Today the Appellate Body, the final court of appeal at the WTO has definitively ruled that the US has continued to unlawfully subsidise aircraft manufacturer Boeing, causing significant harm to its European competitor Airbus.

The WTO’s ruling in this 15 year-long dispute confirms that the United States has not complied with obligations to withdraw subsidies previously declared illegal by the WTO Appellate Body in 2012, adversely affecting the EU aerospace industry.

Following today’s findings, the UK stands ready to work with the EU and the US to bring a sensible conclusion to this dispute.

International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox said:

We are committed to supporting jobs in the British aerospace industry and will now work to ensure that any negotiated settlement allows Airbus to compete on a level playing field with Boeing.

The UK is one of the strongest defenders of the global trading rules and has together with our European partners fully complied with WTO rulings regarding its support to Airbus. We will continue to work closely with the EU and European partners to contest the US’s right to impose any tariffs on the UK and its partners.

We look forward to taking our independent seat at the WTO and will continue positive and productive conversations with both the US and EU to help bring an end to this dispute.

The investment into Whinny Hill, Catterick training area’s urban operations training facility, has created a more challenging training environment for the armed forces and emergency services personnel who use it. The upgrade has created a more realistic environment for troops carrying out modern day military training in the area.

The new facility consists of 13 buildings constructed from purpose built reconfigurable containers. The single and two-storey buildings have a variety of access points and forced entry points. A further multi-storey building provides helicopter and rope access training.

Working with BeaverFit Ltd and industry partner Landmarc Support Services, the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) delivered the project in two phases, the first finished in October 2018 and the second completing this month. The facility remained operational throughout the construction period so that the impact on vital military training was minimised.

Lt Col Mark Holden, Commander Defence Training Estate for the North Region, said:

“DIO supports our armed forces by providing what they need to live, work and train. We have worked closely with experts and our partners to ensure that we deliver exactly what the military needs to provide enhanced training for their sailors, soldiers and airmen.

“The new urban complex has been designed to meet the needs of military personnel now, and in the future, and we’re pleased that it’s now ready for use.”

Claire Travis, Project Manager from Landmarc, commented:

“The buildings have been designed with facades to add realism and internal room layouts that are reconfigurable to enable different challenges for defenders and attackers.

“One of the key challenges was to ensure that the existing urban training facility remained operational whilst the project was delivered. This required close collaboration with DIO and our contractors to de-conflict the training areas during vehicle movements and the final delivery of the containers, which were manufactured off-site to provide a more flexible and cost-effective solution.”

Major General Tim Hyams said:

“We’re delighted to take into use the new urban training facility here in Catterick. This state-of-the-art facility will enable the delivery of realistic and challenging training to our soldiers.

“Whinny Hill is the principal sub-unit urban training facility in the North of the UK and the enhancements made here will develop further our ability to prepare for operations in complex urban terrain.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

1. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) plays a vital role in supporting our armed forces by building, maintaining and servicing what the men and women who serve our country need to live, work, train and deploy on operations.

2. DIO is part of the Ministry of Defence (MOD). It is responsible for managing and maintaining land and properties, as well as providing related support services, to meet the current and future needs of the MOD and personnel at home and abroad, and to support current operations.

3. Our work includes supporting operational units by providing and improving single living and service family accommodation; training areas and historic military sites. DIO actively manages these to ensure the needs of Defence are met, value for money is achieved, and its heritage is protected, and to achieve its environmental goals.

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) work with a number of organisations that are registered with us to submit disclosure checks. These organisations can be split into the following categories:

• Responsible Organisations (ROs)
• Registered Bodies (RBs)
• Umbrella Bodies (UBs)

Responsible Organisations are registered with us to submit basic disclosure checks, and Registered Bodies are registered with us to submit standard and enhanced disclosure checks.

Umbrella Bodies are Registered Bodies that provide an ‘umbrella service’ to client organisations – they submit checks for organisations that aren’t registered with DBS. They cannot submit checks for individuals e.g. self-employed.

Responsible Organisations can only submit basic disclosure checks electronically and must submit a minimum of 1000 applications in a twelve month rolling period.

Registered Bodies can submit standard and enhanced disclosure checks via our paper application route, or electronically (this is known as e-Bulk). If submitting via the paper route they must submit a minimum of 100 applications, and if submitting electronically, they must submit a minimum of 1500 applications, both in a twelve month rolling period.

The below table provides more information, whilst highlighting further differences between Responsible Organisations and Registered Bodies:

If you are an organisation who wishes to enquire about registering as:

• a Responsible Organisation, please email Customer Services on customerservices@dbs.gov.uk
• a Registered Body, please contact Customer Services on 03000 200 190

Innovative digital technology projects to address key challenges in health care have received a £9m funding boost through the government’s Digital Health Technology Catalyst it was announced today.

The catalyst, delivered by UK Research and Innovation, aims to accelerate the development of digital health innovation, under the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, to ensure the UK remains at the leading-edge of innovative healthcare.

Recipients are using a host of new technologies to address the most pressing healthcare priorities. From the use of machine learning and hand-held devices to improve the targeting of clinical interventions to the use of portable brain imaging technology to help identify patients personalised risk of developing dementia.

