Disraeli Room

...With the right ownership and governance structures and long-term financing arrangements, the Dover People’s Port Trust (DPPT) can forge a new co-operative relationship between the port’s users, management, workforce and local communities; one with the vision to be an economic strategist and the security of tenure to develop and deliver an holistic approach to operations and business development in full partnership with highways, rail, national and local government...

The Co-operative College has over recent years worked with the Co-operative Party and schools to develop a distinct co-operative trust model that enables schools to embed co-operative values into the long term ethos of the school. Through an extensive network built by the Schools Co-operative Society, co-operative schools have access to mutual and targeted support to achieve the highest standards...

...The basic thesis of my latest book, the Big Society in a Small Country: Wales, Social Capital, Mutualism and Self-Help, is that not only is the Big Society relevant to Wales in the sense of providing much needed practical policy solutions to pressing problems, it actually has the potential to achieve a far better fit with Welsh than English culture. Indeed, the Big Society actually provides Wales with an opportunity for renewing its traditions and national identity. It is a fundamentally ‘Wales affirming agenda’ and one, moreover, to which Wales is very well placed to add value...

...We need a more regionally balanced, sustainable and globally competitive enterprise economy to generate long term savings and investment. New investment in infrastructure is a key part of turning these ideas into reality. So let’s be bold and think of new models – new ways to create the debt-free, asset-backed, real economic engines of growth that we can invest in, to invest in our infrastructure...