A multi-million pound cash boost for farmers and a fairer approach to funding across all four corners of the UK has been announced by the UK Government today.

Following the recommendations of an independent review led by Lord Bew, the Government will allocate £56.59 million of new funding for farmers until 2022 and create a more tailored funding formula under the Government’s funding commitment for this Parliament.

Lord Bew’s review, announced last year, looked at what factors should determine the distribution of so-called ‘convergence’ funding – additional Common Agricultural Policy funding allocated to the UK between 2014 and 2020 to make payment rates more equal between EU Member States – to farmers over the next two years.

The Prime Minister confirmed this would mean a £51.4m boost for Scottish farmers during a visit to a farm in Aberdeenshire. This follows the announcement in Wednesday’s Spending Round for a one off payment of £160 million for Scottish farmers, drawing a line under previous concerns with the methodologies and decisions related to convergence.

Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers said:

I welcome the recommendations from Lord Bew and his panel on allocation of funding between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland over the next two years.

I am very pleased that we have not only been able to accommodate their recommendations for funding, but have been able to go further and provide Scottish farmers with the funding they feel they should have received between 2014 and 2020.

We will always back our great farmers and ensure Brexit works for all four corners of the UK. This new system will allow us to draw a line under decisions of the past and move towards a new model for farm support as we look ahead to our future outside the EU.

The new formula to distribute funding across the UK will reward land that previously received less CAP funding per hectare than the EU average. This means the support of the Pillar 1 budget will be tilted slightly towards those who farm in challenging environments, such as upland areas.

Lord Bew’s recommendations aim to address the concerns of Scottish farmers and either maintain or increase funding for farmers in other parts of the UK for the 2020 and 2021 scheme years. This includes:

• Agriculture funding for 2020-22 should be maintained in England and Northern Ireland and increased in Wales and Scotland. This means an overall funding uplift of £56.59 million will be new money allocated by the Treasury.
• Convergence funding for 2020-22 should be divided according to land across the UK that previously received less CAP funding per hectare than the EU average.
• The ‘per-hectare’ approach is not suitable for future farm support budgets. * That the budget should reflect the challenges facing farms operating in difficult environments, such as our upland areas. *Administrations across the UK engage collectively to agree principles for allocation of agriculture funding after 2022.
• Governments in all parts of the UK recognise the critical value of farming by protecting, if not enhancing, future agriculture funding – particularly in the context of EU Exit uncertainty.

The panel proposes the following allocations of this funding from 2020 to 2022, but with implied reductions offset with additional funding.

• England – 13.9 per cent
• Scotland – 63.7 per cent
• Wales – 13.7 per cent
• Northern Ireland – 8.7 per cent

In reaching these recommendations, the panel consulted with farming stakeholders, political parties and economists across the UK, as well as Ministers from the Scottish and Welsh Governments and senior officials from Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).

The 100 places invited to develop proposals for a new generation of multi-million-pound Town Deals have today (6 September 2019) been announced by Local Government Secretary Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP.   

The towns eligible for support from the £3.6 billion Towns Fund include places with proud industrial and economic heritage but have not always benefitted from economic growth in the same way as more prosperous areas.

Communities, businesses and local leaders will now join forces to draw up ambitious plans to transform their town’s economic growth prospects with a focus on improved transport, broadband connectivity, skills and culture.

A total of 42 places across the Northern Powerhouse and 33 places in the Midlands Engine are among the 100 pioneers of new Town Deals as part of the government’s commitment to level up all regions by boosting productivity, skills and living standards.

Local Government Secretary, Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP, said: 

Ensuring that prosperity and opportunities are available to everyone in this country, not just those in London or our biggest cities, is at the heart of the mission of this government.

We want to level-up our great towns, raising living standards and ensuring they can thrive with transformative investment in transport, technology, skills and culture.

I will now work with local people from the 100 communities announced today to agree proposals to invest up to £25 million in each place. I hope these deals will provide the investment and the impetus for long-term renewal ensuring each town can look to the future with a new optimism.

Minister for the Northern Powerhouse and Local Growth, Rt Hon Jake Berry MP said: 

In July, the Prime Minister promised to level up 100 towns across the country, and today we’re delivering that promise.

The best answers for local people will come from local people, that’s why we have listened to people living in these towns and will support them with a mega £3.6 billion fund to drive jobs and economic growth.

Five years on from the launch of the Northern Powerhouse, we are reaffirming our commitment to the people of the North so they have the support they need to be at the leading edge of a confident, global Britain when we leave the EU on 31 October.

