On his two-day visit [Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 August 2018], Mr Mundell’s programme included:

• Meeting the leader of Argyll and Bute Council, Aileen Morton, to discuss local economic issues and their proposals for a rural growth deal.

• Traveling to Inveraray for a roundtable with a number of Argyll and Bute businesses. They discussed the challenges and opportunities of EU Exit, and the Government’s recently-published EU Exit White Paper. Mr Mundell also visited Loch Fyne Oysters and Fyne Ales to discuss the implications of Brexit for their businesses.

• Meeting personnel at HMNB Clyde in Helensburgh, to discuss the economic partnership between the local community and the base, and see newly-refurbished service personnel accommodation in the town.

Mr Mundell said:

I was pleased to have the opportunity to meet Argyll and Bute Council, HMNB Clyde and a number of local businesses to discuss the issues and opportunities for the local economy, and to hear more about the Council’s proposals for a rural growth fund.

We also discussed the priorities of businesses as we prepare to leave the EU. The UK Government is determined to get a deal with the EU which works for Scotland and the rest of the UK – one which allows us to continue trading with the EU while also striking ambitious new trade deals around the world.

HMNB Clyde is set to become the home of the UK’s entire submarine service from 2020, and the MOD is investing hundreds of millions of pounds in developing the base. In February 2017 the base, the UK government and the local authority Argyll and Bute signed a partnership agreement to ensure that the investment in the military site will benefit the growth and regeneration of the wider community.

Mr Mundell added:

The work of the team at HMNB Clyde demonstrates clearly how Scotland benefits from the UK’s armed forces, and how our military contributes to the safety and prosperity of Scotland. The Faslane base makes a huge contribution to the local area, providing skilled jobs, supporting the local economy and contributing to regeneration. This project, which will improve service families’ accommodation, is a great example of that strong partnership with the local community in action.

I have come here to Vienna because although the UK is leaving the European Union there are a huge number of issues all over the world where we work very closely together with our European partners whether it is stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons, whether it’s climate change, whether it’s the difficult situation in Yemen, Syria, Burma across the world.

There is a huge amount that we have in common and many, many things to discuss. Of course, Brexit will come up, not as one of the main topics of discussion but our priority here is to make sure that there is political will on all sides. We believe it is possible to come to an agreement, we think that is in the interests of the EU as well as the UK but it’s going to need a huge amount of effort in the weeks that we have now left to us.

And then the other the other thing that we will be discussing in a lot of detail is the transatlantic relationship. In the UK we believe that we have prospered in Europe with unprecedented peace, economic prosperity because there has been a strong friendship and relationship between the United States and Europe. And of course there are going to be times when we disagree but I think now is a time when we should remember all the things which we have in common with the United States and make sure that we continue that a strong transatlantic partnership.

• UK aid to help 5,000 young Kenyan girls who have dropped out of school due to early marriage, motherhood and gender-based violence get back into education
• UK will also improve affordability and accessibility to voluntary family planning and vocational skills training for millions across Africa
• This will save girls’ lives and allow young people to plan their families, stay in education and get better jobs to support Africa’s future prosperity

UK aid will help millions more young people across Africa to access vital family planning services, receive a quality education and help them get better-paid jobs, it was announced as the Prime Minister was in Kenya today (30 August 2018).

This will empower young people to have better control of their health and futures, allowing them to choose whether to have children and when, while tackling inequality and improving youth education and employment for a strong and prosperous continent.

New UK aid programmes through the Department for International Development will:

• support up to 5,000 girls to start or get back into school for a brighter future – including girls who have dropped out due to early marriage or motherhood, or being the victim of gender-based violence – through UK aid’s new Leave No Girl Behind programme in Kenya;
• help hundreds of thousands more Kenyans access to safe, voluntary modern contraception over the next five years – particularly young people who want but currently struggle to access family planning services;
• help to create much needed, high quality jobs for young Kenyans by providing advice and grants to innovative start-ups or technology ventures that have most potential to create high numbers of jobs through the new Kenya Catalytic Jobs Fund;
• launch the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) programme that will ensure six million couples can use voluntary contraception every year of the programme, and prevent the deaths of around 20 women every day; and
• launch a global Skills for Prosperity programme, including major investment to help young Africans access skills training and vocational courses focused on getting them into better paid, future-proof jobs in industries struggling with skills gaps.

