Copies of letters from Catherine Frances, Director General of Local Government, Strategy and Analysis at MHCLG to:

• Mike Cunningham QPM confirming his appointment as Lead Commissioner at Liverpool City Council
• Neil Gibson confirming his appointment as Highways Commissioner at Liverpool City Council
• Joanna Killian confirming her appointment as the Local Government Improvement Commissioner at Liverpool City Council
• Deborah McLaughlin confirming her appointment as the Regeneration Commissioner at Liverpool City Council

The letters confirm the Commissioners’ roles and responsibilities, established by the Directions issued under section 15 (5) and (6) of the Local Government Act 1999.

Copies of letters from Catherine Frances, Director General of Local Government and Public Services at DLUHC to:

• Mike Cunningham QPM confirming his pay uplift
• Neil Gibson confirming his pay uplift
• Joanna Killian confirming her pay uplift
• Deborah McLaughlin confirming her pay uplift

The December 2021 letters confirm the new pay uplift for Commissioners.

Fifteen sites are in the running to become the future home of the UK’s prototype fusion energy power plant – the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production, or STEP.

The sites, listed here from North to South across the UK, are:

Acceptance of these sites into our assessment process does not indicate they are preferred or desired, or that we believe their development is, in all cases, possible – simply that the procedural entry criteria have been met and assessment has now begun. Inclusion is without consideration of adjacent operations or proposals.

Many sites have adjacent operations, bringing mutual dependencies if STEP were to be developed in those locations. We will work to understand the dependencies and implications as the assessment continues. No view will be formalised on the potential suitability of sites until the shortlisting phase, which will take place in the autumn.

The successful site for STEP will become a global hub for fusion energy and associated industries, creating thousands of highly skilled jobs during the construction and operation of the plant, while attracting investment that will enable the development of a new UK science and technology centre of excellence.

Fusion has the potential to provide an abundant source of low-carbon energy by copying the processes that power the sun and stars. This exciting new technology will play an important role alongside established renewable technologies such as wind and solar.

STEP will be the UK’s prototype fusion plant and is intended to pave the way for commercial fusion power. UKAEA is targeting first operations in the early 2040s, with initial aims to produce a concept design by 2024.  

The next stage of the process is a thorough technical assessment to assess the comparative suitability of the sites. Once all assessment processes are complete, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will make a final decision on the site; anticipated around the end of 2022.

STEP Programme Director, Paul Methven said:

STEP is about building on the amazing science done over decades in fusion and translating that into a real prototype power plant that paves the way for this fantastic new energy source.

Selecting a site is critical for that transition to delivery and we are pleased to have received a number of high quality nominations. We are looking forward to getting to know the nominating communities as we progress through the assessment process over the next year.

Wherever STEP is eventually built, it will bring significant benefits to the region, including employment, skills development and the development of a high-technology, low-carbon supply chain.

Nothing could provide more compelling or tragic proof of the necessity of global cooperation than the pandemic which has swept the world and claimed over 3.7 million lives.

For the first time since the onset of this catastrophe, leaders of the G7 will meet in person for a summit that I will chair in Cornwall in the United Kingdom. I have also invited the Prime Ministers of India and Australia and the Presidents of South Korea and South Africa, allowing a broader gathering of fellow democracies and free societies.

Our shared task is to overcome the pandemic, minimise the risk of any recurrence and build back better after this tragedy.

Around the table in Cornwall will be the world’s biggest and most advanced economies, ready to deploy our capabilities and expertise against a common enemy.

The genius and perseverance of our scientists has given us safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19. Now our most pressing task is to use them to protect humanity as swiftly as possible.

The UK helped to established COVAX, the global alliance that has so far supplied 80 million doses to developing countries. Almost all have been the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, developed with British government support – using expertise from every part of the UK – precisely so that it would be cheap to administer and easy to store, capable of protecting the maximum number of people worldwide.

Britain has contributed £548 million to COVAX and we will also donate the vast majority of any surplus doses from our domestic vaccination programme.

But in the heat of emergency, we must all strive even harder. So I want the G7 to adopt an exacting yet profoundly necessary target: to provide one billion doses to developing countries in order to vaccinate everyone in the world by the end of next year.

Nothing like this has ever been tried before and if you doubt whether it can be done, I would urge you to take heart from the unprecedented feats already achieved in the adversity of this pandemic. Our scientists devised vaccines against COVID-19 faster than any disease had ever been overcome before. Britain and many other countries are inoculating their populations more swiftly than anyone thought possible.

Now we must bring the same spirit of urgency and ingenuity to a global endeavour to protect humanity everywhere. It can be done, it must be done – and this G7 summit should resolve that it will be done.

But the reality is that even if we succeed, our efforts would count for little if another lethal virus were to emerge and inflict disaster all over again.

So we need to strengthen our collective ability to prevent another pandemic and provide early warning of future threats, including by creating a network of surveillance centres – a Global Pandemic Radar.

