Kieran Mullan

The Department continues to work with representatives of the tour industry, devolved administrations, trade unions and other government departments on the issue of educational trips.

The guidance for full school opening enables schools to resume educational day visits, but continues to advise against overnight educational residential visits. This advice will remain under review and will be updated in line with guidance from Public Health England, the Cabinet Office and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The guidance can be viewed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools.

The importance of a secure food supply chain founded upon high-welfare farming, to conserving and protecting wild animals, animal welfare has never been more important.

On 12 May, Defra published the Action Plan for Animal Welfare setting out the Government's plans on animal welfare for this Parliament and beyond. The document provides a high-level overview of more than 40 policy reforms we intend to tackle covering farm animals, pets, sporting animals and wild animals.

Now we have left the EU and our transition period has ended we have the opportunity to go further than ever in protecting our animals. In areas that were previously under the jurisdiction of EU law we can now more freely make our own reforms and fulfil our manifesto commitments on animal welfare.

To enact these plans the Government has an ambitious programme of legislation. We have taken our first steps with the introduction of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill and the introduction of the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill. We intend to legislate further in an Animals Abroad Bill. Secondary legislation on many of the policy areas set out in the Action Plan for Animal Welfare will also be introduced in the coming months. Non-legislative work will be progressed in parallel. Where we have committed to gather further evidence ahead of introducing any changes we will work closely with stakeholders and the public on this.

Towards our ambition to protect our native species and address biodiversity loss in England, we will be amending the Environment Bill to require an additional target for species abundance for 2030, aiming to halt the decline in nature. The Bill also introduces a range of ambitious measures including, for example, mandatory biodiversity net gain in the planning system. Furthermore, we will publish a Green Paper later in 2021, setting out how our protections framework might better deliver this and our wider domestic ambitions.

We are also looking to the action needed on the ground and continuing to work with stakeholders to determine the specific actions that will be paid for by our new schemes that will reward environmental land management. We are launching at least 10 long-term Landscape Recovery projects between 2022 and 2024 to restore wilder landscapes through long-term land use change and support the establishment of a Nature Recovery Network. Additionally, the Nature Recovery Network Delivery Partnership is currently bringing together representatives from over 400 organisations to drive forward the restoration of protected sites and landscapes and help create or restore at least 500,000 hectares of new wildlife-rich habitat across England.

The £80 million Green Recovery Challenge Fund has also kick-started a pipeline of nature-based projects to restore nature, tackle climate change and connect people with the natural environment.

In 2019, the Government published our Resources and Waste Strategy, which included our commitment to a target of 65% of municipal waste to be recycled by 2035. To help us achieve this target, we have committed to introducing major reforms to the waste sector: Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging (EPR), a deposit return scheme for drinks containers (DRS); and consistency in household and business recycling collections.

We published consultations for these measures in 2019. Following support for the proposals in the consultations, the Environment Bill sets out the primary legislation to establish these reforms. We published second consultations on these reforms in 2021, which provide further detail on the policies consulted on previously, including implementation timelines for the introduction of these new measures. The consultation on consistency in household and business recycling is still open and closes on 4 July 2021: https://consult.defra.gov.uk/waste-and-recycling/consistency-in-household-and-business-recycling/

Collectively, these reforms will help to increase the quantity and quality of material recycled. They will also help to increase participation in recycling by reducing confusion over what can be recycled and making it easier to recycle both at home and away from home.

We are committed to protecting and restoring our vulnerable peatlands in England, helping us to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, and protecting valuable habitats and the biodiversity therein.

We recently published our England Peat Action Plan which sets out further measures to restore, protect and manage England's peatlands. These measures include our commitment to publish a consultation this year on banning the sale of peat and peat containing products in the amateur sector by the end of this parliament. We are addressing the degradation of lowland peat and launched the new Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force in January 2021, which will develop recommendations to extend the useable life of our agricultural peat soils.

We are also ramping up current levels of peatland restoration through the Nature for Climate Fund, which will provide funding for the restoration of at least 35,000 hectares of peatland by 2025. We will set a target for peatland restoration as part of the forthcoming Net Zero Strategy which will be consistent with our obligations to meet Carbon Budget 6. The Heather and Grass etc. Burning (England) Regulations 2021 came into force on 1 May 2021, banning the burning, without a licence, of specified vegetation on protected blanket bog habitats.

