27th April 2022
Yesterday’s I newspaper had this interesting front page about the upcoming Queen’s Speech:
The article supporting the front page told us:
“At least a dozen Government bills which were promised at the Queen’s Speech a year ago will not become law in time for the next speech which takes place on 10 May. Downing Street is seeking to push through another 10 pieces of legislation in the next few days.”
What is especially interesting about this front page is its timing.
We are more-or-less at the midpoint of this parliament.
The last general election was on 12 December 2019, and the latest date for the next election, it would seem, is 24 January 2025.
The next Queen’s Speech – which has been set for 10 May 2022 – will mark the start of the last full parliamentary session where there would be adequate time for any significant reforms to be properly carried through after enactment.
In other words: if the government was to attempt major changes through legislation, this is the time.
But.
This government does not appear to have the appetite for major reforms.
Promised overhauls of, for example, our complex systems for planning or procurement will again not be put forward.
The (impartial) House of Commons Library provides the following list of Bills promised in the last Queen’s Speech that are yet to be introduced:
(‘Procurement Bill’ sounds like a bloke who works in supplier management in a less exciting sequel to Postman Pat.)
The library also lists the bills ‘foreshadowed’:
But as any decent scriptwriter will tell you, foreshadowing is not character (or story) development.
And it would seem that this government finds it easier to announce fundamental reforms than to actually take them forward and implement those reforms.
The ultimate reason for this is simple.
Reform is hard, policy is hard, law-making is hard.
Getting one’s thoughts together to the extent of actually having a Bill ready to introduce to parliament is hard.
The first reading in parliament of a Bill is not stage one of a process, but about stage seven or eight.
The hard work takes place on the departments and with parliamentary drafters.
Handing a Bill to ministers to pilot through parliament is not to be done lightly.
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The former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings had – regardless of his other merits and otherwise – ambitious plans to shake our planning and public procurement regimes.
No sensible person with knowledge of planning or public procurement would say the current arrangements are perfect.
An ambitious, reforming government would now be ready to grapple with fundamental reforms in planning, public procurement, and many other areas.
And this government would be in a strong position to do – on paper.
For this government has the greatest prize that the constitution of the United Kingdom can bestow: a large working majority in the House of Commons.
This means the government not only has all the advantages of extensive executive power (under the royal prerogative and otherwise), and access to the government legal service and the treasury panel of barristers for fighting cases in the courts.
It also means that the government can be confident of passing legislation through the House of Commons and, if necessary, forcing it through the House of Lords too.
Few Prime Minsters win this prize.
Clement Attlee had this prize, and used it to drive through welfare state legislation; Thatcher did with trade union and privatisation legislation; and even Tony Blair, in his first term, was able to get the Human Rights Act and other legislation on the statute book.
And our current government?
Here is a challenge: take a moment to name one flagship Act of Parliament passed since the general election.
Yes, there has been Brexit and Covid legislation – but this would have to have been passed whoever won the last general election.
Can you think of one?
I am a law and policy commentator – and I can can only think of a possible few – though various nasty laws on borders and protests are about to come enacted.
Of course: Brexit and Covid have taken a lot of government and parliamentary time, as have Afghanistan and Ukraine.
But.
At this mid-term moment, a government with a large working majority should be raring to go.
Yet it is not.
It a government that cannot even be confident to block or amend a reference to the privileges committee about the Prime Minister.
As Norman Lamont once said of then Prime Minister John Major, we have a government in office but not in power.
And that was when Major government had a very small majority, not the working majority of nearly eighty of Boris Johnson.
So this could be a significant Queen’s Speech – but its true significance may be about what it does not contain, rather than what it does.
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It continually astonishes me how unambitious the current government is. They almost seem to enact less legislation than the previous governments in which their party didn’t have a majority.
Then again, since I’m a Labour voter and I don’t approve of the government’s agenda, perhaps I should be grateful that they’re doing so little about it.
There are no available slots for introduction of any new legislation. There is still a huge post-BREXIT back-log which is holding everything up.
I fear that defence is incorrect – for example, why would these Bills have been announced in the *last* Queen’s Speech, and still not be implemented.
