UEFA European Football Championship 2028: Funding and Benefits
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)
In 2028, UK and Ireland will host the UEFA European football championship. This will be the largest sporting event ever jointly staged between our nations, spreading benefits across the whole of the UK and Ireland. The impact and legacy of the tournament will start far before the first ball is kicked and extend far beyond the final whistle. It will champion the power of football, including its ability to bring people together in stadiums, fan zones and communities across the UK and build cohesive communities.
To enable a safe and successful tournament, the UK Government have confirmed a funding contribution of up to £557 million for planning and delivery costs. This has been benchmarked against best practice in the delivery of major events to ensure it provides value for money, as well as the necessary funding to maximise the benefits of hosting, support host cities, and deliver on our legal obligations. Funding contributions will also be provided by the devolved Governments and Government of Ireland, host cities, and UEFA, which is are primarily responsible for ensuring successful delivery.
As part of this funding, the UK Government will contribute £23 million towards a wider commitment from Government and football partners to a central legacy and impact fund of around £45 million, which will deliver socioeconomic benefits for communities across the UK and Ireland. Following an updated assessment, hosting the tournament is forecast to generate £3.6 billion in socio- economic benefits across the UK and Ireland, with £3.2 billion expected for the UK alone.
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UK Commission on Covid Commemoration Report: Government Response
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The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Lisa Nandy)
Five years ago the world as we knew it stopped. Covid-19 affected everyone in so many different ways, and many continue to feel those impacts.
Today, the Government have published its official response to the report of the UK Commission on Covid Commemoration which sets out a programme of commemorative activity to mark this unique and challenging period in our country’s history. This response has now been presented to both Houses of Parliament.
I want to place on record my thanks to the right hon. the Baroness Morgan of Cotes and all the commissioners for the care and consideration the commission gave to the report and for its ongoing advice as we have carefully reflected on the recommendations. This Government are grateful to the devolved Governments, with whom we have worked closely to ensure that the response to the commission’s reflects the efforts of individuals and groups across the United Kingdom.
The impact of covid-19 on all of our lives will never be forgotten. My thoughts are with the many families who suffered the devastating loss of a loved one during this time. As Secretary of State, I have had the privilege of meeting with a number of covid-19 bereaved family groups that have worked closely with us in developing this programme. I have heard at first hand the traumatic impact of not being able to be with their loved one, to hold their hand, to say goodbye.
I pay tribute to the covid-19 bereaved families groups for their tireless voluntary efforts to provide networks of support to help others feel less alone or isolated in their grief, while carrying their own. I am also grateful for their input to the commission and their ongoing work with my Department in developing this programme. As we remember and honour their loss, we are committed to continuing to work together as this programme is delivered.
The pandemic saw our communities come together in extraordinary ways to help and support each other in the most difficult of times. We saw acts of courage and dedication from the key workers who kept vital services running, and the millions who volunteered to support others in their time of need. We thank all those who worked so hard to keep our country going and these acts of service will be remembered as part of this commemorative programme.
In March, we marked the fifth anniversary of the pandemic with the covid-19 day of reflection, with events held across the country allowing people to remember in a way that was meaningful to them. In contrast to the experiences of isolation and separation we felt during the pandemic, the day of reflection was a chance for us to come together to remember the lives lost, the sacrifices made, and the impacts that many continue to feel. We will come together again on Sunday 8 March 2026 for this important day.
We will create dedicated webpages on gov.uk to provide information on covid-19 commemoration. This will include a repository of oral histories to ensure that the experiences of the pandemic are not forgotten, as well as details on the many covid-19 memorials that have been created across the country. Working in partnership with NHS Charities Together and Forestry England we will create new covid-19 commemorative spaces that reflect the importance of nature and the outdoors throughout the pandemic and provide spaces for contemplative reflection.
This Government are determined to learn the lessons from the covid-19 pandemic and build our national resilience. I have heard movingly from those who lost a loved one that they do not want others to experience their suffering. As the commission recommended, we will launch a new UK-wide fellowship scheme on natural hazards, delivered by UKRI. to support future national resilience as part of the commemorative programme to honour the loss and sacrifice.
