• Treasury Minister meets with local Moray leaders to discuss how government can support vision for growth
• 205,000 more people in employment and 61,200 more businesses in Scotland than in 2010
• Scotch whisky continues to be a national success story, with nearly £2 billion exported this year alone
• government continues to engage with the Oil and Gas sector on competition and innovation

Scotland’s innovators are helping to drive forward the UK’s economy, with the number of businesses growing and more people in employment than in 2010.

Treasury Minister Robert Jenrick will today (28 August 2018) visit Moray, as part of his tour of the UK, to meet local leaders and entrepreneurs to lift the lid on innovations that are powering the ‘new economy’.

During his visit he will meet with businesses and local politicians to discuss how the Treasury can best support their ideas for a potential Moray growth deal.

The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, Robert Jenrick, said:

From booming traditional industries like Scotch whisky, to new innovations in the aircraft industry, it’s clear that the Scotland’s entrepreneurs are getting it right and exporting their goods all over the world.

I want to champion these contributions, which too often go unnoticed, by highlighting the work being done to drive up productivity and ensure our economy is fit for the future.

It is also great to meet with local leaders to discuss their vision for the Moray economy, and how we can support this vision going forward. I look forward to being able to make progress on the Moray growth deal.

During a the visit to Strathisla distillery, Mr Jenrick singled out the whisky industry as a particular success story, which has exported nearly £2 billion worth of Scotch whisky in 2018 alone. He will also meet with Copernicus Technology, which is providing state-of-the-art technology for use in RAF aircraft. And the minister will hold a roundtable to further engage with leaders from the oil and gas sector.

Further information

Scottish economy facts:

• since early 2010, 205,000 (+8%) more people are in employment in Scotland. Unemployment has fallen by 104,000 (-48%) over the same period
• the employment rate is up 5.4 percentage points since early 2010
• the unemployment rate is down 4.1 percentage points since early 2010
• Scotland has the third highest productivity of all UK regions and nations and the second highest productivity growth since 2010 (14.1%)

The Chancellor Philip Hammond highlighted the role of innovators in the new economy in his Autumn Budget and set out the government’s plans to support those who deliver growth, create higher paying jobs and make sure everyone has the skills they need.

In the dataset you can find the date of sale for each property, its full address and sale price, its category (residential or commercial) and type (detached, semi-detached, terraced, flat or maisonette and other), whether it is new build or not and whether it is freehold or leasehold.

The number of sales received for registration by property type and month

Of the 95,721 sales received for registration in July 2018:

• 72,275 were freehold, a 3.7% increase on July 2017

• 11,819 were newly built, a 43% fall on July 2017

There is a time difference between the sale of a property and its registration at HM Land Registry.

Of the 95,721 sales received for registration, 24,719 took place in July 2018 of which:

• 526 were of residential properties in England and Wales for £1 million and over

• 300 were of residential properties in Greater London for £1 million and over

• 4 were of residential properties in West Midlands for more than £1 million

• 2 were of residential properties in Greater Manchester for more than £1 million

The most expensive residential sale taking place in July 2018 was of a terraced property in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London for £18,500,000. The cheapest residential sale in July 2018 was a terraced property in Henllys, Cwmbran for £6,120.

The most expensive commercial sale taking place in July 2018 was in the City of Westminster for £117,450,000. The cheapest commercial sales in July 2018 were in Haringey, Greater London and Stanford-Le-Hope, Thurrock for £100.

Access the full dataset

Notes to editors

1. Price Paid Data is published at 11am on the 20th working day of each month. The next dataset will be published on Friday 28 September 2018.

2. Price Paid Data is property price data for all residential and commercial property sales in England and Wales that are lodged with HM Land Registry for registration in that month, subject to exclusions.

3. The amount of time between the sale of a property and the registration of this information with HM Land Registry varies. It typically ranges between two weeks and two months. Data for the two most recent months is therefore incomplete and does not give an indication of final monthly volumes. Occasionally the interval between sale and registration is longer than two months. The small number of sales affected cannot be updated for publication until the sales are lodged for registration.

4. Price Paid Data categories are either Category A (Standard entries), which includes single residential properties sold for full market value, or Category B (Additional entries), such as sales to a company, buy-to-lets where they can be identified by a mortgage and repossessions.

