Press release: Man who attempted to smuggle people hidden in cabinets convicted

Canterbury Crown Court heard how on 14 February 2016 a van was stopped by Border Force officers at the UK Control Zone in Coquelles, France. The driver was Huzaifa Hasan Musa, 22.

Border Force officers searched the van which was filled with furniture. A woman and child were found hidden in 1 cabinet in the load, and 3 men in another. All 5 Iraqi nationals were handed to the French Police Aux Frontieres.

Director Paul Morgan, from Border Force South East and Europe, said:

Musa expressed surprise when the 5 people were found, but they had been quite deliberately hidden. They could not have got there by themselves.

People smugglers like Musa exploit the vulnerable and put lives at risk. Border Force targets its resources on prevention, protection and prosecution activity, working in close partnership with other law enforcement agencies, to prosecute those involved in this criminal trade.

Musa, of Mary Street, Scunthorpe, was arrested at the scene and the case was passed to Immigration Enforcement’s Criminal and Financial Investigation (CFI) team.

Musa claimed that he had been to visit his step-grandmother near Dunkirk, though he couldn’t provide an address to officers, and said that he had taken her furniture because she had intended to throw it all away. He later changed his story to say he had taken the furniture with him when he left for his trip.

However, analysis of Musa’s mobile phone identified a string of suspicious messages including one Musa had sent saying as soon as he got through the tunnel he would get paid.

After a 2 day trial at Canterbury Crown Court, Musa was found guilty of assisting unlawful immigration into the UK and sentenced to 3 and a half years’ imprisonment.

Assistant Director David Fairclough, from the Immigration Enforcement Criminal Investigations team, said:

Our officers built a compelling case to prove that Musa’s story was a pack of lies. He claimed the purpose of his visit was to visit family, when in reality he was engaged in people smuggling in order to line his own pockets and with no thought for the safety of those he was transporting.

I hope this case serves as a clear warning that those who try to the UK’s break immigration laws will be brought to justice.

Anyone with information about suspected immigration abuse can contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 anonymously or visit http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org.




News story: Glasgow engineers scope century of submarine innovation

Govan-based Thales delivered the first submarine periscope, the FY1, to the submarine M3 in late summer 1917. Since then, every class of RN submarine has been fitted with a periscope or optronics mast designed and built by Thales’ engineers in Glasgow.

Today Thales’ state-of-the-art optronics masts support submarines navigation, warfare and communications systems, including provide thermal imaging and night vision capabilities. The masts can complete a full 360° sweep of the horizon, looking for potential threats, in only a few seconds, providing high definition images of the battle space to commanders before they are detected by an adversary.

Defence Procurement Minister, Harriett Baldwin said:

This anniversary marks a proud record of Scottish engineering contributing directly to UK defence and national security by providing the eyes and ears for our nuclear deterrent and attack submarines.

Generations of highly skilled engineers across Scotland have applied battle winning technologies to meet the needs of their UK armed forces, as well as exporting their innovations to dozens of navies around the world.

Royal Navy submarine M3 was fitted with the first FY1 No.1 periscope.

Victor Chavez, CEO, Thales UK, added:

Arguably our greatest single innovation was introducing a night vision capability to allow submarines to navigate and gather intelligence 24/7.

However, our latest full remote control, non-hull penetrating optronics systems give naval architects more design flexibility by not restricting them to co-locating the fin and the control room via a 50ft long periscope. These options, combined with the digital inboard control and display system, provide commanders with a leap forward in submarine capability.

Optronics masts are electronic imaging systems and do not penetrate a submarine’s hull, but are contained in the conning tower or ‘fin’. They are fitted to all seven of the new Astute-class submarines, the first three of which are already in service from HM Naval Base Clyde.

Thales are currently bidding competitively to have their optronics masts procured for the BAE Systems Maritime build of four new Dreadnought nuclear deterrent submarines which will come into service in the 2030s. The company will conduct sea trials of their latest mast in 2018.

Defence Minister Harriett Baldwin speaking at Thales today.

Thales’ site at Glasgow has 129 years heritage and currently employs 600 people, mainly very highly skilled technical and engineering jobs, designing and building optronics systems for the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force.

From 2020 Scotland’s HM Naval Base Clyde will be home to the entire UK Submarine Service of seven hunter killer and four deterrent submarines.




News story: Review of exam setting processes

Ofqual will conduct a review of the rules under which serving teachers take part in writing and reviewing question papers, and the safeguards in place to prevent disclosure of confidential information.

