22 FEBRUARY 1924
Dockers’ delegates discussed the terms of the provisional settlement, but failed to reach agreement, and another conference was planned.
Arthur Henderson, the Home Secretary, said in Burnley that the Government proposed to carry through the House of Commons a new Bill to limit the working week to 48 hours.
20 FEBRUARY 1924
The General Council of the Trades Union Congress meeting in London decided to pledge the support of the British Trade Union movement to the unions involved in the dock strike.
John Wheatley, the Minister of Health, had a conference with representatives of the suppliers and producers of building materials who gave an assurance that in their housing scheme the Government would have the whole-hearted co-operation of the materials manufacturers of the country, and that there would be no attempt to advance prices.
In response to an appeal by Lord Balfour, American help is promised for the relief of distress in the Highlands and Islands.
19 FEBRUARY 1924
A Court of Inquiry was set up by the Government in connection with the dockers’ strike. The Cabinet issued a warning to ‘profiteers’ in regard to unjust increases in food prices, and steps were taken to prevent the exploitation of consumers.
JC Fenton was appointed as the Solicitor General for Scotland.
Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, in reply to a deputation from the League of Nations Union said everything the Government could do to make the League a real force in the national policy they would do.
18 FEBRUARY 1924
Work at British ports came to a stop following the start of the dockers’ strike.
Britain’s weakness as an air power was exposed by Major-General Sir FH Sykes, ex-chief of the Air Staff, in London.
Alexandre Millerand, the President of France, received Herr von Hoesch, the new German Ambassador in Paris, and while assuring him of co-operation in his promised endeavours to improve the relations between the two countries reminded him that France’s thoughts and wishes were summarised in the words “respect for treaties”.
Lord Birkenhead, speaking at the Oxford Carlton Club, described the Unionist party as the only safe and reliable bulwark against the dangers of Socialism.
17 FEBRUARY 1924
Noel Buxton, the Minister for Agriculture, visited Coventry Farm at Mill Hill in Middlesex to inspect the spread of foot and mouth disease which had been reported in the area.
The Socialist Government expressed disappointment that they had not been able to resolve the dockers’ strike.
16 FEBRUARY 1924
It was reported that negotiations had broken down and a strike of the dockers was declared with immediate effect. The hoped for agreement failed, but the two parties agreed to meet at the Ministry of Labour, but the trade unions said that the strike would not be postponed.
The action of the Egyptian officials at Luxor was met with the approval of the Egyptian Cabinet. All, including Howard Carter, are denied admission to the tomb of Tutankhamen.
15 FEBRUARY 1924
It was officially announced that as a result of further conferences at the Ministry of Labour that terms for the settlement of the dock strike have been arrived at.
Arthur Henderson, the Socialist Home Secretary, and Harold Camps, the Unionist, were formally nominated as candidates for the Burnley by-election.
The speech made by Kemi Badenoch, the Business and Trade Secretary, at Chatham House on 7 March 2024.
To understand the role of the UK in the global trade landscape we must describe what that landscape looks like right now.
Everyone in this room is old enough, at least I think everyone in this room is old enough, to have seen for themselves the transformational power of trade.
You don’t have to go as far as back as Adam Smith and David Ricardo to understand the arguments.
Look to Eastern Europe and what’s happened since the fall of the Berlin Wall or to countries in the Indo-Pacific like Malaysia or even China.
As free trade has grown, it is no coincidence that more than a billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty over the same period.
But I’m not here to give you a cliché-ridden lecture on how great trade is. The case for it is overwhelming yet despite that it has become a tough sell for politicians. I’m here to respond to the criticisms that the UK no longer has a place in the world, and that free trade has been part of the problem rather than the solution.
I’m here to give you reasons for optimism and reasons to be proud about our role on the world stage.
Across the West and beyond, low growth has become a profound and stubborn problem. In many countries, wages have failed to keep pace with rising prices, with lower and middle income families being hardest hit.
