Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has today (Friday 24 September) confirmed the appointment of 6 new non-executive directors to the board of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Bringing together a blend of business, scientific and technological expertise, the new appointments will work with UKRI’s Chair, Sir Andrew Mackenzie, to support and challenge UKRI to maximise the benefits from government investment into R&D and help secure the UK’s status as a global science superpower.

Sir Ian Boyd FRS

Ian Boyd is Professor in Biology at the University of St Andrews, President-elect of the Royal Society of Biology and Chair of the UK Research Integrity Office. A Scottish zoologist, environmental and polar scientist, he was Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from September 2012 to August 2019. He was knighted for services to science and economics on food and the environment in 2019 and elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in 2021.

Dr John Fingleton

John Fingleton is an economist who runs his own business, Fingleton, advising businesses on competition and regulation matters. He is the Senior Independent Member of the Council of Innovate UK and a Trustee of the Centre for Economic Policy Research. Prior to founding Fingleton, he was Chief Executive of the Office of Fair Trading, having previously run the Irish Competition Authority.

Professor Anthony Finkelstein CBE

Anthony Finkelstein is President of City, University of London. Before joining City, he was the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser for National Security. During this time, Finkelstein’s research was based at The Alan Turing Institute and he held a Chair in Software Systems Engineering at University College London (UCL). Prior to this, he was Dean of the UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences and Head of UCL Computer Science. His scientific work is in the broad area of software and systems engineering.

Priya Guha MBE

Priya Guha is a Venture Partner at Merian Ventures, a San Francisco-based Venture Capital Fund investing in female-led deep technology innovation in the UK and USA. She is also a member of the Innovate UK Council, which sets overall objectives and direction for the UK government’s innovation agency, as well as being a Non-Executive Director of the Digital Catapult, the UK’s leading advanced digital technology innovation centre. Priya is also an adviser to Kheiron Medical Technologies, a leading UK start up using deep learning for cancer detection and was previously UK Consul General to San Francisco, leading the UK government’s relationship to Silicon Valley for 5 years.

Nigel Toon

Nigel Toon is co-founder and CEO of Graphcore, a British semiconductor company that develops processors for AI and machine learning. Before founding Graphcore, he was CEO of 2 venture capital-backed silicon companies and was also a co-founder of Icera, a 3G cellular modem chip company, where he led Sales and Marketing and was on the Board of Directors. Prior to Icera, he was Vice President and General Manager at Altera Corporation where he spent 13 years and was responsible for establishing and building the European business unit.

Ruwan Weerasekera

Ruwan Weerasekera is the former Chief Operating Officer and a Managing Partner of SoftBank Investment Advisers, a Managing Director and the COO for Securities at UBS Investment Bank and a Partner at Accenture. He is also the former Senior Independent Director of ICBC Standard Bank PLC and a Non-Executive Director of London North West University Health Care Trust. Earlier this year, he was appointed by BEIS Ministers as a board member of the Financial Reporting Council.

All tips will go to staff under new plans to overhaul tipping practices set out by the government today (Friday 24 September), providing a financial boost to hospitality workers across the country.

Most hospitality workers – many of whom are earning the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage – rely on tipping to top up their income. But research shows that many businesses that add a discretionary service charge onto customer’s bills are keeping part or all of these service charges, instead of passing them onto staff.

The government will make it illegal for employers to withhold tips from workers. The move is set to help around 2 million people working in one of the 190,000 businesses across the hospitality, leisure and services sectors, where tipping is common place and can make up a large part of their income.

This will ensure customers know tips are going in full to workers and not businesses, ensuring workers receive a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

Tipping legislation will build on a range of government measures to protect and enhance workers’ rights. In the past 18 months alone, the government has introduced parental bereavement leave, protected new parents on furlough, and given millions a pay rise through a higher minimum wage.

Labour Markets Minister Paul Scully said:

Unfortunately, some companies choose to withhold cash from hardworking staff who have been tipped by customers as a reward for good service.

Our plans will make this illegal and ensure tips will go to those who worked for it. This will provide a boost to workers in pubs, cafes and restaurants across the country, while reassuring customers their money is going to those who deserve it.