This Government is seizing the opportunities of our G7 and COP26 Presidencies to drive international action on the environment. We have negotiated a historic 2030 Nature Compact committing to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, agreed by Leaders at the G7 Summit in Carbis Bay, and G7 Climate and Environment Ministers' agreed an ambitious communique with over 120 commitments. The UK is also committed to playing a leading role in developing an ambitious post-2020 global biodiversity framework to be adopted at CBD COP15 and to secure ambitious environmental commitments at UNFCCC COP26.

The UK also played a leading role in developing the Leaders' Pledge for Nature which I am pleased to report that 89 world leaders have now signed. Furthermore, 80 countries now support an international target to protect at least 30 per cent of the world’s ocean by 2030 through membership of the UK-led Global Ocean Alliance or the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, which the UK co-chairs with Costa Rica and France.

We are leading by example. We have committed to spend at least £3bn of International Climate Finance on nature over the next five years and launched the £500m Blue Planet Fund. Domestically, we are introducing a world-leading legally-binding target for species abundance by 2030 in the Environment Bill, aiming to halt the decline of nature.

The Government has completed four rounds of negotiations since the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations were launched last June. The fifth round of negotiations began on the 8^th June.

Overall, negotiations have been positive, pragmatic and productive. The Government has made good progress and is now negotiating on all areas of the FTA.

The UK and New Zealand both remain eager to make further progress, with a view to working towards an agreement in the coming months.

The Australian Minister for Trade, Dan Tehan, visited the UK on 22^nd – 23^rd April to meet my Rt hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade and me face-to-face, for the first time since his appointment in December. Over the course of two days of intensive discussions, the UK and Australia reached consensus on most elements of a comprehensive free trade agreement, including ambitious provisions on services, innovation and mobility. Australia is set to liberalise tariffs on UK goods, from sparkling wine, to cars, to pottery.

Both countries are confident that the remaining issues will be resolved, and are now working to agree the outstanding elements with the aim of reaching agreement in principle later this month.

The Department’s economic analysis, published on 17 June 2020, seeks to identify the potential scale of the long-term additional benefit to the UK from having a deal with Australia. This analysis suggested the North West could be one of the regions expected to benefit most from a UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

Clothing is one of the North West’s top goods exports to Australia, and this increased from 2019 to 2020. Liberalisation of tariffs on clothing (currently up to 5%) and reducing other non-tariff barriers to trade should further benefit this industry.

Likewise, another of the North West’s top exports to Australia, automotives, could also benefit from the removal of tariffs (currently up to 5% on road vehicles) and other non-tariff barriers to trade.

Following the conclusion of negotiations, a full impact assessment will be published prior to implementation.

The Government has had five rounds of negotiations so far. Almost all chapter areas are now in the advanced stages of talks, and a significant proportion of legal text has been agreed across multiple chapters.

The US is currently reviewing the progress made in the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), so far, following the appointment of the United States Trade Representative, Katherine Tai. The Government has been engaging constructively on the way the FTA can align with both countries’ commitments to Building Back Better.

An ambitious UK-US FTA can support transatlantic collaboration rebuilding from Covid-19, promoting sustainable and clean growth and women’s economic empowerment, while setting global standards in digital trade and protecting intellectual property.

The UK is a world leader in professional and business services. In 2019, the UK exported £63 billion of professional and business services (PBS), with a trade surplus of £34 billion.

To support the success of this important and diverse sector, the Department for International Trade is seeking ambitious commitments in its free trade agreements (FTAs) on cross-border trade in services, investment, mobility, and digital trade, which will reduce trade barriers, and provide certainty and transparency for UK professional and business service suppliers.

The Government is also using FTAs to foster regulatory dialogue and collaboration across all PBS sectors. This can help reduce administration and costs for UK professionals and firms seeking to supply services overseas.

Crewe is a vital railway asset and a strategically important location on the rail network, but as the existing infrastructure is complex, the solution has to be right for the arrival of HS2. In March 2018, the Secretary of State confirmed the Government’s support for the Crewe Hub vision, and announced that plans for HS2 Phase 2a will include 400m platforms at Crewe station to allow for the splitting and joining of HS2 services. In addition, a more efficient design is proposed for the platform on the Manchester independent lines and a change to the design of the southern connection to the HS2 lines.

