Earlier this year we surveyed the sector to get a better understanding of how fraud is affecting charities and what we can do to develop an effective counter-fraud culture in future.

We will be sharing the results of our fraud survey during Charity Fraud Awareness Week next month (21 to 25 October 2019).

Recent analysis of reported frauds reveals that charities are continuing to fall victim to the most prevalent threats, such as Mandate, CEO fraud and phishing – all types of ‘social engineering’, involving manipulation or impersonation, usually by email.

These scams can put your charity’s valuable funds, infrastructure and reputation at risk, but they can be highly sophisticated and hard to detect, fooling even the most experienced and senior people across all sectors.

To help you report fraud quickly and effectively we recently introduced a new online form to report serious incidents in your charity. This can be used whenever you need to report a serious incident to the Charity Commission.

The new online form has made it much easier to report incidents so that you can quickly take further action to minimise harm.

If you think your charity has been targeted it is important to speak out and report this, so we can better identify the risks and help others across the sector.

You can take vital steps to protect your charity from harm by getting involved in this year’s fraud campaign International Charity Fraud Awareness Week. We are encouraging everyone in the sector to get involved to help fight fraud. You can:

If you have a positive story to tell about fighting fraud or cybercrime in your charity you can enter the Charities Against Fraud Awards for recognition of best practice. There are award categories for large and small charities.

Thank you for that warm welcome.

I would like to start by paying tribute to Andy Green. Hearing his words and his call for the future has stressed to me both how much has been done and how much there is left to do. I want to thank him for everything he has done for the sector. I also want to welcome Will into the role and look forward to working with you in the months and years ahead.

I’d heard a great deal about the National Space Conference, and I’m delighted finally to be here.

Of course, a few weeks ago I thought that I’d be watching jealously from the sidelines, having been moved as a minister to the Department of Health.

But as Graham Peters knows, even then I couldn’t be kept away from space policy, and ended up making one of my first speeches as Health Minister on the importance of space tech for delivering better patient outcomes.

For me, the vital importance of space technology isn’t simply about what happens up there. It is here on earth that space has the opportunity to make the greatest impact, whether that is in better health screening and diagnosis, improving our telecommunications, delivering smart cities and autonomous vehicle networks, or helping to safeguard our environment as Andy has so eloquently spoken about.

A few months ago, while I was interim Energy Minister, I signed into law the commitment for net zero carbon emissions by 2050 into law, ensuring that the UK became the first G7 country to do so.

Yet to understand the nature of the challenge, and how we will meet it, we need satellite technology and improved earth observation to deliver the measurements needed, just as it has been satellite technology that has exposed the true scale of global warming.

That’s why I’m delighted the Prime Minister has today announced £20 million for new space weather forecasting and technology. The effects of adverse space weather, such as solar winds, can disrupt key satellites, damage spacecraft electronics and cause problems across GPS and mobile phone networks. It’s a problem that many of you in this room will know only too well, but there are still worrying gaps in our knowledge of how to properly forecast these events.

It is vital that we can build up our national capability to predict these phenomena and assess their seriousness. This new £20 million fund will allow us to develop a truly strategic UK approach to space weather, from research right the way through to operations.

And when it comes to the UK’s strengths in satellites, only last week, I was visiting the National Physical Laboratory, discussing the potential of the TRUTHS mission. This new mission will allow us to recalibrate earth observation data from satellites all around the world, painting a picture of our changing climate that is more accurate than ever before.

TRUTHS is just one of the many missions that the UK will be looking for partners with when we attend the European Space Agency (ESA) ministerial meeting in Seville this coming November.

I want to put on record that I believe ESA is a remarkable organisation, which allows the UK access to a wider £6 billion space market for shared research in space.

And if ESA did not exist, someone would have to invent it. I have always said, and will say again and again, that while we are leaving the EU, we will not be leaving ESA.

