The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, George Eustice has written to Stella Kyriakides, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety about trade in live bivalve molluscs from Great Britain to the European Union for purification in the EU.
The UK Government today (8 February), invites the private sector to participate in a Competition to identify innovative product proposals to mobilise investment in sustainable infrastructure in emerging and developing countries.
The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is launching a public Competition, engaging financial institutions in a competitive search for the best sustainable infrastructure proposals that can list, either on the London Stock Exchange and/or local exchanges.
In working with partners across the finance industry, the FCDO seeks to demonstrate that large scale institutional flows of capital for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and climate financing through listed instruments is possible. The Competition is the first in a series under the Mobilising Institutional Capital Through Listed Product Structures (MOBILIST) programme. MOBILIST seeks to identify listed product structures or platforms for FCDO to invest in and eventually bring to Initial Public Offering (IPO).
The Competition will feature at COP26 and also directly delivers a Government commitment made at the UK-Africa Investment Summit. The FCDO is backing the Competition with public capital; with technical assistance and by working across HMG and our network of diplomatic Missions around the world.
Emerging and developing countries continue to face significant shortfalls in their private (and sovereign or public) sector financing needs to around $2.5 trillion a year. Low and Low Middle-Income countries need $1.4 trillion of this. As part of our efforts to bridge this gap, the UK Government supports the identification, development and listing of new instruments that meet these objectives: i) commercial viability; ii) replicability; iii) scalability; iv) additionality; v) feasibility.
MOBILIST is the entry-point to the FCDO’s ambition for a UK Mobilisation Platform that acts in public and private markets and represents a long-term commitment by the UK Government to securing new sources of investment at scale, to finance global development for decades ahead.
The Competition is being managed by PwC who will host a market briefing event on the 19th February 2021. To sign up for this event, complete the PwC form here.
For further information, email: uk_mobilist_infracompetition@pwc.com
The FCDO’s work on Mobilisation includes programmes with and through the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), Development Finance Institutions (in particular CDC and the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG)). It also includes financial sector programmes such as Financial Sector Deepening Africa (FSDA).
Behaviour change is the focus of an online plastic pollution workshop being held for Portsmouth communities today (Monday 8 February).
The interactive event, jointly hosted by the Environment Agency and the University of Portsmouth, is aimed at representatives from zero waste groups and plastic free communities who want to encourage local people to stamp out avoidable plastic waste in their lives.
Experts believe around 10 million tonnes of plastic waste enters the ocean every year, which is equivalent to a bin lorry load every minute.
Jonathan Harvey, from the Environment Agency’s Plastics and Sustainability Team, said:
Bringing together experts and sharing their valuable skills and experience with Portsmouth communities will provide encouragement, confidence and reassurance that local organisations can make a real difference.
If we are going to improve the quality of our environment, it is important to get everybody involved. Today’s workshop supports communities with the latest tools, knowledge, and evidence to change behaviours and tackle plastic pollution within their patch.
We’re encouraging everybody to re-evaluate the things that they buy and consume – to step away from single-use items and choose more reusable, repairable, and sustainable alternatives.
Whatever you do, small steps will contribute towards creating cleaner communities and marine environments.
Attendees will also have the chance to discuss the barriers they have faced in trying to change people’s behaviours, how to engage hard to reach groups, and how they can apply behaviour change theory to their own work.
Professor Steven Fletcher, Director of Sustainability and Environment at the University of Portsmouth, said:
The University of Portsmouth is delighted to be working with the Environment Agency, our community partners, to support actions that are better for people and the planet. Community-based action is critical to building healthy and sustainable communities.
The workshop is the second plastic pollution event aimed at Portsmouth communities as part of the EU-funded Interreg Preventing Plastic Pollution project – a programme to understand and reduce the impacts of plastic pollution in river and marine environments. The first workshop took place in October and encouraged communities to form a network, access resources and collectively start taking steps to tackle plastic pollution.
Preventing Plastic Pollution (PPP) seeks to understand and reduce the impacts of plastic pollution in the river and marine environments. By looking at the catchment from source to sea, the project will identify and target hotspots for plastic, embed behaviour change in local communities and businesses, and implement effective solutions and alternatives.
