The Prime Minister is expected to make the announcement as part of the UK-France Summit at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where she will discuss the UK’s strong and wide-ranging bilateral relationship with President Macron.

The helicopters, which will provide logistic support to French troops, are part of a wider effort to increase stability in the Sahel region of Africa in order to tackle Islamist terrorism.

UK and French efforts in the region aim to provide greater stability, reducing the global terrorist threat and stemming the flow of illegal migration to Europe.

The UK has been a long-standing supporter of UN, EU and African Union military operations in Mali and has worked with international partners to prevent extremists from using the ungoverned space in the Sahel to plan and launch attacks on Europe, as well as counter the illegal trade in people, drugs, weapons and wildlife.

This is in addition to existing wider support to Africa including doubling our UN peacekeeping contribution with additional deployments to South Sudan and Somalia. Today the UK and France also agreed to work together to ensure EU African Peace Facility funding for AMISOM in Somalia.

The deployment of Chinooks to Mali will increase British support to France’s Operation BARKHANE, in addition to strategic air transport flights already being carried out by the RAF.

British military personnel will not be involved in combat operations, but the deployment of Chinooks will provide a niche capability providing logistical support but also saving lives by avoiding the need to move troops by ground where they are more vulnerable to attack.

Alongside the military contribution, DfID will allocate £50m of additional aid including lifesaving humanitarian support for hundreds of thousands of people affected by epidemics, natural disasters and conflict across Mali, Niger, Chad, North Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Mauritania.

This will provide 320,000 people with emergency food and nutrition support and provide protection for 255,000 internally displaced people, returnees, refugees and their host communities. It will also supply clean water and better sanitation for 150,000 people.

The FCO is also exploring ways to better support the UK national interest in the region by enhancing the UK diplomatic presence.

In addition, the Home Office will work with key African partners to build their capability to tackle human trafficking in support of the UK’s migration and modern slavery agenda. Discussions on taking this work forward will take place with the French after the Summit.

France has also agreed to commit troops to the UK-led NATO battlegroup in Estonia in 2019, building on the successful joint deployment which the Prime Minister and President Macron visited together last year. These personnel will make up part of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence in Eastern Europe, providing deterrence in the face of increasing Russian assertiveness.

This further deployment of UK and French forces alongside our Estonian allies represents both the UK and France’s shared commitment to upholding the deterrence and defence posture of NATO, and more widely our firm resolve and commitment to European security.

Today’s Summit, which will be attended by UK Cabinet Ministers and their counterparts, will mark President Macron’s first visit to the UK as President.

While Summits in previous years have focussed on defence and security, foreign policy and nuclear energy, the 2018 Summit will be broadened to cover the full spectrum of the UK-France bilateral relationship including prosperity, innovation, science and education.

Hundreds of thousands of British citizens live in France while hundreds of thousands of French nationals have chosen to make the UK their home. And the two countries share £71billion in trade, making France the UK’s third largest trading partner.

The Summit today will reflect the broadness of the UK-France relationship, with wide-ranging discussions also expected to focus on how the two countries can work together to address the challenges and seize the opportunities presented by new technologies.

Ministers will also discuss ways in which the existing deep linguistic and cultural ties between the UK and France can be strengthened through pupil exchanges and shared education and cultural initiatives.

As well as attending the Summit the Prime Minister and President are expected to have a private lunch and attend a reception at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the evening.

The Prime Minister said:

Today’s Summit will underline that we remain committed to defending our people and upholding our values as liberal democracies in the face of any threat, whether at home or abroad.

But our friendship has always gone far beyond defence and security and the scope of today’s discussions represents its broad and unique nature.

And while this Summit takes place as the UK prepares to leave the EU, this does not mean that the UK is leaving Europe.

What is clear from the discussions we will have today is that a strong relationship between our two countries is in the UK, France and Europe’s interests, both now and into the future.

Good evening and thank you, Lucy. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Now, we all know the jokes about roundabouts, concrete wastelands and ring roads.

The references to eternity looking like Milton Keynes.

The people who make these jokes have no idea what they’re talking about.

If they want to know what eternity feels like, try being a politician waiting for the call from No.10 on reshuffle day!

But, seriously, as the launch of this APPG shows, New Towns have got a lot to offer.

That we need to do more to ensure they’re fit for the future.

And that we have an ambitious vision for the New Towns of the 21st century.

One man who certainly wasn’t lacking in vision was Ebenezer Howard, the pioneer whose garden cities inspired the New Towns.

But it’s fair to say that not everyone bought into his dreams of marrying the best of city and rural living.

Even the progressive Fabian News said rather sniffily:

“His plans would have been in time if they had been submitted to the Romans when they conquered Britain…

But Ebenezer Howard’s achievements; as an urban planner whose influence can still be felt, here and abroad, speak for themselves.

