The Foreign Secretary’s visit is part of sustained UK diplomacy to bolster the Yemen peace process. The Foreign Secretary’s discussions will build on the meeting of Quad – UAE, Saudi Arabia, UK and US – foreign ministers he chaired on 13 February and come after the Prime Minister’s recent announcement of £200million of new UK aid for Yemen.

The UK is putting its weight behind the efforts of the UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths to accelerate implementation of the actions agreed at the Stockholm peace talks. For the third time in three months the Foreign Secretary will engage senior Government of Yemen figures, Houthi leaders and politicians in Oman and Saudi Arabia to press for the progress that Yemen badly needs.

Ahead of the visit the Foreign Secretary said:

I will travel to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates later this week to add further impetus to the peace process in Yemen.

My aim is to build on the UN-backed agreement reached in Stockholm in December. The peace process has allowed a sustained reduction in fighting in Hodeidah. But more needs to be done. In my discussions with the Houthis and the Government of Yemen I will urge all sides to accelerate the redeployments they agreed at Stockholm and ensure the flow of humanitarian relief.

Moving these forces away from the ports is necessary to prevent a return to fighting, prepare the road for the next round of peace talks and ensure desperately needed humanitarian aid is able to reach those who need it most.

In wider meetings with his counterparts in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates the Foreign Secretary will reinforce the UK’s continued commitment to regional security, prosperity and human rights issues. In Saudi Arabia, the Foreign Secretary will also address a global conference on patient safety. In Oman, the Foreign Secretary will agree a new Joint Declaration to accelerate UK-Omani partnership.

International Development Secretary announces UK aid package to help young Jordanians into work

The UK will equip young Jordanians with English language and job skills such as leadership, critical thinking, and problem solving, to help them better compete in the global economy, International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt announced today (28 February).

With 68% of Jordanians being under 30 years old and 40% of those aged 15 to 24 unemployed, there is a risk of a generation of young people being locked out of up and coming sectors.

The UK has pledged to support Jordan’s plans to reform its economy and boost jobs for its young population.

Today’s package, announced in London at ‘Jordan: Growth and Opportunity, The London Initiative’, will support a series of programmes by the UK Government, through UK aid, and the British Council aimed at upskilling both Jordanians and Syrian refugees. This will help them to gain employment in growing sectors such as IT, renewable energy, logistics and tourism.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said:

Jordan is a country rich in human talent. But while much of its workforce is young and highly educated, many still lack the specific skills to work in booming sectors such as IT and renewable energy.

UK aid will provide young Jordanians with the essential skills needed to join the workforce, strengthen the economy and help their country become self-sufficient. This includes helping them to learn English, a powerful tool in the world of international business.

This is Global Britain at its best, using British expertise to pass on skills to Jordan’s workforce, making it an even more attractive place for British businesses to invest, and giving the UK a stronger, more prosperous ally in the Middle East.

The package demonstrates a cross-government approach to supporting Jordan with expertise and funding from a range of departments and institutions, including:

• a DFID programme, Skills for Development which is still under design, will assist 200,000 young people to gain English and workplace skills, improve training for 6,000 English language teachers and increase access to English learning materials;

• British Council projects to give marginalised communities access to English Language courses through community centres, launch an online learning platform to teach English for the workplace and provide 5,000 apprenticeships and internships to help young Jordanians enter the workplace;

• build a partnership between the Prince’s Trust and Jordan’s Crown Prince Foundation;

• further DFID support to UNICEF to address the urgent needs of children not enrolled in any kind of education, and improve the quality of education received; and

• a new partnership between the Government of UK and Jordan, which will help drive up education standards, develop a strategy for better use of technology in schools, and help evaluate Jordan’s school inspections.

In her speech at the conference, the International Development Secretary will also acknowledge the tremendous generosity Jordan has shown by hosting 670,000 registered Syrian refugees, despite facing its own economic challenges. To help lessen the burden, and bolster international efforts, the UK will support 22,000 Syrian refugees by providing cash to buy food, clothes and other essentials.

Notes to editors

• The UK is using its global leadership, expertise and influence to convene the Jordan: Growth & Opportunity conference in London on 28 February 2019. It will rally the international community and private sector to create an attractive environment for investment in Jordan, underpinned by reform.
• Ensuring that Jordan is a beacon of stability in the Middle East, a gateway to trade in the region and a steadfast ally on the front line of conflict is a win for everyone, including the UK.
• The Skills for Development programme will provide up to £25 million from the Department for International Development over five years to equip young people in Jordan with much needed English language and modern workplace skills such as critical thinking and problem solving.
• The UNICEF uplift package will provide an extra £3.35 million to address the urgent needs of out of school children and improve the quality of education, supporting vulnerable Syrian and Jordanian young people.
• The British Council will fund up to £250,000 for industry driven education and training for higher education and technical education as well as £400,000 in UK Aid towards helping marginalised and displaced young people access English language learning to improve their learning outcomes. This will include providing specially designed training and resources for 500 teachers and 40 community centre leaders. The British Council will also provide up to £80,000 for a series of 3 “Massive Open Online Courses” and an additional £16,000 in UK aid for content costs.
• DFID will provide £50 million additional humanitarian support to Jordan over three years, the vast majority of which will support cash transfers to 22,000 Syrian refugees.
• DFID has also allocated existing funding for Jordan that will train 10,000 vulnerable Jordanians and Syrian refugees in vocational skills to work in growing sectors such as ICT, renewable energy and tourism.
• The Government of Jordan and UK education partnership brings together the Department for Education, Ofsted, the Department for International Development and the Department for International Trade as part of a new package of up to £6.48m of peer-to-peer support from the UK government, funded by the cross-government Conflict, Security and Stabilisation Fund (CSSF).

