Tomorrow is Queen's Speech day. No government that might have been elected would have presented the programme I would wish for. These would have been my priority bills:
A National Infrastructure Act
A bill to provide finance of £50 billion a year for five years to:
- Build 100,000 new social houses a year.
- Provide pump priming funding to enable another 100,000 new house starts a year.
- Begin a programme of extensive insulation of UK properties and the installation of renewable energy generating capacity.
- Provide core funding for research and development funding for UK green business.
- To authorise the Bank of England to finance this programme using its quantitative easing programme.
A PFI Replacement Act
To authorise the repurchase of PFI contracts using the quantitative easing programme
A Tax Dodging Act
To:
- Introduce a General Anti-Avoidance Provision.
- Require mandatory country-by-country reporting by large multinational corporations
- Authorise the expansion of HMRC's staff
- To make HMRC a ministerial department
- To create an Office for Tax Responsibility
An NHS Reform Act
To:
- Recreate the statutory duty to provide health care.
- Create a legislative requirement that NHS providers have a statutory right to be preferred bidders in NHS contracting.
- Create regional health authorities in the UK to replace all CCGs in their area and to remove the division between primary, secondary, tertiary and social care by the provision of integrated health care.
- Provide a right of access to healthcare seven days a week, but not necessarily with a named provider at a specific location.
A Constitutional Reform Act
To pave the way:
- To greater devolution of powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- To create regional government in England.
- To reform local government in England as consequence, replacing county councils to prevent proliferation of tiers of authorities.
- To increase the powers available to parish councils to encourage bottom up local government.
- To replace the House of Lords with an elected Senate.
- To plan the integrated devolution of taxing powers to these authorities whilst maintaining the principle of redistribution between regions and areas to maintain social justice.
- To reduce the voting age to 16.
A Railways Nationalisation Act
To require that all rail franchises return to state control on the first occasion when this is contractually possible and whenever standards of service supply fall below required contractual levels.
A Social Security Emergency Reform Act
To:
- Abolish the Bedroom Tax.
- Reform the social security sanctioning process.
- Review and reform the delivery of Universal Credit.
An Education Reform Act
To:
- Require that Free Schools deliver the national curriculum
- Require that all teachers be qualified
- Require the abolition of all entry conditions to state funded schools on the grounds of faith or attendance at places of religious worship
- Remove the charitable status of fee paying schools
- Restore balance in the national curriculum to include an appropriate focus on arts, drama and music education.
- Require mandatory education in basic economics, taxation, budgeting, debt, credit and banking.
A Right to Reside Act
A Bill to:
- Confirm the UK's international commitments on migration given to the EU and the UK's commitment to accept those in need of refuge.
- Limit the right to claim benefits upon taking up residence in the UK except during periods when asylum was being sought or after it had been granted.
- To remove the right for any employment to be advertised solely to those not normally resident in the UK.
- To require that UK minimum wage, national insurance and income tax legislation apply without limit to all engaged in the UK wherever their employer might be.
- To provide the resources necessary to enforce this legislation.
- To abolish the domicile rule but to create a right to be treated as being a short term resident in the UK for tax purposes for one period not exceeding four years in duration and not to be available more than once every ten years to any one person during which period they would only be taxable on UK source income and worldwide income remitted to the UK.
A Companies Act
To:
- Require that all UK limited companies be required to file the accounts that they supply to their shareholders on public record each year
- To require that all UK companies be required to submit a corporation tax return each year, without exception
- To make the directors and shareholders owning more than 10% of the shares in a company personally liable for all penalties due for failure to file accounts or tax returns as required by law and personally liable for any taxes unpaid more than three months after its due date
- To require that a UK parent company file the accounts of all its subsidiary companies on public record in the UK of they are not available for public inspection for a fee of no more than £5 on another public registry accessible on line somewhere in the world
- To require that the parent company of a foreign owned UK group be required to file consolidated accounts for its group in the UK, and that it reveal all its UK associated companies when doing so
- To require that all UK licenced banks supply details of the beneficial ownership of all companies to which they supply banking services to HMRC and Companies House annually and that this information be made available on public record for comparison with the data supplied by the companies themselves
- To require that no company be struck from the Register of Companies until it can be shown that it has settled all its tax liabilities or is unable to do so through insolvency from which the directors or shareholders have not personally gained.
An Environment Act
To provide the Uk with the powers to implement the recommendations of the Paris climate change summit to be held in 2015.
