I understand the damage the expenses crisis has done to Parliament, and the paramount importance of restoring trust in our politics.

I want Britain to be the home of successful competitive and stable financial services.

People know that billions of pounds are wasted. Billions of pounds never get near the families that need it. It is an absolute outrage that hard-working people go out to work every day, get up early, come back late, don't see enough of their families in order to pay taxes to fund vast bureaucracies that are inefficient in order to fund a welfare system which allows too many people to sit for the whole of their lives on out-of-work benefits without going out to look for work.

There are those who are trying to create an anti-business culture in Britain - and we have to stop them. At stake are not pay packages for a few but jobs and prosperity for the many.

The Conservative Party mustn't sound like the old man on the park bench who says things were better in 1985, or 1955, or 1855.

I think it is absolutely central to our economic plan as a country not only that we put our own house in order but that we better connect ourselves with other parts of the world, particularly the faster growing parts of the world.

I didn't come from a traditional Tory background; it was urban and metropolitan.