Under the scheme, parents will no longer have to meet the costs of burials or cremations. Fees will be waived by all local authorities and met instead by government funding.

Every year an estimated 4,350 children die under the age of 18 and grieving parents can face thousands in council fees for burial or cremation costs. There is also considerable variation in charges, with some councils waiving fees altogether.

The intervention brings England in line with Wales and follows a cross-party campaign by bereaved parents to remove fees for funerals for those under the age of 18.

Theresa May today praised the “dignity and strength” of Swansea East MP Carolyn Harris who been at the forefront of the cross-party Parliamentary campaign following the death of her eight-year-old son Martin.

The Prime Minister said:

No parent should ever have to endure the unbearable loss of a child – a loss that no amount of time will ever truly heal.

But in the raw pain of immediate loss, it cannot be right that grieving parents should have to worry about how to meet the funeral costs for a child they hoped to see grow into adulthood.

I have been incredibly moved by the dignity and strength of campaigners like Carolyn Harris, who lost her own son Martin when he was just eight years old. Carolyn has passionately argued for a Children’s Funeral Fund to spare grieving families the burden of meeting funeral costs.

In the darkest moment of any parent’s life there is little light – but there can be support.

That is why I have asked for the Children’s Funeral Fund to be set up in England. For Carolyn, in memory of her son Martin, and in support of all those parents overwhelmed by such harrowing loss.

The intervention follows government support for Kevin Hollinrake’s Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Bill for parents who lose a child under the age of 18.

Communities Secretary Sajid Javid today (30 March 2018) set out a bold cross-government plan of action to significantly reduce the number of people sleeping rough as the Homelessness Reduction Act comes into force next week.

Based on proven activity that has helped deliver substantial decreases before, this further action will have a rapid impact on rough sleeping now and represents major progress towards the government’s commitment to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminate it altogether by 2027.

The new package of measures – which builds on government action to date – includes:

• a new Rough Sleeping Team made up of rough sleeping and homelessness experts, drawn from, and funded by government departments and agencies with specialist knowledge across a wide-range of areas from housing, mental health to addiction

• a £30 million fund for 2018 to 2019 with further funding agreed for 2019 to 2020 targeted at local authorities with high numbers of people sleeping rough; the Rough Sleeping Team will work with these areas to support them to develop tailored local interventions to reduce the number of people sleeping on the streets

• £100,000 funding to support frontline Rough Sleeping workers across the country to make sure they have the right skills and knowledge to work with vulnerable rough sleepers.

In addition, the government is also working with the National Housing Federation to look at providing additional, coordinated move-on accommodation for rough sleepers across the country. This builds on the existing 3,750 ‘clearing house’ places already provided in London

Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said:

This winter has tragically claimed the lives of a number of people sleeping on the streets. This is completely unacceptable in modern Britain.

No one should ever have to sleep rough and this government is determined to break the homelessness cycle once and for all.

Tackling the causes of rough sleeping is undoubtedly complex but we must do all we can – working across central and local government, the voluntary and charity sector – to help the most
vulnerable in society and eliminate rough sleeping for good.

The Homelessness Reduction Act is the most ambitious legal reform in decades and places new duties on councils to prevent and relieve homelessness, including for single homeless people who are at greater risk of sleeping rough.

The new package of measures announced today provides cross-government support and funding for local housing authorities to drive a significant reduction in rough sleeping.

Departments across government are working to support the Act and make sure there is sustained progress on the commitment to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminating it all together by 2027.

This package of new measures will be supported by the:

• Department of Health and Social Care – which will make available experts in mental health and drug treatment services to help support the new outreach teams, including in hostels

• Ministry of Justice – which will focus on making sure prison and probation work with local authorities and outreach teams to identify prisoners and offenders serving community sentences who are at risk of sleeping rough

• Home Office – will encourage the policing sector to work in partnership with local authorities on rough sleeping, including enforcement where appropriate, and to identify and share best practice

• Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport – which will work in partnership with MHCLG to explore opportunities for new Social Impact Bonds that build on the success of existing programmes providing effective and innovative support to rough sleepers

The government is taking significant action to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping through:

• £1.2 billion investment in various programmes, including protecting core funding of £315 million to local authorities for their work on homelessness, and an additional £617 million in Flexible Homelessness Support Grant funding, which councils can use to work more strategically to prevent and tackle local homelessness pressures

• piloting the Housing First approach – working with the Metro Mayors in the Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, to support rough sleepers with the most complex needs

• a new cross-government taskforce supported by a panel of homelessness experts, charities and local government that is driving forward a new national strategy to be published in July that will make life on the streets a thing of the past

• investing £9 billion to build more affordable housing, including new council homes

• up to £135 million of dormant assets will be directed to Big Society Capital for them to deploy into a substantial programme of investment in housing for vulnerable people including those most at risk of homelessness or rough sleeping; the first investment opportunities in this programme will be launched in the autumn

Further information

Further detail is available on gov.uk

The Homelessness Reduction Act comes into effect on 3 April 2018. Read more information on the Homelessness Reduction Act.