Perhaps we should be grateful that the Bill of Rights (Human Rights) is only in the “foreshadowed” list – whatever the hell that means.
Is there any sign of this particular one coming in the Queen’s Speech?
In fact, would there be any chance of a blog on where things currently stand with human rights “reform”?
Thanks!
“Her Majesty’s new Ministers proceeded in their career like a body of men under the influence of some deleterious drug. Not satiated with the spoilation and anarchy of Ireland, they began to attack every institution and every interest, every class and calling in the country … As time advanced it was not difficult to perceive that extravagance was being substituted for energy by the Government. The unnatural stimulus was subsiding. Their paroxysms ended in prostration. Some took refuge in melancholy, and their eminent chief alternated between a menace and a sigh. As I sat opposite the Treasury Bench the Ministers reminded me of one of those marine landscapes not very unusual on the coasts of South America. You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest. But the situation is still dangerous. There are occasional earthquakes, and ever and anon the dark rumbling of the sea.”
Benjamin Disraeli attacking William Gladstone’s Liberal Government during a speech to the Conservatives of Manchester on 3rd April 1872.
Oh, that is wonderful. So much better than the dull and discordant prose that passes for politics nowadays. And aptly today is just 8 days after Primrose Day.
The government has run out of ideas, if it ever really had any, apart from (i) gaining power and (ii) “get[ting] Brexit done”. To quote Roger McGough’s poem, “The Leader”:
“I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I’m the leader
I’m the leader
…
OK what shall we do?”
I love that poem!
Your piece focuses on the government’s activity in Parliament. However, the government seems much keener on doing things which bypass Parliamentary scrutiny where possible (e.g. Memorandum of Understanding with Rwanda to deport asylum seekers there; mere lip service paid to the scrutiny of trade deals in Parliament). So perhaps the content of the Queen’s Speech doesn’t tell the full picture.
Minimal contact between this embarrassment of a Prime Minister and the MPs who ask him awkward questions (causing him to entangle himself ever deeper in a Web of deceit) seems to be the primary objective these days.
If only Boris Johnson had a Willie he might get some things done?
Or may be a David, who brings him solutions, not problems?
The Baroness before her degradation and subsequent elevation had both.
This government was elected by an electorate who wanted an end to the Brexit kerfuffle against a weak and conspiratorial opposition. It duly got a substantial majority. But it is a ‘one trick’ pony. Brexit was really it’s only policy. Having, in order to get Brexit done, ejected a cabinet or two’s worth of top talent from its ranks in to the sea it was thrown off balance by COVID, unable properly to manage a consensus on how to evolve policy on that as both knowledge improved and the virus mutated, and it is now cast up on a shore where it is, run only by the incompetent dregs, exhausted, but still in charge of the beach. This group is incapable of executing the hard stuff of policy to which you refer. It is led by journalists, whose talents run to writing derivative faction and and not much else. Political loyalty, rather than recruitment of and delegation to competence, determines the ranks of the leadership. A few more castles in the sand will still be built, no doubt, but they need to be swept away by the tide of a new election.
I wonder to what extent some Ministers are now expecting to enact covert policy change via ministerial diktat rather than legislation?
This government’s fondness of driving a coach & horses through constitutional procedural convention in order to avoid scrutiny is well known.
Maybe you’re all too correct in asserting that what is not in the Queen’s Speech will be as noteworthy as what is in it. Perhaps the truly radical stuff will be trojan horse policy, smuggled in under cover of relative darkness.
It is worth remembering that after 43 years in the EU literally tons of legislation came onto the UK books. A crucial tool is trade. Because the UK is small in the world economy, it should behave as a small economy will little international leverage. That means being as open to imports as is possible. Access to foreign markets is less important. Open markets to the rest of the world means that prices on domestic markets fall, and home consumers benefit. That apoproach is swifter in terms of benefits received than the long but necessary weeding of legislation.
I am sure this is an over-simplification, but in agreeing with David and his analysis, I find myself observing parallels between the Johnson government and the Trump Presidency.
