Category: Gov Press Releases

Councils across England are set to receive a further £18 million to help alleviate pressures on local services such as housing, education and health services resulting from recent migration.

The government recognises that local authorities understand their local communities best and can identify specific pressures on services that can result from high, concentrated or short-term migration. Councils receiving these grants have developed specific plans to ease local pressures arising from migration and at the same time providing overall benefits to their wider communities.

Communities Minister Lord Bourne said:

In some places population change in a short space of time has put pressure on local services and we’re clear there are things we can do to address these problems.

This new funding will help councils rise to the challenge of reducing the impact of migration on local communities in a variety of ways – whether that’s tackling the small minority of landlords who damage neighbourhoods with overcrowded properties, providing English language classes to ensure effective integration.

The grants are the second allocations from the £100 million Controlling Migration Fund, following an initial allocation of £15 million awarded earlier this year.

Many of the projects supported will provide English language lessons to allow new residents to contribute to and feel part of their communities. They will also include education around British values and social norms, breaking down cultural barriers.

The fund is helping to ease pressures on local services but there’s still more work to do to bring net migration down further to sustainable levels. That is why government has reformed routes to the UK from outside Europe, and will get control of our borders and negotiate the right deal in the national interest in our Brexit negotiations.

Lord Bourne added:

It’s great to see so many projects tackling the problems of poor integration in their communities by, for example, allowing migrants to access the benefits of good English. This will create stronger relationships between neighbours and unlock better services for all.

Boston council in Lincolnshire will receive over £1 million to fund a wide range of integration projects, including additional sport and gym facilities where there is pressure on services, community sport sessions and encouraging volunteering from all communities.

Boston borough council Leader Councillor Michael Cooper said:

We’ve been awarded this money in recognition of the impact that migration has had locally. Our partnership will focus on doing things that our residents have told us are important to them.

We will extend the availability of advice services, enforcement capacity, community leadership and volunteering opportunities and importantly, we will support the development of English language skills to support people to communicate effectively with public services to help save time and money and increase efficiency and effectiveness.

Peterborough’s project will help new residents navigate services and provide additional capacity for the whole community. Citizen’s Advice Peterborough is receiving £288,000 to provide advice in a range of locations across the city and help an additional 4,000 clients a year from across the community.

Councillor Irene Walsh, Peterborough City Council Cabinet Member for Communities said:

We are delighted to receive this funding from the Controlling Migration Fund as it will allow even more people to benefit from the valuable service provided by Citizens Advice Peterborough in more locations across the city.

Further information

The Controlling Migration Fund is designed to support local areas facing pressures linked to recent immigration. See further details in the
Controlling Migration Fund allocations table
(PDF, 37.4KB, 13 pages)

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This funding will supplement local authorities’ budgets of £200 billion across the 4 year period up to 2020.

The Fund is available over the 4 years from 2016-17 to 2019-20, and is in 2 parts:

• ‘local service impacts’ totalling £100 million, led by the Department for Communities and Local Government, to help local authorities in England and their communities experiencing high and unexpected volumes of immigration to ease pressures on local services
• enforcement, led by Immigration Enforcement, worth £40 million to direct enforcement action to reduce the impact of migration on local communities; Immigration Enforcement are on track to meet their commitments under the Fund, including through supporting Rochdale’s Operation Maverick
• the government has been reviewing the available evidence on the main causes of poor integration; in the coming months we will bring forward plans for tackling these issues through a new integration strategy, to help people in more isolated communities, including migrants, to integrate into UK society

A former Dragon’s Den contestant, jailed for 13 child sex offences, including sexual assault has had his jail sentence increased to 7 years 3 months.

Richard Hazell, 48 from Hoddeston, Hertfordshire was arrested when his abuse came to light after the father of one of his victim’s made a complaint to social services. His original sentence of 4 years and 9 months was increased by 2 years 9 months following intervention by the Attorney General Jeremy Wright QC MP under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme.

Hazell, was convicted earlier this year for sexually assaulting four girls, one as young as 6 and was found to have nearly 3000 indecent images of children on a computer seized by police. He denied the offences in Court and was convicted only after a lengthy trial where it was revealed he had searched ‘can you be found guilty for downloading child porn if the files are deleted on your computer’ prior to his arrest.

Following the successful appeal the Attorney General said:

“Child sexual offences aren’t singular events, they are truly dreadful offences that will stay with victims for the rest of their lives. They take away a child’s innocence and diminish their capacity to form relationships.

Refusing to admit his offence, despite overwhelming evidence needlessly prolonged the suffering of the victims. I am pleased that the sentence has been increased.”

The Court of Appeal has today increased the sentence of Manchester man, Nadeem Muhammed who was convicted of trying to take an improvised explosive device onto a plane.

