The Defence Infrastructure Organisation’s (DIO) new procurement plan outlines a programme of major projects and contacts for the next five financial years.

This includes work to construct new buildings, such as housing and accommodation, the refurbishment of current facilities; as well as services such as catering, waste management and cleaning.

The plan also sets out ambitions to establish a broader and more diverse supply base, including doing more business with small and medium size enterprises (SMEs).

Currently, around 75% of spending on maintenance at defence sites goes directly or indirectly to SMEs, and further diversifying the supply base will help build resilience into projects and provide more opportunities for smaller companies to work on key defence projects.

By listing all the major projects and contracts, the procurement plan will make it easier for existing and potential suppliers to plan ahead, by offering advice on bidding for this work and greater transparency on working with the MOD. These measures will help in particular small businesses, who don’t always have the skills and prior experience of working with the MOD in such areas.

Minister for Defence People and Veterans Tobias Ellwood said:

The defence estate is where our brave armed forces live, work and train and so it’s crucial we give them the best supplies and facilities possible.

Working with industry is critical to delivering this, and our new Procurement Plan ensures the private sector has a head start in bidding for this crucial work.

Opportunities outlined in the Procurement Plan include the £4billion Defence Estate Optimisation Programme, the Future Defence Infrastructure Services contracts – which will provide facilities management across the UK’s military bases- and the £1.3bn Clyde Infrastructure Programme.

The plan also details several prominent works that demonstrate DIO’s key role in supporting defence throughout the UK. These include essential maintenance work worth £568 million to support nuclear infrastructure capability at HMNB Clyde, as well as a £58m investment in a modern submarine training facility at the base.

Alongside this, there are plans for an £8m investment in Bovington Camp to support the AJAX armoured vehicles which will enter service in 2020.

Jacqui Rock, DIO Commercial Director, said:

As DIO we recognise that our current and future suppliers are key to our success. We have worked with industry to produce the Procurement Plan and we are committed to building a broader, more diverse supplier base.

We believe in being as transparent as possible in our procurements and through this new approach we are encouraging new entrants, including small and medium sized enterprises, to consider the benefits and opportunities that working with DIO can deliver.

The Procurement Plan will help achieve the goals set out in our first ever Commercial Strategy. This set out our vision for how we do business and how we will work effectively with our suppliers.

The Procurement Plan also sets out how DIO can deliver social and economic benefits throughout its supply chain by working to contribute to the government’s aim of recruiting 20,000 apprentices through construction procurement and promoting sustainability through its supply chain.

By 2020, DIO has committed to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 30%, a 30% reduction in domestic business flights, a 50% reduction in paper usage and reducing waste going to the landfill to less than 10%.

The full DIO Procurement Plan can be found here

The DIO Commercial Strategy sets the direction for future DIO Procurement Plans. The full DIO Commercial Strategy can be found here

Good morning and thank you to Chatham House and the Singapore Institute of International Affairs for hosting this expert gathering. I know a great deal of time and effort has gone into arranging it, and it could not have been better timed.

The UK is making greater efforts than ever to broaden our international horizons and deepen our global partnerships, preparing the way for a new approach once we have left the EU. Strengthening our relationship with the ASEAN community is a really important part of that, so I am delighted to have the chance to hear your thoughts on how we might go about it.

There is an excellent range of topics on your agenda today. Over the next 15 minutes or so I should like to touch on just some of them, to offer some food for thought.

Since being appointed as Minister for Asia and the Pacific almost 18 months ago I have made it my personal mission to visit as many countries of the region as humanly possible, and to engage, face to face, with my ministerial counterparts.

Within the first year or so I achieved my key ambition of visiting all ten members of ASEAN at least once.

This is already my second visit to Singapore, and over the course of two frantic weeks in August, I visited Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

In Jakarta I set out our ‘All of Asia’ policy, through which we are engaging actively with all countries in the region, working with them to promote regional security, to build prosperity, and to strengthen the values which underpin the links between our people. Today I hope that we can substantively build on this work – as I say, taking the opportunity to discuss and explore together the ways in which the UK can remain the strongest of partners to ASEAN – maintaining and strengthening our common areas of interest – after we leave the EU.

