From today, the terms of the UK’s accession to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership have entered into force with Mexico. This follows Mexico’s recent ratification of the UK’s accession, and it means that UK traders are now able to trade with Mexico under the terms of the CPTPP for the first time. This supports the Government growth mission by providing tariff benefits, new digital provisions and additional market access beyond the current bilateral UK-Mexico FTA, with benefits for UK traders and consumers.

Benefits for UK traders and consumers

British farmers and food and drink manufacturers will benefit from improved opportunities to trade with Mexico. For example, chocolate producers will benefit from zero tariffs when exporting to Mexico, compared with tariffs of up to around 25% at present.

In addition, cheese exporters will receive tariff-free access to Mexico through a shared quota, with further shared duty-free quotas also available for other dairy products.

There will also be opportunities for pork sectors, with duty-free access for pork from day one.

Lower tariffs on Mexican exports, including honey, chocolate, asparagus, sweetcorn and orange juice, may also benefit British consumers if those reductions are passed on through lower prices.

The UK’s current trading arrangements with Mexico contain only limited commitments on temporary business travel. By contrast, CPTPP includes more comprehensive commitments for UK businesspersons, including the ability for dependants to accompany intra-corporate transferees, as well as commitments covering investors, independent professionals and contractual service suppliers for the first time.

UK financial services firms will also benefit from greater legal certainty when trading with clients based in Mexico, including when providing portfolio management and e-payment card services.

For UK traders exporting to Mexico, CPTPP introduces new digital trade and supply chain benefits which do not exist in our current bilateral agreement. It supports cross-border data flows, protects source code and cryptography, and prohibits unjustified data localisation requirements, giving businesses greater certainty, security and lower compliance costs.

It also allows cumulation of content from other CPTPP countries, increasing flexibility and strengthening export resilience for industries with complex supply chains, including in the automotive industry.

Other CPTPP updates

Mexico is the tenth country with whom the UK’s CPTPP accession has entered into force, out of a possible 11. The UK also welcomes the progress Canada is making on the legislation required to implement the UK’s CPTPP accession protocol. The UK currently expects this to be completed later this year, and we look forward to the agreement entering into force with Canada at the appropriate moment.

As the trade strategy outlines, CPTPP is a “living” agreement, intended to evolve with the wider global economy. Earlier this month, on 6 May, CPTPP parties substantially concluded Costa Rica’s accession negotiations following 18 months of negotiations, demonstrating that CPTPP remains open and dynamic. The UK also remains closely engaged in the recently launched accession process for Uruguay.

I look forward to keeping you updated on future CPTPP developments.

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The UK and Malaysia have today announced the launch of negotiations on a new digital trade deal that will support growth and back British jobs.

Digital trade agreements can provide the benefits of digital trade chapters in free trade agreements while remaining agile, flexible and fast to agree and implement. In this case the UK and Malaysia already enjoy the free trade benefits of membership of the CPTPP so this would add a new set of benefits.

Today’s announcement marks the next step in making the UK a global hub for services and digital trade. Digital trade can open new markets for businesses by reducing the costs of delivering goods and services, supporting jobs and productivity.

The UK is a world leader in digital trade and has a growing trading relationship with Malaysia, worth £6.4 billion in 2025. In 2023, the UK exported £730 million digitally delivered services to Malaysia. The OECD estimates that in 2022, exports to Malaysia supported 31,100 UK jobs.

Its rapidly expanding digital economy makes Malaysia an ambitious, like-minded partner, with opportunity to support UK growth.

The DTA aims to make digital trade with Malaysia easier, cheaper and more secure through cross-border data flows. Other potential benefits include reducing paperwork and border friction through digital systems, and guaranteeing strong protections for personal data, intellectual property, online consumers and cyber-security.

The deal could strengthen international digital and tech co-operation by supporting responsible innovation in areas like AI and data. It could also create new partnerships that boost efficient supply chains, infrastructure and global competitiveness.

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Today I am announcing the scope of the Government’s new £50 million critical minerals programme, first announced in the UK’s critical minerals strategy last year. In line with the strategy, this programme will help strengthen the UK’s supply chain resilience and security and support economic growth across the UK.

Critical minerals are essential to modern industry and to many of the growth-driving sectors identified in the industrial strategy, including clean energy, advanced manufacturing and defence. The Government’s strategy sets out clear ambitions to increase domestic production of critical minerals, boost recycling, and reduce our dependence on concentrated international critical mineral supply chains. This new programme is an important part of delivering against our ambitions and will complement wider Government support, including through the National Wealth Fund, UK Export Finance and other existing funding routes, as well as more competitive energy costs and streamlined planning and permitting to support industry.

