Afternoon summary
- Boris Johnson has signalled that the government will set up a public inquiry into Covid within a year, telling MPs it will happen before the end of this parliamentary session. (See 3.46pm.)
- The UK’s financial regulator has launched a formal investigation into the collapse of Greensill Capital, as David Cameron’s text message lobbying of serving ministers in an efforts to save the controversial bank were made public for the first time. The Cameron documents are available here (pdf).
- Lex Greensill, the financier, has rejected a suggestion from a member of the Commons Treasury committee that he is a fraudster. (See 5.06pm.)
That’s all from me for today. But our coronavirus coverage continues on our global live blog. It’s here.
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Planning bill could lead to 'wrong homes in wrong places', May tells MPs
Theresa May, the Conservative former prime minister, used her speech in the Queen’s speech debate to take a series of swipes at her successor’s record.
- May said the planning bill could lead to “the wrong homes being build in the wrong places”. She said:
I think [Tory MP Katherine Fletcher] thought that this proposal would bring greater local involvement. In fact, the white paper proposals bring less local involvement.
They reduce local democracy, they remove the opportunity for local people to comment on specific developments, they remove the ability of local authorities to set development policies locally - and I think the white paper proposals would also lead to fewer affordable homes because it hands developers a get-out clause.
We need more homes to be built, we need the right homes to be built in the right places. I fear that unless the government looks again at the white paper planning proposals what we will see is not more homes, but we will potentially see the wrong homes being built in the wrong places.
- She said the government should “look again” at the decision to cut the aid budget. She said:
I would urge the government to look again at this reduction because it is having an impact on the poorest and on suffering across the world. And if we really want to show our values as a country then I think we should be doing everything we can to uphold those commitments.
- She said the government should not delay adult social care reform. Referring to her own manifesto plans on this in 2017, which derailed her election campaign, she said:
I know it’s not an easy issue, I put forward a plan, it was comprehensively rejected - so I recognise the difficulty in trying to come forward with something here, but it is an issue we need to grasp.
I think the pandemic has shown, and the issues around social care that came up have shown, the importance of this and of reform that genuinely provides a sustainable social care system into the future.
It also needs to be a system that does not exacerbate the intergenerational divisions.
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Greensill rejects suggestion from Treasury committee MP that he's fraudster
Back at the Treasury committee Lex Greensill says his company clearly failed. But he says that “taking real-time information out of corporate accounting systems and using that information to make credit decisions” is clearly the future.
Q: You stood to gain so much that you lost sight of what was right?
Greensill says his company grew because it was helping other businesses.
Q: But your scheme was different from proper supply chain finance. You lost up to £1bn of public money?
Greensill does not respond to that, because another MP is asking questions now. It’s Siobhain McDonagh, the Labour MP.
Q: Mr Greensill, are you a fraudster?
No, says Greensill.
Q: You are lending against transactions that might never happen. Isn’t that fraud.
Greensill says people were buying an investment. They knew that risk was involved. And because Greensill knew there was a risk, it purchased insurance.
Updated
The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Campaign, which was been actively campaigning for a public inquiry into the pandemic, says the inquiry promised by Boris Johnson should start this summer.
The Prime Minister has just confirmed that there will be a "full proper public inquiry" into Covid-19 in this Parliamentary session.
— Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK (@CovidJusticeUK) May 11, 2021
This inquiry must begin this Summer and it must have full statutory powers.
Learn Lessons. Save Lives.#CovidInquiryNow pic.twitter.com/YNlqzadbXX
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Q: Lord Myners told us this would cost the taxpayer £3bn to £5bn. You have tried to discredit his evidence. Who should we believe? Who is lying?
Greensill says he is telling the truth.
Q: So Myners is lying?
Greensill says he is giving a true account, supported by written evidence.
Q: Myners says there will be £1bn direct costs to the taxpayer from what happened, and £3.5bn indirect costs. Is that right?
Greensill says he does not know how Myners came up with those numbers.
Q: What do you think the loss to the taxpayer is?
“There has been no loss to the taxpayer,” says Greensill.
Updated
Back in the Treasury committee Labour’s Rushanara Ali is asking questions now. She starts by asking about the lobbying by the company, and by David Cameron.
Lex Greensill says they did not lobby ahead of the launch of the CBILS (Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme).
He says after the British Business Bank said it could use the scheme, it then asked if could access to the £200m limit, not the £50m limit.
That approval was not allowed.
Q: Something improper went on. You restructured so that you could access the scheme. The loans were broken up.
Greensill says they operated in line with the British Business Bank rules.
He says he cannot discuss individual clients with the committee.
Updated
Here is some reaction from opposition parties to Boris Johnson’s announcement in the Commons earlier (see 3.39pm and 3.46pm) about launching a public inquiry into Covid within a year.
From Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader:
We welcome this commitment and will hold the prime minister to it.
It must be entirely open and truly independent, have the trust and confidence of bereaved families, and cannot be an exercise in the government marking its own homework.
We went into this pandemic with the foundations of our public services and our communities weakened by a decade of Conservative governments. We must learn lessons from that, as well as from how the crisis has been handled.
From Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader:
BREAKING: the PM has just told me, he will start an independent inquiry into the Government’s handling of Covid, in this parliamentary session - ie in the next 12 months.
— Ed Davey MP 🔶🇪🇺 (@EdwardJDavey) May 11, 2021
We’ll hold him to account on behalf of our country’s bereaved families - so they can get answers & justice.
From Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP:
PM has just pledged to hold a #Covid Inquiry during this parliamentary session
— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) May 11, 2021
It’s vital that it’s genuinely independent & wide ranging so lessons are learned, bereaved families get justice & never again are so many lives lost @CovidJusticeUK #CovidInquiryNow
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At the Treasury committee Mel Stride is now asking about David Cameron’s lobbying on behalf of Greensill.
Lex Greensill says his conversations with Cameron were focused on the financing facility available during the Covid crisis, and in particular the CCFF (Covid corporate financing facility).
He says liquidity was “in very, very short supply”. They were talking about what impact that would have on their business.
Q: Would it be fair to say the reason given during the lobbying to the Treasury for you needing support, that you would then be able help small businesses, was not the same as the actual reason for needing support, which was that you needed to shore up your own finances?
Greensill says the two points are the same.
