The UK’s world-renowned shipbuilding industry will be revitalised through a refreshed National Shipbuilding Strategy.

First published in 2017, the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSbS) outlined ambitions to transform naval procurement, securing export and design contracts for British naval ships. Building on that success, today’s refresh outlines the Government’s further ambitions to reinvigorate the whole British shipbuilding industry contributing to its levelling up mission to boost productivity, pay, jobs and living standards.

Over £4 billion of government investment will galvanise and support shipyards and suppliers across the UK, with new measures including better access to finance, vital skills-building, and funding for crucial research and development into greener vessels and infrastructure.

Designed in partnership with industry and delivered by the recently formed National Shipbuilding Office (NSO), the NSbS Refresh will also deliver a pipeline of more than 150 new naval and civil vessels for the UK Government and Devolved Administrations over the next 30 years. The vessels will include large warships, Border Force cutters, lighthouse vessels and the new National Flagship.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:

Shipbuilding has been in our blood for centuries and I want to ensure it remains at the heart of British industry of generations to come.

The National Shipbuilding Strategy will transform this important and crucial industry, driving technology development and upskilling the shipbuilders of tomorrow. This will ensure the UK is rightly seen as a shipbuilding power across the world.

The shipbuilding industry currently supports 42,600 jobs across the UK and contributed £2.8 billion to the economy in 2020. Encouraging further investment and development, the refreshed strategy sets out a clear vision for the prosperous future of the UK’s shipbuilding industry, helping ‘Build Back Better’ and supporting the government’s drive to level up all parts of the UK.

Defence Secretary and Shipbuilding Lead Ben Wallace said:

As Shipbuilding Tsar, I am proud to be announcing our new strategy, this is an exciting time to be involved in the sector.

With significant government investment, we will be levelling-up across our shipbuilding, workforce, from shipyard to supplier, from procurement to designer, creating tens of thousands of new employment opportunities, boosting living standards and pay.

Our refreshed strategy will see the sector galvanised at a crucial time for our economy and see a vital part of British industry expand and flourish.

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said:

Scotland is a world leader in building modern, state-of-the-art ships and our highly skilled workforce and expertise will be at the heart of delivering on the commitments in this strategy refresh.

I look forward to the National Shipbuilding Office, which will have a base in the UK Government hub in Edinburgh, working with industry to deliver a 30 year pipeline of orders in the naval and commercial sectors that will boost Scotland and help level up all parts of the UK.

Billions of pounds of UK Government defence investment into Scotland’s shipyards is already boosting our country’s prosperity through supporting thousands of jobs directly and through the supply chain.

We have delivered 13 naval vessels in recent years to protect the UK and our NATO allies. And there are many more to come with three Type 26 frigates currently being built at BAE Systems in Govan and work is underway to order another five. The first of five Type 31s is also being constructed at Babcock’s Assembly Hall at Rosyth.

An ambitious pipeline of naval vessels including Fleet Solid Support (FSS), Type 26 and Type 31 ships, will bolster the Royal Navy whilst providing opportunities for UK shipyards. Encouraging investment in domestic shipyards, the pipeline seeks to maximise the social value contribution shipbuilding can make in the UK whilst balancing the need to deliver value for money and solutions that fully meet the requirements of the Royal Navy.

The strategy also includes a range of interventions from across Government to support the sector. A new Home Shipbuilding Credit Guarantee Scheme (HSCGS) will give UK shipyards access to finance for underwriting domestic contracts. This will level the playing field with competitors’ export credit guarantees and ensure UK shipbuilders have a fairer chance of securing valuable contracts.

The Department for Transport will invest £206 million in the UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions (UK-SHORE) to fund research and development in zero emission vessels and infrastructure and ensure our place as global leader in green technology. UK-SHORE will help to tackle barriers to investment in clean maritime technologies, including investment in port infrastructure. It also includes a multi-year version of the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition which ran last year and provided funding to consortia right across the UK.

The NSbS Refresh will also establish a new UK Shipbuilding Skills Taskforce, led by the Department for Education. The taskforce will work with industry and training providers across the UK to identify and address skills gaps, ensuring the UK continues to develop and nurture future-focused skills and knowledge to help our shipbuilders deliver world-class vessels.

With the shipbuilding supply chain spread across all parts of the UK, the taskforce will work jointly with the Devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure shipbuilders and the wider supply chain can access the skills they need.

A new Maritime Capability Campaign Office (MCCO) within the Department for International Trade will coordinate export support across government and industry. The MCCO will use robust analysis to improve our understanding about global markets, helping maritime suppliers to win export orders and increase UK market share.

