Speech to the Royal Society of St George, Barrow & Furness Branch
Delivered at Abbey House Hotel, 26 April 2024
My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen -
It is an honour to address you this evening.
To begin, I would like to start with that image of St George. If you have been at a few of these dinners, you’ll have heard a version of this story before.
George is a curious figure to be our patron saint. Venerated by Christians and Muslims alike, he was born in the late 3rd century in what is now Turkey, to Palestinian parents. A soldier in the Roman army mentioned in their version of Dispatches. Someone whose feet never touched English soil. And, I hate to break it to you, someone who I strongly suspect never actually met a dragon, let alone slayed one in order to win the hand of a princess. He is celebrated here in England, but also in Malta, Palestine, Bosnia, Egypt, Bulgaria, India and Kiev, to name a few.
But it is the image that endures - of a man, dwarfed in scale by the beaten beast beneath his feet, his sword held up high in triumph. That is St George to me. It’s the image remembered from my childhood visiting the Harris Museum in Preston. And, coincidentally, it is that image that sits high in Central Lobby in the Houses of Parliament, above the entrance to the House of Commons, with St Patrick, St Andrew, and St David above the other 3 passages.
And it’s that image that I want to focus on. Of a man standing victorious against a threat so large that it seems almost mythic.
Because that is the English myth. And - dare I say it - the English reality.
Think of Queen Elizabeth’s fleet outfoxing the Spanish grand armada and seeing it dashed in the Channel. Of plucky Britain extending its Empire across the globe and becoming the greatest trading nation in the world (for what it’s worth we are still the world’s 4th largest trading nation). Or indeed of Churchill - the greatest Briton and perhaps greatest Englishman - showing the world what leadership against tyranny was. And what English bloody-mindedness could achieve.
I mention these things not just to beat the drum, but because I believe that if anything epitomises the English, it is that pluck.
A couple of weeks ago I was in Derby, visiting Rolls Royce to learn more about the amazing engines that go into submarines. But I also learnt about their remarkable micro-reactors which can be used to fuel space flight and bases on the moon, and the AMRs and SMRs that will light up business parks and power our grid soon. And daily in Parliament I learn about more English inventions - vaccines, technology, science, apps, medicines that are changing the world. And here in Furness we do the same - facing into global storms and calming them with the boats that we build here.
If you feel like I’ve already given you a history lesson, then I can only apologise for what’s about to come.
Just over 150 years ago there wasn’t much here but a few dozen sheep farms. Looking around this room I can see that a few of you may remember those times. But Henry Schneider’s discovery of iron ore and the railway that he and James Ramsden built changed all that. Within 30 years the population had grown from 700 to over 47,000. Barrow was an economic miracle. The Chicago of England they called it.
But more than that, Barrow punched above its weight in the world. It moved from exporting iron ore, to making iron. From making iron to making steel. And from making steel to producing the rails, and engines, that fuelled the expansion of our nation’s railways, and indeed the railways of much of the Commonwealth.
And then we moved on, as we always do. To ships. Airships. And then boats. And the remarkable submarines which we produce today. The boats that each and every day, with every tick of the clock, are out there, keeping us safe, deterring our enemies, and protecting us.
Once again Barrow - a place I’m loathe to say a majority our of countrymen could not locate on a map - doing something remarkable for us, and the wider world.
We, sat tonight as we are, nearly at the end of a peninsula, are in a place that has changed the world over and over again. Plucky Britain, taking on the world. And quiet Furness, driving that change.
So this place - Barrow & Furness - has changed the world far more than people give it credit for. But I do not believe that our glory days are behind us. My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I do think that our future here is bright.
Like any community, Furness has incredible opportunities, rich resources, but also its own problems. We have an endemic one - one of the fastest declining populations in the UK. Turning that around is tough, let me tell you.
Compared to the rest of the UK, we tend to be older - quite a bit older - fatter, more likely to smoke, and we are not good at keeping our young people in the community.
And we have a problem with attracting people too. You and I know what a wonderful place this is. 10 minutes from the coast in any direction - no more than 25 minutes from the national park no matter where you are. But more important than that, a place full of some of the best people, and the strongest communities that I’ve ever met.
But it’s not enough. If we are to thrive in the future, we need to meet the needs of a future population. We have to be a place that people aspire to live in, and raise their families.
There’s lots of work going on already to make that happen. Some of it is about spending money, and some of it is about changing perceptions, and some of our ability to make the changes we need are tied into the AUKUS project. If you will indulge me, let me share some detail.
Team Barrow
For years I have been arguing in Westminster that Furness needed greater recognition and support.
There are changes happening in the community around us at the moment - a new university campus is being built that will soon educate as many students each year as there are people in Askam. Just down the road, the covered market is being refreshed alongside the Forum. Funding has been secured to finally - finally - get Marina Village delivered - with over 800 homes due to appear on that land shortly. And cultural touchstones like Cooke’s Studios (soon to be a permanent home for the excellent Sankey Archive), the Roxy in Ulverston, and Duke Street have been saved through investments secured from Government.