In Parliament, we look across the River Thames to the national covid memorial wall. Nearly a quarter of a million hand-painted hearts span the wall as an outpouring of love created by the bereaved, for the bereaved. This memorial matters greatly to the whole country. I want to thank the friends of the wall for their tireless commitment and dedication to care for the wall. As we commemorate the pandemic, we are committed to working with the friends of the wall and the local partners to preserve the wall.
Through this programme of commemoration we will ensure that those we lost are honoured, that we remember the sacrifices and resilience of so many during this unprecedented time in our history, and that as a country we do not forget.
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Safeguarding Children
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The Secretary of State for Education (Bridget Phillipson)
The whole country remembers with profound sadness the tragic murder of Sara Sharif by her father and stepmother in August 2023. Aged just 10 years old, the unimaginable cruelty of Sara’s death at the hands of those who should have been her first and brightest source of love and care shocked us all.
Justice has been served, and Sara’s father and stepmother are now serving life sentences. But as a society our response to this appalling case cannot end there. Just as we were a nation united in our grief for that precious little girl, now we must be united in our resolve to do whatever possible to prevent this from happening again.
Child protection professionals work tirelessly to improve the lives of vulnerable children across the country, often under challenging circumstances. I know they will have been just as horrified as the rest of us by what happened to Sara. But as a child protection system—and as a wider society—we must be brave enough to look ourselves in the eye and be open and honest about what went wrong. As the Prime Minister has said, questions must be answered.
Today’s publication of the local child safeguarding practice review into the case by the Surrey Safeguarding Children Partnership is part of that vital process. The review provides an independent reflection on the changes required to protect children like Sara. Across all agencies concerned, it highlights mistakes that were made and opportunities that were missed.
I want to assure the House that this Government are treating the findings of the review with the strongest possible seriousness. We are already acting to close gaps, to strengthen safeguarding and to keep children safe. The first steps are set out in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will sharply improve the clarity of information sharing and help make sure that children not in school (including those in elective home education) are safe.
The introduction of compulsory children not in school registers will empower local authorities to better identify children who need support and protection, as will the accompanying duties on parents of eligible children and out-of-school education providers. The measures will ensure that the most vulnerable children cannot be withdrawn from school until it is confirmed that doing so would be in their best interests. Local authorities will have to assess the home learning environment when determining whether an electively home educated child’s education is suitable or whether it is in the best interests of the most vulnerable children. Where it is not, local authorities will have the power to require these children to attend school.
Local support services matter too. By building on the evidence from programmes like Supporting Families, and more than doubling investment in prevention services, we are giving families and children access to the better services they need in their communities. That is how we will break the cycle of late intervention and help more children and families to stay safely together. The Families First Partnership programme, which started in April this year, will drive the national roll-out of Family Help, multi-agency child protection and family group decision-making reforms contained in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. The Bill also includes a new duty for safeguarding partners to create the multi-agency teams in every area. They will bring experts together across social work, police, health and education to identify actual or likely significant harm and take decisive action to protect children. And new Family Help services will mean a single offer of support, delivered by the right people at the right time, reducing the need for multiple handovers between different professionals and unnecessary assessments for families and children.
Co-ordination is key. The review highlights that agencies and practitioners failed to “join the dots” to recognise the dangers faced by Sara once she moved in with her father and stepmother. We want agencies and practitioners to spend less time chasing information and more time acting on the full picture about a child. A new duty in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill clarifies that practitioners must share relevant information where it relates to safeguarding or promoting a child’s welfare. It applies even without parental consent, allows practitioners to request information and covers information about other people around the child. We are also improving case management systems, developing consistent data and introducing a single unique identifier to improve data linking and stop children falling through the cracks of services.
Tackling domestic abuse and violence against women and girls is a priority for this Government. We will improve how courts respond to allegations of domestic abuse within private law children proceedings, including through the introduction of the pathfinder pilot courts, now operational in nine areas. We will put the child’s voice at the heart, adopting a multi-agency approach to boost co-ordination and improve the family court experience for all parties.
We will tackle the causes of abuse too, growing the roots of a safer society for all. That is why we have updated the relationships, sex and health education curriculum to support positive relationships and help children to recognise abusive behaviour from an early age. And we know that to protect women, girls and all our children, we must back our workforces. We are upskilling social workers, investing in national graduate training routes, introducing a new two-year early career training programme for all new children’s social workers, and rolling out new training on advanced child protection. This includes new post qualifying standards to help improve the quality of practice and retention. Domestic abuse, including coercive and controlling behaviour, will feature prominently in the new programme that flows from the PQS.
