Today at the State Opening of Parliament, the Prince of Wales gave the Queen's speech outlining the 38 new Government bills for the upcoming Parliamentary session.
Lucy Allan MP has welcomed this ambitious programme of legislation with a focus on growing the economy, helping with cost of living and continuing the Government’s progress in delivering on the manifesto it was elected upon.
Levelling up and how it affects Telford
- The Government will regenerate towns and cities through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. This will deliver planning reforms, regenerate towns like Telford and shift more power and accountability to local leaders, giving communities a louder voice and reducing the scope for partisan Councils to blame their failings on Government.
- The Government will reform the business rates system with more frequent revaluations based on more accurate data, increasing fairness for business owners in Telford on the amount of business rates they pay.
- The Government will introduce its Higher Education Bill, creating the Lifelong Loan Entitlement, which will provide residents with a student loan entitlement to the equivalent of 4 years of post-18 education to use over their lifetime. Telford residents will be able to retrain at any point in their career.
- The UK Infrastructure Bank will be given new powers to invest in regional and local growth and work towards net zero.
Seizing Brexit opportunities
- The Government will introduce a British Bill of Rights, making it easier to deport foreign criminals meets the needs of the British people, boosts public confidence and ends the abuse of our human rights framework by restoring common sense to our justice system.
- Streamlining procurement processes, allowing central and local government bodies to prioritise smaller, locally based companies for public contracts.
Tackling the cost and quality of living
- The new Energy Security Bill will deliver a more secure and homegrown energy system that is more affordable and eco-friendly, cutting household costs for families and working towards net zero.
- The new Social Housing Regulation Bill improves tenants’ rights and ensures better quality, safer homes by strengthening the Social Housing Regulator, providing 4.4 million households with better quality rented homes.
Making Telford’s Streets Safer
- The Government will pass the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Act into law, keeping dangerous offenders behind bars for longer. The Act introduces whole life orders for child killers, life sentences for drivers who kill while intoxicated, and ends the automatic early release of dangerous violent and sexual offenders.
- The Draft Victims Bill will strengthen rights for victims by placing the new Victims’ Code on a statutory footing and restore victims’ confidence that their voices will be properly heard and that perpetrators will be brought to justice.
- Supporting our police officers further through our Public Order Bill, giving the police new powers to keep our streets safer. Our Public Order Bill will ensure the police have the powers to prevent a minority of protesters from using guerrilla tactics and disrupt the hard-working public and our emergency services – ensuring our streets are safer.
Lucy Allan MP said:
This speech sets out a packed and focused legislative agenda. I am proud of this ambitious program, as it will make meaningful and serious change to the lives of my constituents.
I particularly welcome the clear focus on levelling up communities like Telford, deregulation, and tackling crime.
The Victims Bill is an important piece of legislation in this program which will mean the existing victims’ code which includes a right to be told about the release of an offender from jail, will become law and it will give ministers the right to block the release of high-risk offenders from prison, under an overhaul of the parole board which I welcome.
The Government has started this parliamentary session as it means to go on – by delivering on its promises and getting on with the job.
You can read more about the Queen’s speech and its contents here.