PPP is a €14million funded EU INTERREG VA France (Channel) England Programme project co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund which works mainly across East Hampshire, Test and Itchen, Poole Harbour, Medway, Tamar, and Great Ouse, Brest Harbour, Bay of Douarnenez, and Bay of Veys catchments.
The event also supports Revolution Plastics – a project launched by the University of Portsmouth to find solutions to the world’s plastic problem by bringing together teams of scientists, business-leaders, campaigners and citizens who share an ambition to transform the way we make, use and dispose of this polluting material.
Experts will share tried and tested engagement methods for inspiring change, including:
Sohvi Nuojua from the Behavioural Science Team at the University of Plymouth. Sohvi is sharing evidence-based techniques that can be used to reduce littering, encourage recycling and cut down use of plastics by disrupting habits, highlighting environmental consequences and other methods.
Clare Seek from Plastic Free Portsmouth. Clare will be talking about her experiences and challenges working with community groups in Portsmouth, including litter, children’s experience of nature, and repair cafe fixes.
Dr Daphne Kaklamanou, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, at the University of Portsmouth.
To find out more about the workshop email plasticsandsustainbility@environment-agency.gov.uk.
News story
A look at our Partnership and Engagement team, and the work of our new Regional Safeguarding Outreach Officers.
Over the next four weeks, the Disclosure and Barring Service will be promoting the role of our Partnership and Engagement team, alongside the role of our new Regional Safeguarding Outreach Officers. This campaign will also focus on maximising understanding of the legal duty to refer throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
A central hub has been created, which will be updated over the course of the next four weeks, to include information about our Outreach Officers, what region they each cover, the support they provide, and how to contact them if you’d like to find out more.
Part of this campaign will also include a spotlight on one of our Regional Safeguarding Outreach Officers, Allister Woods, and the work he is doing in Northern Ireland.
The Partnership and Engagement team work regularly with other organisations, looking at how we can collaborate and share key messages amongst the safeguarding community. Their work includes national and sector-based engagement, and events with organisations such as British Ice-skating, British Wheelchair Basketball, and universities – specifically for students that will be engaging in regulated activity.
The team are also responsible for planning and delivering the DBS Conference.
Other pieces of previous, and upcoming, work include:
Follow along with this work on the official DBS Twitter account @dbsgovuk, and get in touch if you have any questions or would like to find out more.
Published 8 February 2021
The change will end a blanket ban on public hearings when introduced later this year, though it is anticipated that the vast majority will continue to be heard in private. It follows a public consultation launched in October which found broad support for the move.
Rules governing what information can be disclosed from parole hearings are under consideration as part of the government’s wider review of the parole system. The Root-and-Branch Review is intended to improve public trust and victim confidence in the system and will report back in the summer.
Under the new system, anyone would be able to request that a hearing be heard in public. The Chair of the Parole Board will then decide whether an open hearing would be ‘in the interests of justice’, a test already used by the Mental Health Tribunal for this purpose.
Because of the sensitive nature of what is discussed, including offenders’ medical information and graphic accounts of their crimes, and the need to protect victims’ privacy it is expected that most hearings would not meet this test.
Victims and the prisoner themselves will be consulted before a decision is reached and, although neither will have a veto, the Parole Board is unlikely to agree to a public hearing where it will cause significant distress to victims or where the victims are children (or were at the time of the offence).
Justice Minister Lucy Frazer MP said:
The government wants victims to be allowed to attend parole hearings if they wish but we appreciate many would find a public hearing distressing.
Our ongoing Root-and-Branch Review will consider how to achieve victim attendance so that they can see first-hand how decisions have been reached in a comfortable and supportive setting.
Attendees would not be entitled to intervene, ask questions of the witnesses or address the panel, much like in a court setting, except where a victim is presenting their personal statement.
It will remain at the discretion of the Parole Board what information heard in the hearing can be disclosed or reported. But the consultation highlighted how integral other issues are to the opening up of parole hearings, such as the rules around disclosure of information, contempt powers and the support available to victims. These issues require careful thought to ensure the parole process remains safe and effective for all participants and will now be considered in the round as part of the Root-and-Branch Review.
The rule change will be introduced through secondary legislation later this year and the Parole Board will also set out in guidance how they will approach requests for open hearings.