Author: Pulse Assent

The Secretary of State for Communities the Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP today (3 July 2018) confirmed he is picking up the baton as new Ministerial Champion to drive forward the government’s ambitious plans to fire up the Midlands as an engine for growth in the UK.

A thriving Midlands region is essential to building an economy which works for everyone and the government is playing its part in supporting the Midlands Engine Partnership achieve their ambition of growing the Midlands economy by £54 billion by 2030 to make the Midlands an even better place to live, work, study and do business.

With Coventry named UK City of Culture for 2021 and Birmingham announced as the hosts of the 2022 Commonwealth Games, the Midlands is playing it’s role on the national and international stage.

The Secretary of State for Communities the Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP said:

The economic success of every region of the UK is vital to the success of our country as a whole and this is going to be more important than ever once we leave the European Union.

I am delighted to be the new Ministerial Champion for the Midlands Engine and to act as its advocate across government.

I look forward to working in partnership with Sir John Peace, Chair of the Midlands Engine, to drive forward the government’s plans to fire up the Midlands Engine to improve opportunities and quality of life across the region and to build an economy which works for everyone.

The announcement came as the Secretary of State spoke at the annual Local Government Association conference held in Birmingham.

Following this he also visited important Midlands Engine projects including unveiling plans with Birmingham City University for the site of the second phase of a new innovation centre – the STEAMHouse building – which has received £15 million of government funding.

The Secretary of State also visited the proposed site of the new HS2 station at Curzon Street. This follows the Secretary of State’s visit to Ibstock in Leicestershire last week to see first-hand how Ibstock Brick Ltd are supporting government’s housing programme.

Sir John Peace, Midlands Engine Chairman, said:

I am delighted that the Secretary of State for Communities has been appointed Ministerial Champion for the Midlands Engine. He is already an enthusiastic supporter of our region and I look forward to working with him in the coming months to continue making our region a great place to live, learn and to run a business.

There is no doubt that the Midlands is at the heart of the UK’s growth. The region is benefitting from the biggest increases in exports of any UK region and record levels of foreign direct investment – with 243 projects delivering over 13,000 new jobs in the last year alone.

The Midlands Engine Investment Fund together with the Barclays Midlands Growth Fund are making over £600 million available to the SME sector, creating jobs and helping realise our region’s potential through enterprise.

We are in the vanguard of innovation across many forward-thinking sectors from digital connectivity, advanced manufacturing and engineering to the life sciences, clean energy and battery technologies. And, we are poised to cement our position as the UK’s transport hub with the arrival of HS2.

Further information

The Midlands has a £227 billion economy, generating over 13% of the UK’s Gross Value Added (GVA).

The Midlands is home to over 820,600 businesses.

In 2017, the Midlands accounted for a 22.2% share of all of England’s total exports.

On 9 March 2017 the government published the Midlands Engine Strategy including:

• Midlands LEPs awarded £392 million for local growth projects, bringing the total Growth Deal Funding for the Midlands to nearly £1.9 billion.
• A flagship £20 million Midlands Skills Challenge to improve skills across the Midlands.
• £4 million to support the Midlands Engine Partnership.

On 22 September 2017, the Midlands Engine Partnership published their Vision for Growth, in response to the government’s strategy. It sets out their vision and priorities for growth to create a Midlands Engine which powers the UK economy and competes on a world stage. We continue to work with the Partnership to turn this vision into action.

• consultation will look to make process of obtaining new birth certificate less intrusive and bureaucratic for transgender people
• government aims to gather evidence to further advance equality for non-binary and intersex people
• plans will not water down Equality Act protections for single-sex services or for trans people

The government has launched a public consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004, on how to make it easier for transgender people to change their legal gender on their birth certificate.

The Prime Minister announced the government’s plan to consult on changes to the Gender Recognition Act in 2017.

The government’s LGBT survey – the largest national survey of its kind, with over 108,000 participants – showed there is considerable misunderstanding about the requirements of applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate, and many trans people find it overly bureaucratic and expensive.

The 16-week consultation, which affects England and Wales, will review the process of acquiring a Gender Recognition Certificate – which is given to people who are legally recognised as being of their new gender – and aim to reduce the time and cost for people applying.

The consultation will look at many aspects of the process of obtaining legal recognition, including the requirements for the transgender person to:

• provide two medical reports, one showing a diagnosis of ‘gender dysphoria’ and the other outlining details of treatment received
• obtain the consent of their spouse if they are married
• demonstrate that they have lived in their acquired gender for at least 2 years
• pay £140

Prime Minister Theresa May said:

Last year I committed to carrying out a consultation on the Gender Recognition Act and I’m pleased to be able to launch that today.

