Thursday, 12 May 2022

A Lot of Bills and Hot Air in a Queen’s Speech That Fails to Address the Cost-of-Living Crisis.

 

Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsey has joined leading figures in criticising the programme of legislation outlined by the government in the Queen’s Speech.

 

He said the programme contained “a lot of Bills; a lot of hot air. Nothing to create the fairer greener communities that so many are crying out for, and so many people voted for when they elected Green councillors in record numbers last week” [1]. 

 

The speech contained 38 bills to be put before parliament, these include controversial plans to sell off Channel 4 and to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights. Notable by their absence were any fresh measures to help people struggling to make ends meet as energy costs and the price of food both rocket.

 

Adrian Ramsey said the government appeared “to be putting its energy into creating a bonfire of environmental standards and protections we enjoyed as part of the EU rather than tackling the root causes of growing climate instability. It refuses to impose a dirty profits tax on the fossil fuel giants or introduce the hugely popular idea of a carbon tax that could help fund the transition to a cleaner, greener economy with greater energy security and lower bills.”   

 

Responding to the speech Labour leader Kier Starmer said the government had failed to respond to a “looming stagflation crisis”, adding that it was “bereft of ideas or purpose, without a guiding principle or a roadmap for delivery”.

 

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said the government were doing “nothing to help the millions of families and pensioners facing soaring bills and eye watering inflation”, adding that it showed “a prime minister refusing to listen to the clear message sent by voters at last week’s local elections who are fed up of being taken for granted by this Conservative government.”

 

Criticism also came from the right with Tory MPs including David Davis and John Redwood calling for tax cuts, former policy adviser to Theresa May Gavin Barwell criticised the government for showing a “lack of action”, saying that “morally and politically” it needs to do more [2].

In response the government claim that two thirds of the bills contained in the speech, citing as an example the energy security bill, are aimed at boosting economic growth.

 

However, prime minister Boris Johnson said, no country was “immune” to the “economic shocks” caused by the pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and other issues. Adding that “no government can realistically shield everyone from the impact”.

 

The severity of the squeeze on household incomes was highlighted by data published by the National Institute for Social and Economic Research (NIESR) showing that 1.5 million households are set to see the cost of living outstrip their disposable income, forcing them to borrow money or rely on savings. As a result another 250,000 households will be ‘tipped over’ into destitution, taking the number of households in extreme poverty to 1.2 million.

 

Speaking to the Guardian NIESR boss Jagjit Chadha said the policies pursued by the government could be directly blamed for harming the incomes of UK households. He called on the government to use its £20billion borrowing capacity to help those who are struggling [3].

 

Prior to the Queen’s Speech the Green Party had called on the government to help people cope with the rising cost of living. Co leader Carla Denyer said their strong results in the local elections showed the public are increasingly supportive of plans to use initiatives such as insulating millions of homes to cut energy bills and combat climate change.

 

She said “The recent local election results, where the Greens gained more seats than Labour in England, shows that the public are crying out for the ambitious plan to address the cost of living crisis that Greens have put forward”, something that contrasted sharply with the response of a government that “Distracted by scandal after scandal” was “utterly failing to get a grip on the twin crises of the rising cost of living and the climate emergency” [4]. 

 

Among the measures called for by the NIESR to help households cope with the spiralling cost of living are a £25 weekly uplift to Universal Credit to be paid between May and October this year and a one-off cash payment to low-income households.

 

NIESR deputy director for public policy Professor Adrian Pabst told the Guardian these measures were needed because rising prices will “push up bills, drag down demand and increase income inequalities. The big squeeze on budgets will hit the lower-income households hardest who live in some of the most economically and socially deprived parts of the country”.

 

The NISER recommendations are close to policies the Green Party has been advocating since the beginning of the cost-of-living crisis. The Greens would go further though, using a Universal Basic Income to reduce poverty and creating jobs through insulating draughty homes and switching to renewable energy.

 

Its failure to offer even this limited amount of support, Adrian Ramsey said, showed that the government had “again demonstrated its failure to get to grips with the cost-of-living crisis and the climate emergency. Greens have a plan to tackle both in parallel through a multi-billion-pound programme of home insulation to cut energy bills and carbon emissions”.

 

 

 

 

[1] https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2022/05/10/the-queens-speech-nothing-to-create-fairer-greener-communities-say-greens/?link_id=0&can_id=8bc5e413fe5b14a23ca14eb06da17776&source=email-green-party-morning-briefing-tuesday-10-may&email_referrer=email_1540278&email_subject=green-party-morning-briefing-wednesday-11-may

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/10/queens-speech-boris-johnson-bereft-of-ideas-to-tackle-cost-of-living-crisis?link_id=8&can_id=8bc5e413fe5b14a23ca14eb06da17776&source=email-green-party-morning-briefing-tuesday-10-may&email_referrer=email_1540278&email_subject=green-party-morning-briefing-wednesday-11-may

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/11/further-250000-uk-households-face-destitution-in-2023-warns-niesr?link_id=9&can_id=8bc5e413fe5b14a23ca14eb06da17776&source=email-green-party-morning-briefing-tuesday-10-may&email_referrer=email_1540278&email_subject=green-party-morning-briefing-wednesday-11-may

[4] https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2022/05/08/greens-call-for-humane-approach-to-cost-of-living-and-refugees-in-queen%E2%80%99s-speech/

 

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