The Government has today (22 October) set out its plan to ban the distribution and sale of plastic straws, drinks stirrers and cotton buds to protect our rivers and seas.

The plan is subject to a consultation launched by Environment Secretary Michael Gove.

In England, it is estimated that annually we use 4.7 billion plastic straws, 316 million plastic stirrers and 1.8 billion plastic-stemmed cotton buds. An estimated 10% of cotton buds are flushed down toilets and can end up in waterways and oceans.

Even though non-plastic alternatives are readily available, these single-use plastic items are used for just a few minutes but take hundreds of years to break down. Cleaning up the effects of littering costs local Government millions of pounds every year.

In order to eliminate these items from use, the Government intends to introduce a ban on their distribution and sale. The ban would come into force at some point between October 2019 and October 2020, subject to the views collected during consultation.

We recognise there are instances where using plastic straws is necessary for medical reasons and our consultation seeks views on how to ensure those who need straws for medical and accessibility reasons can still use them. For example, pharmacies will still be able to sell plastic straws and restaurants, pubs and bars will be able to stock some straws for use on request. The Government will work closely with stakeholders to ensure these exemptions are crafted exactly right.

Launching the consultation, Environment Secretary Michael Gove said:

Our precious oceans and the wildlife within need urgent protection from the devastation throw-away plastic items can cause.

In England we are taking world-leading action with our ban on microbeads, and thanks to the public’s support have taken over 15 billion plastic bags out of circulation with our 5p charge.

I commend retailers, bars and restaurants that have already committed to removing plastic straws and stirrers. But we recognise we need to do more. Today we step-up our efforts to turn the tide on plastic pollution and ensure we leave our environment in a better state than we inherited it.

The announcement follows the success of the government’s world-leading ban on microbeads and 5p charge on single-use plastic bags, which has seen distribution by major supermarkets drop by 86%.

Greenpeace UK’s political adviser Sam Chetan Welsh said:

Our society’s addiction to throwaway plastic is fuelling a global environmental crisis that must be tackled.

Ministers are doing the sensible thing by looking to ban single-use plastic items that can be easily replaced with better alternatives or that we can simply do without. But this should be just the start.

If we are to protect our oceans from the scourge of plastic, the flow of waste needs to be cut off at the tap. And that means the companies producing and selling all this packaging must take responsibility for it and cut down the amount of plastic ending up in our shopping baskets.

Kate Nicholls CEO of UKHospitality said:

We wholeheartedly welcome this consultation on an issue of vital importance and one which hospitality has already taken significant action.

Since UKHospitality’s Unpack the Future of Hospitality summit in the spring, thousands of pubs clubs, restaurants and hotels across the UK have changed their straws and stirrers to biodegradables, or adopted policies that cut or eliminate their use in their venues.

The Government is seeking views on how we can cut plastic waste and we look forward to continued engagement to play a part in achieving that goal.

It is estimated there are over 150 million tonnes of plastic in the world’s oceans and every year one million birds and over 100,000 sea mammals die from eating and getting tangled in plastic waste. A recent report estimates that plastic in the sea is set to treble by 2025.

Today’s move builds on the Prime Minister’s recent visit to Kenya, where she announced a further five African Commonwealth Countries (Seychelles, Mauritius, Sierra Leone, Mozambique and the Gambia) have joined the Commonwealth Clean Oceans Alliance, pledging their support to end the scourge of plastics in our oceans. The Alliance, announced in April during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), sees countries across the Commonwealth join forces in the fight against plastic, whether through a ban on microbeads, a commitment to cutting down on single-use plastic bags, or taking other steps to eliminate avoidable single-use plastic.

The UK government has committed a £61.4 million package of funding to boost global research and help countries across the Commonwealth stop plastic waste from entering the oceans in the first place.

The government is also looking at further ways to reduce avoidable waste and recycle more as part of its Resources and Waste Strategy to be published later this year.

Further information:

• Single-use plastics can be defined as all products that are made wholly or partly of plastic and are typically intended to be used just once and/or for a short period of time before being disposed of.
• The figure that plastic in the sea is set to treble is taken from the Future of the Sea report, 2018.
• The consultation will be open for six weeks.

