Downing Street has now confirmed that Wes Streeting is still health secretary. The PM’s spokesperson told reporters the prime minister has “full confidence” in the health secretary.
Badenoch moves into the serious part of her speech.
double quotation mark The prime minister is in office, but not in power.
Everyone is trying to pretend it’s all right. It’s not all right.
In the past 48 hours, nearly 100 Labour MPs have called for the prime minister to resign. Four ministers have quit.
It is clear his authority has gone. that he will not be able to deliver what little there is in this king’s speech.
This is a government less than two years in office, which has already run out of ideas. run out of road.
Badenoch says this session of parliament will be the first without the hereditary peers.
She says their departure will be “keenly felt” and parliament will be “poorer” without them.
(It is rare to hear a politician defend the hereditary principle these days, but Badenoch will do it. She posted this long message about the value of hereditary peers in this post on social media last month.)
Badenoch congratulates Naz Shah and Chris Vince on their speeches.
And she praises the king for his contribution today, and for what he achieved on his state visit. She goes on:
double quotation mark [The king’s speech to Congress] was a speech full of the wisdom. courage needed for our times.
Of course. we would never have got to hear it if we’d listen to some people in this house who called for the king’s visit to be cancelled.
But thank goodness no one listens to the leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Kemi Badenoch is speaking now.
She says the king’s speech took place against an extraordinary backdrop. We did not even know if there would be a PM in place, she says.
And she congratulates the government whips. joking that they did well to find two Labour MPs to speak in the debate willing to support the PM.
In her speech, Naz Shah did not really address the Labour leadership crisis. But Chris Vince made a point of praising Keir Starmer. Referring to the way he wanted all young people in Harlow were given to achieve whatever they wanted, he said he personally was an example of how “if you really want something. you are willing to work hard for it, you can achieve it” and he said Starmer was “even more proof of it than I am”. He also said Starmer was dedicated to giving that opportunity to others.
And, after a reference to running in the marathon,. his other running endeavours, he ended with a message for Labour MPs.
double quotation mark We should always remember it’s a marathon and not a sprint.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, is sitting on the frontbench in the chamber. He is trying to catch the eye of his colleagues,. most of them are trying to avoid engaging with him.
Chris Vince, the MP for Harlow, was the Labour backbencher chosen to second the loyal address to the king. He is speaking now, making plenty of self-deprecating jokes, and even more references to Harlow.
The king’s speech includes an immigration. asylum bill implementing plans to make refugee status temporary, enable more returns deals with other countries, and speed up the deportation of foreign criminals.
Colin Yeo. an immigration barrister, has a good assessment of what the government is proposing to do in this post on his Free Movement blog. Here is an extract.
double quotation mark There is some suggestion that refugees who arrive with nothing. are then forced to live in taxpayer-funded accommodation for years because the government fails to process their claims quickly and refuses to let them work will be required to ‘contribute to the cost borne by the British taxpayer once they are able to do so.’ This is insane, utterly impractical and obviously massively unfair. It’s a transparently stupid idea and I can’t imagine this going anywhere at all.
Amnesty International UK has criticsed the bill. It said:
double quotation mark A new immigration bill is needed, but not another one built on the false promise that weakening rights. restricting appeals will somehow fix a broken system.
The Refugee Council was also critical. It said:
double quotation mark Britain should have a fair. functioning asylum system that restores public confidence and supports refugees to rebuild their lives in safety, but the government’s proposed asylum bill won’t achieve those goals or fix what’s broken. Instead, it risks forcing many into destitution, keeping families separated,. making it even harder for people to put down roots in the UK.
And the Bar Council has expressed concerns too. It said:
double quotation mark The Bar Council has serious concerns about the proposal to replace the first-tier tribunal (immigration. asylum chamber) with a new independent appeals body. Our concerns relate to the impact on procedural fairness, access to justice, judicial independence and trust in the justice system.
We do not support plans to replace existing, trained and qualified judges. There is no substantive evidence. the reforms proposed would be any better at dealing with the current immigration appeal backlogs. We suspect the new reforms, if implemented, will be ineffective and costly.