- Mel Stride, the Treasury committee chair, suggests Treasury was not told real reason why Greensill needed help during Covid crisis.
Q: But you needed to get cash into the business?
Greensill says his company at no time sought funding for itself.
Q: But the model needed to be financed.
Greensill says his clients needed that continued liquidity. They were real businesses, he says.
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Sky’s Paul Kelso summarises the Lex Greensill evidence so far.
Lex Greensill, dressed for the City but giving evidence from home, taking three pronged approach: apologise to those who've lost jobs; blame his insurers for collapsing the company; and discredit Parliamentary accuser Lord Myners, who he says was discussing a seat on the board
— Paul Kelso (@pkelso) May 11, 2021
Ministers criticised for dropping employment bill from Queen's speech
There is anger in the women’s sector at the apparent dropping of the employment bill from the Queen’s speech.
The bill has been widely viewed as a vital legislative vehicle for protecting the rights of pregnant workers and improving gender equality in the UK, with campaigners hoping it would provide greater protections for pregnant women against being made redundant, address the low take-up of shared parental leave, provide neonatal leave for parents and make flexible working the default option for employees.
Caroline Nokes, Conservative chair of the Commons women and equalities committee told the Guardian an employment bill was necessary to have a proper focus on female employment. She said:
We know that women have been particularly impacted by the pandemic and the sectors that have traditionally had a huge proportion of female jobs have been very much impacted. So we need to have a focus on how we can make sure that women – as well as young people, men, older workers – find roots back into work.
She had been optimistic because of comments made by Liz Truss, the minister for women and equalities, that there would be “a real commitment and drive” from the government to introduce new legislation around flexible working. Nokes added:
We’ve had some comments in the Queen’s speech about employment, and I would like to see them fleshed out further so that we can get an idea whether we will actually see legislation coming forward because it’s imperative that that happens as soon as possible.
But Ros Bragg, director of Maternity Action, said the apparent dropping of the bill was “deeply disappointing” and would leave pregnant women facing a wave of redundancies when furlough ended. She said:
Ministers have repeatedly promised women stronger legal protection – in their December 2019 manifesto – and they now need to urgently deliver on that promise.
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Back in the committee Stride asks why Greensill failed.
Greensill says the company’s main insurer withdrew its insurance.
As for why insurance was withdrawn, that was partly because of Covid, he says. He says the company did have “concentrations” that were a source of regret. And he says the actions of the regulator in Germany provided uncertainty.
The UK’s financial regulator has launched a formal investigation into the collapse of Greensill Capital, as David Cameron’s text message lobbying of serving ministers in an efforts to save the controversial bank were made public for the first time, my colleague Rupert Neate reports.
Greensill quotes from a note that Myners sent the company in July last year saying that he was comfortable with the way Greensill Capital worked and saw nothing in the way it worked to warrant the use of the term fraudulent.
This statement was sent by Myners after the meeting with Greensill previously referred to. (See 4.06pm.)
Mel Stride, the chair, opens by referring to a meeting that Lord Myners had with Greensill. Myners came away thinking that Greensill’s business model was akin to a Ponzi scheme.
Greensill says he was surprised when Myners said that to the committee two weeks ago. He says it is not consistent with his recollection of events. He says he has checked his records.
Greensill opens with apology - and says his firm was let down by its insurer
Greensill opens with a short statement.
He says he bears complete responsiblity for the collapse of his company.
He is desperately saddened that more than 1,000 people have lost their jobs.
And he is sorry for any hardship felt by his clients.
He says he was let down by his leading insurer.
To all of those affected by this, I am truly sorry.
Lex Greensill gives evidence to Commons Treasury committee
The financier Lex Greensill is about to give evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the collapse of his company, and its involvement with government.
There is a live feed here.
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Wesminster, is speaking in the Queen’s speech today. He says the SNP won 85% of the constituencies in the Holyrood election on 48% of the vote. That was the highest number of constituencies ever won in a Scottish parliament election, he says, and the highest share of the vote. He says the SNP clearly have a mandate for a second referendum.
In response to Tory jeers that the SNP didn’t win, he says their view is “warped”. The SNP won 62 of the 73 constituency seats, he says.
This is from Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, responding to Boris Johnson’s jibe about her earlier. (See 3.32pm.)
The only title I'm hungry for, @BorisJohnson, is Deputy Prime Minister.
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) May 11, 2021
As the Times’ Henry Zeffman points out, this might be a coded message to Sir Keir Starmer too. Harriet Harman was Labour’s deputy leader, but Gordon Brown never gave her the title deputy prime minister.
Erm... niche but Rayner is shadow first secretary of state, not shadow deputy prime minister. So if Starmer gets into government, I guess this is a sign she won't settle for first secretary of state https://t.co/hMvJgIt8Ud
— Henry Zeffman (@hzeffman) May 11, 2021
Lawyers for a man challenging the government’s decision to hold voter ID trials in 2019 are to seek to bring forward his supreme court hearing of the case, in light of the Queen’s speech.
Neil Coughlan, aged 68, of Witham, Essex, who does not hold photo ID, has been fighting a crowdfunded legal case against the proposals since pilot schemes in 10 local authority areas, including his own, were rolled out in 2019. After the high court ruled that the schemes were lawful and judges at the court of appeal agreed, he was granted permission to take his case to the supreme court.
With the government announcing it intends to introduce a bill “at the earliest opportunity” to require voters to produce photographic identification at polling stations in parliamentary elections in the UK, his solicitors, from Leigh Day, will submit an application for his case to be heard as soon as possible.
Coughlan’s arguments include that a requirement to produce identification at the polling booth as a prerequisite to voting is an interference with the constitutional right to vote.
The case is supported by LGBT Foundation, Stonewall, Runnymede Trust, Operation Black Vote and Voice4Change, who have all been granted permission to intervene in the case by the supreme court.
Coughlan said:
Now that voter ID plans have been included in the Queen’s speech, I am asking the supreme court if it is possible for my case to be heard as soon as possible. I am convinced that these plans will mean people miss out on their ability to vote in future parliamentary elections and it is important that MPs will have the benefit of the judgment of the supreme court when they debate the issue.