Our scientists took just 300 days to crack COVID and produce the vaccines, but we need to be able to respond even more rapidly. This G7 summit will begin a new effort to accelerate the development of vaccines, treatments and tests for any new virus from 300 to 100 days.

Even as we minimise the risk of another catastrophe, we have an obligation to ensure that something good might come from today’s ordeal. We must build back better with a global economic recovery based on greener and fairer foundations.

It remains a moral outrage – and a grave impediment to economic growth – that millions of girls around the world are denied an education, holding back the development of entire societies. Our shared goal must be to get another 40 million girls into school by 2025. I will ask the G7 and our guests to contribute more towards the Global Partnership for Education’s target of raising $5 billion for schools in the developing world.

As more children enter the classrooms, we must create jobs to match their talent and safeguard the environment they will inherit. The G7 can take forward both aims by supporting a green industrial revolution and promising to halve our carbon emissions by 2030, in order to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees.

We will bring the world together to strive towards this essential goal when the UK hosts the COP26 conference in Glasgow in November. In the meantime, I want the G7 to safeguard biodiversity for future generations by pledging to protect at least 30 percent of our land and oceans by 2030.

And we should offer developing countries the high quality and transparent investment they need to build clean and green national infrastructure, turbocharging their economies.

This is a compelling agenda for global recovery, ambitious yet achievable, provided we summon the will and the ingenuity. Britain is privileged to chair the G7 and to play our part, alongside our kindred democracies, in setting this immense effort in train. The scale of the challenge demands no less.

The Chair of the Gender Equality Advisory Council, Sarah Sands, will join the Cornwall Summit this afternoon in a virtual presentation to G7 Leaders of the Council’s recommendations, which were published today. GEAC member, Nobel peace prize laureate and gynaecologist, Dr. Denis Mukwege, will also outline the importance of G7 action to address sexual violence in conflict.

The GEAC is an independent group of experts who were convened by Prime Minister Boris Johnson under the UK’s G7 Presidency. The GEAC is responsible for championing the core principles of freedom, opportunity, individual humanity and dignity for women and girls around the world.

Against the backdrop of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the GEAC’s recommendations focus on education, economic empowerment and ending violence against women and girls.

Minister for Women & Equalities, Liz Truss, said:

The UK has a proud history of championing the rights of women and girls both here and across the globe.

I’m pleased that we are using our presidency of the G7 to put women at the heart of our recovery from COVID-19 through the work of the Gender Equality Advisory Council.

These recommendations will help us drive forward a strong agenda on women’s rights, both domestically and internationally, and I look forward to working with GEAC members as we build back better.

Chair of the Gender Equality Advisory Council, Sarah Sands, said:

We are at an historic moment for women and girls. The pandemic stopped the clocks of social change: now we must accelerate into a recovery. An extraordinary council of women, many of them scientists and all of them brandishing evidence, put their minds to finding solutions.

Our recommendations are now published and we shall hold leaders to account by measuring change. GEAC calls for guaranteed education for girls, for paths into green jobs, for access to capital and for digital inclusion. We want real representation of women, a level playing field in the work place and liberation from sexual violence and online abuse.

Women and girls have astonishing potential. We challenge the G7 to unleash it.

Members of the 2021 GEAC include world-leading scientists, business leaders, economists, public sector leaders, human rights and democracy advocates and international development experts, from across the G7 countries and beyond. The first meeting of the GEAC took place in April, and the second in May.

The GEAC’s recommendations include calls for:

• Targeted pandemic response and recovery plans that take account of the needs of women and girls;
• At least 12 years of gender-transformative education for all;
• Strengthened public investment in social care infrastructure – including childcare – to address gender imbalances in care work, both paid and unpaid;
• Greater opportunities for women to thrive in the modern economy, including trading relationships that support women’s economic empowerment around the world;
• A gender-responsive approach to climate financing, investment and policies, and investment in education and life-long learning to ensure that women and girls can benefit from the ‘green revolution’;
• Progress towards achieving gender parity in STEM education and careers;
• Action to address the digital gender divide and to counteract algorithm bias which puts women, girls and marginalised groups at a disadvantage;
• An end to the stereotyping and unequal treatment of women in the media, including by supporting the Generation Equality Forum Charter of Commitments for Cultural and Creative Industries;
• Global action to end violence against women and girls through increased investment in prevention and response; the ratification of relevant conventions, and enhanced support for eradicating female genital mutilation (FGM).
• Action to tackle online harassment and abuse of women and girls;
• Condemnation of sexual violence used as a weapon of war as an international red line, and greater multilateral action to address it; and
• A clear mechanism to monitor progress and accountability on commitments on gender equality in the G7.

Following the G7 Summit, the GEAC will produce a full report as to how the G7 should work together so that women across the globe drive forward and benefit from the pandemic recovery.