They’re all the more remarkable considering that his day job was as a Hansard short-hand copy-taker right here in Parliament.

So maybe I need to look a little closer to home for solutions to the housing crisis!

And it’s especially pleasing to have the Town and Country Planning Association…

…the organisation Howard founded…

…supporting this APPG and represented here today.

Your input, and the history behind it, underlines that the challenges Howard sought to address are just as relevant today.

Not enough good quality affordable housing.

Overcrowding.

The belief that everyone deserves to live in a strong, vibrant community.

Of course, the bleak industrial backdrop that spawned Howard’s garden cities has long gone.

But the desire for people to live somewhere they can find work, build families, get about easily, and enjoy green space has not.

It’s the most basic of desires – the desire for a place to call home.

And it’s this issue of place…

…how to build not just more homes, but strong communities…

…that goes to the heart of the challenge we face as a country.

A challenge we’re determined to meet – as underlined by the recent change in my department’s name…

…to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

And the launch of a new national housing agency, Homes England.

A challenge that the important work of this APPG has an opportunity to inform.

Because there’s little doubt that there are valuable lessons to be learned from New Towns.

Many, like those represented by my honourable friends here today,..

… are home to successful companies

…offer affordable homes

…and job opportunities that attract inward commuters.

But the downsides of the rapid development and, in particular, centralised planning, that underpinned New Towns are all too evident.

Dated, often identikit housing, infrastructure and town centres that, too often, look like everywhere and nowhere.

That don’t just make these towns the butt of lazy jokes…

…but make it harder for them to be seen as truly aspirational and attract the investment they need to grow and thrive.

Like you, I want this to change.

And I can see that many new towns are stepping up to the challenge.

Some, like Bracknell, are making intelligent use of their existing assets…

…and making a virtue of the need for massive regeneration to offer investors and developers scale of opportunity.

Others, such as Crawley, are introducing a richer mix of shopping opportunities and development…

…by breaking down the original blocky zoning and the inner ring roads.

And we’re seeing high quality and better design informing the development of Lightmoor Village in Telford.

A development that, fittingly, is being driven by a partnership between Homes England and Bournville…

…one of the first and still most successful New Towns.

And I see partnerships; between central and local government, between local government and the private sector, as very much the way forward.

For regenerating existing New Towns and driving the delivery of new ones.

Again, Lucy’s constituency, is showing just what’s possible through initiatives such as the Telford Land Deal.

A partnership between:

• the government
• Homes England
• the local council
• and Marches LEP

…that will deliver 2,800 new homes and 8,500 new jobs.

The key thing with this Deal, is that it’s led, not centrally, miles away from the communities concerned…

…even if that approach had worked previously, it wouldn’t be right for the times we live in.

Instead, it’s led locally by those who know Telford best – the people who live and work there.

This shows that government and New Towns can work innovatively to power further growth.

And that we’re open to other New Towns coming to us with ideas.

We’re already supporting 24 locally led garden cities, towns and villages…

…ranging in size from 1,500 new homes to over 20,000, from Cornwall to Cumbria.

Some are being built on land where there are few or no houses at the moment.

Others will provide transformational growth to existing settlements.

All reflect their particular local circumstances and share a focus on quality and good design…

…echoing the commitments in our Housing White Paper.

The recent Budget…

…the biggest and boldest for housing for decades…

…built on these commitments to back five new locally led Garden Towns in places where demand is high.

A million new homes in the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge corridor by 2050…

…a hugely ambitious project which I was delighted to appoint my honourable friend, Iain Stewart, to champion.

And also the first of our ambitious Housing Deals…

…with Oxfordshire, to deliver 100,000 homes by 2031, backed by £215 million of funding for infrastructure.

We all know that the right infrastructure is absolutely vital for New Towns.

So the Budget’s doubling of investment in the Housing Infrastructure Fund to £5 billion can only be good news.

As are our legislative changes to reboot New Town Development Corporations – the vehicle for the post-war New Towns.

So you can count on our support.

But I won’t pretend that we have all the answers.

Which is why I am keen to learn from the important work you’ll be undertaking; to better understand the challenges and opportunities for New Towns.

To consider how can we do more to support the people and places you serve.

And deliver the next wave of garden towns and villages.

So congratulations again on today’s launch and all the best for your work ahead.

As a government, we’ve made some great strides, having delivered more than a million homes since 2010.

And helped over 255,000 households buy their own home through Help to Buy.

But there’s clearly a long way to go to deliver the 300,000 homes a year on average we will need by the mid 2020s.

New towns have an important role to play in helping us fix our broken housing market.

But I know we’ll really have succeeded when the joke isn’t on New Towns, but those who knock them.

Thank you.

As new Secretary of State, I wanted to set out my views on intellectual property early and clearly.