The involvement of serving teachers in the process of exam setting has many benefits and exam malpractice by teachers is rare. However, access to live materials must be appropriately controlled and risks to security minimised. We will investigate whether the safeguards in place are sufficiently robust and whether changes are needed.

We will provide a progress update in our ‘Summer Report’ to be published later this year.




News story: David Davis’ closing remarks at the end of the third round of EU exit negotiations in Brussels

Thank you Michel.

And can I start by adding my compliments to both teams, to yours. They’ve both worked incredibly hard this week. It’s been as ever with an important negotiation quite a high-stress week, in terms of their work. So they deserve our compliments and our thanks.

This week we have had long and detailed discussions across multiple areas and I think it is fair to say, that we have seen some concrete progress. I mean, Michel referred to one, but I think there’s been more than that.

However, as I said at the very start of this week, it is only through flexibility and imagination that we’ll achieve a deal that truly works for both sides.

In some areas we have found this from the Commission’s side, which I welcome, but there remains some way to go.

Talks this week have once again focussed on citizens’ rights, on financial matters, on Northern Ireland and Ireland, and on issues relating to our separation. I’m pleased to say we have engaged in detail on all of those areas.

Now, when I met Michel here on Monday to open this third round of negotiations I set out the need for us to drive forward the technical discussions.

I wanted us to establish the areas where we agree, and work through the areas where we disagree, to ensure that we make further progress on a whole range of issues.

I think we’ve delivered that.

The UK’s approach has been informed by a series of detailed papers – on customs; on Northern Ireland; on goods; on civil judicial cooperation; on data; on enforcement and dispute resolution; and on technical matters regarding our separation, such as ongoing confidentiality obligations.

These papers represent the hard work and detailed thinking that has been going on behind the scenes across Whitehall over the past twelve months.

They offer pragmatic and innovative solutions to issues related to our withdrawal and the future deep and special partnership that we want with the European Union. They do not aim to dictate a single approach, but rather considered options for us to work on.

As I have said all along, issues around our withdrawal and our future relationship are inextricably linked.

Our approach of setting out positions on them both is designed to progress the current negotiations as swiftly as possible.

And I note on what Michel just said on that, and I’ll come back to that in a moment.

And that approach is already bearing fruit.

But beyond the debates around process, and technicalities, at the heart of this process must be a desire to deliver the best outcome for the people and the businesses of the European Union and the United Kingdom.

Citizens Rights

The most obvious area for that is on citizens’ rights which remain a top priority.

This week we have discussed a wide range of issues which will have a significant impact on people’s lives. In particular, both sides have agreed:

To protect the rights of frontier workers.

To cover future social security contributions for those covered by the Withdrawal Agreement.

That we should at least protect existing healthcare rights and arrangements for EU27 citizens in the UK and UK nationals in the EU. The EHIC arrangements.

That is good news for example, for British pensioners in the EU: it means that they will continue to have their health care arrangements protected both where they live and – when they travel to another Member State – to be able to use an EHIC card.

On economic rights, we have secured the right of British citizens in the EU27 to set up and manage a business within their Member State of residence, and of course visa versa.

On mutual recognition of qualifications, we have made progress in protecting the recognition of qualifications for British citizens resident in the EU27 and EU27 citizens in the UK.

For every one of these, of course, in fact every single thing I’ve said, all of these are reciprocal, they work for Brits in the EU and the EU27 in the UK.

To that end, we will shortly be publishing a comparison of the UK-EU-positions.

And we have had further discussions on the governance of the citizens’ rights agreement – and the wider withdrawal agreement. We have shown a willingness to discuss creative solutions in this area and now is the time for the Commission to match it.

Financial Settlement

On the financial settlement – the central point, I think, of Michel’s comments – the Commission has set out its position and we have a duty to our taxpayers to interrogate it rigorously.

At this round we presented our legal analyses. On on-budget issues, on off-budget issues and on the EIB (the European Investment Bank).

It is fair to say, across the piece, we have a very different legal stance. But as we said in the Article 50 letter, the settlement should be in accordance with law and in the spirit of the UK’s continuing partnership with the EU, and I repeat the phrase, in accordance with the law and the spirit of the UK’s continuing partnership with the EU.

Michel and I agreed in the last round, it is clear we won’t be making incremental progress on the final shape of a deal on this in every round, and I think this round demonstrates that.

I think we have succeeded in building mutual understanding, but it is also clear that there are still significant differences to be bridged.

Ireland

On Ireland and Northern Ireland, Michel gave credit to this, our coordinators have met again to build on discussions in July.

We had a good discussion on maintaining the Common Travel Area and on safeguarding the Good Friday Agreement, on the basis of the UK paper.