Crewe is already a hub on the existing rail network and following a consultation in 2016, the Government confirmed its vision for a ‘Crewe Hub’, with up to 5 to 7 HS2 trains stopping per hour.​ Fully realising the Crewe Hub vision will require a junction north of Crewe back to the HS2 Phase 2b mainline and the design is being developed as part of the Northern Powerhouse Rail Strategic Outline Business Case.

Crewe is a vital railway asset and a strategically important location on the rail network, but as the existing infrastructure is complex, the solution has to be right for the arrival of HS2. In March 2018, the Secretary of State confirmed the Government’s support for the Crewe Hub vision, and announced that plans for HS2 Phase 2a will include 400m platforms at Crewe station to allow for the splitting and joining of HS2 services. In addition, a more efficient design is proposed for the platform on the Manchester independent lines and a change to the design of the southern connection to the HS2 lines.

There were 499 responses received to the consultation on Phase 2a that closed on 26 February, 2021. For three recent consultations on HS2, there were 326 (Phase 2b Western Leg Design Refinement Consultation 2 2020), 1,307 (Phase 2b Design Refinement Consultation 2019) and 27 responses (Phase 2a Additional Provision 2 Environmental Statement and Supplementary Environmental Statement 2019). This information is made available online once the consultation responses are published.

In response to Covid-19, the Department for Transport established its Aviation Restart, Recovery, and Engagement Unit at the beginning of the pandemic. The objectives of the unit are to support the restart of the sector, enable its safe recovery post Covid-19, and the Unit has engaged with industry throughout this process.

As part of the Aviation Restart, Recovery, and Engagement Unit, the Department established the Expert Steering Group to engage and consult with the sector regularly. This Group has supported work done to date including the development of the aviation sector health measures guidance and implementation of the International Travel Corridors. In addition, Ministers and officials continue to meet with Airlines, Airports, Ground Handling companies and industry bodies frequently throughout the crisis.

The Government has now also launched the Global Travel Taskforce, which is considering:

• How a domestic testing regime for international arrivals could be implemented to boost safe travel to and from the UK and allow UK residents to travel with confidence;
• What steps we can take to facilitate global business and tourist travel, including through bilateral agreements and multilateral forums by exploring with key international partners issues such as global common standards, testing models, “bubbles”, measures around enforcement, exemptions and other border management measures;
• What steps we can take to increase consumer confidence, ensure existing measures are being properly adhered to and restart international travel safely.

The Global Travel Taskforce is also engaging with the sector on these points.

The Care Act 2014 introduced rights for carers, which means they now have legal rights to an assessment of, and support for, their needs where eligible.

We are working with local authorities, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure, the safe resumption of day services and other forms of respite care. We have also provided funding through the £1.4 billion Infection Control Fund which has been used to support the reopening of day and respite services and worked with Social Care Institute of Excellence to publish guidance on safe re-opening.

The next Spending Review will set out the Government’s plans for health and social care spending in future years.

The Government has announced the first women’s health strategy for England to improve the health and wellbeing of women. To ensure the strategy reflects what women identify as priorities, the Government launched a call for evidence on 8 March until 13 June. The evidence gathered through the call for evidence will inform the priorities, content and actions for the strategy. We will respond to the call for evidence after the summer and we aim to publish the strategy later this year.

We are committed to our ambitions in the NHS Long Term Plan to expand and transform mental health services in England. We are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year in mental health services by 2023-24, so that two million more people will be able to access mental health support. We are introducing new models of care which will give 370,000 adults with serious mental illness greater choice and control over their care and treatment, supporting them to live well in their communities.

We have published the Mental Health Recovery Action Plan, with a one-off targeted investment of £500 million, part of which will be used to accelerate key commitments in the NHS Long Term Plan. The Government published its white paper on Reforming the Mental Health Act on 13 January, to give people greater control over their treatment and receive the dignity and respect they deserve. Legislation will be brought forward when Parliamentary time allows.

Public Health England (PHE) analyses COVID-19 genomic data together with epidemiological data to derive information on mutation, variants and transmission.

This analysis is fed into health protection activities such as local outbreak management, detection and characterisation of novel variants permitting more accurate predictions of the trajectory of the pandemic, output into policy including the border risk assessment and the roadmap tests and the vaccination programme. In addition, PHE’s data and analysis contribute to international control activities.