Our vision is of a genuine deep, comprehensive partnership – one that builds up our already excellent cooperation right across the board. I will say more about that in a moment. It is really up to all of us – the UK and all the ASEAN community – to decide how we go about it.

I would like us to be really ambitious – to see where the UK-ASEAN relationship is now, to imagine how it might look in the future and to chart a course towards that goal.

Let’s start with education – for the university academics among you, surely a subject close to your hearts.

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how open ASEAN as a whole is to education opportunities of all kinds.

I am pleased to say that UK institutions and qualifications seem particularly popular: more than 42,000 students from the region attended UK universities in 2016/17.

That includes some 8,000 Singaporeans and 17,000 Malaysians.

In fact Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand all rank in the top 10 countries from outside the EU for sending students to the UK.

However, more and more of your young people do not even need to leave home to get UK qualifications. Approximately 130,000 young people are pursuing UK certified higher education courses right here in the region.

Respected British universities such as Nottingham, Newcastle, Herriot Watt and Coventry are all expanding their partnerships here.

I saw evidence of this first-hand in Vientiane earlier this year, when I had the pleasure of opening a new International Education Center at Panyathip School, hosting not one, but three UK institutions: Nottingham University, the Wimbledon School of English, and the Royal Academy of Dance.

It showed that our links are not just at tertiary level education – more and more schools across the ASEAN region are now teaching the British international school curriculum.

Education is a significant part of our relationship with ASEAN and I can see it really taking off over the coming years.

The same goes for research and innovation – where the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ offers huge opportunities for collaboration.

Some of you may be familiar with the work that has flowed from our Newton Fund for science and innovation, which has been running since 2014.

The UK is investing £735 million in the Fund worldwide through to 2021, with matched funding from partner countries. In ASEAN we are partnering with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, and these partnerships are delivering results.

They have already produced some outstanding research on sustainable rice production and food security, and we are working together to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable communities, improve forecasting of extreme weather, and tackle common diseases.

The range of our collaboration is truly out of this world. Through our Space Agency we are supporting research into the use of satellite technology to help our partners tackle problems ranging from illegal fishing in Indonesia to early warning of dengue outbreaks in Vietnam, and reducing illegal logging in Malaysia.

It may sound like science-fiction, but together with Singapore we are now firmly pushing the frontiers of ‘science fact’, with a £10 million joint initiative to build and fly a satellite quantum key distribution test-bed.

I won’t try to explain in detail what that is, I can’t claim to match Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s knowledge of quantum theory .

However I can say that it is a significant commitment to cyber technology and will open up a global market estimated to be worth more than £11 billion over the next ten years.

Research and innovation is already an integral part of the UK-ASEAN relationship and this latest project demonstrates just how far-reaching the opportunities could be in the future.

Trade is another area where I see huge scope for cooperation and two-way growth – and for using our departure from the EU as an opportunity for us all to redesign and strengthen our existing relationships.

It is something that our Prime Minister Theresa May was keen to emphasise at the recent Asia Europe Meeting in Brussels, which I also attended. Take our investment in Singapore for instance. Over 4,000 British companies have a presence here, employing over 50,000 people.

The UK is the second largest European investor in Singapore, and sixth largest overall. There is a similarly positive picture across the ASEAN region.

In 2017, trade between the UK and the region was worth over £36.5 billion.

The UK remains ASEAN’s second largest source of investment, and we invest three times as much as Germany or France in wider Southeast Asia.

UK goods exports to ASEAN grew by 19.9% between 2016 and 2017. Our overall exports were more than double those to India.

More than ever, we are urging and supporting UK companies to take advantage of opportunities overseas, and we are attracting inward investment into the UK too – not least for UK Smart Cities projects and align ourselves with the ASEAN Smart Cities Network.

We are also helping countries of the region to make themselves more attractive to foreign investment – using our Prosperity Fund programmes to cut red-tape, tackle corruption and promote a fair business environment. From within the EU we have been a cheerleader for its Free Trade Agreements with Singapore and Vietnam.

