Tag Archives: HM Government

Youth organisations will receive £40 million to boost the skills and life chances of young people living in disadvantaged areas, Minister for Sport and Civil Society Tracey Crouch announced today.

The money is set to benefit 300,000 young people, providing new opportunities for them to get involved in their communities, support their personal development and get the skills and confidence they need to enter the workplace.

It will be used to create new youth clubs in rural areas, expand sports projects to build the confidence of young people encouraging them to get active and increase services providing support and guidance to young people.

The Youth Investment Fund – made up of government and National Lottery players money from the from the Big Lottery Fund – will be shared by 86 youth organisations in East London, Liverpool City Region, West Midlands, Tees Valley and Sunderland, Bristol & Somerset and Eastern Counties over the next three years.

Minister for Civil Society Tracey Crouch, said:

This investment from the government and National Lottery players will have a transformational effect on the lives of some of our most disadvantaged young people. It will help thousands who might otherwise have gone under the radar flourish. Local voluntary and community youth organisations already do so much fantastic work and this £40 million will enrich the lives of many more young people throughout England.

Dawn Austwick, Chief Executive, Big Lottery Fund said:

The Youth Investment Fund is a welcome boost for the many great community organisations that work with young people locally. Money raised by National Lottery players creates opportunities for young people to build on their talents and strengths and the Youth Investment Fund is an important part of the jigsaw for the youth sector.

Examples of projects that will receive funding to better the lives of young people in their area are:

Youth Federation: The Liverpool-based charity will receive £749,664 to improve youth provision across Wirral, Halton and St Helens. Youth Federation aims to reach out to nearly 5,000 local young people, providing coding and digital skills to increase their employability and improve mental health through sport.

Kite Trust: Cambridgeshire LGBT charity will be awarded £193,554 to create four safe spaces for 600 young people to receive advice and support on issues such as isolation. The charity will also develop and implement an education and corporate training programme for schools and businesses in the region to promote equality and inclusion.

SkyWay: Located in Hackney, the charity delivers a wide range of activities and programmes in youth clubs, sports centres, parks and house estates. It will use £407k in funding to improve its offer to young people by buying new equipment such as cooking utensils, arts and crafts kits and sports equipment, that will be used in support sessions. It will also increase the number of young people being trained as young leaders, a programme that is currently oversubscribed at Skyway.

The fund will allow the chosen organisations to expand the services they provide to young people, and sustain them over the coming years.

The New Philanthropy Capital and the Centre for Youth Impact will work alongside each of the 86 organisations to evaluate the impact of their work with young people.

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• For more information please call the DCMS press office on 020 7211 2210

• The Youth Investment Fund is equally funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Big Lottery Fund.

• The Big Lottery Fund is the largest funder of community activity in the UK. It puts people in the lead to improve their lives and communities, often through small, local projects. It is responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised by National Lottery players for good causes. In 2016/17 it awarded £712.7 million and supported more than 13,814 projects across the UK for health, education, environment and charitable purposes. Since June 2004 it has awarded £8.5 billion to projects that change the lives of millions of people.

• Breakdown of the bidding criteria (PDF, 88.6KB, 4 pages) .

• The fund will be given to organisations in East London, Liverpool City Region, West Midlands, Tees Valley and Sunderland, Bristol & Somerset and Eastern Counties. These areas were chosen based on measures of deprivation, to make sure that the funding reaches areas of greatest need

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The Prime Minister held a short meeting at Downing Street with the Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir earlier today.

They discussed a range of bilateral and regional issues, including the ongoing isolation of Qatar in the Gulf region, with the Prime Minister reiterating her call for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the situation and restore Gulf Co-operation Council unity at the earliest opportunity.

They also discussed Saudi Arabia’s “Vision 2030” programme for reform and modernisation. The Prime Minister noted its focus on transformation, innovation and empowerment and said that the UK looked forward to continuing to work closely with Saudi Arabia on this ambitious project. She hoped that Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman would be able to visit the UK in the near future to build on the historic partnership between the two countries.

Finally, they discussed Yemen, the need to bring the conflict to an end, and the continued importance of demonstrating compliance with international humanitarian law.

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Thank you Mr. President,

This is the sixth time that the Security Council has come together to condemn a nuclear test by North Korea. It’s the sixth time that the world has held its breath. North Korea is the only country in the 21st century to have conducted such tests, against all international standards of behaviour.

In addition, we have met many times in recent months following other North Korean provocations, most recently, just last week in response to its reckless missile test over Japan. Yesterday’s nuclear test explosion was by far the largest yet. Combined with the increasing range of its missiles, North Korea poses a threat not simply to its region but truly to global peace and security. This latest test has been rightly condemned already by most of the governments represented here today.

