#fox hunting

Long-awaited (and for once not all that long-winded) the Queen’s Speech was finally revealed at 11:30am today. So just what did it contain?

Brexit

8 out of the 24 bills in the speech related to plans for UK policy after leaving the EU. We’ve broken down the main aspects of each bill below:

1. Repeal Bill – turns EU law into UK law so UK Parliament can make changes
2. Customs Bill – UK takes control of import and exports
3. Trade Bill – lets the UK make trade deals with other countries
4. Immigration Bill – allows UK government to end free movement of EU nationals into UK
5. Fisheries Bill – gives UK control of its waters and fishing quotas
6. Agriculture Bill – a system will be put in place to protect UK famers
7. Nuclear Safeguards Bill – creates a UK nuclear safeguards regime to replace the EU one
8. International Sanctions Bill – gives government final say on imposing non-UN sanctions to the UK and ensures sanctions can still be challenged
   

Economy

This was a stripped back speech, with very little change in economic policy. Only 5 bills related to the economy:

1. Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill – service stations will, at some point, need to install charge points for electric vehicles
   
2. Space Industry Bill – new commercial spaceflight to be licensed, including rockets
   
3. HS2 Phase 2A Bill – the high speed railway will extend to Crewe sooner than planned
   
4. Smart Meter Bill – every household will be offered smart meters by 2020
   
5. National Insurance Contributions Bill – allows for the changes announced in 2016 budget

Other

There were 11 miscellaneous policies. More notable bills include the Courts Bill, which will remove the right of partners accused of domestic violence to cross-examine their alleged victim in court. 

On a similar vein, the Draft Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill will introduce new measures to protect victims of domestic violence. 

For younger voters, the Data Protection Bill is very interesting - it will require social media accounts to delete information held about you at the age of 18.

What does this all mean?

Legally, not very much. Not until next week anyway, when the MPs in the House of Commons will have the chance to vote for or against each bill individually. With a majority not yet secured, there’s a chance not all of these proposed bills will pass. Even then, these are just a snapshot of proposed government policy over the next 2 years.

What the Queen’s Speech does tell us is that the Tories are not having a very happy time at the moment. A large chunk of their manifesto has gone missing:

• New grammar schools
  
• The ‘dementia tax’
  
• Scrapping triple lock pensions
  
• Replacing free school lunches with free breakfasts
  
• Energy price caps
  
• Voting to remove ban on fox hunting
  
• Means testing winter fuel payments
  

The suggestion is that the Tories did not think they would be able to pass these policies through the Commons - the more liberal parties were all very vocal in their opposition to these proposals during election campaigning, and even the DUP do not agree with scrapping triple lock pensions.

Through the Queen’s Speech, we’ve been given a little glimpse of the state of the Conservative Party: a monstrous papier-mâché parody of an unpopular manifesto.