We think there is a high degree of convergence on these key issues, and we agreed to work up shared principles on the Common Travel Area.

We also agreed to carry out further joint technical work on cross-border co-operation under the Good Friday Agreement.

Separation Issues

On Separation Issues, we have had good discussions on the detail of papers the UK published ahead of the round.

We have reached almost complete agreement on our approach to post-exit privileges and immunities which benefits both the UK and EU to maintain after we leave, and on our mutual approach to confidentiality requirements on shared information post-exit.

On Euratom and other institutional issues we have built upon discussions in July and are well placed to make even more progress in the next round.

We remain committed to making as much progress as possible on those issues that are solely related to our withdrawal, but our discussions this week have exposed yet again that the UK’s approach is substantially more flexible and pragmatic than that of the EU as it avoids unnecessary disruption for businesses and consumers.

We have proposed pragmatic solutions to prevent this disruption and we urge the EU to be more imaginative and flexible in their approach to withdrawal on this point.

However, I remain of the view that on this as with many areas there is an unavoidable overlap between withdrawal and the future and they cannot be neatly compartmentalised.

Conclusion

To conclude the third round of talks have been productive and are an important stepping stone and key building block for discussions to come.

We are peeling away the layers, one by one, working through many issues at speed, and moving towards the core of these important matters.

We have locked in points of agreement and unpicked areas of divergence.

Being dynamic is integral to driving forward these talks at pace and to providing the best outcomes for people and businesses – not just in the UK, but in the EU as well.

Michel referred to the issue of time, the 29th of March 2019 midnight. I’ve said from the beginning of this process, some parts will be turbulent, hard, difficult, and of course, we will see that because there are differences of view that have to be resolved.

But both sides, and this was very apparent this week, both teams aim to be constructive, aim to get an outcome which is to the benefit both of the European Union and of the United Kingdom. That’s the aim of both teams.

So my message to Michel and his team as we turn our heads to the next round of talks is: Let’s continue to work together constructively to put people above process.

As discussions in June, July and again this week have shown – our separation from the European Union and our future relationship is inextricably linked. We can only resolve some of these issues with an eye on how the new partnership between us will work in the future.

This is not about skipping ahead or trying to reopen previous discussions, it is about pragmatically driving the progress we all want to see.

To that end my team will publish further papers in the coming weeks – continuing to set out our ambition for these negotiations, and the new deep and special partnership the UK wants to build with the EU.

I look forward to the next round of talks.

Thank you.




Speech: Opening remarks from the Prime Minister in Japan

Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan

I’d like to once again welcome Prime Minister May on her very first visit to Japan. When I visited the United Kingdom in April of this year, she gave me a special welcome by inviting me to the Chequers. As I return a favour, I had the pleasure to invite Prime Minister May to Kyoto and it was a delight that we were able to enjoy tea in a very traditional Omotesenke. And of course, at the Kyoto State Guest House, it’s a very traditionally Japanese architect, unlike here at the Akasaka Guest State House, but we did have a very candid and deep conversation together over dinner.

And in that sense, I very much was delighted that we were able to have a very candid conversation about the regional issues together. At a time of change and unpredictability, I put great and ever more importance with the United Kingdom as a global strategic partner that shares fundamental values such as freedom, democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law.

I also would like to offer my respect to Prime Minister May’s leadership as she steers her country towards the departure from the European Union. Taking the opportunity of, Theresa, your visit to Japan, I hope to make it a huge step forward to elevate our relationship to a new level and would like to work hand in hand with you to robustly develop our bilateral ties between Japan and the United Kingdom.

Theresa May, UK Prime Minister

Thank you, thank you very much, and I am delighted to be able to be here in Japan, and I would like to thank you for the welcome that you have given me. And I was particularly pleased on, as you say, my first visit to Japan, to be able to sample some traditional Japanese culture, as well as some very productive meetings.

As you say, this is an important time for the United Kingdom as we are preparing and negotiating for our exit from the European Union. And as we do so, we are looking to enhance our partnerships, our ties and our links with countries around the world with whom we have had good longstanding relationships, but with whom we can build further cooperation in the future, and Japan is a key country for the United Kingdom. And we already have good cooperation and partnerships in investment between our two countries, with – between businesses, and the Business Forum today was a very good opportunity for further links to be made.

And there will be further work for us to do on enhancing our trade relationship, but also in security and defence, as we both see the same challenges and threats around the world. And as two nations, island nations, that believe in the rule of law, in the rules-based international order, and have the same values, I believe it is important that we work together. And I look forward to our further discussions.