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Published 25 July 2022
The development of products such as methane reducing animal feeds and high protein crops have received a boost today (Monday 25 July) with Defra opening a £12.5m competition to support research and innovation.
Farmers, growers, foresters, businesses and researchers are invited to apply with projects to help increase domestic production of healthy and sustainable protein. The competition is part of the Government’s £270 million Farming Innovation Programme being run in partnership with UK Research and Innovation’s Transforming Food Production Challenge to help spark new ideas and collaboration across the sector.
The aim is to accelerate the development of novel and disruptive technologies to create new sources of resource efficient, low-emission proteins, leading to a more sustainable farming model for the future. This will help improve farming productivity, resilience in the sector and move existing agricultural sectors towards net zero.
Defra Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Steve Double, said:
Our farmers and food producers are the best in the world, and we want to encourage collaboration across the sector to help improve productivity and sustainability.
Food production and environmental protection are two sides of the same coin, it’s why we are spending £270m to support farmers to innovate for the future through the Farming Innovation Programme.
Whether it’s a game-changing animal feed that helps animals produce less methane or new high-protein crop, this competition is now open to support its development.
Katrina Hayter, Challenge Director for UKRI’s Transforming Food Production Challenge, said:
When it comes to addressing the key issues of productivity and sustainability in the UK food sector, we’re looking for applicants who are truly able to demonstrate and deliver – and on-farm protein production is no different. It’s vital that new technologies disrupt the status quo, bringing with them measurable improvements to the environmental impact of food production and more sustainable models for the future. We’re looking forward to working with applicants and supporting those who can truly move the needle forwards with new farm-based protein solutions.
This competition is split into ‘Feasibility’ projects (up to 2 years), and ‘Industrial Research’ (up to 5 years for breeding projects). Projects must have a value of £200k-£500k and £500k-£1m respectively.
Altogether, Defra expects to spend around £600 million on grants and other support for farmers to invest in productivity, animal health and welfare, innovation, research and development over the next 3 years.
Guidance on how to apply is available at the following links:
Seddon Construction Ltd has been appointed to deliver the building fit-out requirement, through a fourth framework agreement worth £175 million over the next 17 years, until March 2039.
The building fit-out package is the fourth key delivery partner supplier framework to be awarded by the Programme and Project Partners, as part of a major programme of procurements to support the long-term delivery of major decommissioning infrastructure on the Sellafield site.
The framework includes general construction activities such as: internal walls, ceilings, screeding, flooring, painting and joinery.
John Shannon, divisional director of Seddon Construction Ltd, said:
This an excellent appointment for us as a key delivery partner for the Programme and Project Partners.
This opportunity will ensure that we can develop long term and effective relationships with other stakeholders, delivering effective outcomes on the Sellafield site, whilst contributing to both the community and regional economy positively.
Head of supply chain, Project and Programme Partners, Peter Hogg added:
We’re very pleased to announce our fourth long-term work partnership. This company has never worked ‘inside the fence’ at Sellafield before and that’s why the Project and Programme Partners model is different.
It’s providing opportunities to organisations that we have not worked with before, which can provide innovative solutions to meet our long-term needs.
This collaboration, together with Seddon’s supply chain will ensure enhanced project delivery and increased social impact and economic benefits for our communities.
The framework has been procured under the partners multi project procurement (MPP) model which encourages long-term collaboration throughout the supply chain, enhanced project delivery, and paves the way for greater social and economic impact in the West Cumbria region, with Seddon planning to open an office in West Cumbria.
The MPP model is seeing the appointment of key delivery partners to deliver work packages covering everything from groundworks and general civils to steelwork and cladding.
The partners will work closely with all key delivery partners to deliver Sellafield Ltd’s purpose to create a clean and safe environment for future generations, improve sustainability and ensure better outcomes for the local economy and communities.
The British High Commissioner, Jane Marriott, and Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government, Dr Fred Matiang’i opened the first Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) Coast Regional Headquarters and Mombasa Police Station, worth KES81 million.
The police station will provide a dedicated space for the ATPU to work on terrorism cases. It will also allow direct access to the ATPU for the public, creating more awareness about the ATPU’s work and strengthening their relationship with the local community.
Human rights compliance and international standards such as the Mandela Rules have been at the heart of the building’s design. The station includes a secure detention facility with separate cells and private ablution amenities for men, women and children. It is a testament to the UK and Kenya’s shared commitment to the rule of law and international human rights.
The British High Commissioner to Kenya, Jane Marriott, said:
Kenya is the UK’s premier security partner in East Africa. A primary focus of this partnership is to strengthen counter-terrorist capacity within the criminal justice system, in line with international human rights standards. The UK works with stakeholders across the criminal justice pathway, including investigators, detention supervisors, prosecutors and judiciary, all of whom are key to preventing and disrupting terrorist activity.
