Children at risk of abuse or neglect will now be protected through improved partnerships between local police, councils and health services.

Strengthened guidance published today (4 July) sets new legal requirements for the three safeguarding partners, who will be required to make joint safeguarding decisions to meet the needs of local children and families.

Senior police, council and health leaders will jointly be responsible for setting out local plans to keep children safe and will be accountable for how well agencies work together to protect children from abuse and neglect.

The new advice is aimed at all professionals who come in to contact with children and families and includes guidance on current threats to child protection, such as sexual and criminal exploitation, gangs and radicalisation.

Children and Families Minister Nadhim Zahawi said:

We all have a responsibility to promote the welfare of children and protect those at risk of harm. It is important that young people can grow up in an environment that is as safe and stable as we would want for our own children. That’s why we have changed the law to create a stronger safeguarding system, placing greater accountability on the key professionals involved so vulnerable children can get the support and protection they deserve.

This guidance will bring health agencies, police forces and councils together to work more collaboratively, making effective decisions that put the needs of local families at the heart of their work.

The Government has also announced 17 areas of the country as ‘early adopters’, which will work with the National Children’s Bureau to implement the new local safeguarding arrangements before they are established across the rest of the country.

The 17 areas include 39 local authorities and will develop new and innovative approaches to set up multi-agency safeguarding processes and produce clear learning which can be shared across other areas, which will have up to a year to publish local arrangements.

The statutory guidance, ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’, follows a public consultation on the changes, which received over 700 responses.

In response to the consultation, the requirements on all those working in sports and faith-based organisations have been strengthened, requiring them to co-operate with the local police, council and health partners where requested. This is in line with the important role these groups play in promoting children’s welfare.

The new safeguarding arrangements will replace existing Local Safeguarding Children Boards, taking into account recommendations made in a 2016 review by Sir Alan Wood.

Sir Alan Wood said:

I am delighted that the government has brought forward legislation and guidance to reform the safeguarding arrangements we make for children. I believe the changes will ensure a sharp focus on the key factors of improving multi-agency practice which protects children, create a national learning framework to improve our ability to learn from serious events and introduce a health-led process to maximise potential for learning from child deaths.

I am particularly pleased that the new arrangements ensure that each of the new statutory partners in an area, the police, health and the local authority, now have duties which require them to take joint responsibility for ensuring multi-agency safeguarding arrangements in an area are effective.

The changes include:

• equal duties placed on the police, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and local authorities to work together on safeguarding decisions and to promote children’s welfare;
• placing greater accountability on senior leaders for each agency: the council Chief Executive, the accounting officer of a CCG and the Chief Officer of Police;
• strengthening expectations on schools and other educational settings that they must co-operate with the multi-agency safeguarding arrangements;
• extending safeguarding responsibilities to sports clubs and religious organisations in recognition of their important role in working with and protecting children and young people;
• new duties on CCGs and councils to carry out reviews of child deaths, instead of children’s services, in line with evidence that only a small numberof these incidents relate to safeguarding concerns; and
• better reviews of complex or nationally-important cases, and improving identification of the lessons learnt from these, led by the new Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel chaired by Edward Timpson and replacing Serious Case Reviews.

Further info:

• The 17 successful bids to adopt the new local safeguarding arrangements early are: Tameside; Northumberland, Gateshead, Newcastle on Tyne, North Tyneside, South Tyneside & Sunderland; Calderdale; North Lincolnshire; York; Hertfordshire; Bexley, Greenwich & Lewisham; Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow , Kensington & Chelsea & Westminster; Reading, West Berkshire & Wokingham; Devon, Plymouth & Torbay; Wiltshire; Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall & Wolverhampton; Birmingham; Stoke-on-Trent & Staffordshire; Solihull; Trafford; and Salford.

• 4 new automotive plants are opening across the country, creating 500 new jobs
• Investment Minister Graham Stuart welcomes the news and £130 million foreign direct investment into the UK
• UK automotive sector exported £41 billion worth of products in 2017

Minister for Investment Graham Stuart today (Tuesday 3 July) welcomed £130 million of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the UK automotive sector, creating nearly 500 jobs in four new plants across the country.

The news comes following a report from EY which found the UK remains the number one destination for FDI in Europe in 2017 to 2018.

Thanks to support from the Department for International Trade, 4 separate companies from across the globe – including Steel & Alloy, Polytec and Magna – have all chosen to invest in the UK and open new automotive-related plants this month.

As the UK forms its own trade and investment policy for the first time in 4 decades, this marks the latest boost for a sector which exported £41.3 billion of products, including 1,340 000 vehicles, in 2017 – up from £37.8 million on 2016 – to over 160 international markets. According to SMMT, more than 137,000 new vehicles rolled off the UK’s production line this May.

This includes lucrative emerging non-EU markets such as China, to whom the UK exported £4.2 billion of automotive products last year – growth of 16.7% on 2016.

Minister for Investment, Graham Stuart said:

The opening of these 4 new plants is a fantastic example of investment pouring into the UK from around the world, which I witnessed in Oldbury. This is a clear sign of confidence in the strength of the UK’s automotive sector, which remains one of the most competitive in the world.

As an international economic department, this is an excellent example of the work that DIT – with its sector-specific expertise and capability – is doing to create jobs and prosperity for communities up and down the country.

