Chief Operations Officer at Sundown Solutions, it's a local business. We employ a lot of local young adults. It seems like there is a lack of opportunity for children and young adults who are non-academic in the current climate. I'd like to know if there's any plans in your manifesto moving forward to incorporate skill sets rather than academia for people who are coming to us really unconfident individuals. Yeah, that is a, what was your name? Kelly. Kelly, thank you for doing what you're doing. That is an absolutely brilliant question and one that I've been thinking about for years, actually. I'll tell you why I'm in a second. So at conference, I announce some plans to create what's called an advanced British standard and what that's going to do is bring together the best of A levels and a technical qualification we have called T levels and bring them together under one banner. So we stop this artificial divide between academic and technical roots in our classroom because my view is we've got to value all these roots equally and kids everywhere, young people everywhere should get the skills that they need to succeed and we shouldn't artificially divide them. And we're going to make sure that as we do that, that we give everyone the minimum amount of maths and English that they need to succeed in life and they can get the appropriate qualification that they need with more teaching hours. It's going to be a big change. It's not going to happen overnight, but long term, it will get us to an education system that finally ends this artificial divide between academic and technical education. The other thing I'm really passionate about as apprenticeships, as I'm sure you are and we were talking about that at the business we were at, because they provide an incredible route for young people to enter into the workforce to earn and learn at the same time and show that it's possible to do that now in every career. And what's happening right now as we speak is that on the UCAS system, or those of you that will have children or have been through it yourself know that's how we go to university, years ago I said that's not right because you've got a classroom where some people are applying for apprenticeships and yet all these other kids are going on the UCAS system and it felt like you were a second class citizen and I think I was right and we said, hang on, we should be bringing apprenticeships onto the UCAS system so it feels the same for everybody and that is happening as we speak right now to give you a sense of we're moving in the right direction and the contrast here is clear because the Labour Party have been pretty clear about what they want to do. We raise money from businesses to fund apprenticeships across the country and the Labour Party want to change that and they want to halve the number of apprenticeships that are in this country because of those changes. I don't think that's right. The Labour Party is still clinging to that outdated notion that absolutely everybody must go to university. We don't think that. I don't think that. We're actually clamping down on rip-off degrees. We are funding apprenticeships properly and ending that artificial divide in the classroom because education is the best way we have to transform people's lives and like you, I believe, Kelly, that it shouldn't matter academic, technical, whatever it is. You just need a great start in life and you should have every opportunity to succeed. There was someone over here. Here we go, there we go. Yes, sir. Hi, my name's James. I run a local manufacturing company. So you started that speech, well, before the speech with the perfect note by saying how brilliant our MP is and I couldn't agree more. She's brought money to this constituency, things that just activity that we haven't seen in my lifetime. So how important is it to you that we keep seeing these investments into places, these so-called forgotten towns or previously forgotten towns and we keep bringing money to these places, investments to these places, businesses like mine, we can grow, we can become larger in the future and employ more people and that's a real manufacturing hub. Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you for what you were doing on the business side. I was saying, we've overtaken France and the size of our manufacturing sector last year. To think about that, that's quite counterintuitive but that's because of the success of your business and indeed, as I said, the business that Aunty and I were just visiting down the road. Things are going really well and the tax cut that we've just implemented will be particularly good for manufacturing companies. But this is a really important point actually and so I was a great example of it. Like what does levelling up mean? Right, like it's a phrase, people think that sounds good, what does it mean? I'll tell you what it means to me. It means that no matter where you grow up in our country, you should feel that you and your family, your children have the opportunity to succeed in life and that you can feel enormous pride in the place that you call home, right? That's in a nutshell what levelling up means to me and when we make these levelling up investments, that's what we're geared to doing, right? And I was a great example of an MP working with a government that is focused on delivering levelling up in practice, doing that. So the two investments that I think I was talking about are being replicated in towns across the country and we're gonna keep going. The levelling up from bid in the market hall where I started the whole under the sign photo thing with Jeremy and I, right? But that's great. Again, to your point, people had talked about that. I remember we were there. There was that lady that was almost in tears that we've been talking about this for years and years and years and finally it's happening, right? And it's gonna be transformational. And then most recently what we did, similarly to what we're doing in Burnley, because I visited Antony to announce that a while ago, is something called a long-term plan for towns where we're giving you 20 million pounds and then ditto in Burnley with Antony, 20 million pounds, long-term funding, not for one year, that will last for many years and putting you in charge of it. And that's being replicated at 50 different towns across the country, many here in the Northwest and you'll decide what the right priorities are for your area. And actually when I was with Antony and we were talking to some of the employees today, they were really focused on provision