Liberal Democrats are unlikely to find anything that makes them happy in today’s Queen’s Speech. In fact, many of the measures to be announced will make us cringe with horror.
We thought we’d ask people to contribute their ideas for a Bill they would introduce with a sentence to explain why if they wanted. Do add your own in the comments.
The Leadership candidates
Tim Farron:
I would like a new Great Reform Act – voting reform for the House of Commons, the House of Lords and local government.
Norman Lamb:
Assisted Dying Bill
Once and for all we should confront the messy compromise that every year denies terminally ill patients, suffering great pain, the right to choose the way they end their life – in dignity and with the support of their loved ones – without travelling to another country.
Suzanne Fletcher
My Government will treat those seeking sanctuary in our country as asylum seekers with dignity, respect and justice.
As a start to this we will this year :
put an end to the disgraceful waste of lives and waste of money in indefinitely detaining people for immigration purposes.
Will further allow those seeking sanctuary in the UK who have been here for more than 6 months to work, allowing them to retain their dignity as well as save the taxpayer money.
Will replace the degrading Azure Card with cash payments giving asylum seekers the freedom to buy essentials for living at the cheapest price.
Duncan Stott
Garden Cities and Urban Extensions Bill – To tackle the housing crisis, we to identify the best sites for a major new housebuilding programme and provide new mechanisms to release this land for sustainable, affordable development.
Andy Myles
End of Empire Bill: All Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories shall, within 10 years, decide whether (a) to become a full part of the United Kingdom with a devolved legislature and administration ; (b) an independent state; or (c) part of another state. It’s a good idea because these remaining bits of Empire do huge amounts to keep alive delusions that we are a “Great Power” and we need to tidy up at the end of imperialism.
Jade O’Neil
A Bill to decriminalise sex work because the current situation is dangerous and puts a lot of people at risk of harm.
Richard Flowers
Richard had many ideas and asked us to pick just one:
CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES (DRUGS DECRIMINALISATION) ACT
A Liberal Democrat government will adopt a sensible, scientific evidence-based approach to control, monitoring, and treatment of drug use and misuse, based on the positive outcomes resulting from the changed approach in Portugal. Funds currently wasted on the futile “war on drugs” can be transferred to more productive policing. The government will review legalizing the medical (and possibly recreational) use of cannabis.
Richard Church
My government will put a bill before parliament to determine that upon my passing there will be a referendum of all my (ex) subjects over the age of 16 to determine whether my son should succeed me, or we should replace me and my family with something more democratic.
Jack Davies
A bill to end the Queen’s royal prerogative. The power for the Queen to assent law, however ceremonial, is time wasting and not something that is needed anymore. We could call the bill – The Royal Prerogative Can Pootle Off!
Kelly-Marie Blundell
All new roads must include cycle paths (A, B and C roads, not motorways). This must be funded by CIL and implemented by Councils via DCLG
For every social house sold, a new one must be built. Again DCLG.
Give tax breaks to developers willing to convert exisiting buildings rather than building on green field.
Incentivise companies to employ people with disabilities and provide flexi/part time/agile working conditions where possible.
Richard Marbrow
Greener Parliament Bill: To turn the Palace of Westminster into a museum and resite the UK Parliament in a purpose built building in Greater Manchester powered by renewable sources of energy.
Iain Donaldson
Companies must receive the backing of more than 50% of shareholders before they can support or fund a political party.
Mathew Hulbert
A Bill to ensure all the cafe’s and restaurants in the Parliamentary estate and in all Government buildings across the Country use Fairtrade. By using Fairtrade products they will help to ensure that Developing World farmers and growers get to earn a fairer wage and get to live and work in better conditions.
Jonathan Waddell
A bill to use the current revenues gained by Oil and Gas to be ringfenced and reinvested into renewable and alternatve energy sources. This should be with the purpose of securing our economy in which half a million jobs depend on Oil and Gas by finding ways for those skills to be used in other parts of the energy sector. Equally, finding energy sources that maintain our energy security, all while bringing an ened to the dependency on energy sources that destroy the planet.
John Berkeley Grout
A bill to allow local authorities to borrow money to build new houses and the infrastructure to support them. Developments built under this scheme must be at least 25% affordable and 25% social, and not built on floodplains. They must also adhere to minimum standards of size, sustainability, green space and longevity. Right to buy to be either tied to a 1:1 duty to build, or scrapped. Aim to return to 1970s or 1960s levels of new housing per annum.
Stan Collins
A bill to empower the NHS to promote the testing of medications for uses other than those which are currently licensed to the manufacturer.
A drug company can block the use of cheaper medications for uses which are not currently licensed/approved and in the case of Avastin has cost the NHS many hundreds of millions of pounds and the sight of many people who were denied the cheaper treatment.