Johnson signals full public inquiry into Covid to be launched within year
This is what Boris Johnson said when Sir Ed Davey asked if the government would set up a public inquiry into Covid in this session of parliament (see 3.39pm). Johnson replied:
I can certainly say that we will do that within this session, yes. I’ve made that clear before. I do believe it is essential that we have a full, proper public inquiry into the Covid pandemic, and I’ve been clear with the house before.
In fact, Johnson has not said before that he will launch the inquiry in this session of parliament (which is expected to last around a year).
Until now, he has said that holding an inquiry would distract from dealing with the pandemic. He also uses this argument as one of the reasons for not allowing a second Scottish independence referendum. If the pandemic is under control to the extent that a public inquiry is possible, it will be harder to argue that a second referendum could not take place too.
Updated
Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, asks if the government will set up the inquiry into Covid in this session of parliament.
Johnson says he will do that “this session”.
That means it should happen within the next year. A session of parliament roughly last for a year (although the last one lasted longer because it started in December 2019.)
Updated
Johnson is talking about the elections. He says 70% of police and crime commissioners are now Conservative.
He quotes the defeated Amber Valley Labour council leader who responded to defeat by saying: “The voters have let us down. I hope they don’t live to regret it.” Johnson says that is Labour’s approach; they want to change, not themselves, but the electorate.
Updated
Johnson is now making a joke about Starmer facing a potential threat from Angela Rayner. The more titles he feeds her, the hungrier she is likely to become.
(It started off as a reference to lions, prompted by the fact that Katherine Fletcher, whom he is praising, used to be a safari guide.)
Boris Johnson is speaking now.
He says the economy is poised to bounce back. He says he wants to level up, because talent is distributed across the country, but opportunity is not.
He says the challenge now is to turn jabs, jabs, jabs into jobs, jobs, jobs.
Updated
Starmer says Labour will consider the online safety bill. And it will look at plans to end violence against women.
But overall the Queen’s speech shows the government does not understand what went wrong in the last decade, he says. It is “a chance that has been squandered”.
Starmer says, if the government had acted to address the post-Grenfell cladding style, it would have had cross-party support.
The plans for compulsory voter ID will suppress turnout, and disproportionately affect people from ethnic minorities, he says.
Starmer claims the Queen’s speech also fails on skills and education. He says his father spent his life working on the factory floor. He knows how vital skills training is.
And he says the plans in the Queen’s speech will not do anything to address violent crime, which has doubled since 2015. Starmer says he drafted his own bill to help victims six years ago. The government should adopt it, he says.
Starmer says government's failure to publish plan for reform of adult social care 'unforgivable'
Starmer says the Queen’s speech should have raised the national living wage to £10 an hour, and included a stimulus to create 400,000 jobs.
And he says the failure to have a plan for adult social care is “unforgivable”.
He says it is 657 days since Boris Johnson stood outside No 10 and said he had a plan for social care. Failure to act on this after the pandemic is “nothing short of an insult to the whole nation”.
Updated
Starmer says Queen's speech should have been modelled on Biden's investment programme in US
Starmer is now on to the serious stuff.
This is a seminal moment, he says.
Even before the pandemic, Britain needed transformational change. He says there were 5.7 million people in low-paid or insecure work, and 4.2 million children in poverty.
And life expectancy stalled for the first time in century.
That is the record of 10 years of Conservative government, he says.
He says the pandemic has shown that if you live in low-quality, overcrowded housing, the pandemic will have been harder for you than for others.
So we needed a transformational Queen’s speech, he says.
Instead it merely “papers over the cracks, with short-term gimmicks”, he says.
He says there should have been a plan for jobs - like Joe Biden’s in the US.
Updated
Sir Keir Starmer is speaking now.
As is usual, he starts with tributes to the two backbenchers who opened the debate.
Back in the Commons, Katherine Fletcher is engaged in an extended metaphor about the characteristics of Tory MPs, involving puppies and grey-haired older dogs. It doesn’t sound very clear in summary like this, but it seems to be going down well in the chamber. She is making a point about the “sheer diversity of team Tory”.
These days, she says, when Boris Johnson goes on about Homer, Tory MPs are more likely to think Simpson, she says, than the classics.
(Shailesh Vara’s speech was lacklustre, but this one was more impressive.)
Updated
As the Telegraph’s Lucy Fisher reports, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, was showing his enthusiasm for the government’s levelling up agenda this morning by wearing an Old Etonian face mask. At £18 each, they’re obviously a bargain.
🧐 Jacob Rees-Mogg appears to have donned an "Old Etonian" facemask for the Queen's Speech today pic.twitter.com/DJoxZVyVUh
— Lucy Fisher (@LOS_Fisher) May 11, 2021
Back in the Commons Katherine Fletcher, the Conservative MP for South Ribble, is speaking now, seconding the loyal address. She starts by saying the Queen was “flipping ace”.
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has got a new newspaper column - in the London Evening Standard. This is from the Standard’s editor, Emily Sheffield.
Delighted that northern firebrand @andyburnham Mayor of Greater Manchester joins as a new columnist next week, writing on the burning issues that unite our regions. Today he tells us, we don’t London to level down for the north to prosper. @standardnews #kingofthenorth pic.twitter.com/TR5GQGUIy7
— Emily Sheffield (@emilysheffield) May 11, 2021
The Standard does not have a great circulation in Manchester (although you can read it online), and this will doubtless fuel suspicions that Burnham may be thinking about his next job in Labour politics.
Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall thinks Sir Keir Starmer won’t be pleased.
Can’t imagine many in Starmer’s office will be thrilled about this. May end up being a bit like Johnson’s pieces in the Telegraph during his King over the Water period against Theresa May.
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) May 11, 2021
Vara recalls coming to the UK from Uganda in the 1960s when he was a child. He could not speak English at that point. He says in those days it was lawful to discriminate against people on the grounds of race, and people did.
He says when he was selected as a candidate in 2000 his Labour opponent used his race and Hindu religion against him. He says that backfired.
Vara says he became the first non-white Conservative to speak from the despatch box in the Commons. That someone from his background was able to do so shows what a great country this is, he says.
Shailesh Vara, the Conservative former minister, is proposing the loyal address to the Queen. He jokes about how the Lib Dems are so small that they could all meet in the chamber - and still observe social distancing.