Experts at the European Space Agency’s centre in Oxfordshire completed a series of tests across nearly 6,900 miles (11,000 km) in order to see how the Mars rover reacts to commands across large distances.

When on the surface of Mars, the rover will need to be controlled when it is up to 250 million miles from Earth.

The trials team used a new model called ‘Charlie’ to test hardware, software and to practice science operations for the future European Space Agency (ESA) ExoMars rover, which will look for life on Mars in 2021. The Atacama desert was chosen because it is the closest we can get to a Martian-like environment.

Science Minister Chris Skidmore said:

This testing is an inspiring scientific achievement and essential to prepare the scientists and engineers involved for not only this mission to the Red Planet but for future endeavours.

The mission showcases the very best of the UK’s space sector and is a testament to the strengths of our international science collaborations. It also exemplifies our ambitious modern Industrial Strategy which aims to make the UK the world’s most innovative economy by creating opportunities for business through science.

The European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ECSAT) at Harwell hosts the new Remote Control Centre, where scientists and engineers are learning how to operate the rover and receive information from its instruments.

The testing, which will continue until 1 March, is a more complex trial following on from a previous successful test-drive in Spain’s Tabernas Desert in October, which was controlled from the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Harwell Mission Operations Centre. The scientists and engineers are gaining experience in science operations and learning how to teleoperate the rover in the field.

ESA’s human and robotic exploration director, David Parker, explained that:

we call these tests ‘ExoFit’ – meaning ExoMars-like Field Testing. The results will help us prepare the real Rosalind Franklin rover for the challenge of safe operation far across the Solar System.

More than 60 people from different organisations are involved, including the UK Space Agency, Airbus Defence and Space and the Open University. The team in Chile set up the rover, which is equipped with several cameras and proxy instruments for science, such as spectrometers and a drill, in an area of scientific interest and challenging from a locomotion point of view.

The rover will traverse areas with obstacles and slopes. Scientists will try to understand the geological history of the area and look for biomarkers using only the data sent by the rover. Scientists will have just a few hours to plan the next day activities.

Marie-Claire Perkinson, Head of Exploration and Robotics at Airbus said:

Doing field trials in a Mars like environment is the best way to prove that our rover and its instruments and systems all work as they should. They also help the teams iron out any problems to ensure that when we finally go to Mars, we know that everything will work first time and we can concentrate on the search for life.

ExoFiT is a project managed and implemented by Airbus Defence and Space. It is funded by ESA’s human and robotic exploration programme, which includes work in Low Earth Orbit aboard the International Space Station as well as missions to the Moon and Mars.

The first part of ExoMars, the Trace Gas Orbiter, is already operational around Mars, delivering stunning images of the Red Planet as well as relaying data from NASA’s InSight lander and Curiosity rover.

The future ExoMars rover will be the first of its kind to travel across the Martian surface and drill down to determine if evidence of life is buried underground, protected from the Sun’s radiation that bombards the surface of the Red Planet. Last month the Science Minister, along with British ESA astronaut Tim Peake, revealed the rover will be named Rosalind Franklin, after the UK scientist and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, following a public competition.

ECSAT, in Harwell, is home to ESA’s Analogue Curation Facility which is supporting future planetary exploration.. Under ESA contract, Airbus Stevenage is also studying a sample fetch rover, which could retrieve samples left by NASA’s Mars 2020 rover as part of a future joint NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return campaign.

More than 90,000 people have signed up to the government’s new saving account – Help to Save – depositing over £13 million.

The account offers working people on low incomes a 50% bonus, rewarding savers with 50p for every £1 saved.

Over 4 years, a maximum bonus of £1,200 is available on savings of up to £2,400. Over 250 people each day are taking up the offer and customers are making the most of its maximum £50-a-month deposit, saving on average around £47 each month.

Separate research published by HMRC today (28 February 2019) shows that Help to Save makes saving achievable, affordable and worthwhile, with some participants now seeing themselves as ‘savers’ rather than ‘spenders’.

John Glen, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said:

Savings are an essential part of planning for the future, so it’s good to see thousands of people getting into the habit with Help to Save. Anyone who is eligible should take a look and sign up. It’s flexible, secure and easy to use.

Even if you can only save a small amount each month, it will help you prepare for whatever the future brings, and you’ll get a 50% boost on your savings from the government, too.

Having taken advantage of Help to Save, Janice Graham, from Barnsley, said:

It is so easy to use and I don’t have to think about it as it’s automatic because money goes in using a standing order. I save for my grandkids and nothing like this has been seen before.

Good to encourage people to save, and the bonus is one of the best features as it’s an incentive to put money in and not touch it. It really helps those with impulse spending.

Help to Save helps those on lower incomes build up a ‘rainy day’ fund, and encourages a long-term savings habit. How much is saved, and when, is up to the account holder, and they don’t need to pay in every month to get a bonus.

Help to Save is available to working people on Tax Credits, or Universal Credit claimants with a minimum earned income equivalent to 16 hours per week at the National Living Wage in their last assessment period.

Account holders can save between £1 and £50 every calendar month and accounts last for 4 years from the date the account is opened. After 2 years, savers get a 50% tax-free bonus on the highest balance they’ve achieved. If they continue saving, they could receive another 50% tax-free bonus after a further 2 years.

On maximum savings of £2,400 over 4 years, the overall bonus would be £1,200.

Further Information

Help to Save: Research to understand customer behaviours during the trial of Help to Save

Download the free HMRC app from: the App Store for iOS or the Google Play Store for Android.