The programme is structured around three pillars. First, we will provide up to £20 million for a magnet hub to establish a national facility to develop and support the scale-up of rare earth permanent magnet manufacturing capability in the UK, while also supporting skills and training in this specialised and crucial field. Secondly, we will provide up to £25 million through a critical minerals accelerator to support collaborative projects across extraction, processing and recycling of critical minerals, helping innovative businesses move towards commercial scale. Thirdly, we will take forward a demand aggregation platform, designed to help industry consolidate demand, unlock investment and secure supply through strategic partnerships.

Taken together, these measures will help grow domestic capability and optimise domestic production across the UK critical minerals value chain, harnessing our competitive advantage in recycling and midstream processing alongside our distinct pockets of mineral wealth. The programme aims to accelerate commercialisation, create high-value jobs, and attract investment in areas where the UK has these competitive strengths.

Further programme details and guidance will be published on gov.uk as the individual pillars open and progress. The magnet hub competition will be launched first, followed by the critical minerals accelerator, and market engagement on the demand aggregation platform later in the summer.

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On 19 June the Government announced the publication of new policy guidance to protect the UK’s national security through public procurement.

In March, I announced plans to ensure Government Departments make use of the national security exemption in the Procurement Act 2023, where lawful and appropriate, to ensure procurement protects our national interest. Today, we move from policy intent to delivery.

This new guidance targets four critical sectors where global shocks can directly threaten national security: steel, shipbuilding, artificial intelligence, and energy infrastructure.

At a time when our national security and economic security are inextricably linked, true resilience requires supporting critical sectors and securing supply chains so they can be relied upon during times of crisis. This means understanding that foundational assets like steel and shipbuilding are critical capabilities essential to the UK’s national security, and treating them as such. It also means recognising that emerging essential assets like artificial intelligence and energy infrastructure must not be left vulnerable to supply chain disruption.

For far too long, public procurement has been too narrowly focused on short-term requirements and with too little regard to long-term resilience and national and economic security. This has, over time, eroded our national capability, exposing the UK to increasing national security risks. To fix this, HM Treasury is updating guidance to accounting officers to frame value for money as a balanced judgement of strategic alignment, long-term resilience, and risk.

To co-ordinate commercial pipelines and intercept vulnerabilities in the four critical sectors identified, the Government have also appointed departmental sector leads across the Department for Business and Trade, the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

This guidance provides central Government practitioners with the clarity and confidence to lawfully deploy the national security exemption under the Procurement Act 2023 in these four sectors in order to safeguard essential capabilities, boost resilience and protect national security. Relevant private utilities in energy infrastructure and wider public sector bodies are also strongly encouraged to apply this guidance.

These measures are targeted at procurements in these sectors which are indispensable to our national security. Our priority is to ensure an existing legal exemption is used appropriately and consistently with our international trade agreements.

We recognise that our global trading partners and close allies will often have suppliers well-placed to help us meet our security needs. Our approach is built on collaboration; trusted international partners and global suppliers are at the heart of our procurement strategy, bringing the innovation and resilience we need to stay secure. However, national security requires constant vigilance and an active Government.

We will keep this guidance under active review, and this Government will always act in the wider, national interest to back our critical industries, protect our supply chains, and keep the British people safe.

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The hon. Member for Swindon North (Will Stone) has been appointed as a full representative of the United Kingdom delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in place of the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson).

The right hon. Baroness Winterton of Doncaster DBE has been appointed as leader of the United Kingdom delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) has been appointed as a substitute member of the United Kingdom delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in place of Stephen Gethins.

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I refer hon. Members to the oral statement I made in the House today, 22 June 2026, on the Pathways clinical trial.

[HCWS135]

My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) has today made the following statement:

Buying or selling a home should be one of life’s most important milestones, yet for too many people the process is frustrating, uncertain and deeply stressful. For too long, people have had to navigate a system where they lack clear information and have little visibility of progress.

That is why I am delighted to announce that Government are reforming the broken home buying and selling system to reduce delays, cut costs and stop sales falling through. The fundamental changes we are introducing to fix this broken system will allow people to move into the right homes at the right time, put down roots in their communities, and relocate more easily for work. They will also save critical time and reduce the costs involved in what is already an emotional process for those buying or selling a home. These reforms will bring benefits not only for families, but also property professionals, the housing market, and the wider economy.