Updated
Speaker opens session with hint to PM that he must correct record when he makes false statements to MPs
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, is opening the session by reading out a spiel telling MPs they must comply with the MPs’ code of conduct.
This is a standard formality when parliament meets for the first time at the beginning of a new session. But Hoyle also includes a passage saying that he does not have the power to force MPs to correct the record when they make false comments in the chamber, and that it is therefore incumbent on MPs who do make an error to correct this.
This passage seems to have been added following the controversy about Boris Johnson persistently saying things in the Commons that are not true.
UPDATE: This is what Hoyle said:
The Speaker does not have the power to police the accuracy of members’ contributions. Therefore, it is incumbent upon members to be accurate in what they say in this house. But if a member is inaccurate by mistake, they should correct that mistake as soon as possible.
Updated
PA Media has more on the David Cameron emails and text messages published by the Treasury committee. (See 2.03pm.) It says:
David Cameron and his office staff sent ministers and officials 45 emails, texts and WhatsApp messages relating to Greensill Capital in less than four months.
A timeline of his contacts submitted by the former prime minister to the Treasury committee ahead of his appearance before the committee on Thursday also included 11 telephone calls or conference calls.
Cameron listed nine WhatsApp messages to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, as well as one telephone call.
He also recorded 12 texts sent to the permanent secretary of the Treasury, Sir Tom Scholar, and one call and six emails to Bank of England deputy governor, Sir Jon Cunliffe.
Cameron also sent texts to the Cabinet Office minister, Michael Gove, and called the health secretary, Matt Hancock.
There were also messages to ministers Jesse Norman, John Glen and Nadhim Zahawi.
The exchanges all took place between March 5 and June 26 last year.
Updated
MPs debate Queen's speech
MPs are about to start debating the Queen’s speech.
First Jill Mortimer, the new Conservative MP for Hartlepool, has formally taken her seat.
Anger over failure in Queen’s speech to set out social care plans
The government’s failure to bring forward details of its plans to reform adult social care in the Queen’s speech has triggered anger and frustration from the sector, amid warnings that hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people will be left without the support they need, my colleague Patrick Butler reports.
All those who attended the scaled-back state opening of parliament had to have a negative Covid test before hand, and there were no horse-drawn carriages this year.
In the royal gallery, usually filled with people, there were just 34 seated guests – 17 peers and 17 MPs, socially-distanced and wearing masks.
The Queen, in her first engagement outside of Windsor Castle since the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, wore day dress instead of the state robes for the occasion. She has previously worn day dress.
In the House of Lords she sat on a single ornate golden throne, where previously there were a pair of thrones, one each for the Queen and her consort. The consort’s throne, which was first installed in 1901 for Queen Alexandra, is in the care of the Lord Great Chamberlain for safe keeping.
Prince Charles has previously sat on the consort’s throne when accompanying the monarch, but during this Covid-secure ceremony, he sat with the Duchess of Cornwall to the side on chairs of state.
The Queen, who did not wear a mask, has not worn the heavy Imperial State Crown since 2016. Instead, as in the years since, it was transported to the Palace of Westminster by car and placed on a table.
The speech itself was contained in a cream booklet, and would normally be handed to the sovereign by the Lord Chancellor, Robert Buckland. This time, it had been placed on a table draped in an embroidered red and gold velvet covering next to the throne.
At eight minutes and 52 seconds, it was slightly shorter than the speech at the previous state opening in 2019, which ran for nine minutes and 14 seconds. It lasted 937 words, making it the shortest speech since 2016, and below the average length (1,095 words) of Queen’s speeches during the Queen’s 69-year-reign.
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Treasury committee publishes David Cameron's emails and text messages to Treasury lobbying for Greensill
Records of David Cameron’s intense lobbying efforts for Greensill Capital have been released, including the contents of text messages he sent Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, and Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, PA Media reports. PA says:
The Conservative former prime minister also sent messages to vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi during the pandemic as he sought to gain access for Greensill to government-backed coronavirus loans, it emerged on Tuesday.
MPs on the Commons Treasury committee released correspondence they have received by the subjects of their inquiry following Greensill Capital’s collapse, which jeopardised 5,000 steelmaking jobs in the UK.
Cameron provided the inquiry with messages he sent government officials and ministers during his work as an adviser to the firm.
One text message to Gove read: “I know you are manically busy - and doing a great job, by the way (this is bloody hard and I think the team is coping extremely well. But do you have a moment for a word? I am on this number and v free. All good wishes Dc.”
The Cameron text messages and emails are in a 32-page file available here (pdf).
It is one of nine documents published by the committee today here with evidence relating to the Greensill Capital investigation.
In a letter to the committee (pdf) Cameron says that he did not realise Greensill was in financial difficulties until December 2020. He says:
The first time I became concerned that the company might be in serious financial difficulty was in December 2020 following a call I received from Lex Greensill, during which I was told that the company’s planned capital raising was not going as well as had been hoped.
Up until that point, I firmly believed that Greensill was in good financial health. In the autumn of 2020, I understood Greensill was on track for a relatively strong year financially and it had embarked upon what looked likely to be a successful capital raising.
Updated
Queen's speech briefing document published
The government has now published the 164-briefing document (pdf) giving details of all the legislation and plans referred to in the Queen’s speech.
The government is to launch a consultation on how best to protect LGBT people when it bans the “coercive and abhorrent practice” of conversion therapy. As the Government Equalities Office (GEO) says in a news release, the consultation will “seek further views from the public and key stakeholders to ensure that the ban can address the practice while protecting the medical profession; defending freedom of speech; and upholding religious freedom”. Following the consultation, the government intends to legislate when time is available.
There is no specific timeframe for the consultation but the government wants it to be “short and prompt”, the prime minister’s official spokesman said.
Burnham says 'new Manchester radicalism' should be about devolution, and taking power away from parliament
Andy Burnham has asked whether the lot of working class women in a “London-centric and male-dominated” parliament has really changed in 200 years, in veiled criticism of Labour’s treatment of Angela Rayner.
The comments follow an ongoing furious row within the party over the treatment of deputy leader, and Greater Manchester MP, Rayner, at the weekend. Leaked plans that she was to be sacked as party chair and national campaigns coordinator following Labour’s humiliating loss in the Hartlepool by-election, and the resulting outcry, overshadowed a more positive set of results for the party on Saturday, including Burnham’s re-election as mayor for Greater Manchester with an increased vote share.
