Remarks by Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the Farnborough Airshow

22 July 2024

Thank you, Kevin, for that kind introduction. And good morning, everyone.

It’s really good to see so many of you here. Many people that I’ve met before and had intense discussions with before about the important work that you do that has informed my thinking and informs the thinking of the Labour government – which is why you see some of those measures reflected in the King’s Speech of last week.

So I am absolutely delighted to be able to be here again with you, but this time no longer as Leader of the Opposition. This time as Prime Minister – and please take that, in the beginning of week three in government, as a real statement of intent. It’s intended to be, and that is why we’ve got so many senior ministers here during the course of the show.

Now look, as you all know, better than most – we live in a dangerous, volatile and increasingly insecure world.

And that makes events like this, and the role that you play, ever more important for the defence and security of our country.  

And as you may have seen, I have spent quite a lot of time at summits in the last week or two at NATO and the European Political Community, and on Friday, I had the pleasure of meeting the leader of Ukraine, President Zelenskyy, who came into Downing Street.  

And at those meetings, whether it’s NATO, whether it’s the EPC, or whether it’s seeing President Zelenskyy as I did on Friday, it always gives me great comfort, to know that Britain is at the cutting edge of defence and aerospace manufacturing.

So thank you not only for being here today but also for everything that you do for the security of our country.

Now we are just beginning week three in government.

The work of change has begun.

The patient rebuilding of our country has started.

And we’ve launched our Strategic Defence Review.

We’ve taken the brakes off Britain with a plan for wealth creation in every community.

Planning reform – to get Britain building again. Something many of us in the room have discussed with you on many occasions.

And we’re getting started on a new Industrial Strategy. Again, a concept that came very much from you to us in terms of the sort of way in which you want the partnership between government and your sector to work.

They are all signals of our intent to deliver high living standards for working people, economic security and national security.

But of course, we know that national renewal is not going to happen overnight.

We are fixing the very foundation of our country, and that is long and patient work.

But – I can announce another step along that road today, another marker of the future, with the launch of a new organisation that we hope will transform, not just how we train our young people and adults but also the relationship between business and the education system.

A plan to make sure that we are training young people, not just for any business, but for the businesses that exist in their community.

The skills you and they need to take each other forward.

So I am delighted that today we’re launching Skills England and appointing Richard Pennycook as the interim chair.

And I’m excited for the work that we can do together.

I’ve just met this morning some of the fantastic apprentices.

Bright, energic, intelligent, an absolute credit to Airbus and Rolls Royce.

Now I’ve met the apprentices in both Airbus and Rolls Royce many times before – almost all of my speeches in the last two or three years have featured examples of the work that they are doing.

And it was brilliant to meet them here again this morning. Some of them were from a group that I met just a few months ago in Derby. So to review that, one of them was just two weeks into her apprenticeship. And so they were an incredible reminder of the talent that we have going forward.

And I was allowed to speak to them without anybody else listening in because I wanted to hear directly from them, and ask them, as I always do, what inspired them to do it, what gave them that spark.

And then towards the end of the time, I had with them this morning, I said, “what do you want me to think about? Because this is a government of service, you’re entitled to have your say. What do you want me to think about as the Prime Minister heading a new government?”

And after a few moments, they were pretty clear in their collective view that they wanted me and the government to think about the value of apprentices, and to make sure that that was valued alongside the other things that so many young people do.

And that was them to me, and I think, for all of you, you’d be really proud that that was their first thought. That was what they wanted me to think about as I go home from here.

And so they are a reminder of the incredible talent that we do have in this country.

Young people, with drive, ambition and hopes of a better future.

But we do have also to be honest.

All too often, young people in our country have been let down, not given access to the right opportunities or training in their community.

And that has created an overreliance in our economy on higher and higher levels of migration.

Now – I don’t for a second want to demean any of that.

I do not criticise business who hire overseas workers.

And I certainly don’t diminish the contribution that migration makes to our economy, to our public services and of course to our communities.

Migration is part of our national story – it always has been, always will be.

And yet – if you stand back, as a system, it cannot be right that some people don’t get to feel the pride of making a contribution, the dignity of work, just because we can’t find a way of creating a coherent skills system. That can’t be right.

So – I have to say – we won’t be content just to pull the easy lever of importing skills.

We are turning the page on that.

But I want to be clear as well: we are going to make sure that there are highly motivated, ambitious, talented young people who want to work in your business.

That is our long-term ambition.

We’re going to fire up the training of more UK workers and match peoples’ aspirations – which I know are there, with more opportunity.

And in doing this we will drive growth.

Because if there is one thing we know that will drive innovation and accelerate productivity, it’s having the skilled workers you need to grow your business.

So from the get-go, Skills England will work with the Migration Advisory Committee.

We will identify current and future skills gaps, put in place plans to address those gaps, and reduce our long-term reliance on overseas workers.

We will also identify the training on which the Growth and Skills Levy can be spent, something that I’ve spent many hours discussing with many people in this room.

You told me it was not flexible enough, didn’t work well enough for you.

Well, we will change that with the Growth and Skills Levy, giving you more flexibility to spend funds on the training that you think is really necessary.

And Skills England will also bring together central and local government, training providers and unions, working together in broader partnership with business.

And this is key.

I said on the steps of Downing Street, two weeks ago Thursday, that I wanted to govern for the whole country, and part of that is making sure we all understand each others’ needs, that we move beyond old antagonisms and work for the common cause of national renewal.

A partnership.

So today with the launch of Skills England, we’re putting that partnership into action.

Now we listened to you during the campaign and over the last few years.

We listened to you when we were developing our Plan for Growth.

And that informs it, some of your fingerprints are on our plan, and I hope that they reflect the conversations that we’ve had. And we will carry on listening because that’s how a partnership works.

We are making demands. We want growth. We want you to power up that growth.

But you equally can say to us in order for that to work, this is the framework that you need to put into place.

That is how a partnership works, when both sides understand what their part is, but recognise they’re not the same part – government and business do different things.

And that’s why we’ll have our new Industrial Strategy.

On the Strategic Defence Review and on much, much more.

Together, I do believe we can deliver that growth and security, fix the foundations, put our economy on a stable footing, and create a coherent skills system.

And everyone here has a vital part to play in this mission on growth.

You already do an incredible amount, and I believe that with a government of service on your side, we can do even more.

And in that spirit, it really is a huge honour, so early in this government, to open the Airshow, and to hope that you all have a productive time which I’m sure that you will.

Use it obviously intensely in the time that we’ve got here together.

And please keep talking and impressing on us the things that are important to you.

Thank you so much for allowing me to make these remarks. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for your huge contribution to our country.

Thank you.