Today’s announcement follows the Prime Minister’s confirmation in July of an additional £1.325 billion to support towns as part of a renewed vision to level up our regions, which took the total value of the Towns Fund to £3.6 billion.

The government will soon publish a prospectus to guide towns through the process and set eligibility criteria for funding.

Once approved, new Town Deals will improve connectivity, provide vital social and cultural infrastructure and boost growth – with communities having a say on how the money is spent. Decisions on funding any proposals will be made in due course.

The Town Deals Fund builds directly on the government’s commitment to decentralising funding and decisions away from Whitehall and investing in the growth of local economies and devolving powers through ambitious City and Growth Deals, providing more than £9 billion of funding to Local Enterprise Partnerships and introducing 8 Metro Mayors in England.  

See the 100 places being supported to develop Town Deals (PDF, 81.7 KB, 3 pages) .

On 27 July 2019 the Prime Minister announced that the £3.6 billion Towns Fund would support an initial 100 town deals across England. See further details of the announcement.

This week the Chancellor announced £241 million of the Towns Fund is available to support places in 2020-21 in the Spending Round.

The government wants to make sure that all parts of the UK can benefit from resources to boost productivity and living standards. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is in ongoing discussions with colleagues across HMG about how we can better support our towns in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and make sure areas throughout the UK share in the opportunities of Brexit.

CoST was installed in Honduras since 2014 and works with government, industry, academy and civil society to promote the disclosure, validation and interpretation of data from infrastructure projects. Since then it has carried out 5 assurance processes, trained more than 550 citizens in social accountability processes, and has achieved the disclosure of 1400 infrastructure projects including Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) projects.

In order to strengthen collaboration with the academia, CoST already has an agreement of collaboration with UNAH’s Liaison Office, and from now on will proceed to sign a specific agreement to collaborate with the Faculties of Engineering, and Arts & Humanities, to promote the monitoring and follow-up of infrastructure projects in Honduras.

Academics need to be further empowered to play a role in public affairs; therefore, following up on the workshops, they will visit infrastructure projects to monitor compliance of the procuring entities in accordance to the CoST International Data Standard. Participants will be able to detail issues of concern and present recommendations to the procuring entities.

The British Government believes that informed citizens and responsive public institutions help drive reforms that reduce mismanagement, inefficiency, corruption and the risks posed to the public from poor quality infrastructure. We will continue working closely with Honduras and Central America in promoting these transparency initiatives.

Published 5 September 2019
Last updated 1 September 2021 + show all updates

Good evening – I’m delighted to welcome our honoured guests, Vice President Pence and Mrs Pence, Ambassador Johnson and Mrs Johnson. They are huge friends of Britain and I’m thrilled that they are able to join us tonight.

Firstly, I want to thank my predecessor, Liam Fox, who has done so much brilliant work on trade and tonight’s event.

I also want to thank all our wonderful trade commissioners and trade envoys, many of whom are here tonight, with a particular welcome to Baroness Neville-Rolfe who has recently been appointed as Chair of our UK Asian Business Council.

And finally, I would like to thank the Lord Mayor and the City of London Corporation for inviting me to speak to you this evening in the fabulous surroundings of London’s Guildhall.

This Hall has witnessed two very important speeches from the US: President Eisenhower in 1945 as the Second World War was ending, and President Reagan in 1988, after his historic meeting with Gorbachev.

Both speeches trumpeted the vital importance of free trade in developing a strong, free, democratic world.

After 1945 it was the UK and US who together created the modern trading systems which have hugely enriched our lives.

We banged the drum for free markets and democracy and proved the merits of our way of life in stark contrast with communism, which had failed its citizens.

We saw Chairman Mao’s oppressive regime begin to fall with his death. We saw the Iron Curtain torn down in Eastern Europe, and a new era of trading and commercial freedom begin.

When President Reagan addressed the Hall in 1988 he made the case for freedom and free markets. He said: “We have learned the first objective of the adversaries of freedom is to make free nations question their own faith in freedom, to make us think that adhering to our principles and speaking out against human rights abuses or foreign aggression is somehow an act of belligerence.”

President Reagan was clear that in order to defend freedom you cannot afford to stay silent.

And our honoured guest Vice President Pence has done so much to champion freedom in the United States and beyond.

Mr Vice-President, you have a consistent record as Governor of Indiana in giving people more freedom over their own lives, through cutting taxes, boosting voucher programmes and setting up charter schools, similar to our free schools here in the UK.

1945 and 1988 were two crucial moments in which our two nations defended freedom.

I want 2019 to be remembered as another great year, when the US and UK again joined forces to make the case for freedom across the world.