Burnham was speaking at an unveiling ceremony this morning for a plaque commemorating 200 years since the Manchester Guardian was founded at 3 Cross Street in the city centre, the site of the original Guardian offices.
Paying tribute to the Guardian’s foundation following the Peterloo massacre in 1819, Burnham said the protesters then were “protesting about lack of a voice in parliament for working class people”. He went on to mention the suffragette movement 100 years later, also founded in Manchester, led by women who were protesting about the lack of a voice for women in parliament.
Two hundred years on, have things really changed that much? Has the lot of working class people, working class women, really changed that much, once we’ve got those people into parliament and gave people the vote? I don’t think so actually, as someone who knows that world well, because we send people into a world that is still London-centric and male-dominated and, actually, that hasn’t really changed I don’t think in those years.
So where’s the new radicalism – the new Manchester radicalism? As we go forward, I don’t think it’s in putting people in parliament, it’s in taking power out of parliament and letting people here decide much more for themselves, and I think we’re beginning to see appetite now for real English devolution. Great cities like this [Manchester] being in charge of our own destiny, deciding what we think is right for the people here.
Burnham also said the plaque paid tribute to “a truly important piece of British social history” and said the Guardian should return its headquarters to Manchester.
Updated
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, asked about Johnny Mercer’s claim that the government has broken a promise to protect veterans from prosecution in relation to historic cases in Northern Ireland (see 12.34pm), the prime minister’s spokesman said legislation would be introduced in due course.
Asked if that meant within the next 12 months, the spokesman said:
We want to do this promptly and we also want to make sure this is done properly. We have listened to a wide range of stakeholders since last March and we’ve also engaged substantially with the Irish government and the Northern Ireland parties on this issue and we will bring forward legislation in due course.
In his response to the Queen’s speech Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, said:
Boris Johnson has completely failed to deliver the investment and change required to build a strong, fair and equal recovery. Instead the Tories are imposing the long-term damage of austerity cuts, Brexit and a power grab against Scotland’s will.
The Tories are repeating the same mistakes they made after the last economic crisis, by forcing through damaging cuts that are threatening Scotland’s recovery. Instead of building a fairer society, the Tories are entrenching inequality and pushing people into poverty by imposing a public sector pay freeze, cuts to universal credit, and an “efficiency review” of public services.
Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex/Shutterstock
Updated
In a response to the Queen’s speech, Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, said the government’s plans for the climate crisis did not match the scale of the challenge. She said:
The prime minister’s talk about building a strong recovery from Covid will take us down the road to disaster unless it is a green recovery, focused on decarbonisation, creating sustainable businesses and jobs and accelerating the path to net zero.
The government also has to abandon the fixation with growth and recognise that prioritising GDP growth above all other measures is what is fuelling the climate and ecological crises. The warnings are coming thick and fast that we have to change our approach, moving to an economic model which prioritises wellbeing and the health of people and planet.
Lucas also described the plans to require voters to show photo ID at polling stations as a “blatant attempt at voter suppression [that] comes straight out of the US Republicans’ playbook”.
Updated
Former minister Johnny Mercer claims government has broken promise to legislate to protect Northern Ireland veterans
Johnny Mercer, who was sacked as veterans minister recently before he resigned over the government failing in his view to honour its promise to protect Northern Ireland veterans from prosecutions over historical cases, has accused ministers of going back on a promise to include a bill in the Queen’s speech. He has posted this on Twitter.
I was personally promised this on a number of occasions. It was never delivered. Hence I resigned.
— Johnny Mercer (@JohnnyMercerUK) May 11, 2021
My successor promised it would be in the Queens Speech. It is not. At some stage, we must fulfil our promises to our Veterans. pic.twitter.com/Tzg4Wgqepc
After Mercer’s resignation last month, his successor, Leo Docherty, told MPs:
I would like to confirm to the house that a bill will soon come forward from the Northern Ireland Office that will protect our Northern Ireland veterans of Operation Banner and address the legacy of the Troubles.
The 164-page briefing document on the Queen’s speech distributed to journalists does not mention any bill of this kind. But in the introduction to the pack Boris Johnson says the government “will introduce legislation to address the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, ensuring that our proposals deliver better outcomes for victims, survivors and veterans, while ending the cycle of investigations”.
Last week the Times published a story (paywall) saying the government intended to introduce a statute of limitations in Northern Ireland so that “no one can be charged over incidents up to the 1998 Good Friday agreement except for cases involving war crimes, genocide or torture”. Military veterans and terrorists would both be covered, the Times said. It said the government was instead planning a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission to uncover the truth about past killings.
The fact that Johnson alludes to this plan in his introduction, but that no detail has been provided in the main briefing pack, suggests ministers have yet to work out how to implement this.
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The higher education (freedom of speech) bill promised in the Queen’s speech will allow people to seek compensation in the courts if they “suffer loss as a result of the breach of freedom of speech duties” imposed on universities, according to the government’s briefing. As the Mirror’s Dan Bloom argues, this suggests far right speakers could be compensated if they get “cancelled”.
Far-right get compensation for being 'cancelled' in culture war Queen's Speechhttps://t.co/u0BUpGyMU5
— Dan Bloom (@danbloom1) May 11, 2021
The Liberal Democrats have issued this verdict on the Queen’s speech from Sir Ed Davey, the party leader. He said:
We must rebuild as a fairer, greener and more caring country in the aftermath of Covid. So it is crushingly disappointing that the government’s plans will fail on every account – still failing small businesses and the self-employed, still not rising properly to the climate challenge and still ignoring millions of people caring for loved ones at home.
Their planning reforms will rip powers away from local people and communities in favour of wealthy property developers, threatening our environment and treasured green spaces. Their cruel asylum plans will stop people fleeing violence and persecution, from seeking sanctuary in the UK. And long delayed reforms to social care have been pushed back into the long grass once again, despite the pressures we have seen on care homes and carers this last year.
Boris Johnson has utterly failed to deliver an ambitious programme to respond to the real challenges people are facing after this terribly difficult year.