Minister for Africa Harriett Baldwin said:

It is a tragedy that so many young girls are needlessly robbed of their education and career aspirations. We will only lift people out of poverty by ensuring that every child can access quality education, healthcare and employment regardless of circumstance or gender.

By tackling these issues together, UK aid will save countless girls’ lives, while allowing young people to plan their families, stay in education and get better jobs, building better lives for millions of young Africans for now and the future.

In Kenya, 18% of girls have had or are pregnant with their first child by the age of 19. Improved access to family planning services will empower girls and women to plan when or whether to have a child, giving them the opportunity to complete their education and pursue a career, while contributing to sustainable economic growth in Kenya. It will also save thousands of lives by averting preventable maternal deaths.

Leave No Girl Behind will tackle other common barriers to girls’ education by helping girls that cannot afford to go to school due to poverty or poor accessibility for girls with disabilities. Up to 1,000 of the girls supported through the programme in Kenya will have a disability.

Skills for Prosperity will not only improve employment rates among young people, including in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt, it will also strengthen core industries in those countries and allow them to trade more prosperously with the UK.

Kenya’s young tell us they want opportunities, choices and jobs; we want to empower them with the means to ensure greater prosperity for themselves, their families and their country. The Kenya Catalytic Job Fund will support better paid, sustainable employment for Kenya’s youth by providing technical advice and grants to innovative business ideas with high potential to create a large numbers of jobs. This will give the country’s young people opportunities to leave poverty behind and stimulate economic growth and investments that will benefit the UK too.

A huge number of African women want to use contraception but do not have access to it, with 58 million women in sub-Saharan Africa wanting to avoid or delay pregnancies. WISH will prioritise the poorest and most in need, particularly young and marginalised women, increasing the number of ways and places they can access the vital family planning services they need, and helping to avert tens of thousands of maternal deaths.

This will empower millions of women with control over their bodies and support the future prosperity of young people in some of the world’s poorest countries by allowing them to plan when to have children, stay in education and get better jobs, to contribute to their country’s economic development.

This is why, as part of the UK’s new and distinctive offer to work alongside, invest in and partner with African nations, we will be bringing in more specialist health advisers to work with African governments and civil societies to enable women and girls to access the voluntary family planning that is right for them.

Leave No Girl Behind

• Leave No Girl Behind is a UK aid project (up to £6.6 million) that will support up to 5,000 out-of-school girls get the vital education they need to lift themselves and their families out of poverty – and to play a transformational role in their communities and societies.
• It will help an estimated 2,000 girls get back into mainstream primary or secondary school, and help give a further 3,000 girls education and training opportunities. Up to 1,000 of the girls supported by the project in Kenya will have disabilities.
• The UK is also strengthening Kenya’s education system, through support to the Global Partnership for Education. This will make Kenya less dependent on aid, as it moves towards a modern partnership with the UK.
• This is part of the UK’s commitment to ensure every girl across the globe can receive 12 years of quality education.
• Getting girls into school, and then into good employment, allows them to play a transformational role lifting their communities out of poverty, growing their economies and shaping the future of their countries. Globally, if all women had a quality primary education we could:
• Reduce maternal deaths by 2/3, saving 98,000 lives
• Reduce the number of child deaths by 15%
• Save 1.7 million children from stunting
• Avert 14% of child marriages

Family Planning in Kenya

• By the age of 19, 18% of girls in Kenya have had or are pregnant with their first child. Early pregnancy carries significant health risks and limits girls’ life choices and their ability to fulfil their potential.
• The Government of Kenya recognises family planning as an essential tool in reducing poverty, particularly by stabilising population growth and allowing young people to choose when to finish school and get a job, which will help to stimulate economic growth and prosperity in Kenya.
• The UK will provide £36 million between January 2019 and January 2024 to support the Government of Kenya to increase access to modern family planning services in 19 counties (out of 47) where fewer than 45% of women use any modern contraceptive. This will support at least 320,000 additional users of safe, voluntary, modern contraception in Kenya.

