The honey and wax produced by Ethiopian bees is helping to generate income for beekeepers across the country, and now Welsh charity Bees for Development is helping to grow the numbers of entrepreneurial Ethiopian beekeepers further.

UK aid has awarded Bees for Development, based in Monmouth, Wales, £50,000 through the Small Charities Challenge Fund (SCCF). This funding will train and start the new businesses of beekeepers in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. Bee keeping offers young people without access to land a viable income earning opportunity with very low start-up costs.

Penny Mordaunt, International Development Secretary said:

Small, UK-based charities up and down the country, often staffed by volunteers, are incredibly valuable in making a difference around the world. DFID’s Small Charities Challenge Fund celebrates their innovative work in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Bees for Development is a great example of how a small community in Wales is helping to make a huge difference in Ethiopia. They are providing an invaluable entrepreneurial experience to young people, helping them thrive and support their own community.

Alun Cairns, Secretary of State for Wales said:

I am delighted that the hard work of Welsh charities such as Bees for Development is being rewarded for the international impact they have in encouraging entrepreneurship in a way that protects our environment. I hope that the funds awarded will go a long way to continue the great work they do across Ethiopia.

The Bees Ethiopian project has four aims:

• To deliver beekeeping training to vulnerable communities to build sustainable and resilient livelihoods

• Help beekeepers secure best value for their bee produce by accessing strong market chains, which are fair and rewarding

• Ensure that honey bee populations thrive as a result of environmental protection

• Enable beekeepers to access high quality, relevant information about methods, market opportunities and policy development

Dr Nicola Bradbear, Director of Bees for Development said:

Bees for Development helps the poorest people earn extra income through beekeeping. We are a specialist organisation, with a niche set of skills. This grant from the Small Charities Challenge Fund will enable us to help families in Ethiopia keep bees profitably, so they can earn extra income to buy school uniforms, pay medical costs, buy food and pay-off debts.

All SCCF projects are chosen for their ability to strengthen the capacity of grassroots development organisations working with the most marginalised to ensure that no one is left behind.

Note to Editors:

• The Small Charities Challenge Fund was launched in 2017 specifically to provide funding to smaller charities with an income of £250,000 or less. Bees for Development is the first recipient to be announced from the first round, other successful applicants will be announced later this summer. More information on the Small Charities Challenge Fund can be found here: www.ukaiddirect.org/apply/sccf

• For more information on Bees for Development please visit their website: www.beesfordevelopment.org

In the dataset you can find the date of sale for each property, its full address and sale price, its category (residential or commercial) and type (detached, semi-detached, terraced, flat or maisonette and other), whether it is new build or not and whether it is freehold or leasehold.

The number of sales received for registration by property type and month

Of the 85,493 sales received for registration in June 2018:

• 64,262 were freehold, a 5% fall on June 2017

• 8,735 were newly built, an 8.9% fall on June 2017

There is a time difference between the sale of a property and its registration at HM Land Registry.

Of the 85,493 sales received for registration, 22,281 took place in June 2018 of which:

• 387 were of residential properties in England and Wales for £1 million and over

• 230 were of residential properties in Greater London for £1 million and over

• one was a residential property in Birmingham for more than £1 million

• one was a residential property in Greater Manchester for more than £1 million

• one was a residential property in Cardiff for more than £1 million

The most expensive residential sale taking place in June 2018 was of a detached property in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London for £28,500,000. The cheapest residential sale in June 2018 was a terraced property in County Durham for £17,250.

The most expensive commercial sale taking place in June 2018 was in the City of London for £71,200,000. The cheapest commercial sales in June 2018 were in Waltham Forest, London and the Isle of Wight for £100.

Access the full dataset

Notes to editors

1. Price Paid Data is published at 11am on the 20th working day of each month. The next dataset will be published on Tuesday 28 August 2018.

2. Price Paid Data is property price data for all residential and commercial property sales in England and Wales that are lodged with HM Land Registry for registration in that month, subject to exclusions.

3. The amount of time between the sale of a property and the registration of this information with HM Land Registry varies. It typically ranges between two weeks and two months. Data for the two most recent months is therefore incomplete and does not give an indication of final monthly volumes. Occasionally the interval between sale and registration is longer than two months. The small number of sales affected cannot be updated for publication until the sales are lodged for registration.

4. Price Paid Data categories are either Category A (Standard entries), which includes single residential properties sold for full market value, or Category B (Additional entries), such as sales to a company, buy-to-lets where they can be identified by a mortgage and repossessions.

5. HM Land Registry has been collecting information on Category A sales from January 1995 and on Category B sales from October 2013.

6. Price Paid Data can be downloaded in text, CSV format and in a machine readable format as linked data and is released under Open Government Licence (OGL). Under the OGL, HM Land Registry permits the use of Price Paid Data for commercial or non-commercial purposes. However, the OGL does not cover the use of third party rights, which HM Land Registry is not authorised to license.

7. The Price Paid Data report builder allows users to build bespoke reports using the data. Reports can be based on location, estate type, price paid or property type over a defined period of time.