The UK Government has announced wide-ranging measures to tackle corruption at home and abroad ahead of the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) in Copenhagen today.

International Development Secretary, Penny Mordaunt, announced today [Monday, 22 October] wide-ranging measures to tackle corruption at home and abroad ahead of the International Anti-Corruption Conference in Copenhagen, where the UK will call on international partners to join them in tackling systemic global corruption.

The conference, the biggest of its kind with more than a thousand participants from a hundred countries, is being hosted by the Danish Government and follows the UK’s Anti-Corruption Summit in 2016.

At the conference, the Department for International Development, alongside the Prime Minister’s Anti-Corruption champion, John Penrose MP, will launch an international campaign to promote transparency of company ownership.

The UK Government will urge countries to follow the UK’s lead and ensure every company registered in their country publicly discloses their real owner. Secret companies – companies where the identity of the owners is unknown – are a major facilitator of corruption, enabling fraud, tax evasion, organised crime and terrorist financing.

International Development Secretary, Penny Mordaunt, said:

Corruption destroys governments, economies and public services by taking money away from society and lining the pockets of ruthless criminals.

That’s why we are bolstering our work on tackling corruption both here at home and in the most fragile states in the world, giving these criminals nowhere to hide.

Dealing with endemic corruption in developing nations is vital for our national security and in creating trading partners for the future. It is a win for the developing world and a win for the UK.

Ms. Mordaunt has called on countries to work together to create a new “global norm” whereby a critical mass of nations will publish who actually owns the companies that are registered in their country.

The conference will also see the Government of Ukraine sign an agreement with Open Ownership, a DFID-funded organisation that is working to build a Global Beneficial Ownership Register, bringing together data about who owns companies from around the world. There are already 5.3 million companies on the register. DFID is supporting Open Ownership to help governments, such as those of Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, to implement the commitments they made to publish their own national registers of company ownership.

DFID also announced funding today aimed at furthering the UK’s world-leading work on anti-corruption and international illicit finance.

£2.6 million of support for the International Budget Partnership (IBP), an organisation that reports on the transparency of government budgets. This helps measure global progress on budget transparency and tackling corruption.

A £2 million contribution for the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions Development Initiative (IDI), an organisation which strengthens governments’ audit institutions – particularly fragile states in Africa, curtailing corruption. This helps to transform countries into becoming the trading partners of the future, and builds on the Prime Minister’s landmark visit to Africa in August.

The announcements follow the publication of the UK Anti-Corruption Strategy in December 2017. That strategy set out how tackling corruption is crucial to UK national security, to international prosperity, and to building citizens’ trust in government.

Earlier this month, there was a further boost to the UK’s fight against corruption at home and overseas when the Court of Appeal lifted anonymity on the target of the UK’s first Unexplained Wealth Order, the wife of an Azeri banker jailed for defrauding a state-owned bank. She spent £16 million in Harrods, and is now obliged to explain how she sourced that wealth.

The Court of Appeal’s decision has set a precedent which will act as a deterrent for individuals looking to use the UK as a destination for illegal funds.

Notes to Editors

1. The cost of corruption worldwide is estimated to be more than 2% of global GDP, and the World Bank estimates that over $1 trillion is paid in bribes each year.
2. The World Bank estimated that 70% of grand corruption cases involved the use of companies with anonymous owners.
3. Unexplained Wealth Orders were introduced in 2018 in the Sanction and Anti-Money Laundering Act. They give UK law enforcement the power to challenge suspected corrupt individuals who appear to have assets inconsistent with their declared incomes. They place the obligation on defendants to justify or explain their wealth.
4. During the Prime Minister’s visit to Kenya in August, the UK announced a series of major new programmes to recover millions of pounds of illegal assets in developing countries. This included creating new centres of British expertise in major financial hubs and training law enforcement officials in southern and eastern Africa to improve criminal justice systems by tightening legislation and strengthening investigation techniques. This is helping to build their capacity to clamp down on serious organised crime. You can read more about this here.