Many, as you know, blame free trade. They say we have allowed other countries to steal our lunch, that the momentum is now [with] the BRICS nations.
In trade negotiations I often encounter a belief that trade is a zero-sum game, that if we gain from someone we must lose something in exchange.
Proving that trade within a free market provides mutual benefit is hard when your counter-party believes that the objective is to try and take something from you.
I spent all of last week in Abu-Dhabi at the World Trade Organization’s 13th Ministerial Conference. This is where the rules-based trading system and democracy come together to have a big row.
I am still baffled at how 164 countries make any decisions at all, given the need for unanimity. I saw a lot of arguments, I also saw some tears.
While the disagreements in Abu Dhabi were not between countries which were pro Israel or pro Palestine, not even really between developed and developing nations.
The principal disagreements were often within the BRICS nations, between those who support free trade and those who don’t.
So it’s a choice between the agenda which the head of the WTO, Dr Okonjo-Iweala Ngozi, is promoting – a forward-looking agenda that is about services, green, digital and inclusive trade and an alternative protectionist agenda ending up as a race to the bottom.
The rules-based system which you often hear about is under threat. One country can stop 163 others from coming to a decision.
The role of the UK here is not just to prevent the WTO from being held back by a small minority but to ensure that it can live up to its founding principles, using free trade as a means to raise living standards, create jobs, and improve people’s lives – something which we have championed right from the very beginning.
When I became the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, I told my team that our mission was to be the Department for Economic Growth.
And I set five priorities to establish how we would deliver on that promise with an outward looking, international agenda.
To remove market access barriers for UK businesses was the first. Second, to grow British exports. Third, to become the No 1 destination for investment in Europe. Fourth, to sign high quality trade deals. And, finally, and most importantly, to defend free and fair trade.
These priorities exist in a world where protectionism peaked just as we embarked on our own independent trade policy.
We took our own seat at the WTO just as many had lost faith in the institution and lost faith in the value of free trade.
We were repeatedly told that without the clout of the EU bloc we would not open up trade with the markets of the future.
And three myths have arisen which are regularly repeated on growth, exports and investment.
The first is that Brexit has hampered our growth, relative to comparable economies.
That is not the case. The IMF predicts that between 2024 to 2028 the UK will outgrow the G7 economies of France, Germany, Italy, and Japan.
And our economy is expected to be 17 per cent larger than France’s by 2035.
The second is that exports have declined.
That is also not the case. The value of our exports in 2016 – the year of the referendum – was £576 billion.
In 2020, the year we left the EU, it was just under £624 billion- that’s including the impact of COVID.
And today our exports are worth over £850 billion […] despite the challenges we’re experiencing following COVID and Putin’s war in Ukraine.
The third claim was that after Brexit investment would dry up.
However, last year, our car sector alone attracted £23.7 billion in investment commitments – more than the past 7 years combined. The UK’s car production is now growing at its fastest rate since 2010.
And the latest figures show that we are the number one destination in Europe for foreign direct investment.
So, we have succeeded, not in spite of embracing free trade, but because of it.
In just a few years, we’ve negotiated more free trade agreements than any other independent country in the world.
In the coming weeks, we will pass our bill [on] the CPTPP – the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership […]. This will make over 99% of UK goods eligible for zero tariffs in Asia-Pacific member countries – a region that will drive global Britain over the next few decades.
Of course, it’s easy to produce statistics showing that exports and investments are up.
It’s a lot harder to demonstrate how we are defending the system that we helped create.
I tell my department we should start by not being ‘knowingly naïve’.
By that I mean not blindly believing that just because rules are written, they will be followed or that culture and politics are not relevant and it’s only the regulations that count.
It’s about realism. Realism, realism, realism.
Which brings me to the criticisms that the government typically faces on trade.
When the US brought in the Inflation Reduction Act, there were many calls for the UK to do the same – lots of articles written about how leaving the EU meant we were already in decline.