In his (to date) single term of four years in office, the only “signature” piece of legislation that Trump was able to pass was a massive tax cut, in 2017. Obviously we all realise that this was in fact a McConnell Tax Cut and that it was engineered as a thank-you to all the deep-pocketed companies that contributed to Republican candidates through campaign contributions (given that the tax cuts to corporations were permanent, those for citizens were temporary).
Fortunately, Johnson and Sunak haven’t taken us in the direction of further increasing the national debt in order to have a tax give-away (yet… this is not a pre-election year) but it’s the disinterest that I find remarkably comparable.
The Republicans made a half-hearted attempt at an Infrastructure Bill – it didn’t pass… in the UK we have crumbling infrastructure (everywhere but London) and no interest in sorting it.
In the case of the UK government, it really doesn’t matter where you look: energy, transport, agriculture, justice, housing, “whatever”, the UK doesn’t seem to have a clear understanding of what direction it is facing towards, let alone where it is trying to get to. There’s no coordinated strategy for anything.
I might be doing him a grave injustice (I’m actually not that sorry if that is the case) but I recall a comment made to Boris Johnson, when the International Olympic Committee announced that the 2016 Olympics would be held in Beijing, China. Someone whispered in Johnson’s ear that it would be necessary for him, as the Lord Mayor of London, to be present in Beijing to “hand over” the Olympic Torch to his Chinese counterpart. His response was, “But I’ll be in the Algarve!”
It was the perfect encapsulation of our PM, who turns up for PMQs because he thinks it’s a wheeze to trade bon mots with Sir Kier Starmer, someone he clearly believes to be his intellectual inferior; who is entirely happy to accept overseas trips if it is to “somewhere nice”, yet who seems entirely capable of forming or leading a competent administration here at home.
What concerns me most is not the casual attitude, or the lack of leadership, or the complete absence of an ability to get thing done, or the personnel management skills of a sack of potatoes… it’s the way that the government appears to be taking a leaves from the “Trump Republican” playbook:-
1. Do nothing constructive…
2. Employ whataboutism
3. Use faux outrage to paint detractors in negative terms
4. Claim all good news as being a result of your magnificence
5. Deny all bad news
For evidence of the above, I submit any recording of any PMQs made during this administration…
Procurement Bill is clearly Portland Bill’s cousin, who had the option of taking over the family lighthouse, but went into politics instead.
Cameron expected that the referendum would knock back the ERG, instead of which the BREXIT vote has emboldened the right of the party – and the scale of the subsequent majority has strengthened their hand. While the current PM is a libertarian, naturally favouring ‘small’ government, fewer restrictions etc, I don’t sense that he shares the views of the right of the party. He was happy to use them to further his personal ambition, but this proved more successful than he could ever have expected. It went from being a game to being something deadly serious. Covid threw him a ‘get out of jail free’ card, but lacking any real strength in his team, he’s quickly advancing back to ‘Go’ with few assets and no plan. And he must know that he has little control of the party. I suspect that he will continue to try to do the least possible until he is finally relieved of the job, one way or another.
Easy to see this government is shy of doing anything substantial that is also useful. But the difficult question is ‘what would you do that would actually do some good’.
The question arises ‘good for whom’. Take planning, everyone knows we are all NIMBYs but is that really true and could NIMBYism be managed? I suspect NIMBYism could be managed and an approach of ‘sorry about these houses – but the young need them and tough about the newts’ could be managed. I get the sneaking suspicion some deeper forces are preventing action, support from the builders and landowners looks to be a suspect. The NIMBys can be managed if there were a will to. So kick that can down the road before anyone cottons on.
Then ‘procurement’ comes to mind. All that wasted protective garb bought from a bloke down the pub. Too bad, water under the bridge. Perhaps having got out from under the wicked old EU we can procure better now – I very much doubt it. Anyway the Consultation Paper suggests more control from within Cabinet – so more bad news. I suppose the real agenda is to keep political tabs on the pursestrings. An unedifying turf war coming on that one so kick down the road.