International Trade Secretary, Dr Liam Fox, is today (Monday 22nd October) hosting a number of trade events to secure trading ties between UK and US businesses on board the Royal Navy’s HMS Queen Elizabeth in New York.

The event takes place days after US Treasury Secretary, Robert Lighthizer, announced that the US intends to begin negotiations towards a UK-US Free Trade Agreement after the UK leaves the European Union.

The Department for International Trade (DIT) will host a roundtable bringing together a number of the UK’s world leading cyber companies will to present their technology and software to US Fortune 500 companies, in an effort to secure fruitful new deals. Businesses such as Garrison, iProov and Tessian will attend the event, all of whom have secured US business success in recent months.

Dr Fox will speak at the event, highlighting the UK’s ability to counter significant cyber threats as they continue to grow from overseas.

He will then announce the founding of a sub-committee of the Board of Trade which will look specifically at cyber, how UK companies can increase their exports in the sector and how UK-US collaboration can help tackle increasing online threats.

Capitalising upon the nautical setting, Dr Fox will join Maritime UK to host the first Maritime Nations Forum between the UK and US, focused on strengthening maritime trade and relations between the 2 countries.

International Trade Secretary, Dr Liam Fox MP, said:

The United States is one of our closest allies, our largest single bilateral trading partner and we will see that bond continue to strengthen as we leave the European Union.

This ‘trade day’ will see some of the UK’s most innovative businesses meeting their US counterparts as we continue to combat growing overseas cyber threats together.

My international economic department is currently consulting on the potential of a future free trade agreement with the US, and I would strongly encourage British businesses and the public to make the most of this opportunity to share their thoughts on what this deal should include.

The Forum will celebrate existing links and identify areas for further partnership and collaboration.

UK businesses attending include ship owners, law firms, port operators, manufacturers, technical consultancies and training colleges, some of whom were involved in delivering the HMS Queen Elizabeth project.

Maritime UK Chairman, David Dingle, said:

The UK and US have a strength of relationship like few others – based upon freedom, trade and prosperity.

With the US being the largest single nation trading partner for the UK, it is logical that we proactively recommit ourselves to boosting that trading relationship and our maritime partnership.

Britain is an island, maritime nation, with 95% of global trade being facilitated by the maritime sector.

The inaugural Maritime Nations Forum aboard the HMS Queen Elizabeth will allow our two nations to think creatively about new opportunities to deepen our partnership and to collaborate. We are looking forward to strengthening our special relationship, and will welcome a US delegation to the UK to join us for London International Shipping Week in 2019.

The trade day will conclude with a celebration of some of the UK’s hard-working businesses who are currently operating in the US.

A number of British companies will be presented with prestigious Board of Trade Awards by the Secretary of State, recognising their successful export activity.

Winners of the Board of Trade Awards come from a broad range of sectors, from life sciences, to the space industry and food and drink. Combined, they export their goods and services across the planet and even into space, representing the best of British innovation and entrepreneurship.

Trade between the UK and the US totalled £180.6 billion in the year to June 2018, making the US the UK’s largest single nation trading partner and export market.

British companies currently export £1.8 billion worth of cyber goods and services to the US every year, making it the largest market for their products. The UK’s recently launched Cyber Export Strategy and made a commitment to create a specialised cyber role based in the US and DIT has just launched recruitment for this.

The inaugural meeting of the ‘Atlantic Future Forum’ to discuss the trend of innovation that both the UK and US are seeing in the Cyber Security and Artificial Intelligence (AI) sectors will also take place on board.

Following discussions between businesses from both countries, Dr Fox will sign a new accord with the US government, committing both governments to work with leading businesses to ensure that the UK-US partnership remains at the forefront of global cyber security, defence and AI.