We are determined to ensure that these trade benefits are transitioned into bilateral arrangements immediately after we leave.

Alongside our bilateral agreements, we are also exploring accession to the CPTPP and ways to further develop trade and investment between us. We are doing all this with one goal in mind, to strengthen our partnership economically, diplomatically and politically with ASEAN.

Alongside all these areas of positive collaboration, we recognise that there are also challenges.

I make no bones about our concern over the direction some countries are taking on democratic values or human rights.
The ‘war on drugs’ in the Philippines and the recent flawed elections in Cambodia are two such causes of concern.

The despicable treatment of the Rohingya community by the Burmese military also remains high on the agenda of the UK and indeed many other nations the world over, not least here in South East Asia.

We do not hide our views on these subjects or row back from our firm commitment to uphold a rules-based international system, upon which prosperity, security and freedom for us all depends.

We continue to encourage others to remain equally committed, and my colleagues and I continue to press for positive change. We will continue to do so after we leave the EU.

Of course many of the challenges we face are shared, and they are challenges that we shall face together, because the UK is committed to the security of this region.

We demonstrate that commitment in a number of ways – including our permanent military presence in Brunei, our participation in the Five Power Defence Arrangements and the deployment of Royal Navy ships to the region – three this year alone. All of them have participated in joint exercises – a key part of our support for the development and integration of the region’s defence capabilities and our commitment to help address future security challenges.

Even in the defence sphere, our education links shine through. In the last five years, just under one hundred officers from ASEAN member states have graduated from UK defence establishments.

Today, the active Service Chiefs in four ASEAN countries studied in Britain.

It is not all ships, planes and people in uniform though. Our security cooperation is much broader than this, and cyber is a key element of it.

As you may know, Singapore, as the Chair of ASEAN, is spearheading an initiative to strengthen the cyberspace capabilities of all ASEAN states.

I am delighted that they have invited us to take part – we will be the only non-Dialogue Partner involved.

Counter Terrorism is another important element of our security collaboration.

We have established a regional Counter-Terrorism Unit to enhance the links between agencies and governments.

We have done extensive work in this area with Indonesia. We were a critical part of the JCLEC [Jay-See-LEK] process that led to hundreds of arrests – by Indonesian officers drawing on skills learned from the UK.

I hope that I have given you a good idea of the breadth and depth of the UK’s engagement in ASEAN.

Not only that – I hope you have also got a sense of our ambition for our future relationship. I have seen first-hand what it is like now, and I know there is a huge appetite from both sides to maintain and strengthen this precious relationship after we leave the EU.

I believe we can afford to think ambitiously and I hope today’s discussions allow you to do that.

I wish you a productive day and I look forward to hearing how you have got on when I come back this evening!

Thank you.

On behalf of UK Policing, we are trying to better understand current market capability in meeting this challenge in order to fully scope and better design a potential future competition. This will provide us with an understanding of what potential solutions to aid real time video feed aggregation already exist as well as emerging novel solutions. This request for information is not a commitment to subsequently launch a formal DASA competition.

Background

Providing an effective public safety response is increasingly reliant on timely access and exploitation of digital information. However, access to digital information is typically frustrated by the data being held in proprietary formats within individual corporate operating systems. Access to CCTV by law enforcement personnel is currently a manual process of physical retrieval from third parties, if it is assessed as likely the CCTV will contain material of relevance to policing operations. The data is typically retrieved in a variety of file types through numerous formats (email, a USB stick, or burned onto DVD). To support more efficient use of resource, there is a need to explore novel exploitation of technology to better protect the public and enhance operational response.

What we want

Acknowledging the applicability of due process such as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) and legislation such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the General Data Protection Regulations (RIPA and GDPR), we are interested in solutions of any maturity which would allow police control room operators to deliver some or all of the following capability:

• to pull/request data from a known CCTV system or Video Management System.
• to aggregate the data feed and allow ingestion by a second video management system.
• to access video held in a wide range of existing video standards, namely but not exclusively: IP multicast, IP Unicast, media in HTTP(S), RTP and RTSP and ONVIF compliance (RTSP over HTTP).
• to access multiple concurrent video streams.

