Housing associations have a central role to play in building the homes we need and challenging the attitudes that hold us back, Theresa May will say in central London today, as she announces new long-term funding for affordable housing.

As part of the Government’s commitment to transform housebuilding, the Prime Minister will announce £2 billion in new funding to give housing associations the long-term certainty they need to deliver tens of thousands of new affordable and social homes.

As the first Prime Minister to address the National Housing Federation Summit, she will pledge this morning to work in partnership with the associations to get more people on the housing ladder and make sure those who can’t afford their own place also have somewhere they’re proud to call home.

Setting out the steps government has already taken to respond to the asks of the sector – including providing long-term certainty on rents and agreeing not to extend the local housing allowance cap to the social sector – Theresa May is expected to announce new long-term funding for housing associations. She will say:

You said that if you were going to take a serious role in not just managing but building the homes this country needs, you had to have the stability provided by long-term funding deals. Well, eight housing associations have already been given such deals, worth almost £600 million and paving the way for almost 15,000 new affordable homes.

And today, I can announce that new longer-term partnerships will be opened up to the most ambitious housing associations through a ground-breaking £2 billion initiative. Under the scheme, associations will be able to apply for funding stretching as far ahead as 2028/29 – the first time any government has offered housing associations such long-term certainty.

Doing so will give you the stability you need to get tens of thousands of affordable and social homes built where they are needed most, and make it easier for you to leverage the private finance you need to build many more.

In return, the Prime Minister will call on housing associations to use their unique combination of qualities – from their close ties with local communities to their expertise as property managers and their ability to ride out the business cycle and carry on building – “to achieve things neither private developers nor local authorities are capable of doing”. She is expected to say:

Today, I’m asking housing associations to use the tools we have given you. Not just to build more homes, though of course more homes are needed. But to take the lead in transforming the very way in which we think about and deliver housing in this country.

Rather than simply acquiring a proportion of the properties commercial developers build, I want to see housing associations taking on and leading major developments themselves. Because creating the kind of large-scale, high-quality developments this country needs requires a special kind of leadership – leadership you are uniquely well-placed to provide.

…Given the right tools and the right support, you can act as the strategic, long-term investors in the kind of high-quality places this country needs. To put it simply, you get homes built. And I want to work with you to transform the way we do so.

The Prime Minister will also urge housing associations to use their “unique status, rich history and social mission” to change the way tenants and society as a whole view social housing. She will say:

For many people, a certain stigma still clings to social housing. Some residents feel marginalised and overlooked, and are ashamed to share the fact that their home belongs to a housing association or local authority.

And on the outside, many people in society – including too many politicians – continue to look down on social housing and, by extension, the people who call it their home.

…We should never see social housing as something that need simply be “good enough”, nor think that the people who live in it should be grateful for their safety net and expect no better.

Whether it is owned and managed by local authorities, TMOs or housing associations, I want to see social housing that is so good people are proud to call it their home… Our friends and neighbours who live in social housing are not second-rate citizens.

The Prime Minister has made it her personal mission to get more people onto the housing ladder. The government has committed over £40 billion to get more homes built – creating the infrastructure to unlock sites where they’re needed most and removing unnecessary barriers to homebuilding, while making it harder for developers to dodge their obligations on affordable homes.

The UK’s Minister for Europe, Sir Alan Duncan, has travelled to Macedonia at the start of a two-day visit to the Western Balkans, underlining the UK’s commitment to playing an active and supportive role in the Western Balkans.

In Skopje, Sir Alan reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to the region by holding meetings with Prime Minister Zaev and Foreign Minister Dimitrov to discuss the importance of a Name Agreement for Macedonia’s Euro-Atlantic path. As part of his visit, the Minister also visited Matka Canyon to launch UK assistance to Macedonia’s energy strategy.

The Minister for Europe Sir Alan Duncan said:

The United Kingdom remains strongly committed to progress, peace, and prosperity in the Western Balkans.

