Strengthening the Integrity of the United Kingdom ●
This Government will continue to build on the success of our United Kingdom. We are committed to protecting and promoting its combined strengths and the values we share, and to ensuring the institutions of the United Kingdom benefit people in every part of our country, building on hundreds of years of partnership and shared history.
● When we work collaboratively as one United Kingdom we are safer, stronger and more prosperous and better able to tackle our shared challenges. Together, we are better able to draw on the skills of our great shared institutions like the NHS, the armed forces and civil service, to tackle the big issues – from defending our borders, to being a world leader in offering the COVID-19 vaccine to all our citizens and protecting 11.7 million jobs through our furlough schemes. Most recently it has been fantastic to see people and organisations from all over the UK come to record their interest in our Homes For Ukraine scheme. ● As the UK Government, we are committed to ensuring that opportunity is shared across every corner of the UK. The Spending Review 2021 set the largest annual block grants, in real terms, of any spending review settlement since devolution in 1998. We are investing across the UK through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, the Community Ownership Fund, and the Levelling Up Fund, worth £2.6 billion, £150 million and £4.8 billion respectively until 2025. ● The UK Government is committed to effective collaboration with devolved governments to deliver for people across the UK. This spirit of cooperation is at the foundation of the arrangements recently agreed in the review of intergovernmental relations, it is also shown in the way we work together including our collective response to COVID-19. ● We are also clear that we will only be able to level up and create prosperity across the UK if all levels of government pull together, and we are committed to working closely with the devolved governments, local leaders and wider partners across the UK. We have launched, with the Scottish Government, a competition to establish two Green Freeports in Scotland, which will bring new jobs and increased investment to left behind communities across Scotland. We are continuing to work towards establishing the Freeports programme in Wales and Northern Ireland as soon as possible.
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