My response was that copying and pasting policy from other countries is not a strategy.
It is not possible for every economy to subsidise its way to growth. Some will go bankrupt doing that. That will not be us.
At a time when other countries are engaging in subsidy wars, we need to be smart and work with those allies who understand what is at risk. We have to be pragmatic.
Yes, that means offering targeted support to tackle specific issues facing our economy and yes we want a level playing field for our entrepreneurs so that they can compete globally, but it doesn’t mean hosing industries down with subsidies or slapping tariffs on products from abroad.
Trade wars inevitably fan the flames of global tensions – the very last thing we need right now.
This wouldn’t be a Kemi Badenoch speech without a reference to my favourite economist, Thomas Sowell, who pointed out that trade wars are economically counter-productive.
He argues, for example, that the Smoot-Hawley tariffs played just as great a role in prolonging the Great Depression as the Wall Street crash itself. I agree.
We would be wise to heed his advice because history shows that countries who engage in protectionism and in ‘beggar thy neighbour’ trade policies are always weaker and poorer as a result.
So, we lead by example. We work with allies. We are not alone. Countries like New Zealand, Japan, Switzerland and Singapore and many others are with us.
So in my department, I have to grapple with maintaining a competitive UK steel industry that can stand on its own two feet against a global oversupply of steel, as China floods the market, while also ensuring vital safeguards for the domestic sector. Not an easy trade off.
I have to manage the lowering of tariffs to bring down costs while not undercutting our own producers when other countries are subsidising theirs. Not easy – there is a trade off.
I have to strike the right balance between embracing the import of goods from developing countries to help them grow with the need to maintain the high standards on quality and safety which the British people rightly expect.
We make choices.
Our free trade agreements are helping us make the right choices because they are all about diversification and resilience.
That is what the Indo-Pacific tilt is about, but we need to make sure that the facts are out there. It still baffles me how desperate people are to blame everything on leaving the EU. Because criticisms arrive often because it is the first time many are watching the ins and outs of an independent trade policy, played out live.
These events took place in a black box when we were in the EU. We didn’t have the real-time updates of what was happening with trade negotiations as we do now. It is new. And for those of us who are optimists, exciting. For those of us who are pessimists, scary, and want to make it all go away.
The problems that they see now, we had when we were in the EU, like harmonizing standards and regulations across different trade agreements, or engaging with countries that have exceptionally different and diverse models of trade, or striking deals with countries that don’t have our values of democracy, the rule of law, and a market economy.
But when we encounter these same standard negotiating issues, it’s put down to the UK being isolated or being in decline. This is not a serious analysis of trade for the 21st century. It is not serious commentary. Let’s have more realism.
The reality is that the geopolitical climate, and the global conditions for economic security, are more precarious now than at any other time since the Cold War.
In the Middle East, conflict is raging. In the Red Sea, the free flow of trade is under attack, which is why together with our allies we have taken coordinated military action to protect it.
Covid and Putin’s war against Ukraine have permanently reconfigured supply chains.
The challenges in trade we face are different from just a few decades ago. We live in a vastly more interconnected global economy with complex supply chains, cheaper international travel, and the free flow of information.
That interdependence means there can be no retreat into splendid isolation.
We must continue to pursue free trade and avoid the tariffs and taxes which stifle growth and push up inflation.
That open, outward-looking, approach is compatible with protecting our long-term economic security.
We need investors to feel confident in the UK, confident not only that their assets will grow over time but that fraud or illicit finance will never be tolerated.
Through our Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act we will make the UK one of the safest places in the world to do business.
Our National Security and Investment Act is preventing the hostile acquisition of assets.
This matters because our power plants, our 5G networks and our critical national infrastructure should never be in the hands of those who would do us harm.
And we are taking similar precautions with regards to exports leaving the UK, updating our Strategic Export Licensing Criteria and significantly enhancing our Military End Use Control.
