First delivered in London on 5th November 2024. Check against delivery.
Introduction
I am very proud to be here this morning.
The years I spent as a student were some of the happiest times of my life. I studied for both my undergraduate degree and my Master's at Exeter University.
When I was sitting in my Graduation Ceremony over thirty years ago, I never imagined speaking in a hall like this to Masters Graduates such as you all here today.
But there is another reason why I feel proud, too.
When I was very young, I couldn’t walk much, then I did, just on tiptoe. Perhaps I could have been a ballet dancer.
The Doctors told my father that I could only go to a special school. My Dad thought otherwise, and we found an extraordinary Professor in Great Ormond Street Hospital who changed my life through a series of operations that continued for several years from the age of six to thirty-six.
I was taught perseverance, never to give up and to have the skin of a rhinoceros.
When I was being taught to walk, I had to learn a rhyme from my physiotherapist:
“Good better best, and may you never rest, until your good is better and your better is your best “
So, when I walked ten steps, I had to do twenty. When I walked twenty, I had to climb a flight of stairs.
This very simple rhyme has governed me my whole life. It helped me when I was at school - although I missed quite a bit - and when I was at university studying for my Degrees, and, when I became an MP and a Minister.
Although a simple rhyme, it encapsulates so much: above all, resilience, perseverance and the pursuit of excellence.
That is what every one of you here today has achieved - excellence. Excellence through studying at an extraordinary University like BPP, excellence in completing some tough degrees but ones in which good jobs of the future are virtually guaranteed. Excellence in completing courses in skills which our country needs.
My experience in education, both as a pupil and then student, gave me a passion for it. But to be honest, until my A-Levels, I struggled quite a bit in some areas. But in the schools I went to, I always felt part of it all and never separate. I never felt disabled. Yes, I had a head start on sports days, but never any kind of privilege or special treatment. I was just given an equal chance to climb the ladder of opportunity.
I was a strange child, though. After an MP came to my school, I decided to become a Member of Parliament at the age of ten.
A few years before I finally got elected to the House of Commons in 2010, I met some disadvantaged teenagers being looked after By the Prince's Trust. They were desperate to have skills opportunities. This meeting had such an effect on me that when I walked out of the building - a grim concrete block - on a dark and rainy day, I resolved that I would make it my life’s work to champion skills and ensure that education and skills were a ladder of opportunity for all.
It is why I have advocated for a revolution in skills and apprenticeships and brought about major changes to encourage skills across the board, including in higher education.
I have supported skills and social mobility all through my political career, and I am glad and excited to be able to continue this work through BPP University.
The famous objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand wrote in her novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead (two books I read as a student) about individuals who refuse to give into the establishment consensus and pursue and fight to achieve their own individual aspirations- without being dragged down by mediocrity. Rand said:
“The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity”
Each one of you has climbed up those rungs of opportunity.
If I can end with one final quotation, which is from Sir Nicholas Winton, the man who, during 1939, brought hundreds of Jewish children from Nazi Germany to London’s Liverpool Street Station. He said:
“If something’s not impossible, there must be a way to do it."
I think that is the spirit that embodies everyone in this hall today. Congratulations and all possible success to you all.
