I'm delighted to be back in Wales. This is a great country with a great future - and I'm so proud that more Conservatives are a part of that future.
Just think what we've achieved in the last few years. More Assembly members. Sixty more councillors. Becoming the official opposition in the Senedd. Involved in running councils from Glamorgan to Monmouthshire, from Newport to Denbighshire.
Can you believe we now have outright control of as many councils in Wales as Labour? We've even got a councillor in the Rhondda. He may be the only Conservative in the village but we're proud of what he's done.
So let me say to Catrin and to Matt, to Nick and to Cheryl - and to all of you who've worked so hard: thank you for what you've achieved. And thank you for what you're about to do.
The next couple of months, before the European and local elections, will be vital. And I know how hard you'll be working knocking on doors, stuffing envelopes, canvassing and campaigning for Conservative victories across Britain and in Brussels.
RESPONSIBILITY
But let's be clear about why we're doing all this. We don't want to win for winning's sake, just to get our feet under some council table or some ministerial desk.
We want to win for a purpose - to bring about deep, positive and lasting change to the country we love. And that change is all about one thing: responsibility.
Our aim is to help build a more responsible society. Responsibility is what this Party is all about. Yes, we believe in freedom. The freedom to choose. The freedom to make the most of your potential, to pursue your own dream and destiny.
But our Conservatism isn't just about the individual - it's about the community, about society. The good society - the strong society - is built when people choose: as parents, as neighbours, as businesses - to act responsibly.
We've seen too many of the ugly things that happen when people duck responsibility. The father who leaves a mother and child to fend for themselves. The banker who clamours for his bonus when he's bust the bank. The healthy welfare claimant who thinks it's OK to live off benefits paid by others. Or the businessman who puts profits before the planet. All this irresponsibility must end.
That is our mission: to help build a responsible society where government leads by example and lives within its means. Where strong families give every child a stable, loving start. Where doctors and teachers and police officers are trusted to use their judgement. Where their vocations are valued and where everyone understands that we are all in this together that life is about "we", not just "me". And that the way to build a better future is through social responsibility, not state control.
ECONOMIC RESPONSIBILITY
That responsible society may feel a long way from Labour Britain. But there was a big victory for responsibility this week. For economic responsibility.
The Prime Minister who has spent and borrowed with no responsibility and no restraint well this week he finally lost the argument.
Make no mistake about the magnitude of what happened when the Governor of the Bank of England in his quiet and understated way dropped that bombshell in front of the Treasury Select Committee.
The Prime Minister who has lectured us all that the answer to our debt crisis is to spend, spend, spend and borrow, borrow, borrow was told that he was wrong. That we're already borrowing too much. That we've run out of money. That we cannot afford his recklessness anymore. I have been making this argument for months.
It's not just that it's morally irresponsible to rack up more debts for our children to pay off - though of course it is. It's not just that borrowing 8 per cent, now more likely to be 10 per cent, of our national income runs the risk of pushing up borrowing costs and triggering a funding crisis - though of course it does.
It's that the real engine of recovery will be confidence.
And we will not have confidence until the British consumer, the British homebuyer, the British businessman and woman feels that, yes - they are restoring their own finances and the government is doing the same with the nation's finances too.
That's the change we need to get our economy moving again.
ROUTE MAP TO RECOVERY
And that's what our route map to recovery is all about.
We're going to get to grips with the fundamental economic weaknesses that have held our economy back. These weaknesses are both a symptom and a cause of the irresponsibility that has brought us to this point.
There's the weakness of poor regulation which meant our banks enjoyed a dangerously free rein. The country expects law and order to be brought to the financial markets and we are the party to do it. So we will bring responsibility back to the City by regulating our banks properly. And we will correct Gordon Brown's terrible mistake and restore the Bank of England's power to regulate the level of debt in our economy.
But our fundamental economic weaknesses are not just going to be solved by better regulation. We need to deal with a weakness that has dragged us down for decades: mass welfare dependency.
We entered this recession with almost five million people on out of work benefits - and it's only going to get worse. Of course, some of these people genuinely can't work so we must give them the help they need.
But there are others who can work - and should work; who could be creating wealth - but are just irresponsibly living off the state. So we will radically reform welfare to put responsibility at the heart of the system, saying clearly that if you can work, you will.
Just as welfare dependency has built up over many years, so too has the next fundamental economic weakness we must tackle: our unbalanced economy.
