Today, 11 July 2018, HM Land Registry launches its new digital Local Land Charges (LLC) Register. Warwick District Council’s data will be the first to be available. Anyone requiring local land charge searches in the local authority area of Warwick from today onwards will need to get them from HM Land Registry rather than going to the council.

This marks another step in HM Land Registry’s transformation to fulfil its ambition to be the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data. The creation of a new digital LLC Register follows the launch of the first digital mortgage in April. Both mark milestones in using digital technology and data innovatively to provide quicker and simpler services for customers.

Chief Executive and Chief Land Registrar Graham Farrant said:

Buying a house is the biggest financial investment of people’s lives. By centralising and digitising the local land charges information of local authorities in England we are helping to improve conveyancing. Search results from the new register will be instantly available in a standard, easy-to-read format. This is another significant step forward in the Government’s ambition to make the home-buying process simpler, faster and cheaper.

Warwick District Council is leading the way by being the first local authority to migrate their local land charges data to our new register. I look forward to more local authorities joining the central register during the year.

Warwick District Council’s Chief Executive Chris Elliott commented:

As a forward-looking council aiming to provide the best possible service to all of our customers, we very much welcome any measures which will speed up the process of buying a home. Opening up our data to HM Land Registry will be a huge benefit not only to those wishing to purchase a home or land in our district, but also to our busy planning team.

HM Land Registry is working in partnership with up to 26 local authorities in England this year to migrate their LLC data to a central, digital register in a phased approach. Once the data is migrated, anyone will be able to get instant online search results via GOV.UK: Search for Local Land Charges.

HM Land Registry’s business customers can use their existing portal and Business Gateway channels.

HM Land Registry will keep customers informed when each local authority’s LLC records are migrated to the new digital register.

For an overview of the new service, watch our short video.

Creating a national Local Land Charges Register

For more information, read about the Local Land Charges programme.

Notes to editors

1. Most local land charges are restrictions or obligations on a piece of land or property such as listed status, tree preservation orders or notice of a conservation area. A search of these is normally required in the process of buying a home and are essential to mortgage lenders’ understanding of the risks to their loans. Each local authority maintains an LLC register for its administrative area and the records are held in a variety of formats such as paper, electronic and digital. Prices vary considerably, ranging from £3 to £76, and in some areas it can take up to 30 days to deliver the search results. This has led to an inconsistent service for customers depending on their postcode. HM Land Registry’s new digital service will remove those inconsistencies, providing a standardised, digital result.
2. Common obligations protected as local land charges include: planning permissions, listed buildings, conservation areas, tree preservation orders, improvement and renovation grants, smoke control zones and light obstruction notices.
3. Customers will need to continue to submit CON29 enquiries to local authorities. CON 29 enquiries relate to matters such as nearby road schemes or outstanding notices, which may affect a property purchaser’s decision whether to proceed.
4. Over the course of 2018, the following local authorities’ local land charges data will transfer to HM Land Registry: Blackpool Council, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, City of London Corporation, Liverpool City Council, London Borough of Lambeth, Norwich City Council, Peterborough City Council, and the Council of the Isles of Scilly.
5. Read about what the service offers for an official search (£15) and a personal search (free).
6. According to HM Land Registry data assessments, there are approximately 25 million LLC records held across England.
7. The Infrastructure Act 2015 makes provision for the transfer of responsibility for Local Land Charge registers from 326 English local authorities to HM Land Registry.
8. HM Land Registry safeguards land and property ownership worth in excess of £4 trillion, including around £1 trillion of mortgages. The Land Register contains more than 25 million titles showing evidence of ownership for more than 85% of the land mass of England and Wales
9. HM Land Registry’s mission is to guarantee and protect property rights in England and Wales. HM Land Registry is a government department created in 1862. It operates as an executive agency and a trading fund and its running costs are covered by the fees paid by the users of its services. Its ambition is to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data.
10. For further information about HM Land Registry visit www.gov.uk/land-registry.
11. Follow us on: Twitter @HMLandRegistry, our blog, LinkedIn and Facebook.

The Western Balkans Summit concluded yesterday (10 July) with Prime Minister Theresa May welcoming the six Western Balkan leaders to London, alongside other European figures including German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.

At the Summit, the Prime Minister welcomed the signing of Joint Declarations on Good Neighbourly Relations, War Crimes and Missing Persons by leaders of the Berlin Process. Leaders congratulated Prime Ministers Zaev and Tsipras on securing agreement on the Name Issue. In support of these declarations, the UK will commit to an additional £1 million to help the region address difficult legacy issues.

The Prime Minister also announced at the Summit that the UK will increase its funding to the region to £80m in 2020/21 and will double the number of UK staff working in the region on the security issues affecting the UK and the Western Balkans. This will help prevent crime reaching UK streets and also help strengthen the region’s own response to serious and organised crime, corruption and money laundering. The UK will also invest £1m in the region’s cyber capability.