Our key aim in all of this work is to prevent hostile countries from ever acquiring British weapons or advanced British technology.
And to those who would do harm to us or to our allies, we say that we will not allow you to use your economic might to meddle with another state’s affairs.
The vision of Global Britain remains. Once mocked as a nation of shopkeepers, we know the value of trade and are staying true to our heritage as a global trading nation that once ruled the waves.
We received a great inheritance from previous generations; it is important that we create an even greater one to hand down to the next.
So, the next time you’re asked what role the UK is playing, you can say that from sanctions to supply chain resilience, we are a global leader in economic security, and we are defending free and fair trade underpinned by a rules-based system.
As you saw in the budget yesterday, we are doing all of this with economic growth at the forefront of our minds.
And I will conclude by saying we have a Prime Minister who is clear-eyed about the opportunities and the challenges that lie ahead.
Where investor confidence in many countries has been shaken, he has sent a loud and clear message that Britain is open for business.
Where there is instability abroad, he has helped to intervene, to bring economic stability at home. He has a plan.
And where countries are embracing protectionism, we are opening up our markets and lowering the barriers to free, open trade – reducing costs and widening choice for the British consumer, ensuring that our economy is strong, resilient and protected from states that threaten us, threaten our allies, and threaten our international security interests.
That is the role the UK is playing on the global stage.
![PRESS RELEASE : International Women’s Day 2024 – UK Statement to the OSCE [March 2024]](https://www.ukpol.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/fco-150x150.png)
The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 7 March 2024.
In response to the address by the Special Representative of the OSCE Chair-in-Office on Gender, Ambassador Holland outlines the UK’s commitment to improving the outlook for women and girls globally.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to welcome Special Representative Palihovici back to the Permanent Council, and to thank you for your insightful opening remarks.
Madam Chair, as we approach International Women’s Day in 2024, global progress towards gender equality remains contested. Over 800 women or girls die every day due to pregnancy or childbirth complications. One in three women will suffer physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes. Violence against women continues to grow online. And in the OSCE region today, horrific evidence continues to emerge of conflict-related sexual violence perpetrated through Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
The theme of International Women’s Day in 2024 is “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress”. This focuses on the challenges caused by the alarming lack of global financing for gender equality measures. The COVID pandemic, conflicts, climate disasters and economic turmoil have pushed an extra 75 million people into severe poverty since 2020, with a disproportionate impact on women and girls. If current trends continue, more than 342 million women and girls could be living in extreme poverty by 2030.
These challenges can only be addressed through solutions that empower women. Ensuring women’s and girls’ rights across all aspects of life is the only way to secure prosperous and just economies, and a healthy planet for future generations.
The UK is committed to improving the outlook for women and girls globally. Exactly one year ago our (then-) Foreign Secretary launched the UK’s International Women and Girls Strategy, which sets out how the UK is putting women and girls at the heart of everything we do – domestically and internationally.
Since 2015 the UK has supported the education of over 10 million of the world’s most vulnerable girls. We have helped over 25 million women worldwide to access family planning advice. Through our flagship £38 million global programme, we have supported the work of over 600 women’s rights organisations. We are also helping to drive the global conversation, for example, through a series of Wilton Park conferences which place women’s rights organisations at the centre of the debate.
We know that urgent action is needed to accelerate progress to end gender-based violence. In November of last year, we announced a new package of support for women’s rights organisations to drive forward locally-led and survivor-centred approaches to tackling violence against women and girls, including in conflict and crisis settings. Since the launch of the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative in 2012, we have committed over £60 million to tackling conflict-related sexual violence globally.
Empowering women and girls, and preventing violence against them, will remain a UK priority. We are committed to ensuring every girl receives at least 12 years of quality education, and to ending the preventable deaths of mothers, new-born babies and children by 2030.
Madam Chair, we can only build a fairer, freer, safer, wealthier and greener world if we put women and girls at the heart of the OSCE’s work. Women’s inclusion in leadership and meaningful decision making is essential for local, national and regional progress.