Terrorism is one of the biggest threats facing our countries. To counter this threat, I am delighted to support Kenya with approximately KES 1bn [£7m] a year.
Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Interior Dr Fred Matiang’i said:
As a Government, we applaud the UK-Kenya Security Compact agreed in 2018 and the incorporation of the UK Kenya Strategic Partnership 2020 – 2025, through which the British High Commission has worked with the Government of Kenya to establish this modern, purpose-built police station with detention facilities for ATPU Coast in Mombasa.
With the assistance of our partners, we have steadily grown our capabilities to confront terrorism and other transnational crimes. We are immensely grateful to the people of the United Kingdom, through the British High Commission (Nairobi), for our continued warm and cordial working relationship and particularly on Counter Terrorism.
The building has state of the art rooms including, storage areas, conference room, IT room, server area, armoury, CCTV room, 9 holding cells for male, female, and juvenile all fitted with fixed beds, modern toilet and adequate ventilation.
Over the last year, the UK has supported the ATPU with various activities including trainings on terrorist financing, witness interviews, IEDs, gender sensitivity as well as the delivery of an internationally accredited Training of Trainers programme. Going forward, we are pleased to continue specialist skills training support in this building.
The building has dedicated spaces for different ATPU teams – investigations, evidence analysis and forensics – enabling them to work together under one roof. It also has a multi-agency room for the ATPU to invite in and to work closely with other national security bodies and international partners in a secure environment. A training room is also available to facilitate the ATPU to embed key skills across their personnel.
£50 million of new funding will be given to communities across England and Wales to make the streets safer for all, the Home Secretary has announced today, Monday 25 July.
The money will go to police forces, local authorities, British Transport Police and eligible community groups across England and Wales to prevent violence against women and girls in public, neighbourhood crime and anti-social behaviour.
These projects will be able to roll out extra CCTV and streetlighting in their communities and expand work to change attitudes and behaviours and prevent these crimes happening in the first place.
Northamptonshire, Humberside and Nottinghamshire PCCs are just some of the organisations which have already received funding through previous rounds. The money has been spent on home security, community outreach and initiatives such as football and boxing, to divert young people from crime.
This is the fourth round of funding from the Safer Street Fund and takes the total awarded through this fund and the Safety of Women at Night Fund to £125 million.
Home Secretary, Priti Patel said:
It has been one year since I launched our dedicated violence against women and girls strategy and in that year I have overseen incredible work to support victims, prevent violence against women and girls, protect citizens and deliver justice.
Our essential work with specialist groups is delivering practical support and change for women and girls across our communities and the Safer Streets Fund continues to make a difference to the safety of women and girls at a community level.
This marks one year since the publication of the Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy. Since publishing the strategy, the government has delivered a number of key commitments to help ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere – at home, online, at work and in public spaces.
The Safer Streets Fund allows forces and local authorities to invest in transformative crime prevention initiatives.
The latest round of the fund is the first to accept bids from eligible civil society organisations, and among the successful bidders for this round is Her Centre, a London-based charity which offers free and confidential advocacy, counselling, advice and training relating to domestic abuse, rape and sexual abuse and other issues that affect women.
Her Centre has been awarded £140,000 to deliver support to victims of sexual harassment, assault, rape, and stalking so that they recover confidence to live lives free of fear. Her Centre will also use the funding to work to help prevent acts of violence against women through active bystander training and engagement with young people around understanding and responding to violence against women and girls in areas particularly affected by these issues.
CEO of Her Centre, Stacy Smith said:
Her Centre want to see more focus on making men stop harassing and threatening women. We are pleased that this grant allows us to take forward work to educate the community in simple ways they can be active bystanders so that men who are abusive and violent become the target of attention, rather than saying women have to keep themselves safe. These attitudes should be the outliers and not the norm.
Round 3 of the fund had a particular focus on helping to combat violence against women and girls, and £25 million was allocated to 57 projects across England and Wales through this round.
The government has also invested £5 million through the Safety of Women at Night Fund, which supported 22 projects piloting initiatives to improve the safety of women in public spaces at night, including in the night-time economy.
Marking one year since the publication of the VAWG Strategy, the government is also announcing the launch of a targeted consultation on whether there should be a new offence for public sexual harassment. Experts from a range of sectors, including charities, the police, law, education and transport, are invited to share their views on whether a new specific offence would help to tackle this issue.
This follows the VAWG Strategy’s Call for Evidence which saw over 180,000 responses, the majority from the public, and complements other work the government is undertaking to tackle public sexual harassment, such as new police guidance and forthcoming new guidance for prosecutors to make sure existing laws are implemented, and the ‘Enough’ behaviour change campaign.
The Tackling VAWG strategy made clear that in addition to supporting victims, we must also prevent crimes being committed in the first place.
