David Cameron: We must all be responsible for putting Britain back on its feet

"OUR education system is failing". "Families need moresupport". "Yorkshire needs a new transport network". "Britain is at risk of energy blackouts".

Yorkshire Post readers who have been following this week's series of articles can be in no doubt about the scale of the challenges we face.

And in all my tours and town hall meetings across Yorkshire I've been making it absolutely clear: if the Conservative Party wins this General Election, we will bring radical changes in every area of policy. We will take the tough long-term decisions to put this great county and our whole country back on their feet.

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When I think about the change Britain needs today, it all comes back to one thing: responsibility. We need responsibility in dealing with every single issue raised in these pages over the past week. Whether it's rebuilding our economy, fixing our broken society, launching a green energy revolution or promoting grassroots sport, the last thing we need is more big government or top-down control.

What Britain needs now are active citizens, social responsibility, and the idea that it's not just about what government can do – but what we can all do together.

That begins with the economy. Whoever wins the General Election is going to inherit some of the worst public finances our country has ever seen. Since 1997, Gordon Brown has borrowed more money than every single government in our history – and we're still borrowing money at a terrifying rate.

So we urgently need to get to grips with this debt crisis by cutting public spending. But we have to go about this in a way that is responsible and fair.

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And by cutting Ministers' pay, reducing the size of Parliament and stopping the whole gravy train of unjustifiable MPs' perks and subsidies, a Conservative government would show that there's not one

rule for Westminster and another for the rest of the country. We're all in this together and politicians have to take the lead.

As well as dealing with our debt, Britain urgently needs a responsible plan for sustainable growth. Once the recession is over, we simply can't go back to the way things were before the crisis began. We need a radical, long-term plan to rebuild our economy. And that has to include fundamental reform of our banking system to make sure that our

financial system is never so vulnerable again. It has to be about a skills revolution to get Britain working, with new technical schools in our big cities, including Leeds, Bradford and Sheffield.

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And we need to completely rebalance our economy and encourage more

hi-tech manufacturing, underpinned by a new high-speed rail network

which links London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, and served by a much stronger communications infrastructure which provides far

more homes across Yorkshire with fibre-optic broadband.

A truly responsible plan for our economy also has to face up to the massive environmental challenges we face. Sir Bernard Ingham was spot on in his article about Labour's lack of a sustainable energy policy. And he's right to warn of the devastating problems which would arise if the lights do go out.

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But the best way of providing a really secure long-term supply of energy is by shifting our whole economy away from fossil fuels and on to renewable energy. Yes, we do need more gas storage. And we need to be much smarter about thinking ahead and preventing energy gaps.

As I see it, Yorkshire is going to be in a far safer position if it relies on locally-produced decentralised energy and on off-shore wind and tidal power than if it continues to rely on the erratic global market for foreign fossil fuels.

We also need responsibility when it comes to the big social problems we face. As Nick Seaton argued in his impassioned piece about education, every single child should have the chance of a good education. But at the moment we're letting far too many children down.

In Britain today, more than four in 10 pupils are leaving primary school unable to read, write and add up properly. And Yorkshire is lagging behind the national average for the number of pupils receiving five or more good GCSEs. So a Conservative government would change this by busting open the state monopoly on education so that any suitably qualified organisation can set up a new school.

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We would introduce a new pupil premium, so that there is a real incentive for schools to take on pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. And by bringing a rigorous new focus on standards and discipline to our schools, our children will leave education with manners and morals as well as maths and English.

The most important place we need responsibility is within the family, at home. My view of the family isn't some 1950s dictionary definition of man, wife, two children and a dog. I know that families come in all shapes and sizes, and a Conservative government would recognise the big role for grandparents and extended families.

But, for me, the thing which really matters when I talk about the

family is commitment. Recognising marriage in the tax system is one way of rewarding commitment – but there are also other things we can do to encourage all committed relationships, such as ending the couple penalty in the tax credits system and giving every parent the right to request flexible working.

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The final area we need responsibility is improving our quality of life. For me, a responsible government isn't one which operates entirely on the basis of growth statistics and GDP.

A truly responsible government is one which takes care of the things that really matter in our country but don't have a simple price tag – the strength of political system, our rural economy, the fact that we have a health service which is free at the point of use.

And, as Bill Bridge pointed out in his brilliant article, one of the things which affects the quality of life of millions of people in this country is sport. Bill is right that we need a clear strategy for promoting grassroots competitive sport in this country. And through our plans to restore the National Lottery funds to its original four good causes – including sport – and for an annual School Olympics to bring back competition in school sports, we can translate all the great sporting events of the next few years into a lasting sports legacy.

There's no point pretending that 2010 will be an easy year. If we do win, a Conservative government will have a massive job to do. But I strongly believe that with the skills, entrepreneurship, grit, inventiveness and determination of people in Yorkshire, we can look forward to a future that is as proud as our past.

And if we build the strong and responsible society that is so necessary today, we can once again become the beacon to the rest of the world

that we were in William Wilberforce's day.