A Banking Reform Act
To implement the reforms detailed here.
A Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories Act
To require that the UK's Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories require that the accounts and the beneficial ownership of all the companies that they incorporate be recorded on readily accessible public record.
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Some issues that need attention are not in this list: I apologise. That's prioritisation. No doubt you will let me know if I got it wrong.
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Well as you are not the Prime Minister and as you are not a Conservative MP, you have no say over what will be in the Queens speech. Every person in the UK probably has their own wish list for government policy, and so your list is just one of millions of wish lists that will never see the light of the day. The people have already spoken. The Conservatives won a majority in a democratic election. Labour has completely lost the argument for the people of the UK because they simply cannot be trusted on the economy. This is a centre right nation of people. The sooner you realise it and accept it, the sooner you will be able to spend your time on more useful things than dreaming up ultra left wing and socialist Marxist policies that most decent people in the UK have no interest in. If you want to ever write your own Queens speech, then at least have the courage to stand for Parliament as an MP, and then you will find out what most people actually think of your ideas. With Regards.
I love your interest in free speech, open debate and political plurality
“ultra left wing and Marxist’? Much of this would not have looked out of place in the Conservative governments of the 1950s and early 60s. They set a framework of responsible banking in which growth took place alongside a welfare state.
If you think what Richard M is suggesting is Marxist or ultra left wing, you really do not know what you’re talking about. This is largely centre ground Liberal stuff, slightly left of centre at most. If you want Marxism go and visit Cuba in the early 1960’s.
“The Conservatives won a majority in a democratic election”
Yes but within an entirely undemocratic framework.
The Tories had 24% of those eligible to vote -think about it-76% of the electorate did NOT vote for them. Yet look at the power they have-‘something is rotten in the state of…’
There’s a huge disparity in funding for the parties and the only way to even that up is to have public funding based on a formula. People won’t go for it, partly because of propaganda from a rampantly right-wing press. And don’t tell me that no-one reads the papers any more, they did their dirty work over the 25 or 30 years when people did.
Oh yes, and the BBC has been cowed as well.
“The Tories had 24% of those eligible to vote -think about it-76% of the electorate did NOT vote for them. Yet look at the power they have-‘something is rotten in the state of…'”
Oh, good grief. Tony Blair & Labour in 2005 got 9.55m votes from an electorate of 44.4m. That’s 21.5%. Think about it. 78.5% of the electorate didn’t vote for them. Yet look at the power they had etc etc.
We have the electoral system we have, stop moaning about it just because you lost.
Respectfully, this attitude is absurd.
It’s a bit like saying we have ineffective law but because we at least have something we should not ask for reform
That is ridiculous and abusive in intent
“The Tories had 24% of those eligible to vote -think about it-76% of the electorate did NOT vote for them.”
I am always surprised by how often this argument crops up, as it is a particularly poor one.
The trouble with playing that numbers game is that it makes the losers look even worse: what % did not vote for the Labour Party?
Chris Dixon -so it doesn’t concern you that 76% did not vote for a Government that can cut benefits to the bone, increase surveillance, vilify the poor, be lenient on corrupt financial practices, not bother to invest in green infrastructure when climate concerns are at their height, cause young people to be in atrocious debt, lie to us about almost every statistic available….
I did not vote Labour and we are all losers in this system which can only lead to social unrest.
Richard
Look again at my post. I did not say that reform was not needed to the electoral system. It is.
I was reacting to Simon’s comment that the 2015 election result was unfair and expressing the likelihood that he made no such comment when Labour won in 2005.
Many people, myself included, have called out the First Past The Post system as a fundamentally unsound and undemocratic election process for decades. I remember my parents being scathing about it back in the early 1980s. Couple that with the fact that legislation is laid out by an unelected Head of State on behalf of a government headed by people whose positions are also unelected and a very undemocratic picture appears. (Prime Ministers and all ministers are elected by a closed process; parties select leadership candidates and parliamentary candidates who are then placed in their roles by the party who comes first past the post). Democracy is not what the people are offered; it’s what we fight for. http://www.consented.co.uk/read/can-we-really-consider-the-uk-to-be-a-democratic-state/
Simon
I made no comment whatsoever about the Tories’ policies. Nor did I say that you voted Labour.
The framework may be many things, but it certainly isn’t “entirely undemocratic” as you absurdly claim.
