‘My ministers’ focus is on increasing economic growth and safeguarding the health and security of the British people for generations to come.’ The King read these opening words, written for him, which set out the government’s final legislative agenda before a general election. Of course, that agenda is being interpreted as a ‘starting gun’ for the election campaign. And the centre of that campaign on the basis of today is going to be security: both economic and for criminal justice.
Presumably the next Conservative manifesto is going to be rather meatier than the content of that speech. It wasn’t a particularly heavy agenda: around 16 bills were in the list along with references to the non-legislative work the government is doing to tackle inflation, including supporting the Bank of England. The new licensing regime for oil and gas extraction in the North Sea to ‘reduce reliance on volatile international energy markets and hostile foreign regimes’ is also intended to wind Labour up – and was as far as possible in the speech from the lines about the government continuing ‘to lead action on tackling climate change and biodiversity loss’.
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