The Government has increased financial support to civil society organisations and independent media to support the environment for inclusive political dialogue in Belarus.

The UK's support for opposition groups in Belarus is focused on supporting the democratic rights of the people of Belarus, including through an inclusive national dialogue to end the current crisis. The Foreign Secretary discussed the political situation in Belarus with the opposition leader in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, on 2 June. Mrs Tikhanovskaya has praised the UK's actions on Belarus to date and discussed what further measures the UK might take. The Foreign Secretary looked forward to meeting Mrs Tikhanovskaya in the UK as soon as it was possible for her to visit.

We have seen three clear breaches of the Joint Declaration in the last year, and therefore now consider China to be in a state of ongoing non-compliance with the Joint Declaration. As the Foreign Secretary wrote in the foreword of the most recent Six-monthly Report on Hong Kong covering the period of July - December 2020, the National Security Law has been used to drastically curtail the space for the expression of alternative political views and deter freedom of expression and legitimate political debate.

We remain concerned by the political situation in Ethiopia due to the impact of the continued fighting in the Tigray region and ethnic and political tensions and violence elsewhere in Ethiopia. I have a long-standing concern about the deterioration of political freedoms in Ethiopia, and I raised the delay to elections with President Sahle-Work during the 17 May Sudan Conference in Paris. On 14 April, the British Ambassador met, alongside Ambassadors and representatives from other Embassies in Addis Ababa, the Deputy Prime Minister and Attorney General and pressed concerns about the narrow political and civic space and arrests of candidates. This builds on discussions the Foreign Secretary had with Prime Minister Abiy during his visit to Ethiopia on 22 January this year, which also included the situation in Tigray.

I joined a meeting of development ministers from key donor nations, including USAid Administrator Samantha Power, on 9 June to further discuss the situation in Tigray. We agreed that the humanitarian situation is of grave concern, and that enhanced support is needed. The UK will allocate a further £16.7 million to respond to the crisis, bringing our total spend on Tigray to £47.7 million since November 2020. Whilst we scale-up our response, it is clear that the humanitarian crisis will not end whilst the conflict continues. We must see an end to fighting and the withdrawal of Eritrean forces.

The Chancellor set out the Government’s strategy on financial services to the House in November, a vision of a sector that is more open; more technologically advanced; and a world-leader in the use of green finance, serving the communities and citizens of this country.

Since then we have passed a Financial Services Act to begin the necessary reforms to our framework, and agreed text with the EU for a regulatory cooperation forum paving the way for a more stable relationship.

In addition, we have set out our response to Ron Kalifa’s review of UK Fintech to ensure we continue to build on our existing strengths as a world leader in financial technology. We’ve also set out how we will take forward each of the recommendations in Lord Hill’s recent Listings Review that were addressed to the Treasury, and shared our plans to consult on reforms to the wider capital markets regime this summer, with the aim of supporting competitiveness, whilst ensuring the UK maintains high regulatory standards.

We are encouraging employers of all sizes to hire new apprentices through our employer hiring incentives. Employers who hire a new apprentice of any age until 30^th September will receive £3,000 per apprentice. These payments build on the scheme originally launched as part of the Plan for Jobs: between 1^st August 2020 and 4^th May 2021, nearly 53,000 payments have been claimed by employers.

We are also continuing to improve the apprenticeships system for employers by: introducing more flexible training options, such as the front-loading of training and accelerated apprenticeships; making the transfer of unspent Levy funds to SMEs easier through the introduction of a new pledge function and employer matching service in August 2021; and supporting apprenticeships in industries with flexible working patterns, including through the launch of a £7m fund in July 2021 to help qualifying employers set up and expand the flexi-job apprenticeship scheme. These improvements will help put employers more firmly in the driving seat, enabling them to utilise apprenticeships in ways that suit their business needs and encouraging them to take on more apprentices.

This year the Government has provided an unprecedented business rates holiday for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties, and nurseries, due to the direct adverse effects of COVID-19, worth over £10 billion. In the 2020 Spending Review, the Government committed further support to businesses by freezing the business rates multiplier for 2021-22.

