Category: Gov Press Releases

Hoy el Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores, Boris Johnson, intercambió camisetas de fútbol con el presidente de Panamá, Juan Carlos Varela.

El mes que viene, Inglaterra y Panamá se enfrentarán durante 90 minutos en la Copa Mundial, pero hoy han estado en el mismo equipo que sus seguidores itinerantes durante el torneo.

Los gobiernos de los 31 países clasificados han estado trabajando juntos para preparar la Copa Mundial, ayudando a las autoridades rusas a mejorar la seguridad de los aficionados de todos los países, incluidos el Reino Unido y Panamá.

Después de entregar la camiseta que la selección de Inglaterra lucirá en el partido del 24 de junio, el Ministro de Asuntos Exteriores recibió agradecido una camiseta panameña. Esta será la primera participación de Panamá en una fase final de la Copa del Mundo.

El Ministro de Asuntos Exteriores dijo:
“El mes que viene, Inglaterra y Panamá jugarán el uno contra el otro en la Copa Mundial, así que estaremos en lados opuestos durante 90 minutos.
Pero antes, durante y después de ese partido, compartimos una de las principales prioridades de la Copa Mundial: la seguridad de nuestros nacionales.”

Desde que iniciamos los preparativos hace más de dos años, nuestro personal ha visitado las 11 ciudades anfitrionas, ha trabajado en estrecha colaboración con las autoridades locales, se ha reunido con representantes de los 31 países participantes y ha lanzado nuestra Campaña Be On The Ball, que ofrece a los aficionados una guía especializada en la Copa Mundial y consejos para estar preparados para Rusia.

Esto incluye asegurarse de que tiene un seguro de viaje adecuado, los números de emergencia necesarios y la información sobre el ID del FAN. Por supuesto, también animamos a los aficionados a ser buenos huéspedes en Rusia y a permanecer atentos a las leyes y costumbres locales.

Se calcula que entre 4.000 y 10.000 aficionados ingleses viajarán a Rusia, donde el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores tiene representación permanente en tres de las 11 sedes de la Copa del Mundo (Moscú, Ekaterimburgo y San Petersburgo), y contará con un equipo móvil en las ciudades donde juega Inglaterra.

El Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores ha estado asesorando a los aficionados que viajan a través de la campaña Be On The Ball.

El partido Inglaterra-Panamá tendrá lugar el 24 de junio en Nizhni Nóvgorod.

Today David Lidington, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, met Cai Qi, the Beijing Party Secretary, to fortify a ‘Golden Era’ of relations between the UK and China. The meeting further strengthens the Government’s ambition to pursue a progressive free trade agenda between the two countries.

Mr Lidington used today’s meeting to reiterate the UK’s commitment to improving trade with the country and highlight the barriers some companies face when expanding business in China. They also discussed the numerous trade and investment collaborations between the UK and China, and the potential to co-operate on urban development.

Mr Cai met the Minister as part of a five-day tour of the UK and Europe. He is meeting with a range of senior political officials, including the Mayor of London, to capitalise on British best practice in areas of urban planning and historic preservation.

After the meeting Mr Lidington and Mr Cai also witnessed the signings of new agreements, which will enhance the UK and China’s already excellent joint work in Science and Technology and our collaboration in culture.

Speaking after the visit, David Lidington, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said:

My meeting with Mr Cai today was a true demonstration of the strength of the UK-Chinese relationship. We are seeing the ‘Golden Era’ of relations with China continue to prosper, and we were able to discuss the many opportunities open to each country – from the UK’s world leading institutions in urban planning, to the many exciting trade opportunities that come from being global facing and open to the world.

Notes to editors

The Memorandums of Understanding they agreed today:

• strategic Cooperation between Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and RELX Group
• strategic Cooperation Agreement between Beijing Honav Culture Development Co. Ltd, British Ceramics Biennial and Staffordshire University
• unveiling of the London Office of Cultural Investment Holdings (CIH London)

The Charity Commission, the regulator of charities in England and Wales, has today published its response to the Joint Committee on Human Rights report into Freedom of speech in Universities.

Helen Stephenson, chief executive of the Charity Commission said:

I am absolutely clear that charitable students’ unions, universities and other higher education providers can challenge traditional boundaries, encourage the free exchange of views and host speakers with a range of opinions, including those who might be controversial or divide opinion.

These activities are entirely in line with their aims to promote education. Our role as regulator is to provide guidance that enables trustees of all charities carry out their activities while complying with their legal duties and responsibilities as charities and where necessary hold trustees to account against that guidance.