The Government have published a landmark road map setting out how we will transform the home buying and selling process over the course of this Parliament. Alongside this, we published our response to two key consultations—on home buying and selling reform, and on material information in property listings. Together, these publications mark a decisive shift from consultation to delivery, underpinned by strong and widespread support for reform from consumers and professionals across the sector.

The case for change is clear. The current home buying and selling process is slow, costly and uncertain. It takes around 120 days on average to complete once an offer has been accepted, and around one in three transactions fall through, costing buyers and sellers around £400 million each year in wasted costs. These failures create unnecessary stress for households, reduce confidence in the market and impose wider economic costs.

Our reforms will create a system that is more streamlined, less stressful and fit for the future. At a time when households are feeling the squeeze, new changes will cut home-buying times by around four weeks, save first-time buyers an average of £650, and stop the nasty surprises that cost time, money and heartbreak. Overall, first time buyers are set to save more than £200 million a year, and the reforms will support a housing market in which people can move with greater confidence and with less risk of late surprises and failed transactions. They will also support the Government’s wider agenda of unlocking housing supply, improving affordability and supporting the delivery of 1.5 million homes.

The road map sets out a phased programme of action to ensure that change is practical, enforceable and built to last. We will act now where we can, while preparing carefully for more complex changes that require legislation or further market development. This phased approach reflects what we heard through consultation and our continued engagement with industry, and will help ensure that consumers and professionals can have confidence that the system will change in a meaningful and sustainable way.

The core principle at the heart of our reforms is simple: people should know what they are buying before they commit money and time. Sellers and estate agents will have to prepare a sales pack, providing key information before a property is even listed. This will cover the condition of the home, leasehold costs, the status of the chain, flood risk and planning history. Buyers will see the reality up front, before they spend a penny, reducing the risk of transactions being derailed by problems that are uncovered too late.

We will also raise standards and build trust across industry. A new code of practice and our proposed consultation on mandatory qualifications for estate agents will set clearer expectations for this sector.

Alongside this, we will bring home moving into the 21st century, requiring the wider use of digital property logbooks and digital sales packs. These tools store current and historic information on properties, reduce transaction risk by verifying data provenance, and provide consumers with digital property information up front in the sales process.

A modernised system must make full use of digital tools, trusted data and secure information sharing. We will publish a call for evidence this year to identify barriers professionals face when sharing data, and will consult next year on a smart data scheme for property data. We are also taking forward work to support the adoption of digital identity services and qualified electronic signatures to reduce reliance on paper-based and disconnected processes, and will continue to work with HM Land Registry and partners to modernise services and improve access to key datasets.

We are preparing the ground for earlier binding agreements in property transactions. After sales packs are embedded, we will require the use of binding conditional contracts, so that once both sides have committed, they cannot simply walk away without consequence. In the meantime, we will work with industry to support readiness for this change and raise awareness of existing voluntary reservation agreements.

To support leaseholders and homeowners on privately managed estates, we will use powers in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 to make it quicker, cheaper and more predictable to obtain the information needed to sell their homes. This will end the practice of third parties delaying home moves by taking too long to respond, or charging unreasonable amounts for information.

In parallel, we will publish non-statutory material information guidance later this year, so that estate agents understand their responsibilities to provide potential buyers with critical property information. This will be supported by a standardised form and clear, user-friendly guidance.

Taken together, these measures represent a once-in-a-generation programme of reform to create a housing market that works better for all and supports the dream of home ownership.

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I am grateful to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for their report published on 22 April 2026, and our response, laid and published today, sets out the actions Government are taking to improve the quality and supply of temporary accommodation. My long-term priority remains to prevent homelessness and tackle the root causes, but where temporary accommodation is necessary, it must be safe, decent and stable. Today I want to set out the wider steps Government are taking to ensure this is the case.

We are making encouraging progress against commitments we set out in December 2025 in our cross-Government child poverty strategy and national plan to end homelessness. First and foremost, we will continue to focus on the most harmful forms of homelessness, and particularly the unlawful use of B&B accommodation for families where essential facilities, such as kitchens and bathrooms, are shared. We have achieved a 63% fall in families with children staying in B&Bs beyond six weeks, compared to the same time last year, and remain on track to eliminate this by the end of the Parliament. More widely, the latest homelessness statistics show some signs of stabilisation, with numbers of households in temporary accommodation falling for the first quarter since 2022. We are also helping councils invest in good-quality temporary accommodation, through delivery of the £950-million fourth round of the local authority housing fund, and through exploring options for partnerships with social impact and institutional investors.

