UK-France joint statement: 11 November 2022

Press release

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly MP and Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna issued a joint statement.

1. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly MP and Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna held talks in Paris today, reaffirming the enduring and essential partnership between France and the United Kingdom. On the occasion of Armistice Day, they reflected on their countries’ shared history and sacrifice.

2. The Ministers looked forward to the ambitious bilateral Summit to be held in France in early 2023. They underlined the importance of cooperation in addressing global and bilateral challenges:

  • On climate change and biodiversity loss, both countries will support international efforts under Egyptian and UAE Presidencies, mainstream and increase urgent climate ambition across broader multilateral processes.
  • They agreed to cooperate to secure energy supplies and accelerate their clean energy transition, especially by supporting the development of offshore wind power. They reaffirmed the importance of reducing the rise of energy prices and the G7 Oil Price Cap. The Ministers committed to increase bilateral civil nuclear cooperation and welcomed good progress towards reaching an investment decision for the Sizewell C nuclear power plant project.
  • On illegal migration, they stressed the urgency of tackling all forms of illegal migration including small boats crossings and addressing their root causes. They welcomed progress made towards a significant new UK-France agreement and in this respect the conclusion of an ambitious package as soon as possible. The Ministers agreed to reinforce cooperation with near neighbours, including through an early meeting of the Calais group.

3. They underlined their determination to provide Ukraine with the political, military, humanitarian and economic support it needed to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity and to enhance its resilience for the coming winter and beyond. They deplored the global impact of Russia’s actions and underlined their commitment to mitigate the consequences for the most vulnerable. They agreed to coordinate preparations for the respective upcoming international conferences on civilian resilience and recovery. They reaffirmed their unwavering commitment to the fight against impunity.

4. The Ministers committed to strengthening cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific and coordinate responses to the systemic challenges posed by an increasingly assertive China, while remaining ready to work with China on global challenges such as climate change. France and the UK will press China, as permanent member of the UNSC, notably with regard to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, to uphold its responsibilities in the UN, on Ukraine and human rights.

5. On Iran, they condemned Iran’s violent repression of legitimate peaceful protests and Iran’s support for Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, including through drones used for indiscriminate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure. They condemned Iran’s destabilising activities in and around the Middle East, including transfers of UAVs and missiles and pledged to reinforce international cooperation to counter these activities. The Ministers reiterated their clear determination that Iran must never acquire a nuclear weapon and their deep concerns at its insufficient cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Published 11 November 2022




PM meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan: 11 November 2021

Press release

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak welcomed his Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan to Downing Street today.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak welcomed his Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan to Downing Street today.

The Prime Minister was pleased to have the opportunity to meet His Majesty the King early on in his premiership, given the importance and historic significance of the UK-Jordan relationship.

They discussed regional security, including developments in Iraq and Syria and challenges posed by climate change and energy security. Both leaders reiterated their shared commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East.

The Prime Minister and King Abdullah also welcomed opportunities to deepen cooperation on trade and investment, including new solar and wind power projects and sustainable infrastructure development.

Published 11 November 2022




Funding secured for NDA backed project set to transform Cumbria’s economy

The Industrial Solutions Hub (iSH) at Cleator Moor is one of 4 projects to receive support from the £40.9 million Cleator Moor Town Deal.

It means the industrial campus can now go ahead, delivering benefits for local businesses and communities.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Sellafield Ltd have pledged a combined £11.2 million of match funding to the project plus a potential further £11 million, subject to achievement of future milestones.

That was key to unlocking government support via the Department for Levelling Up, Communities and Housing’s Town Deals initiative.

Separately, Sellafield Ltd has contributed £3.1 million to projects under the Millom Town Deal, which has also received government backing.

NDA Chief Executive, David Peattie, said:

This is tremendous news for our community in Cumbria.

We invest almost £15 million each year to assist our site communities in delivering significant social and economic change.

The iSH will create jobs and opportunities for generations to come and provide a space for organisations to collaborate and deliver innovative solutions to global industry challenges.

We’re looking forward to working with our partners to bring this potentially transformative project to fruition.

Martin Chown, Sellafield Ltd chief executive said:

The iSH will play a crucial role in helping us deliver our purpose of creating a clean, safe environment for future generations.

It will allow us to take complex engineering challenges off the Sellafield site and into the community where we can collaborate, innovate, and make progress on our highest priority projects.

We’re already seeing the benefits of this approach at our Engineering Centre of Excellence at Cleator Moor. The iSH will allow us to build on this and create even greater value for Sellafield Ltd, our community, and the UK.

Our funding also played a key role in the securing of government backing for the Millom Town Deal which is fantastic news for another part of our community.




Seafood supplier boss hit with 11-year ban after failing to pay nearly £1m tax

Adrian Nunn, 55, from Orpington, has been disqualified as a director for 11 years after he falsely accounted over £2.3 million in his company, The Upper Scale Limited, over a period of 6 years up to 2017.

The business supplied seafood to restaurants and cafes across the London region but the firm ceased trading in February 2021 and went into liquidation shortly afterward.

The company’s liquidation, however, triggered an investigation by the Insolvency Service and identified significant tax abuse.

Investigators uncovered that as a result of Nunn’s actions, the business owed £940,000 in unpaid tax at the point of liquidation.

The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy accepted a disqualification undertaking from Adrian Nunn, after he admitted to misappropriating company funds to the detriment of the public purse. His ban is effective from 14 October 2022 and lasts for 11 years.