Further Info

Full list of Board of Trade Award Winners:

• Almac – the life sciences company provide a range of services such as R&D, clinical trial supply and commercial-scale manufacture, they currently employ 5000 people in 17 facilities across Europe, the US and Asia.
• Casual Films – provide a range of directing and in-house creative services out of their London office, they also operate in New York and the Bay Area of California.
• Fever-Tree – produce a well known range of drinks, the company currently has major operations in both the UK and the US
• Grimshaw – this architects company employ 550 staff across the world in Los Angeles, New York, London, Melbourne, Sydney, Doha, Kuala Lumpur and Dubai – they are currently designing some of the worlds most innovative structures.
• Onfido – this innovative company have developed an app which uses facial recognition to access digital devices – available on your phone or tablet now
• SSTL – Surrey Satellites currently employ 500 staff who design, build, test, launch and operate technology in space, they have a 40% share of the global small satellite export market

• Trading Hub–provide trade data analytics to the financial services industry, their clients range from international banks to regulatory institutions and asset managers – their metrics based system identifies, investigates and reports market abuse, amongst other services.

• Government renews commitment to improve safeguarding for England’s charity sector
• Measures build on recent Code of Ethics that sets the standards for all charities

Charity employees, volunteers and those that benefit from their services will be better protected under new safeguarding measures, Minister for Sport and Civil Society Tracey Crouch announced today.

Up to £2 million will also be invested in projects that raise awareness of safeguarding and improve incident handling, protecting more people from harm within the charity sector.

The Government’s plans include developing digital solutions that provide simple and confidential ways for charities to report concerns and give better access to clear and consistent guidance on reporting and whistle-blowing.

Free training – with support from the Big Lottery Fund – will also be offered so charities can implement the highest possible safeguarding standards.

The plans and funding follow a Safeguarding Summit, held for the sector by the Government and Charity Commission, where it was agreed that safeguarding requires the strongest leadership, culture, policy and processes to be implemented.

Tracey Crouch, Minister for Sport and Civil Society, said:

Safeguarding is non-negotiable. Charities are widely trusted and we need to ensure an environment exists where everyone feels safe – from service-users to the employees and volunteers who dedicate their time and skills to benefit communities across the country.

We want to instil fundamental changes to help restore the reputation of the sector. These measures will help protect and empower people to speak up and ensure charity leaders tackle poor behaviour head-on.

Professor John Drew CBE, former Chief Executive of the Youth Justice Board of England and Wales, has been appointed to chair the cross sector Safeguarding Programme Group, which will oversee the implementation of the new measures.

This will complement the programme of work for the international aid sector, announced last week, by Secretary of State for International Development Penny Mordaunt.

These measures build on the new charity Code of Ethics, spearheaded by NCVO and sets the standards for all charities.

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Government has been working closely with the Home Office, charities, the Charity Commission and Big Lottery Fund to develop this programme.

The violent death of Jamal Khashoggi, within the premises of the Saudi Consulate General in Istanbul had been feared for many days but its confirmation still comes as a shock.

Nothing can justify this killing and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms. ‎

Defending freedom of expression and a free press are key priorities for Germany, the United Kingdom and France‎.

The threatening, attacking or killing of journalists, under any circumstances, is unacceptable and of utmost concern to our three nations.

Our thoughts ‎are today ‎with Mr Khashoggi’s family, his fiancée, and his friends – who have worried about him for weeks, and to whom we extend our most heartfelt condolences.

We take note of the Saudi statement which gives their preliminary findings.

Yet there remains an urgent need for clarification of exactly what happened on October 2nd – beyond the hypotheses that have been raised so far in the Saudi investigation, which need to be backed by facts to be considered credible.

We thus stress that more efforts are needed and expected towards establishing the truth in a comprehensive, transparent and credible manner.

We will ultimately make our judgement based on the credibility of the further explanation we receive about what happened and our confidence that such a shameful event cannot and will not ever be repeated.

We therefore ask for the investigation to be carried out thoroughly until responsibilities are clearly established and that there is proper accountability and due process for any crimes committed.

We will stay in close contact with our Saudi partners in that regard.

The quality and significance of the relationship we have with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also rests with the respect we have for the norms and values to which the Saudi authorities and us are jointly committed under international law.

Further information

• Follow the Foreign Secretary on Twitter @Jeremy_Hunt and Facebook

• Follow the Foreign Office on Twitter @foreignoffice and Facebook

• Follow the Foreign Office on Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn