Let me begin by thanking their Excellencies, Mary Robinson and Lakhdar Brahimi, for their briefings today and to welcome too their Excellencies, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Ernesto Zedillo. The United Kingdom values the Elders’ views on how the Council can play its part in improving multilateral responses to conflict prevention and evolving threats to international peace and security.

I’d like to focus my intervention on three points – the Council’s response to evolving threats to international peace and security; country specific examples of where the Council can have a real impact; and finally, on the importance of a system-wide approach to conflict prevention.

Madam President, in the 76 years since this Council was entrusted with the responsibility to maintain international peace and security, the nature of the threats we face have evolved. How we respond to new challenges, including climate change and building back better from Covid-19, will shape our world over the next decade and beyond.

As the threats to international peace and security evolve, so too must the Council. We should not self-censor: where there are clear emerging threats to international peace and security we should consider them in a timely fashion. We should respond quicker to the warning signs of conflict and violence, and act earlier to prevent conflict and escalation. We should be proactively in horizon-scanning and early warning, instead of turning a blind eye or delaying until conflicts have already passed a tipping point.

Madam President, there are numerous ongoing crises where a more nimble, creative Security Council response would help people affected by conflict. Arguably, we did not act quickly enough to respond to the conflict in Tigray, but continued and constructive Council engagement can prevent further escalation by encouraging the parties to reach political solutions to the conflict. Such engagement would also support the efforts of the African Union and in this regard, I would welcome the Elders’ views on how the Council can best support the work of His Excellency Olesegun Obasanjo as the African Union’s Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa.

Recent events in Afghanistan have demonstrated too just how vital it is for us to engage on conflict prevention and respond rapidly to changing situations on the ground. The multilateral system and clear, co-ordinated messaging across the international community, including from the Council, will be necessary the Taliban’s actions are consistent with its words. The adoption of resolution 2593 last week provides a strong foundation for the Council to continue to play its part in this vital undertaking.

This Council has been united in condemning violence and calling for the restoration of democracy in Myanmar. However, the situation continues to deteriorate. We welcome the appointment of His Excellency Dato Erywan as ASEAN Special Envoy. It is critical that the Tatmadaw engage with him to make progress on the 5-point consensus and to address the humanitarian situation. We should in this Council keep all options under review to remain engaged in support of a political solution.

Finally Madam President, this Council has primary responsibility for international peace and security, but it cannot act alone. A coherent approach to conflict prevention requires action by the entire UN system, combining humanitarian, development and peacebuilding efforts and in coordination with regional organisations and partners. In this regard, the United Kingdom strongly supports the Secretary General’s commitment to embedding conflict prevention across the UN system and delivering on the Sustaining Peace agenda. By mobilising all the tools at our collective disposal we can maintain lasting, sustainable peace for all.

Good afternoon.

I want to address straight away the following question:

Why do we need to raise taxes?

Three reasons.

First, we need to properly fund the NHS as we recover from the pandemic.

Senior NHS leaders have made clear that without more funding we will not properly be able to address the significant backlog…

…in people’s cancelled operations, delayed treatments, or missed diagnoses.

To get everyone the care they need is going to take time – and it is going to take money.

The second reason is that social care plans announced today have created an expanded safety net.

Instead of individuals having to bear the financial risks of catastrophic care costs themselves, we as a country are deciding to share more of that risk collectively.

This is a permanent, new role for the Government.

And as such we need a permanent, new way to fund it.

The only alternative would be to borrow more indefinitely.

But that would be irresponsible at a time when our national debt is already the highest it has been in peacetime.

And it would be dishonest – borrowing more today just means higher taxes tomorrow.

The third reason we need to raise taxes is to fund the Government’s vision for the future of health and social care.

Properly funded, we can tackle not just the NHS backlog and expand the social care safety net, we can afford the nurses pay rise;

Invest in the newest, most modern equipment;

Prepare for the next pandemic;

And provide one of the largest investments ever to upskill social care workers.

In other words, we can build the modern, more efficient health and social care services the British public deserves.

To fund this vital spending, we will introduce a new UK-wide Health and Social Care Levy.

From next April, we will ask businesses, employees and the self-employed to pay an extra 1.25% on earnings.

All the money we raise will be legally ringfenced, which means every pound from the Levy will go directly to health and social care.

The Levy is the best way to raise the funds we need.

It is fair: the more you earn, the more you pay.

It is honest: it is not a stealth tax or borrowed – the Levy will be there in black and white on people’s payslips.

And it is UK-wide, so people in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will all pay the same amount.

To make sure everyone pays their fair share, we will also increase dividend tax rates by the same amount.

And, from 2023, people over the age of 66 will be asked to pay the Levy on their earnings too.

No Government wants to have to raise taxes.

But these are extraordinary times and we face extraordinary circumstances.

For more than 70 years, it has been an article of faith in this country that our national health service should be free at the point of use, funded by general taxation.

