Queen’s Speech “thin” and “bereft of ideas or purpose”, Starmer says

Keir Starmer has declared that the Queen’s Speech was “thin” and “bereft of ideas or purpose”, arguing that the address to parliament setting out the legislative agenda shows that the Conservative government’s “time has passed”.

Responding to the annual address in parliament, in which the government highlights its areas of priority for new laws for the months ahead, the Labour leader said it was “without a guiding principle or a roadmap for delivery”.

He told MPs that the speech showed the government is “too out of touch to meet the challenges of the moment”, which he said were the cost-of-living crisis, low growth of the economy and ending the “poverty of ambition” on public services.

“We have a government whose time has passed. A cabinet out of ideas and out of energy, led by a Prime Minister entirely out of touch. It doesn’t have to be this way,” Starmer said.

“It won’t always be this way. A Labour government would tackle the cost-of-living crisis head on. Get Britain growing again after 12 years of failure. Improve public services so they deliver for the people paying for them. A Labour government would rise to the moment where this government has badly failed.”

Included in the speech is a levelling up and regeneration bill, in which the government has said it intends to give councils new planning powers, including to force landlords in England to let out empty shops to rejuvenate high streets.

The online safety bill also featured – which is a longstanding government pledge not yet delivered – to better regulate content appearing on the internet, as did a Brexit freedoms bill, schools bill, energy security bill and a public order bill.

Below is the full text of the speech delivered in parliament by Labour leader Keir Starmer in response to the Queen’s Speech this afternoon.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Before I turn to the address, I want to thank his Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, for delivering the address. And I want to pay tribute to Her Majesty in the year of her platinum jubilee. Her dedication to Britain has been a reassuring constant in an ever-changing world. Her commitment to public duty a reminder of the responsibilities we all owe to each other. Her dignity and her leadership an inspiration to all of us. She will forever have our thanks for 70 years of service to our country. We wish her well.

I also want to congratulate the Prime Minister, he’s achieved a new first. The first resident of Downing Street to be a constituent of a Labour council! I am sure they will serve him well. And I want to congratulate the mover and the seconder on their fine speeches. I understand The member for Beverley and Holderness owns over 900 copies of Eagle comic books. He is an extensive collector of The Adventures of Dan Dare from the Inter-Planet Patrol. A comic book hero with a moral message, a spirit he has channelled in his 17 years in this house. Although there is some mischief in him, so I think he’s a little more Dennis the Menace myself.

The member for Brecon and Radnorshire is dedicated to a punishing exercise regime. A former cox with Twickenham Rowing Club, a half marathon runner, and even an ironman competitor. Maybe she is an ‘Iron Lady’ in the making? And, I know, if they were still with us, David Amess and James Brokenshire would have been proud of both the mover and the seconder. We miss them both. And I know the pain on the Conservative benches is still raw. Their friends taken too soon. But their passing leaves us united in our resolve to defeat the evils of both extremism and cancer.

I also want to pay tribute to my dear friend Jack Dromey. Jack picked fights on behalf of working people and won them. In 1975, he led the first equal pay act strike. He campaigned for the rights of cleaners everywhere, from the House of Commons to MI5. And in the last year of his life, he campaigned for a public inquiry on behalf of the families bereaved by Covid. The only way that we on these benches can really pay tribute to Jack is to aspire to champion working people as well as he did.

Because, Mr Speaker, times are tough. But they are much tougher than they should be. As we emerge from the pandemic, find a new place in the world outside the European Union and transition to a carbon neutral economy, our country faces great challenges. But, at the same time, great opportunities are within our reach. We can rebuild stronger, learning where our society and our services need more resilience. We can do more than just get Brexit done, we can ensure Britain is in the best position to thrive outside of the EU. And we can lead the world in zero-carbon industries, generating high skill, high wage jobs across our country.

But for that to happen we need a government of the moment with ideas that meet the aspirations of the British public. This thin address, bereft of ideas or purpose, without a guiding principle or a roadmap for delivery, shows just how far this government is from that. Too out of touch to meet the challenges of the moment. Too tired to grasp the opportunities of the future. Their time has passed.

The first great challenge our country faces is the cost-of living crisis. Inflation stands at seven per cent and rising. Household bills have gone up hundreds of pounds. The cost of the weekly shop has rocketed. People are seeing their wages run out earlier in the month, and the value of their savings fall. I wish I could say the worst is over. But last Thursday, the Bank of England revised down Britain’s growth and revised up inflation.

This government’s failure to grow the economy over a decade, combined with its inertia in the face of spiralling bills, means we are staring down the barrel of something we haven’t seen in decades. A stagflation crisis. It is a truly shocking legacy for this government.

It should humble those on the benches opposite who have ignored the red lights on our economy, even whilst wages were frozen for over a decade, and whose complacency is best summed up by a Prime Minister whose response to this crisis was to make fun of those worrying about inflation. A government of the moment would use the great powers that it has to tackle this head on.