Clearing Houses provide supported housing in London for people with a history of rough sleeping. All properties are self-contained 1-bed or studio flats and are provided by housing associations.

In January, the Secretary of State for Culture announced that up to £135 million of dormant assets would be directed to Big Society Capital (BSC). BSC are currently developing a strategy to deploy the majority of this into a substantial programme of investment in housing for vulnerable people including those most at risk of homelessness or rough sleeping. Read more on dormant assets.

The Business Secretary Greg Clark has today (29 March 2018) announced that, as part of the Industrial Strategy, 3 projects across the North East of England have been awarded almost £15 million to help improve local universities, businesses and entrepreneurs produce new products and services and bring them to market.

Ensuring the UK is the best place for innovators is at the heart to the modern Industrial Strategy and key to the government’s plan of building a Britain fit for the future. The new investment, part of the £100 million Connecting Capability Fund, will support a range of activity aimed at growing the North East economy, creating jobs and delivering major environmental benefits for the region.

Business Secretary Greg Clark said:

The North East has some of the most innovative people, businesses and organisations and I am determined to build on its success.

Improving our ability to bring new innovations and products to market is crucial to the success of the UK economy and the new set of projects announced today will further strengthen the link between our world leading universities and businesses.

Through our Industrial Strategy we are determined to improve people’s lives. By increasing investment in research and development by an extra £7 billion over the next five years we will ensure the UK remains one of the best places in the world to innovate, do business and create the high value, high skilled jobs of the future ensuring we build a Britain fit for the future.

The new projects announced today include £5 million of funding for a project led by Durham University which includes Newcastle University, Northumbria University and the University of Sunderland to deliver a step change in commercialising research and drive economic improvement in support of the North East’s technology and industrial sectors. Called Northern Accelerator, the project will build on an existing project of the same name and establish a seed capital investment fund to help turn concepts into new businesses or products.

The bioeconomy is worth over £36 billion to the UK and is one of the key growth areas for the economies. To take advantage of the growing sector, £5 million is being invested to build the bioeconomy sector across the Tees Valley, Yorkshire and Humberside.

In collaboration with regional industry, Local Enterprise Partnerships and the wider community, Teesside University will work with the University of York and the University of Hull to deliver projects focused upon 3 areas: transforming bio-based waste into new products; converting industrial sites by re-purposing them for bio-based manufacturing and growing the productivity of the region’s bioeconomy as a whole by bringing together research and commercialisation capabilities within the three universities. The new investment is expected to grow the region’s economy, create new jobs and have major environmental benefits.

David Sweeney, Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange at HEFCE and Executive Chair Designate of Research England, said:

Today’s announcement is a first for Research England, which comes into existence on 1 April. These projects exemplify our aims – to work in partnership with universities, support innovations and deliver benefits for the economy and local communities.

The Northern Ireland Assembly Members (Pay) Act 2018 has now received Royal Assent. This enabled the Secretary of State to make a determination on MLA pay and allowances, which she has now made, confirming that the forthcoming £500 inflationary increase from 1 April will not apply to MLAs.

Secretary of State determination

MS Word Document, 78.5KB

Mr Speaker,
Honourable Members,

It is an enormous privilege to address this Assembly today.

The country which I represent cherishes deeply our deep connections to this city and to this beautiful region of Kenya.

I’m told that the very name “Kisumu” comes from words to do with trade. Going to Kisumu meant going to trade. That bespeaks an openness to the world, a diversity, a sense of the city and the county as a great meeting point of people, which are still felt here today.

The United Kingdom’s connections with Kisumu go back more than a century. Our shared history has moments of deep pain, and we must live with and respect that. But we recognise too that it has bound us together, and that the connections it has fostered still bind us today.

Kisumu, or Port Florence as the British colonisers briefly called it, was of course the terminus for the great railway which opened up Kenya – the only time, it was said, that a railway had built a nation rather than the other way round.

British agriculturalists helped develop the sugar industry and bring breeds of maize which thrived in this region’s rich climate.

British missionaries helped bring formal education to Nyanza. Miss Fanny Moller started by teaching older women in the mornings and encouraging them to send their children in the afternoons. Along with Cannon Pleydell she founded a girls school in Ng’iya, in Siaya, in 1923, one of the very first places in this part of the world which gave a formal education to girls. Ng’iya girls high school still stands there today.

Today this region remains a focus for us as a donor, in an overall programme for Kenya as a whole worth 40 billion shillings every year.

Today I visited a UK-funded health centre helping women make choices about their lives by providing family planning.

I saw another UK-funded project that is working with KMET here in Kisumu to end post-partum haemorrhage – the complications and bleeding after childbirth which still kill too many young mothers in this region.