This refreshed NSbS moves beyond the Ministry of Defence’s commitment to double its shipbuilding investment over the life of this Parliament to over £1.7 billion a year – supported as part of the £24 billion increase in Defence spending over the next four years. This will continue to support jobs and skills around the UK.

Seeking to deliver a globally successful, innovative and sustainable shipbuilding industry, the refreshed National Shipbuilding Strategy follows publication of the Levelling Up White Paper, which will ensure that the government continues to rise to the challenge and deliver for the people of the UK.

Background:

The investment covers:

• Over £4 billion for new vessels, including the Royal Navy Pipeline, was announced in the 2020 Spending Review and the 2021 Autumn Budget.

• £206 million for UK SHORE.

• £11 million of new funding for the Maritime Capability Campaign Office (MCCO).

• An initial £2 million of new funding to set up the Home Shipbuilding Credit Guarantee Scheme (HSCGS), with additional investment – for underwriting the finance of vessel contracts – to be confirmed in due course.

Sarah Kenny, Chair of Maritime UK, said:

Following today’s refreshed strategy, shipbuilding communities can power the future prosperity of our island nation, as green engines for economic growth.

Whether it’s levelling-up, by creating skilled jobs across our coastal communities; delivering net zero, by steering our ships in a green direction and exporting these technologies across the world; or promoting Global Britain, with 95% of all our trade moved by sea – maritime is central to our country’s future success.

Our industry supports the National Shipbuilding Strategy, with its investment, broader focus on commercial and leisure vessels, and emphasis on enablers such as skills and collaboration. We will be working closely with government to ensure these ambitions are met, on our way to becoming the world’s most competitive maritime nation by 2050.

A court heard that between 2017 and 2019, Lee Charles of Caldicot Gardens acted as a de facto director of Lincs Demolition Ltd in securing lucrative jobs. He was able to do so by marketing himself as a registered asbestos-removal specialist.

Charles operated his deception in 43 towns and cities across England. A full list can be found under additional information below.

When disturbed, asbestos is a hazardous substance and carcinogenic, something Charles knew, but he also claimed to be registered with the Environment Agency. He was neither a specialist or registered.

The use of asbestos in the UK was subject to an outright ban in 1999, after certain types became outlawed in the 1980s.

Lincoln crown court was told Charles pleaded guilty to lying to customers and giving false paperwork to disguise his deception.

Having duped his customers, waste asbestos was stashed in hired storage containers in Welbourn, Lincolnshire, just 200 metres from a school and close to a Girl Guide centre.

Charles told the owners of the storage space that he wanted to keep tools there. When he failed to pay the rent on the containers, the owners forced the locks and were confronted with the dangerous contents.

Once exposed, Charles, 40, abandoned the storage containers at Welbourn, moving his activities to an unpermitted waste site in Little Hale, near Sleaford. He continued to store asbestos unsafely, posing a risk to public health.

Imposing a 12-month prison sentence, recorder Paul Mann told Charles, who has a string of previous convictions that he “knew the regulatory regime well enough to know what he was doing was seriously wrong.”

However, he said that he was “just” able to suspend the sentence for a period of 2 years so that Charles could pay the Environment Agency’s costs. Charles will also be required to pay compensation to the owners of the Welbourn containers for the not insignificant costs they had incurred in cleaning up the site.

Charles was told that he must return to Lincoln crown court in June for consideration of financial orders, including the potential confiscation of his proceeds of crime.

Paul Salter, waste crime officer for the Environment Agency in Lincolnshire, said:

Lee Charles’ crimes were not just illegal, but dangerous.

In spite of repeated warnings and advice from the Environment Agency, Lincs Demolition, under Charles’ direction, put both the environment and public health at risk.

Asbestos when inhaled causes serious health problems, the careless storage of which presents a significant hazard, with a risk to the life.

Taking Charles’ avoidance of costs into consideration, from appropriate staff training to safe storage, Lincs Demolition avoided business costs of at least £50,000.

It is imperative that all waste businesses have the correct permits in place to protect themselves, the environment and the public. We support businesses trying to do the right thing, only issuing enforcement notices, and penalising businesses as a last resort.

In 2015, illegal waste activity was estimated to cost over £600 million in England alone, with the figure for the UK likely to be much higher.

The Environment Agency’s permitting and licensing system enables businesses to carry out their operations, while robust regulation provides the level playing field legitimate businesses need to prevent being undercut by irresponsible or illegal operators.

Charles pleaded guilty to 2 counts of operating a waste operation without a permit, contrary to Regulations 12, 38(1)(a) and 41(1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.

He also pleaded guilty to 2 counts of keeping or disposing of controlled waste in a manner likely to cause pollution or harm, contrary to Sections 33(1)(c), 33(6) and 157(1) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

A date in June will be fixed for the court to decide costs against Charles in favour of the Environment Agency and the proceeds of crime order.