We are also working with Foundations to generate evidence on what works to prevent domestic abuse and support families. The evidence will target how to consistently measure outcomes across different interventions, and how to support the recovery of babies, children and young people. Looking to the future, the cross-Government VAWG strategy is due to be published shortly. The strategy will set out how we will halve VAWG in a decade—as well as the further measures we will take to support the victims and tackle the perpetrators.
These are the first steps we as a Government are taking. But we know we must go further—as this review of Sara’s case makes plain. We will consider the findings with all the care and consideration they deserve, and we will continue to strengthen the way we protect children in this country. But keeping children safe is a duty that spreads right across society. So, I hope that in the wake of this terrible loss, we will all come together and live up to our shared responsibility.
While the shocking brutality of her murder is impossible to forget, we must do our best not to remember Sara only in that context of cruelty. She deserves to be known for who she was, not just for what she suffered through. Sara was a 10-year-old girl full of personality, blessed with a lovely smile and a loud laugh. She liked to sing and dance. She loved her siblings. It is those precious memories of Sara that must now strengthen our resolve to give every child the full and happy life that she was so tragically denied.
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Energy Infrastructure National Policy Statements
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The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
Having considered the responses to the consultation, I am pleased today to be able to present three revised energy national policy statements for parliamentary approval. This represents an important milestone towards achieving the Government’s clean power and net zero ambitions. National policy statements are a crucial part of ensuring the planning system is fit for purpose. These revised NPSs provide greater clarity to developers and decision makers on Government policy concerning specific types of energy infrastructure projects and ensure that decisions are made in an accountable way by Ministers.
Investment in our nation’s infrastructure is key to enable the growth the UK needs. The revised energy NPSs will ensure the UK has diverse sources of electricity generation, and that we remain at the forefront of low- carbon technological development.
The revised NPSs I am laying before Parliament today under section 9(8) of the Planning Act 2008 set out national policy in key energy policy areas:
EN-1 covers the overarching needs case for different types of energy infrastructure.
EN-3 deals with renewable electricity generation.
EN-5 deals with electricity networks.
The supporting appraisal of sustainability and habitats regulations assessment provides detailed environmental assessments of the updated NPSs.
I am today also publishing the Government response to the consultation, to which there were over 180 responses, and providing the Government response to the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, which reviewed the NPS updates.
I will deposit copies of all these documents in the Libraries of both Houses and they are available on gov.uk.
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Small Modular Reactor Programme: Site Allocation
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The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
Today I am pleased to inform the House that the Government have selected Wylfa in north Wales as the site to host the Government-backed small modular reactor programme.
Thanks to record investment the Government are making in our nuclear power sector, Britain is entering a golden age of new nuclear. The Government’s SMR programme, led by Great British Energy-Nuclear, is putting the UK at the forefront of nuclear innovation, creating long-term economic benefits and good jobs in local communities, while opening up significant export opportunities. At the spending review the Chancellor committed over £2.5 billion to support the UK’s ambition to lead the global race for SMRs, and announced that following a rigorous selection process GBE-N had identified Rolls-Royce SMR as preferred bidder, subject to final Government approvals and contract signature.
Following careful consideration, Wylfa, on the north coast of Anglesey (Ynys Môn), is the Government’s chosen location for GBE-N’s SMR project.
Wylfa is one of the UK’s best nuclear sites, with a proud legacy and the capacity to host a fleet of SMRs. The initial project will see the construction of up to three Rolls-Royce SMR units, with GBE-N assessing the site to have the potential to host up to eight units, although this would be subject to future policy and funding decisions.
This decision will deliver once-in-a-generation opportunities for both Wales and communities across the country. For communities in Wales, building SMRs at Wylfa will create up to 3,000 new high skilled jobs at peak construction, attracting long-term investment and delivering an essential part of the UK’s energy future—while supporting thousands more jobs across Britain’s world-leading supply chain.
GBE-N looks forward to working with Welsh communities as this exciting project develops, with work set to start at the site in 2026. We will be progressing the SMR project across this Parliament and working towards a final investment decision.