UN Security Council debate on North Korea

We have passed eight sanctions resolutions on North Korea. The country is subject to the most stringent sanctions currently applied by this Council. Yet still North Korea continues to put its illegal missile and nuclear programmes ahead of international law, international security and the will of this Council. This is a disturbing and unprecedented situation. Rarely has a state remained so defiant in the face of overwhelming international condemnation, and repeated, powerful rounds of sanctions.

It is clear that existing sanctions applied by the Security Council on North Korea are having an effect. In particular, the measures against commodity exports and the financial sector, applied since 2016, are making it harder and harder for Pyongyang to acquire the hard currency necessary to fund its programmes. Each day that gets harder still, thanks to the efforts of many states around this table.

Those who doubt this impact need only read the statements coming from the North Korean regime. They rail against the sanctions that we have placed upon them. But it is also clear that DPRK is uniquely willing to put their illicit programmes ahead of the wellbeing of its people. Those people suffer appalling repression, and struggle even to feed themselves. The leadership of North Korea has chosen this path of defiance at great cost

Faced with this unique threat to international peace and security, the Security Council must condemn this test and the entire North Korean nuclear and missile programme.

We continue to wish for a peaceful way forward. Dialogue will always be our end goal. But returning to dialogue without a serious sign of intent from Pyongyang would be a set up to failure. North Korea must change course to allow a return to dialogue. Were they to do so, the opportunity exists to end this crisis. Until that moment, we must stay the course on sanctions, and continue, as the Secretary-General has called for, to present a united front.

I said when we met last week that the United Kingdom believed a new UN Security Council Resolution was required in response to North Korea’s dangerous and illegal test flight of a missile over Japan. In light of yesterday’s nuclear test, our resolve to act has increased still further. We must increase the pace of implementation of existing sanctions and work rapidly towards the adoption of a new and effective Resolution.

While continuing to enforce the measures this Council has already agreed, we should go further by taking steps to sever the funds on which the regime relies in order to pursue its illegal and destabilising programmes. We should not least further restrict the unethical exploitation of North Korean workers overseas.

Mr President, North Korea has created a deeply dangerous and unstable situation. The United Kingdom will work with our partners on this Council and beyond to tackle the challenge. I urge all states to join us.

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First Secretary of State Damian Green said: The talks today were conducted in a constructive spirit and were a step in the right direction. We both agree that it is vitally important to protect the internal UK market and to avoid making things more d… read more

Thank you all for joining us here today at what is a truly remarkable gathering of truly remarkable people. I’ve had the privilege of meeting with a number of you in the past. And one thing I’ve learned from that is that no two survivors are alike, no two stories are the same.

But those unique experiences, those unique views, are precisely why you’ve been invited along today.

There are deeply moving monuments to the murdered Jews of Europe in cities around the world. The thousands of concrete columns that comprise the vast memorial in Berlin. The heart-wrenching bronze shoes that line the banks of the Danube in Budapest. The symbolic glass towers that stand opposite City Hall in Boston.

They are all ideally suited to the cities and countries they are in.

But we want a UK memorial that is truly national, one that speaks to the thoughts and feelings and experiences of British survivors.

And that’s why your opinions – your honest, open opinions – are so important.

If you think one of the designs is head and shoulders above the rest, don’t be embarrassed about saying so. But if you don’t rate a design, we want to hear that too. And if you can think of ways to improve a design, share those thoughts too. These are just initial ideas, there’s a lot of work still to be done.

I can’t promise that the jury will pick your personal favourite. I can’t promise that we won’t pick your personal least favourite, for that matter! But I can promise that your opinions will carry a great deal of weight.

We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a stunning, inspiring, sobering memorial in a jaw-dropping location. And it’s so important that we get the design right.

It’s not just important to me, or to the jury. But to the whole country.

Because there are voices out there saying we don’t need another reminder of the Holocaust. That it’s enough to let it be noted in the history books and the museums. That we should move on.

Such voices couldn’t be more wrong.

In recent weeks we’ve seen people proudly marching through an American city with swastika flags held high. We’ve seen Jewish children as young as eight being chased through London by a man shouting the foulest anti-Semitic abuse. We’ve read report after report about the steadily swelling ranks of neo-Nazis and their efforts to become almost respectable by denying or belittling the crimes of their predecessors.

That’s why, as the Shoah slides towards the edge of living memory, it becomes ever more important that we refuse to forget it.

That we stand up as a nation and say “No, we will not let the past be airbrushed. We will not allow this country forget what happens when hatred and ignorance and bigotry are allowed to flourish unchecked.”

The UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre will stand as a permanent reminder of what happened.

Constructed right in the heart of our democracy, it will be impossible to ignore or overlook. It will be a lasting tribute both to those who died and to those who survived. And it will be a focal point for reflection and education that will ensure the Holocaust is remembered long after all of us in this room are gone.

And I hope that, with your help, we can choose a design worthy of the 6 million men, women and children who must never be forgotten.

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