The Home Office has awarded over £25 million over the last two years to Police and Crime Commissioners to support increasing the availability of interventions for domestic abuse and stalking perpetrators. These interventions aim to reduce the risk posed by perpetrators and hold them to account, including through group or individual behaviour change programmes.
The Early Awareness Stalking Intervention programme, overseen by the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner and funded by the Home Office, is one of the first attempt of its kind in England and Wales to deliver rehabilitative treatment for stalkers, which aims to improve victim/survivor safety.
West Midlands Victims’ Commissioner, Nicky Brennan, said:
There is no excuse for abuse of any kind. Reducing incidence of crime is paramount and that’s why we are working hard on prevention and early intervention in the West Midlands, particularly in tackling violence against women and girls.
That is why we partnered with West Midlands Police, Midlands Psychology Services, Black Country Women’s Aid, The Alice Ruggles Trust and the University of Derby to pilot and evaluate the Early Awareness Stalking Intervention across the whole West Midlands, through funding from the 2021 Home Office Perpetrator Fund.
Early results are promising and we have already learnt a lot and are looking forward to a full evaluation early next year.
In order to support victims of non-consensual intimate image sharing, a deeply serious and harmful issue, the Home Office increased its funding to the Revenge Porn Helpline to £120,000 in the 2021/2 financial year. The Helpline supports victims of non-consensual intimate image sharing by providing confidential support and advice, helping to report and remove content from the internet, offering advice and support on reporting crimes to the police and providing referrals for specialist and longer-term support for victims.
This financial year, the Home Office is increasing this funding to a further £150,000, to ensure the Helpline can continue to provide expert support to victims of intimate image abuse.
Revenge Porn Helpline Manager, Sophie Mortimer said:
The Tackling VAWG Strategy has given welcome focus on providing substantial help and support to people affected by violence against women and girls.
The additional funding that the Revenge Porn Helpline received during the pandemic, consolidated under the new strategy, gave us the opportunity to provide meaningful, effective help to people affected by intimate image abuse. The helpline sees a wide range of complex behaviours requiring expert practitioners to give direct support and carry out the reporting and removal of intimate images shared without consent. This is difficult and time-consuming work, but it has achieved, to date, the removal of over 260,000 individual pieces of content on behalf of nearly 15,000 people.
This support for victims of intimate image abuse comes alongside action through the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 to strengthen the law in this area to ensure those who threaten to share intimate images without consent and with an intent to cause distress are held to account and face justice for their actions.
The government is also pleased to announce the ratification of the Istanbul Convention.
In the Tackling VAWG Strategy, the government committed to ratifying The Council of Europe Convention on Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, commonly known as the Istanbul Convention. The Convention is a gold standard international charter for the protection of women and girls, and since signing it in 2012, the government has worked to significantly strengthen its legislative framework and introduce a wide range of tools to better protect victims.
Our measures to protect women and girls from violence are some of the most robust in the world, and in some respects go further than the Convention requires.
The ratification sends a strong signal that the UK continues to treat violence against women and girls with the utmost seriousness and will help us to continue the lead the way in tackling these terrible crimes.
Having taken a hard and honest look at how the entire criminal justice system leads with rape through the Rape Review, the Home Office is committed to funding Operation Soteria, a programme to transform the way that rape investigations are handled and progressed, with a focus on the suspect rather than the victim. After initially being taken forward in five forces, the government announced earlier this year that an additional 14 forces will be taking part in Operation Soteria.
This work will inform a new national operating model for the investigation of rape cases which will be available for all forces from June 2023. The key findings from the programme to date were published in the Rape Review Progress Update on 16 June. It is encouraging that we are seeing more victims coming forward to report crimes to the police, more referrals from the police to the CPS and an increase in the volume of suspects charged.
In March 2022, we launched our nationwide, multi-year ‘Enough’ communication campaign across England and Wales. With a television advert, billboards, digital content and a comprehensive campaign website, the campaign aims to target and challenge the harmful behaviours that exist within wider society, educate young people about healthy relationships and consent, and ensure victims can recognise abuse and receive support.