The response sets out the Commission’s role as regulator of students’ unions and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). It stresses that students’ unions and HEIs play an important role in providing discussion and debate, encouraging students to develop political awareness, to debate, to challenge their own views and perceptions and to form views on political issues.

The Commission says it agrees that freedom of speech should form part of students’ unions’ and HEIs’ activities in carrying out their educational charitable purposes. The regulator says that, as the Joint Committee has acknowledged, freedom of speech is not absolute and must be within the limits of the law.

The Commission says its guidance is an important tool for explaining its regulatory approach to all charities, and is written to enable and support all charities to recognise and manage the risks that arise from some activities that may present higher risks in order to support them to go ahead.

Ahead of the JCHR’s report, the regulator had already committed to reviewing two of its publications:

• chapter 5 of its guidance ‘Protecting your charity from harm’ to make sure it sufficiently stresses what charities can do, to support trustees to recognise, and then to manage and mitigate, risks to their charities.
• its internal staff guidance on students’ unions (OG48) to ensure it sufficiently reflects relevant aspects of freedom of speech when students’ unions carry out activities, and ensure a clearer distinction is made between the responsibilities of the trustees, students’ union bodies, student societies and the broader membership.

Today the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson swapped football shirts with the President of Panama, Juan Carlos Varela.

Next month, England and Panama will face off for 90 minutes at the World Cup – but today they were both on the same side as focus turned to their travelling fans during the tournament.

Governments from all 31 qualified nations have been working together to prepare for the World Cup, helping the Russian authorities improve safety and security for fans from all countries, including the UK and Panama.

After handing over the shirt that the England team will be sporting when they take to the turf in the match on the 24th June, the Foreign Secretary gratefully received a Panamanian shirt in return. This will be Panama’s first ever appearance at a World Cup Finals.

The Foreign Secretary said:

Next month, England and Panama will play against one another in the World Cup, so we’ll be on opposing sides for 90 minutes.

But before, during and after that game we share a top priority for the World Cup – the safety and security of our nationals.

Since our preparations began more than two years ago, our staff have visited all eleven host cities, worked closely with local authorities, met with representatives from all 31 competing nations and launched our Be On The Ball campaign, which offers fans specialist World Cup guidance and advice for being ready for Russia.

This includes ensuring you have appropriate travel insurance, necessary emergency numbers and information on the all-important FAN ID. We also of course encourage fans to be good guests in Russia and to remain mindful of any local laws and customs.

An estimated 4,000-10,000 England fans will travel to Russia, where the FCO has permanent representation in three of the 11 world cup host cities (Moscow, Ekaterinburg, St Petersburg), and will have a mobile team in the cities where England play.

The Foreign Office have been advising travelling fans through the Be On The Ball Campaign, which can be found by visiting here.

The England v Panama game will take place on 24 June in Nizhny Novgorod.

Further information

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Partners gathered at Ipswich Waterfront on Friday 11 May 2018 to celebrate progress to transform the empty Winerack building at the town’s Regatta Quay.

The Homes England deal to bring forward development of the previously stalled development has been shortlisted in this year’s prestigious RESI Awards.

Partners from Homes England, New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, Ipswich Vision, R G Carter of Ipswich, Ipswich Wharf Developments and Zenzic Partners, who have advised the developers on financing for the scheme, along with Sandy Martin MP and local authority representatives toured the site to see progress being made to create 150 flats and more than 5,000 square feet of commercial space.

Scaffolding is now in place on the front section of the building and a tower crane has arrived on site this week. The work is due to be completed by the end of 2020.

The building has been in a semi-constructed condition since the financial crash of 2008. Ipswich Wharf Developments Ltd is now taking on development of the building following £15 million investment through Homes England’s Home Building Fund and £5 million from New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) through its Growing Places Fund.

The Homes England’s Home Building Fund deal has been shortlisted in the Deal of the Year category of this year’s RESI Awards, one of seven projects hoping to be recognised as the best residential property deal of 2017. Homes England’s Investments team has also been shortlisted as Residential Financier of the Year in the awards, which celebrate the residential property market and its successes of the past year. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on 16 May 2018.

The completed Ipswich project will create 150 homes and more than 5,000 square feet of commercial space and will support 56 new jobs. It is a key development in the Ipswich Vision project, which brings together local partners to work towards a single vision for the regeneration of Ipswich town centre.

Nick Walkley, Chief Executive Officer for Homes England, said: “At Homes England we’re using our finance, land and expertise to get new homes built in ambitious places like Ipswich. The Winerack is a really important example of how government is prepared to intervene to unblock stalled developments and help people and businesses to thrive. It’s great to see the real progress now being made to finish the project and help spur the regeneration of the town centre.”

