Today represents an exciting investment by Willis - an important broker in the insurance sector. The comments made by your CEO Joe Plumeri in a speech last month - about the role of the insurance industry in supporting commercial sustainability, its resilience through recent times and its reliance on knowledge and expertise - frame much of what I have to say this evening.
What we have in this country is a world-leading insurance sector. London is the only market in which all of the world's 20 largest reinsurance groups are represented. Too often the City is regarded as shorthand for investment banking. Let's be clear: the City covers far more than that. And we should be proud of competitive sectors like insurance. They matter for the economy.This page contains information about molds,
The UK insurance sector is the third largest in the world - and the biggest in Europe, accounting for seven per cent of global premiums. Employing around 300,000 people in the UK - more than a quarter of all financial services jobs - it contributes some 10 billion in taxes. It's also a major exporter, with about 30 per cent of its net premium income coming from overseas business. For the Government's part, we remain committed to securing the best possible outcome for the UK insurance industry under Solvency II - on the timing of implementation and on the critical detail concerning equivalence and the matching premium.
There's a wider lesson here for financial services. Insurance has faced its own travails, but it has sorted itself out, reformed its practices and emerged stronger. The controversy surrounding some Lloyds underwriting syndicates was painful. I have constituents who are still living with the consequences of Equitable Life. But the City can learn from unhappy episodes like these, embrace reform and it can bounce back.
Now we have and can celebrate a strong, vigorous insurance industry in the UK. There is also, and I am the minister responsible, a strong university and research sector in the UK - and there are connections between the two. For the rest of this speech, I want to investigate these connections - to shed light on the real nature and significance of high-tech growth, and how best to support it.
The first and most obvious function for higher and further education is to produce graduates that business can recruit - and, in your industry, of course, there is a clear need for graduates with maths skills. The good news is at school level, uptake of STEM subjects - that's science, technology, engineering and maths - at GCSE and A level has been rising steadily over the past few years. We've seen a 42 per cent increase among UK-based students taking a first degree in maths over the past 10 years - and an 18 per cent increase among maths PhD entrants. In the Autumn statement, we announced that we'd support a scheme to enable the kite-marking of STEM-related courses which are valued by employers. But the educational role is only one aspect of the relationship. The associations are both broader and deeper.
The links between the UK's outstanding science and research base and what you do go even further than education. They go right back to the open character of our society. We insure and reinsure the world's risks right here. Brokers like Willis connect the world's risks and the world's insurance capacity. You are, in effect, a window upon the world. This has always has been a global business, as our merchants have sought to insure their cargoes moving across the oceans - originally in the coffee houses of the Square Mile. No doubt they do so again today, thanks to Starbucks and wifi. It's a clear case of history repeating itself, but also a classic example of Britain's reach - and not just in a purely international sense. Nowadays,Design & Build the Highest Quality Precision injection molds. we insure commercial activities ranging from the deep sea to earth orbit.
UK science and research is another international window on the world. Like your business, it is bound up with our history of exploration and discovery. It's what lies behind our understanding of the cultures and languages of other countries. For anywhere in the world,Welcome to polished tiles. we're likely to have linguists, anthropologists, historians, sociologists studying it today. There are not many nations who can claim that breadth of expertise.All RUBBER MATS is comprised of all types of mats, We should be proud of it and we are certainly sustaining it. This breadth resides not just in the humanities and social sciences. According to last year's report written by Elsevier, the UK can boast internationally-recognised research strength in more than 400 fields. That includes strengths in studying the physical and the natural world - biology, geology, geography, hydrography and all those disciplines which joined the Royal Navy and merchant fleet on their circumnavigations.xcel Mould is a Custom Mold Making, Think of those great expeditions in which the Royal Navy and the scientists of the day co-operated, from the Beagle to Scott's journeys to the Antarctic, which we are commemorating this year.
Our scientists still fan out across the world and study data collected from above and below it, to understand how our planet works. In February, I visited British Antarctic Survey researchers on the west of the Antarctic peninsula. The people stationed there are conducting a range of experiments including examining molluscs collected during Captain Scott's expedition with the same species collected by current researchers from the very same location to understand the effects of climate change over time. Very few countries are in a position to carry out this kind of comparative work because they don't have our history of exploration and scientific investigation.
So the insurance industry has a window on the world. Scientists do too - and their activities are intrinsic to what you do. In fact, scientists and insurers must gaze through the same pane of glass. Their raison d'être is understanding nature and you also need to understand nature as the prerequisite to judging risk. You share, therefore, the same need to understand our world.