From Tom Newton Dunn from Times Radio
What's NOT in the Queen's Speech? Three big omissions:
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) May 11, 2021
- no bill to end veteran troops prosecutions in NI, just a vague offer of "legislation”
- no promise to legislate on social care, just "proposals will be brought forward”
- the long awaited online harms bill is just draft
Dafydd Wigley, a former leader of Plaid Cymru and a member of the House of Lords, says the Queen’s speech should have made it clear that much of the legislation mentioned only covers England.
The Government must really get their act together in formulating the Queen's Speech. A whole raft of legislation listed in ty be Speech will only relate to England but this was not made clear. Surely wrong for the Government to put words into the Queen's mouth that are misleading
— Dafydd Wigley (@Dafydd_Wigley) May 11, 2021
A new flag was flying above the Houses of Parliament today – a House of Commons flag. Featuring a gold portcullis on a green background, it was designed by the UK’s national flag charity, the Flag Institute, and it was being used today for the first time. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, said:
I want people to feel the warmth of our hospitality from the moment they pass through Carriage Gates and into New Palace Yard.
So, the flying of the House of Commons flag, next to the union flag and other flags marking significant national events or Commonwealth national days, sends that important message of welcome.
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This is from David Lammy, the shadow justice minister, on the Queen’s speech.
The @Conservatives have promised a Victims’ Bill in almost every Queen’s Speech since 2016.
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) May 11, 2021
Yet five years on, their bill still has not appeared in Parliament.@UKLabour has its Victims' Bill published, brought to Parliament, and ready to go.
Here is our news story about the Queen’s speech, by my colleagues Peter Walker and Lisa O’Carroll.
Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA
MPs are now back in the House of Commons. The sitting will now be suspended until the opening of the Queen’s speech debate at 2.30pm.
The Queen says:
Members of the House of Commons
Estimates for the public services will be laid before you.
My lords and members of the House of Commons
Other measures will be laid before you.
I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon your counsels.
Analysis: The estimates are the measures by which MPs approve government spending decisions. Peers do not have a say in those. As is usual, the Queen ends with an “other measures” qualifier - which is an admission that the government may have to pass other legislation not mentioned today because things change.
The Queen says:
My ministers will provide our gallant armed forces with the biggest spending increase in thirty years, taking forward their programme of modernisation and reinforcing the United Kingdom’s commitment to NATO. My ministers will honour and strengthen the Armed Forces Covenant, placing it in law. Measures will be introduced to provide national insurance contribution relief for employers of veterans.
Legislation will be introduced to counter hostile activity by foreign states. My ministers will implement the integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy.
The United Kingdom will host the G7 Summit and lead the global effort to secure a robust economic recovery from the pandemic. My ministers will deepen trade ties in the Gulf, Africa and the Indo-Pacific.
My government will continue to provide aid where it has the greatest impact on reducing poverty and alleviating human suffering. My government will uphold human rights and democracy across the world. It will take forward a global effort to get 40 million girls across the world into school.
Analysis: The government is promising an armed forces bill. It regularly has to renew the Armed Forces Act, which gives legal underpinning to the armed forces, but this bill will put the Armed Forces Covenant in law - a long-standing Conservative commitment.
The government (which drafts the Queen’s speech) has got the Queen to include a passage stressing the government’s commitment to international aid spending. You would not guess from this passage that aid spending is actually being cut (one of four examples of broken manifesto promises identified by the Institute for Government in a report today - see 9.23am).
The Queen says:
Legislation will increase sentences for the most serious and violent offenders and ensure the timely administration of justice. Proposals will be brought forward to address violence, including against women and girls, and to support victims. Measures will be brought forward to establish a fairer immigration system that strengthens the United Kingdom’s borders and deters criminals who facilitate dangerous and illegal journeys.
My government will lead the way in ensuring internet safety for all, especially for children, whilst harnessing the benefits of a free, open and secure internet.
Analysis: Alongside the planning bill, the other really contentious piece of legislation in the Queen’s speech is the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, which was introduced in the last session of parliament but which has been carried over and which has yet to get its line-by-line scrutiny in the Commons, or pass the Lords. This is the bill that has generated dozens of protests because it makes it easier for the police to stop demonstrations. Labour voted against the bill at second reading, but ministers seems to be assuming that the public at large will side with their authoritarianism, rather than opposition’s support for the right to protest.
The government is also promising a draft victims bill, legislation to implement the new plan for immigration, and a draft online safety bill.
The Queen says:
My Government will invest in new green industries to create jobs, while protecting the environment. The United Kingdom is committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and will continue to lead the way internationally by hosting the COP26 Summit in Glasgow. Legislation will set binding environmental targets. Legislation will also be brought forward to ensure the United Kingdom has, and promotes, the highest standards of animal welfare.
My government will strengthen and renew democracy and the constitution. Legislation will be introduced to ensure the integrity of elections, protect freedom of speech and restore the balance of power between the executive, legislature and the courts. My ministers will promote the strength and integrity of the union. Measures will be brought forward to strengthen devolved government in Northern Ireland and address the legacy of the past.
My government will introduce measures to increase the safety and security of its citizens.
Analysis: If you want to know which government department has been most successful at getting its legislation into the Queen’s speech, the answer might be “Upstairs” - the term Boris Johnson reportedly uses with his aides to refer to the views of his partner, Carrie Symonds. Symonds is a passionate animal welfare campaigner and, according to the government’s briefing there are three animal rights bills in this package: an animal welfare (sentience) bill, a kept animals bill, and animals abroad bill.
Other bills referred to in this passage are an environment bill, an electoral integrity bill, a higher education (freedom of speech) bill, a judicial review bill, a dissolution and calling of parliament bill and a Northern Ireland (ministers, elections and petitions of concerns) bill.
The Queen says:
Measures will be brought forward to ensure that children have the best start in life, prioritising their early years. My ministers will address lost learning during the pandemic and ensure every child has a high quality education and is able to fulfil their potential.
My government will help more people to own their own home whilst enhancing the rights of those who rent. Laws to modernise the planning system, so that more homes can be built, will be brought forward, along with measures to end the practice of ground rents for new leasehold properties. My ministers will establish in law a new building safety regulator to ensure that the tragedies of the past are never repeated.
Measures will be brought forward to address racial and ethnic disparities and ban conversion therapy.
Legislation will support the voluntary sector by reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and releasing additional funds for good causes.
