On Wednesday, the new government set out its key priorities in the King’s Speech. Despite some positive movement towards accelerating the transition to net zero, it was a missed opportunity to set clear and ambitious vision for climate and social justice in the UK. UKYCC reacts to some of the policy announcements below.
The headline focus was on public investment for net zero - announcements of both the Great British Energy Bill to create GB Energy that will boost investment in renewable energy projects and the National Wealth Fund to invest in wider net zero projects are welcome. However, the details of exactly how these measures will work are still light and we are left questioning whether the £7.3 billion funding pot announced for the National Wealth Fund will be large enough to be truly transformative, compared to the £28 billion in green investment once pledged by Labour.
Social justice received more attention than in recent years under the previous government, but much more ambition and action is needed. We hugely welcome the policies to strengthen workers’ rights, including the end of exploitative zero hours’ contracts and introducing mandatory flexibility in all jobs. The immediate action to improve care for those going through acute mental health crises is an important step in the right direction. However, key manifesto promises that were set to tackle poverty and create a fairer society were notably absent. Labour promised an ambitious child poverty strategy, yet the King’s Speech failed to include a reversal of the two-child cap on benefits - a key driver of child poverty. Despite an overdue move to ensure fair pay in the social care factor, the manifesto promise to restructure the whole industry - which all parties agree is broken - was not addressed.
Tackling the housing crisis was a big expectation on the new government and we welcome significant areas of progress particularly the long-awaited ban on no-fault evictions - the ending of tenancies is one of the biggest causes of homelessness. Alongside this reform in the Renters’ Rights Bill is the Decent Homes Standard, which aims to tackle damp and mouldy privately rented homes. However, the government mentioned no plans to regulate rent levels to ensure they remain affordable. In a similar vein, the government’s new Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which aims to “get Britain building”, contained no detail on how the 1.5 million new homes would be kept affordable or meet social housing demand, nor where they any considerations to ensure our natural environment was protected in the construction of these new builds. The scale and embedded nature of the UK’s housing crisis needs increasingly ambitious legislation, which was not delivered in the speech.
On political reform, the government signalled huge support for devolution with the biggest tranche of measures to decentralise power since 1997 by advancing and standardising England’s devolution framework and making devolution easier for areas not currently served by a mayor, as well as removing the final hereditary peers from the House of Lords. However, 16 and 17-year-olds face continued exclusion from the political system, as Labour does not intend to give them the vote until the next General Election, meaning yet another local election next year in which the youngest generation do not have a voice. The King’s Speech shows that many policy areas in dire need of reform are priorities of the new government, but the urgency of the climate crisis means that ambitious action must be set in motion much quicker and in a transformative, holistic approach to tackling the intertwined crises facing society.
A number of backbench and opposition MPs tabled amendments to the King’s Speech, including Amendment A backed by all four Green MPs and independent MP Jeremy Corbyn calling for an end to the two-child benefit cap as part of “an urgent transformative programme to tackle multiple challenges”, including climate change, social housing and inequality. Amendment C also calls for the government to support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages, as well as the immediate recognition of the state of Palestine and the suspension of arms sales to Israel. While it is essential and welcome to have this pressure applied to the government from the backbenches, this isn’t enough: we must push to see genuine ambition come from the heart of government. We look forward to engaging with the new Parliament to hold the government to account and pushing an ambitious agenda for climate, youth, and wider social justice.
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