for young people, youth clubs. I used to volunteer at a Boys and Girls Club when I lived abroad and we were visiting a Boys and Girls Club and one of the dads who we were speaking to today saying that would be a good use of that money and Antony was saying, great, we're gonna talk to all of you, we're gonna put a team together, hear everyone's views and invest that money in our local community in a way that local people want. And that's similarly what I did with HS too. Right, that was a big decision, not everyone in this room I get will agree with it, but I thought actually, hang on, this thing is costing more and more money, travel patterns have changed, we're still gonna have a fast train between Manchester and London, but we can take that money instead and we can invest it in literally hundreds of projects across the country and every part on the forms of transportation that all of you use every day, fixing potholes, capping bus fares at two pounds, improving your local roads, dealing with pinch points, electrifying rail lines across the North, East, West, and that is again, for me, it's all levelling up, and helping businesses as well. So look, that's my approach to it, you're lucky you've got fantastic MPs and there's Chris there as well, you've got lots of them here that are doing exactly that, but you should know you've got a government that is gonna keep investing in your communities, they will not be forgotten, I'm a Northern MP as well. I wanna make sure each and every one of you feels that this government has got your back and it's gonna invest in your community. All right. I'm going back over here. Hi Prime Minister. Hi Prime Minister, I'm Nick, I'm the MD of an independent retailer in Ozil Twistle. You've touched on the levelling up and you've touched on the economy growing. I just wondered what's the plans to further support retail in the high street and keep high streets alive and what's the plans for that to keep going? No, it's a great question, that we all love our high streets and our town centres, and if we're being honest with each other, a lot of us look around at some of them and say, gosh, they're not heading in the right direction. Now, that's nobody's fault, right? Obviously, we all, if you put your hands up, who's bought something online in the past few months, I'm sure pretty much everyone would have, right? And that makes life more challenging. And now what can we do to help? Well, there's a few different things. As I said, it's a levelling up fund, right? So the market hall we were at, or more generally, when I see how communities are investing those funds, lots of it is going into improvements in high streets and town centres, because that is important to keep them vibrant, change how people move around, parking all the rest of it. And so that's an important thing that we can do. Second is planning. It's a bit technical, but actually when I talk to retailers and people involved on high streets, I say, look, you've got to make it easier for us to adapt and change. You know, this used to be a shop and now it needs to be a restaurant or it used to be a restaurant and now it needs to do something else. All we want to put some flats in above the shops on the high street and the way they used to be years ago so that we can have people living in those areas. So we're reforming the planning system to make all of that change easier. And then the last thing is tax. And I'm sure if I asked you the thing you would say to me is business rates, as every retailer does, and we've done as much as we can just to ease the burden of business rates. So all of you that are involved in retail or hospitality or leisure businesses, pubs, cafes, restaurants, shops, this coming financial year will continue to see a 75% reduction in your business rates bill. 75%, that's costing us billions of pounds, but it is worth thousands of pounds to a typical pub or a cafe or restaurant, because business rates, as all the small business owners here know, are annoying because they're a tax you pay before you even had a single person through the door buying anything, right? And so where we can ease the burden of business rates, we have done. And together with the planning changes, the investment in high streets, I think represents the right approach. We also, going back to when I was chancellor, have worked with other countries around the world to implement what's called a digital services tax so that we can tax the large technology companies properly and fairly so that you're competing on a level playing field. Now, that's something that we can't do alone. We've got a temporary fix at the moment, but actually when I was chancellor, we worked with 100 countries around the world to come to an international agreement because also these countries, companies are very large. So we're going to implement that over the coming years as well, just to make sure there's a level playing field. And hopefully all of that will help you and your business too. All right, good. We've got one more from the audience and then we'll turn to the media. Yes, go on. Yes, yeah, fantastic. Hi, thank you. It's Miranda Barker, chief executive, Slank's Chamber of Commerce. It's nice to see you again here. When I talk to my businesses and they are saying what they need most from government, they say they need certainty because we've seen investment opportunities and you want businesses to invest in partnership with you in transport, in manufacturing, in low-carbon technology manufacturing. And we've seen an awful lot of flip-flopping of policies going in the past few years with the investment being pulled on certain schemes or certain low-carbon tech regulations dismantled. What can you say to us to convince us that you are the party of certainty, of partnership, of working with businesses to get that investment into the UK together? Yeah, no, look, that's a perfectly fair question. And I point you back to this letter that we received in the autumn. I said, I think, I can't remember how many. Well over 200 of the country's leading businesses, the BCC signed it as well. And they wrote to us and they said, look, the single, these were their words, most transformative thing you could do to drive investment in growth and jobs and actually ease our transition to net zero was to implement this tax cut, which is called full-expensing, which has a slightly technical name, but what does it mean? It means every time a business invests a pound and expanding its manufacturing company or growing its plant machinery, transitioning to net zero, it