In the Commons the debate on the king’s speech is opened by two government backbenchers. They are expected to deliver speeches with plenty of jokes.
Naz Shah, the MP for Bradford West, has been chosen to go first.
She says she is the first Muslim MP to be invited to propose the loyal address after the king’s speech.
In a jibe at the shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, she jokes about the likely “ meltdown” on the far right this might trigger,. how her presence in the debate could even be seen as “an act of domination”.
And, alluding to the Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin, Shah says that if seeing black. brown people on TV makes you sick, “my speech is going to make you vomit”.
UPDATE: It is the loyal address, of course, not the humble address. I’ve corrected the reference in the third paragraph.
Lisa O’Carroll is a senior Guardian correspondent covering post-Brexit issues.
A European partnership bill, widely expected to give powers to the government to align with EU law through statutory instrument in some cases, will facilitate “new deals agreed with the EU now. in the future”, the government has said. Confirming details in the king’s speech, the government said the food. drink deal, aligning animal and plant standards, “could add up to £5.1bn a year to the economy”. This sanitary. phytosanitary agreement will remove the need for some of the paperwork, but not the customs paperwork, for exporters and the government hopes it will restore the appeal to export to those small food producers who had given up after Brexit.
The government pointed out that the EU is the UK’s largest market with trade worth £830bn. the number of British exporters is dwarfed by the number of EU exporters – 95,000 in the UK compared to 158,000 in the EU. Business leaders have long protested that EU exporters are advantaged by the fact the UK did not implement all the checks. controls on incoming goods. unlike the EU which follows the rules to the letter. William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said:
double quotation mark A permanent deal with the EU can’t come soon enough for UK firms. In the talks ahead ministers must deliver a deal that truly unburdens business and cuts costs.
The bill will also lay out a series of new powers to “ensure agreements with the EU can be implemented now. in the future”, which could include alignment on chemicals and medicines, where industries have been forced into complex and costly dual regulatory approval processes to sell the same product in the UK and in the EU. “The bill will set out how these powers can be used for future treaties. ensure there is parliamentary approval for any new treaties before those powers can be used,” the government said.
In the Commons, the session has just started. As is traditional at the start of a new parliamentary session. the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, reads out a spiel reminding MPs of their duties, including their obligation to comply with the code of conduct.
Here are three Labour-watching journalists on what might happen if Wes Streeting does challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership tomorrow.
From the New Statesman’s Ailbhe Rea
double quotation mark Would Keir Starmer stand against Wes Streeting? Yesterday a No 10 insider said that is a card the PM could yet play. They said he would win, and that the soft left, waiting for Burnham, would back Starmer.
But soft left are clear that won’t happen. “There is no way in hell that the soft left would back Keir,” a well-place soft left figure says.
From Sienna Rodgers from the House magazine
double quotation mark Not sure why I’m seeing so much discussion of a Starmer v Streeting race right now – do you really think the soft left won’t put up a candidate? If their Plan A for Andy B fails after a big fight, it may not be Rayner. they will choose someone
From Lewis Goodall from the News Agents
double quotation mark If Wes Streeting challenges. has the numbers- a big if- then the next big decision (with potentially huge consequences) is for Ed Miliband
Small businesses have hailed a clampdown on late payments as a “historic moment” with new laws set to fine firms that are the worst offenders. the Press Association says. PA says:
double quotation mark Measures to tackle poor practices by firms when it comes to paying their suppliers were welcomed by the industry.
Legislation set out in the king’s speech includes giving the Small Business Commissioner new powers to investigate businesses suspected of poor payment practices. adjudicate disputes outside of the courts.
It also means the potential to fine businesses. persistently pay their suppliers late or do not comply with the laws.
Tina McKenzie. policy chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), said: “The formal commitment to legislation to stamp out late payments is an historic moment for small firms, who have spent years battling a culture of poor payment practices by big businesses towards their smaller suppliers.”
Here is the Cabinet Office 129-page briefing document with details of all the bills in the king’s speech.
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