The UK has distributed millions of bed nets to help families protect themselves from malaria. And we have developed and delivered through pharmacies across Kenya a rapid, finger-prick diagnostic test for malaria, so people with a fever can quickly see whether they indeed have that disease or something else, and can quickly get the right treatment.

We continue to work closely with the county government here and in the region to build their capacity to deliver healthcare. And through networks such as the Tunza clinics we are working to bring that care to the hardest-to-reach areas.

Meanwhile UK Aid is helping bring low-cost private education to areas where the state hasn’t reached; to bring more girls and disabled people into sustainable schooling; and to empower girls and young women through programmes such as Premier Skills, which uses football coaching to build confidence and tackle domestic abuse or genital cutting.

Fundamentally, our aid is designed not just to help people today, but to help Kenya build the systems that will allow central and county governments sustainably to provide services themselves in the future.

The Governor and I discussed today how the UK can provide more assistance to the county government of Kisumu to do that, and we will be following that up.

This also means helping build the prosperity which will lift people out of poverty and enable governments to finance the services they need.

Through Trade Mark East Africa, the UK has funded new border posts for example in Busia to speed up trade through this region and help companies make the most of its international connections. That links to work all the way back to Mombasa port which has already cut by several days the time taken to import and export goods through the port, making it cheaper for companies across Kenya to trade.

As the next phase of Kenya’s great infrastructure projects works up from Nairobi towards the Lake, the UK will remain closely involved – as an investor and as a development partner working to ensure that those projects deliver real benefits for businesses and wananchi.

We are making development investments in projects that will improve people’s lives through innovation. We have put UK money for example into SolarNow, which is bringing small-scale solar power to households and to pump water.

And we will bring more private investment to Nyanza. I have been joined on my visit today by the chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Kenya, representing several hundred British companies active here and keen to invest and expand further. He will take the message back too about what is happening in this region and what new possibilities are here.

In Homa Bay, a British firm is building a biogas plant which will turn water hyacinth from the Lake into electric power. Once the power purchase agreement is complete – and I continue to urge the Kenyan government to make progress on this quickly – it will come on line.

Here in Kisumu, East Africa Breweries is building a major new plant which will, once complete, employ hundreds of people directly and support tens of thousands more jobs through its supply chains and distribution networks.

EABL is a company which is not just investing in Kisumu but is driving development here and across the country. Five years ago, less than half of what went into its Kenya-brewed products was sourced locally. Today 80 percent of its product is local content. That transformation has brought tens of thousands of Kenyan farmers into its supply chains. And the company is already talking to more farmers in this region about how they can supply its new plant.

Mr Speaker,

It is my sense that this region stands at an important point in its history.

A window has opened for political reconciliation, and that is hugely to be welcomed. It can only benefit the people of Kisumu and the region. Already I hear from everyone I have met here how business is picking up and investors are excited about new possibilities.

This region deserves its full share of justice, equality and inclusion, like every part of Kenya and like every Kenyan. And in turn it should play its full role in supporting and strengthening Kenya’s institutions, and ensuring they can go about their vital work. Its future lies as one of the country’s most dynamic and prosperous areas, contributing its full share to Kenya’s success and benefiting in turn fully from the country’s shared prosperity.

I reiterate today the United Kingdom’s call that reconciliation between political leaders be followed and accompanied by an open, sustained and transparent dialogue involving politicians, religious and civic leaders, and all those with a stake in Kenya’s present and its future. Now is the time to deal not just with the aftermath of last year’s elections but with the underlying issues which will help this country and this region prosper and develop.

The dialogue of which I speak should include the strengthening of institutions, preventing politicians tearing down and attacking for political gain the common fabric which holds Kenya together. Kenya’s democracy is precious, and all Kenyans need to work to protect and strengthen it.

It includes greater accountability and reform of the security services. They have an important job to do maintaining order, and that can be tough. But where people are killed or abuses alleged, they must be transparently investigated and those responsible held to account.

Such a dialogue should include also, in my view, how the workings of devolution can be strengthened and reinforced.

There are I’m sure many other issues – including how Kenya’s governance should evolve over the coming years. They are for Kenyans to determine. What I say I say as a friend of Kenya, representing a country deeply invested in its future security and prosperity as a partner. And in that capacity I call again for the follow-up to this month’s historic handshake to grapple with the big issues on Kenya’s future; and on the leaders of this region to take their full share of responsibility in building the common future which Kenya needs.

Mr Speaker,

It has been an enormous privilege for me to address this assembly today. And as always, it has been a great pleasure to visit this beautiful county of Kisumu.

I pray for success in the work of this Assembly, and for the peace, prosperity and development of this county and this region.

I commit the United Kingdom to doing all we can to support those aims. I will continue to strive to deepen the partnership between my country and your county.