Science and Innovation Minister Chris Skidmore said:

From using AI-driven voice technology to assess patient’s health before seeing a doctor, to hand-held devices which observe health status and alert clinicians to treat high-risk patients, we are taking steps to ensure people are healthier for longer while saving the NHS money.

These advances in technology, across the UK, demonstrate our modern Industrial Strategy in action by harnessing the power of innovation to help meet the needs of an ageing society, and creating the high skilled jobs of the future.

Ian Campbell, Interim Executive Chair, Innovate UK, for UK Research and Innovation, said:

The UK is a world leader in health innovation and the projects for which we have announced funding today showcase the very best of British knowhow. Using breakthrough technologies such as AI and machine learning and deploying apps and hand-held devices, outcomes for patients can be immeasurably improved. Supporting these innovations is a key element of the government’s Industrial Strategy and will create the industries and jobs of tomorrow.

Projects which received funding today include:

• Rugby-based OpusVL, has developed eObs, which allows clinicians to observe patients digitally through hand-held devices. The device can then send an automatic alert to specialists or consultants if patients are identified as ‘at risk’. This can shorten length of stay, reduce transfers within hospitals, and reduce ICU referrals. The system also gives ward managers and bed managers a view of the workload across their area of responsibility, so that they can deploy the right people on the right ward, at the right time

• Red Star Consulting Ltd is leading a Glasgow-based project applying machine learning to analyse clinical notes recorded in the electronic health record of diabetes patients. The machine learning models predict, based on patient’s clinical notes, the risk of different clinical endpoints such as heart attack or death and present this information to the clinician as a score or alert. Clinicians can use this to tailor consultations, identify high-risk patients, and target specific clinical outcomes

• Kent-based Mind over Matter MedTech is working with Wessex Academic Health Science Network to trial novel, low-cost and portable brain imaging technology. This aims to test patients personalised risk for developing dementia in a non-invasive manner, and at least a decade before any clinical symptoms would appear. This could help reduce the chance of a cycle of irreversible neuronal death

• Working with the University of Oxford, Ufonia will deploy AI-driven voice technology to call patients and have a fully autonomous, natural conversation, to assess their health status against specified criteria. In live clinical use, the technology will assess the health of nearly 1000 patients who have had cataract surgery at a large NHS hospital Trust over 6 months

• Leicester-based Snoozeal, working with the University of Loughborough, Snoozeal Limited has developed a device to treat obstructive sleep apnoea, a condition where the muscles and soft tissues in the throat relax and collapse, blocking the airways for 10 seconds or more during sleep, which can cause long-term health problems. The device contracts muscle at the rear of the tongue through a 20-minute daily toning regime of mild electric pulses. The Snoozeal device aims to be connected to an intelligent platform to collect biosensor data of tongue tone, which will be classified by machine learning and AI-based to deliver personalised treatment regimes

Funded through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, the Digital Health Technology Catalyst (DHTC) is a £35 million fund, being run over 4 years.

The DHTC is an important element of the government’s plans to implement the Accelerated Access Review. It aims to address some of the challenges that the review identified around the development of digital health innovations, and to help grow the digital health sector. DHTC funding is targeted at SMEs to promote a vibrant and varied industry of innovative technologies with the potential to significantly change care pathways and to improve patient outcomes and create NHS efficiencies.

Business Secretary Greg Clark welcomed members of the Prime Minister’s Small Business, Scale ups and Entrepreneurs Business Council to Downing Street this morning.

Small businesses make up an overwhelming majority of all businesses in the UK. The Council represents their unique views in supporting business productivity and competitiveness across the country.

It is one of five business councils formed by the Prime Minister and tasked with designing specific policy recommendations to improve competiveness and enable companies to grow in the future.

As part of their inaugural meeting, the Business Secretary heard from the co-chairs, James Timpson (CEO, Timpson), Brent Hoberman (Co-Founder and Chairman, Founders’ Factory) and Emma Jones (Founder, Enterprise Nation), and other members of the Council on issues of critical importance to take forward over the course of the year.

This included discussions on the role of business as a force for good in the community, as well as on how to encourage and support start ups, entrepreneurs and small businesses to export at an international scale.

They looked forward to meeting again to discuss the progress on their proposals.

Members

• Emma Jones, Founder, Enterprise Nation (co-chair)
• James Timpson, Chief Executive, Timpson (co-chair)
• Brent Hoberman, Chairman, Founders’ Factory (co-chair)
• Stan Boland, Co-Founder and CEO, FiveAI
• Sherry Coutu, Founders4Schools and ScaleUp Institute
• Ben Francis, Gymshark
• Karen Friendship, Aldermans
• Amit Gudka, Bulb
• Gareth Jones, Town Square
• Grainne Kelly, Bubblebum
• Alastair Lukies, CBE, Motive Partners
• Matthew Moulding, CEO, The Hut Group
• Rebecca Pick, CEO, Pick Protection
• John Roberts, AO.com
• Richard Walker, Iceland
• Mike Cherry, National Chairman, FSB