Kenya Catalytic Job Fund

• Africa’s young people tell us exactly what they want: opportunities, choices and jobs. We want to empower them with the means to ensure greater prosperity for themselves, their families and their country.
• The Kenya Catalytic Job Fund will invest £5 million over the next four years with a focus on creating jobs for young people in agriculture and manufacturing; for the most marginalised such as youth with disabilities; and those outside of the formal economy, such as in small-scale farming and microenterprises.
• The programme will provide technical assistance and grants to test innovative business ideas with the most potential to create jobs at scale and remove barriers to growth, such as start-ups providing new solutions to unmet problems or technologies that will overcome current barriers to growth.

Skills for Prosperity

• Countries with growing economies are often frustrated by a lack of skilled workers. Young people in these economies are at risk of being left disenfranchised and unemployed because they cannot access the skills they need to get quality jobs.
• The UK is investing up to £75 million in the Global Skills programme to support nine countries to tackle the key skills gaps in their most important areas, which are holding back growth and prosperity. These countries will include Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
• The programme will look to improve the affordability, quality, relevance and equity of Higher Education (HE) and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

WISH

• The UK is investing £200 million in a new flagship programme ‘WISH’ which will ensure three million extra girls, women and men, to consistently gain access to life-saving voluntary contraception in some of the world’s poorest countries.
• Globally there are an estimated 214 million women who want to delay or prevent pregnancy but who are not able to access or use contraception. Unintended and early pregnancy is a key cause of high maternal death rates in Africa. Having access to contraception is critical for women continuing their education and being able to take up employment opportunities.
• The programme will operate across at least 18 countries in Africa and Asia, to ensure previously unreached people, especially young and poorer women, are able to access contraception and have the choice on whether, when and how often to have children. This includes more accessible sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) sites, mobile clinics into rural and poorer areas, community outreach services and family planning commodities.
• To ensure sustainability beyond the life of the programme, WISH will work with national governments to bolster their own capacity to provide longer-term services.
• Voluntary family planning – with women’s choice at the centre – contributes to wider development by bringing down fertility rates. This could enable African countries to unlock economic growth and prosperity.

Young people across the country will join together to tackle plastic pollution through a new partnership between the UK Scouts and Government.

Harnessing the enthusiasm of the UK’s girl and boy Scouts, the Government will create and distribute a new Plastics and Marine Environment Activity Pack to help them in efforts to slash the amount of single-use plastics in our oceans.

Recognising the need for global action, this toolkit will be supported by a new international exchange programme, allowing Scouts from the UK and Kenya to visit one another and learn how important the issue of plastics is in different parts of the world.

The announcement was made by the Prime Minister during her visit to Africa this week, where she also pledged almost £40,000 for a new Girl Guides and Scouts Plastic Challenge Badge This will help an estimated 50,000 young people in Kenya and two further African countries, to better understand the importance of reducing plastic consumption.

Environment Minister Thérèse Coffey said:

Plastic pollution is one of the greatest environmental challenges of our time and we all have a role to play in turning the tide on single-use plastic in our oceans.

This new partnership will help mobilise Scouts to take action and inspire a new generation of leaders in kick-starting behaviour change towards single-use plastics.

The new partnership will build on the work the Scouts are already doing as part of their A Million Hands programme which gives young people the chance to take action with issues they care about.

This summer Scouts have been working with the Canal & River Trust to collect plastic and other litter from canals and rivers across the country. By doing this they have already built better outdoor spaces to bring communities together all across the UK.

Tim Kidd, UK Chief Commissioner for The Scouts said:

As Scouts, we’re committed to helping tackle some of the biggest challenges of our time. We have always had a strong connection to the environment, and so taking action on plastic pollution is an obvious cause for our young people to champion.

I’m proud of the role our young people will play in taking a stand against single use plastics.

Speaking to Scouts and Guides with the Prime Minister in Kenya today, Head of UN Environment, Erik Solheim, said:

The environment has already paid a heavy price for our addiction to single-use plastics. We simply can’t allow that cost to extend to the next generation.

That’s why this support from the UK government to create and launch a plastic pollution badge with the Guides and Scouts is such an inspiring step in the right direction. This global partnership allows us to not just fight plastic pollution on the beaches, but to invest in the young minds that will preserve the planet for future generations to come.

Today’s announcement is the latest step in the Government’s ongoing fight against plastic, both at home and abroad.

This includes a world-leading ban on microbeads in rinse-off personal care products which harm marine life, and plans to ban the sale of plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds and introduce a deposit return scheme to drive up the recycling of drinks bottles and cans, subject to consultation.