Sarah Staniforth

From 1985-2014, Sarah held a number of senior executive positions at the National Trust. She is currently President of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works and holds a number of trusteeships, including with the English Heritage Trust. Sarah has previously sat as a Member of the Museum Accreditation Committee for Arts Council England (2011-2017) and currently sits as a member of the Science Museum Group’s Collections and Research Committee.

Steven Underwood

Steven is the Chief Executive of the Peel Group, one of the UK’s largest privately owned real estate, transport and infrastructure investors. Before joining Peel as Corporate Development Director in 2007, Steven spent eight years in investment banking with Rothschild and before that qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand. He represents the Peel Group on the Boards of a number of its investee companies, including Ports, Airports, Media and Land & Property. Steven is also a non-executive director of Harworth Group PLC and is the alternate Director for Peel’s Chairman, John Whittaker, as Deputy Chairman of Intu Properties plc.

Iain McIntosh

From 2009 to 2015, Iain served as Chief Financial Officer for the educational IT services group, RM plc. Prior to this, he was Chief Financial Officer at the Axon Group plc and has held senior finance roles with a number of international organisations. Since 2016, he has been a member of the Science Museum Group’s Finance Committee.

Judith Donovan

Judith is the founder of the marketing agency, JDA Group. She is currently Chair of the Eden Project and has previously served as a board member of the Big Lottery Fund, chairing its Resources Committee. She has served in non-executive roles for a number of organisations, including Network Rail and the Health and Safety Executive, and is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Ajit Lalvani

Ajit is the Director of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Respiratory Infections and Director of the Tuberculosis Research Centre at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London. He is also Honorary Consultant Physician at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Visiting Professor of Infectious Diseases in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at University of Oxford. His research programme focuses on translating scientific discoveries into innovative practical solutions to protect the health of the public through better screening, diagnosis and prevention of major infectious diseases, including flu and TB. He is a non-executive director of Vitabiotics Ltd and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Bromley-by-Bow Centre where he supports the charity’s mission to improve social determinants of health and tackle health inequalities.

Sir Peter Hendy

Sir Peter is the Chair of Network Rail (2015-). From 2006-2015, he was Commissioner of Transport at Transport for London, playing a leading role in the successful operation of London’s transport systems during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Sir Peter sits as Chair of the London Legacy Development Corporation (2017-) and was formerly President of the International Union of Public Transport (2013-2015). He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation and the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Jo Foster

Jo has been involved in the teaching of Science for 17 years and is currently Vice Principal at Camborne Science and International Academy in Cornwall, acting as Director of its innovative STEM Centre Nexus and Gifted STEM Programmes (2015-). Prior to this, she was Assistant Headteacher at Humphry Davy School in Penzance. Since 2017, she has been a Trustee for the Institute for Research in Schools (2017-).

Hannah Fry

Hannah is an Associate Professor at the Bartlett Centre for Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London, where she has worked since 2012. Prior to this, she was a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Mathematics. She regularly appears on science-based broadcasting programmes for the BBC, including co-presenting the long-running BBC Radio 4 series, The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry, and is an Honorary Fellow of the British Science Association.

These appointments have been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election. All of the candidates have declared no such political activity.

Fiona Butcher

Dr Fiona Butcher is the Director of Legal Services and Company Secretary of Trinity College London, an educational charity, where she oversees the provision of legal services and corporate governance to the charity and its group of subsidiaries. Before moving in-house, she worked in the fields of EU and competition law, regulation and compliance at a magic circle firm and at three regulators. She holds law degrees from Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

Dr Butcher has a keen interest in art history and also holds an MA and a PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she specialised in Modern British Art and wrote her doctorate on British Landscape Painting, 1945-1963. In addition, she has worked in the Interpretation Department at Tate Britain and has contributed to a number of art publications.