What was very clear from our survey is that transgender people across the UK find the process of legally changing their gender overly bureaucratic and invasive.

I want to see a process that is more streamlined and de-medicalised – because being trans should never be treated as an illness.

Minister for Women and Equalities Penny Mordaunt said:

The discrimination and bigotry that the trans community currently faces is unacceptable in today’s society – we need a culture change.

In response to our national LGBT survey trans people have told us that the current system to legally change their gender isn’t working and they find the process bureaucratic, costly and intrusive.

We want to help people to thrive and to go about their daily life, living in the gender they choose without intrusion or fear of humiliation.

This consultation is a chance for us to change the current system for the better and I look forward to hearing everyone’s views.

The government has been clear that this consultation will not be making any changes to the Equality Act 2010 and the protections within it. The Act states that individuals must not be discriminated against because they are trans, but that single-sex services such as domestic abuse refuges can provide services in a different way, or exclude a transgender person from the service, if this is proportionate and justified.

The government has not yet taken any decisions and responses to the consultation will be considered very carefully before making any.

Government figures show the number of people who have successfully obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate (4,910) since the legislation came into effect is far fewer than the estimated size of the trans population in the UK.

In recent years, we have made progress in tackling the barriers that transgender people face within the UK. We have:

• introduced a £3m project to help tackle transphobic bullying in schools
• put more money into NHS Gender Identity Services
• conducted one of the largest national surveys of LGBT people in the world, receiving over 14,000 responses from trans and non-binary people

Cara English, Policy Engagement Officer at trans charity Gendered Intelligence, said:

Gendered Intelligence welcomes the government’s plans to make it less difficult to change legal gender. Meaningful reforms to the Gender Recognition Act are desperately needed if we’re going to make the process easier, less bureaucratic and exclusionary for trans and non-binary people.

It’s encouraging to see the government take the needs of LGBTQI people seriously, recognising that the GRA needs to be reformed to make it more transparent for those who need to access it. This consultation is all about highlighting the lived experiences and needs of people disenfranchised from the current GRA and giving value to their voices.

Notes to editors

• the Equality Act allows providers to offer single-sex services that exclude trans people so long as it is proportionate to do so and it achieves a legitimate aim. An example of a single-sex service might be a domestic violence refuge for women. The government is aware of many refuge services that are fully trans inclusive, and allow trans women entry, but is also equally aware of services that may, in some circumstances, choose to exclude trans women and instead refer them on to a different service – this is lawful provided it is adequately justified
• the legal recognition process is separate from the pathway that trans people follow to obtain medical treatment that they may wish to have, such as hormones or surgery
• the government will consider the results of the consultation carefully before making any decision on how to reform the GRA. We are not necessarily proposing self-declaration of gender
• we are examining what safeguards could be needed as part of any new legal gender recognition system, and will work closely with the Ministry of Justice to understand the issues specific to prisoners
• we are not proposing to lower the minimum age limit for legal gender recognition below the current age of 18

The International Trade Secretary, Dr Liam Fox MP, met US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in London on Monday (2 July). They had a constructive conversation ahead of the next meeting of the UK-US trade and investment working group later this summer.

They discussed the importance of long-term, stable, reciprocal economic investment and how this underpins broader stability.

They also discussed areas where trade between the 2 countries could be strengthened ahead of the UK’s exit from the EU. The International Trade Secretary reiterated the need for a global response to issues like production and demand, and highlighted the importance of UK exports to US businesses and security.

The International Trade Secretary and US Commerce Secretary discussed the recent US decision to impose tariffs and Dr Fox expressed a need for a swift resolution to securing product exemptions for UK businesses affected by the recent US tariffs.

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Homes England has today announced strategic partnerships with eight ambitious housing associations to deliver more affordable homes across the country.

The first wave of this new partnership approach will deliver 14,280 additional affordable homes by March 2022. The deals include homes for social rent in areas of high affordability pressure, with the funding available boosted by the Government’s announcement of an additional £1.67bn for the £9bn affordable homes programme. This new approach will also boost the wider supply contribution from the sector, with the eight partners signing up to deliver more than 23,500 additional homes across all tenures, including for market sale.

In total, Homes England will provide a funding package of just under £590m through to March 2022 to support the first wave of strategic partnerships with: emh group; Great Places; Home Group; Hyde; L&Q; Matrix Partnership; Places for People; and Sovereign / Liverty.