It is vital that we, as OSCE participating States, fulfil our commitments to gender equality – as set out in the 1999 Charter for European Security, and related decisions – and ensure adequate funding for OSCE executive structures working to implement the organisation’s gender equality commitments.
As the UK has stated previously, the principles we mark on International Women’s Day are not just for a day. Advancing gender equality is a policy from which everyone benefits, bringing freedom and peace, boosting prosperity and trade, building resilience and strengthening global and regional security. It is vital that we follow through on our commitments to ensure the equal rights of all women and girls.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
![PRESS RELEASE : Lord Parkinson at Heritage Day hosted by The Heritage Alliance [March 2024]](https://www.ukpol.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/culturemediasport-150x150.png)
The press release issued by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport on 7 March 2024.
Lord Parkinson has delivered a speech to members of the heritage sector at the annual Heritage Day hosted by The Heritage Alliance.
Thank you for having me along to Heritage Day again – it’s a great pleasure to be back with you.
Lizzie, Ingrid, and the whole team at the Heritage Alliance do us all a great service by bringing people together to share ideas and insights, champion our heritage heroes, and speak with a collective voice about what the sector needs to keep flourishing – reflecting the power of collaboration, as you have put it so well for your theme for this year.
It’s a power you are harnessing for the sake of the millions of people who benefit from our heritage today, and for the sake of future generations.
Heritage Day is a great opportunity to look back on the progress we’ve been able to make together over the past year, and to talk about some of the things we want to see next – perhaps all the more important in an election year.
The past twelve months have provided some sad but powerful reminders of how much heritage means to us all – through the senseless loss (I would use a stronger term, but I’m mindful that criminal investigations are ongoing …) of the Crooked House pub
in August, and the beloved tree in the Sycamore Gap of Hadrian’s Wall the following month.
Both of these cases sparked immediate and visceral reactions, not just from people who lived nearby, but from around the world I think i’m right in saying the videos the National Trust put out about it were their most viewed ever. – a potent sign of the importance of our built and natural heritage.
Heart-wrenching though both these cases were, they offered an important reminder of how much that shared heritage means to us all – and why it’s worth fighting for.
When I stood before you last year at the Charterhouse, I set out some of the things I was keen to work on with you – so it’s gratifying to look back and see how much we’ve been able to do together.
When we met last, the Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill had just arrived in the Lords – it’s now an Act of Parliament, putting protection for more of our heritage assets, including Scheduled Monuments and World Heritage Sites, on a statutory footing – and benefiting from some valuable improvements thanks to lobbying and engagement by people in this room.
A quarter of a century since it arrived on the statute book, we’ve also updated the Treasure Act – widening the definition so that more of the extraordinary artefacts being discovered can be saved and shared with the public.
And we announced the ratification of the 2003 UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage – after twenty years of campaigning by many here today.
We’ve also published guidance for custodians of contested heritage assets – a tricky issue, but one which benefited from the careful deliberations of our Heritage Advisory Board, and which I’m pleased to say was received with similar thoughtfulness.
I’ve had the great honour of opening the National Trust’s Heritage and Rural Skills Centre in Oxfordshire, and English Heritage’s ‘reawakened’ Belsay Hall in Northumberland.
I also had the pleasure of joining a meeting of the National Amenity Societies, and helping to launch the Heritage and Carbon report alongside Historic England, the National Trust, Grosvenor, Peabody, and the Crown Estate – a powerful example of collaboration there!
We’ve done all that while designating over 170 listed buildings and Scheduled Monuments, helping the National Portrait Gallery to save Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Portrait of Mai for the nation, thanks to the largest ever donation from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, and support from across the sector, reuniting the three Thornborough Henges in the National Heritage Collection and publishing the Tentative List for new World Heritage Sites.
This time last year, I announced my intention to expand the official Blue Plaques scheme across the country. Today, I’m proud to stand here and say we’ve done it.