Over the past decade, seventy percent of our economic growth has come from just three things. From housing - now in decline. From the financial sector - now in turmoil. And from government spending - which is simply not sustainable.
This is a grossly irresponsible approach to economic growth because when boom turns to bust, you're left with nothing to fall back on.
When coal and steel declined, a new wave of new manufacturing businesses came to Wales - Bosch, Ford, Sony, Toyota. But in the last decade - under Labour - the number of manufacturing jobs in Wales fell by 60,000.
So we need to stimulate investment in the jobs and industries of the future and that needs a new activism and a new dynamism from this Party.
Pro-business, pro-enterprise Conservative MPs, Conservative councillors, Conservative AMs and a new Conservative government in Westminster working with anyone and everyone inside the Assembly and out that wants to bring business, enterprise and the green tech jobs of the future to Wales.
And if you want to talk about stimulus, Prime Minister, drop your irresponsible plan to spend money we don't have on schemes you're too incompetent to implement and instead do the one thing this week that might actually help this country get on the road to recovery and use the G20 summit to boost world trade.
That will help Britain's economy, it will tackle the greatest risk to the world economy - protectionism - and it will help the poorest people on the planet move out of poverty so let's hope that a concrete agreement on free-er, fairer trade makes next week's giant photo-opportunity mean something to real people, not just the politicians.
DEBT
So economic responsibility is at the heart of the steps we will take to improve financial regulation, reform welfare, and rebalance our economy.
But perhaps the biggest and most destructive of the fundamental economic weaknesses holding Britain back is our addiction to debt.
And that's where we need responsibility most.
If we win the next election, we will inherit the worst public finances of any incoming government in modern British history.
We will actually owe more money than all the post-war British governments - put together. That means every child in Britain is born owing at least £17,000. Servicing just the interest on that debt will cost more than educating those children.We cannot continue on this irresponsible path.
We need to live within our means. So we're going to get the growth rate of spending down, get borrowing lower, start paying down the debt and lay the foundations for a low-debt, low-tax economy.
A new independent Office of Budget Responsibility will expose any Chancellor who tries to spend beyond his means.
But the tough decisions - on spending, on borrowing, on tax - will be ours. We know that, and we are ready for that.
We have already shown our determination by opposing last November's unaffordable VAT cut. But the tougher the decisions, the fairer they must be.
For us, paying down the debt will never mean pushing down the poor. My rule is simple: fiscal responsibility needs a social conscience or it is not responsible at all.
So this is our route map to economic recovery improving financial regulation, tackling welfare dependency, rebalancing our economy, and solving Labour's Debt Crisis. And underlying all of these things, restoring responsibility to our economy.
FAMILIES
But our vision for a more responsible Britain goes far beyond the economy.
We want to see a more responsible society, where people behave in a decent and civilised way, where they understand their obligations to others, to their neighbours, to their country.
And above all, to their family.
I know there are people who say that families are not the business of a politician. "Families are about emotions, love, relationships," they say, "what's that got to do with you?". My response is that this is not about judging and interfering. Not least because politicians are flawed like everyone else our relationships break down and our marriages break up too.
But let's think about it.
That child at the back of the class constantly causing trouble, that guy sitting on his sofa who hasn't worked a day in his life, that teenage girl who wants to have sex and have a baby because it's the only way she can think of to get some love, spool back to the source of this irresponsibility and nine times out of ten it starts with their family.
If we want a more responsible society we cannot opt out of a really big, honest debate about the family.
So let me make it clear what I think. Families are the most important institution in our society. We have to do everything in our power to strengthen them.
Partly, that's about changing cultural values. That's why we will recognise marriage in the tax system - as a clear symbol of what really matters to a responsible society.
And partly it's about changing economic incentives. That's why we will end the couple penalty in the benefits system that pays parents to live apart.
But I don't want anyone to think we have a mechanistic view of these things - that we think a tax break for marriage will stop family breakdown in its tracks overnight.
Of course not.
And that's why we've got to make clear the scale and depth of the family-friendly reform we want to bring about in this country.
Everyone has to play their part in this - not just the state but individuals, community organisations, business too.
We need to reduce family breakdown by reducing the pressures that help cause it.
That's why we'll help families spend more time together - by letting every parent with a child under eighteen request flexible working.
That's why we'll stand up to big business when it targets our children with unrelenting commercial influence.
And that's why we'll focus the state's support where it's most human and personal and can make the most difference, by boosting the numbers of trusted health visitors who are there for the family when it really needs help.
PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
But while the family is the most important institution in our society, it's not the only institution that will help make Britain a more responsible society.
Families also need those simple basic things: a good local school, a reliable local doctor and safe streets for the children to play in.
How many could say they've got even one of those under Labour - let alone all three?
We could produce a list as long as this room explaining why Labour have failed our public services. Their failure to reform. Their lack of long-term vision. But I believe there's a deeper reason. It's to do with their philosophy.
Because they don't trust people, Labour assume people will do the wrong thing unless they're told what to do.
And because they didn't reform public services, and just poured taxpayers' money in, the only way Labour could try and improve services was through bureaucratic control.
These two things - a lack of trust combined with unlimited spending without the right reform have caused the most monstrous expansion of government bureaucracy in the history of our country.
Labour have taken some of our best and brightest, doctors, teachers and police officers, people with a passion to serve our society and controlled them from above with rules and targets and reorganisations. Treated them like children and sapped them of responsibility, judgement and discretion.
I will never forget going out on the beat with a police officer in mid-Wales. A mother had come to him and said her son was nicking money out of her wallet. She wanted the policeman to give a stern warning, to paint a brief but dark picture of how small crimes lead to larger ones.
And do you know how the officer had to handle it?
Because of all the targets, bureaucracy and paperwork, he had to take the child to the station, go through all the paperwork and caution him so he could say he had detected a crime, solved a crime and cleared up a crime.
If that was isolated it would be bad enough.
But go to any hospital, school or police force and it's always the same: this Government will not let them get on with the job.
Here's what we've got to do.
We've got to get rid of all those targets, all that bureaucracy and all that paperwork and replace Labour's bureaucratic accountability with democratic accountability.
So doctors, teachers and police officers listen to their patients, pupils and the local community instead of ministers and bureaucrats in Westminster, Whitehall and the town hall.
CONTROL SHIFT
So responsibility will help strengthen our economy, our families and our public services.
But it will help mend our broken politics too.
We live in one of the most centralised countries in the developed world, and that makes people feel powerless, resentful and angry.
That's why it's so important that we shift power and control from the state to individuals - and from the centre to local communities.
That means being the party that supports devolution and makes it work.
We believe in bringing decisions closer to the people affected by them, engaging people in the political process, building civic responsibility.
That's why devolution fits directly into our plans for a more responsible Britain and why we will keep the Assembly and make it work.
But let me be clear.
That should not mean an endless round of arguments about whether it needs more powers.
Let's make what we have now actually work.
We need to make the politics of the principality about progress, not politically inspired grievance.
And one way we can do that is to make the relationship between Cardiff and Westminster one of co-operation, not confrontation.
So I want Westminster Ministers appearing in front of Assembly committees - and Assembly Ministers appearing in front of Westminster committees.
And If I am elected Prime Minister I will come to the Assembly each year and answer questions on any subject - from Wales to the wider world.
But being the party of real devolution is not just backing the Assembly but saying to people in Wales: we want to give you more power - to own your own home, to own shares in the business you work for, to run your own school, to take charge of your own community.
Devolution is too good to be left to the politicians - let's give it to the people too.
IMAGINE
An economy on the road to recovery.
Families at the heart of our society.
Reformed public services.
A radical shift in power to the people.
Together this will make Britain a more responsible country.
Imagine a child born in a Britain like that.
They're raised in a stable, loving home.
They go to a great school run by a great local charity.
When they leave education they'll be eager to look for a job, because there is a culture that respects work.
When they're settled somewhere they'll have a voice in their community because local politics is revitalised.
If they start their own business they'll be able to get it off the ground because there is a low-tax, low-debt, enterprise economy.
And the world they'll pass on to their children will be cleaner, greener and more beautiful.
We don't just have to imagine this country.
We can help make it happen.
CONCLUSION
So that's what we're fighting for, in the elections this June and in the general election whenever it comes.
Labour's leadership is broken, finished, over.
But the dreams of those who supported them live on.
I don't want to defeat those people, I want to lead them.
So to the disillusioned, the despondent, the detached, tell them if they want to see real change for the better in Britain, not spin but substance, not words but action, not big promises broken but practical pledges fulfilled then join our cause.
If you want to see every child defy the circumstances of their birth and get the chance to write their own life story then join our cause.
If you want to tackle the deprivation that keeps people down and divides our country in two then join our cause.
If you want a dynamic economy, a strong society, a responsible country join us, and help make it happen.