5. HM Land Registry has been collecting information on Category A sales from January 1995 and on Category B sales from October 2013.

6. Price Paid Data can be downloaded in text, CSV format and in a machine readable format as linked data and is released under Open Government Licence (OGL). Under the OGL, HM Land Registry permits the use of Price Paid Data for commercial or non-commercial purposes. However, the OGL does not cover the use of third party rights, which HM Land Registry is not authorised to license.

7. The Price Paid Data report builder allows users to build bespoke reports using the data. Reports can be based on location, estate type, price paid or property type over a defined period of time.

8. HM Land Registry’s mission is to guarantee and protect property rights in England and Wales.

9. HM Land Registry is a government department created in 1862. It operates as an executive agency and a trading fund and its running costs are covered by the fees paid by the users of its services. Its ambition is to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data.

10. HM Land Registry safeguards land and property ownership worth in excess of £4 trillion, including around £1 trillion of mortgages. The Land Register contains more than 25 million titles showing evidence of ownership for some 85% of the land mass of England and Wales.

11. For further information about HM Land Registry visit www.gov.uk/land-registry.

12. Follow us on Twitter @HMLandRegistry ourblog and LinkedIn and Facebook.

Contact

The time has come to take our trade and investment relationship to a whole new level as we leave the EU, Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns will say today when he addresses an international business audience in Cape Town (28 August).

The Welsh Secretary has joined the Prime Minister on a visit to South Africa to meet with a range of businesses to discuss trade and investment opportunities with Wales and the UK.

The Cabinet minister has been invited on the trade mission by the Prime Minister and will work with her and the travelling business delegation to explore how new partnerships between the UK and South Africa can add value to the UK economy and create new market opportunities for British businesses.

While in the country, Alun Cairns will deliver a speech to an audience of over 120 international business representatives and have a bilateral meeting with the newly appointed HM Commissioner for Africa, Emma Wade-Smith OBE on the potential for stronger trading links between the UK and South Africa.

He will also host a roundtable meeting with WESGRO – the official tourism, trade and investment promotion agency for Cape Town and the Western Cape. WESGRO is the first point of contact for foreign buyers, local exporters and investors wishing to take advantage of the unlimited business potential in the region.

Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns said:

South Africa is a key trading partner to the UK – a long-standing, strong and strategic ally for the United Kingdom in Africa and internationally.

I’m looking forward to exploring trading opportunities for Welsh businesses here, to build on this important relationship and help to create more investment and exporting opportunities for companies from both territories.

Joining Alun Cairns and the Prime Minister on the trade mission as part of a 29-strong business delegation are two Welsh companies – Llangennech based Hydro Industries and Cardiff company Sure Chill.

Opportunities for the companies to exploit the burgeoning green technology market in Africa will be discussed by the Welsh Secretary in meetings with Green Cape and South South North – organisation that works with businesses, investors, academia and government to help unlock the investment and employment potential of green technologies and services.

Alun Cairns added:

Hydro and Sure Chill are just two examples of innovative Welsh companies making a significant contribution to the global value of Welsh exports which totalled £16.4 billion last year – an increase of 12.3% on the previous year.

This trade mission underlines the UK Government’s commitment to continuing that growth, and I hope that we will help open the doors for Welsh businesses looking to seek out opportunities to expand and thrive in international markets.

During his trip, the Welsh Secretary will also take the opportunity to meet members of the Welsh Diaspora, from the Cape Welsh Society to discuss the strength of cultural ties between Wales and South Africa.

Commenting on the UN Fact Finding Mission’s report, Minister of State for Asia & The Pacific Mark Field said:

The UN Fact Finding Mission’s conclusions on human rights violations in Burma since 2011, in particular the truly horrific violence from August last year in Rakhine, come as no surprise.

Anyone like myself who has been engaged directly in this terrible crisis, or has spoken to Rohingya refugees, knows the Burmese military is primarily to blame for such appalling human rights violations as the widespread rape and murder of the Rohingya people.

The Fact Finding Mission provides yet more damning evidence of their culpability.

