AN EMPHASIS on improving the economy characterised the King’s Speech on Wednesday, after the Prime Minister had said: “Now is the time to take the brakes off Britain. . . I’m determined to create wealth for people up and down the country. It is the one way our country can progress.”
“Stability will probably be the cornerstone of my Government’s economic policy,” the King said.
The Office for Budget Responsibility will independently assess proposed tax and spending changes.
The latest Government has faced pressure from campaigners and senior figures within the Labour Party to chop the two-child limit for Universal Credit. On Tuesday, the Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, confirmed that the Government wouldn’t pledge to remove the advantages cap, though admitting that “individuals are frustrated” by the choice.
“Growth is imperative to us, in order that we will afford to spend on ensuring we will lift children out of poverty,” she said in an interview on BBC Breakfast. She said that the Government was going to be reviewing Universal Credit.
On Wednesday, the chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, Alison Garnham, said: “The latest Government pledged an ambitious approach to tackling child poverty, but there was little to assist achieve that aim within the speech today.
“The two-child limit is the most important driver of rising child poverty, and teachers, struggling parents, and even children themselves can testify to the harm the policy is causing to kids, day in, time out.”
Bishops within the House of Lords have united in calling for the policy to be scrapped. In May, the Archbishop of Canterbury described the two-child cap as “cruel” (News, 24 May).
The Government’s stated priorities regarding the NHS are to cut back waiting times, improve preventative care, and to bolster mental-health provision for younger people. Mental health, the speech said, must be “given the identical attention and focus as physical health”.
The ecumenical ChurchWorks Commission welcomed the move. The organisation’s chair, the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, said that the King’s Speech contained “encouraging signs that the brand new Government will probably be ambitious in tackling key issues facing people across the country. . .
“The Prime Minister has said that there will probably be no decade of national renewal on this country without the energetic participation of the Church. ChurchWorks stands able to help unlock the potential of churches across the country to play their part in that shared mission,” Bishop Mounstephen said.
ChurchWorks’ director, Jack Palmer-White, sounded a note of caution about provision to tackle child poverty. “The continuing lack of clarity around the long run of Family Hubs is concerning,” he said, and urged the Government to “address the uncertainty that local authorities are facing, and commit to working with voluntary, community and faith organisations to support all children and families.”
Shortly after the King’s Speech, Downing Street announced the creation of a Child Poverty Taskforce, to be led by Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, and the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson.
THE King’s Speech contained a pledge to “get Britain constructing”, with the promise of a Planning and Infrastructure Bill to “speed up the delivery of high-quality infrastructure and housing”.
The Church of England has been increasingly involved in conversations about housing. The lead bishop for housing, the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, last yr advocated a long-term housing strategy (News, 22 September 2023). In 2021, the Archbishops’ Commission on Housing, Church and Community, in its report, Coming Home, called for a 20-year programme to enhance the standard and affordability of the nation’s housing stock, agreed by all parties and thus resistant to changing political fortunes, and including a redefinition of “affordability” and a review of the rental sector (News, 21 February 2021).
Foreign-policy positions were also outlined within the speech, including an “unshakeable” commitment to NATO and “full support” for Ukraine, and a two-state solution within the Middle East consisting of “a protected and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state”.
A LONG-EXPECTED ban on conversion therapy looks set to be introduced, after laws stalled under the previous government (News, 22 September 2023). A Private Member’s Bill received qualified support from bishops within the House of Lords (News, 16 February), but lapsed when Parliament was dissolved for the General Election.
The Christian Institute, a conservative Evangelical charity, responded to the inclusion of a ban within the King’s Speech by suggesting that it could infringe civil liberties. The charity’s deputy director, Simon Calvert, said that there have been “multiple risks to the human rights of innocent parents, pastors and professionals”.
Other Christian groups welcomed the policy announcement. The chair of Ban Conversion Therapy, the previous General Synod member Jayne Ozanne, said she looked forward to working on a “ban with no loopholes”.
Another policy introduced after a concerted campaign is for public servants to be legally certain by a “duty of candour”. It was beneficial by the previous Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Revd James Jones, in his report on the Hillsborough disaster (News, 3 November 2017).
Last yr, the Conservative Government released its response to Bishop Jones’s report, which introduced a charter but stopped in need of laws requiring that the general public interest put before popularity (News, 8 December 2023).
Legislation to create several latest public bodies was mentioned within the speech, including for Great British Railways, which can take train operators into public ownership, and GB Energy, a state-owned energy company to be situated in Scotland.
Further devolution will even be introduced, with a latest Council of the Nations and Regions to facilitate collaboration between various levels of regional and national government.
New powers for metro mayors and combined authorities will probably be brought in as a part of an try and “support local growth plans that bring economic profit to communities”, including a Bill to enable local authorities to take control of bus services.
House of Lords reform can also be a part of the Government’s agenda, though seemingly in a watered-down form. In 2022, a Labour Party report written by a former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, suggested that the House of Lords get replaced with a smaller, elected second chamber (News, 9 December 2022; Comment, 9 December 2022).
No such plan was specified by the King’s Speech, which as a substitute included an announcement of intent to remove the remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords.
Legislation introduced in 2015 which suggests that newly appointed women bishops are fast-tracked into one in all the 26 seats reserved for bishops within the House of Lords is to be renewed.
The Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, who’s the convener of the Lords Spiritual, said: “Colleagues within the Lords and on the Bishops’ benches have really benefited from the wonderful contributions of our senior female colleagues within the time this Act has been in place, and I’m glad that may proceed for one more five years.”
