The Queen’s Speech, setting out the government’s programme for the forthcoming session, was read to the Commons and the Lords by His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cornwall yesterday.
The speech detailed a busy legislative programme with 38 new bills. Those bills include:
- An Energy Security Bill delivering a more secure and homegrown energy system that is more affordable and cleaner cutting the cost for households.
- A Non-Domestic Rating Bill introducing more frequent revaluations based on more accurate data bring more fairness to the business rating system.
- Two bills increasing fairness, better homes and security for tenants – the Social Housing Regulation Bill and the Renters Reform Bill.
- A UK Infrastructure Bank Bill to put the Infrastructure Bank on a statutory footing and target funding to better support regional and local growth.
Measures also include £22bn of support for households hit by the cost of living crisis. There were also announcements confirmed on programmes already underway to recruit more 20,000 new police officers and 27,000 new nurses. An additional £1.5bn was announced to tackle GP backlogs and £2.3bn for NHS diagnostic work.
Harrogate and Knaresborough MP, Andrew Jones, welcomed the measures. Mr Jones commented: “This is a busy legislative programme with measures to help address the dramatic increase in the cost of living, the backlog in the NHS following COVID-19 and many other issues. I look forward to getting stuck into the debates around the Government’s programme and introducing measures that will help the poorest, support our public services and improve our environment by further reducing our dependence on overseas fossil-fuel energy.”
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