| Lead bidder | Region | Total amount of funding awarded across 2022/23 and 2023/24 (£) | Number of bids covered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lincolnshire PCC | East Midlands | £396,945.82 | 1 |
| Charnwood Borough Council | East Midlands | £149,200.00 | 1 |
| Blaby District Council | East Midlands | £67,000.00 | 1 |
| Northamptonshire PCC | East Midlands | £1,137,401 | 2 |
| North Northamptonshire Council | East Midlands | £261,500.00 | 1 |
| West Northamptonshire Council | East Midlands | £99,000.00 | 1 |
| Derbyshire PCC | East Midlands | £401,315.00 | 1 |
| North East Derbyshire District Council | East Midlands | £419,219.99 | 1 |
| Derby City Council | East Midlands | £749,973.46 | 1 |
| Nottinghamshire PCC | East Midlands | £3,000,000.00 | 4 |
| Ipswich Borough Council | East of England | £499,588.00 | 1 |
| Cambridgeshire and Peterborough PCC | East of England | £634,285.00 | 1 |
| Norwich City Council | East of England | £199,333.00 | 1 |
| Great Yarmouth Borough Council | East of England | £127,500.00 | 1 |
| Bedfordshire PCC | East of England | £729,932.00 | 1 |
| Luton Borough Council | East of England | £294,000.00 | 1 |
| Westminster City Council | Greater London | £289,600.00 | 1 |
| Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames | Greater London | £183,300.00 | 1 |
| Ealing Council | Greater London | £355,294.00 | 1 |
| Lambeth & Southwark Council | Greater London | £497,160.00 | 1 |
| Faiths Forum for London | Greater London | £93,100.00 | 1 |
| Her Centre Ltd | Greater London | £140,000 | 1 |
| Durham PCC | North East | £1,469,169 | 4 |
| Northumbria PCC | North East | £1,753,492 | 3 |
| Sunderland City Council | North East | £731,138.00 | 1 |
| Cumbria PCC | North East | 760,108.95 | 2 |
| Cleveland PCC | North East | £696,611.01 | 1 |
| Merseyside PCC | North West | £1,336,083.95 | 3 |
| Greater Manchester Combined Authority | North West | £453,080.00 | 1 |
| Stockport Council | North West | £436,810.00 | 1 |
| Wigan Council | North West | £745,518.00 | 1 |
| Cheshire PCC | North West | £1,500,000 | 2 |
| Preston City Council | North West | £146,568.00 | 1 |
| Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council | North West | £750,000.00 | 1 |
| Chorley Council | North West | £33,000.00 | 1 |
| GreaterSport Manchester (Greater Manchester Sports Partnership) | North West | £490,448.00 | 1 |
| Essex PFCC | South East | £1,182,795 | 4 |
| Kent PCC | South East | £1,433,091.14 | 4 |
| Hampshire PCC | South East | £1,379,196.19 | 2 |
| Surrey PCC | South East | £707,320.98 | 3 |
| Sussex PCC | South East | £1,499,556.00 | 2 |
| Thames Valley PCC | South East | £2,011,990.97 | 4 |
| Dorset Council | South West | £246,976.00 | 1 |
| Bristol City Council | South West | £748,498.50 | 1 |
| North Somerset Council | South West | £317,694.96 | 1 |
| Bath and North East Somerset Council | South West | £329,152.02 | 1 |
| Gloucestershire PCC | South West | £2,032,170.13 | 3 |
| Swindon Borough Council | South West | £742,500.00 | 1 |
| Wiltshire Council | South West | £128,960.00 | 1 |
| Swindon Borough Council | South West | £742,500.00 | 1 |
| Torbay Council | South West | £749,137.64 | 1 |
| Cornwall Council | South West | £664,802.40 | 1 |
| North Devon Council | South West | £348,632.00 | 1 |
| University of Exeter | South West | £680,250.00 | 1 |
| University of Plymouth | South West | £670,404.80 | 1 |
| Dyfed PCC | Wales | £292,761.00 | 1 |
| Gwent PCC | Wales | £746,706.00 | 1 |
| North Wales PCC | Wales | £1,568,917.35 | 3 |
| South Wales PCC | Wales | £1,497,668.35 | 2 |
| Warwickshire PCC | West Midlands | £354,010.00 | 1 |
| Staffordshire PFCC | West Midlands | £750,000.00 | 1 |
| West Midlands PCC | West Midlands | £458,545.00 | 1 |
| Sandwell MBC | West Midlands | £227,100.00 | 1 |
| City of Wolverhampton Council | West Midlands | £365,667.00 | 1 |
| West Mercia PCC | West Midlands | 1,774,964.75 | 4 |
| North East Lincolnshire Council | Yorkshire and Humberside | £750,000.00 | 1 |
| Humberside PCC | Yorkshire and Humberside | £91,641.60 | 1 |
| West Yorkshire Combined Authority | Yorkshire and Humberside | £1,236,091.21 | 2 |
| South Yorkshire PCC | Yorkshire and Humberside | £737,560.00 | 1 |
| Sheffield City Council | Yorkshire and Humberside | £230,000.00 | 1 |
| Doncaster Council | Yorkshire and Humberside | £750,000.00 | 1 |
| North Yorkshire PCC | Yorkshire and Humberside | £809,095.00 | 2 |
| English Football League Trust | Yorkshire and Humberside | £173,798.00 | 1 |
| British Transport Police | England and Wales | £455,750 | 2 |