The US presidential elections are often won by just a fraction over 50% of the popular vote on a turnout little than more than 55%. (And that in a system where there are basically only two candidates, as opposed to the myriad of parties that exist in the UK.) Yet no one claims that the POTUS lacks legitimacy.
Chris -I think you will find that there are a great number of people challenging the claim that American and British electoral systems have democratic legitimacy.
Even Nigel Farage has challenged the system given that in PR his party would have gained about 81 seats ( I certainly didn’t vote UKIP!).
I think we may find that this sort of thing is awakening the consciousness of many (particularly the young) and I think we will see a great deal of protest about this issue in the coming years.
Where is the ABSTENTION choice on the voting paper?
Brian – you may not agree with Richard but to suggest that he is not entitled to his point of view because he did not vote Conservative is ridiculous. Furthermore, despite not winning the election the Labour Party and its supporters are fully entitled to voice their opinion and to challenge Conservative Party policy. Being in opposition is an important part of our parliamentary democracy and a position in which the Tories and their supporters have found themselves on many occasions. Did you think then that they were not entitled to criticize the Labour government?
Your assertion that Britain is inherently a centre-right nation is questionable. The Tories were re-elected not because the voters identified with their manifesto but because they were in power and the risk and reward of voting Labour was unclear. If Britain fundamentally identified with core right-wing values there would be no BBC, no NHS, no state education, no State Pension. All these institutions are rooted in democratic liberalism and loved by the nation. I would argue that Britain politically leans more to the left than the right. The Tories and Cameron recognise this, hence policies such as Universal Credit and the triple-lock on the State Pension. It is these policies that won the Tories the election i.e. policies that would appeal to the liberal sensibilities of the nation.
Thus, I would consider the election victory of the Conservative Party not as a mandate to introduce core right-wing policies (such as the privatisation of the Welfare State) but to build upon the liberal institutions which have served us all so well.
“Your assertion that Britain is inherently a centre-right nation is questionable.”
There is a clear and established trend going back more than 40 years now that the UK people don’t want a left wing government.
Blair was Thatcher-lite. Her greatest achievement.
‘Labour’ has not been elected for over 40 years since Harold Wilson won a majority of 3 in 1974. ‘Labour’ has not been elected with a majority of more than 3 without being led by someone called Blair since 1966 – 49 years ago.
Brian
‘The People have spoken’.
Erm – you mean the people who voted Tory – not the rest of us who didn’t. We have not been listened to at all and will be ignored. And what about those who did not vote at all. Talk about hollow victories. Is that really such a mandate to govern? No.
‘Labour has completely lost the argument for the people in the UK’
Erm – they were the second largest party with 232 seats – ‘completely lost’…hmmm I think not.
I didn’t vote Labour either but your comments above are trimumphalist nonsense that have no basis in fact.
Brian,
Respectfully, there’s lots of things I disagree with Mr M. about (all that ‘green hogwash’ for instance that is wrecking UK industry) but it is vital for democracy in the UK that there is as much legal, peaceful opposition to any version of HMG as possible.
It is vital, that for our democracy to function, opposition exits to question any and all of HMGs policies and actions.
For example, the notion that ‘Big Business’ should pay its ‘fair share’ is very popular at the moment as is the idea of renationalising the railways. Both policies enjoy considerable support in the polls.
And that was a textbook example of trolling at work…a completely preposterous comment that mixed stating the bleedin’ obvious with a barrage of ridiculous hyperbolic propositions. Ten comments followed trying to convince this card-carrying Tory not to be a Tory. On a larger scale this is how Labour Party policy appears to be formed as well. Always chasing the last Tory/UKIP headline.
It’s going to be a long five years…
24 seats….not a stunning majority.
Labour had, I think, an 88 seat majority in ’97.
The next few years are going to be devoted to ensuring that, in the next election, the 24 will go to a comfortable 600 seat majority.
Personally, I feel we are now well on the way to a single party state.
History is full of single party states – not exactly great places to live if you don’t ‘fit in’.
I think you’ve not got it right on the NHS. It’s not your specialist subject and it looks like it’s cribbed from the Labour Party. One of the greatest barriers to proper running of the NHS is the market. The idea of the NHS as preferred provider maintains the market and, therefore, the problem. As for 24 hour access – we already have it. It’s GP out of hours and A&E. There could be improvements in that, but ’24 hour access’ is, in itself, not a particularly useful separate objective. There’s a lot that needs to be done to the NHS, though, it’s in chaos.
