Today, the Home Secretary Amber Rudd, will launch the Serious Violence Strategy setting out a multi-million pound commitment to steer young people away from crime and tackling violent drug-dealing gangs, building a more caring society.
Key facts: The Strategy was commissioned by the Home Secretary and backed with £40 million, marking a shift in the government’s response to knife and gun crime.
· It strikes a balance between prevention and robust law enforcement with a new £11 million Early Intervention Youth Fund for community projects to help young people live lives free from violence.
· It will look at the changing drugs market as a key driver of violence harming communities and announces a range of powerful actions to tackle the issue of ‘county lines’ and the implications for drugs, violence and exploitation of vulnerable people. This will include a £3.6 million National County Lines Coordination Centre.
· The Home Secretary will also announce that she will lead a new Serious Violence Taskforce which will bring together the voluntary sector, local Government and police to ensure the strategy is delivered effectively.
Why this matters: The strategy stresses the importance of early intervention to tackle the root causes of serious violence and steer young people away from crime in the first place, whilst ensuring the police continue to have the tools and support they need to tackle violent crime.
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The Foreign Secretary has responded following a chemical weapons attack in Douma in Syria on Saturday.
Key facts: It is truly horrific to think that many of the victims were reportedly families seeking refuge from airstrikes in underground shelters.
· Despite Russia’s promise in 2013 to ensure Syria would abandon all of its chemical weapons, international investigators mandated by the UN Security Council have found the Asad regime responsible for using poison gas in at least four separate attacks since 2014.
· These latest reports must urgently be investigated and the international community must respond. Investigators from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons looking into reports of chemical weapons use in Syria have our full support.
· Should it be confirmed that the regime has used chemical weapons again, it would be yet another appalling example of the Asad regime’s brutality and blatant disregard for both the Syrian people and its legal obligations not to use chemical weapons.
Why this matters: We condemn the use of chemical weapons by anyone, anywhere. We are in close touch with our allies following these latest reports. Those responsible for the use of chemical weapons have lost all moral integrity and must be held to account.
Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Belfast, or Good Friday, Agreement the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Karen Bradley, has reflected on two decades of remarkable progress.
Key facts: The UK Government’s commitment to the Agreement and its successors remains steadfast.
· We will continue to uphold the Agreement’s provisions in full: the principle that there can be no change in the status of Northern Ireland without the consent of a majority of its people; inclusive devolved government; North-South co-operation and the strongest bilateral relationship between the UK and Ireland; and those matters relating to people’s rights, culture and identity.
· Largely as a result of the Agreement, Northern Ireland today is a place transformed, with the economy growing strongly with unemployment at a record low, below the UK average.
· Major challenges, however, remain. Northern Ireland society is still too divided and we need to do more to promote a genuinely shared future and the restoration of devolved government at Stormont must, therefore, be our number one priority.
Why this matters: We will stand firm behind an Agreement which, along with its successors, has been the bedrock of all that has been achieved over the past twenty years. Everything we do will have as its core aim the protection and implementation of the Agreement, including as we leave the European Union.
New statistics show that since the introduction of auto-enrolment in 2012, pensions saving among younger workers has dramatically increased and the pensions gender gap has been reduced. This is good news, but there is still more to do to build a stronger and fairer economy.
· The biggest leap in terms of pensions saving is among all workers aged under 30. In 2012, 35 per cent of eligible workers aged under 30 saved into a workplace pension. This more than doubled by 2016 to reach 72 per cent.
· In 2012, 40 per cent of eligible women in the private sector saved into a workplace pension rising to 73 per cent in 2016. It is estimated that 3.6 million women will be newly saving or saving more as a result of automatic enrolment.