This is an auspicious time for our friends in Macedonia. We have long worked with Macedonia to help them implement reforms that would strengthen the country and move towards it meeting its strategic objective to become part of the Euro-Atlantic family.

The historic agreement Macedonia concluded with Greece on the long-running Name Issue is an important step towards that objective.

The implementation of the Prespa Agreement would help the country finalise its Euro-Atlantic path and the UK stands ready to support Macedonia in achieving this.

Published 18 September 2018

Thank you very much Mr President, and welcome back to New York.

Thank you to our two briefers, the Special Representative and the Under Secretary-General. And can I repeat the thanks of colleagues for everything your teams do on the ground to help the people of Syria. They need you more than ever, but we are very conscious that this is a very difficult job for them to do.

The conflict is seven and a half years old. It’s longer than the Second World War. Over half a million people have died in Syria. Millions have been displaced and chemical weapons have been used, including by the Syrian regime. I think we’re running out of superlatives, Mr President, to describe the horrors of this conflict. We meet every month on Syria in this chamber, but this time does feel particularly important. The Turkish plan which they have discussed with the Russians for Idlib, is the crux. It needs to be developed and it needs to be implemented. And as other speakers have said Mr President, Russia in particular needs to uphold it, and we look to Russia to do this because Russia is a P5 member with particular responsibilities for international peace and security and Russia needs to exert her influence on the Syrian authorities. Otherwise, the crimes that are committed against the Syrian people are committed in Russia’s name.

We heard earlier, Mr President, about the voices of Idlib. There are 3 million voices in Idlib who will want to know why the Idlib plan cannot be implemented. There are 18 million voices in Syria who want the Council to act to protect them.

A lot has been said today Mr President, some of it very familiar. Some of it common to those Council members who have spoken. I will not rehearse some of the assessments, but I would just like to go on record as saying that the United Kingdom agrees with our American, our Dutch, our Swedish, our Polish and other partners in their assessments. We wholly agree with them.

I want to highlight in particular four points. First of all, I want to agree with what the Representative of France said about the situation on the ground but also what he said about the French, Americans and British taking our responsibilities if chemical weapons are ever used again.

I want to talk about the political process. We want to see the constitutional committee convened. We look to the Special Representative to do this. We believe you have all the authority you need to pick those names. We trust you to do the best you can in the interests of the people of Syria and in the interests of peace. We look for a date to be set and we ask you to report back to this Council by 31 October. We look to the Small Group and the Astana Group to make progress on coming together in support of the United Nations. And I repeat what my Dutch and Swedish colleagues had said about reconstruction money. There are 3 million voices in Idlib and 18 million voices in Syria as a whole who will want to know why progress can’t be made on the political track.

Turning to humanitarian: we would like to hear from the Syrian representative why there are still problems with access and why there are still problems with safe passage that the Under Secretary-General referred to.

I noted what the Representative of Equatorial Guinea said about scorched earth. This is a truly terrible situation, but he is right to draw attention to that and we would like to know what the Syrian regime is doing to put that right.

A large number of speakers, Mr President, talked about IHL and the principles of precaution, discrimination and proportionality. We absolutely uphold those as the United Kingdom. It is unbelievable that hospitals are being attacked. It’s even more unbelievable when those hospitals are part of a de-conflicted area.

Last week Mr President, the United Kingdom announced some $40 million for Idlib. We hope that will help, but I just wanted to go back to what the Under Secretary-General said about is it a reprieve or a stay of execution. This is a dreadful choice, but it has to be a reprieve. There are 3 million voices in Idlib and 18 million voices in Syria who will want to know why this can’t happen.