The Government recognises the important contribution that nurseries and childminders are making to the national response to COVID-19. In the Spending Review we announced that we’re providing £44 million next year to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers. This is on top of the additional £66m increase confirmed in Spending Round 2019.

In order to ensure that any decisions best meet the evolving challenges presented by COVID-19, the government will outline plans for 2021-22 reliefs in early 2021.

This government is committed to tackling domestic abuse, which is why we recently passed the landmark Domestic Abuse Act, to support and protect all victims of domestic abuse. Alongside this, this year we will publish a domestic abuse strategy that will go beyond the implementation of the Act to help transform our response to domestic abuse; to prevent offending, protect victims and ensure they have the support they need.

We know that victims of domestic abuse may feel particularly vulnerable at this time, which is why last year the Government launched our #YouAreNotAlone awareness raising campaign to signpost support available. The campaign has reached over 30 million UK adults and has been seen by over 130 million followers on social media.

In January, we also launched the ‘Ask for ANI’ Codeword scheme to enable domestic abuse victims to seek victim focussed support, including engagement with specialist victim support services and the police as necessary. Over 5,000 pharmacies across the nation are now participating in the scheme, and the scheme has been used by over 60 victims and survivors.

We have provided unprecedented new funding to victim support services to ensure that they have the capacity to provide support to victims and adapt their operational capacity in light of the impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic. To that end we have awarded £27 million in additional funds to support domestic abuse services last financial year alone, comprising £25 million from the government’s £76 million in emergency funding for the most vulnerable in society, and an extra £2 million from the Home Office in April 2021 to bolster the capacity of domestic abuse organisations affected by the pandemic.

In November 2020 the Ministry of Justice announced a further £11 million towards a range of services offering practical and emotional help – allowing domestic abuse and specialist rape organisations to recruit more staff, adapt to remote counselling methods during the pandemic and keep helplines open for longer.

In 2021-22, the Ministry of Justice will provide just under £151m for victim and witness support services. This includes an extra £51m to increase support for rape and domestic abuse victims, building on the emergency funding from this financial year to help domestic abuse and sexual violence services meet Covid-driven demand. Of this funding, £27 million will go to creating more than 700 new posts for Independent Sexual Violence and Independent Domestic Abuse Advisers helping us to meet demand for support from victims.

This government is committed to tackling domestic abuse, which is why we recently passed the landmark Domestic Abuse Act, to support and protect all victims of domestic abuse. Alongside this, this year we will publish a domestic abuse strategy that will go beyond the implementation of the Act to help transform our response to domestic abuse; to prevent offending, protect victims and ensure they have the support they need.

We know that victims of domestic abuse may feel particularly vulnerable at this time, which is why last year the Government launched our #YouAreNotAlone awareness raising campaign to signpost support available. The campaign has reached over 30 million UK adults and has been seen by over 130 million followers on social media.

In January, we also launched the ‘Ask for ANI’ Codeword scheme to enable domestic abuse victims to seek victim focussed support, including engagement with specialist victim support services and the police as necessary. Over 5,000 pharmacies across the nation are now participating in the scheme, and the scheme has been used by over 60 victims and survivors.

We have provided unprecedented new funding to victim support services to ensure that they have the capacity to provide support to victims and adapt their operational capacity in light of the impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic. To that end we have awarded £27 million in additional funds to support domestic abuse services last financial year alone, comprising £25 million from the government’s £76 million in emergency funding for the most vulnerable in society, and an extra £2 million from the Home Office in April 2021 to bolster the capacity of domestic abuse organisations affected by the pandemic.

In November 2020 the Ministry of Justice announced a further £11 million towards a range of services offering practical and emotional help – allowing domestic abuse and specialist rape organisations to recruit more staff, adapt to remote counselling methods during the pandemic and keep helplines open for longer.

In 2021-22, the Ministry of Justice will provide just under £151m for victim and witness support services. This includes an extra £51m to increase support for rape and domestic abuse victims, building on the emergency funding from this financial year to help domestic abuse and sexual violence services meet Covid-driven demand. Of this funding, £27 million will go to creating more than 700 new posts for Independent Sexual Violence and Independent Domestic Abuse Advisers helping us to meet demand for support from victims.

The Government is clear foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by committing crimes should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them.