Additional information

• Abingdon
• Barton-upon-Humber
• Boston
• Burntwood
• Cambridge
• Caterham
• Doncaster
• Dorking
• Erdington
• Birmingham
• Grantham *Gravesend
• Great Yarmouth
• Huntingdon
• Ipswich
• Kettering
• Kings Lynn
• Leicester
• Lincoln
• Loughborough
• Luton
• Mansfield
• Market Rasen
• Melton Mowbray
• Newar
• Norwich
• Nottingham
• Oakham
• Peterborough
• Scunthorpe
• Sidcup
• London
• Sleaford
• Spalding
• St Ives, Cambridgeshire
• Stockport
• Wythenshawe
• Greater Manchester
• Stourbridge
• Walsall
• Warsop
• Wellingborough
• Worksop.

Funders, regulators and research organisations who play an important role in the UK health and social care research have come together, working with members of the public, to sign up to a bold new shared commitment to improve public involvement in research.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the Health Research Authority, the National Institute for Health Research and a host of organisations across the UK to bring about changes which will drive up standards in health and social care research.

They include: the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, the Association of Medical Research Charities, Chief Scientist Office, Health and Care Research Wales, Health and Social Care Northern Ireland, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the Medical Research Council, the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement, NHS Research Scotland, Universities UK and UK Research and Innovation.

The statement, signed by leaders at each organisation, reads:

‘Public involvement is important, expected and possible in all types of health and social care research. Together our organisations and members fund, support and regulate health and social care research. This statement is our joint commitment to improve the extent and quality of public involvement across the sector so that it is consistently excellent.

People have the right to be involved in all health and social care research. Excellent public involvement is an essential part of health and social care research and has been shown to improve its quality and impact. People’s lived experiences should be a key driver for health and social care research.

When we talk about public involvement, we mean all the ways in which the research community works together with people including patients, carers, advocates, service users, and members of the community. Excellent public involvement is inclusive, values all contributions, ensures people have a meaningful say in what happens and influences outcomes, as set out in the UK Standards for Public Involvement.

Working together we will support the research community to carry out excellent public involvement. We will provide or share guidance, policies, systems, and incentives. We will:

• listen to and learn from the people and communities we involve and apply and share that learning
• build and share the evidence of how to involve the public and the impact this has
• support improvements in equality, diversity, and inclusion in public involvement
• promote the UK Standards for Public Involvement.

We will embed this commitment into the decision-making processes of our organisations.’

You can find more from each of the signatories – and what they will do – by clicking on the links below:

The MHRA are additionally working with partners on the Recovery, Resilience and Growth (RRG) of UK clinical research programme. This includes work to make research more diverse and more relevant to the whole of the UK, and to strengthen public, patient and service user involvement in research.

Dr Marc Bailey, Chief Science and Innovation Officer, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said:

We welcome the joint commitment to improve the extent and quality of public involvement in health and social care research. This aligns with our Patient Involvement Strategy and our objective to engage and involve the public and patients at every step of the regulatory journey.

Lord Kamall, Minister for Technology, Innovation and Life Sciences, said:

Today’s sector-wide public commitment makes a strong statement that the organisations signing up, led by the Health Research Authority (HRA) and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), recognise and welcome the importance of involving the general public in health and social care research.

We want the UK to be one of the best places in the world to invest in a life-science business and to deliver research that benefits everyone. The key to this is to develop stronger partnerships between research and patients and the wider public. Involving the public in research will help researchers conduct better studies that are open to everyone. Such inclusive research will enable the UK to deliver more world-leading, life-changing breakthroughs in science and improvements, which in turn will improve the health of our nation.

Dr Matt Westmore, HRA Chief Executive, said:

Excellent public involvement is an essential part of excellent health and social care research. It improves research and people have a right to be involved.

This shared statement, developed with patients, research participants and leaders in health and social care research, will ensure public involvement is embedded across the health and social care research system. For the first time the entire research system is sending the same strong message. That public involvement is always important, always expected and always possible. The evidence is that better research results from involvement, and better research delivers benefits for patients.

It also says that together we are stronger – the 14 influential leaders in health and social care research are stronger together – the public and the research community are stronger together. And together we will bring about real change.

Roger Wilson, HRA public contributor, said:

This has been an outstanding piece of work and it has been a real joy to be involved with it. I’d like to thank the HRA and NIHR for their leadership of the project and for the consideration and care shown to ‘public contributors’. The co-creation of this shared commitment to public involvement has been a real partnership. Now we need to ensure that others across the health and social care research system can recognise and adopt this commitment to public involvement.