Moves towards a cashless society have accelerated dodgy tipping practices, as an increase in card payments has made it easier for businesses to keep the funds.

80% of all UK tipping now happens by card, rather than cash going straight into the pockets of staff. Businesses who receive tips by card currently have the choice of whether to keep it or pass it on to workers.

Today’s plans will create consistency for those being tipped by cash or card, while ensuring that businesses who already pass on tips fairly aren’t penalised.

The legislation will include:

• a requirement for all employers to pass on tips to workers without any deductions
• a Statutory Code of Practice setting out how tips should be distributed to ensure fairness and transparency
• new rights for workers to make a request for information relating to an employer’s tipping record, enabling them to bring forward a credible claim to an employment tribunal

Under the changes, if an employer breaks the rules they can be taken to an Employment Tribunal, where employees can be forced to compensate workers, often in addition to fines.

Tipping legislation will form part of a package of measures which will provide further protections around workers’ rights.

Building on economic support measures, the government recently announced a range of initiatives to support the hospitality sector through its first ever Hospitality Strategy. This set out ways to help the sector improve its resilience, including by making hospitality a career option of choice, boosting creativity, and developing a greener sector.

• Legislation on tipping will be supported by a statutory Code of Practice, developed in partnership with workers and employers to set out the principles of fairness and transparency
• tips already cannot be used to count towards minimum wage pay and this has been the case since 2009, when a previous voluntary Code of Practice was published to improve the information available concerning the treatment of tipping payments and increase transparency in this area
• workers can call the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) helpline (0300 123 1100) for free, impartial, and confidential advice about their rights and entitlements on minimum wage and tipping practices
• see the wider government hospitality strategy for more information
• tipping legislation will form part of a package of measures which will provide further protections around workers’ rights. Further detail will be set out in due course

Mr President, Secretary-General, Your Excellencies,

May I from the outset thank the Secretary-General and Ilwad Elman for their very powerful and insightful contributions which has really set the tone of today’s important debate.

With the climate crisis posing an existential threat, not just to our shared environment, but to our common security, this debate is absolutely critical. And therefore Taoiseach, to you and to Ireland, I thank you for convening this very important debate in a very timely fashion.

Indeed as we look around this world of ours, the nations suffering most from this crisis were already amongst those that are counted as the world’s most fragile. A dozen of the most vulnerable are already enduring the weight of armed conflict. Climate change acts as a cruel multiplier here, making bad situations much much worse.

With institutions failing, communities displaced and societies insecure, conflict-riven nations are ill-equipped to cope with the impacts of climate change. It indeed risks pushing fragile regions over the edge. It threatens to displace millions of people. Cities, towns and indeed villages could be erased from the map.

And the consequences of climate change, yes as we’ve heard already, hit the most vulnerable. They hit women and girls particularly hard, from the risk of violence in camps for displaced people to the threat of child marriage when parents are plunged into poverty. And as we heard so powerfully from Ilwad Elman and as the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, it was particularly poignant to hear from her how we continue to see sexual violence tragically still used as a weapon of war, as a weapon of conflict.

So the world is looking to our Council, this Security Council to act, and act swiftly. We welcome the efforts in many areas that the UN, under the leadership of the Secretary-General, has made to address this issue. But as the Secretary-General again has advocated, there is much more still to do. In this regard, the Security Council must play its important part.

We need the UN system to report comprehensively on the links between climate and security, so we indeed have the best information to inform our decisions. We need the right people, with the right training and experience, within UN missions to anticipate and respond to the climate crisis that exists. And of course those missions should be as clean and as green as possible, through responsible stewardship.

To serve our shared interest in international peace, the Security Council should listen to those countries experiencing first-hand the impact of insecurity compounded by climate change.

It is also crucial that women and girls play a full and meaningful role in work to address climate change, to resolve conflict, if we are to address gender inequality and truly achieve our set objectives.