But progress on SMRs alone is not the end of the Government’s ambition. We have taken decisive action by making the biggest investment in new nuclear for a generation at the spending review, with Sizewell C having subsequently reached a final investment decision. On top of this, we have agreed a major expansion of US-UK collaboration, as we progress a new framework so Britain can attract the best nuclear innovation from around the world. We are also spurring the modernisation of nuclear regulation through the ongoing Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce.
Large-scale nuclear power stations will continue to make a vital contribution in our home-grown clean energy mix, complementing SMRs. Therefore, to pursue the option of a further large-scale reactor project beyond the current deployments at Hinkley Point C and the recently confirmed Sizewell C, the Government are announcing that Great British Energy-Nuclear has been tasked with identifying suitable sites that could potentially host such a project. GBE-N will report back by autumn 2026 on potential sites to inform future decisions at SR27 and beyond.
In any study, GBE-N would also be asked to look at site opportunities in Scotland, expanding on its commission to assess Scotland’s capability for new nuclear power stations, including in areas that have benefited from nuclear in the past. This would seek to build on Scotland’s rich nuclear heritage with the Government believing new nuclear could bring significant benefits in communities there.
Finally, I am pleased to confirm to the House that the former nuclear power site at Oldbury in Gloucestershire, which is also owned by GBE-N, remains under active consideration for future projects. GBE-N will continue early work to evaluate the Oldbury site to ensure it is ready for future deployment as part of our broad nuclear programme, including the potential to support any privately-led projects that might be developed by the nuclear industry. Our intent would be to utilise the site as soon as is possible and GBE-N looks forward to ongoing positive engagement with communities around Oldbury.
This Government’s commitment to nuclear energy is unwavering—on SMRs, on advanced reactors and on Sizewell C we are making rapid progress towards delivering long-term energy security for the UK. We will continue to act decisively, invest ambitiously, and work with communities, industry and international partners to deliver this golden era of new nuclear—and with it jobs, investment and growth right across the country.
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Police Reform
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The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
Today I have announced, through an oral statement, proposals to strengthen police governance by abolishing police and crime commissioners at the end of their current term in 2028.
Police governance functions will be transferred either to mayors of strategic authorities or, where this is not possible, to elected council leaders through new police and crime boards. We will work with the Welsh Government to ensure these arrangements reflect the unique circumstances of Wales.
This reform reflects our view that the model of police governance needs to change, and is not a reflection on police and crime commissioners themselves. They and their staff have made a difference across the country to improve policing and keep the public safe.
This is the first in a series of reforms that will be set out in the forthcoming police reform White Paper to drive quality, consistency and efficiency in policing and ensure it is set up to deliver for the public.
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AI Growth Zones
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Kanishka Narayan)
I am publishing a Command Paper delivering AI growth zones, setting out the Government strategy to ensure the United Kingdom remains a global leader in artificial intelligence by building the infrastructure that underpins AI development and deployment, creates jobs right across the UK and grows the economy.
Artificial intelligence is transforming economies and societies worldwide. Being an AI maker, rather than an AI taker, is a critical goal of our modern industrial strategy and today we set out how we will build out the UK’s AI data centre capacity to underpin this frontier industry and support the growth sectors of the UK. This is a strategic opportunity to drive growth, strengthen national security and improve public services. To seize this opportunity, we must build secure, resilient and sustainable compute capacity here at home.
The AI growth zones programme will accelerate the delivery of large-scale AI data centres by removing barriers to construction and creating the best possible environment for investment, while maximising the benefits for local people. The package announced today sets out:
A new north Wales AI growth zone, creating 3,450 jobs locally and delivering opportunities across both energy and technology sectors.
Reforms to accelerate grid connections, including prioritising connections for AI growth zones and enabling developers to build their own high-voltage infrastructure.
Targeted electricity price support for data centres in locations that strengthen the grid and reduce system costs.
Planning reforms in England to streamline approvals, update national policy guidance, and protect land for AI growth zones.
Measures to maximise local benefits, including an initial £5 million per site to benefit local communities.
A dedicated AI growth zone delivery unit, acting as a single front door for investors and co-ordinating delivery across Government.
Taken together, these measures have the potential to unlock up to £100 billion in private investment and create over 10,000 jobs.
Over the past 12 months we have secured over 70 billion of investment in AI infrastructure. Now, this ambitious programme will go further to secure our economic future and drive investment into parts of the country that have long been overlooked, securing the future of AI for local areas through new industries, skilled jobs and lasting economic growth.
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