Professor Lucy Chappell, Chief Executive, NIHR, said:

Partnering with patients, service users, carers and communities is absolutely fundamental to improving research.

We’re proud to have worked with health and social care leaders and public contributors to develop this strong statement of our ongoing commitment to public involvement. We already have a track record in this area but we are committed to supporting researchers to become more skilled and confident in partnership working and to making it more straightforward for patient and public members to work with us.

The benefits are clear – by involving patients and the public in our research from the outset, we plan and deliver studies that are relevant and important. This approach ensures that people’s perspectives and lived experiences of health and care are heard and acted upon.

Ifeanyi Sargeant, NIHR public contributor, said:

Ultimately, research aims to ask the right questions to get answers for problems and challenges we face. But how to know which questions to ask and what is most important or meaningful to address for people with health or social care needs? The only way is to ask the people affected what they struggle with and what they need. That’s why public involvement in research – right from the initial ideas through to practical implementation – is vitally important. If we don’t ask the right questions, then we can never hope to deliver the right answers and solutions that can improve lives.

Richard Torbett, Chief Executive of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said:

The UK faces an immense challenge in rebuilding a sustainable NHS post-pandemic that is able to deliver world class patient care and attract global research investment.

That cannot happen without collaboration between the life sciences industry, patients and the public, which is why we are committed to embedding patient and public involvement at the heart of research.

The shared commitment builds on earlier work, led by the HRA. In January last year the HRA produced a report, on their public involvement matching service which was set up in response to the drastic reduction in public involvement seen in studies submitted for approval at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The team wrote a report entitled Public Involvement in a Pandemic, which highlighted four gaps that had led to public involvement being left out of health and social care research applications.

The shared commitment aims to address the gaps identified in leadership and communication by bringing patients and public contributors and leaders in health and social care together to actively set out the importance of public involvement in all health and social care research with the ambition of delivering better health and social care.

Other organisations are invited to sign up to the statement. For more information, please email publicinvolvement@hra.nhs.uk.

For further information, please contact Alison Barbuti, Senior Communications Manager at the Health Research Authority alison.barbuti@hra.nhs.uk.

One million courses have been started by children across the country through the National Tutoring Programme, the Education Secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, announced today (Friday 11 March).

Speaking at the Association of School and College Leaders conference in Birmingham, the Education Secretary announced the milestone alongside measures to further boost the number of children who can benefit from tutoring this year.

Of the estimated 1 million courses started since the beginning of the programme, around 532,000 were provided through the School-Led Tutoring route, which provides funding directly to schools giving them greater flexibility to source their own tutors, whether external or staff already working in the school.

As a result, up to £65m will be transferred into this route from the Academic Mentor and Tuition Partner pillars of the programme, giving more schools the autonomy and support to deliver high quality tutoring to as many children and young people as possible, and reflecting the department’s continued focus on following the evidence of what works.

The programme remains on track to deliver the ambitious target of two million courses overall this academic year.

To further support schools and meet increasing demand, the eligibility for recruiting Academic Mentors and schools has been updated, with minimum A level requirements replacing the requirement for a degree, along with increasing the rate of pay for all graduate mentors looking to enrol and support the programme.

Separately, while the Government expects group sizes of 1:3 to remain standard, schools working with tuition partners can now use their discretion when determining group sizes, with a cap of up to 1:6 to allow greater flexibility where needed (such as for phonics, where pair work is required).

Speaking at ASCL, Nadhim Zahawi, Education Secretary, said:

It’s important to step back and look at what we’ve achieved with the National Tutoring Programme.

Tutoring used to be something that was the preserve of only a fortunate few.

Thanks to this Government, today it’s benefitting all children who want it and need it, from Bristol to Blackpool and Newquay to Newcastle, helping them realise their potential.

I am proud to announce that more than one million tutoring courses have been delivered since we rolled out this programme last year.

I hope you will agree with me that what we are doing together on tutoring is an invaluable addition to our education system, and I am continuing to look at how we can make sure it is having as big an impact as possible.

In addition to the estimated 532,000 courses that have started through the school led route this year, 114,000 starts have been made on courses through Tuition Partners and an estimated 74,000 pupils have started packages through the Academic Mentor pillar of the programme.

The government is working closely with Randstad and the sector to make sure these numbers continue to rise, and tutoring continues to reach the students who need it most.

311,000 courses were delivered in the 2020/2021 academic year.

The Government intends to continue building on the success of the National Tutoring Programme this year, in particular the School-Led route.

Schools, tutors and other stakeholders have continued to provide feedback to the department over the course of the year – in particular regarding the need for a programme that is as simple as possible – and the department is exploring all options to make sure that feedback is reflected in the programme next year.