On 30 January 2017, Muhammed was stopped by security staff at Manchester International Airport on his way to Bergamo in Italy. A small pipe bomb was found in the zipped lining of his carry-on suitcase, which he was planning on detonating on the plane.

Muhammed, 43, was convicted at Manchester Crown Court in August of possessing an explosive with intent to endanger life or property and was sentenced to eighteen years imprisonment with an extended licence period of five years.

Following a referral by the Attorney General Jeremy Wright QC MP under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme, the Court of Appeal has today increased Muhammed’s sentence to one of 22 years with an extended licence period of 5 years.

Speaking after the hearing, the Attorney General said:
“This is a very disturbing case that could have had a devastating impact.

“I am pleased that the Court of Appeal has sent a strong message, that this type of offending merits very significant sentences.”

The Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) report published today (9 November 2017) presents the findings of its research which involved speaking with work coaches, policy experts, employers and a small number of working recipients of Universal Credit.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has embarked on an ambitious programme of in-work support through Universal Credit which is without precedent internationally. This extends conditions and support to people in low paid work only applying to unemployed claimants previously, with the goal of increased earnings and reduced benefit payments. The current ‘test and learn’ approach takes the form of a randomised control trial (RCT) testing the impact of different frequencies of work coach intervention.

The committee believes that DWP is right to be cautious given the very large number of households in scope. Of the 590,000 people receiving Universal Credit, 39% (230,000) are working. While it is not known how many people in work will get Universal Credit when it replaces tax credits, in 2015-16, 3 million families received in-work tax credit payments totalling £20.5 billion. While it is too soon to draw firm conclusions on how the current in-work approach is faring, SSAC concludes that DWP should:

• Test a much broader range of interventions, including those identified by work coaches in local jobcentres, taking account of personal and local circumstances.
• Establish a clear evaluation framework to enable local testing, while drawing on the central analytical capacity to ensure rigorous evaluation.
• Avoid constraining work coaches with tightly-prescribed targets. However, policy and guidance needs to clarify the variety of reasons people have for working part time (for example, having young children, having a disability or long-term condition, early phase self-employment, studying or re-training) if work coaches are to use discretion appropriately.
• Develop a richer understanding of working claimants and employers in key sectors. It is particularly important for DWP to understand routes into low paid work and the diverse circumstances of low paid households before any large scale migration of tax credit recipients onto Universal Credit.
• Take a data-driven approach to segmenting people’s circumstances, drawing on skills, work experience and attitudinal data.
• Fix the delays and complexity reported by Universal Credit claimants which may hinder in-work progression. The rules for couples are particularly complicated. Universal Credit needs to provide predictable support if it is to really help people increase their earnings. A better ‘it pays to progress’ calculator is needed for both recipients and work coaches to have greater confidence.

Paul Gray, Committee Chairman said:

As tax credits migrate into Universal Credit, DWP is making a major shift from its traditional role of helping the unemployed into work towards supporting those already in low paid work to increase their earnings. This is a major challenge no other country has attempted on this scale. Our report highlights ways in which this focus on in-work support can best be tailored and improved.

Chris Goulden, Chair of the committee’s Independent Work Programme sub-committee said:

The department is currently examining the effectiveness of different techniques of work coach contact, but this trial is quite narrowly focused. Our research highlights the breadth and complexity of in-work progression, as well as the wide range of affected groups – which includes both employers and working claimants. The committee would encourage the department to set out its broader aims on in-work progression as well as take up our recommendation to enable a broader and more innovative set of practices to be tested.

Contact the committee

The Queen has approved the nomination of the Right Reverend Dr Helen-Ann Macleod Hartley, MTheol, ThM, MPhil, DPhil, Bishop of Waikato in the Diocese of Waikato and Taranaki, in New Zealand, to the Suffragan See of Ripon, in the Diocese of Leeds in succession to the Right Reverend James Harold Bell, MA, on his resignation 30 April 2017.

Bishop Helen-Ann (44) was born in Edinburgh, and grew up in Sunderland. She was educated at the University of St Andrews, Princeton Theological Seminary in the USA, and Worcester College, University of Oxford, where she is an Honorary Fellow. She trained for ordination on the St Alban’s and Oxford Ministry Course, and was ordained deacon in 2005, and priested in 2006. She was Curate in the Benefice of Wheatley, and then in the parish of Littlemore, both in Oxford Diocese. In 2008 she was appointed Lecturer in New Testament at Ripon College Cuddesdon, and later Director of Biblical Studies. In 2012 she became Dean for the New Zealand Dioceses at the College of St John the Evangelist in Auckland. She was elected Bishop of Waikato in August 2013, and was consecrated on 22 February 2014.

