Mark Fletcher

Throughout the UK’s Presidency year, we will work with Egypt as the incoming Presidency, and all countries, to deliver on the agreed outcomes in the Glasgow Climate Pact and keep 1.5 in reach.

In doing so we will continue to champion science, especially the IPCC and its major reports in 2022, and the urgency of action on emissions reductions, adaptation, finance to support developing nations and loss and damage.

Today we have published our white paper on the Gambling Act Review which sets out a wide-ranging, proportionate package of reforms to ensure the regulatory framework is fit for the smartphone age and the right protections are in place to protect the public from gambling-related harm. The suite of proposals strike a balance between respecting the choices of people who gamble safely, and ensuring those that are at risk of gambling harm and addiction are protected and safeguarded.

This week marks 10 years since the first Universal Credit Pathfinder. UC was successfully rolled out to all Jobcentres by December 2018 and has improved employment outcomes for claimants, got rid of the old cliff edges and navigated the pandemic in a way Legacy Benefits could never have done. We are presently moving all tax credit recipients onto Universal Credit.

We received over 5,000 submissions to our mental health and wellbeing call for evidence, and we appreciate the engagement work many stakeholders carried out with children, young people and adults with lived experience, and more broadly, to inform their responses to the call for evidence. We have analysed the responses to the call for evidence, and we will consider them as part of the process for developing the Major Conditions Strategy.

We remain committed to delivering the Green Paper on Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision and we have made progress.

Mental health support teams now cover 26% of pupils, a year earlier than originally planned.

NHS England piloted a four week waiting time standard and has consulted on the definition and introduction of a range of waiting time standards, including that children, young people and their families/carers presenting to community-based mental health services, should start to receive care within four weeks from referral.

The Department for Education has committed to offer all state schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead by 2025, and over 10,000 schools and colleges have taken up the training offer so far.

The Budget and Spending Review in October 2021 confirmed a total £100 billion of investment in economic infrastructure over the Spending Review period to benefit every part of the UK.

The new UK Infrastructure Bank also opened for business in June 2021 and is partnering with the private sector and local governments to increase investment in infrastructure. With £22 billion of financial capacity, the Bank has already successfully supported three loans, including two private sector loans, investing in offshore wind, solar energy, and broadband.

Throughout the pandemic, the Government has sought to protect people’s jobs and livelihoods while also supporting businesses of all sizes across the UK. We put in place an economic support package totaling £352 billion through the furlough and self-employed income support schemes, as well as support for businesses of all sizes through grants and loans, business rates and VAT relief, and a commercial rents moratorium.

We want to help small businesses across the UK to scale and grow as they recover from the pandemic. At Budget, we announced Help to Grow: Digital and Management. Help to Grow: Digital provides a new online platform and voucher to support SMEs to adopt software which could help them save time and money and grow faster. Help to Grow: Management offers a new, world-leading management skills training programme to upskill 30,000 small businesses across the UK over three years, to help boost their business’s performance, resilience, and long-term growth through practical leadership and management training.

Defence has delivered the Armed Forces Act 2021 to ensure Armed Forces personnel, veterans and their families are better supported when accessing key public services.

The Act enshrines the Armed Forces Covenant in law for the first time to help prevent service personnel and veterans being disadvantaged when accessing essential services like healthcare, education and housing.

Following the British and Irish Intergovernmental Conference in June, the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and I jointly initiated an intensive period of engagement on legacy, with a view to finding a way forward as soon as possible.

Since then my officials and I have and continue to engage with the Northern Ireland parties and other key stakeholders as part of this process, and in partnership with our colleagues in the Irish Government.

Defence spend contributes significantly to delivering thousands of high-skilled jobs and investment in Scotland, not least through shipbuilding at which we are a world leader.

The latest figures show that in 2021/22, MoD expenditure with industry and commerce in Scotland totalled more than £2 billion.

That is the equivalent of £370 per person and higher than the average of £310 per person for the whole UK.

It is for the Welsh Government to consider the merits of a separate public inquiry. It is vital that all such inquiries rigorously examine public bodies’ handling of the Covid crisis and provide at least the same level of scrutiny as the UK public inquiry.

The UK Government is working closely with the devolved administrations on the scope of the UK public inquiry. I look forward to this beginning its work next year.