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UK Government Minister Stuart Andrew will make his first official visit to North Wales today (Thursday 25 January) to underline the UK Government’s vision for the region and to throw his weight behind the drive for a North Wales Growth Deal.

Mr Andrew will meet members of the North Wales Growth Deal project team at Glyndwr University to discuss the ongoing progress of the plans for the Deal.

Minister Andrew will also be visiting OpTIC where he will be joined by Minister for Northern Powerhouse, Jake Berry.
The OpTIC Technology Centre has been a hub for world-leading science and innovation since Wrexham Glyndwr University acquired the site in 2009. It is owned and run by the university and home to 18 businesses and more than 100 staff. These include Glyndwr Innovations, a leading provider of innovative product development engineering and technology consulting.

Speaking ahead of the visit, Minister Andrew said:

As the new UK Government Minister for Wales, I will be using every opportunity to champion the contribution every corner of Wales is making to the growth we are seeing in our economy.

From the businesses creating jobs, to the University that is competing with some of the world’s best institutions, the UK Government understands the vital contribution the region is making to secure the success of our long-term economic plan.

The North Wales Growth Deal is a UK Government budget commitment. It sets out a vision for the region with the aims of creating 5,300 jobs and attracting private sector investment to the value of £1bn in the region over the next 15 years.

Plans have been supported by the region’s six council leaders and chief executives, and today’s meeting at Glyndwr University is an opportunity for the project team to present their plans to the new Minister.

Mr Andrew added:

The North Wales growth deal will have a transformational effect on the way our towns and villages in North Wales govern themselves – shifting powers from London and Cardiff to local leaders who are better placed to take decisions that affect their communities.

Successful Growth Deals are built on big ideas to unlock growth across cities and their wider economic areas. They work best when everyone in the local area, including civic, business and higher education leaders, come together to tell Government what needs to change and what can be done better.

With the launch of the Industrial Strategy last year there has never been a better time for businesses and local authorities to seize the opportunity to come together. UK Government is here to support and work with companies and groups on the ground as they develop a bespoke deal that works for the whole of North-Wales.

Northern Powerhouse and Local Growth Minister Jake Berry said:

This government has invested £3.4bn across the UK through highly successful Growth Deals which have fostered the right economic conditions for local areas to flourish. I look forward to working with the Minister to drive this exciting opportunity for North Wales forward over the coming months.

The Ministers will also be visiting the Menai Science park.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has stopped thousands of taxpayers from receiving scam text messages, with 90 percent of the most convincing texts now halted before they reach their phones.

The milestone comes during Take Five To Stop Fraud Week, with the tax authority working to raise awareness of the tell-tale signs of fraud ahead of the Self Assessment deadline.

Fraudsters alleging to be from HMRC send text messages to unsuspecting members of the public. In these messages they will make false claims, such as suggesting they are due a tax rebate. Messages will usually include links to websites that harvest personal information or spread malware. This can in turn lead to identity fraud and the theft of people’s personal savings.

HMRC will never contact customers who are due a tax refund by text message or by email.

Reports of this type of fraud have quickly increased in volume over the last few years. People are 9 times more likely to fall for text message scams than other forms like email because they can appear more legitimate, with many texts displaying ‘HMRC’ as the sender, rather than a phone number.

HMRC, working with public and private partners, began a pilot in April 2017 to combat these messages. The new technology identifies fraud texts with ‘tags’ that suggest they are from HMRC and stops them from being delivered.

Since the pilot began, there has been a 90% reduction in customer reports around the spoofing of these specific HMRC-related tags on SMS and a five-fold reduction in malicious SMS reports. The initiative has helped reduce reports of these scams from over 5,000 in March 2017, before the new programme was introduced, to fewer than 1,000 in December 2017. This progress comes after similar successes in tackling fraudulent emails and websites.

In the last 12 months, HMRC has initiated the removal of 16,000 malicious websites, meaning even if the texts are delivered, the associated phishing website is likely to have been removed.

By introducing technical controls, HMRC has also stopped customers receiving over 300 million emails purporting to come from the tax authority.

HMRC’s Director of Customer Services, Angela MacDonald, said:

HMRC is focused on becoming the most digitally advanced tax authority in the world, and a big part of that relates to keeping our customers safe from online scammers.

As email and website scams become less effective, fraudsters are increasingly turning to text messages to con taxpayers. But as these numbers show, we won’t rest until these criminals are out of avenues to exploit.

We have made significant progress is cutting down these types of crime, but one of the most effective ways to tackle it is still to help the public spot the tell-tale signs of fraud.

HMRC is working with the National Cyber Security Centre to further this work and extend the benefits beyond HMRC customers.

Further information

1. Read more about the Take Five to Stop Fraud campaign
2. Follow HMRC’s press office on Twitter @HMRCpressoffice.
3. See HMRC’s Flickr channel.

For press enquiries only, please contact:

• Ed Rowley: telephone: 03000 585 028
• email: Edward.Rowley@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk
• out-of-hours: telephone: 07860 359544

Tonight (24 January) the Secretary of State for Wales, Alun Cairns, will host an event at Gwydyr House for investors to find out more about Cardiff Council’s development plans and opportunities for investment.

Guests will hear from the Secretary of State as well as Cllr Huw Thomas, Leader of Cardiff Council, and Cllr Russell Goodway, Cabinet Member for Investment and Development, about investment opportunities in Wales’ capital city.

Tonight’s event is all about showcasing the many and varied investment opportunities in Cardiff. This event will bring together some of the city’s top investors, UK Government Ministers and representatives from Cardiff Council to help drive growth across the region.

The UK Government has wide ranging ambitions for the nation and has made significant contributions to the Cardiff City Deal, committed to abolishing the Severn Tolls by the end of this year and has put a new fleet of Intercity Express Trains on the line between South Wales and London, reducing journey times by up to 15 minutes.

Speaking ahead of the event Secretary of State Alun Cairns said:

After the success of Monday’s inaugural Severn Growth Summit, tonight’s event provides another great platform for networking and identifying opportunities for attracting global investment to Wales’ capital city and the surrounding areas.

Cardiff is a powerhouse and has rightly been named by the UK Government as one of the UK’s Financial Centres of Excellence, contributing almost £1.2billion to the UK economy, higher than the contribution made by the sector in cities such as Sheffield, Liverpool, and Aberdeen.

Leader of the Council, Cllr Huw Thomas said:

Cardiff Council is delighted to be able to participate in this investment seminar hosted by the Secretary of State for Wales in Whitehall. This is a great opportunity to showcase Cardiff to private sector investors and funds and highlight the progress we are making as a leading UK Core City.

The city’s growth agenda is both exciting and challenging. If we are to achieve our regeneration objectives, the role of the private sector, working in partnership with the public sector will be crucial in bringing additional investment and jobs to the Welsh Capital.

The Council has recently published a Green Paper – ‘Building More and Better Jobs’ – which sets out an economic development vision for Cardiff requesting feedback from the public. The investment seminar will help us gain important feedback from London based investors on the progress Cardiff is making and how they can help us in our ambition to bring more jobs and prosperity to communities across Cardiff.