The new factories across the country include:

• Magna International Inc: A new aluminium-casting factory in Telford to support Jaguar Land Rover, the £77.6 million investment from the Canadian company will create 295 jobs when at full capacity
• Polytec Ltd: A new facility in Telford will build bumpers and accessories for car manufacturers, including Jaguar Land Rover. Austria-based Polytec have invested £18 million in the project, which will create 100 jobs
• Steel & Alloy Ltd: £26 million investment by S&A’s Spanish parent company Gonvarri to build a steel processing plant in Oldbury, creating 60 jobs. Customers include Ford, JLR and BMW

The new openings are a further confirmation that the UK’s automotive sector remains one of the strongest of its type in the world, offering the highest value added per employee in car manufacturing of any European country, with competitive labour costs and low corporation tax.

• investors will be able to count on the UK automotive sector remaining as one of the most innovative in the world in years to come, with the government having committed to increasing public R&D spending to £12.5 billion by 2021 to 2022, and 2.4% of GDP by 2027 – the most significant increase of public R&D funding ever
• EY’s UK Attractiveness Survey 2018 shows that the UK leads Europe in FDI and is third in the world for inward FDI stock

UK Government plans to make the fishing industry much more sustainable and profitable have been welcomed by the Scotland Secretary.

Fishing is a hugely important industry for Scotland, which is home to almost half of the UK’s fishers – an estimated 4,823 people.

The Fisheries White Paper – ‘Sustainable Fisheries for Future Generations’ – charts the course for managing fisheries after Brexit.

It outlines how powers to be proposed in the Fisheries Bill, which will be introduced in this session of Parliament, will give the UK full control of its waters and the ability to set fishing opportunities.

It also proposes a suite of measures to improve the sustainability of the fishing industry, supporting the next generation of fishermen while protecting the UK’s precious marine environment.

Scotland Secretary David Mundell said:

Leaving the EU provides us with a golden opportunity to develop Scotland’s fishing industry and ensure it has a thriving and sustainable future. This white paper is an important step towards achieving this.

Our vision for UK fisheries can only be delivered if all four parts of the UK work in partnership with one another. The UK Government will continue working closely with the Scottish Government and other devolved administrations to develop a fishing policy that works for the whole of the UK.

It is right that we are taking back control of our waters. Scotland’s fishing industry has a bright future outside of the EU.

While the UK will continue to abide by Common Fisheries Policy rules during the implementation period, from 2020 we will be negotiating access to waters and fishing opportunities as an independent coastal state.

The white paper sets out a number of methods to explore fairer allocation of fishing opportunities, such as zonal attachment – which is based on distribution of fish stocks, rather than historical data.

Sitting at the heart of the white paper is the UK Government’s commitment to sustainable fisheries, including ending the wasteful discarding of fish and making clear vessels will only be allowed to fish in our waters if they adhere to our high sustainability standards.

The paper also commits to publishing an annual statement setting out the health of fish stocks and based on the latest scientific evidence. If stocks are struggling, the four UK fisheries administrations, including Scotland, will work together to put in place a comprehensive recovery plan to restore them to healthy levels.

The UK Government will continue to work with the Devolved Administrations to develop a new UK framework for fisheries management, which will maximise their power to manage their fisheries while maintaining the overall coherence of the UK’s approach.

It will also ensure compliance with international obligations to manage our shared resources sustainably. Access to waters and fishing opportunities will be negotiated on an annual basis. This is consistent with the approach to fisheries taken by other coastal states including Norway.

Interested parties are invited to share their views on proposals outlined in the white paper during a 10 week consultation.

The government has announced it will consult on extending the scope of the Bill to protect hippos, walruses and narwhals from the vile trade in ivory.

The Ivory Bill currently before Parliament includes a power for Ministers to extend the proposed ban on selling items made from elephant ivory to other ivory-bearing species, which also include sperm whales and killer whales. Ministers have now confirmed that a consultation on extending the ban will be published as soon as possible.

Hippos and walruses are listed as ‘vulnerable’ on the Red List produced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Concerns have been raised in response to the Government’s consultation about the decline of hippos in particular and the part played by poaching. IUCN population estimates suggest the maximum hippo population has declined by up to 12 per cent between 2008 and 2017.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said:

Our ivory ban is one of the toughest in the world and will provide vital protection for the African and Asian elephant from the scourge of illegal poaching. But there are many more precious species, like the hippo and walrus, which could fall victim to the callous trade in ivory. The Government will therefore consult on extending the ivory ban to other ivory-bearing animals. We are determined to end this insidious trade and make sure ivory from any animal is never seen as a commodity for financial gain or a status symbol.

The Government has also brought forward an amendment to the bill to ensure that, if necessary, ivory from all animals could be banned and not simply those covered by Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). This would allow the ban to be extended to ivory from warthogs or mammoths, for example, if a case for their inclusion was made during consultation.

Defra Minister David Rutley said:

We have today announced that we intend to consult on extending the ban to include other ivory species and will seek to start the consultation process and gather evidence as soon as practicable after Royal Assent. This process will ensure that if we do extend the scope of the ban, this will be robust, defensible, enforceable and compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights. Let me be clear, this will, however, not delay the introduction of the ban on dealings in elephant ivory.

A further government amendment has also been tabled, imposing a size restriction on the items that can quality for the pre-1918 portrait miniatures exemption. Following evidence provided at the Committee stage, the amendment states that the visible surface area of a portrait miniature must be less than 320 square centimetres.

Earlier this week, the three Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, the Environment and International Development hosted an event at the Foreign Office, bringing together NGOs, businesses, country representatives and others who are playing a key role in fighting the illegal wildlife trade.

The event recognised the work already being done to tackle the illegal wildlife trade and encourage increased ambition by all sectors in advance of the October conference.