The Summit was the culmination of preparatory meetings of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Interior and Security, and Economy and Finance Ministers in Vienna and London.

At the meeting of Foreign Ministers in London on 9 July, Minister for Europe Sir Alan Duncan announced that the UK will commit £10 million to help build digital skills and employment prospects for young people in the Western Balkans.

The funding will see the British Council provide training to children in over 4,500 schools, to bolster digital literacy and core skills across the region. Foreign Ministers also heard directly from young people and civil society groups from the region and congratulated the winners of the Youth Entrepreneurship “Start Up” Games.

Sir Alan also announced a new £4m programme to expand Westminster Foundation for Democracy across the Western Balkans.

In parallel, at the meeting of Interior and Security Ministers chaired by Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Western Balkans ministers signed a Joint Declaration on the Principles of Information-Exchange in the Field of Law Enforcement, committing them to deeper cooperation on tackling transnational serious and organised crime and terrorism.

Participants also endorsed a Franco-German initiative to combat the illicit possession, misuse and trafficking of firearms from the region by 2024 and welcomed the endorsement of the Call to Action to End Forced Labour, Modern Slavery, and Human Trafficking by the Western Balkans. As next year’s hosts, Poland’s Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski confirmed that their Summit will continue the UK’s security agenda.

At the meeting of Ministers of Economy and Finance in Vienna on 4 July, co-chaired by Sir Simon McDonald, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Permanent Under Secretary and Austrian Minister Schramboeck, Western Balkans’ ministers agreed to deepen regional economic integration.

Further information

The Government has announced a package of funding and support for UK Overseas Territories.

The new projects will see a scheme to reduce and monitor plastic pollution on the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean and a new data collecting and reporting system for Montserrat to help create long-term sustainable fisheries.

At the same time, the Darwin Plus scheme today opens for the latest round of applications to fund conservation and environmental projects in UK Overseas Territories. Darwin Plus will deliver on flagship commitments set out in the 25 Year Environment Plan in UK Overseas Territories around the globe.

The new scheme on St Helena will aim to reduce the amount of plastic used by those living on the island and will establish a recycling programme for waste plastic. As part of this project, a marine debris monitoring programme will be established along St Helena’s coastline to better understand this issue. Local school children and communities will be engaged in the project through an educational outreach programme.

Environment Secretary, Michael Gove said:

We must protect our oceans and marine life from plastic waste if we are to be the first generation to leave our environment in a better state than we found it. Protecting and enhancing biodiversity in the UK’s Overseas Territories will help to make crucial activities such as agriculture, fisheries, forestry and tourism more sustainable.

St Helena Government’s Director of Environment & Natural Resources, Derek Henry, said:

This project provides a fantastic opportunity for St Helena to become involved in reducing the amount of plastic that enters our marine ecosystem. It will involve the whole community and will educate and set up the processes for monitoring and reducing plastic waste to create a better marine environment around our Island.

During June, the St Helena National Trust Marine Team and the St Helena Government Marine Section and four Prince Andrew School students, walked to Sharks Valley on the island for a beach clean-up. More than 1,000 plastic bottles, 1,540 pieces of polystyrene, 50 fishing buoys/floats and 124 flip–flops and shoes were collected by the volunteers.

The island has a huge array of fish and marine life along with coral ecosystems and plastic pollution in the South Atlantic Ocean could threaten these species and their habitats. Amongst a wide range of migratory birds that make the island their home, the Saint Helena Plover, is the symbol of the island and also known locally as the Wirebird.

Darwin Plus

Further support through the Overseas Territories Environment and Climate Fund (also known as Darwin Plus) provides funding for:

• Environmental projects in UK Overseas Territories
• Fellowships for UK Overseas Territories (OT) Nationals to train in the UK

Since the start of 2018, the Darwin Plus funding has been awarded to 13 projects in South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha, Falkland Islands, Montserrat and other UK Overseas Territories.

The fund is administered by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for International Development (DFID) and uses the UK Government’s Official Development Assistance.

Professor Stephen Blackmore, Chair of the Darwin Plus Advisory Group said:

The range of the projects funded by Darwin Plus in the UK’s Overseas Territories shows how we can effect change and better support and protect biodiversity around the globe. I am proud that we are delivering Darwin Plus funding to benefit animal and plant species and their habitats, which are vital to humanity’s economic and social development.

A full list of projects currently being supported by Darwin Plus is available on the Darwin Initiative website.

The independent Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE) is today (Wednesday 11 July) launching an intensive period of evidence gathering with the aim of publishing a first-of-its-kind study into all forms of extremism.