Chris Starkie, Chief Executive of New Anglia LEP, said: “We are pleased to see work progressing on the Winerack. This project marks a step forward in the transformation of this part of Ipswich and it will help to unlock new investment and development opportunities.”

John Howard from Ipswich Wharf Developments said: “At long last, we’re delighted to see the construction of the Winerack now fully under way. The Ipswich Marina is the crown jewel of Ipswich and completing this building will transform the skyline of the harbour and provide another 150 homes in this stunning location. We would like to thank all our advisers, Homes England, the New Anglia LEP, the Local Council and Carters for working with us to bring this project to fruition. We look forward to welcoming some new home owners to the completed building in 2020!”

Nadine Buckland of Zenzic Partners said: “The Winerack was a great transaction to be involved with. It was a very innovative financing structure with Homes England and the LEP and it’s great to see it translate into delivery of what will be a fantastic scheme.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

Homes England

Homes England is the new housing delivery organisation that has been created to adopt a more commercial approach to respond to the long term housing challenges facing this country. The new, expanded agency will play a far bigger role in investing in supply and intervening in the market to help deliver 300,000 homes a year by the middle of the next decade.

Homes England will act differently from its predecessor, bringing together money, land, expertise and planning and compulsory purchase powers to accelerate the supply of new homes and address affordability issues in areas of highest demand.

For more information visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/homes-england.

The Home Building Fund is a flexible source of funding administered by Homes England on behalf of government. The Fund provides:
• Development finance – loan funding to meet the development costs of building homes for sale or rent
• Infrastructure finance – loan funding for site preparation and the infrastructure needed to enable housing to progress and to prepare land for development

New Anglia LEP Growing Places Fund

New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership’s Growing Places Fund provides loan-funding to help kick-start and support development projects across Suffolk and Norfolk.

From innovation centres that will help launch new start-ups to transforming empty land into new homes and commercial premises, the Fund provides infrastructure loan funding to projects that might otherwise have stalled or not started at all.

Ipswich Vision

Ipswich Vision is a partnership project which brings together key organisations to create the successful county town centre which Ipswich and Suffolk expect and deserve through supporting regeneration, better transport, shopping and improvements to public spaces and public buildings.

Ipswich Vision is a partnership between Suffolk County Council, Ipswich Borough Council, Ipswich Central, New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, University of Suffolk, Ben Gummer MP and Suffolk Chamber of Commerce in Greater Ipswich.

• This week marks the start of exam season, where a further 20 new GCSEs will be sat for the first time
• The reformed qualifications will help pupils progress into further education, higher education and employment says the CBI

Hundreds of thousands of pupils are preparing to take new, more rigorous GCSE exams this week, which are on a par with the best performing education systems in the world, the School Standards Minister announced today.

The gold-standard qualifications for 20 new GCSEs – including the sciences, French, German, Spanish, history and geography – have been designed with employers in mind. These qualifications are underpinned by more rigorous content, which has been welcomed by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) for preparing pupils for future careers in the industries that Britain needs. The new science GCSEs now includes space physics and the human genome and the new Computer Science GCSE now includes greater focus on programming.

Schools Standards Minister Nick Gibb said:

These more rigorous, gold-standard GCSEs are helping to nurture the next generation of scientists, linguists and historians. Whatever pupils want to do with their lives, these qualifications will prepare them for future success and help deliver the skills Britain needs to be fit for the future.

Thanks to our reforms and the hard work of teachers, education standards are rising in our schools and last year, teachers and pupils responded well to the new English and maths exams. I wish pupils all the very best as they prepare to sit these exams and I look forward to celebrating their success in the summer.

The start of these exams follows the recent news of funding to train up to 8000 existing computing teachers to teach the new GCSE – that is enough to ensure every secondary school in England has a teacher who can support pupils to succeed.

The new GCSEs will be graded 9 to 1, with 9 being the top grade to allow more differentiation between the highest performing pupils and so that employers can identify the new, more rigorous qualifications.

It builds on the success of last year’s changes to GCSE maths and English which saw 59.1 per cent of pupils achieving a grade 4 or above.

Standards are rising in schools thanks to these reforms and the hard work of teachers, which has resulted in 1.9 million more children in good or outstanding schools than 2010.

The government’s Industrial Strategy highlighted a shortage of STEM skills. There is a need to increase number of people able to study for STEM degrees to support the current economy and its growth. The reforms to GCSEs and A levels, as well as these teaching programmes are just two of the ways this is being achieved.

The Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Research Mission covers several of Baroness Jowell’s campaign requests, and will include a boosted research fund, an annual global symposium and new commitments to clinical excellence in her name.