Julian Dowdeswell

Julian Dowdeswell is a glaciologist, working on the form and flow of glaciers and ice caps and their response to climate change, and the links between former ice sheets and the marine geological record, using a variety of satellite, airborne and shipborne geophysical tools. In a career of over 30 years, he has has taught in the Universities of Aberystwyth, Bristol and Cambridge. Since 2002, he has been Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute, including its Polar Museum, and Professor of Physical Geography in Cambridge University, and is Brian Buckley Fellow in Polar Science at Jesus College. He was awarded a Doctor of Science degree by Cambridge University in 2016.

Julian graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1980, and studied for a Masters Degree at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research in the University of Colorado and for a Ph.D. in the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. He has worked, on the ice and from aircraft, in Antarctica and many parts of the Arctic, including Greenland, Svalbard, Iceland and the Russian and Canadian Arctic archipelagos. He has also undertaken many periods of work on icebreaking research vessels in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea, in the fjords and on the continental shelves of Svalbard and Greenland, and around Antarctica. He has also represented the UK on the councils of both the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and is a past chair of the UK National Committee on Antarctic Research.

Julian was awarded the Polar Medal by Her Majesty the Queen for ‘outstanding contributions to glacier geophysics’ and has also received the Founder’s Gold Medal (2008) from the Royal Geographical Society. In 2011 he was awarded the Louis Agassiz Medal by the European Geosciences Union and, in 2014, he was received the IASC Medal from the International Arctic Science Committee ‘as a World leader in the field of Arctic glaciology and for his outreach and communication activities which have been instrumental for public understanding of Arctic change’. He was recently elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales and was awarded the Lyell Medal of the Geological Society of London earlier this year. Julian has also spoken recently on polar environmental change at the World Economic Forum in Davos and represented the UK at a White House meeting on the Arctic.

Helen Czerski

Dr Helen Czerski is an ocean physicist based in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London. The subject of her research is the production of bubbles by breaking waves on the open ocean and their influence on surface ocean processes, and she has spend many months working at sea for her research. Helen has been a regular science presenter for the BBC since 2010, and also frequently writes and speaks on both the physics of everyday life and the ocean. She also paddles Pacific outrigger canoes with a club in London, and she has a deep interest in the links between the oceans and human culture.

This appointment has been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election. Fiona, Julian and Helen have declared no such political activity.

• UK to protect up to 800,000 people in fragile and conflict-affected parts of Africa by providing families with alternative livelihood opportunities and protecting children from exploitation.

• Support for Prime Minister’s Call to Action from international community underlined by endorsement from 77 states, increasing from 37 this time last year.

• UK, US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia commit to eradicating modern slavery from global supply chains.

The UK will continue to lead the fight against modern slavery at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), galvanising international action to stamp out this vicious scourge and launching a range of projects to tackle child slavery across Africa and Asia.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt will today [Monday 24 September] announce new protections for vulnerable children at risk of falling prey to traffickers. A UK backed project with UNICEF will provide up to 400,000 girls and boys in Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan at risk of slavery with birth registration documents and other measures to shelter them from forced labour and underage marriage.

The UK will commit extra support, taking the UK spend to over £200 million, to help create jobs, strengthen law enforcement and improve recruitment practices so people do not become victims. It will also provide vital protections for those who do. UK aid is working to wipe out slavery, which costs the UK’s economy an estimated £4.3 billion a year, and prevent onward trafficking to the UK’s shores.

Speaking ahead of the meeting in New York, Ms Mordaunt said:

“From the clothes we wear to the food we eat, the insidious virus of modern slavery is infiltrating all aspects of our daily life without us even realising. Not only does it have a huge cost to the global and the UK’s economy, it is a shameful stain on our global conscience that must be eradicated for good.

“No one nation can banish this borderless crime alone. The international community must collaborate to dismantle predatory trafficking networks, support victims, strengthen justice systems and create sustainable alternative livelihoods.”

The UK alongside the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia will build on the success of the Prime Minister’s Global Call to Action, with four new principles for governments across the globe, designed to tackle modern slavery in global supply chains. As a collective the UK along with the other countries recognise the leveraging potential of their combined purchasing power – totaling more than $600bn – to significantly prevent forced labour in public and private sector supply chains, a crime which entraps an estimated 25 million people worldwide.

Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability Victoria Atkins, added:

“Denying people their freedom and basic human rights through modern slavery is a global tragedy. We as governments, businesses and citizens must do all we can to stop it.

“The UK and our partners are going further, showing leadership and setting out these new principles designed to drive out slavery from the supply chains which we will all benefit from.”

The UK’s leading stance sends a strong message that those doing business with the UK are required to act responsibly. With more than 60 per cent of forced labour victims in the private economy, Ms Mordaunt will also insist businesses step up efforts to eradicate the scourge of slavery from their supply chains. By galvanising their support, the UK hopes to enhance transparency and drive out modern slavery from the global economy.

In the year since the Prime Minister Theresa May launched the global Call to Action, 77 states have now endorsed it. This has increased from the 37 who joined last year. Today Ms Mordaunt will rally remaining members to do the right thing and join the global fight to eradicate these crimes which entrap over 40 million victims worldwide.

As children make up a quarter of modern slavery victims our additional support will:

• Equip up to 400,000 vulnerable people in conflict ravaged parts of Africa with skills training and alternative livelihood opportunities. Our support will improve law enforcement and assist conflict-affected families in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

• Tackle the worst forms of child labour through a major new programme across six countries in Asia. Working in partnership with UNICEF, the International Labour Organisation and the Institute of Development Studies, UK support will reduce the vulnerability of children to forced labour in hazardous industries such as agriculture and clamp down on the trafficking of children into commercial sex work. Interventions that tackle the drivers of child labour will be rolled out including cash transfer support for families affected.

• Educate children against the perils of trafficking, assist social workers and help reintegrate victims back into society along dangerous trafficking and migratory routes in east Africa. As well as support to Africa and Asia to tackle trafficking at source, we are continuing to shine a spotlight on this crime domestically:

• We are doing more than ever to catch and convict offenders. The UK is transforming the law enforcement and criminal justice response to these crimes, resulting in almost 900 active police investigations in 2018 compared to 188 in 2016.

• The UK is significantly increasing support for identified victims, particularly children and is rolling out Independent Child Trafficking Advocates across the UK to help them to rebuild their lives.

• Thanks to our world leading legislation, thousands of businesses have published modern slavery statements and companies have changed practices that were driving demand for modern slavery.

• In July, the UK Government announced an independent review of its landmark Modern Slavery Act to ensure our world-first legislation keeps in step with this evolving crime.

Notes to Editors:

• A year ago, the Prime Minister launched a global Call to Action to eliminate the borderless scourge of forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking, while doubling the UK’s aid spending on modern slavery to £150 million. Just one year on, 77 states have endorsed this Call to Action and the UK has gone above and beyond its original commitment, increasing UK aid support by over a third to £200m, to tackle the root causes of slavery in key source and transit countries across Africa and Asia.

• The economic and social costs of modern slavery report estimates that it costs the UK up to £4.3 billion a year. Each instance of the crime is estimated to cost around £330,000, including the cost of support, lost earnings and law enforcement but most significantly the physical and emotional harms suffered by individuals, who are often exploited over months and sometimes years.

• The Prime Minister emphasised on her recent Africa visit, the UK will work in partnership with the Nigerian government to tackle slavery in key trafficking hotspots. With Nigeria as the fifth largest source country for trafficking into the UK, our support will prevent exploitation in the region and combat slavery here at home.

• As part of its spending increase, the UK will launch several programmes to tackle child slavery across Africa and Asia. This includes:

o £10 million UK aid package to protect up to 400,000 boys and girls at risk of slavery in the Horn of Africa and along dangerous migratory routes in Sudan and Ethiopia. Partnering with UNICEF, UK support will provide birth registration services so children can legally prove their identity and be sheltered from forced labour, military service and underage marriage. Our support will also educate children against the perils of trafficking, assist social workers and help reintegrate victims back into society.

o £12 million package to equip up to 400,000 vulnerable people in conflict ravaged parts of Africa with skills training and alternative livelihood opportunities. Our support will educate children on the disguised risks of trafficking, improve law enforcement and support conflict-affected families in countries such as the DRC.

o £26 million aid package to tackle the worst forms of child labour through a major new programme across six Asian countries. Working in partnership with UNICEF, the International Labour Organisation and the IDS, UK support will reduce the vulnerability of children to bonded labour in hazardous industries like agriculture and clamp down on children being trafficked into commercial sex work. Evidence-based interventions that tackle the drivers of child labour will be rolled out, such as social protection and cash transfer support for families affected.

