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A new government review will consider how the UK can encourage and support British businesses to take advantage of the huge potential to grow exports Minister for Trade and Exports, Baroness Rona Fairhead, announced today.

The Export Strategy review, led by the Department for International Trade (DIT), will work closely with businesses, and across Whitehall, to explore the barriers to exporting and identify the best ways in which government can help drive and support UK companies to increase exporting activity and unlock high potential opportunities overseas.

Baroness Fairhead has also launched a new UK Export Finance (UKEF) product for UK exporters and their supply chains. It will ensure exporters have more time to pay for supplies of goods and raw materials, while helping smaller companies in export supply chains secure early payment to support their cash flow.

Exports rose by 13.6% to £602 billion in the latest year on year figures, but with only 9% of British companies exporting, there is huge scope for more businesses to reach new customers by meeting demand for UK goods and services overseas.

Almost 300,000 UK companies produce goods and services that could be exported, but have no overseas sales. The new strategy will encourage these businesses to identify opportunities for export, and prepare them to win international contracts.

In the coming months DIT will work with industry to understand the challenges faced by UK firms, increase awareness of export support and finance that is already available, and explore how this can be improved.

Minister of State for Trade and Exports, Baroness Rona Fairhead said:

UK exports are going from strength to strength, but the potential for further growth is huge, particularly as only 9% of UK businesses currently export.

The Export Strategy review will draw on expertise from across government and the private sector, helping us to understand how best to support British companies to take advantage of opportunities in overseas markets. Throughout the process, we will look for significant input from UK businesses, both large and small, to ensure we develop a strategy that meets their needs.

In the last financial year, UKEF provided £3 billion in support for 221 companies’ exports; improving awareness and understanding of how export finance can help prospective exporters to compete globally will allow even more to benefit.

In last week’s Budget, the Chancellor announced that, in addition to new products from UKEF, the government will launch a campaign to promote the support they provide through the ‘Exporting is GREAT’ campaign.

The flagship great.gov.uk export platform, which was launched 1 year ago, lists thousands of export opportunities for UK companies worth millions of pounds. It also puts firms in touch with global buyers at the click of a mouse. Since its launch, great.gov.uk has promoted 11,400 export opportunities, and helped around 2.7 million users either begin or grow their exporting journeys.

More than 600,000 trees are set to be planted across Northumberland over the next two years, with England’s largest woodland planting scheme in decades given the go-ahead by the Forestry Commission today.

Thanks to government funding, Doddington North Moor has been given consent to plant a new 350-hectare forest near Wooler in Northumberland – the largest of its kind to be planted in England for over 30 years.

The forest, which will span the equivalent of over 650 football fields, will help to enhance populations of the iconic red squirrel, while storing over 120,000 tonnes of carbon and helping to manage flood risk in the area. With the forestry and timber processing industry a major employer in the region, the project is also set to bring a boost to local businesses and will generate a number of new jobs.

It joins another successful project that has just been approved this week in the Lake District, with government funding helping the Lowther Park Estate plant more than 200,000 trees over 170 hectares of their land.

Environment Minister Thérèse Coffey welcomed the decision, saying:

Our forests and woodlands are some of our most vital and cherished natural assets, and planting more trees is at the heart of our ambition to protect the environment for future generations.

Doddington North Moor will make a significant contribution to our drive to plant 11 million trees across the nation and is a fantastic example of the kind of tree planting schemes we want to see more of. I hope this will signal a wave of similar projects to come forward and help other landowners realise the benefits of woodland creation.

Richard Greenhous, Director of Forest Services at the Forestry Commission said:

We have worked very closely with the applicant, Natural England and the Environment Agency to help shape this important project into something we can all be proud of.

We stand ready to support more large scale woodland creation projects that will deliver the government’s and the forestry sector’s ambitions to plant more trees across the country.

Andy Howard, Doddington North Moor project manager, said:

I’m delighted that we have gained approval from the Forestry Commission for our afforestation project at Doddington North. There needs to be a major uplift in the planting of new woodlands in England, and hopefully us starting to plant trees at Doddington and the lessons learnt from the application process can unlock interest from further potential applicants.

Planting at Doddington is expected to begin in March 2018 and will be phased over the next two to three years.

Doddington has been developed over the last two years with support from the government’s Woodland Creation Planning Grant. It anticipated the planting will be funded through other schemes such as the Woodland Carbon Fund and Countryside Stewardship Woodland Creation Grant.

Under the Countryside Stewardship scheme landowners can apply for up to £6,800 per hectare to plant more trees, reaping the environmental and financial benefits of woodland creation – and improvements have been made to this scheme this year to make it easier to apply.

Funding is also available for larger scale projects via the £19million Woodland Carbon Fund. The threshold for minimum applications for this funding has been recently reduced to 10 hectares, so that more projects can take advantage of this support.

The government has announced today that it is consulting on new safeguards for the use of communications data.

A consultation, which will run for 7 weeks, is seeking views on amendments to the UK’s communications data and acquisition regime in response to a judgment handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union in December 2016.

The proposed changes will introduce additional safeguards to ensure communications data can continue to be used to keep people safe from crime and terrorism while complying with the judgment.

Launching the consultation, Security Minister, Ben Wallace said:

Communications data is used in the vast majority of serious and organised crime prosecutions and has been used in every major Security Service counter-terrorism investigation over the last decade. Its importance cannot be overstated.

For example, it is often the only way to identify paedophiles involved in online child abuse and can be used to identify where and when these horrendous crimes have taken place.

As this is an issue of public importance, we consider it important to consult on our proposed changes to inform our legislative response and subsequent Parliamentary debate. All responses will be welcomed and carefully considered.

The new provisions include:

• the introduction of independent authorisation of communications data requests by a new body, known as the Office for Communications Data Authorisations, under the Investigatory Powers Commissioner Lord Justice Fulford
• restricting the use of communications data to investigations into serious crime
• additional safeguards which must be taken into account before a Data Retention Notice can be given to a telecommunications or postal operator
• clarification of the circumstances in which notification of those whose communications data has been accessed can occur
• mandatory guidance on the protection of retained data in line with European data protection standards

The communications data code of practice, which sets out how the safeguards governing the retention of communications data by telecommunications operators and its acquisition by public authorities will operate, is also being published today for consultation.

The government is clear that the December 2016 judgment does not apply to the retention or acquisition of data for national security purposes as national security is outside of the scope of EU law. Nevertheless, a number of the proposed changes will apply to certain national security applications for communications data to create a simpler, more practical regime.

Notes to editors:

Communications data is the ‘who’, ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘how’ and ‘with whom’ of a communication, but not what was written or said, and includes information such as the subscriber to a telephone service. It is an essential tool for the full range of law enforcement activity and national security investigations, for example to investigate crime, keep children safe, support or disprove alibis, and tie a suspect to a particular crime scene, amongst other things. It is used in 95 percent of serious and organised crime prosecution cases handled by the Crown Prosecution Service Organised Crime Division, and has been used in every major Security Service counter-terrorism investigation over the last decade.

The Investigatory Powers Act brings together and updates existing powers while radically overhauling how they are authorised and overseen. There is more information on GOV.UK.

The consultation is open for responses now and will close on 18 January 2018. The government proposes amending the IPA by secondary legislation made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972.

We have also published relevant case studies.