If we are serious about defending this principle in a post-Covid world…

…we have to be honest with ourselves about the costs that brings…

…and be prepared to take the difficult and responsible decisions to meet them.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, I’m joined by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, because today we’re setting out our plan to help our NHS recover from the pandemic and build back better by fixing the problems in health and social care that governments have avoided for decades.

We all know someone whose test, scan or hip replacement was delayed or who helped to protect the NHS amid the immense pressures of Covid by putting off treatment for a new medical condition.

And now, as people come forward again, we need to pay for those missed operations and treatments; we need to pay good wages for the 50,000 extra nurses we are recruiting, we need to go beyond the record funding we’ve already provided to the NHS, and that means going further than the 48 hospitals and 50 million more GP appointments.

So today, following the most successful vaccine programme in the world, we’re beginning the biggest catch-up programme in the history of the NHS, increasing hospital capacity by 110 per cent, and enabling 9 million more appointments, scans and operations.

I have to level with people – waiting lists will get worse before they get better, but compared with before Covid, by 2024/25 our plan will allow the NHS to aim to treat 30 per cent more patients who need elective care – like knee replacements or cancer screening.

A recovery on this scale cannot be delivered by cheese-paring budgets elsewhere and it would be irresponsible to cover a permanent increase in health and social care spending with higher day to day borrowing.

For more than 70 years, we’ve lived by the principle that everyone pays for the NHS through our taxes, so it’s there for all of us when we need it.

In that spirit, from April we will have a new UK-wide 1.25 per cent Health and Social Care Levy on earned income, with the money required by law to go directly to health and social care across the whole of our United Kingdom, and with dividends rates increasing by the same amount.

This will raise almost £36 billion over the next three years, not just funding more care but better care, including better screening equipment to diagnose cancer earlier and digital technologies allowing doctors to monitor patients in their homes.

The levy will share the cost as fairly as possible between people and businesses: because we all benefit from a well-supported NHS and all businesses benefit from a healthy workforce.

And those who earn more will pay more, including those who continue to work over the State Pension Age.

The highest earning 14 per cent of the population will pay around half of the revenue raised; no-one earning less than £9,568 will pay a penny, and most small businesses will be protected, with 40 per cent paying nothing extra at all.

And this new investment will go alongside vital reform, because we learned from the pandemic that we can’t fix the NHS unless we also fix social care.

When Covid struck, there were 30,000 hospital beds in England occupied by people who would have been better cared for elsewhere, and the inevitable consequence was that patients could not get the hip operations or cancer treatment or whatever other help they needed.

And those people were often in hospital because they feared the costs of care in a residential home.

If you suffer from cancer or heart disease, the NHS will cover the costs of your treatment in full.

But if you develop Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, then you have to pay for everything above a very low threshold.

Today, 1 in 7 of us can expect to face care costs exceeding £100,000 in our later years, and millions more live in fear that they could be among that 1 in 7.

Suppose you have a house worth £250,000 and you’re in a care home for eight years, then once you’ve paid your bills, you could be left with just £14,000 after a lifetime of work, effort and saving – having sacrificed everything else – everything that you would otherwise have passed on to your children – simply to avoid the indignity of suffering.

So we are doing something that, frankly, should have been done a long time ago, and share the risk of these catastrophic care costs, so everyone is relieved of that fear of financial ruin.

We’re setting a limit to what people will ever have to pay, regardless of assets or income.

In England, from October 2023, no-one starting care will pay more than £86,000 over their lifetime.

Nobody with assets of less than £20,000 will have to pay anything at all, and anyone with assets between £20,000 and £100,000 will be eligible for means-tested support.

And we’ll also address the fear many have about how their parents or grandparents will be looked after.

We’ll invest in the quality of care, and in carers themselves, with £500 million going to hundreds of thousands of new training places, mental health support for carers and improved recruitment, making sure that caring is a properly respected profession in its own right.

And we’ll integrate health and social care in England so that all elderly and disabled people are looked after with the dignity they deserve.

No Conservative Government wants to raise taxes, but nor could we in good conscience meet the cost of this plan simply by borrowing the money and imposing the burden on future generations.

So I will be absolutely frank with you: this new levy will break our manifesto commitment, but a global pandemic wasn’t in our manifesto either, and everyone knows in their bones that after everything we’ve spent to protect people through that crisis, we cannot now shirk the challenge of putting the NHS back on its feet, which requires fixing the problem of social care, and investing the money needed.

So we will do what is right, reasonable and fair, we’ll make up the Covid backlogs, we’ll fund more nurses and, I hope, we will remove the anxiety of millions of families up and down the land by taking forward reforms that have been delayed for far too long.

Pabellón Británico y cambio climático

La Embajada Británica estará presente en la Expo Prado por octavo año consecutivo con un pabellón enfocado en promover distintas iniciativas para contribuir a combatir el cambio climático.

El Pabellón Británico buscará transmitir el mensaje de que toda acción, por más pequeña que parezca, cuenta a la hora de cuidar el planeta y protegerlo para futuras generaciones. Los asistentes podrán conocer iniciativas que el Reino Unido y distintas empresas británicas están llevando adelante para lograr un cambio, y aprender sobre la temática a través de charlas, juegos y actividades.