Turning to the wider issues Mr President, awful and horrific as Syrian conflict is, the prospect of a wider interstate war is waiting in the wings. The Syrian people are not only attacked by their own government, they risk being drawn in and the victims of a wider conflict. It is not legitimate to use the territory of Syria to fire missiles at Israel. The risk of miscalculation, a misunderstanding that led to the downing of a Russian aircraft encapsulates on a small scale the much bigger and even more frightening risk of a wider miscalculation. And I would like to, at this point, echo the colleagues who have sent their condolences to our Russian colleagues for the loss of their air crew. But I repeat, the risk of miscalculation is incredibly high. It was a Syrian air force that shot down that Russian plane and the proximate cause was the actions of Iran and Hezbollah on the ground. This ought to serve as a very powerful warning not just to the Syrian authorities but also to the Russians and the Iranians of the prospect of something much wider and even more horrible than we have yet seen in Syria.

Lastly Mr President, the Special Representative referred to Kofi Annan and we will have a tribute to Kofi Annan in the United Nations later this week. This morning, a wreath was laid to Dag Hammerskjöld, who is also one of the iconic Secretaries-General that the UN has been fortunate enough to have lead it. I think we do them no credit, Mr. President, if we allow this conflict to continue. The best legacy we could hand Kofi Annan in response to all his work in 2012 – I was present for that Geneva meeting – the best legacy we could offer is to bring the Syrian conflict to an end and help the Syrian people.

Thank you Mr President.

Thank you Stephanie and welcome everyone. I am truly delighted to be hosting this reception to celebrate London Fashion Week.

I want to thank Stephanie Phair, Caroline Rush – and everyone at the British Fashion Council – for their fantastic work in championing British fashion and London Fashion Week. And of course the designers, the models, the assistants, the set designers and all those without whom it would not be such a success.

For years – London Fashion Week has showcased not just the big well-known names in British fashion, but also the – often brilliant – up and coming talent.

That is what has always made London stand out. That is what has always given this city’s fashion business the leading edge.

And I am delighted that this year we have designers such as Malene Oddershede Bach and Victoria Beckham showing in London for the first time.

British fashion, as Stephanie just said, is serious business. Some of our biggest names are known the world over – Stella McCartney, Burberry, Mulberry. The industry as a whole contributes £32 billion to our economy, employs over 890,000 people, and totals billions of pounds worth of exports.

But if I am honest, we have all got a job to do, which is about getting that message out to people – about how valuable fashion is to the British economy as a whole, about how many jobs are involved in the British fashion industry and what it means to our economy.

We are home to some of the world’s finest fashion colleges. Our designers sit at the helm of global brands. And we lead the world in design and digital innovation – with names such as MatchesFashion, Net-a-Porter, ASOS and Farfetch launched in the UK.

And of course – this year there was the live streaming of London Fashion Week shows to millions of fashion watchers in China.

But it is also London’s reputation as a thriving, diverse city that makes this such a great place to do business. And I am delighted to hear that Chanel – one of the grand dames in the fashion business – has announced it is relocating its global headquarters here to London.

I want to see us continue this success – I want Britain to continue being a place where talent is nurtured and supported, and where fashion can thrive and do business.

And as we look to build a new future for a global Britain, as an open, outward-facing country outside of the EU – I want to ensure that our fashion industry – an industry in which we have so much pride – can build upon its success. That is why our exceptional talent visa will ensure that the world’s leading fashion designers can live and work here. It is why we are backing the industries of the future through our modern Industrial Strategy – supporting innovation, technology and encouraging jobs and growth in every part of the country.

And it is why through the Creative Industries Sector Deal we – along with industry – are investing £150 million in creative businesses, including design and fashion.

But today – as London Fashion Week draws to a close – let me congratulate you all once again.

As I say, let’s work together to make sure everybody realises what an important part London fashion does and British fashion plays in our economy and employing people up and down our country. Let’s get the message out there of the fantastic talent we’ve got – not just the big names but all the people who are behind those big names and every aspect of the industry which leads to its enormous success.

And I wish you all every success for the season ahead. Thank you.