Public services in Scotland are to get a £2 billion funding boost from the UK Government. The cash windfall follows the Prime Minister’s announcement today that, in the NHS’s 70th year, she is investing an extra £20 billion a year in health services in England (by 2023-24, compared to today).

The announcement means the Scottish Government will receive additional Barnett funding worth £2 billion a year in real terms by 2023/24. It will be up to Holyrood how this money is used, but the Scottish Secretary has urged Scottish ministers to invest the windfall in the NHS in Scotland.

David Mundell said:

As a result of the Prime Minister’s significant new investment in the NHS, Scotland will get a £2 billion funding boost from the UK Government by 2023-24. In the NHS’s 70th year, I urge the Scottish Government to invest this extra money in improving health services in Scotland. Our NHS is hugely valued by people in Scotland, but we have seen services under severe strain in recent years. This additional UK Government investment in Scotland has the potential to make a real difference for people in Scotland.

The extra funding announced today comes on top of changes to visas to allow the NHS to recruit more doctors and nurses from overseas.

Funding from the government’s £40 million Serious Violence Strategy will be used to create a 20-strong team of police staff and officers tasked with disrupting and removing overt and covert gang-related online content.

The social media hub will proactively flag illegal and harmful online content for social media companies to take down. Hosted by the Metropolitan Police, the new capability will also prevent violence on our streets by identifying gang-related messages generating the most risk and violence.

The move follows the Serious Violence Taskforce chaired by the Home Secretary urging social media companies to do more to take down these videos. The Home Secretary invited representatives from Facebook and Google to Monday’s meeting to explain the preventative action they are already taking against gang material hosted on their platforms.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said:

Street gangs are increasingly using social media as a platform to incite violence, taunt each other and promote crime.

This is a major concern and I want companies such as Facebook and Google to do more.

We are taking urgent action and the new social media hub will improve the police’s ability to identify and remove this dangerous content.

Duncan Ball, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service and National Policing lead for Gangs said:

Police forces across the country are committed to doing everything we can to tackle violent crime and the impact that it has on our communities. Through this funding we can develop a team that is a centre of expertise and excellence that will target violent gangs and those plotting and encouraging violence online.

By working together with social media companies we will ensure that online material that glamourises murder, lures young people into a dangerous, violent life of crime and encourages violence is quickly dealt with to cut off this outlet for gangs and criminals.

Looking to the future we aim to develop a world class capability that will tackle the type of dangerous social media activity that promotes or encourages serious violence.

The new partnership is being built by the Home Office with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, online content companies, community based charities and the police.

It is already an offence to incite, assist, or encourage violence online and the Home Office is focused towards building on the relationships made with social media providers to identify where we can take action relevant to tackling serious violence.

The Foreign Secretary lends his support to President Ghani’s announcement of an extension to the Afghan government’s ceasefire with the Taliban and calls on the Taliban to support peace.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said:

I welcome President Ghani’s announcement that the nationwide government ceasefire with the Taliban will be extended beyond Eid al-Fitr. This shows that the Afghan government is listening to its people, who overwhelmingly support peace.

I hope that the Taliban will respect the wishes of the Afghan people and respond in kind.

The UK strongly supports steps towards peace in Afghanistan, including President Ghani’s unprecedented offer of talks without preconditions in February.

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