Lead Commissioner Sara Khan says she is willing to be as radical as needed, when it comes to looking at how to counter extremism in the future.

Neither the issue of terrorism nor the government’s counter terrorism strategy (which includes Prevent) are in the CCE’s remit.

Lead Commissioner Sara Khan says she wants to show people the deep, chronic harm extremism causes in communities.

In the coming months, the CCE will review existing academic evidence on extremism, commission bespoke research and issue a public call for evidence. Sara wants to hear from victims, their families and all those that counter extremism.

The government has already committed to sharing information with the commission.

The CCE will also ask regulators, local councils and police forces, universities and other public and private bodies to share information on extremism.

The evidence drive and comprehensive study will, Sara explains, help build greater understanding of extremism and engage more people than ever in tackling it.

Marking the launch Sara reveals she has already met more than 300 experts and activists, and visited ten towns and cities.

She has identified critical issues for the Commission to investigate as part of its study:

• communities are deeply concerned about extremism – the CCE will investigate the scale of the problem; the changing tactics of extremists and the harm extremism causes in communities

• we have the start of a powerful counter extremism movement but brave individuals and groups face abuse and vilification – the CCE will investigate the current response to extremism and how we can help everyone to do more challenge extremism

• the public debate on extremism is increasingly polarised, leaving some nervous about speaking out – the CCE will consider how we can have a constructive and civilised debate on the issue

In a further announcement, Sara today confirms that she has created a new Expert Group to advise and challenge the CCE on its work.

The experienced and diverse panel includes grassroots activists; individuals with decades of frontline experience; leading figures on Far Right and Islamist extremism, experts on social media and campaigners on freedom of speech. (the full list is below).

The group will meet around four times over the coming year to advise and challenge the lead commissioner.

Sara was asked by the previous Home Secretary to lead the CCE in January.

In March, the CCE was formerly launched as an independent body, with the publication of a charter outlining its independent role.

Sara agreed the following three objectives for her first year: publish a comprehensive study; engage widely, building a network of counter extremists; and establish a robust commission making recommendations about its future structure.

Today’s announcements come after Lead Commissioner Sara Khan met the Home Secretary Sajid Javid to update him on the work of the CCE shortly after his appointment.

Lead Commissioner Sara Khan said:

This is an important moment for the commission as we move from our introductory phase to a period of intensive evidence gathering, with the aim of publishing a first-of-its-kind study.

I’ve already met with more than 300 experts and activists. Communities are deeply concerned about the impact of extremism.

Extremism is sowing division and hate, spreading fear and undermining democratic values and human rights.

But it’s also complex and changing – in 2018 the old stereotypes of Far-Right thugs and Islamist hate preachers don’t always apply.

Whether it’s Far Right, Islamist or other forms of extremism, we need to investigate their changing tactics such as a new-found professionalism; the intellectualising of hate and abusing the power of social media.

There are brave, inspiring counter extremists up and down the country making a difference despite threats and abuse. I believe we have the start of a powerful counter extremism movement.

We need to understand modern day extremism better, so we can help more people to challenge it. That is why this study is so important.

The public debate on extremism is increasingly polarised, leaving some nervous about speaking out. We need to investigate how we improve the debate around extremism, so it’s more constructive.

We must be prepared to follow the evidence and to be as radical as necessary when it comes to countering extremism.

Evidence gathering

In the coming months, the CCE will:

• work with research experts to assess current academic evidence and pinpoint the gaps. The CCE will use the government definition of extremism as a starting point for this stage. Its work and research, however, will not be limited by this definition

• work with experts and activists at local and national levels, including government, to prioritise work to address the gaps

• use this assessment as a springboard to commission bespoke pieces of research on critical issues

• consult the public, including asking them to submit evidence, and visiting communities affected by extremism

• the government has already committed to sharing information with the commission – the CCE will also ask regulators, local councils and police forces, universities and other public and private bodies to share information on extremism

Expert Group

• Sir David Anderson KBE QC, former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation

• Jamie Bartlett, author and Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos

• Professor Chetan Bhatt, Director, Centre for the Study of Human Rights, LSE

• Dame Louise Casey DBE CB, led a review into opportunity and integration in some of our most isolated communities

• Sasha Havlicek, Chief Executive of the Institute of Strategic Dialogue

• Dr Azeem Ibrahim, author and Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute

• Sunder Katwala, Director, British Future

• Nick Lowles MBE, Chief Executive, Hope Not Hate

• Katie Morris, Head of Europe and Central Asia, Article 19

• Fiyaz Mughal OBE FCMI, founder and director of Faith Matters and founder of Tell Mama

• Pragna Patel, Director, Southall Black Sisters

• Sir Mark Rowley KB QPM, former Assistant Commissioner Metropolitan Police

Full biographies will be available on the Commission’s blog