Analysis: This passage refers to the planning bill, which will probably be one of the most contentious pieces of legislation in this session of parliament. The bill is designed to make the planning system “simpler, faster and more modern” but the plans already announced have attracted considerable opposition from Conservative MPs.
Other bills referred to here are the leasehold reform (ground rent) bill, the building safety bill, the dormant assets bill and the charities bill.
The Queen says:
My government will ensure that the public finances are returned to a sustainable path once the economic recovery is secure.
Analysis: Good luck with that, as they say. The government has not defined what “sustainable path” might mean. The government borrowed a peacetime record of £303bn to combat Covid-19 in the first full financial year of the crisis.
The Queen says:
My government will strengthen the economic ties across the union, investing in and improving national infrastructure. Proposals will be taken forward to transform connectivity by rail and bus and to extend 5G mobile coverage and gigabit capable broadband.
Legislation will support a lifetime skills guarantee to enable flexible access to high quality education and training throughout people’s lives.
Measures will be introduced to ensure that support for businesses reflects the United Kingdom’s strategic interests and drives economic growth. Laws will simplify procurement in the public sector. Eight new freeports will create hubs for trade and help regenerate communities.
Analysis: This passage refers to a series of bills at the heart of the levelling up agenda. They are: the high speed rail (Crewe – Manchester) bill, which authorises the next phase of HS2; the product security and telecommunications infrastructure bill, which will extend 5G mobile coverage; the skills and post-16 education bill, which is designed to enable lifelong learning; the subsidy control bill, which will set out a new, post-Brexit regime for state aid; a procurement bill, which is intended to make public sector procurement easier, replacing the current rules which are based on the EU regulations; and a national insurance contributions bill, which will allow NIC relief for people employing veterans, for people working in freeports and for people told to stay at home by NHS test and trace.
It is worth pointing out that HS2 is not that popular with some of the voters supposed to be benefiting from levelling up. In her revealing book Beyond the Red Wall, which is based on focus group research with voters in Red Wall seats, Deborah Mattinson (who has just been made Labour’s head of strategy) reveals huge scepticism about HS2. Describing one focus group she says:
All were agreed on one thing, however: HS2 is not the solution. Fundamentally, everyone believed that HS2’s aim had been to enable spoilt Londoners to move around the country with greater ease. Several of the Red Wallers I met had never been to London, and those that had had typically only visited for an occasional family holiday to see the sights or take in a West End show. They had no problem at all with the speed with which they could currently get from where they lived to the capital.
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The Queen says:
My ministers will oversee the fastest ever increase in public funding for research and development and pass legislation to establish an advanced research agency.
Following the unprecedented support provided to businesses during the pandemic, proposals will be brought forward to create and support jobs and improve regulation.
Analysis: This is a reference to the advanced research and invention agency bill, which is a legacy of Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief adviser until he resigned at the end of last year. He has been obsessed by the need for an agency like this for years. Based on an American model, it is intended to promote high-risk, high reward research. The government is going to spend £800m on it over the course of this parliament, and government briefing says one of its aims is “explicitly tolerating failure in pursuing ambitious research, development and exploitation”.
The Queen says:
My government will protect the health of the nation, continuing the vaccination programme and providing additional funding to support the NHS. My ministers will bring forward legislation to empower the NHS to innovate and embrace technology. Patients will receive more tailored and preventative care, closer to home. Measures will be brought forward to support the health and wellbeing of the nation, including to tackle obesity and improve mental health. Proposals on social care reform will be brought forward.
My government will build on the success of the vaccination programme to lead the world in life sciences, pioneering new treatments against diseases like cancer and securing jobs and investment across the country.
Analysis: The reference to legislation here is to the health and care bill, which will implement the proposals set out in the NHS reform white paper published earlier this year. Those plans got a mixed reception. Here is a summary of what experts said about them. And here is the Guardian’s editorial on the subject.
But is a health and care bill, not a health and social care bill. The only reference to social care - an issue that Boris Johnson claimed he already had a plan to address on the day be became prime minister in July 2019 is the sentence about how “proposals on social care reform will be brought forward”. Last week Johnson said the government said it would say something about this “in the course of the next few months”, but the government briefing accompanying the speech just says it will bring forward proposals “in 2021”.
Queen delivers the Queen's speech
The Queen starts:
My Lords and Members of the House of Commons.
My government’s priority is to deliver a national recovery from the pandemic that makes the United Kingdom stronger, healthier and more prosperous than before.
To achieve this, my government will level up opportunities across all parts of the United Kingdom, supporting jobs, businesses and economic growth and addressing the impact of the pandemic on public services.
Analysis: The last Queen’s speech, which took place days after the 2019 general election started with a commitment to deliver Brexit (although Boris Johnson had the good taste not to force the Queen to say her ministers would “get Brexit done”. With Brexit out of the way, this speech starts with the new priority for the government - levelling up.
But there is still quite a lot of doubt as to what it means. In a good article for ConservativeHome yesterday Rachel Wolf, who helped to write the 2019 Conservative manifesto, explains what it might involved, and how it might be delivered. But she concedes that the slogan is problematic. She says:
Truth be told, levelling up is a poor slogan. It has never done very well in our focus groups – people find it confusing and then, when it’s explained to them, mildly irritating. They don’t think they’re ‘levelled down’, they think they’re ignored. Equally, they find the idea that in four years they’re suddenly going to become London and the South East bizarre – it’s not what they want, and they don’t think it’s credible.
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MPs are now in the Lords, standing at the back. So the Queen can start.
Sir Keir Starmer is following Boris Johnson at what looks like a healthy two metres behind. He has not even gone for one metre plus, even though they are wearing masks. That spares the two of them the ordeal of having to make small talks with the cameras rolling.
Black Rod summons the MPs. There is no Denis Skinner in the Commons anymore, so no quips (or at least none we could hear from the TV footage).
Black Rod, Sarah Clarke, is heading for the Commons to summon MPs to hear the Queen’s speech.
The Queen is on the throne. She invites peers to be seated.
The Queen is now being escorted to the throne in the House of Lords by Prince Charles.
The Queen is on her way to Westminster now for the state opening.
The priceless Imperial State Crown has left Buckingham Palace with other regalia on its way to the Palace of Westminster, PA Media reports. It is made of more than 3,000 gemstones and weighs two pounds and 13 ounces, and was carried to the state opening by car. The Queen will not wear the heavy crown - the last time she did so was in 2016.