Inclusive and united, we can show global leadership in the face of global threats. As all members are aware, the UK is truly honoured to be hosting COP26 but a few weeks from now in Glasgow, Scotland. At COP26, as our Prime Minister articulated only yesterday in his speech to the General Assembly, we are approaching a crunch point where those efforts need to turn to urgent action, from us all, irrespective of who we are, where we are.

We must act now if we are to stop temperature increases breaching 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. We must do this by bringing forward net-zero commitments, ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions, and the policies and actions needed to deliver them.

We must act now to secure the finance to help vulnerable states adapt to our changing climate. The UK is already demonstrating how this can be achieved. We welcome other recent announcements including those from the United States this week.

Last year, we committed to cutting emissions by at least 68 per cent by 2030, the fastest rate of reduction of any major economy. Our climate finance commitments for the next five years stand at more than $16 billion. The new Adaptation Action Coalition, which we launched in January, will target action on priority sectors.

But – as this council has repeatedly shown since its inception – global threats can only be countered with global action. All arms of this great institution that is the UN, including this Council, have a critical role to play to meet this existential threat.

We must act effectively, we must act urgently and we must act together. It is this critical action, indeed it is our collective moral duty. For it falls on all of us here today, as custodians of the future, we are choosing and indeed building for our children and generations to come.

Thank you.

The UK and Welsh Governments have approved the £58.7 million Swansea Bay City Deal’s Supporting Innovation and Low Carbon Growth programme.

The programme will help establish the Swansea Bay City Region as a leader in low carbon growth and the green economy. Close collaboration with industry, government and academia is key to its success by delivering low carbon, sustainable and inclusive economic growth through creating the right environment to develop new technologies from the research stage, through to production, to support job creation in the region.

Led by Neath Port Talbot Council with Swansea University and University of South Wales as delivery partners, this programme aims to support the creation and safeguarding of 1,320 jobs in the green economy through seven interlinked projects that will enhance infrastructure, research and development and commercialisation:

• Bay Technology Centre – energy positive building providing high quality, flexible office and laboratory space
• South Wales Industrial Transition from Carbon Hub – purpose-built facility and specialist equipment to decarbonise the steel and metal industry and supply chain
• Advanced manufacturing production facility – providing production units with open access to shared specialist equipment to support start-up companies and local business growth in the innovation and manufacturing sectors linked to energy and renewables
• Property development fund – gap funding for bespoke and speculative commercial buildings in the Port Talbot Waterfront Enterprise Zone area
• Hydrogen stimulus project – enabling a demonstrator to prove commercial viability of carbon-free hydrogen supply to fuel hydrogen vehicles
• Air quality monitoring project – test bed for new technology to establish a greater understanding of air quality and levels of pollution to inform local action planning
• Low emission vehicle charging infrastructure – developing a strategy to decarbonise journeys in the Swansea Bay City Region and develop a pilot in the Valleys area of Neath Port Talbot

The funding will provide solutions to decarbonise commercial and industrial buildings, transport and industrial processes that will support the policies and strategies laid out by the Welsh and UK governments.

Wales Office Minister, David TC Davies, said:

This multi-million pound deal is vital to create jobs and prosperity across a large part of South Wales. When I visited in July I was hugely impressed with the projects that are driving the move to a low carbon, modern economy in Wales, fit for the 21st century. I’m delighted that the UK government’s investment will support this growth.

Chair of the Swansea Bay City Deal Joint Committee, Cllr Rob Stewart said:

I very much welcome the approval of this programme which means we now have more projects and programmes approved, and either in delivery or ready for delivery than any other city or growth deal in Wales. I want to pay tribute to the excellent work being done to ensure we deliver the city deal for South West Wales.

The Swansea Bay City Deal is an investment of up to £1.3 billion in a portfolio of nine major programmes and projects across the Swansea Bay City Region, which are together worth over £1.8 billion and 9,000 jobs to the region’s economy in coming years.

Funded by the UK Government, the Welsh Government, the public sector and the private sector, the City Deal is being led by Carmarthenshire Council, Neath Port Talbot Council, Pembrokeshire Council and Swansea Council, in partnership with Swansea University, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Swansea Bay University Health Board and Hywel Dda University Health Board.