In September, we changed the law to enable the scheme which has been so brilliantly run i by English Heritage for many years to be expanded across the country.
Thanks to some great work by Historic England (and responding to the demands of an impatient Minister!), we had the great pleasure two weeks ago of unveiling the first national Blue Plaque in Ilkley, to Daphne Steele, the first black matron in our National Health Service. Joining her son Robert in West Yorkshire to celebrate her life and legacy was one of the true highlights of my time in Government.
We’ve already announced the next two plaques – honouring Clarice Cliff, one of the most influential ceramists of the 20th century, and George Harrison, the music icon and humanitarian. I’m looking forward to those being unveiled – and to seeing which other figures from all over the country will join them in the future once public nominations open in the summer.
The new, national scheme will help us to tell the stories of a wider range of people – showing how people from towns, villages, and cities across this country went on to change the world, and I hope inspiring new generations to know that they can do the same.
So thank you to everyone who worked together to make that happen so quickly.
Last month, I was also delighted to join Historic England to mark the protection – through Grade II designation – of a number of historic gas lamps in Covent Garden.
London’s gas lamps have been an integral part of the city’s identity for more than two centuries. From the novels of Charles Dickens and John Buchan to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Mary Poppins and The Muppet Christmas Carol, they’ve provided an evocative backdrop to many of our capital’s most cherished events and imaginings.
When they were threatened, the London Gasketeers sprang into being to protect them. Thanks to their dedication, and the expert advice of Historic England, Westminster City Council has committed to preserve any gas lamps which are given listed status – a number which I’m delighted to say has already risen by a dozen, with many more under consideration.
This will ensure that their inimitable glow can continue to brighten the lives of Londoners — and the millions of visitors the city welcomes — for generations to come.
As we look to the future of the listing process, we should be asking ourselves whether we are missing important parts of our heritage, such as late Victorian and Edwardian buildings; whether there are ways to ensure that listings cover every part of the country, and can better recognise craftsmanship and quality in the buildings we consider. I am interested in the role that the Principles of Selection for Listed Buildings – last updated six years ago – has to play in this.
Harnessing the power of collaboration, I will work closely with Historic England and others – such as the amenity societies and the Historic Environment Forum – to look at this alongside other possible interventions.
Last week, I had the pleasure of chairing the latest meeting of the Heritage Council – a brilliant way of facilitating collaboration across Government, as well as between us and the sector. We talked about the preparations for next year’s Railway 200 celebrations – the bicentenary of the first passenger rail journey – as well discussing some of the challenges and opportunities facing heritage rail, following up on many of the points which were raised when I attended the Heritage Railway Association’s annual conference in Newcastle, that cradle of the railways, in November.
We also talked about a topic raised at last year’s Heritage Day – underwater and marine heritage.
I was pleased to be joined by Ministerial colleagues from the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Transport, DEFRA, and the Foreign Office as well as colleagues from the sector to explore these two areas of mobile heritage.
I am following our discussions up by looking at the Memorandum of Understanding we’ve had for the past ten years between my Department and the MoD – and, in the longer term, continuing to pursue the ratification of the 2001 UNESCO Convention on Underwater Archaeology, which I see is included in your refreshed Heritage Manifesto.
But one UNESCO Convention I’m delighted to say we are ratifying very soon – I go to Paris next month to deposit the signed papers – is the 2003 Convention on Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The French have a better name for this: they call it ‘le patrimoine vivant’ – ‘living heritage’. I think that captures well the traditions and practices we pass on from generation to generation; things which have shaped us, and which we shape in turn.
Of course, our tangible and intangible heritage are not separate – they are linked through the spaces, stories, products, and indeed the vital crafts and skills that maintain our built heritage.
We will launch a call for applications for an inventory of intangible cultural heritage in the UK this summer, which I want to ensure represents the full range of our living heritage.
