The government has launched a local media strategy, backing high-quality and trustworthy local journalism.
The strategy includes funding to help local news publishers innovate digitally, support community radio stations and tackle the risks of ‘news deserts’ by helping to revive a local news presence in communities that currently don’t have one.
A new Regional Media Forum in the West of England will explore ways to improve the relationship between journalists and local public services.

The government has announced £830 million in funding for flood schemes for 2026/27, as part of at least £10.5 billion between 2024-2036.
The Environment Agency has announced that more than 600 projects will be funded to help protect tens of thousands of homes and businesses this year. The projects include improved flood barriers and embankments, natural flood management schemes that slow the flow of water before it reaches communities and coastal flood defence projects that reduce the risk of flooding.

The government is looking to expand powers under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) and other legislation to the Environment Agency and its enforcement officers.   
Changes would mean officers could intervene earlier, bring more offenders to justice and disrupt the finances of organised gangs.
The government is preparing to publish its waste crime action plan, which will set out a new approach to waste crime.

Energy secretary Ed Miliband has announced a raft of measures in the pursuit of national energy security.
The government is working with the Competition and Markets Authority to ensure that fuel suppliers cannot engage in unfair practices towards consumers such as price gouging amid ongoing events in the Middle East. The CMA has set out plans to step up monitoring of the road fuel sector to rapidly identify any signs that fuel stations are exploiting the situation.

The government has announced a £100 million investment to speed up planning approvals.
It is hoped a more dynamic, modern approach to regulation will provide new homes, better transport and cleaner energy more quickly.
Strategic Policy Statements will give Natural England and the Environment Agency will get a mandate to prioritise outcomes over process, speeding up decision-making while maintaining high environmental standards.

The government has announced new measures to protect local election candidates from harassment and intimidation.
Police will be better equipped to protect candidates from abuse, intimidation, and violence, with a new national police unit to be established to target offenders who threaten and harass election candidates ahead of the May elections.
The new unit will bring together specialist officers and intelligence experts to monitor reports of abuse from across the country. It will identify repeat offenders and help police forces build stronger cases against them.

Two primary schools in Newport, Wales, have received solar panels as part of £9 million funding to decarbonise public buildings and reduce energy bills.
The funding comes from Great British Energy and is being overseen by the Welsh Government.
Glan Llyn Primary School and Jubilee Park Primary School have both received funding from the Wales Funding Programme.
Glan Llyn has also received funding for battery storage from the Welsh Government’s Ynni Cymru fund. The site is now a functioning Smart Local Energy System.

An extra £40.5 million of funding has been allocated to support essential capital repairs and maintenance across schools, colleges and universities in Wales.

The Hereditary Peers Bill has passed in the House of Lords, meaning hereditary peers will no longer have the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords.
The House of Lords is one of only two legislative bodies in the world that still contains a hereditary element. While over 600 hereditary peers were removed from the Lords in the House of Lords Act 1999, 92 were retained as an interim measure.
The Bill will come into effect at the end of this Parliament.

The prime minister has launched a new Civil Society Council bringing together leading voices from across the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector.
The goal is to bring civil society to the heart of government decision-making.
The Council will oversea the implementation of the Civil Society Covenant at national and local level, and builds on last summer’s Civil Society Summit and the launch of the Office for the Impact Economy.