Our involvement with ESA in the past year alone has delivered the launch of the Bepi Columbo mission to Mercury, the formal naming of the Rosalind Franklin rover for the Mars mission which I was delighted to attend at Stevenage Airbus, and we’ve made a commitment that British ESA staff working in Europe, and also European ESA staff working in the UK, will enjoy the same rights as one another.

And when I attend the ESA Ministerial in November, I myself will be making strong representations that as a nation, we will need to increase our ESA contribution, to strengthen our collaborations and to lead the way in lunar communications.

And we will also seek to extend our international partnerships with other space agencies. I’m delighted to see in the programme that I’ll be meeting representatives from over 10 space agencies, and I’d like to thank them all for making the trip to Newport. In the past few months, as Space Minister, I have announced partnerships with the Portuguese Space Agency, and on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, a new agreement with UK Space Agency (UKSA) and NASA to commit to work together on future projects.

And this morning the UK is celebrating another agreement, with Australia, to develop a ‘space bridge’ between our two nations. It’s a sign that as the United Kingdom we are taking a truly global approach to space.

As your Space Minister, I also want to ensure that we are in pole position to deliver on the commitments and ambitions that I have already set out in my previous speeches, to increase our global market share in space to 10%, while at the same time invest in exciting new projects that will place the UK at the forefront of space innovation.

A key part of this is to build on the unique position that the UK can play in the future of space launch. Back in June, I was delighted to announce that Spaceport Cornwall and Virgin Orbit will push forward with work to develop facilities to enable small satellite launch, thanks to a £20 million funding package from UKSA, but also Cornwall Council. This is in addition to the £31 million we have invested in vertical launch at Sutherland.

And today, we have announced an additional £1.3 million to be invested into planning for three potential spaceports around the UK. Firstly, we’ll be investing almost £500,000 in Snowdonia Aerospace, to develop a plan for a new centre for space R&D, training and satellite launch in North Wales, working in partnership with exciting companies like B2Space and Deimos. This will build on Snowdonia’s distinguished heritage in experimental flight testing.

I hope you will all agree that this Snowdonia Spaceport Development Plan marks an exciting leap forward for Wales’ role in space. It is something that we should be very proud of.

Secondly, we’ll be investing £488,000 for the spaceport cluster plan in Argyle, centred on an aerodrome with the longest runway in Scotland. It’s great to see that Reaction Engines, who I visited up in Culham, who are developing the innovative SABRE rocket engine, are also involved in that project.

And thirdly, we’re providing just over £300,000 to Cornwall Council for an Accelerated Business Development and Research Project at Spaceport Cornwall. This will support Cornwall’s ambition to be a centre for future flight technologies and follows the positive vote by the Council’s cabinet last week in support of their £12 million funding for the project. We all know the potential that investing in space technology for the future can bring the UK.

I don’t need to sell to you here in this room the returns that every pound spent on space can deliver.

But I also recognise that my unique responsibility, as your ministerial representative, is not just to fight for the maximum investment, welcome though that is.

My mission is to ensure that space and space technology remains at the forefront of our future. That means ensuring that the rest of government, equally, takes space as seriously as I do.

I’m delighted that 2 other ministers Graham from DIT and Anne-Marie from MOD can be with us today – and they will be speaking shortly. Space is a cross-government, critical national infrastructure.

It deserves and requires cross-government attention too.

This is why I’ve called for a National Space Council, to be led at cabinet level, informing the delivery of a new National Space Framework for government.

And I was delighted that this call has now been agreed to. Work is now beginning on both the Council and Framework, and I look forward to playing a key role in this.

I will also welcome the active involvement of the space industry in advising the Council.

But I want to also turn my attention to what I believe passionately, must be also a priority for the future of space.

And that’s you: the people who make innovation in space technology happen; the people who do the research, who make the breakthroughs, who vitally underpin a sector which has thrived in recent years. I want, as your minister, to help create not just new jobs, but also to create sustainable long-term careers in the space sector.

