1. We are in a new age - the age of information and of global competition. Familiar certainties and old ways of doing things are disappearing. The types of jobs we do have changed as have the industries in which we work and the skills they need. At the same time, new opportunities are opening up as we see the potential of new technologies to change our lives for the better. We have no choice but to prepare for this new age in which the key to success will be the continuous education and development of the human mind and imagination.

2. Over a generation we have seen a fundamental change in the balance between skilled and unskilled jobs in the industrialised world. Since the 1960s, employment in manufacturing has fallen from one in three of the workforce to under one in five. This has been mirrored by a huge rise in jobs in services which now account for over two-thirds of all workers; more people today work in film and television than in car manufacturing. There are three million self-employed and 6.5 million part-time workers, and women make up nearly half the workforce compared with less than a third 50 years ago.

3. The Industrial Revolution was built on capital investment in plant and machinery, skills and hard physical labour. British inventors pushed forward the frontiers of technology and our manufacturers turned their inventions into wealth. We built the world's first calculator, jet engine, computer and television. Our history shows what we are capable of, but we must now apply the same qualities of skill and invention to a fresh challenge.

4. The information and knowledge-based revolution of the twenty-first century will be built on a very different foundation - investment in the intellect and creativity of people. The microchip and fibre optic cable are today what electricity and the steam engine were to the nineteenth century. The United Kingdom is also pioneering this new age, combining ingenuity, enterprise, design and marketing skills. We are world leaders in information and communication technologies and bio-technology.

5. To continue to compete, we must equip ourselves to cope with the enormous economic and social change we face, to make sense of the rapid transformation of the world, and to encourage imagination and innovation. We will succeed by transforming inventions into new wealth, just as we did a hundred years ago. But unlike then, everyone must have the opportunity to innovate and to gain reward - not just in research laboratories, but on the production line, in design studios, in retail outlets, and in providing services.

6. The most productive investment will be linked to the best educated and best trained workforces, and the most effective way of getting and keeping a job will be to have the skills needed by employers.

7. Our single greatest challenge is to equip ourselves for this new age with new and better skills, with knowledge and with understanding.