John Hutton Quotes

Advances in technology and in our understanding of illness and disease together with an expanded workforce and greater resources will allow us to provide more services to a higher quality.

As Tony Blair has made clear, our fundamental challenge is how to make Europe work better.

At the heart of these challenges lies the question of how the institutions of the European Union make laws, the types of laws they pass and the effectiveness with which those laws are implemented on civil society and the economy.

But effective regulation at the European Union level can make a massive contribution to achieving our shared goals of improving competitiveness, jobs and growth.

But let no one be under any doubt that the scale of the challenge that Europe faces in this emerging global economy is immense and the practical pace of our collective action to meet these challenge to date has just been too slow.

But we can turn challenges into opportunities if we look outwards to the realities of the global economy and modernise our internal institutions in ways that will equip Europe to meet that challenge and create confidence amongst the public.

But we need to show that the EU can modernise itself, can adapt to the needs of its citizens, can take their views into account. That will be our ambition for the UK Presidency.

From my time in Health I know that choice empowers people lives.

Greater personal choice, individually tailored services, stronger local accountability, greater efficiency - these are all central to the new direction of travel we have set for our public services.

If we took Chaucer's writings at face value, we'd have to conclude he was a complete drip.

Our objective must therefore be to ensure EU better regulation contributes towards delivering a modern European Union which relentlessly focuses on building a dynamic and innovative economy equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Road testing the effects of regulation on European business must become second nature to the European Union.

Some people argue that we should limit choice in favour of good local services. My response is simple: why should we assume those two concepts are mutually exclusive?

The Civil Service is a vital economic asset to the UK - firstly, in the way it creates a framework for excellence in service delivery and secondly, in how it helps organise the best way to deliver modern public services on which both businesses and individuals depend.

We must seek to persuade member states and institutions that better regulation in Europe does not mean cutting health and safety in the workplace, nor does it mean dismantling social standards.

Western Europe GDP per capita - not taking into account the new accession counties - was lower in 2001 relative to that of the US than any time since the 1960's.