• £5 million programme to scale up our work with the Government of Bangladesh to eliminate the worst forms of child labour in the country. Our support will help build an evidence base of what works and pilot innovative approaches to protect the most vulnerable, initially focusing on tea estates, domestic work and hazardous industrial work in Sylhet.

• The United Kingdom and the United States of America along with Canada, New Zealand and Australia will today announce they have agreed four new international principles which will provide a practical framework for governments to tackle human trafficking and modern slavery in global supply chains. This group of five countries will meet annually to coordinate their efforts.

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Thank you very much indeed Madam President and thank you to you for scheduling this important briefing today.

Thank you to the Under-Secretary-General, and to pick up one of your points, Mark thank you very much for everything your work has to do on the ground but also all the other UN agencies. I was very struck by what you said about how large scale the relief effort is and also how it’s Yemenis helping Yemenis and I think that’s important. It was a very sobering briefing, coming on top of sobering briefings that we’ve had before. I was very struck by your phrases about lives on the line and how close we are to famine and that we may even be losing the fight. This is obviously extremely serious news. This is grave distress inflicted on the people of Yemen. We are following the escalation military fighting around Hodeidah city very closely.

I wanted to pick up on your statement and just highlight four areas. I think the first is to reiterate again, I think everybody on the Council has done this but it bears repeating: all parties to the conflict must do everything possible to protect civilians, protect civilian infrastructure and to demonstrate in practical terms their commitment to upholding International Humanitarian Law. I was extremely concerned to hear about the armed groups in the humanitarian facilities. I think the Council should demand that they leave. These facilities need to be kept for the protection of civilians. All parties have responsibilities under International Humanitarian Law and the Council looks to them to discharge those responsibilities to the full.

I think the second point is obviously around the flow of food, fuel and medical supplies into and throughout Yemen. It’s critical that all parties facilitate this, that they work with OCHA and your partners on the ground. It’s also important that civilians can move freely and safely so that those who can travel can get out of harm’s way as necessary. We have been deeply concerned by reports that military action is making the Hodeidah-Hajjah road unsafe. This will hamper the flow of supplies on from Hodeidah to Northern Yemen. It’s vital but onward supply routes remain operational. And I just want to echo what you said, this can’t just be done through humanitarian assistance. We absolutely need the commercial route and the commercial supplies to be open and flowing. So this means that the Hodeidah and Saleef ports need to remain open and it means the mills and the storage facilities need to be protected so that the food supply is safe.

I wanted to echo what Mark said about urgent action on stabilizing the economy. Nearly since the end of July, the Yemeni Rial has depreciated over 20 percent. This has halved the buying power of the people for food and other staples – half in comparison with a year ago – so this is obviously increasing the vulnerability of families even to meet the basic needs and humanitarian aid as we heard is over-stretched and even that isn’t enough because there are 29 million Yemenis liable to need our help. So we need to collectively think further about how best the Council can help stabilise the humanitarian situation by helping stabilise the economic situation or by dealing with the relevant UN and other agencies and countries who can help in order to do that. But I think I would like to call on all sides to cooperate even more intensely with OCHA and the UN agencies on the ground to try and help steady this.

And I wanted to end where Mark ended, on the political situation. I won’t rehearse the reasons why the Geneva talks the Special Envoy Martin Griffiths who is now trying to reconvene political talks. I’m sure that our ministers who are here next week for the UN General Assembly High Level Week will want to have a lot of conversations about Yemen in the margins of High Level Week and I think that will be important. But let me end by calling on all sides once again to get behind the process that the Special Envoy is leading and urge them all to find the flexibility it will require for the sake of the Yemeni people.

Thank you Madam President.