Lord Ahmad said:

Seventy years ago, the Commonwealth of Nations had eight members. These countries were united in their desire to work together in pursuit of peace, freedom and progress. Since then, the Commonwealth’s membership has grown to 53 countries, encompassing nearly a third of the world’s population.

To celebrate the Commonwealth’s 70th anniversary, I am delighted that all 53 member states agreed an affirmation of the Commonwealth, reaffirming their commitment to the core values and principles of the Commonwealth Charter, celebrating the successes of the last seven decades, and looking forward to ambitious achievements in the future.

As well as celebrating the Commonwealth’s 70th anniversary, at the 19th meeting of Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers at Marlborough House on 10 July, we reviewed progress made since last year’s Heads of Government Meeting in London, made progress towards governance reform, and looked ahead to next year’s meeting in Rwanda.

The Commonwealth plays a unique role in the world, and we will continue to work within it towards a more secure, prosperous, fair and sustainable future.

This is the first site to be progressed as part of a partnership between Homes England and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) to develop surplus MoD land across the country.

The Ripon site will provide up to 1,300 new homes and commercial space over the next few years as the land becomes available.

Following an initial event with stakeholders including Ripon City Council and Harrogate Borough Council to discuss a vision for the future of the site, Homes England is now planning a series of community engagement events later this summer.

Marie Kiddell, Head of Public Sector Land at Homes England said:

“We are working hard to define our masterplan for Ripon Barracks and are keen to work with the community to ensure we are addressing the needs of the local area. Following the community engagement events, we will be working with DIO towards submission of a planning application later this year.”

Catherine Davies, DIO Head of Estates, said:

“The MOD has an ongoing commitment to invest in a more fit for purpose Defence estate that will better support the Armed Forces’ future needs, this brings an exciting opportunity to deliver benefits to the local community on the Ripon Barracks site once it becomes surplus.

“DIO is pleased to be working with Homes England on this project to develop a range of quality homes and supporting infrastructure on these sites to contribute to the needs of the local area.”

Housing Minister Kit Malthouse MP said:

“We have an urgent mission to build more, better, faster so the next generation can realise the dream of having a home to call their own.

“We’re pulling every lever to deliver homes where they’re needed across the country, including transforming the site of the old Ripon barracks into more than 1,000 new homes for the people of North Yorkshire.”

Trevor Watson, Director of Economy and Culture at Harrogate Borough Council said:

“As part of our Local Plan consultation and examination, we know both high-quality and affordable homes are required in the Ripon area. So, it’s encouraging to see the start of this project, between the different stakeholders, start to take shape.

“This development will be about much more than just houses though. It’s about creating job opportunities, provide the necessary infrastructure, and most importantly, communities that can thrive in the future. I look forward to Harrogate Borough Council working with Homes England and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation to explore how we can accelerate the delivery of much needed homes in the Ripon area.”

North Yorkshire County Councillor Andrew Lee, Executive Member for Open to Business, said:

“It’s our ambition to continue to develop North Yorkshire’s reputation as a place with a strong economy and a commitment to sustainable growth, so we’re happy to see this project beginning to take shape. It meshes very well with that ambition.

“This development will help to provide the much-needed homes that are a vital part of our growth plans for the county. We need homes that are attractive to the workforce that supports our world-class manufacturing and service industries, homes in which families can thrive and become a part of North Yorkshire’s strong, independent communities.”

ENDS

Photo caption left to right:

James Ryley Principal Estate Surveyor from the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, Marie Kiddell, Head of Public Sector Land at Homes England and Trevor Watson, Harrogate Borough Council’s Director for Economy and Culture.

The UK, through its Department for International Development, leads the UK’s global efforts to control population growth rate, extreme poverty and malnutrition. Through its Delivering Accelerated Family Planning Programme, DFID is making family planning information and services accessible to those in need in Pakistan.

Since 2012, the UK support has reached over 1.7 million new family planning users and prevented 4,900 maternal deaths, over 3.49 million unwanted pregnancies, and 490,000 abortions. By March 2022, our programme aims to achieve 550,000 modern contraception users.

Speaking at the event, Deputy Head of DFID Pakistan Kemi Williams said:

Rapid population growth is a major challenge for many countries across the world, including Pakistan and the situation is likely to get worse if urgent action is not taken. The UK is committed to support Pakistan’s plans to manage its population growth.