Any solution should also provide a RESTful API for additional integration, to enable a more open approach to inter-operation.

We are interested in all forms and maturity of potential solutions, ranging from commercial off the shelf products to collaborations between industry leads and academia.

By completing the Capability Submission Form neither DASA nor yourselves are committing to anything, but your submissions will be used to help DASA focus the direction of the work and shape the requirements for a possible themed call in this area in the future.

What we don’t want

We are not interested in solutions which are reliant on the data being pushed from source. We are not interested in literature reviews, paper-based studies, non-technical solutions or marginal improvements to existing capabilities.

This is not a competition and therefore we are not asking for costed proposals at this stage. This is a market engagement request for information exercise and we do not commit to subsequently launch a formal DASA competition.

How to submit a Capability Submission Form

Complete DASA Capability Submission Form – CCTV feeds (ODT, 867KB) (noting the word limits) and then email it to accelerator@dstl.gov.uk by 5pm on 26 November 2018 with “Aggregation of disparate CCTV feeds” in the subject line.

Please only provide details of one product/capability per form. If you have a number of potential solutions then please submit multiple forms.

If you have any questions then please email accelerator@dstl.gov.uk with Integrated CCTV in the subject line.

How we use your information

Information you provide to us in a Capability Submission Form, that is not already available to us from other sources, will be handled in-confidence. By submitting a Capability Submission Form you are giving us permission to keep and use the information for our internal purposes, and to provide the information onwards, in-confidence, within UK Government. The Defence and Security Accelerator will not use or disclose the information for any other purpose, without first requesting permission to do so.

Welcome to the UK Parliament and the chamber of the House of Commons, in this centenary year of women’s suffrage.

100 years ago women in the UK were unable to run for office, or vote, or even be present in the public gallery.

If you look up you will see the ventilation shaft where women would peer through having gathered in the attic space where they viewed the proceedings below that affected their lives.

Often they would hear men voicing the widely held concerns that if women were given the vote it would be the end of everything, the downfall of the family, society, nation.

But those women knew, even then, that the opposite was true, that without their rights being secured, and their lives being fulfilled, family, society and nation could never really thrive.

Those incredible women who fought and suffered and endured to secure that right and paved the way for others.

They are heroines of our nation, their rallying cry, courage calls to courage everywhere.

They took their inspiration from the other side of the world, from New Zealand which had secured votes for women 25 years before.

And the other side of the world supported them as 50,000 British women from all walks of life marched on London to demand the franchise.

And you, who sit in this chamber today, have come to support the spirit of their cause.

I see a chamber filled with powerful, strong and courageous women, motivated by love, of your nation, your children and humanity.

You are heroines too.

Many of you have travelled here from all over the world. And some have had a much shorter journey today, but all of us have come a long way on our journey together.

One of the great joys in helping organise this event has been reading your biographies. Your achievements and your impact:

• you are passionate human rights activists,
• you have struggled against injustice,
• you have fought to protect women from domestic violence,
• you have advocated for girls’ education,
• you are working to end FGM,
• and you have promoted rights for the most marginalised women – women with disabilities, women who are lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender and those living with HIV/aids.

Many of you are the first women to occupy the office you hold.

In this chamber this morning we have Vice Presidents, Ministers and shadow Ministers, a Speaker and Deputy Speakers, chairs of committees and commissions covering every possible facet of public policy.

And we have representatives from women’s parliamentary caucuses and national women’s leagues.

And from the UK parliament the Mother of the House, and the leader of the Commons and Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee.

You are great women for those public achievements, but also for the many private achievements that only you will know about:

• balancing your work with motherhood,
• juggling multiple caring responsibilities,
• the daily battle to be taken seriously,
• sexual harassment, intimidation and abuse,
• the restraint and resolve you need when constantly being patronised,
• the fight to be heard and to keep going when you are frightened.

