Thank you President and thank you for convening this debate during your Security Council Presidency, and I thank the Secretary-General and the AU Chair for their briefings.

On this, the 20th anniversary of the African Union, strengthening the partnership between the UN, the AU, and African Member States remains indispensable as we strive towards a freer, safer, and more prosperous continent.

That is why the UK supports permanent African representation on the Security Council.

That is why the Annual Consultations later this week between the UN Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council are so important.

President, I want to emphasise three points about this important partnership.

First, coordination between the AU, UN and other international partners is vital for finding political solutions to conflicts including in northern Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia.

We therefore welcome the planned, AU-facilitated talks concerning northern Ethiopia and urge the Ethiopian Government and TPLF to engage in the process.

In Sudan, we welcome cooperation between the UN, AU, and IGAD to help facilitate a political solution following last October’s military coup. As a Council we must continue to support the tripartite mechanism’s efforts to deliver the freedom, peace, and justice which the Sudanese people have called for.

And in Somalia, AMISOM and its successor the AU Transition Mission in Somalia demonstrate the value of UN-AU cooperation. The UK has long supported this critical cooperation, including contributing £25 million towards ATMIS stipends this year alone.

Secondly, President,  the UN-AU partnership is important for tackling trans-regional challenges to stability such as terrorism, disease, climate, and food insecurity.

At least 130 million people in Africa are experiencing crisis levels of food insecurity. The UK is working with African partners to address the heightened food, economic and wider humanitarian risks in the region that have been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.

Finally, President, I note today is International Day of the Girl Child. We welcome AU efforts on Children and Armed Conflict, as well as recent AUPSC meetings on Women, Peace, and Security, and gender-based violence. The AU-UN partnership is important for making progress on these issues. We look forward to working closely to implement the Transforming Education Summit in support of 12 years of quality education for girls, and to strengthening cooperation on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict.  We hope the  AU will participate in the International Conference the UK is hosting next month – focusing on prevention, justice, and supporting survivors.

And I thank you, Mr. President.

• UK Government will increase support to ensure the safety of people in the Turks & Caicos Islands
• The British Overseas Territory has seen a major surge in gang violence, with 15 fatal shootings since 3 September
• UK has sent a ship and agreed a deployment of 24 firearms officers from the neighbouring Bahamas

The UK Government is sending a Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship to the Turks & Caicos Islands (TCI) – and has agreed a deployment of specialist police from neighbouring Caribbean islands – to ensure the safety and security of people, amid a surge in gang violence.

TCI is a British Overseas Territory with a population of less than 50,000. The UK is responsible for the safety and security of people there.

A detachment of 24 highly-trained specialist firearms officers from The Bahamas arrived on Friday and are now on active duty on the islands. Discussions are underway with other neighbouring states on additional support. In parallel, the UK is providing a package of longer-term support to build local capacity on areas including intelligence gathering, firearms training and border control.

The Royal Navy has deployed RFA Tideforce, which is on the way to the islands. The ship is a Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker and will be used as a platform for operations, bringing with it a Wildcat helicopter, which offers a surveillance capability and can support security operations.

Alongside this, a package of maritime surveillance support has been agreed from the US, over October, to include a fixed-wing aircraft and a Blackhawk helicopter.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said:

The UK has a moral and constitutional responsibility to support and protect the people of the Overseas Territories, who are a valued part of the UK family. We had to act following the terrible violence we’ve seen in the Turks & Caicos Islands these past few weeks.

I’m grateful to the brave men and women of the local police force, as well as those from the Bahamas who are providing invaluable immediate support. The Governor and Premier are also working tirelessly to protect communities. Together, we will ensure that violent crime is stamped out in the TCI in the long term.

This help forms part of a wider package of support from the UK Government to tackle violent crime on TCI, which includes:

• The UK Government is also working to recruit and fund a new serious crime team who will sit at the heart of the TCI police force, building a permanent capability to tackle gang crime;
• UK police are engaging with local TCI counterparts to finalise a contingency plan for additional specialist support to deploy, if needed;
• This is in addition to a series of deployments of UK police to provide longer-term support for operations and to build capacity in the TCI to tackle gang crime. These include firearms trainers, detectives and border force agents;
• The UK is procuring a permanent maritime surveillance aircraft to help secure TCI’s borders;
• The National Crime Agency is deploying staff to the TCI, working closely with local police intelligence teams, to support the development of additional intelligence capability within TCI, including advice on lawful intercept legislation;
• Ongoing support through the Conflict, Security and Stability Fund has included a secondment of a Border Security lead, a programme of training and capability building to the TCI police, as well as support for a project of customs and border transformation.

TCI has seen a surge in violent crime in the past few months, which is believed to be linked to the arrival of organised criminal gangs from elsewhere in the Caribbean.

The security situation has rapidly deteriorated in TCI over the past weeks, with 11 fatal shootings in September and a further four in October.

Graduates applying to train as teachers in high priority subjects will receive increases to tax-free cash bursaries and scholarships from next year under government plans to recruit and retain top talent.

For aspiring teachers starting their training in September 2023, bursaries worth £27,000 and scholarships worth £29,000 will draw talented trainees into the highest-priority STEM (science, technology and mathematics) subjects of mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.

£25,000 bursaries and £27,000 scholarships will be offered to prospective languages teachers – up £10,000 on this academic year.

Bursary and scholarship eligibility is being extended to all non-UK national trainees in physics and languages.