Education is a wonderful mantra for the pollys. But what will do the country more good – more art historians, more painting restorers, or more car mechanics or more diversity assistants. Semiconductor research – too expensive my dears. Tensor calculus for 14 year olds? Difficult to say. I dare suggest Tolkein would have had some trouble with research funding and Ms Rowling does not seem to have been a model student – or perhaps she was.
Whichever way you turn it is all very difficult, so many beaks wanting a sip from the trough.
Legislation is a matter of quality at least as much as quantity. But this government is a complete failure on that score too.
Unless you are including planning with the thought that current arrangements require legislative change, there is very little that central government can do on planning, given that such decisions are operated by local and not central government.
But to answer your question – with a few suggestions, at least…
1. Energy – robust policy to get us off fossil fuels, prepare for the switch to EVs (charging points, grid capacity), laws to require all new build properties to have domestic generation (solar, wind, etc.).
2. Transport – expand use of rail; consider enlarging domestic carriage dimensions so that e.g. articulated lorry container units could be transported on trains, to get the freight off roads and reduce wear-and-tear, reducing road maintenance bills.
3. Tax – work with a global coalition to stop the off-shoring of corporate profits to tax havens. Introduce a law that sales taxes are collected where the transaction is completed by the client – and thereby prevent foreign corporations from being able to under-cut British companies.
4. Quangos – either eliminate them completely, or significantly reduce the amount of funds that can be spent without oversight.
5. Administration – place limits on the number of SpAds, increase accountability.
6. Justice – set up a panel of experts and task them with recommendations to e.g. halve repeat offender rates.
7. Poverty – realistic wages; limit the disparity between corporate executives and lowest paid; ensure that the minimum wage provides social dignity.
8. Democracy – use e.g. smartphone apps, web sites, ATM machines, National Lottery Terminals to make it possible for people to vote on a wider range of topics of national importance and set laws to stipulate what themes or topics must/should/can be put to the general population.
9. Accountability – set up a completely independent body (e.g. off-shoot of the NAO) charged with supervision of anyone working in the public sector, starting with the Cabinet, MPs, etc.
10. Administrative Expenses – end the use of “second homes” in London for MPs, and instead convert London Ministry buildings to overnight accommodation. Provide basic services, hotel style.
Not too difficult to come up with a bunch of different things that could make a real difference to people’s lives.
I wish planning was really a local matter. It is not. It is administered by local government, but the rules under which it operates are very much ones that central government dictates.
Anyone who has a planning application rejected has the right to appeal over the head of the planning authority to the Sec of State, and the inspector appointed by the Sec of State can overrule the local decision. It happens all the time, and since property developers can afford good lawyers, they often win. Since if the cash-strapped LA loses it pays costs and loses any money for public goods (like roads or schools) in the form of Section 106 or Community Infrastructure Levy funds, the pressure is very much on councillors and planning officers to be supine.
As a topical example, it is virtually impossible for a local authority to reject a planning application on the grounds that the sewage system can’t cope. That isn’t a valid planning reason to object, according to the rules set out by central government. Not enough school places for residents of new houses? Tough, not a valid planning reason to object. And on and on.
The planning system is broken.
Item 1 – offends laws of nature and economics, upsets the anti nuc lobby and v expensive. Won’t work or takes forever.
Item 2 – looked at in the ’60s, tunnels too small and lousy road rail interchange access. Such access as existed now flogged off for housing/offices, even more lousy.
Item 3 – A definite maybe (not).
Items 4 to 10 – Upsets vested interests or more trouble than worth..
Oh to be a politician.
I don’t believe this government is bothered about serious reform. It is solely concerned with retaining power, and to that end has passed laws restricting the right to protest, restricting the franchise, and making the electoral commission toothless.
It is doing everything it can to make it difficult to be rejected.
I realise there are problems with written constitutions, but there need to be some checks on Executive power. We cannot rely on the ‘good chap’ theory of government any more.
I think this is exactly right. Look at the legislation that has passed and you see their priorities. They are only interested in staying in power and making ( or should I say stealing?) money for themselves and their cronies. Apart from that they want to do as little as possible.