Bringing forward an emergency Budget, with a windfall tax on oil and gas producers, which would raise billions. The money raised could be used to slash the cost of energy bills and help businesses keep their costs down. Even the bosses at BP don’t agree when the Prime Minister says it would deter investment. It’s a common-sense solution. But, instead, the government is bereft of leadership. The Chancellor ruling the windfall tax in, the Business Secretary ruling it out, and a Prime Minister who doesn’t know what he thinks.

But it’s not just about short-term measures. A government of the moment would take a step back from the crisis and ensure that Britain is never again so vulnerable to a surge in international prices, forced to go cap in hand from dictator to dictator looking for a quick fix of imported oil. That means standing up to those vested interests who oppose onshore wind, the cheapest and most reliable source of electricity we have. But this Prime Minister is too weak to stand up to his backbenchers. And it means investing in the insulation we need to use less energy to heat our homes. That would take £400 off energy bills every year and cut gas imports by 15%, But this Prime Minister is far too concerned with vanity projects, ever to prioritise investment in insulating homes.

So, we are left with an energy bill not up to the moment, it’s the latest chapter in a pathetic response to the cost-of-living crisis. Where there should have been support, it has been tax rise after tax rise on working people, the only country in the G7 to do so during the cost-of-living crisis. The low growth that led to the stagnation we see today, is the same reason wages have been frozen for so long. Over 12 years of Tory government the economy has grown far slower than when Labour was in power. And it is set to go even slower in the coming years, the slowest growing economy in the G7 next year.

As the director general of the CBI said: “For a country that is used to growth at 2 – 2.5% [the Conservative record] is simply not good enough.” We can’t afford to go on like this. If the Tories had simply matched Labour’s record on growth in government, people would have had higher incomes, boosting the public finances. We could have spent over £40bn more on public services without having to raise a single tax.

So, the second great challenge our country faces is to get Britain growing again. A government of the moment would have grasped the nettle and set out a new approach to the economy. An approach based on a stronger partnership between government and businesses, a partnership dedicated to growth. There would have been an industrial strategy to grow the industries of the future. With the government providing initial investment that brings confidence and security and acts as a catalyst for the private sector to invest in giga-factories, hydrogen and steel. High-productivity jobs right here in Britain.

A government of the moment would finally abolish business rates and replace them with a fair system that creates a level playing field with online giants so that our businesses can compete, invest and grow. And a government of the moment would have a plan to revive our town centres with new businesses. Providing finance for a new generation of start-ups in our town centres, giving councils the powers to take over empty shops and fill the space with workshops and offices in the jobs of the future.

Instead of that new approach to the economy we have a Chancellor who thinks it would be silly to do anything different. A Chancellor who, rather than partnering with business, has loaded them up with debt and wonders why they are struggling to invest. A Chancellor who seems content to have the slowest growth of every G20 country bar one. Russia. A Chancellor whose legacy will be low growth, high inflation and high tax, and the diminishing of Britain’s living standards. No hope of taking on the big challenges. No hope of seizing the great opportunities. Hopeless.

And because they are not up to the challenge of growing the economy all those tax hikes aren’t going into improving public services. No chance of a doctor’s appointment. People forced to wait months for urgent mental health treatment. Supersized classrooms the norm once again. Never before have people been asked to pay so much for so little.

So the third great challenge we face is ending the poverty of ambition this government has for our public services. That means a government of the moment focusing relentlessly on school improvement. Labour would improve leadership and teaching standards at state schools, funded by ending tax breaks for private schools. It means a government of the moment that would finally deliver world class mental health provision that matches years of empty rhetoric on parity with physical health. Labour would hire new clinicians so we can guarantee mental health treatment in four weeks, paid for by closing loopholes for private equity firms.

Instead, we have a government that went into the pandemic with record waiting lists and has no plan to get them down any time soon. A government that takes the British public for fools by pretending refurbishing a hospital wing is the same as building a new hospital. A government that can’t hire the GPs it promised, or get the GPs we have to see more patients. Lost in spin, no ambition, not up to the challenge of the moment.

And it’s not just our education and health system that need reform. Fraud has become commonplace, seven million incidents a year, Britain routinely ripped-off. The Business Secretary has suggested it doesn’t even count as crime. But fraud is just the tip of the iceberg. Victims are being let down whilst this government lets violent criminals off. The overall charge rate stands at a pathetic 5.8%, meaning that huge swathes of serious offences – like rape, knife crime, and theft – have been effectively decriminalised.

A government of the moment would say enough is enough, invest in community policing, pulling resources away from vanity projects like his ministerial yacht. It would strengthen protection for victims of crime and anti-social behaviour, and increase the number of specialist rape units in the justice system so it stops routinely failing women. Instead, we have a government that talks tough whilst letting the justice system fall apart. No care for victims or their communities. Not good enough, not up to the moment.

We have a government whose time has passed. A Cabinet out of ideas and out of energy, led by a Prime Minister entirely out of touch. It doesn’t have to be this way. It won’t always be this way. A Labour government would tackle the cost-of-living crisis head on. Get Britain growing again after 12 years of failure. Improve public services so they deliver for the people paying for them. A Labour government would rise to the moment where this government has badly failed. Thank you, Mr Speaker.