Highlights from the Queen's Speech

Any Queen's speech describes the government's legislative agenda for the forthcoming parliamentary session. Since the government repealed the Fixed Terms Parliament Act this may be the last such speech before the next general election - widely expected to be in 2023.

Seen through that lens today's speech, written by the government, describes an agenda that is partly a post-COVID catch up on promised Brexit benefits and partly a (related) response to political weaknesses revealed in the recent local elections: an exercise some might describe as throwing red meat to the red wall as the government tries to keep on-side its Brexiteer backbenchers and its so-called red-wall voters in constituencies to the North of the home counties around London.

But it was also coy in politically sensitive areas: around the Northern Ireland Protocol and around (regulatory) costs to companies as the UK (and others) head further into the economic headwinds.

The devil, as always, is in the detail - more of which will emerge as the Queen's Speech begins to be debated in Parliament, starting in the House of Commons. Highlights from the proposed agenda set out in the Queen's Speech include:

Post-Brexit related proposals

• Brexit Freedoms Bill intended to simplify the process for amending EU-derived laws and cut an estimated £ibn of "EU red tape" by granting powers to ministers rather than seeking a specific vote in the House of Commons. It will also seek to remove the supremacy of EU retained law over UK law.
• Financial Services and Markets Bill to replace EU financial regulation with a UK version intended to create greater protections for investors while promoting investment including proposals to allow insurance companies to invest in longer-term infrastructure projects by moving away from EU rules (eg Solvency II)
• Procurement Bill to help government buy-in products and services especially, from smaller companies (eg PPE and vaccines).
• Bill of Rights Act to replace the Human Rights Act and, again, to make it easier to repeal/ reform EU-derived legislation thus reducing reliance on the ECHR in Strasbourg
• Data Reform Bill to allow changes to the UK's obligations under GDPR, as already written into UK law

Elsewhere, proposals for

• ESG: bills to improve energy security, including a pledge to build up to 8 nuclear power plants and increase wind/ solar capacity; reduce 'modern slavery' in supply chains
• Real Estate: bills to abolish no fault evictions and to strengthen the powers of the Regulator of Social Housing in its ability to enforce better living conditions for social renters.
• Infrastructure: bills to establish the National Investment Bank; to require the government to invest in areas to the North of London's home counties (the red-wall constituencies); to improve investment in transport, notably rail and EVs
• Economic Crime: bill(s) to strengthen UK's ability to identify and sanction those responsible for economic crime, including a requirement for identity verification of the beneficial owners of companies (thus building on existing proposals for register reform).

The dogs that did not bark

• Better Business: no mention of proposals advocated by the Better Business Act- a group of companies campaigning for measures to strengthen further the adoption of stakeholder governance
• Northern Ireland Protocol: no new Bill or more muscular rhetoric around Article 16 - or on power-sharing arrangements in the Northern Ireland Assembly after local elections last week

For further details, please contact Andy Hartwill