You have brought today your ideas, your passion and determination that we will deliver for women worldwide.

And I’m delighted that one of you has also brought the baby!

And as well as all that you have done, and the u represent, you also symbolise the many women who are not here today too, those we work alongside and those we have met on our travels. I want us to think of them for a moment.

Personally I am thinking about the amazing Sisters I met when visiting the Vatican – welcome Sister Sally sitting in the gallery today. Women of faith who place themselves in harm’s way all over the world to protect people.

Women serving in our armed forces, like Zara who I met in Afghanistan, after she had just won the sword of honour at their national officer training academy. She told me she wanted to shape her nation’s future for the sake of her child.

The brave female ministers who I’ve met in my travels who risk the wrath of their senior colleagues by speaking up about family planning.

The Dalit woman from Nepal who stood for election despite having little education and no experience of leadership. She is now an elected ward member and represents her village in the local planning process.

And the brave women on peace councils, threatened, intimidated and stalked, or their partners murdered.

And then there are those who could never be here, those held captive or killed.

I am looking at the shield of my late friend and colleague Jo Cox.

And I am thinking of my colleague at DFID, Becky Dykes, who like Jo was brutally murdered.

These women worked to protect others, especially women and girls. And both have inspired foundations in their name to carry on their good works, both were heroines, both did exceptional things.

But we know that the violence they experienced was not exceptional.

If this chamber and you sitting in it were the female population of the world, and I asked all those who had experienced sexual or physical violence to stand up everyone sitting on the front three rows would get to their feet.

And if this chamber represented the female populations of some nations on earth it would only be the back rows that would remain seated.

There is much work to do.

So thank you for being here today, for all you have done on this agenda.

For all you do to enable others to and all you inspire through your example.

For representing your nations but also the billions of women and girls who want to make the world a better place and reach their full potential.

Thank you for understanding that humanity depends on them doing so.

And as you get to know each other better today, think about all that the few of us here have been able to do, and think about the possibilities if we are able to empower every girl, every woman on earth.

Just think what the world could do. And there is much we must do. 25 million backstreet abortions every year. 200 million girls and women who have undergone FGM, with 68 million more at risk by 2030. 63 million girls not in school.

So let us recommit ourselves:

*to inspire and new generation of female social and political leaders, * to end violence against women and girls, * to grant all women access to family planning, * to end the barriers to girl’s education, * and to economically empower women.

We must implement the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, we must deliver within 12 years the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), especially goal 5.5 and UN Security Council resolution 1325.

And let us send a clear message to all those who would slow progress, whether they are in the global north or global south, that we will not stand for their nonsense.

I am so conscious as I speak to you that this very institution, the mother of all parliaments is still a hostile environment for some women who work within its walls.

I am aware that in parts of the UK not all women have access to reproductive healthcare where they live. Or marry who they love.

I understand the challenges of tackling historic failings or sensitive issues.

But tackle them we must.

And in 2018 we should not have to have a fight on our hands to get women’s rights mentioned in summit documents, especially when that summit is the G7.

Enough.

Unless we enable every woman to reach their full potential, humanity won’t reach its.

Unless women and girls thrive, our nations won’t.

Peace, prosperity and security depend upon our task. And we should depend on each other. And meeting each other face-to-face, over these two days, I can see the interest sparking.

How can we help each other do more? How can we support each other when the going gets tough? How can we all pile in behind you when you need support?

Let’s make an outcome from today a lasting connection between all of us. Whether it is a commitment to a giant sisterhood whatsapp group, or a greater interaction and collaboration around the issues we discuss today…

Because we must succeed.

Because the margin of victory is in this room.

Because courage calls to courage everywhere.

Without women’s rights there are no human rights.

I mentioned earlier the shadows and echoes of the women who went before us still surround us.

Let us recognise here today that we too will become shadows and dust, but our legacy must mean that in one hundred years a meeting like this will be nothing but a memory. Those who went before started a great movement for equality.

Let us be the generation that finishes the job.

Published 8 November 2018