Secretary of State for Communities the Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP said:

“There is no mission more urgent than making our housing market work, and we are investing £9bn in building affordable homes.

“This £590m fund we are giving Homes England will help housing associations accelerate the delivery of affordable properties communities need.”

Today’s announcement marks the first step towards a new way of working between Homes England and its partners, adopting a programme approach to delivery, with plans to explore how adopting this approach across Homes England’s land, funding and powers can further generate additional supply. Homes England will also re-open discussions with the sector this summer on a second tranche of strategic partnerships. The national housing agency will also be looking at the lessons learned from the first wave of deals to see what flexibilities can be offered to site-by-site based bids.

The deals come only six months after Homes England CEO Nick Walkley challenged the sector to form a new type of partnership with Government to increase the supply of affordable homes.

Nick Walkley said:

“When we launched Homes England, I called on housing associations to work with us to develop ambitious strategic partnerships that would help them to get on and build significantly more affordable homes than they were previously planning. After a huge amount of hard work, these new deals show our real determination to combine ambition, flexibilities and the full range of our resources to change the way we deliver affordable homes.

“This is a very important day for us but we have no intention to stop here. Over the summer, we will work to expand the eight deals to become even more ambitious while agreeing a second wave of strategic partnerships with other ambitious housing associations. This is a fantastic opportunity for the sector to up its game and get more affordable homes built more quickly.”

A project group comprising the National Housing Federation and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government was established to understand the barriers to delivery, form a new relationship with Homes England, and design a revised investment framework to increase delivery of new housing supply through new ways of working.

David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, said:

“We are delighted to have worked in close partnership with Homes England on this new approach to investing in affordable housing, which will support housing associations’ vital work to help solve the housing crisis.

“These strategic partnerships give ambitious housing associations the investment and flexibility they need to help increase the supply of new homes. We have been clear for many years that this will be a huge help in increasing delivery, and these partnerships are a testament to housing associations’ determination to build many more new homes.

“We now look forward to working with the Government to make these new flexibilities over grant and tenure more widely available.”

The eight housing associations have all committed to significant increases in their development programmes, in exchange for an additional year’s funding beyond the current spending review settlement and the ability to use their funding flexibly across their development programme in response to the ebb and flow of progress on individual sites. They will also be able to respond to local markets by determining the tenure of affordable homes as they near completion on individual sites, by managing the overall tenure balance through the oversight of a Strategic Partnership Board with Homes England.

Ends

For further media information please contact: Shaun Harley in the Homes England press office on 07989 203272 or shaun.harley@homesengland.gov.uk.

Partnership	Grant	No. of additional affordable starts to March 2022
emh group	£30.5m	748
Great Places	£29.2m	750
Home Group	£85m	2,300
Hyde	£95.4m	1,623
L&Q	£85m	1,724
Matrix Partnership	£77m	2,257
Places for People	£74m	2,603
Sovereign/Liverty	£111.5m	2,275

What the partners are saying

On behalf of the Matrix Partnership, Chris Handy, Chief Executive, Accord Housing Group, said:

“We welcome the new partnership approach which brings significant growth opportunities in affordable housing and wider supply for more than a generation.

“Matrix and its housing association and local authority partners look forward to the opportunity to work with Homes England delivering a high percentage of our ambitious programme through the new Local Homes Offsite manufacturing hub.”

Mark Washer, Chief Executive of Sovereign and Paul Crawford, Chief Executive of Liverty, said:

“This deal, a new way of working of together, has the potential to be a real game changer for many of our communities across the south west, where people can really struggle to afford to rent or to buy a home.

“We have an excellent track record of delivery, and by bringing together the skills and investment of Sovereign, Liverty and Homes England, and working alongside our local authority partners, we’ll be able to build even more homes, more quickly than we could apart.

“Importantly, building the homes ourselves through land-led opportunities, rather than relying on Section 106 agreements, significantly increases the volume of new homes being delivered. We’ll also be supporting other regional associations to access capital grant, again accelerating additional growth and delivery even further.”

David Montague, Chief Executive of L&Q, said:

“We are delighted to have agreed this landmark strategic partnership with Homes England. L&Q is already committed to building 100,000 quality new homes over the next decade, but we are always seeking new ways of working and new partnerships that will enable us to do more.

“Housing associations like L&Q are innovative, ambitious and uniquely positioned to respond to the housing crisis. Homes England has shown that it is ready to support us with investment and partnership working.

“Today is the beginning of a cornerstone relationship that will enable us to deliver more genuinely affordable homes where they are needed, and explore Modern Methods of Construction that will allow us to achieve a step-change in production without compromising on quality.”