This follows a meeting Tessa Jowell had with the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary in Downing Street in February.

Commenting, Prime Minister Theresa May said:

Baroness Tessa Jowell faced her illness with dignity and courage – and it was a privilege to host her in Downing Street recently to discuss what more we can do to tackle brain cancer. We send our sincere condolences to her family – and I hope that the actions we are taking now and in the future to improve care and research for those confronting a terrible disease will form part of the lasting legacy of an inspirational woman.

Announcing the Mission, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said:

Tessa Jowell was one of those few politicians who could inspire and unite across party lines. We were all moved by her bravery and selfless campaigning in her final months, and are determined to honour her life and memory with the action on brain cancer that she fought so hard for. At this agonising time, I hope her family can draw comfort from the fact that her legacy will be lives saved and heartbreak averted for thousands of other families.’

Health Minister Lord O’Shaughnessy will lead the work to implement these commitments. Lord O’Shaughnessy said:

We are deeply saddened by this loss – Tessa Jowell did more than anyone to shine a light on the need to improve research and care for people with brain cancer.

It is a great privilege and honour to take forward this work, which we hope will boost life-saving research and transform brain cancer care in the way that Tessa called for.

The research fund will initially consist of £65 million, and we will aim to increase it each year as high quality research proposals that can boost outcomes for people diagnosed with brain cancer emerge. £40 million in Government funding will be bolstered by £25 million from Cancer Research UK, on top of the £13 million it spends each year on research and development of cancer treatments.

This research will be backed by new clinical commitments – including a national rollout of one of the key brain cancer diagnosis tests, gold standard dye, which is used to identify tumours. This dye is currently only used in half of brain cancer centres in England.

There is also a new commitment to accelerate the use of adaptive trials – to test different treatments at the same time and speed up the process.

In addition, the UK Government will host a new Tessa Jowell global symposium, which will bring together the best clinical, scientific and academic minds on brain cancer, in order to identify gaps, best practice and priorities in research.

Each year around 11,400 people in the UK are diagnosed with a brain tumour and just 14% of people survive their disease for 10 or more years. It is hoped the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission will stimulate innovative new research and clinical practice to boost outcomes of people diagnosed with brain tumours.

A Downing Street spokesperson said:

The Prime Minister held a telephone call with the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani this afternoon.

The Prime Minister reiterated the UK’s position that we and our European partners remain firmly committed to ensuring the Iran nuclear deal is upheld. She said it is in both the UK and Iran’s national security interests to maintain the deal and welcomed President Rouhani’s public commitment to abide by its terms, adding that it is essential that Iran continues to meet its obligations.

The Prime Minister made clear that the UK condemns the Iranian missile attacks against Israeli forces and called on Iran to refrain from any further attacks. She said it was important to avoid provocative actions to ensure peace and security in the region.

The Prime Minister also raised the issue of consular cases relating to dual nationals currently held on charges in Iran and called for further progress to be made so individuals could be released on humanitarian grounds.

Both leaders agreed the importance of continued dialogue between the two countries, and looked forward to the meeting of UK, German, French and Iranian foreign ministers in Brussels on Tuesday where they will be joined by the EU’s foreign affairs High Representative Federica Mogherini to discuss the Iran nuclear deal and next steps.

The FCO has provided consular support to both British Nationals and their families throughout.

The British Ambassador to DRC, John Murton said: « The UK would like to thank the DRC authorities and MONUSCO for their assistance in resolving this kidnapping. I would like in particular to praise the courage and commitment shown by the ICCN and the Virunga Park authorities over the past three days.

My deepest condolences are with the family, friends and colleagues of Rachel Makisa Baraka, the Virunga ranger killed during the kidnapping.
I wish the driver injured during the incident a speedy recovery. The bravery and determination of all the staff of Virunga is vital for the conservation of animals in the park, and the protection of local communities. »

Minister for the Middle East, Alistair Burt MP said:

Today was an historic day for Iraq. I congratulate the Iraqi people on another successful election.

I also congratulate the Iraqi security forces and electoral authorities for ensuring a peaceful and orderly ballot in a challenging environment including regrettable reports of attacks aimed at disrupting today’s vote.

We look forward to the announcement soon of the full and final result and will work with all political groups to encourage formation of an effective, inclusive government that addresses the needs and hopes of all Iraqi citizens.

The UK and Iraq enjoy a strong bilateral relationship, share great hopes for the future and a commitment to work together in our common interest. We look forward to working with the next government to help deliver stability, security and prosperity for all Iraqis.

Further information

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