Cameron: Economic empowerment will combat poverty
The free market can create wealth but it will not eradicate poverty without the economic empowerment of the worst-off in society, David Cameron said today.
In a key speech in his campaign for the Tory leadership, the shadow education secretary reaffirmed his commitment to economic liberalism but called for it to be married with reforms that would enable the poorest to take advantage of the benefits of capitalism.
This policy could be enforced both at home, to tackle the pockets of deprivation around Britain, and abroad, he said, where millions of people were getting poorer despite huge increases in wealth in the developed world.
“There’s more to eliminating poverty than engineering economic growth. We used to say that a rising economic tide lifts all boats. Well, that obviously isn’t true,” he told the Centre for Policy Studies.
What was needed was an understanding of the “golden thread” linking property rights, free markets, free trade, the rule of law, honest government, sound finances, economic progress and social advancement.
“Our twin aims as a party in advancing these propositions over the next four years should be to restore our reputation for economic competence, and to demonstrate that we are in this for everybody – not just the rich,” Mr Cameron said.
In what was one of his biggest policy statements since the race to succeed Michael Howard began, the 39-year-old attacked Gordon Brown for not providing the environment in which wealth could be created, by spending too much and increasing the burden of regulation.
He criticised the Labour government for failing to realise that a top-down, means-tested approach to welfare would not empower people, but make them more dependent, and he warned that it had failed to provide the next generation with the skills they needed.
Instead, Mr Cameron called for the gradual elimination of means-testing in the delivery of welfare; a greater focus on voluntary and community groups to build up civil society; and the removal of obstacles to enterprise and innovation.
“Taken together, this strategy for economic empowerment is designed to fix the lower rungs of the ladder to prosperity, and constitutes a distinctive, modern Conservative approach,” he said.
The Tory leadership hopeful – whose rival, David Davis, delivered a speech on how he would deliver compassionate Conservatism yesterday – went on to outline how this approach would help global poverty.
Focusing less on delivering aid and more on giving developing countries the ability to take advantage of the free market would bring more people out of poverty, he said.
“A new generation of concerned citizens want prosperity for themselves and progress for the poor – whether living on the other side of the street, or on the other side of the world,” Mr Cameron concluded.
“Modern, compassionate Conservatism means responding to their demands.”
