Author Archives: HM Government

• £140 million of new funding to help the world’s poorest communities address the effects of climate change
• Expansion of UK and Canada-led Alliance to reduce international use of unabated coal
• UK to host international Zero Emission Vehicle Summit in Autumn 2018

The Prime Minister will attend the One Planet Summit in Paris today where she will announce a raft of new measures to tackle both the effects and causes of climate change.

The UK will provide a £140 million boost to poorer communities around the world which are disproportionately affected by climate change whether through deforestation or vulnerability to natural disasters and climate extremes. This will include an additional £30 million through DFID’s Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters (BRACED) programme.

This funding will help two million more of the world’s poorest people to cope with climate shocks, bringing the total to 7 million people supported with irrigation for better harvests, support in planting more resilient crops, improved forecasting and help to develop insurance schemes. And by helping to build resilience to extreme weather we will reduce the need for communities to call on emergency humanitarian support when disaster strikes, reducing dependence on aid.

The Prime Minister will also announce £15 million of additional support for reconstruction on the island of Dominica in the Caribbean, one of the regions that is most affected by extreme weather associated with climate change. This money will support reconstruction of the island’s water system which was destroyed by Hurricane Maria. UK funding will help rebuild the system to make it better able to withstand future extreme weather events.

To help other individual countries and territories in the Caribbean become more resilient the UK will give £8 million of additional funding for activities including better crisis and response operations on the islands; training and improvements to communications systems; casualty management training; and mapping of high risk areas.

Poor communities are also disproportionately affected by climate change through deforestation, with one billion people around the world reliant on forests for their livelihoods. That is why today the Prime Minister will commit a further £87 million through DFID’s Forest Governance, Markets and Climate (FGMC) Programme. This money will help local communities who depend on forests to accelerate efforts in the fight against illegal logging and support trade in legal timber.

In her remarks at the Summit the PM will underline how the UK is leading an international effort to meet the commitments made under the Paris Agreement. She is expected to set out how the UK and Canada-led Powering Past Coal Alliance is driving the international community and big business to phase out the use of unabated coal.

Since being launched at a UN climate change conference last month in Bonn nearly 30 countries and regions have signed up and today will see a number of additional partners join the alliance including Sweden, California and large businesses such as EDF and Unilever.

And the Prime Minister will demonstrate the UK’s commitment to putting clean growth at the heart of our Industrial Strategy by announcing that the UK will host a global Zero Emission Vehicle Summit next autumn, bringing together Ministers, industry leaders and sector representatives from around the world to further the development of the low emission and electric car market. The Summit will cement the UK’s position as a world leader in the low emission and electric vehicle industry and build on the government’s manifesto commitment for almost all cars and vans to be zero emission by 2050.

Prime Minister Theresa May said:

Tackling climate change and mitigating its effects for the world’s poorest are among the most critical challenges that we face. That is why I am joining other world leaders in Paris today for the One Planet Summit and committing to stand firmly with those on the front line of extreme weather and rising sea levels.

And by redoubling our efforts to phase out coal, as well as build on our world leading electric car production, we are showing we can cut emissions in a way that supports economic growth.

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Thank you Mr President.

And thank you also to High Commissioner Zeid and Merislav Jenca for their harrowing words on the dire situation in the DPRK. Sadly it is unsurprising that the regime maintains a stranglehold on every aspect of its citizens’ lives. The United Kingdom, like other Security Council members, views the human rights situation in North Korea with deep concern and dismay.

The regime’s treatment of its own people is yet another example of its unashamed contempt of the international rules based system.

That is why we fully support the Security Council’s wish to draw attention to the shameful living conditions of the North Korean people as well as to North Korea’s illegal nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, which we have condemned in Resolutions 2371 and 2375.

We must maintain international focus on the human rights situation in North Korea through both the UN in New York and the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

We welcome the UN visit last week and we encourage the regime to engage in a meaningful way.

Evidence of the leadership’s appalling behaviour towards its own people is impossible to ignore.

People lack freedom of religion and expression. They have minimal control over their livelihoods and resources. The state controls what they see, what they consume and how they behave, using the threat of extreme punishment to keep people under its thumb.

Naysayers are disappeared, or jailed, or publicly executed to demonstrate the price of freedom. The Global Slavery Index estimates that more than a million people are victims of modern slavery.