On housing I love the principle and the approach, but I don’t believe we have the resource capacity to build 100,000 houses a year. We would do better investing in serious (real) employment opportunities in areas of the country where there is plentiful cheap housing and no work. Modernising and insulating existing housing in Stoke, perhaps, with new government offices providing work – those additional HMRC staff, for example?
All pie in the sky now as we have a government ruthlessly committed to voodoo economics and the destruction of the NHS and Welfare State. I still can’t believe people voted for that.
I take advice on the NHS from those working there. This is a decidedly anti-market measure
Can we build 100,000 homes? Of course. We have in the past, readily. We can do it again
“I still can’t believe people voted for that.”
76% of those eligible to vote DIDN’T!
¨There’s a lot that needs to be done to the NHS, though, it’s in chaos¨
Well…..my local health comm is tens of millions in debt.
So they outsource MSK care to a private provider, who then outsource it to a specialist NHS provider.
So previously the hospital went direct to that specialist provider, now they still go there, but via a money skimmer.
This is improving patient care?
When all the easy profit has been outsourced to professional skimmers, the NHS will be left with the unprofitable bits that nobody wants.
The private sector will gain by direct access to the labour-intensive (read expensive) parts of the NHS, which they cannot make any money out of privately (like intensive care).
Improvement equals increasing costs and decreasing services?
Exactly right
The NHS will be for multiple co-morbidities and little else
That’s the frail old in plain speak
“Limit the right to claim benefits upon taking up residence in the UK except during periods when asylum was being sought or after it had been granted.”
Why not just allow it for all and claim it back from their home state if they’re economic migrants? Plus a margin for additional costs. Isn’t this supposed to be what happens already for healthcare?
Interesting idea
I am still exploring in this area
I suspect we might be shocked at the reciprocal bills that would ensue from Nations that are host to British citizens (for healthcare in Spain and Greece, unemployment benefits from Germany and the Netherlands etc.).
My. Breathtaking. But a shareholders nightmare I should think. Where will they go for succour. Imagine such fairness, can it be achieved.
The mantra of the Thatcher years, the market will decide, still has a stranglehold. Bold humanitarianism, it could catch on.
Repeal of the 2012 health and social care act is in there somewhere I am sure. Not to be flippant though Mr Murphy wonderful.
Thanks
I’d have voted for that sort of manifesto. How many others would is an open question. Thanks for putting in the time it must have taken to come up with.
Thanks
Unfortunately this is the type of post that undermines and devalues much of the good stuff you seek to do.
Why?
Isn’t showing that change us possible an essential part of campaigning?
Replacing the Lord’s with an elected Senate. This would begin the process of real change in the way we a are governed. This ought to have happened in the aftermath of the mp’s claims scandal.
“To greater devolution of powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. To create regional government in England.” Having followed this topic on this blog I worry that this amounts to breaking democracy into small chunks to make it easier to eat – which is why George Osborne is so keen on it.
I think there is an appropriate balance to be found on this issue. Powers have always been devolved to varying degree
I am not convinced the anbswer to this question has been found as yet
I think that your worries are legitimate and are probably because of the basis on which further devolution will happen – it seems to me the Tories work on the basis of the ‘haves and have not’s’ in our kingdom and not what we citizens have in common as a nation. Tories are still stoking people up over our DIFFERENCES – and use the politics of envy instead (something they used to beat up Labour with all of the time in the 80s). It is also the politics of segregation – economic and racial – I’m afraid.
Witness for example the awful John Redwood banging on about it ‘not being fair’ that English MPs cannot influence Scotland but Scottish MPs can influence English policy – advocating ‘English MPs’ voting for ‘English laws’. Dear me.
The simple fact is that Scotland – who seem to have turned their backs on Westminster politics – are now surely going to be given more autonomy but with caveats that may actually isolate them from influencing the rest of English politics. This will be segregation in the name of autonomy.
Also, the same principles will be applied to large English cities (perhaps that are Labour strongholds or where Tory administrations take their duties seriously) to opt for more devolution that is actually a risk transfer and regional segregation exercise (how many rural constituencies are Tory?).
This might sound perfectly reasonable to begin with but it also has an air of ‘us and them’ about it that makes me feel very uncomfortable and certainly not a member of ‘one nation’.
And what road is this that we are travelling on?