Councils work extremely hard to find suitable accommodation, but we know performance varies between different councils. Through the national plan to end homelessness, we are establishing routes to escalate and intervene to address poor performance. We will not shy away from calling out councils if they are not taking adequate steps to improve. To aid this, in May we published the first of the toolkits committed to in the national plan on local performance and accountability. This includes detail on the requirements, via grant conditions, for local authorities to produce a policy to ensure temporary accommodation is suitable, and to set out how the local authority will mitigate disruption and avoid multiple moves, ensure access to support services (particularly where safeguarding issues exist), and ensure access to key facilities—including cooking and laundry facilities, storage and wi-fi. Action plans must be published by December 2026, and will be an important tool to identify and tackle poor practice.

But we are not waiting until December. In our national plan, we committed to engaging with the sector to assess what urgent action is needed to address the worst outcomes in the short term. During this engagement, we have heard about a wide range of issues, including poor physical quality, multiple moves, a lack of facilities, out-of-area placements and overcrowding.

Our progress on B&B reduction shows what we can do with a clear national focus. Today I have announced allocations for the first year of our newly expanded £30 million emergency accommodation reduction programme. In year one, the vast majority of the £10-million funding will be targeted on reducing B&B use, but we will then expand the programme to address wider poor practice. We are also taking wider action to improve quality, suitability and support for households, while also improving the evidence base to inform future policy.

We are improving quality and increasing protections against poor housing conditions. Our guidance is clear that accommodation must be free of the most serious category one hazards, and local authorities must now set out in their temporary accommodation policies how they will ensure this is the case. We will soon be consulting on extending the scope of Awaab’s law from the social rented sector, so that it includes temporary accommodation occupied under licence and tenancies in the private rented sector. We intend to apply the reformed decent homes standard to temporary accommodation wherever possible, and will publish guidance by the end of 2026 to help landlords prepare for this. We have recently achieved Royal Assent to the Renters Rights Act 2026, which introduces a new power for local authorities to issue fines of up to £7,000 where a category one hazard is found in private rented homes, and are considering extending this to other forms of temporary accommodation.

In keeping our focus on moving families out of B&B, we must not see them moved into other unsuitable alternatives. I have heard concerns about unsuitable out-of-area placements, and of failure to provide notifications to receiving areas. Requirements to notify are clear in law, and we are actively engaging with stakeholders to improve practice and make expectations on placing and receiving local councils clear. Safeguarding risks must be minimised across all forms of accommodation. This is why eliminating B&B has been our core focus, but we will review wider models of shared accommodation, and consider whether further action is needed as part of our wider work to improve quality. Our guidance is clear: local authorities must provide adequate space for cots and support where families do not have one. Concerns have been raised that this is not happening, and we will work with local authorities to ensure this is the case.

We are making progress on our cross-Government commitments to improving the health and education outcomes of families in temporary accommodation. I am delighted we have now reached Royal Assent on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, which, from September, introduces a new duty on local housing authorities to notify health and education bodies when a child is placed in temporary accommodation. We will provide guidance on this in the coming weeks. We committed to ending the practice of discharging newborns into B&Bs, or other unsuitable housing, and are working with the NHS on safe and robust pathways.

To complement this action on improving suitability, we are working with the sector over the coming months to develop and share a consistent evidence base to support local authorities in making risk-based assessments based on suitability for specific household needs. This includes wider work to review child mortality data, and working with the NHS on their commitment to improve clinical data collection for children in temporary accommodation, to ensure we understand risks and take the right preventative action. My Department’s local artificial intelligence division are also using data to explore how an AI tool could be used to assist in the matching of homeless families with appropriate accommodation, using a transparent weighted-scoring algorithm. If taken forward, Match¹ would join a suite of AI-backed tooling for case workers in local government across England, including Local Transcribe² and upgrades to StreetLink³. We hope to say more on this work in the autumn.

I am committed to continuing to work together to protect households and improve their experience in temporary accommodation while our long-term strategy enables us to get back on track to ending homelessness for good.

¹https://mhclgdigital.blog.gov.uk/2025/12/12/how-collaboration-and-innovation-came-together-to-tackle-homelessness-and-rough-sleeping/

²https://mhclgdigital.blog.gov.uk/category/local-ai/

³https://thestreetlink.org.uk/

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Further to my statement of 18 June, I am today updating the House that, as required by the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, the draft revised airports national policy statement, now renamed the Heathrow expansion national policy statement, has been laid today. A period of parliamentary scrutiny—the “relevant period”—now begins from 22 June and will end on to 26 November 2026.

Next steps

I will update the House on the outcome of the consultation and parliamentary scrutiny process in due course.

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