8. HM Land Registry’s mission is to guarantee and protect property rights in England and Wales.

9. 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. 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 some 85% of the land mass of England and Wales.

11. For further information about HM Land Registry visit www.gov.uk/land-registry.

12. Follow us on Twitter @HMLandRegistry our blog, LinkedIn and Facebook.

• Government is strengthening offender supervision in existing CRC contracts and investing an extra £22 million each year to improve through-the-gate support
• CRC and NPS areas to be aligned – improving joint working and strengthening ties with key partners, including the third sector, local authorities and PCCs
• Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) contracts will end two years early in 2020, with plans to work with the market to design new and improved contracts.

A consultation document published today outlines the Ministry of Justice’s intention to strengthen the supervision of offenders and increase confidence in community sentences.

It builds on the recent publication of our female offender and employment and education strategies, to demonstrate the department’s commitment to tackling reoffending by: investing in community provision; strengthening alternatives to short custodial sentences; and boosting rehabilitation and prospects for offenders.

Probation relies heavily on joint working with a range of agencies and today’s consultation outlines plans to create a more integrated and collaborative system, by improving partnerships with PCCs and the third sector.

In the future, CRC and NPS areas will be aligned, with ten new probation regions in England, simplifying and strengthening ties with key local partners and creating opportunities to co-commission rehabilitation services with PCCs.

Reforms to probation in 2015, known as ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’, were challenging, ambitious and have led to 40,000 extra offenders a year receiving support and supervision on release – a positive change for public safety.

This additional monitoring has been carried out by newly formed, ‘Community Rehabilitation Companies’ (CRCs) who manage low and medium-risk offenders, and the publicly funded National Probation Service (NPS), who manage higher-risk offenders.

While CRCs have reduced the overall number of people reoffending, it is clear that probation providers have faced significant challenges. Unforeseen changes in the types of offenders coming to the courts and the sentences they receive have substantially reduced CRC income and affected the quality of frontline services.

That is why the consultation document sets out urgent action being taken to address existing issues with CRC contracts. This includes ending current CRC contracts early in 2020, improving supervision and through-the-gate support in the meantime, and using the lessons learnt so far to put in place improved services in the future, with more effective commercial arrangements.

Secretary of State, David Gauke said:

I am determined to have a probation service that protects the public, commands the confidence of the courts and ultimately reduces reoffending.

So we are taking decisive action now to improve the delivery of probation services in England and Wales.

We want to see less reliance on ineffective short prison terms, and in order to achieve this courts must have confidence that probation services will deliver tough community sentences – sentences that punish, but also help those who commit crime to turn their lives around and stop offending.

I am confident that the proposals set out in this consultation will play a major role in helping us to achieve this aim.

To improve services in the next two years, the Ministry of Justice is investing an additional £22 million a year in through-the-gate support for offenders when they leave prison, as part of wider changes to contracts to stabilise CRC delivery until the end of 2020 and allow CRCs to continue to deliver the level of service required.

The Ministry of Justice will also work with London and Greater Manchester to co-design future services in those areas as part of existing devolution arrangements.

In addition, the devolved responsibilities of the Welsh Government and existing arrangements in Wales make the delivery of probation services fundamentally different to England.

To reflect this, the consultation sets out proposals to bring the supervision of all offenders in Wales into the NPS and explore how wider partners can help to improve rehabilitative support for offenders, by better joining up with health, housing and other local services.

Alongside the structural and contractual changes, a new professional register will be introduced, helping staff to move between roles and develop their careers. The consultation also seeks views on improving the training and development of staff.

The consultation will seek to gather views and expertise from a range of potential providers, including the voluntary sector, as well as other stakeholders, and will inform the future delivery of probation services in England and Wales.

Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft ports should be ready to handle more goods than ever before after Brexit, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said as she visited Great Yarmouth port today (27 July 2018).

The East of England is already a major generator and supplier of energy and the region is at the centre of the world’s largest market for offshore wind energy. Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft combine to create England’s largest group of high-tech energy exports.

And the Chief Secretary now wants to see the ports become vital trading hubs, increasing trade with global partners.

Latest figures show that during 2017 the East of England exported nearly £29 billion worth of goods, up by £2.5 billion from 2016 figures.

Machinery and transport goods were worth more than £10 billion alone, while agricultural and food goods were worth nearly £2 billion.

Latest figures also show that during 2018 more than £3 million worth of goods have been traded from the two ports with Asia, North America and non-EU European nations, a figure that Liz Truss thinks can go higher.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liz Truss said:

Yarmouth and Lowestoft ports have the potential be the lifeblood of the local economy, and I have seen today the enormous ambition that business leaders have to improve trade links form these areas.

After we leave the EU, we hope that these great ports will be able to take advantage of the opportunities available to them and realise their exports ambitions.

Exporting is good for business, good for jobs and good for people working and living in the area.

Employment in the region at a record high of 78.7 per cent. And since 2010, job growth in the East of England has been the second fastest of all UK regions.

The government is also improving transport links in the region, vital for port access, by investing more than £3 billion on major road schemes in the East of England, including the £6.8 million Great Yarmouth link road which has eased congestion and helped to support offshore access.