Otras actividades

Por otra parte, la Embajada premiará, como todos los años, a las razas británicas que participarán de esta edición de la muestra ganadera.

Además, quienes visiten el Pabellón encontrarán productos para llevarse a su casa, rincones “mágicos” para sacarse fotos y actividades interactivas para conocer más sobre los lazos entre Uruguay y el Reino Unido.

El Pub & Tea House ofrecerá típicas delicias británicas que permitirá a los visitantes sentirse por un rato en el Reino Unido.

Recorrida virtual, página web y Spotify

Quienes no puedan visitar el Pabellón de forma presencial o quieran anticiparse a su visita, podrán conocerlo a través de la plataforma virtual www.pabellonbritanico.com.uy que permitirá recorrer cada uno de los stands en una visita 3D, acceder a información sobre sus propuestas y comunicarse directamente con cada una de las empresas que lo integran.

En la web se podrá encontrar el calendario completo de actividades, conferencias, juegos y participar por premios.

La música que sonará en el pabellón fue elegida por el público y compilada en una lista de más de 500 canciones que se escuchará durante toda la Expo. Se puede encontrar en Spotify.

The Climate School: un lugar para aprender jugando

En noviembre de este año, Reino Unido será anfitrión de la Conferencia de Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático, COP26, en Glasgow, Escocia. En ese marco, y con el apoyo del Instituto Anglo, el pabellón incluirá la Escuela por el Clima, un espacio donde habrá actividades divertidas y didácticas para niños y niñas de entre 5 y 15 años. Se trata de una oportunidad para que los jóvenes puedan conversar y aprender sobre, por ejemplo, por qué el cambio climático es tan importante para el planeta, y cómo en nuestro día a día podemos tomar acciones que nos ayuden a combatirlo, invitándolos así a convertirse en líderes climáticos.

La escuela contará con la participación de diferentes organizaciones, las cuales estarán compartiendo mensajes relacionados con economía circular, compostaje, conservación de fauna marina, uso de plástico, y sobre cómo la moda y el arte pueden ayudar a difundir estos mensajes.

Empresas y organizaciones presentes en el Pabellón Británico:

Las empresas y organizaciones presentes, que también se unen a la temática de este año con distintas iniciativas, son las siguientes:

• Campo Longley: tambo dedicado a la producción de leche de alta calidad a partir de vacas Jersey, con especial énfasis en la lechería sostenible. Primer tambo certificado en Bienestar animal de Uruguay.

• Diageo: empresa británica dedicada a la producción de bebidas. Su marca Johnnie Walker se ha comprometido a lograr 100% de producción neutra de carbono, todos los envases reciclables, reutilizables o compostables, entre otras medidas, para 2030.

• Doulton: purificadores de agua de alta calidad, que evitan el consumo y desechos de envases plásticos.

• FCR DAS: certificadora de calidad que, entre otras cosas, apoya a empresas a obtener certificación de gestión ambiental.

• G4S: esta empresa de seguridad cuenta con un sistema de gestión ambiental con buenas prácticas para reducir su impacto en el medio ambiente.

• Hospital Británico: El Hospital Británico, caracterizado hace más de 160 años por la atención profesional, cálida y humana, lleva adelante iniciativas sustentables como iluminación inteligente y eficiente, uso de agua de lluvia, reciclaje, entre otros.

• Islas Falkland: participarán a través de la promoción del turismo y el intercambio comercial. Su stand también contará los esfuerzos de protección de su flora y fauna y sus prácticas agropecuarias sostenibles.

• Frikantec: su stand dedicado al universo Harry Potter, con actividades y sorteos. Frikantec cuenta con una línea de productos de producción nacional, reduciendo la huella de carbono.

• Lifesaver: una línea de purificadores portátiles que aseguran la potabilidad del agua proveniente de cualquier fuente natural, y así reducen la logística y el desecho producido por el movimiento de envases plásticos para transportar miles de litros de agua.

• One Carbon World: Esta ONG ayuda a las organizaciones a medir, reducir y compensar su huella de carbono. Lleva adelante la iniciativa “Neutralidad Climática Ahora” que busca alentar y apoyar a que se tomen medidas para lograr un mundo carbono neutral para 2050.

• Rhino: marca dedicada a la confección de artículos deportivos de Rugby y Hockey con materiales de calidad para alargar la vida de los productos y evitar el consumo extra. 10 al 14 de setiembre.

• The Lab: estarán presentes con excelentes cafés y las experiencias a las que nos tiene acompañado; además de una selección de tés y un menú británico imperdible. Los insumos que utilizarán en el Pabellón son compostables.

• Tienda Inglesa: tendrá una variada oferta de productos británicos con la calidad que caracteriza a la propuesta de Tienda Inglesa. Podrán llevarse los productos en bolsas reciclables para evitar el impacto.

• Vegware: marca escocesa de envases 100% compostables para alimentos y bebidas estará presente con su representante local, Organi, del 15 al 19 de setiembre.