The Queen’s Speech held 38 new bills – but not one will help with the cost of gas

Editorial: A global energy crisis isn’t going to be resolved by a British act of parliament but the government might have made a bit more effort to at least make it look like they considered it a priority

(Dave Brown)

Some 38 bills were announced in the Queen’s Speech, but not a single one will help with the gas bill. The cost of living crisis merited barely a mention in the government’s programme, which is more than a disappointment or oversight and something approaching an act of political recklessness.

Of course, a global energy crisis isn’t going to be resolved by a British act of parliament, but the government might have made a bit more effort to at least make it look like they considered it a priority. It suggests, just as the chancellor’s spring statement did, that the government does not quite know what to do about it.

For now they have contented themselves with a promise to “support” the Bank of England in its efforts to get inflation down – though rising interest rates will only push mortgage bills and business costs higher and exacerbate the crisis in the short term. At any rate, it doesn’t augur well for a political recovery in time for the next election, given that 10 per cent inflation and a near-recession are forecast in the coming months.

Much of the rest of the Queen’s Speech entails a reduction in the quality of life and the freedoms historically enjoyed by the British people. There was a self-congratulatory pat on the back for Cop26, but no more. It is difficult, at this early stage, to identify which of the bills is the most pernicious, but it is a multifaceted assault.

The vague pledge to rebalance the power of the courts and parliament is most likely an early gentle hint of a systematic dismantling of judicial review on matters of policy and action by the executive, such as the Supreme Court’s ruling on the unlawful prorogation of parliament in 2019. It feels very much like an act of spite after the Brexit wars, and a power grab by ministers, who find the intervention of an independent judiciary frustrating. The courts are there to defend the people against the abuse of power by an over-mighty government, such as the one presently in power. The act itself may be unconstitutional.

The Online Safety Bill, carried over from the last parliamentary session, carries the real threat of ministerial intervention in editorial freedoms, via instructions to Ofcom. The Electoral Commission has also been placed under ministerial control. New laws on voting will suppress the franchise to the advantage of the Conservatives. These are all steps towards the establishment of an elective dictatorship, a corrosive weakening of the British constitution’s uncodified but real system of checks and balances.

There will certainly be a concerted attempt to restrict the freedom to protest. The point about peaceful civil protest is that it is noisy, inconvenient and disruptive. The idea of a protest that is so quiet and unobtrusive that nobody notices is patently absurd. Protesters are supposed to stop the traffic, metaphorically and literally. The procession of Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and Range Rovers through the closed roads of Westminster for the state opening of parliament meant traffic jams and bus diversions, but people accepted such inconvenience as a price to pay for the democratic process, albeit a rather ceremonial version. They should do the same about messier, more troublesome interference with their lives.

For the future British citizens are not only being faced with being poorer, but also asked to look forward to weaker protection of their human rights, and their replacement with some sort of repro version of the Bill of Rights of 1689, which is hardly necessary because the old laws, and indeed common law, remains in place.

As for the Brexit freedoms the government has decided, belatedly, to embrace, the danger is that, like the unilateral abrogation of the Northern Ireland protocol, they may turn out to be in breach of the UK’s treaty obligations under the Brexit withdrawal agreement and the EU-UK trade and cooperation agreement. The British government is committed not only to checks in the Irish Sea, but to maintain a “level playing field” in regulations and standards with the EU, in return for tariff-free trade. The government, not content with the baleful effects of Brexit on business and the economy, seems to want to provoke a trade war with the EU. That will not assist the cost of living crisis, promote peace in Ireland, or strengthen relations with the US.

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The best that can be said about many of the measures in the Queen’s Speech is that they will either run out of parliamentary time, fall foul of judicial review (while it lasts) or turn out to be unworkable. The abolition of the 1998 Human Rights Act, for example, won’t release the UK from any of its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights – it merely means that cases will be heard in Strasbourg rather than London. If the Supreme Court judges the attempt partially to abolish the right to judicial review then the new act cannot stand.

And if someone really wants to glue themself to the M25 then a long prison sentence or unlimited fine might not deter them (and they might even take it to judicial review in Strasbourg as an infringement of their human rights). Some protesters, after all, enjoy getting arrested and going to court, and some juries, faced with draconian penalties, will refuse to convict them (as with the Colston statue case in Bristol). Some of the worst bills will probably be abandoned as the next election approaches.

In short, all the flummery and solemn ritual, the gratuitous culture wars and the vast weight of poorly thought-through irrelevant legislation look like just so much displacement activity. The Conservatives, in power for 12 years, have run out of energy and ideas, and are busying themselves with parliamentary activity instead. It doesn’t really matter how many new laws are passed if a governing party lacks a project or a plan, has so little vision and is prone to sleaze. As we are about to find out. Again.