Fascinating post this & also the replies. In his Twitter feed trade expert (and a real one – he founded the DTI & was UK Trade Rep to the USA for 3 yrs) David Henig regularly comments (and has again today) the the UKG has no plan, no trade strategy and its because Brexit was predicated on myths.
The Brexiter Dr Richard North – another real trade expert & who co-founded The Leave Alliance one of the original parts of what became Leave.eu – perhaps put the current situation of the UKG best when in his daily blog, he wrote that ‘Brexit will fail because you cannot legislate lies’.
The Leave Alliance published a detailed plan for a Norway type Brexit and incredibly this was initially supported by Farage & Banks until (as North documents in his blog and an upcoming book), they listened to the siren calls of Cummings & the ERG Brexit-Jacobins (to use Chris Grey’s apt term) and went down the route of believing the UK could have its cake & eat it.
Some of the comments above encapsulate many of these myths.
Richard Murphy on https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2022/04/28/fascism-is-advancing-rapidly/
makes it clear that this government has introduced the legislation that matters to them to ensure that they retain power:
“Last night [28 April] saw fascism make big advances in the UK. Because, it would seem, Labour could not be bothered to call in all its working peers to vote in the Lords, the Tories won a whole series of victories on Bills where the Lords had previously inflicted defeat on them.
As a result the government now has control of the Electoral Commission. In other words, there is now no independent agency required to uphold electoral law and democracy in the UK. Instead, the government can now decide what is fair, and no one can object.
Second, laws on voter registration went through. Supposedly dealing with the almost unknown crime of fraudulent voting, the reality is that these laws are intended to effectively remove the right to vote from those who do not need and so do not have forms of photographic ID. They, of course, are almost invariably the least well off, who are least likely to vote Tory. In effect, a property requirement has now been reintroduced into the right to vote in the UK, pushing us back more than a century and representing the first reverse on this issue since the expansion of the franchise began in 1832.
Third, our right to protest about this was removed. We can now only protest if we do not cause offence to anyone when doing so, which is the whole point of protest. We must now, quite literally, be silent.
These are not laws any party or government committed to democracy would promote. They are fascist in their intent. They will be fascist in their consequences.
And Labour, which had defeated the government on all these issues previously, rolled over and let the government win last night, which makes them a partner in this, in my opinion.
The path towards fascism is proceeding apace in this country. And now, apparently, the Opposition are on side with it.”
Why bother with all the other legislation when the permanent hijacking of the state for personal gain is the underlying aim?
I can’t disagree with any of this. It needs to be talked about more.
Dear Mr Green,
You may have already seen this article on the wonders of modern architecture in Flanders: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/apr/28/flanders-phenomenon-belgian-buildings-joke-genius-greatest-public-architecture-earth-zaha-hadid (and no, it isn’t a joke).
Given your evident love of procurement law, I thought you might like the conclusion: “The Open Call represents a different way forward, one that public authorities everywhere would do well to learn from. The UK government, in its misguided quest to introduce “beauty” into the planning regime, is focusing on completely the wrong target. The problems facing British cities and regions have little to do with style but everything to do with how the built environment is procured, created and maintained – with lasting consequences for us all.”
An important reminder that getting the procurement process right is not simply a technocratic exercise but has profound implications for us all.
Many thanks for all your thought-provoking posts.
Best regards,
Rupert Wilkinson
An “ambitious” government can of course be a problem. Yes, the government has a majority in seats and that is what counts given the First Past the Post system. BUT it is questionable how much actual support there is over the UK as a whole. This is shown by looking at the actual voting data for the last election (and previous elections).
We have a government that has held power for many years albeit at first in a coalition with the (weaker) Lib Dems and then with a finely balanced Commons. I believe that they ought to be well past the need for a radical legislation programme. Making objectively necessary changes certainly but a steady hand on the tiller.
I know that not all will agree with me on this but it does require some explanation as to why there always has to be major legislation in the pipeline.
” it does require some explanation as to why there always has to be major legislation in the pipeline”
Hi OJ, thank you for coming over to my blog! I hoped my post anticipated this sort of objection by expressly pointing out that both planning and procurement need fundamental reform.