But while all this matters, and more and more of it will feel quite tangible soon, there is much more to do.
For the last few years I’ve been making the case to the PM, Chancellor, Defence Secretary and anyone who might listen that we needed an industrial strategy wrapped around us – supporting not just the shipyard, but the wider area, so that we can attract new people, and help make it easier for the next generation to stay.
After much lobbying, almost as soon as he became PM, Rishi asked the Cabinet Secretary to come up with a response to the challenges we faced to deliver Dreadnought and SSN-AUKUS, and Team Barrow was formed - a group comprising of the most senior civil servants in the country, Westmorland & Furness Council, BAE, and myself.
Together, we are working on what Furness needs to thrive, recognising that without investment in our people and our infrastructure - improving the housing offer, delivering for the NHS, better funding education, supporting local communities, getting people into work, and changing the perception of this fantastic part of the world - the submarine programme will not succeed.
A few weeks back the PM and Chancellor came to the shipyard to announce the first stage of what Team Barrow will deliver. In tangible terms that equated to £20million this year to deliver the Grizebeck bypass, create a social endowment fund, and to support schemes to make people heathier and get them into work. And then at least £20million every single year for the next decade to continue to improve our community for those who live here now, our children, and to those who want to set up their lives here.
That is £220million committed to. And not a penny of it is to be spent on buying steel, or funding the work of the shipyard. It is to support the community.
It is a remarkable sum of money, and one unmatched anywhere else. There really is no Team Barrow equivalent in any other part of the UK.
But uplifting Furness is about more than just spending money. It’s also about changing the perceptions of the place. And so, I’d like to talk a little bit about that.
Royal Barrow
As I mentioned earlier, Furness has played a unique role in Britain’s story, and helped to shape the world.
We pioneered steel production, and are responsible for many of the railways which cross our nation, and many commonwealth nations too.
And we are central to the nation’s defence: building ships that have protected our allies and ourselves, and more recently the boats that patrol beneath our seas, offering safety and protection to Britain and our NATO allies.
Now, with Dreadnought and the new AUKUS pact between Britain, Australia and the USA, Barrow is central to a new international endeavour, keeping our allies safe across the globe by enhancing their capabilities and our shared posture.
We should be rightly proud of the role that Barrow plays. But I believe that it should be recognised for it too. That is why I picked up the idea that Barrow Rotary President Brian Boyd and CandoFM’s Jonny Williams came to me with - that Barrow should be a Royal town.
That honorific - ‘the Royal Town of Barrow-in-Furness’ can only be gifted by the monarch. We deserve it - in respect for our service in the past, and the role that we - and our families, and their families, will play in the future.
The title confers no material benefits. I had to break it to a crestfallen student on Walney that he would not get a crown. So this isn’t just about recognition for recognition’s sake.
It is about acknowledging our unique role. Of celebrating this amazing community. Of giving it confidence in itself and helping its people walk with their heads a little higher. And yes, it is about changing the perception of this fantastic place.
All too often, when a story appears on the news about Furness you see images of litter blowing down streets, of run down terraces, and of broken windows. It is rarely mentioned that we are home to pioneering lighting firms, to one of the two remaining lead crystal manufacturers in the UK, that our people keep the world safe, that we are home to three SSSI sites, that Walney is source of many of the UK’s oysters, or indeed that our people are brilliant. We see the negative so often that we sometimes believe it ourselves, despite evidence to the contrary all about us.
We amply meet the criteria to be added to the existing 11 other towns and boroughs granted royal status. And it’s past time that a northern town received such recognition. Not just to say that we’re as good as some of those places in the South... but to remind them that we’re better!
The campaign it’s been my privilege to co-ordinate now has support from dozens of organisations from across Furness, the UK, and indeed the world. Hundreds of residents have shared their stories and pride in the place they call home.
Our submission is in. Now, like you, I wait for the machinery of the monarchy to turn.
So, Furness is changing. I believe for the better. I am genuinely optimistic about its future and what is to come. But to be a success, we all have a role to play in making sure that the promise of Team Barrow can be delivered. We all have a role to play in improving Furness for the better.
My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, you will be delighted to know I’m drawing to a close.
I’ve talked a lot about process and funding and official recognition this evening. But in the end, it comes down to one thing.
That here, in Barrow & Furness, we are a microcosm of that plucky English spirit writ large. That in a country with less than 0.2% of the world’s landmass, we produce tools that protect our friends and allies in the remaining 99.8% from tyranny.
What George was to that dragon, Furness is to Russia, and China, and North Korea, and all those other states that challenge freedom, democracy and the rule of law.
We punch above our weight and have done for generations. And now, with AUKUS, we will do so for generations to come, gifting a tool to our submariners who display such incredible reserves of strength, courage and valour in doing their jobs for us all.
And with that, I draw to a close.