I want to ensure that we don’t just invest in technologies, but in the people who make them happen.

That means not only investing more in early career research, in my joint role as Universities minister I’m determined to do that, but improving the conditions and working lives of those starting their journey in space research and innovation.

It also means ensuring that we make the UK a more friendly place, a more accessible place to come and live and work for all brilliant and talented scientists and researchers, no matter where you have come from.

For we can invest all we want in space: it will mean nothing if we cannot attract the talent we need to make it happen.

So you have my word, that I will do all I can, to create a milder climate for science and research, to create the freedom of talent that the UK desperately needs.

For we cannot afford to let talent go: if we do so, we lose and others win.

Every time in am in my constituency, I drive past a small cottage in Oldland Common, on the outskirts of Bristol. On it is a small blue plaque, stating that it was the childhood home of Sir Bernard Lovell, one of the world’s great astro-physicists.

As I drive past, as a historian I’m constantly reminded of the world-leading role that the UK has played in space in the past.

From Essen’s discovery of the Atomic Clock at the National Physical Laboratory.

To the scientific sensors on Huygens, designed at the Open University, allowing us to analyse Titan’s atmosphere and ground for the first time.

To only this year, when it was British instruments developed at Imperial College and Oxford University, that detected the first sounds on Mars.

Yes, this is our past, it is a heritage to be proud of.

But I also believe that, when it comes to space, there is no better time to be alive.

We now, today, have the chance to create, to fashion our own heritage.

A heritage that can be one of the UK playing a leading role in space and space technology for the twenty first century. A heritage built not merely on investment, but on supporting its people.

So let’s fight together for that investment, fight for that support, and fight for a heritage that can be ours.

Thank you.

The United Kingdom thanks the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for her update and welcomes the 27th report of the Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

Fighting continues in and around civilian areas of eastern Ukraine. In this reporting period, we have seen an increase in casualties and injuries. Of the sixty citizens who were injured, nine were children; 3,339 civilians have died since the conflict started. We call on both sides to do more to protect civilians.

We are concerned by the crackdown on the right to freedom of expression in illegally annexed Crimea, particularly in cases where Russian anti-extremism legislation has been applied to content posted on social media before the annexation. We condemn Russia for failing to comply with UN General Assembly resolution 73/263, and urgently call on Russia to allow international monitoring organisations unhindered access to the peninsula.

The recent release of the 24 Ukrainian servicemen and political prisoners, such as Oleg Sentsov, was long overdue. However, there are still over 70 Ukrainian political prisoners detained in Crimea and Russia. This includes 23 Crimean Tatar activists detained during house raids in March 2019. We call on Russia to release all Ukrainian political prisoners.

We welcome this year’s successful Pride Equality Marches, including the steps taken by the Ukrainian authorities to ensure that participants were able to enjoy their rights freely and safely.

Madam High Commissioner,

What more can the international community do to highlight and tackle the continued persecution of Crimean Tatars in illegally annexed Crimea?

Published 24 September 2019
Last updated 22 October 2019 + show all updates

Thank you very much for that welcome and I’m very, very proud to be standing here in front of this incredible creation which of course symbolises my message to you this morning.

Because it is designed by the same man who sculpted the beautiful domes of the London Routemaster bus.

I’m proud also to be the first Prime Minister of the UK to be born in New York – a very, very, very expensive decision that that turned out to be.

And it’s a very exciting time in our country, we’re getting on with delivering Brexit and I just want to say a word or two about that.

Because there’s been a court case in our country this morning of which I – it would be remiss or wrong of me not to address that directly and we’ve got our friends from the UK media here as well – and I just want to say to everybody watching back home for the avoidance of doubt, I have the highest respect of course for our judiciary and the independence of our courts

But I must say, I strongly disagree with this judgement, and we in the UK will not be deterred from getting on and delivering on the will of the people to come out of the EU on October 31st.

Because we were mandated to do.

