William Hague: Our values will get Yorkshire moving

Listening to people in our city centres, town high streets and market squares – families raising children, business owners and shopkeepers struggling in this difficult economic climate and older people worried about their retirement – has helped us to create a vision for Yorkshire which addresses the issues which people care about most.

Right across Yorkshire there is a feeling of hope and optimism – there is much to be positive about – but one thing which people say to me again and again is that things have to change. Despite 13 years of rhetoric, Labour has put Yorkshire at the bottom of the pile when it comes to investment and optimism. Yorkshire deserves better and we can't go on like this.

We can't go on increasing our share of the national debt – already every citizen in this county owes 24,000, and rising. In some part of the region the numbers of people on benefits and out of work is higher than 13 years ago and that doesn't include the one in five of the working age population in Yorkshire who are economically inactive and so hidden from the unemployment figures.

We are asking the people of Yorkshire to vote for change – and in asking for people's votes it's right that we lay out in clear terms just what our plans and vision for this region are.

We are living in challenging economic times in the aftermath of Labour's recession. I've lost count of the number of firms I've spoken to in Richmond and across Yorkshire who say they're struggling, they can't get the money they need from the banks, they don't feel they're getting the support they need from government. We know it's vital to grow the economy and deal with more than just the deficit. With early action and a proper plan we can get things moving in the right direction.

Small businesses need help not red tape; they need to be encouraged to create jobs and help get people off benefits. With specific measures like cutting the small company rate of Corporation tax and scrapping National Insurance for the first 10 employees that a newly setting up business takes on, we can restore entrepreneurial spirit in Yorkshire.

And we will stand up for great Yorkshire success stories like the Wensleydale Creamery in my constituency. It employs 200 staff and countless farming families depend on its use of local milk.

Conservatives know that to get our economy moving, we need to get our transport system moving. If, like me, you travel between London and Yorkshire and across Yorkshire, you can see that Yorkshire has not had

its fair share of transport spending from Labour.

That is why we have promised to bring high speed rail to West Yorkshire, dramatically reducing journey times between this county and the capital. The first stage of our vision for high speed rail will see our line going to Leeds and we believe that will have a positive impact across the region.

Wherever you live, you should have the right to decide the future of your village, your town or your city and where money is spent. So unelected quangos that spend taxpayers' money but are not accountable to taxpayers will be either held to account or scrapped. Labour's target to build 250,000 new homes in Yorkshire – a figure seemingly plucked out of thin air – will go. And we will care about rural communities which have suffered so much with the closure of post offices, local pubs and shops – often the gel that holds communities together.

There are too many Yorkshire streets where people are afraid to go out at night. Communities live in fear of anti-social behaviour and they want action to make them feel safer. Conservatives would make sure victims of crime never feel they are the victims of the criminal

justice system.

We are proud of the NHS and because of that we will increase spending on health every year. Nurses and doctors do amazing work every day in hospitals across Yorkshire but for too long they've been accountable to managers not patients. That will change.

We have education policies to raise standards across the board. We already have some great schools topping the league tables year after year. But there are also schools that aren't great, that pupils don't want to go to, that parents don't trust to deliver good education. We would give teachers the powers they need to restore discipline. And if parents aren't happy with their choice of school, they could choose to create new, better schools.

Our vision for Yorkshire is of a region living up to its potential. In the difficult years ahead, we can't afford not to. From finance to

sport to tourism, our strengths are obvious. We need to build on them and ensure that never again can this region be left behind.

So this election is going to be about competing visions for Yorkshire and the country. Do we want five more years of Gordon Brown's tired government making things worse or David Cameron and the Conservatives with the energy, leadership and values to get Yorkshire moving?