What we have in this country is a world-leading insurance sector. London is the only market in which all of the world's 20 largest reinsurance groups are represented. Too often the City is regarded as shorthand for investment banking. Let's be clear: the City covers far more than that. And we should be proud of competitive sectors like insurance. They matter for the economy.This page contains information about molds,
The UK insurance sector is the third largest in the world - and the biggest in Europe, accounting for seven per cent of global premiums. Employing around 300,000 people in the UK - more than a quarter of all financial services jobs - it contributes some 10 billion in taxes. It's also a major exporter, with about 30 per cent of its net premium income coming from overseas business. For the Government's part, we remain committed to securing the best possible outcome for the UK insurance industry under Solvency II - on the timing of implementation and on the critical detail concerning equivalence and the matching premium.
There's a wider lesson here for financial services. Insurance has faced its own travails, but it has sorted itself out, reformed its practices and emerged stronger. The controversy surrounding some Lloyds underwriting syndicates was painful. I have constituents who are still living with the consequences of Equitable Life. But the City can learn from unhappy episodes like these, embrace reform and it can bounce back.
Now we have and can celebrate a strong, vigorous insurance industry in the UK. There is also, and I am the minister responsible, a strong university and research sector in the UK - and there are connections between the two. For the rest of this speech, I want to investigate these connections - to shed light on the real nature and significance of high-tech growth, and how best to support it.
The first and most obvious function for higher and further education is to produce graduates that business can recruit - and, in your industry, of course, there is a clear need for graduates with maths skills. The good news is at school level, uptake of STEM subjects - that's science, technology, engineering and maths - at GCSE and A level has been rising steadily over the past few years. We've seen a 42 per cent increase among UK-based students taking a first degree in maths over the past 10 years - and an 18 per cent increase among maths PhD entrants. In the Autumn statement, we announced that we'd support a scheme to enable the kite-marking of STEM-related courses which are valued by employers. But the educational role is only one aspect of the relationship. The associations are both broader and deeper.
The links between the UK's outstanding science and research base and what you do go even further than education. They go right back to the open character of our society. We insure and reinsure the world's risks right here. Brokers like Willis connect the world's risks and the world's insurance capacity. You are, in effect, a window upon the world. This has always has been a global business, as our merchants have sought to insure their cargoes moving across the oceans - originally in the coffee houses of the Square Mile. No doubt they do so again today, thanks to Starbucks and wifi. It's a clear case of history repeating itself, but also a classic example of Britain's reach - and not just in a purely international sense. Nowadays,Design & Build the Highest Quality Precision injection molds. we insure commercial activities ranging from the deep sea to earth orbit.
UK science and research is another international window on the world. Like your business, it is bound up with our history of exploration and discovery. It's what lies behind our understanding of the cultures and languages of other countries. For anywhere in the world,Welcome to polished tiles. we're likely to have linguists, anthropologists, historians, sociologists studying it today. There are not many nations who can claim that breadth of expertise.All RUBBER MATS is comprised of all types of mats, We should be proud of it and we are certainly sustaining it. This breadth resides not just in the humanities and social sciences. According to last year's report written by Elsevier, the UK can boast internationally-recognised research strength in more than 400 fields. That includes strengths in studying the physical and the natural world - biology, geology, geography, hydrography and all those disciplines which joined the Royal Navy and merchant fleet on their circumnavigations.xcel Mould is a Custom Mold Making, Think of those great expeditions in which the Royal Navy and the scientists of the day co-operated, from the Beagle to Scott's journeys to the Antarctic, which we are commemorating this year.
Our scientists still fan out across the world and study data collected from above and below it, to understand how our planet works. In February, I visited British Antarctic Survey researchers on the west of the Antarctic peninsula. The people stationed there are conducting a range of experiments including examining molluscs collected during Captain Scott's expedition with the same species collected by current researchers from the very same location to understand the effects of climate change over time. Very few countries are in a position to carry out this kind of comparative work because they don't have our history of exploration and scientific investigation.
So the insurance industry has a window on the world. Scientists do too - and their activities are intrinsic to what you do. In fact, scientists and insurers must gaze through the same pane of glass. Their raison d'être is understanding nature and you also need to understand nature as the prerequisite to judging risk. You share, therefore, the same need to understand our world.
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