Imagine there was no James Bond

Imagine there was no Harry Potter

Imagine there was no Imagine.. by John Lennon

Who can say what cultural brilliance would have been robbed from our nation if artists couldn’t reap the rewards of their creation?

As your report acknowledges, we have one of the best intellectual property regimes in the world.

We were one of the first countries in the world to realise the need for laws to protect the work of creators. The Statute of Anne from 1710 is widely seen as the first copyright act, and influenced similar legislation across the world.

Of course a lot has changed since then.

Rather than copyright simply concerning what comes off the printing press, there are now international video and streaming platforms which host colossal amounts of content. Four hundred hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute.

Of course the internet means distribution is easier than ever. Both legal and illegal.

And the viral nature of social media means ownership can be harder than ever to enforce.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, a stolen joke is no laughing matter.

You understand this. IP rules may be technical but their importance can’t be overstated.

Intellectual property is vital to encouraging creativity and as a Government we are committed to protecting it.

We remain fully committed to addressing the transfer of value from the creative industries and closing the value gap that fails to reward our creators.

We are making some real progress in this area. Research shows there has been a drop in infringement levels from 17% to 15% since 2013, partly due to the increased availability of legal content.

But there is much more to do. The research also shows that pirates are increasingly turning to illegal streaming devices and websites. You have told me this.

This must be stopped and there is a lot of work taking place to do this.

Our Digital Charter is the framework which will develop the policies and frameworks to make the UK the safest and fairest place to be online. We have a good track record on this.

The Government has helped to broker a ground-breaking code of practice through the Search Roundtable.

This helped search engines and the creative industries to work together so consumers aren’t being led to copyright infringing websites.

Thank you to the Alliance and its members for the vital part you all played in this. These partnerships between tech firms and the creative industries are crucial and we want to see even more of them.

The Government has also confirmed that it will continue to fund the Intellectual Property Crime Unit, helping it to build on its impressive record fighting online counterfeiting and piracy.

While we remain members of the EU, we will support work in Brussels to tackle the value gap.

And as we leave the EU we will import EU rules into UK law and then maintain and strengthen the protection of intellectual property.

We want to go further than just maintaining the status quo.

Brexit will provide the opportunity to strike trade deals independently with new markets.

And I want to make it perfectly clear tonight; intellectual property will be at the heart of these discussions.

The Government wants Free Trade Agreements to support innovation, market entry and consumer choice.

And as we look to expand the potential of new markets, we want to ensure rewards for creators, along with support and investment for the creative industries.

Breaches of IP are not a new concern for artists; Jimi Hendrix once said “I’ve been imitated so well that I’ve heard people copy my mistakes.” This is true for me too…

But the scope and the nature of it is changing and we need to be well equipped to combat it.

Britain has historically been world-leading in helping artists get the value they deserve from their books, plays, films or music.

The Alliance for IP has played a big part in this. Thank you for all the work you’ve been doing on behalf of artists across the UK – and for producing this valuable report.

It is my profound belief that throughout history, civilised society has been based on the respect of property.

That is the basis of any market economy. And the market economy in turn is the greatest force for prosperity ever invented by man.

And as technology marches on, the property that really matters is increasingly the ideas, the designs, the art and the concepts. In short, the IP.

It is therefore no exaggeration to say that respect for IP underpins this nation’s prosperity. And you are its most effective voices and guardians. Britain understood this first. And we will lead the world once more.

Our commitment to IP is unwavering. We will remain an open, confident, forward looking nation that will be a haven for the brightest creative talent. For that is where this country’s future lies.

Thank you and have a wonderful evening.

We know that this is a troubling time for Carillion’s workers and businesses that were in Carillion’s supply chain.

The government’s priority is to make sure all public services Carillion provided continue to run smoothly. We have put our plans into action to ensure all public sector services continue unaffected. No major disruptions have been reported and we will continue to monitor the situation. We will continue to pay workers on public sector contracts.

Financial support for businesses

HMRC will provide practical advice and guidance to those affected through its Business Payment Support Service (BPSS). The BPSS connects businesses with HMRC staff who can offer practical help and advice on a wide range of tax problems, providing a fast and sympathetic route to agreeing the best way forward and addressing immediate concerns with practical solutions.

Working with banks to help small businesses

Business Secretary Greg Clark, Economic Secretary to the Treasury John Glen, and Small Business Minister Andrew Griffiths, met banks on 17 January 2018 to seek assurances that they will support small businesses affected by Carillion’s liquidation.

Lenders are contacting customers and, where appropriate, are putting in place emergency measures, including overdraft extensions, payment holidays and fee waivers to ensure those facing short term issues can be helped to stay on track.

This ensured small businesses exposed to the liquidation of Carillion are given the support they need.