DFID Pakistan, through its Delivering Accelerated Family Planning programme is making family planning services accessible to men and women across the country.

I believe that every woman should have access to family planning services so that she is empowered to plan her life, be healthy, have healthy children and contribute to the economic growth of Pakistan.

Dr. Zafar Mirza, Federal Minister of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, said:

Population is a great asset, but at the same time if we don’t utilize its potential properly, it can become a liability.

Sharing her remarks, Ms. Lina Mousa, UNFPA Representative said:

Pakistan has some of the greatest demographic opportunities for development in the world as a growing youth population enters adulthood. The demographic dividend can only be achieved with adequate investments in the education and skills of youth, harvesting the fruits of long-term human capital development.

To open the window of opportunity for the demographic dividend, Pakistan needs to reduce fertility and invest in the growing youth “bulge” entering the labour force.

The event was attended by high ranking officials of the government, UNFPA, representatives of the United Nations and other national and international organisations. Members of civil society and representatives from media organisations were also in attendance.

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Pupils struggling with mental health are to benefit from more joined up care and support across schools, colleges and specialist NHS services, in a national roll out of a £9.3 million training scheme.

Every school, college and alternative provision will be offered training through a series of workshops as part of the Link Programme, with the most appropriate member of staff from each put forward to take part alongside mental health specialists. This is designed to improve partnerships with professional NHS mental health services, raise awareness of mental health concerns and improve referrals to specialist help when needed.

The four-year scheme will be led by the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, backed by the multi-million-pound government investment. It builds on 1,500 schools and colleges that have already taken up this training during the pilot stage of the programme, launched in 2015.

Starting in September, the training will be rolled out to schools and colleges in phases over four years, being offered to up to 22,000 schools and colleges, including alternative provision settings.

The Link Programme will deliver just under 1,000 training sessions across England involving two whole-day workshops for up to 20 schools at a time to cover all 22,000 schools, encouraging collaborative work so children do not fall between the cracks or experience poor transition between services.

One in nine young people aged 5 to 15 had a diagnosable mental health condition in 2017 and teenagers with a mental health disorder are more than twice as likely to have a mental disorder in adulthood. This package of measures is part of the Government’s plan to improve mental health support for children and young people, including identifying mental health issues before they become more acute.

Education Secretary Damian Hinds said:

School and college should be a place where young people feel valued, supported and listened to – and I know that this is the case for so many thanks to the dedication of their teachers and support staff. But there are limits to what can be asked or expected of teachers – they are not, and should not, be mental health professionals.

That’s why this new training is important, by bringing school and college staff into the same room as NHS professionals and encouraging them to work together, sharing their expertise and making sure they have the information they need so that more pupils get the right help at the right time.

This builds on the significant measures we’ve already put in place to improve children’s wellbeing, including our new mandatory health education curriculum and the mental health first aid training being offered to schools and colleges.

Training will be prioritised in areas where schools and colleges are already attached to Mental Health Support Teams, following the Government’s announcement last December that these teams would be created in 25 ‘trailblazer’ areas.

The Government also confirmed today that 124 new Mental Health Support Teams will be created in 48 areas across the country. Each designated team will support around 20 schools and colleges in their area, helping speed up access to specialist services and building on support already in place from school counsellors, nurses, educational psychologists and the voluntary sector, so that more children and young people get the help and support they need, when they need it.

This forms part of the Government’s ambitious plans to transform children and young people’s mental health through the NHS Long Term Plan.

Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said:

We want to give our children and young people the best possible start in life, and providing them with mental health and wellbeing support is a vital component.

I’m delighted this programme will bring our health and education systems even closer together, building on the progress of our existing trailblazer sites and using the expertise of our NHS to ensure children have quicker access to mental health support when they need it.

Research highlights the important role the school environment plays in equipping children and young people with skills to support their own wellbeing. The Department for Education has this week also launched an exercise to recruit a specialist provider to deliver training for senior mental health leads in schools and colleges, so they have the skills and knowledge to promote positive mental health and wellbeing and implement effective processes for children and young people to receive appropriate support.

CEO of the Anna Freud Centre Professor Peter Fonagy said:

With half of all lifetime cases of mental health disorders beginning by the age of 14, there is no greater investment we can make from an economic or moral perspective than to promote the physical and mental health of children and young people. We need to give them the help they need when they need it and to think differently about how to deliver support. The Link Programme does exactly that.