And we will simultaneously refuse to be deterred from delivering on what I think you will all expect to be an exciting dynamic, domestic agenda intended to make our country even more attractive to live in and to invest in.

So we are pushing on with infrastructure, investing in police, investment in our NHS and to do that we will need a Queen’s speech to set out what we are going to do.

And I think frankly, that is what the people in my country of the UK want to see.

They want to see us delivering on getting on with a strong domestic agenda and believe you me, they want to see Brexit delivered by October 31st.

Anyway that’s what you need to know about what’s happening in the court today.

But I can tell you that under any circumstances, court judgements or otherwise my heart lifts when I come to New York.

There’s something amazing, the snap, fizz, the energy in this city.

I love the blue sky, against the sky scrapers, the weird strange Martian water towers on the tops of the buildings.

It’s the things that in New York you never find anywhere else.

But there are many ways in which New York and London are not just similar but actually united.

And it isn’t just that we share a language – kind of.

We have a basic idea of freedom, the idea that common to our democracies.

That if you obey the law and you do no harm to others then you can come and live your life as you please.

Without being judged or censured.

And it is the excitement of that freedom that brings people of talent to New York as it brings people to London.

And so you get this cyclotron effect the flash of inspiration that leads to innovation and to prosperity and growth.

And very often it will be a synthesis between American and British ideas.

We invented for instance the underground train.

You invented the safety brake elevator – take them together and you’ve got the recipe for a metropolis.

And you can see the same fusion today across our cities in every sphere from tech to the arts to newspapers.

You know the figures, actually they’re going up I think around 1.2 million US people employed by UK companies and a million or more in the UK,

Trade now worth 200 billion a year, going up the whole time.

Colossal investment.

But to cut to the chase, we now want to do so much more – because our country is going up.

And on October 31 the UK intends to be more global, more outward-looking and more committed to the rest of the world than ever before.

And we are going to take advantage of all the freedoms that Brexit can give.

Whether that is new tax allowances for investment.

Or speeding up public procurement contracts.

Or creating new free ports and enterprise zones.

Or devising better regulation for sectors in which the UK leads the world – whether that’s bioscience or financial services or whatever.

More competitive tax rates and the best skilled workforce in the hemisphere.

And so I say to everybody who’s done me the honour of coming this morning to this breakfast, we will roll out the red carpet for our American friends.

And we are increasing the number of visas for scientists.

We are ensuring that your brilliant students can stay on for two years so as to get real value from their studies.

And so that our economy in the UK benefits from their expertise.

We are even ensuring that US visitors are able to use the electronic e-passport system at Heathrow.

And yes – we want to do the much wanted free trade deal. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy because there will be things that we do not want our NHS to be on the table, and there will be differences.

And I am glad that President Trump has set up the special relationship economic working group.

Because it is absolutely absurd that there should be tariffs on Californian wine.

Or that British shoppers should be pay over the odds for Florida orange juice.

But it is also absurd and indefensible that the population of America to the best of my knowledge has gone for decades without eating a morsel of British lamb, or beef.

Let alone haggis.

And I have discovered that anyone wanting to sell socks to the United States.

I think they at least face a tariff of up to 19 per cent. I was told that some kinds have been taken to a laboratory and set fire to twice.

There are only certain ports in the United States that are licenced to receive British cauliflower.

And the US military are banned from buying British tape measures as though there was still some kind of general prejudice still against British rulers.

So I ask you, my friends, is this really necessary?

Let us work together to break down these barriers that have been devised by bureaucrats.

Because all the evidence of the last two centuries is that free trade is the fastest and most effective way to increase the prosperity of our people.

This year our country the UK takes a giant step out into the world.

In keeping with our traditions but also with our new ambitions.

To build on our friendships and relationships with our friends in Europe, the US and Canada.

We do it with confidence to make Britain the best place in the world to start, to build and to run a business.

The place you will want to be.

The place you will want your business to be.

And that’s why I say to everyone here – come and join us.

Thank you very much.