Minimising disruption to apprentices’ training programmes

We are committed to funding every apprentice that has already started their apprenticeship programme through to its completion. We have taken steps to protect learners by transferring the training of Carillion apprentices to the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), and we are grateful to CITB for helping us ensure learners can continue to gain the skills they need.

We will continue to work closely with the CITB to support apprentices to remain in existing placements or to find new employment with other local organisations so they can complete their training.

Pensions

For those already receiving their pension, you will continue to be paid.

We know that some people will be concerned about their pensions, so if you need free and impartial advice we would recommend that you call The Pensions Advisory Service on 0300 123 1047.

We’ve also set up a special additional helpline with the Pensions Advisory Service for members of Carillion’s pension schemes: 0800 7561012.

Keeping public services running

Our primary responsibility has always been keep our essential public services running safely. Government is providing the necessary funding required by the Official Receiver to maintain public services. Staff that are engaged on public sector contracts continue to come to work and will continue to be paid.

Worried about your job?

JobCentre Plus, through its Rapid Response Service, stands ready to support any employee affected by this announcement.

Support could include:

• helping people facing redundancy to write CVs and find jobs
• providing general information about benefits
• helping people to find the right training and learn new skills
• helping with costs like travel to work expenses.

Thank you Mr President.

And may I thank both Ghassan and Rina for your briefings here today. And a very warm welcome and thank you also to our briefer from civil society, Ms. Sharief, who set out some very powerful messages and set out very eloquently the importance of an inclusive peace process, including particularly women and youth, and actually it would be very helpful, perhaps as follow up to this conversation to hear anymore from UNSMIL on how they are integrating the gender perspective in their work.

Let me begin, Mr President, by welcoming the Special Representative Salamé’s update on the political process and reiterating the United Kingdom’s full support for his work. In our statement of the 14 December, we in this Council urged all parties to support the political process in a spirit of compromise for the sake of the Libyan people.

This must include support for Special Representative Salamé’s efforts to secure consent to amend the Libyan Political Agreement and commitment to the sequencing of the UN Action Plan.

As Ms. Sharief highlighted, civil society has an essential role to play in ensuring the voices of the people are also heard during discussions on the future of their country.

All Libyans, regardless of their age, gender, or where they are from, must feel represented and understood by their political leaders. This will encourage Libyan’s to give their political leadership their support and build trust in the political process.

The greatest immediate need is the establishment of a more inclusive political platform. That is essential to create an executive better able to improve the security, human rights and economic conditions in Libya.

A more inclusive political settlement will also help build a context more conducive to preparation for elections. We welcome the Special Representative’s emphasis on ensuring the right conditions are in place ahead of elections, including the necessary political, legislative and security preparations to ensure their success.

Mr President,

The security situation in Libya remains of deep concern, as we saw from clashes at Mitiga airport on Monday. As we’ve said before, there can be no military solution in Libya. All parties must exercise restraint and express their support for national reconciliation. This must include reconciliation of the security forces.

Unified security forces under the command of the civilian government, which are representative of and work for all Libyans, will also enable the threat posed by extremist groups to be tackled in a sustainable way. It will help bring an end to the impunity of armed groups which are inextricably linked to the gravely concerning human rights situation.

Ungoverned spaces in Libya are creating the conditions for abuses and violations of international humanitarian law which take place against civilians, internally-displaced persons and migrants.

We fully support the work of the AU-EU- UN Taskforce in tackling slavery in Libya. We call on all parties that are suspected of committing, ordering, or failing to prevent such human rights abuses and violations to be fully investigated, and if found guilty, to be held to account for their actions. We also stand ready to consider the sanctioning of individuals involved in people trafficking in modern slavery.

We are also concerned by reported restrictions to civil and political freedoms and intimidation of civil society organisations, public servants, religious groups and national minorities, including recent attacks of Sufi Shrines and Amazigh representatives. These groups must be allowed to participate in Libyan society and the political process.

And finally Mr President, on the economic situation. This Council needs to continue to protect the Libyan people from economic hardship, including by supporting the restoration of the economy and the delivery of services across the country. We must act robustly against attempts to illicitly sell oil and establish parallel institutions.

We need to continue to ensure that sanctions measures keep up with the situation on the ground. This includes the work we have done to address fuel oil smuggling. But we should also be ready to rectify inadvertent consequences, such as addressing the depreciation of frozen Libyan Investment Authority funds – which remain frozen at the Libyan government’s request until their eventual return for the benefit of the Libyan people.

Mr President,

A stable, unified, inclusive government is the best way to improve the security conditions, the economic fortunes and human rights situation for millions of Libyans. It will also improve global peace and security and our ability to address the challenges of migration. We must continue to stand together in support of Special Representative Salamé’s efforts to achieve this. And we, like him, urge Libya’s political leaders to put their country first.

Thank you.