More people died with Covid in care homes in England and Wales in the second wave of the Covid pandemic than the first.
Figures released by the ONS this morning show that, while the rise in coronavirus deaths among care home residents was much sharper during the first wave, the absolute number of deaths attributed to the virus and the proportion of Covid deaths was higher in the second wave.
In the first wave there were 20,664 care home deaths (23.1%) either directly as a result of Covid or where coronavirus was a contributory factor compared with 21,677 such deaths (25.7%) in wave two.
However, the ONS notes that, due to enhanced testing and medical knowledge, there may have been other Covid deaths in the first wave caused by undiagnosed Covid cases in the first wave.
The release covers both those deaths which occurred in a care home as well as deaths where the person lived in a care home but died elsewhere. The ONS define the first wave having occurred between mid-March and the week ending 11 September 2020 and the second wave from then to the week ending 2 April 2021.
Separate figures also released by the ONS this morning show that there were 205 Covid deaths in England and Wales in the week to 30 April accounting for 2.1% of all deaths, a decrease of 55 deaths compared with the previous week.
This brings the total Covid death toll across the UK as of that date to 151,480, according to the ONS which counts all fatalities which mention Covid on the death certificate. This is higher than the most commonly cited government figure - currently 127,609 - which counts deaths which have occurred within 28 days of a positive test.
Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, said today the government should be defending the UK’s democracy from foreign interference rather than making it harder for people in the country to vote by making photo ID compulsory. She told Sky News:
We have got to defend our democracy robustly but I just think it’s really bizarre coming from this Government that they have made it so much more difficult for people in this country to vote over recent years, but they have taken absolutely no action to defend our democracy from attacks overseas.
It has been 18 months since the prime minister was handed a report that said that Russia in particular was interfering in our democracy, a series of recommendations in that report, and not a single one has been implemented.
So in today’s Queen’s Speech what I will be looking for is not more action to make it more difficult for people in Britain to vote, but more action to make sure we don’t allow other countries to interfere in our democracy.
Senior Conservatives have been saying the government should use the Queen’s speech to address the social care crisis.
Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, told Radio 4’s Today programme:
I’m hoping to hear that we will introduce a cap on people’s care costs, because around one in 10 of us will have catastrophically high care costs.
It’s an incredible worry for people. It’s a lottery. You don’t know - that could be you.
I think in a civilised society we should find a way of taking away that worry.
I think there’s a big misconception here that this is sort of helping people with expensive houses in the South East pass on their inheritance.
And Damian Green, the former first secretary of state, told Sky News:
The root of all this is we all agree you have to spend more money on social care, we have got a slightly threadbare system now.
Where that money comes from is why it has proved so politically difficult over the decades.
People have to accept we are all going to have to pay more money, how you do that is the key.
Hunt and Green must know full well they are not likely to hear anything much on this today. Last week Boris Johnson effectively said that a plan for reforming social care would not be published until the summer.
Tories keeping many manifesto pledges, but struggling to fulfil key ones, says thinktank
Good morning. Today it’s the Queen’s speech, setting out the government’s legislative agenda for the next year. To a large extent it’s a ceremonial occasion - the Queen turns up, of course (although social distancing means the flummery will be toned down a bit this year) and the debate in the Commons is expected to feature a lot of jokes - but it also allows the prime minister to highlight his priorities for the year ahead. The speech itself rarely contains any surprises (legislation does not appear out of nowhere, and so the bills have almost always been previewed) and it may not even be a very good guide to what will actually happen (there was no Coronavirus Act in the last Queen’s speech). But, still, it’s a moment to take stock.
Here is our overnight preview.
And, on the subject of taking stock, the Institute for Government has published a report today (pdf) on how well the government is doing in terms of keeping its manifesto promises. The verdict is mixed.
It says that, out of 287 manifesto commitments, the government has completed or is in track with around half of them. And on another quarter it is making progress.
But the report also says that the government will struggle to fulfil some of its key pledges. It says:
Overall, the numbers paint a positive picture, with nearly half of the government’s manifesto commitments completed or on track. But there are six key policy areas where sizeable, difficult work remains: NHS and social care, ‘levelling up’, net zero, devolution, tax and fiscal strategy, and the constitution ...
These numbers do not give the full picture. Many of the pledges the government has already completed involved spending, conducting reviews or promises not to do things – many that remain will require more concerted action. Precious little progress has been made, for example, on finding a funding solution for social care – an aim left unrealised by successive governments, and one that this government appears set to push back again. Elsewhere, ahead of the COP26 UN climate summit in November, which the UK is hosting, much is to be done to bring the country on track to meet its own carbon emission targets. And with independence remaining on the agenda in Scotland, talk of a border poll in Northern Ireland and growing support for independence in Wales, its quest to “bind together the whole of the United Kingdom” will be harder than simply replacing EU grants to the devolved nations. In all, there are 55 pledges the government has yet to tackle, 15 deemed at risk of failure, one delayed and four it has abandoned.
The four manifesto promises that have been abandoned, according to the IfG, are: maintaining aid spending at 0.7% of national income; reducing the national debt over the course of the parliament; introducing full fibre and gigabit broadband for the whole of the UK by 2025; and publishing an English devolution white paper by 2020.
Here is the agenda for the day.
11.25am: The Queen’s delivers the Queen’s speech at the state opening of parliament.
12.15pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, holds a coronavirus briefing.
Lunchtime: Downing Street is due to hold its daily lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Sir Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson speak at the start of the debate on the Queen’s speech. But, as is traditional, the two government backbenchers will open the debate by proposing and seconding the loyal address. Shailesh Vara and Katherine Fletcher have been selected, and their speeches are primarily expected to be entertaining.
2.30pm: Johnny Mercer, who recently resigned as a defence minister over protection for veterans from prosecution, gives evidence to the Commons defence committee.
4pm: The financier Lex Greensill gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee.
4pm: Cressida Dick, commissioner of the Metropolitan police, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee about the policing of the Sarah Everard memorial.
Politics Live has been a mix of Covid and non-Covid politics recently, but today the focus will be on the Queen’s speech, with coronavirus likely to get much less attention. For more Covid coverage, do read our global live blog.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
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