Yet we know from defector testimonies that, despite the fear instilled in every North Korean, there are many brave individuals who would rather take their chances fleeing than remain gagged and bound by the regime.

Like the soldier who recently defected across the Demilitarised Zone. His daring escape was act of desperation as well as of hope. His starved physical condition speaks volumes about the standards of health and welfare in a country that professes to put the military first. And therefore how it treats those who are most vulnerable.

We urge all Members not to return defectors back to this miserable situation. This sends a message that we condone the behaviour.

We also urge all Members not to profit from the people of North Korea’s misery by employing North Korean nationals who are sent abroad to generate foreign currency, which is used by the regime to fund its illegal missile programmes, as stated in Resolution 2321.

The systematic violations of human rights by the regime goes beyond its own citizens or borders. The death of US citizen Otto Warmbier following his detention; the 17 Japanese nationals abducted by the regime; the assassination of Kim Jong Nam in Malaysia. These are all examples of the North Korean regime’s contempt for the international rules based system.

This contempt is further exemplified by the regime’s denial of access to independent observers of the human rights situation. Or to engage in meaningful dialogue. Or to act on the 2014 Commission of Inquiries Report that highlighted “wide ranging and ongoing crimes against humanity”. The regime has rejected the Third Committee Resolution that called upon it to respect the basic rights of its people.

Today, I repeat the United Kingdom’s call for North Korea to allow human rights actors immediate and unhindered access to assess the human rights situation in the country.

Our message to the regime must be clear and united. We must use all the diplomatic and economic tools at our disposal to deliver this message.

There is a very different path that is still open to the regime. This path leads to security and prosperity. It leads to improved lives for their citizens. All the members of this Council and beyond, must work together to persuade the North Korean leadership to pursue this path.

To do so it must end illegal missile tests. It must genuinely engage with the international community. It must take serious steps to improve the human rights situation for all its citizens.

Real positive change to the livelihoods of the North Korean people will not happen overnight. But it will not happen at all for as long as North Korea pursues its current course.

Mr President, we are committed to working with partners on the Council, and beyond, to tackle this challenge. The world looks to us all, and above all the North Korean regime, to support a change for the better.

Thank you.

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Artist’s impression of MicroCarb. Credit: ESA.

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The Prime Minister met with Prime Minister Boyko Borissov of Bulgaria this afternoon. The meeting opened with the Theresa May welcoming him to London and congratulating him on his upcoming presidency of the European Council. Borisov commented that the… read more

The new mental health provisions will mean it will no longer be possible to place children (under 18s) experiencing a mental health crisis in a police cell. For adults, the use of police cells as places of safety will be significantly restricted and it will only be possible for them to be used in exceptional circumstances. The period for which a person can be detained for the purpose of a mental health assessment will also be cut from 72 to 24 hours.

Victoria Atkins, Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability said:

Too often and for far too long vulnerable people experiencing mental health crisis, who have committed no crime, have found themselves in a police cell because there is nowhere else to go.

This government has been clear that the best place for people suffering mental health crisis is a healthcare setting and not a police station.

The change in legislation will build on progress already made by police forces and health care partners that saw use of police cells for those experiencing a mental health crisis halve in the last year.

While 23 force areas reduced their use of police cells as places of safety for children to single figures or zero in the last year, the law change will ensure no child will end up in a police cell.

To ensure there are sufficient alternatives in place the Department of Health has provided a total of £30 million to health partners to increase provision across the country of local health and community-based places of safety.

Health Minister Jackie Doyle-Price said:

When you are experiencing a mental health crisis, the last place you’d want to be is in police custody and it is totally inappropriate for a child to be taken to a cell just because they are ill.

We have seen a 90% reduction in England in the number of people being held in custody who should be in NHS care – this move will mean that for young people this will finally be a thing of the past. We are also investing £30m to increase and improve places of safety for people in crisis.

Further provisions that have also been introduced for section 135 and 136 powers, which are the powers used by police to detain someone under the mental health act include:

• extending section 136 powers to any place other than a private residence, so that police officers can act promptly when an individual is found in mental distress, and is in need of care and control
• requiring police officers to consult with mental health practitioners when possible before exercising a section 136 power, to help ensure that such a step is absolutely necessary in the circumstances
• an ability to conduct a mental health assessment in a person’s home following the use of a section 135 warrant, if that is considered to be in the interests of the person, rather than removing them to a different place of safety

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