Any foreign national who is convicted of a crime and given a prison sentence is considered for deportation at the earliest opportunity and since January 2019 we have removed 7,985.

For non-European Economic Area (EEA) nationals, deportation will be pursued where it is conducive to the public good including where a person receives a custodial sentence of 12 months or more, commits an offence that caused serious harm or is a persistent offender. European Economic Area (EEA) and Swiss citizens, and their family members, who are protected by the EU Withdrawal Agreement Act 2020 are considered for deportation on public policy and public security grounds where it concerns conduct (including any criminal convictions relating to it) committed on or before 31 December 2020.

Our New Plan for Immigration will make it easier to deport foreign criminals with no right to be in the UK and keep our citizens safe.

The Home Office publishes data on the number of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) returned from the UK in each quarter in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly release’. The latest data, published on 27^th May 2021, can be found in tables Ret_02 and Ret_02q of the returns summary tables. The latest data relate to the calendar year 2020.

The Government is determined to crack down on the scourge of violence devastating our communities, and tackling violent crime, including knife crime, is a priority.

Violent crime can have devastating and long-lasting impacts on victims, families and communities. This is why the Home Office has invested over £136.5 million over three years (19/20 – 21/22) to support the police to take targeted action in the 18 areas in England and Wales most affected by serious violence; £105.5m, over three years, in Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) to tackle the root causes of violence; £200m over ten years in the Youth Endowment Fund for early intervention and prevention; and this year we announced an additional investment of up to £23 million for new early intervention programmes that will help stop young people from being drawn into violence.

Across England and Wales, we are recruiting 20,000 additional police officers and increasing the amount of funding available to the policing system for 2021/22 by up to £636 million, totalling £15.8 billion. 8,771 additional police officers have been recruited as part of the Police Uplift Programme at 31 March this year, all working to keep our communities safe.

We also continue to strengthen the law on knife crime and serious violence. The Offensive Weapons Act 2019 introduced Knife Crime Prevention Orders (KCPO). These preventative orders enable the courts to place positive intervention requirements as well as other measures including prohibition to carry a knife on individuals to help the police steer those most at risk away from serious violence and to set them on a more positive path.

In March the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was introduced. The bill includes a duty on public sector bodies to take a joined-up approach to addressing serious violence; the requirement for local agencies to review the circumstances when an adult homicide takes place involving an offensive weapon; and Serious Violence Reduction Orders, which give the police the power to stop and search known knife and offensive weapons carriers.

The Government is determined to crack down on the scourge of violence devastating our communities, and tackling violent crime, including knife crime, is a priority.

Violent crime can have devastating and long-lasting impacts on victims, families and communities. This is why the Home Office has invested over £136.5 million over three years (19/20 – 21/22) to support the police to take targeted action in the 18 areas in England and Wales most affected by serious violence; £105.5m, over three years, in Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) to tackle the root causes of violence; £200m over ten years in the Youth Endowment Fund for early intervention and prevention; and this year we announced an additional investment of up to £23 million for new early intervention programmes that will help stop young people from being drawn into violence.

Across England and Wales, we are recruiting 20,000 additional police officers and increasing the amount of funding available to the policing system for 2021/22 by up to £636 million, totalling £15.8 billion. 8,771 additional police officers have been recruited as part of the Police Uplift Programme at 31 March this year, all working to keep our communities safe.

We also continue to strengthen the law on knife crime and serious violence. The Offensive Weapons Act 2019 introduced Knife Crime Prevention Orders (KCPO). These preventative orders enable the courts to place positive intervention requirements as well as other measures including prohibition to carry a knife on individuals to help the police steer those most at risk away from serious violence and to set them on a more positive path.

In March the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was introduced. The bill includes a duty on public sector bodies to take a joined-up approach to addressing serious violence; the requirement for local agencies to review the circumstances when an adult homicide takes place involving an offensive weapon; and Serious Violence Reduction Orders, which give the police the power to stop and search known knife and offensive weapons carriers.

We take the wellbeing of our personnel and their families extremely seriously, and have put in place enhanced COVID-19 secure measures in our establishments to limit the risk of COVID-19 transmission. In addition, we are looking at what further testing could be implemented following the UK Government's recent announcement to roll out asymptomatic testing for key workers and those unable to work from home.