Well, I watched a shocking documentary on BBC2 last week called ‘1945: The Savage Peace’ (still on iPlayer) about what happened to German speaking citizens at the end of the war in former Nazi held territories. I consider myself very well informed about the second world war but this hour long doc’ was extremely thought provoking and yet another warning from history about what happens when politicians tap into the darker side of human nature to win power.
The Tories are playing with fire.
They are stirring up tensions that threaten to turn our country (and in the EU at the moment) into a land of proto-medieval mini kingdoms – some rich, some poor with clear boundaries between them which will become harder an harder to overcome. That is how the Tories wish to order society.
I believe in future days, (if we can survive the present) the current Tory party and its policies will be looked upon as one of the most dangerous threats to economic and social stability ever seen in this country. They are indeed ‘the enemy within’.
I say all of this with a heavy heart.
Richard
i imagine you get more than your fair share of the troll like responses that we’ve seen on this thread – all designed to demoralise, lead arguments astray and waste your time no doubt.
I know you’ll continue to ignore them and delete where necessary – keep fighting the good fight. To take one pathetic example, rail nationalization helps to make you an ‘ultra left wing marxist’ apparently, yet it seems that one policy alone has the support of the majority of self identified Conservative voters. The logic of where that fact would take him would most likely make Brian’s head explode (were he not a troll of course).
As for your QS – any able, passionate and eloquent politician running on that ticket would have got my vote and i suspect many others too. We need more of this from our supposedly progressive politicians. Not austerity lite, not running away from the arguments. The response of most Labour frontbench MP’s (and leadership candidates) since May 7th has been risible. The policies and arguments you are making here are what they should be *arguing* for. They won’t translate into votes by osmosis or chance they need to be fought for.
Gets my vote Richard.
I would also suggest in addition ;
Legislation to make manifestos a legal and binding contract with the electorate (with accompanying ‘red line’ manifestos in the event of a hung parliament) and a right of recall for elected members who renege on their promises.
An energy bill that renationalises energy generation and calls for a four year moratorium on fracking with a Royal Commission that draws evidence from all Parties (in Particular from Countries such as the USA) on the effects of fracking, and its implications for our island.
A ‘calorific’ land value tax to address the enormous ‘elephant in the room’ of future food security.
Investment to bring the estimated one million empty homes back into use and a room above the shop initiative to revitalise town centres. (Renovation and refurbishment are more eco-friendly than building from scratch and would move the focus to smaller local tradesmen and companies who are more likely to reinvest back into local economies).
A scheme to create clerical, technical and scientific apprenticeships across Government departments aimed at post-GCSE and A-level students. This would offer a new source of manpower to bodies such as the Environment agency and HMRC, offer aspiration to young people not inclined towards University, and address the skills/experience gap for employers.
A realistic renegotiation with Europe that, for instance, allows any European Union Government to apply a temporary hand brake to immigration where there is a substantial deficit in the provision of areas such as housing and public services with the proviso that that Government undertakes the necessary steps to address the shortfall.
Similarly any Government should have the right to apply import tariffs where food production standards (for instance, in food hygiene, traceability, or animal welfare) demonstrably fall short of those it expects from its own producers, the receipts from which should be passed directly into its own industry.
A Public Ownership Act that requires a plebiscite of the ‘shareholders’ (ie us!) before the sale of publically held assets.
PhilJoMar – I don’t think any of the ten comments in reply to Brian were written in an attempt to convince Brian to vote Labour but to point out that his absurd suggestion that Conservative Party policy cannot be criticized is blatantly anti-democratic. I do not know if Brian is a troll or not but I do think that one of Labour’s failings in the election debate was that it did not effectively challenge the attitudes and values of right-wing voters. Indeed, as you say, it tends to ‘chase’ their votes. Of course, this is in vain but it does follow that their views should not be challenged. If Labour wishes to regain power it has to be a far more aggressive and effective opposition party.
I agree whole-heartedly with that Stephen – by chasing votes, Labour wore some Tory clothing and this may have further legitimised and reinforced Tory policies in the minds of the electorate.
Excellent speech.
On Constitutional Reform Act, why is getting rid of our truly horrible system of First Past The Post not on the list? (should be bullet number 1)
By the way, this is the best ever piece I’ve seen on the subject (will make you weep)…
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/shaun-lawson/when-is-democracy-not-democracy-when-it%E2%80%99s-in-britain
Good question
This is a one year proposal
Fantastic article. You’ve done a few inspiring ones on here. I’ll buy your book. Keep doing what you’re doing.