can take that pound off its tax bill. So it's really generous. No other big economy in the world does that on a permanent basis. So combined with our local operation tax rate, those two things make this a really attractive place for businesses to invest and to expand. And it is permanent and you can now plan with certainty. I did it temporarily as chancellor, but couldn't afford to do it permanently then. And now the chancellor has been able to say, this is permanent, it's here to stay. And I think that is really exciting and you're starting to see it from the announcements I said. Look, on net zero, yes, I'm going to be honest, there was a change, right? I did make a change, but I think that's the right thing to do because we were on a path where there was this ideological push to get there as quickly as possible without any concern for the costs that was going to have on you and your families. And I didn't think that was right. We've already decarbonized faster than any other major economy in the world. Fact. We've got more ambitious targets than any other advanced economy in the world. Fact. And we can still meet those targets without having to impose these costs on you, prematurely telling you to switch your car, rip out your boiler, upgrade the efficiency in your home. Now look, we're going to help you do some of those things. And if you're interested in it, there's a seven and a half thousand pound grant for someone who is and that is going to help. But fundamentally, I think we need to take a pragmatic, proportionate and realistic approach to net zero to ease the burden on all your families. And we're still going to get there. And we're going to get there quite frankly, faster than everyone else. Now look, that was a big decision I made and I got a lot of criticism for it, but I genuinely believe it is a right thing for our country and that has meant a change. But now that we've got the tax cut, we've set out all the plans, we're investing in our energy security, more nuclear, more renewable, small modular reactors, offshore wind, all of this, we can now have a path to get to net zero and grow energy security in this country and also reduce your bills and we should crack on and get it done now. But I know, I absolutely know that we will get there because that's what we want to do for our kids. We all want to leave them a healthier, cleaner planet and environment, but we can now do so in a way that saves you money as well. And that's what I think the right decision is. Right, okay, we've got the time right. Okay, so we have some time for a bunch of media questions. Can we start with ITV? I've got it. Thank you, Prime Minister. Carl Dinnan from ITV, what do you think it says that it's taken an ITV drama to get your government to refocus on the issue of the scandal of the post office? And don't you think after all this time it would now be a good idea to just quash all the remaining convictions? So first thing to say is this is an absolutely appalling miscarriage of justice. Many of you in this room would have watched the drama and congratulations to ITV for doing a superb job on it. And now these things obviously started a very long time ago and it's right that they're looked at properly. And the stories are appalling. People were treated absolutely appallingly, that's wrong and we should do everything we can to make it right. I would say that over the last few years my predecessors started the process of doing that, had the inquiry, actually as Chancellor I approved the compensation schemes for the first time which are now in the process of being paid out and over 100, almost 150 million pounds has been paid out to thousands of people. So people should know that we are on it and we want to make this right. The money's been set aside. Now what we are now looking at is how can we speed all of that up? Understandably, I very clear want to get that out the door as quickly as possible. There are legal processes that people have had to go through but the Justice Secretary today is meeting with the relevant ministers to see is there more we can do to speed up some of those processes but people should be rest assured the money is there. I approved it as Chancellor. There are three different compensation schemes and we will do everything we can to make this right for all the people affected. It's simply wrong what happened. They shouldn't have been treated like this and we should do everything we can to make it right for them. Right. Next, we've got someone from The Times. Thank you Prime Minister. Jerry Scott from The Times. You said in your opening remarks that the rebounds scheme was so important in which case why, as has been reported today, did you want to scrap it during your 2022 leadership bid and will you prove that you are committed to it by toughening up the bill when it comes back? So I didn't say that I was going to scrap it. I mean that's completely false. Right, of course I didn't. Right, I talked about this a bit yesterday on the telly. Right, at the time it came out when I was Chancellor, I rightly, on all of your behalf because ultimately when we spend money in government it's not my money, it's all of your money. What you need is your Chancellor to ask some probing questions of something. That's part of their job. It's to scrutinise money that's being spent on your behalf and of course that's what I did, right, as you would expect me to and quite frankly if I didn't do that you tell me I'm not doing a good job. And of course I did that but ultimately we funded the scheme because I believe in the scheme and I talked about in my remarks, we needed deterrent. The National Crime Agency says you needed deterrent. Of course you needed deterrent. People need to know that if they come here illegally they won't get to stay. So either can we return them back to their own country like Albania, where my new deal with Albania is working, we've returned 5,000 people to Albania and guess what? The number of people coming from Albania last year dropped by 90% tells you that it works and that's why we need Rwanda and that's why we've got the bill. Look and I'm confident that this bill will do the job. I've been working on it for months. It's the toughest piece of legislation that's ever been brought before Parliament to resolve this issue once and for all. I am absolutely determined to do what it takes to stop the boat. I've also said very clearly, look if people have bright ideas about how we can make this more effective whilst being compliant with our international obligations and retaining