Bishop Helen-Ann has published with SPCK, and is a regular contributor to the Daily Reflections series for Church House Publishing. She has also contributed to the Pilgrim course.

She is married to Myles, an organist and church musician. Her interests include the night sky, contemporary fiction and visual arts, going to the gym, and watching netball.

Tougher restrictions on neonicotinoid pesticides are justified by the growing weight of scientific evidence they are harmful to bees and other pollinators, Environment Secretary Michael Gove said today.

Setting out the UK’s position, the Secretary of State said the UK supports further restrictions on the use of these pesticides. Unless the scientific evidence changes, the government will maintain these increased restrictions post-Brexit.

This follows advice from the UK government’s advisory body on pesticides which said scientific evidence now suggests the environmental risks posed by neonicotinoids – particularly to our bees and pollinators – are greater than previously understood, supporting the case for further restrictions.

Research estimates the value of the UK’s 1,500 species of pollinators to crops at £400-680million per year due to improved productivity.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said:

I have set out our vision for a Green Brexit in which environmental standards are not only maintained but enhanced.

I’ve always been clear I will be led by the science on this matter. The weight of evidence now shows the risks neonicotinoids pose to our environment, particularly to the bees and other pollinators which play such a key part in our £100bn food industry, is greater than previously understood. I believe this justifies further restrictions on their use. We cannot afford to put our pollinator populations at risk.

I recognise the impact further restrictions will have on farmers and I am keen to work with them to explore alternative approaches both now and as we design a new agricultural policy outside the European Union.

Since December 2013, the EU has banned the use of three neonicotinoids – Clothianidin, Imidacloprid and Thiamethoxam – on a number of crops attractive to bees, such as oilseed rape.

The European Commission has proposed restricting the same three neonicotinoids to only allow their use on plants in glasshouses. Currently, their use is banned for oilseed rape, spring cereals and sprays for winter cereals, but they can be used to treat sugar beet and as seed treatments for winter cereals.
Should this proposal be adopted, the UK would have the right to consider emergency authorisations. We would only do so in exceptional circumstances where there is a real need for the products and the risk to bees and other pollinators is sufficiently low.

Defra’s Chief Scientific Advisor Professor Ian Boyd said:

The important question is whether neonicotinoid use results in harmful effects on populations of bees and other pollinators as a whole.

Recent field-based experiments have suggested these effects could exist. In combination with the observation of widespread and increasing use of these chemicals, the available evidence justifies taking further steps to restrict the use of neonicotinoids.

Defra has today also given an update on its National Pollinator Strategy, which shows encouraging progress on its aims to make farms, towns, cities and the countryside better places for our bees and pollinators.
The strategy was launched in 2014, following independent research which showed an overall decline in the UK’s wild bee diversity over the last 50 years. It sets out a collaborative plan to improve the state of bees and other pollinators, and recognises pesticides as one of the key threats to their populations. The government will continue to work with partners such as Friends of the Earth, British Beekeepers’ Association and Kew to deliver the ambitious strategy.

Attorney General Jeremy Wright QC MP will meet with University of Birmingham students and staff when he visits the law school today (Thursday 9 November).

The Attorney, who is the Government’s Pro Bono Champion, is making the visit as part of National Pro Bono Week – a nationwide campaign to increase understanding and interest in pro bono work.

The University won an award for Outstanding Contribution by a Law School at the Attorney General’s Pro Bono awards earlier this year.
The Attorney will meet law students who give free legal advice to some of the most vulnerable people in the community, on issues including family and employment law.
The University runs a number of different projects that enable students to get involved in a range of activities, while allowing them to develop their knowledge of how the law operates in the real world.
The Attorney General said:

“Pro bono work often starts at universities and colleges, where students gain first-hand experience of providing legal advice and help to those in need.

“I strongly encourage both students and established lawyers to explore what sort of pro bono help they might be able to provide, as it will enhance their careers and make a real difference to those who receive it.”

Professor Michael Whitby, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Head of the College of Arts and Law at Birmingham Law School said:

“We are delighted to be welcoming the Attorney General to Birmingham Law School during National Pro Bono Week. Our Pro Bono Group represents a significant commitment by staff and students at the University of Birmingham to making a positive difference to our community at global, national and international level.

“This initiative is generously supported by members of the city of Birmingham’s legal profession. The Group’s focus on increasing access to justice accords with the core values of our civic university and exemplifies Birmingham’s commitment to developing graduates with attributes and experiences that make them competitive and valuable employees.”

The Attorney, who superintends the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), will also visit the CPS West Midlands office in Birmingham.

CPS West Midlands recently underwent an inspection by Her Majesty Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate with inspectors roundly praising performance. They found hate crime conviction rates had much improved from previous inspections, and that the Area had been working well to improve outcomes for victims and witnesses.