The generous package is worth £181 million in total, up £52 million on the current academic year, and will help ensure there are excellent teachers across the country, developing the pipeline of skills that the future UK economy will need.

A new relocation premium for overseas nationals coming to England to teach or train in these subjects was confirmed earlier this year in the Schools White Paper, which will help with visa costs and other expenses.

Teachers in the first five years of their career teaching mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing in disadvantaged schools are also able to claim the Levelling Up Premium, worth up to £3,000 tax free.

Schools Minister Jonathan Gullis said:

As a former teacher, I know that investing in our teachers is investing in young people. These generous bursaries and scholarships will attract the brightest and the best into teaching.

Shoring up the talent pipeline to teach vital subject areas such as STEM and languages will, in turn, equip young people with the knowledge and skills they need to secure a bright future, and ensure that our economy remains globally competitive.

Further bursaries available include those for aspiring geography teachers, who will receive £25,000, an increase of £10,000, while £20,000 bursaries for biology and design & technology represent increases of £10,000 and £5,000 respectively on the current academic year. A £15,000 tax-free bursary for English will also be reintroduced.

The funding available is the latest step towards the Government’s intention, set out earlier this year in the Schools White Paper, for every child to be taught by an excellent teacher.

It is also part of broader work to raise the profile of teaching. Earlier this year the Government announced the highest pay awards for teachers in a generation – 8.9 percent increases for new teachers and five percent for experienced teachers and leaders – in recognition of their hard work and supporting with the cost of living, while also reflecting the need for the sound management of schools’ budgets.

Louis Barson, Director of Science, Innovation and Skills at the Institute of Physics said:

Great physics teaching opens up career opportunities in a broad and growing range of career paths: from developing new cancer treatments to tackling climate change.

We are pleased to be delivering the government’s scholarships programme for physics teachers, helping tackle the physics teacher shortage and focussing on areas with the greatest need for specialists, enhancing the life chances of local pupils.

Scholars will benefit from additional financial support, access to experienced professional coaching, high-quality resources and a mutually supportive community.

Thank you very much, most distinguished Madame Chair, and High Commissioner.

This year, we come together here in the face of a myriad of challenges. Armed conflict; violence; persecution; climate change; economic uncertainty; and food insecurity – all of them on the rise.

The figures are well-known and they’ve been well-rehearsed here in this hall over the last couple of days. But they don’t lose their power to shock. Over 300 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. More than 100 million forcibly displaced.

The humanitarian system alone cannot respond to those 300 million people in need. Coming together in this Executive Committee – striving to do better, and to reach as many in need as possible – is critical.

And, High Commissioner, as others have said, as ever, we remain deeply inspired by and grateful to all UNHCR staff and their partners for their tremendous efforts, striving to assist millions in the toughest and often the most dangerous situations. And despite the risks that you and your staff take on, and the personal sacrifices that so many of you make, UNHCR’s dedication is steadfast. For this, and for so much more, we applaud you.

Let me also recognize and commend the enormous generosity of host nations and communities who welcome and support those who are forced to flee their homes, as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel did so eloquently at the Nansen Awards last night.

High Commissioner, this is a critical moment for tens of millions of vulnerable people across the globe.

The COVID pandemic, climate change, and conflict have created the worst food security crisis in more than a generation. And we need to do more work, right now, to break the cycle of famine.

And let me take a moment, Chair, to echo others’ horror and incredulity in the face of President Putin’s latest atrocities in Ukraine: strikes on civilian targets that have no other purpose than trying to spread terror. This, after an aggression that has already displaced almost 14 million people and left almost 18 million in need of humanitarian assistance and which has worsened food insecurity across the planet.

All this – at a time when globally, humanitarian need has never been greater.

For our part in the UK, we are taking life-saving action. This year, we plan to provide more than £150 million to East Africa, including to meet urgent needs in Somalia. And we pledged over £50m to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund at the G7 Summit.

Our new International Development Strategy sets out our long-standing commitment to life-saving humanitarian work. We intend to contribute £3 billion to humanitarian needs, globally, over the next three years.

And our Humanitarian Framework delivers on the ambition laid out in that strategy in three ways: prioritising humanitarian assistance to people in greatest need; protecting the people most at risk in conflict and crises; and preventing and anticipating future shocks and building resilience.

As a nation, and as a Government, we are strongly committed to supporting refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, and all those people across the world who are forcibly displaced from their homes – as well as the countries who so generously host them. We continue to provide significant levels of multi-year, unearmarked funding to UNHCR, and our total funding in 2022 stands at over $100m.

High Commissioner, we commend UNHCR’s progress in driving reform to become a more effective and more efficient organisation. We have seen already welcome changes, including decentralisation and the introduction of COMPASS for multi-year planning, budgeting and monitoring. We look forward to partnering with you to ensure that these changes continue to drive improvement.

We also recognise your efforts to expand the donor base, and welcome the significant increase in contributions from the private sector this year. It’s critical that UNHCR seizes the opportunity to build on these new partnerships to ensure they are both sustainable and strategic, and that can offer long-term support to your mandate.

Last, but far from least: after a successful High-level Official Meeting at the end of 2021, we now look forward to the second Global Refugee Forum in late 2023. This will be an important milestone for all those concerned with the plight of refugees and the forcibly displaced, and we will work alongside you and other Member States to deliver a Forum which ensures the implementation of the Global Compact on Refugees to find practical, long-term solutions for refugees, internally displaced, asylum seekers, the stateless – and their host communities.

Thank you very much.