Thank you to the many people here who have been engaging with the team at DCMS as we consult on implementing the Convention. We have had a fantastic response, so please stay involved and help us to keep shaping it.
Yesterday, of course, was Budget Day, which saw some great news for our sector.
Through the third round of the Levelling Up Fund we are investing in our great cultural heritage across the country, including £15 million for the National Railway Museum in York and County Durham, and £10 million to the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool’s Grade I-listed Royal Albert Dock.
We also pledged £10 million to safeguard the extraordinary Temple Works building in Leeds – a Grade I-listed flaxmill with Egyptian Revival architecture and a frankly bonkers roof which used to be covered in grass and had a herd of sheep to help mow it. This investment (alongside the £1 million already provided by Historic England) will help to bring the site into public ownership and explore its potential to become the new northern home of the British Library.
We also provided more than £26 million for the Grade II* listed National Theatre – just a stone’s throw from here, and one of the finest examples of Brutalist architecture in the country.
The Chancellor announced £1 million for a war memorial honouring Muslim soldiers who fought for our Armed Forces in both world wars and £10 million for culture and heritage projects in the West Midlands and £6 million for community regeneration projects across the country with the King’s Foundation.
There was also support for the creative industries which heritage is such an important part of. I was downstairs in the crypt trying on the virtual reality headsets seeing how we transform our business services at heritage sites. Of course these places and heritage are an inspiration for many of our creative stories.
And I’m delighted to say that Gift Aid legislation will be amended to ensure that charities can still claim Gift Aid while complying with new protections for consumers under the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Bill – something I know that has been a concern for many organisations here today, and which our colleague Lord Mendoza has been taking up in the debates on that Bill.
But of course, there are always more areas which need our support. I couldn’t stand in this glorious, Grade II*-listed church – built with a grant from Parliament – without, first, thanking Canon Giles for hosting us, but also recognising that much of our ecclesiastical heritage is at risk, imperilling not just the buildings but also the communities and congregations they serve.
Since 2010, the Government has returned £346 million to churches, synagogues, mosques and temples through the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme.
Thousands of buildings have benefited – including, I’m glad to say, this one, which has received £1 million since 2015 for several works, including the installation of a new lift and the creation of a narthex café and welcome area.
But still many more could benefit from this scheme. That’s why, just before Christmas, I wrote to all MPs to highlight its positive impact in their constituencies, and to encourage more places of worship to take advantage of it.
But, as someone in a meeting I had recently put it, this scheme is about getting the tax back on works churches and others do; what they also need is help to fund that work in the first place. I recognise that, and am pleased to be working with the Church of England, the Churches Conservation Trust, the National Churches Trust, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Historic England, and others to see how we can provide that broader support for these cherished buildings and all the good things that they do.
Our work continues, but is stronger for being done together.
Another part of our heritage which is much cherished, but which also needs support, is our seaside heritage – something I’ve seen on my visits to coastal communities including Brighton, Eastbourne, Margate, Scarborough, Torquay, and my native North Tyneside.
Some of you have heard me extol the virtues of the Spanish City in Whitley Bay before – the Grade II-listed, neo-Baroque pleasure garden facing out across the North Sea in my hometown.
It is far from alone. Around our coastline, winter gardens, esplanades, harbours and piers remain at risk, whether from neglect, from salty water, or from the long overdue need to adapt to changing times.
That’s why I’m delighted to announce that we will soon be launching a dedicated fund to support enhancements to our seaside heritage, drawing on the successes of recent programmes like the High Streets Heritage Action Zones, to help protect and rejuvenate coastal assets which are in need of love and attention. As always, we’re keen to do that in collaboration with the brilliant people and organisations in the sector – so please watch out for more details, and help us make a difference to coastal communities across the country.
So, a busy year gone, and a busy year ahead – but none of the things I’ve mentioned would be possible without the support and hard work of the people and organisations represented here today.
Thank you for a year of powerful collaboration in support of our nation’s heritage – and here’s to many more!