In March we announced a new £56 million Welcome Back Fund (WBF) to support a safe and successful reopening of our high streets and seaside resorts, giving people the reassurance that they can shop and socialise in a COVID-secure way as restrictions ease.

The WBF expands on the £50 million Reopening High Streets Safely Fund (RHSSF) announced in May 2020, doubling local authority funding allocations and significantly increasing the scope of eligible activity to give people safer options to reunite with friends and family.

This funding builds on the comprehensive £385 billion package of support to help businesses that have been affected by COVID-19 including Business Grants and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. This is in addition to longer-term, structural funding to support our high streets and town centres such as the £3.6 billion Towns Fund and £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund.

As the recent Queen’s Speech set out, the Government has committed to bringing in a Better Deal for Renters to deliver a fairer and more effective rental market that works for both tenants and landlords

We will bring forward proposals to reform tenancy law to abolish Section 21 evictions and improve security for tenants in the private rented sector, as well as strengthening repossession grounds for landlords when they have valid grounds. Proposals for a new ‘lifetime’ deposit model will also be outlined, to ease the burden on tenants when moving from one tenancy to the next. We are also committed to raising standards in privately rented accommodation, and driving out rogue landlords, including by ensuring all tenants have a right to redress, and ensuring well targeted, effective enforcement that drives out criminal landlords

A White Paper detailing this reform package will be brought forward in the Autumn, informed by engagement with stakeholders across the sector to ensure our reforms deliver change that works for all.

The National Planning Policy Framework acknowledges the importance of green and open space and makes clear that where new development is proposed an appropriate amount of public space should be provided. It is also set out that existing open space should not be built on unless there is evidence to demonstrate that it is no longer required, or it will be replaced by equivalent or better provision at a suitable location.

The Framework also sets out how both local and neighbourhood plans allow communities to identify and protect green areas which they consider to be of particular importance, by formally designating these as Local Green Space.

In addition, the National Model Design Code, which we have recently consulted on, sets out proposals for how nature and green spaces should be woven into the fabric of our villages, towns and cities, providing benefits in terms of health and wellbeing, biodiversity, climate and flood mitigation.

This government is serious about fighting crime, protecting the public and creating a criminal justice system that people have confidence in. Delivering on our manifesto promises, we are committed to introducing tougher sentencing for the worst offenders and to preventing automatic early release for serious crimes. But we must also give offenders a fair start on the road to rehabilitation, and we are introducing tougher, more effective community sentences which address the causes of offending.

On the 9^th March the government introduced the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (PCSC Bill). This legislation will bring forward the new, smarter approach to sentencing set out in the Sentencing White Paper published in September 2020.

The PCSC Bill includes measures to ensure that serious sexual and violent offenders spend as much of their sentence behind bars as possible in order to reflect the severity of their crimes. It will end automatic halfway release from prison for an additional cohort of serious sexual and violent offenders, and make a Whole Life Order the starting point for the premeditated murder of a child. It will also double the maximum penalty for assaulting an emergency worker.

However, protecting the public is not just about better use of custody. The PCSC Bill will make community sentences more effective by extending the use of electronic monitoring, enabling the piloting of a problem-solving approach for certain community orders, and simplifying the Out of Court disposal framework.

Work is also underway on the non-legislative reforms set out in the Sentencing White Paper, which aim to tackle the underlying cause of criminal behaviour and improve the rehabilitation of offenders in the community.

The Government is committed to ensuring that the worst offenders are kept behind bars to protect the public, and that the safety of our children is paramount when sentencing sex offenders.

We have already legislated to end automatic halfway release for offenders who have committed a specified sexual offence, including child sexual offences, for which the maximum penalty is life and who receive a sentence of 7 years or more. Such offenders now have to serve two-thirds of their sentence in prison before being released to serve the final part of their sentence on licence and under supervision in the community.

We are going further in the sentencing White Paper, A Smarter Approach to Sentencing, to ensure that serious offenders spend more time in prison, to properly reflect the gravity of their crimes. We are proposing to legislate to extend the requirement to serve two-thirds of the sentence to other sexual offenders who receive sentences of between 4 and 7 years. Also under our proposals, offenders who commit serious sexual assaults against children and receive a Sentence for Offenders of Particular Concern (SOPC), will be required to serve two-thirds of their sentence, instead of the current half, before they can come before the Parole Board for consideration for release.