Here is Boris Johnson’s full speech in the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday after he survived a confidence vote:
“Good morning Cabinet, thank you all very much, very good to see you.
“And I think, thank you, everybody for all your good work yesterday, which was a very important day because we’re able now to draw a line under the issues that our opponents want to talk about and we’re able to get on with talking about what I think the people in this country want us to talk about, which is what we are doing to help them and to take the country forward.
“And that is what we’re going to do. We’re focusing exclusively on that. And we are helping people, of course, with number one, with dealing with the aftershocks of Covid.
“Huge sums that we’re putting in to help cushion the inflationary impact, the rising energy prices. I think it is a total of £37 billion we’ve already put in, £1,200 for eight million of the most vulnerable households in the country.
“Why are we able to do this? Because we took the right decisions during Covid and we came out of that, of the pandemic, in a very strong economic position – unemployment, the lowest level since 1974, as I never tire of telling you.
“And we are going to get on with the massive agenda that we were elected to deliver in 2019 and it’s a huge, huge thing that we’re all embarked on, really transformative in infrastructure, skills and technology, uniting and levelling up across the country, unleashing the potential of the whole of the UK. It is a totally morally, socially, economically, politically, the right thing to do and we should be proud, proud, proud of what we’re doing.
“And there are huge investments that we’re making, huge. But it’s not enough just to spend money. You’ve got to spend it wisely and we, as Conservatives, Conservative ministers, have got to make sure that at every stage, we are driving reform and driving value.
“So what I’m going to ask you all to do in each of your departments is make sure that you’re thinking the whole time about cutting the costs of government, about cutting the costs that business has to face, and of course, cutting the costs that everybody else faces, families up and down the country.
“And we can all see ways in which we can reform and improve the way we organise things. We can change our regulations in order to bear down on those costs, whether it’s in energy, or in transport, in housing – one of the biggest costs of all – there is ample scope for us to get out of people’s way to do things better.
“I’ll say something else, by the way, which I think is really uppermost in people’s minds. They also want government to be helping them to get the services they need more promptly and I think in particular, you know, people deserve to be able to get their passport or their driving licence, just as much as they deserve to get their tests, their scan, or their screen on time, promptly and we’ve got to focus on that.
“We’ve got to make sure that as we spend these, make these colossal investments – which I repeat, I think morally, economically, the right thing to do – we’ve got to get value out of it. We’ve got to make sure that people see that they’re getting the services they need when they want them.
“And I think if we go forward with that approach, continuing to unite and level up, which is a magnificent agenda, totally the right agenda for the country, but also driving supply-side reform, driving improvement, we will start to see huge, huge changes – beneficial changes – in our economy.
“And we will have the scope by delivering tax cuts, I think, to deliver considerable growth in employment and economic progress. That is the way forward. It is by making sure that we not only continue with the uniting levelling up agenda, but we drive supply-side reform at the same time.
“So over the course of the next few weeks, I’m going to ask everybody to come forward with ways in which we can, as I say, cut costs, drive reform and make sure that we understand that in the end, it is people who have the best feel for how to spend their own money rather than the government or the state. That is our fundamental conservative instinct.
“And in that way, I think we will be able to get on with our agenda, making this the most prosperous, the most successful economy in Europe.
“That’s what we’re going to do. Thank you all for your support. Thank you for everything you’ve been doing, and let’s get to it.”