The Link Programme brings together mental health and education professionals to work together to promote mental health and alleviate children and young people’s distress. This way we can identify their needs early and sign post them to the best support.

This is a transformative programme and one which we at the Anna Freud Centre are proud to lead. It’s an indication of the groundswell of support that it is funded by the Department for Education, supported by NHS England and 13 partners from local authorities, health providers and the charity sector.

The second wave of Mental Health Support Team areas will benefit from early intervention support to young people with mild to moderate mental health needs. Teams will use the evidence available from research and other studies to strengthen the support that is available in schools and colleges, basing it on what they know is already working.

Claire Murdoch, NHS England’s National Mental Health Director, said:

The NHS is treating more children and young people for mental health conditions than ever before, and by offering expert mental health training in schools and identifying illness earlier we can help thousands more families to get the help they need to take care of their children.

The announcements build on the Government’s wider investment in children’s mental health and wellbeing in schools and colleges, including compulsory health education lessons from 2020, to ensure every young person is given the tools to thrive despite challenges they may face growing up.

A new independent body responsible for challenging social injustices and creating a fairer country has been announced today by Prime Minister Theresa May.

The Office for Tackling Injustices (OfTI) will present future Governments with more effective, data-driven, evidence-based challenge to help drive forward reforms to tackle wide-ranging disparities in society.

Following the approach taken by the Race Disparity Audit which uses data to analyse how a person’s ethnicity affects their experiences of public services, the new body will use data and analysis to find out what the key barriers are for specific groups and gather data that is currently unreliable or simply not available.

The OfTI will look at disparities in areas including socio-economic background, ethnicity, gender, disability and sexual orientation and explore if specific groups of people are unfairly discriminated against or held back from getting on in life.

For example, the body will use data to drive Government to look at gender and disability inequalities in the workplace and in housing. Women, who generally enter the workplace with higher qualifications than men, are paid less at entry level and only 32% of disabled private renters said their accommodation was suitable.

Prime Minister Theresa May said:

Deep-seated societal injustice requires a long-term focus and cannot be eliminated overnight.

Since becoming Prime Minister, I have challenged the injustices which still exist in our society through the power of data – from our world-leading gender pay gap reporting to the Race Disparity Unit – and I have demanded that if disparities cannot be explained, they must be changed.

I am proud of what we have achieved to make the UK a more just society. But there is more to be done now and in the years to come, if we are truly to say that this is a country which works for everyone – no matter who they are or where they’re from.

That’s why the Office for Tackling Injustices will go further, using the power of data, gathered from extensive sources, to shine a spotlight on key injustices and provide the catalyst for better policy solutions. By holding Government and wider society to account, we can create lasting change.

Minister for Women and Equalities, Rt Hon Penny Mordaunt said:

We know that high quality data and evidence are important tools in tackling inequality. We need to know how well we are tackling injustice and the impact on people’s lives.

The Office of Tackling Injustices will provide that accountability in the new Cabinet Office equalities hub at the heart of government. Sitting alongside the world-leading Race Disparity Unit, the Government Equalities Office and the Office for Disability, it will be an important part of work to drive change throughout Whitehall and improve lives across the country.

Maria Miller, Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee said:

I’m delighted that the Government is taking seriously its commitment to this agenda. The sorts of social justice issues the Prime Minister has highlighted require a sustained focus based on good evidence. The Women and Equalities Select Committee welcomed the approach taken by the Race Disparity Audit and I hope the Office for Tackling Injustices can take this further – with additional independent challenge.

Ruth Hunt, Chief Executive of Stonewall said:

We’re really pleased that the Government is making this commitment to improve the data we have on the challenges facing LGBT communities. Reliable data on the experience of LGBT people is scarce, and there are huge difficulties gathering it. The Office for Tackling Injustice will give us a clearer picture of the barriers and better enable us to act against the discrimination LGBT people still face.

Simon Woolley OBE, Director of Operation Black Vote and Chairman of the Race Disparity Audit said:

As the Office for Budget Responsibility acts as an independent watchdog over the public finances, so will the Office for Tackling Injustices objectively assess the Government’s progress towards social justice.

I will do all I can to support and champion this new Office, which I believe will become a shining beacon that not only shines necessary lights on those injustices the Prime Minister cares about such as gender equality, social mobility and race inequality, but also a powerful bulwark for change.