The City of London encapsulates free trade; it’s the financial capital of the world and provides the lifeblood to the global financial system, allowing trade to happen.

We’re the highest net exporter of financial services and we sell more products around the world than any other country.

This is only going to grow. You can see by the number of cranes, and the fact that the City of London’s skyscrapers are just about joining up with Canary Wharf’s, that this is a City on the rise.

And this great Hall is at the centre of it all.

But why did London achieved this global dominance? It’s partly down to the Conservative radical Margaret Thatcher, who liberalised the City in the 1980s and ended restrictive practices.

She understood the power of free markets and presided over the Big Bang in 1986 when she slashed the restrictions that had gripped the City in a choke-hold for too long.

The City went from being a closed shop to an international trading powerhouse.

It also unleashed talent from beyond the usual suspects to a huge variety of people from all over Britain to enter the City.

Thirty-three years later the UK has another golden opportunity to open the doors to a new wave of liberalisation.

I want 2019 to be the year that the UK became a world leader in trade liberalisation.

I want 2019 to be the year that UK businesses of all shapes and sizes burst out onto the world stage.

And I want 2019 to be the year that the UK reinvents itself as a trading nation.

Many people think of trade as an abstract concept, but it’s not. It goes to the very heart of people’s lives and livelihoods.

Trade is the teenager selling through their online YouTube channel; it’s the engineer in Sunderland building new cars; it’s the farmer in Wales, raising their lamb.

Trade is the engine on which societies grow and prosper.

It gives you the ownership of your own produce, your own actions and your own future.

[Political content]

But ladies and gentlemen, the proof is there for all to see. Increased economic freedom has done more than anything else to help those at the bottom.

Over the last three decades, free trade has lifted more than 1 billion people out of poverty.

And our great countries – two of the freest, most democratic, open nations in the world – have been on the front line setting the example for others to follow.

But we can’t afford to sit back; we need to make the case again for free enterprise and free trade in the new era.

I grew up in the 1980s and saw Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan win the argument through confidence in our values, and their refusal to submit to the idea of moral relativism.

They took on the arguments to bring about the end of the Soviet Union and they launched an economic revival that transformed our standing in the world.

Both leaders entered office with similar problems: sluggish growth, high interest rates, inflation and a growing demand for self-destructive protectionism.

The doomsters, gloomsters and fearmongers made the same tired arguments that they continue to trot out today: that Britain’s best days were behind us; that Britain was too small to be independent; that Britain was destined to fail.

Well, that wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now.

President Reagan and Mrs Thatcher set about renewing our national identities and giving us our confidence back.

They cut taxes, slayed inflation and unleashed a remarkable period of Anglo/American and global growth.

Together they helped win the battle against the concept of the oppressive totalitarian state.

The success we have witnessed as a result had been driven by the power of free enterprise – by free people in competition.

As we leave the European Union on 31st October there is new energy behind our partnership spurred on by our shared values and a new technological revolution.

There’s a reason why the US and UK lead the world in this regard: It’s only in a free society underpinned by a belief in free speech that you will generate the cutting-edge ideas and make great leaps forward.

It was a Brit – Sir Tim Berners Lee – who invented the World Wide Web, and the technology grew up in Silicon Valley.

Today our cross-border cooperation is oiling the wheels of trade in everything from video games to state-of-the art computer design, to the latest breakthroughs in drugs and pharmaceuticals, aircraft, plastics and chemicals.

Together our two countries are the ideas factory of the world, and it is within our gift to strike the most comprehensive free trade agreement that’s ever been done.

And I’m committed as Trade Secretary to do just that.

I believe it will be one that sets the standard across the world and challenges those who are pushing state-owned enterprise and intellectual property theft.

New battle lines have been drawn between free people living in free economies, and those where the state alone has its hands on the levers of power.

And by leaving the EU the UK will be in a stronger position to defend our principles.

For the first time in 40 years we will be able to set our own independent trade policy that works for the whole of the UK.

We will be able to enter agreements with other countries such as Japan and South Korea, and renew our historic ties with friends in the Commonwealth, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

But the largest opportunity of all lies with our closest ally and biggest trading partner – the United States of America.

The future is bright. This is the year we will throw open our doors to free trade agreements with the rest of the world.

I believe that both the UK and US’s best days are ahead of us.

I believe that by working together as free-market democracies we will continue to lead the debate in the world.

I believe there are huge opportunities before us that will enhance the prosperity and freedom of our people.

It is 33 years since the Big Bang of 1986: let’s make 2019 the Big Bang year of free trade.