Thank you Conference. It is great to be back in Liverpool. And I want to start, Conference, by saying thank you to our amazing Labour Party staff, who make Annual Conference a success, and who this year, as every year, go above and beyond.

I see them at work, week in week out, I see the hours and the commitment that they give. And as Party Chair I want to say, from all of us here today and from right across the Party, a massive thank you.

And I am so proud to stand before you as both Party Chair and as Minister for Women and Equalities.

Two roles that bring together our dream of a fairer world, and the engine of progress towards it.

Two parts of our socialism – organising to win and changing for good.  And Conference, it’s a privilege for me to be here in front of you now.  For fourteen years, the job of Party Chair was to stand here, and to remind you what once we did, to burnish the promise that, one day, more might come.

But with Labour back in power, I’m not just here to talk of yesterday’s achievements, tomorrow’s dreams.  Instead, to talk about the change that’s happening right now.

We’ve started the work of turning our country round. Changing Britain for the better. But, Conference, that change was only possible because we worked to win the trust of the British people; because we won the last election, we set the public finances right, and we chose again and again, to invest in a better tomorrow.

So before I go further, I want to say thank you, from all of us here, from the whole Labour movement, to Keir Starmer, and to Rachel Reeves, for the change they brought to our country.

And the change we have brought these last two years has been vast.  The Employment Rights Act, now law at last, strengthening the voice of workers, ending exploitation, improving parental leave.

Renters’ rights, in law at last, protecting millions of families from no fault evictions, from unscrupulous landlords, from the insecurity and uncertainty of your home being taken away from you.  And greatest of all, our fight against child poverty, our moral mission as a party, to bring to the next generation the chances that too many have been denied for far too long.

It is deeply personal to me. I’m proud, Conference, I am so proud of what we have achieved together. Conference, tomorrow it will be four weeks since we extended free school meals to all families on Universal Credit, six months since we ended the two child limit. And, Conference, I am so proud that that choice, that Labour choice, has lifted around 150,000 children out of poverty in just that time alone.

Bringing hope to their families, bringing opportunities to their futures, and bringing, as Andy Burnham says, as our Prime Minister says, bringing hope back to Britain.

Already we are ramping up the pace of change. Bringing back room to breathe.

And this week, Conference, you will hear how this Government, how our Labour Government, will bring back hope in the months ahead, as Andy takes us forward to the next election, leading the fight for the sort of country that we will be.

Because the next election won’t just be a choice between Labour and the Right.  It is bigger than that. It is a choice between hope and fear. We’ve seen what Reform believe. We’ve seen how they want to rip up the laws that protect our rights, our lives, our families, our chances.

And this month, we’ve seen how they make policy.  When the crypto billionaires pay up, they don’t hang about.  They change the line.

Conference, who else do we think will get that treatment? The water bosses? The tech giants? Dodgy employers?  They have shown us who they really are.  They will sell your family’s security for their own advantage.  And, Conference, I shudder at the thought, at the very thought, of what a Reform government would do, when Putin got in touch.

As for the Tories, well I hardly know where to start. Racing through the gutter with Reform, from maternity pay to Muslims at prayer.  But they still love their greatest hits, they really, really do.

So Conference, I ask of you, take the days ahead as our springboard to build a fairer, more united country, to restore the right values, to put caring for our communities, once more, at the heart of our politics.

Thank you so much.

READ MORE: Labour Party Conference 2026: Full LabourList events programme, revealed

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