There cannot and must not be impunity for such acts, which the Mission has concluded warrants “the investigation and prosecution of senior officials in the Tatmadaw chain of command, so that a competent court can determine their liability for genocide in relation to the situation in Rakhine State”.

We commend the Fact Finding Mission for their work and look forward to seeing the full report. We believe the gravity of the report warrants the attention of both the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Security Council.

We will discuss options for bringing the report before the Security Council with other members once the Fact Finding Mission have made their final presentation to the Human Rights Council in September.

There also remains an urgent need for domestic acceptance and accountability in Burma.

It is now essential the Burmese government sets out how its Commission of Inquiry will be able to investigate these crimes with full impartiality and how it will be linked to a judicial process to hold those responsible to account.

Further information

• Follow Foreign Office Minister Mark Field @MarkFieldUK
• Follow the Foreign Office on Twitter @foreignoffice and Facebook
• Follow the Foreign Office on Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn

Investigations are continuing into the bathing water quality of a popular North East beach.

Cullercoats in North Tyneside is currently rated as ‘sufficient’, meaning it has passed bathing water quality standards. But work to understand the reasons for its decline in quality from ‘good’ are ongoing.

On Wednesday (22 August) Environment Agency Chief Executive Sir James Bevan visited the bay to hear about the work being done by the agency and its partners at Northumbrian Water and North Tyneside Council to investigate and understand the issues.

A number of factors can impact on bathing water quality, including the impact of humans, animals and birds, misconnections of pipes going into the sea, and heavy rainfall, which can result in run off from the land going into the sea and causing a temporary drop in seawater quality.

During recent years, the Environment Agency has seen that bathing water quality at Cullercoats deteriorates towards the end of the season. A partnership working group was set up in 2017 to investigate the issues and work has continued throughout this year.

The Environment Agency is carrying out additional monitoring at suspected sources of pollution and further microbial source tracking (MST) which through DNA analysis identifies the sources of bacteria predominantly present in the seawater.

Northumbrian Water is carrying out extensive investigations on the drainage network and is working with partners to resolve any issues found. This has involved checking a previously blocked up culvert owned by North Tyneside Council that was identified as having discharged poor quality water to the beach in 2011. The working group is also investigating potential misconnections from properties discharging into the surface water outlets rather than the sewer.

‘Drastic improvements

The Environment Agency’s Gordon Reid, who leads on the Environment Agency’s activity in the North East, said:

The North East remains a beacon for bathing water excellence with a real success story of drastic improvements over the past 30 years. In 1988, nearly half of our bathing waters failed to meet mandatory standards, while in the most recent assessment they all passed. We’d encourage people to make the most of our wonderful coastline by getting out and enjoying it!

We work closely with our partners at local authorities and Northumbrian Water to understand what impacts on a particular bathing water’s quality and then carry out work to try to improve it, and such work has already taken place here at Cullercoats.

We remain committed to identifying all sources of pollution and a number of investigations are taking place to understand the type of bacteria in the water and where it is potentially coming from. It’s important to note that ‘sufficient’ status still means the bathing water has passed water quality standards.

Partnership working is important

All of the North East’s Bathing Waters passed water quality standards in the most recent assessment at the end of last year with 32 out of 34 being rated excellent or good and 2 being rated sufficient.

Compliance is based on the current and previous four years of sample data (a maximum of 80 samples per beach, from 2014 to 2017). The samples are taken by the Environment Agency between May and September each year to assess the bathing waters against the strict regulations.

Northumbrian Water’s wastewater director, Richard Warneford, said:

Looking after the environment is at the heart of what we do. We are extremely proud of the contribution we have made to protect and improve our region’s stunning coastline through both investment and partnership working and we appreciate the significant impact that beaches have on tourism, the economy and the leisure industry.

Partnership working is particularly important in understanding the issues affecting bathing water quality and to provide the improvements needed”.

Across the UK 98.3% of bathing waters tested at over 400 beaches and lakes passed tough water quality standards. Action plans are in place for all bathing waters in need of improvement.

The public have a key role to play in ensuring their local beaches are clean. They can do their bit by ensuring they #binit4beaches and take their litter home with them.

You can check for temporary warnings against bathing, or see the sampling results online

Read Mick Donkin’s blog on his role as Sampling and Collection Team Leader in the north east and his love of the north eats coast!