Rwanda's participation in the scheme which is important. We need to have someone to actually send people and of course I'm open to having those discussions. I've always said that but look, I have worked on it for a very long time so I'm confident that it is a good bill and it will do the job for us. The question really isn't for me actually. The question is for the Labour Party because if you believe this issue is an important one for our country then you have to believe that a deterrent is necessary and that means you need a scheme like Rwanda. So really the question for everyone else is why are they not supporting the Rwanda bill? Why are they not supporting the scheme? What's their plan to resolve this issue? Because there isn't a perfect answer. It's not an easy problem to solve but I've got a plan. I've got the numbers down by 35% already but I want to finish the job and that means getting this bill on the statute books up and running so we can have a functioning deterrent and everyone who is against that simply doesn't have a plan to solve this problem and I don't think that's right because it's a priority for you. It's a priority for a country and it's got to be us that decide who comes here. It can't be criminal gangs. That's just not right. Next. Right. LBC. Right and then we can see we're running out of time and get that right. Sorry, I'll speed up. LBC, right. So on the first one, candidate selection is done locally so local members in a given area will choose their candidate. That's how it works in our party. It's why when we say we believe in empowering people locally I really believe in that. That's how we do it in our party and same with all by elections. Right, of course I want to win all by elections and the message I would say to all the people in Wellingborough is the same as the message but I said to all of you today, we had a difficult year last year but we have made progress. Country's pointing in the right direction and the choice now is to stick with the plan because it is starting to deliver the long-term change that our country needs. We do not want to go back to square one and that's what the Labour Party and Kids Starmer offer. They don't have a plan for the country and that would just take us backwards when we're now, as I said, making progress and we can see that we are building that brighter future for our children and that's what I'm about. I want people to have peace of mind that that is what lies ahead of us and we can have a renewed sense of pride in our country. That's the message I would take to Wellingborough and everywhere else. On school admissions, we have had this issue through COVID and they haven't returned. That's not a good thing. There's lots of things that we're doing to improve that, I'll go into all the detail but attendance hubs are something that we've set up around the country to work with schools, talk to parents that we think may need a bit of extra support, use text messaging and other things preemptively because I think it is really important that children are in school and getting the education they need, the question we had at the beginning. I think it's the most important thing that I can do, quite frankly, for all of you in our country after making sure the economy is strong, is making sure that every young person in our country has a world-class education, has the skills and the opportunities that they need to succeed in life. That is perhaps the most transformational thing that any prime minister or politician can do. It's partly the reason I got into politics was to do that because that is how you change people's lives is by providing them with an amazing education. Obviously, if they're not actually at school, they can't get that and we should do everything we can to support families, to support kids, to be in school and then learning incredibly well. And again, one of the things I'm most proud of, I've got a lot of comments about 13 years and what have you had from 13 years of Conservative government? Well, I'll tell you one of the things I'm most proud of is what we've done in our schools. When we took over in 2010, we were languishing in all these international tables of how well our kids were doing at school and the ones that just came out a couple of weeks ago, we have marched right up there and our kids are the best readers in the Western world. And that is thanks to a Conservative government's reforms. Right, okay. And lastly, I am hurrying, sorry, I know we're late. Right, the express, there's someone here from the express. Thank you, Michael Norris from the Daily Express. Just to follow up on Jerry's question, how are you going to convince members of your own party that the bill isn't legally flawed and that it will stop the small boats? Well, I said I've been having these conversations for a while and then I said, I'm very open if people have got suggestions that will improve the effectiveness of the bill that maintain our compliance with legal obligations and keep Rwanda participating in the scheme. Of course I'm open to them, right? Why wouldn't I be? I want this bill to work as well as it can do, right? And that's how Parliament legislates, that's what we'll do and that's what we'll continue to do. But I am confident and comforted by the reaction to the bill from dozens of legal experts, former Supreme Court judges, leading lawyers, all of them have said that this bill will work, is effective, does limit any basis or significantly limits the basis for individual claims, right? That has been the consensus view of legal experts that this bill is incredibly tough, will deliver what we need and that's the deterrent that means if you come here illegally, you won't be able to stay and we'll be able to return you back. And as I said to the question before, it's not really a question for me because I'm supportive of this bill, my entire party is supportive of this bill, but to a person, every member of the Labour Party voted against it. So either you don't believe in stopping the votes or you don't have a plan to do so. That's the question for them because I want to stop the votes and I know that I've got a plan that's going to deliver that. Perfect, great. Thank you very much. Right. Thank you. Guys, thank you so much for having me, it's been a real pleasure to be here. Sara, thanks for having us. Guys, thank you again. I know we've got to go and see some of your youngsters, so let's go. I'm not going to put my boots on for that, I don't think. I look forward to it. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you.