The disqualification undertaking prevents him from directly, or indirectly, becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court.

Elizabeth Pigney, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service said:

Adrian Nunn fell well short of the standards required of a company director and has therefore been removed from the corporate arena for a significant amount of time.

His 11 year ban should serve as a clear warning that if you fail to adhere to the tax regime, we will use our full powers to bring you to account.

Notes to editors

Adrian Nunn is of Orpington, Kent and his date of birth is December 1966.

The Upper Scale Ltd (company reg no. 06955445).

Disqualification undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings.

Persons subject to a disqualification order are bound by a range of other restrictions.

Information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct.

Contact Press Office

You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:




COP26 President, Alok Sharma’s Speech at COP27 Breakthrough Agenda: One Year On event

Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning and welcome to the UK Pavilion and decarbonisation day.

We are half way through COP and obviously I can see the experienced folk who are able to get here at 8am in the morning, others are flagging but thank you for coming to this important event.

Can I also say that today marks Armistice Day and the UK Pavilion will be marking a 2 minute silence at 1pm. You’re all welcome but if you are coming please try and get there 5 minutes before 1pm.

Ministers, colleagues, friends. Good morning to you, firstly a big thank you to everyone who helped get us to this point when it comes to the Breakthrough Agendas.

And, you have been incredibly supportive over the three years of the UK’s Presidency and I know that you will do the same for our friends in Egypt as well, both at this COP but also in their presidency year as well.

So we are marking a one-year launch anniversary of the Breakthrough Agenda in Glasgow.

And, just a reflection on decarbonisation. We’re all doing our bit domestically in our countries and when I was Business and Energy Secretary in our Government, we launched the 10 point plan for a green industrial revolution looking at a whole range of sectors where we needed to decarbonise rapidly.

We launched our energy white paper so there is a lot of work that certainly the UK has done and each of you have done domestically as well in your countries.

The aim of the Breakthrough Agenda was actually to bring countries together to collaborate and make sure that we decarbonise the most critical sectors: Road Transport, Power, Agriculture, Hydrogen and Steel.

And I was really pleased to say that we had 45 governments coming together and they account for around 75 percent of global GDP, so a real heft behind this Breakthrough Agenda work.

And the aim of it of course is to deploy innovative and sustainable decarbonisation solutions, and very importantly to make them accessible and affordable for everyone.

And for people like Stephen Guilbeault, my friend Grant Shapps, ministers who talk to their counterparts around the world will know that one of the big asks of many developing nations is technology at affordable levels as well as finance.

This is an agenda that will help us get there and we have made really good progress over the last year

If you have a look at Zero Emission Vehicles.

There has been a 95 percent increase in global sales, with 1.5 million sold in the first quarter of this year.

And the pace of that is accelerating, same thing with renewables with a big increase this year.

And if you have a look at what the IEA has said, their analysis shows that of all the newly installed energy capacity across the world in 2021, 90% of that was renewables and they expect the same thing in 2022 and 2023 as well.

So I am really pleased that we are making progress across some of these agendas.

I want to welcome Cambodia and Austria, who have recently endorsed the Breakthrough Agenda.

I also want to thank our friends in Germany, Cambodia, Australia and Ireland for endorsing the Agriculture Breakthrough.

And thank you to our friends in France, who have expanded our scope and they have the intent now to launch a Buildings Breakthrough, which as you know in the UK 25% of emissions come from buildings, they’re going to do that in collaboration with our friends from Morocco.

And of course thank you also to Canada, Steven who stated their intent to launch a Cement Breakthrough as well.

But the reality is we know that as with all the commitments we got in Glasgow, that none of this will count for anything unless we actually follow through and we implement so I hope that is something that we will be doing together.

Now one of the other things that people have said to me during this year is that you launched lots of initiatives in Glasgow but what happens when your presidency ends and it has ended.

And what we have tried to do is to house many of these in different forums so that the work can continue

So I can tell you that Mission Innovation and the Clean Energy Ministerial is going to take on the joint stewardship of the Breakthrough Agenda, they’ll do that for an initial pilot phase of one year.

Many of you were with us in New York as well at the UN General Assembly and you will know that on the side lines we also launched the first Breakthrough Agenda Report, put together by the IEA, by IRENA and the High Level Champions, so thank you to all of them and the ministers who attended that meeting at the UK mission

And subsequent of that we have agreed to launch a set of specific and time-bound priority actions.

Four that I want to highlight.

One, collectively we will be developing standards and rules for trade.

Secondly, we are developing demand creation plans.

Thirdly, we are working to improve the provision of finance, international assistance and research.

And fourthly we are taking steps to enhance development and demonstration.

Now I just want to give you a concrete example, one of the priority actions focuses on the research, development and deployment of technologies at that really crucial intersection of climate and food security, and that’s work being done as part of the Agriculture Breakthrough.

And I am also delighted to tell you that 28 leading countries in these areas have agreed to take forward these actions across all five sectors, and collectively that represents over 50 percent of global GDP.

The final thing I want to say is that you all know this, the cost of inaction on this issue is going to be significantly more than the cost of action.

And we have a real opportunity here to build economies and to build green jobs and actually at the end of the day deliver not only a clean environment but also a wealthier set of communities across the world.

So thank you for everything you are doing and we look forward to continuing to work with you.

ENDS