Maria Pretzler
Introducing long-term rental contracts for people who rent in the private sector. Because there is an increasing number of renters who have no chance to get onto the housing ladder, and people who will want to start a family before they finally get to buy a place. These people deserve a chance to make a home without constantly having to fear conviction. There are models for such contracts in a number of continental countries: they can work very well for landlords as well, since long-term renters do save them money, too and give them a secure income, and long-term renters take on some responsibility for repairs, while also gaining some freedom to make some modifications to the property (with permission from the landlord).
Keith Legg
A law abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with a Senate comprising of 100 members, 25 elected from each of Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales.
(By way of an example, California, with a population of 39 million, has the same number of Senators as Wyoming, with a population of 580,000.)
Sarah Noble
Gender Identity Bill – Vastly changes the Gender Recognition Act to make changes to gender easier. Removes unnecessary gender data collection, and makes trans status protected sensitive data. Removes spousal veto, allows stolen marriages to be restored. Gives statutory guarantee for gender healthcare services.
Jon Ball
The Affordable Housing (actually do something about it) Bill. Require all developments over 10 units to have 50% affordable units with no ‘viability assessments’ or other ways for greedy developers to wiggle out. Affordable to be redefined to exclude things like sale at 80% of market price, which are affordable to almost nobody.
The LDV Team
Caron Lindsay:
A bill to incorporate the International Code on the Marketing of Breastmilk substitutes into UK Law – to protect parents from false claims by artificial baby milk manufacturers and to encourage support for breastfeeding.
Paul Walter:
A law which places a legal obligation on all local authorities to ensure that there is provision of night shelter for all homeless people in their area, regardless of where those people are from.
Nick Thornsby:
Devolution of Powers and Reform of Local Government Bill
A bill to grant full fiscal autonomy to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to devolve control of health, social security, transport, education spending and business and other taxation to local authorities, to introduce election by the Single Transferable Vote to local authority elections and elected mayors on the London model to cities
Stephen Tall:
A bill to strip private schools of their charitable status so they can market their social cachet as the commodity it is without being subsidised by the taxpayer.
Alex Foster:
The Letterbox (height and springiness standardisation) Bill (and I think he’s only half joking)
Joe Otten:
My idea would be to make job centres not shit. (Editorial note: Apologies for the language. We tried to tidy it up, but decided against it.)
And finally, Duck L’Orange, one of the OxWAb ducks from the election:
I propose a bill (snigger) to give Ducks the same legal status as Swans and be under the protection of her majesty the Queen. For too long, people have ducked (snigger) this issue, and there has been too much swanning (snigger) around. Birds of a feather should flock together.
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17 Comments
A bill to prevent rail companies running overcrowded services from limiting space on their services by restricting areas as first class.
How about a sentence to summarise what a lib dem queens speech would represent? A sentence that sets the agenda rather than adds to it?
One big thing which I think is missing: a more open and generous approach to the EU migrant crisis, and to the humanitarian crisis in Syria. I’ve long thought that the UK should be doing much more to take in refugees from both crises.
A Bill to will cancel the HS2 Rail project and initiate investigations into the misuse of £1billion of public funds. A bill to restore student grants, abolish university tuition fees and make recompense for student debts accrued due to this iniquitous levy on learning. A small business Corporation Tax rate of 5% for soletraders and 10% for Limited Companies and Partnerships with less than 5 employees.
A bill to ban all pesticides that have such a devastating effect on the bee population!
To accompany Norman’s Assisted Dying Bill, lets have an Organ Donations Bill, which would change the organ donation system from an ‘opt-in’ system to an ‘opt-out’. i.e. people would have to carry a card to say that they do NOT want their organs used in the event of their death. Otherwise, it will be assumed they give the go-ahead.
These two bills have the virtue that they would not cost much – indeed would probably save money.
Can I suggest an amendment to Richard Marbrow’s bill?
The new parliament building to have custom-built accommodation nearby for all of its elected members, these units to pass from MPs to their successors, thus reducing the need for MPs to have second homes.
I’d be very curious to hear Andy Myles’s justification for forcing the overseas territories into decisions that many of them do not wish or have expressed no wish in making. I find it incredibly unlikely that should any of the overseas terrorities wish to have a referendum on independence/joining another state/altering their relationship that the UK government (of whatever party) would oppose it.
I’m also curious how places like the Pitcairn Islands (population 56) and Tristan da Cuhna (population 302) can really be expected to survive as independent states. The reality is they can’t, so would never vote for independence. If they opt to “to become a full part of the United Kingdom with a devolved legislature and administration” are we then going to be in the ridiculous situation of having a MP representing a constituency of 56 people, which is so far away that it would take them 2 weeks under the most optimal of conditions to reach the islands from London and then potentially another 4-5 weeks to return? As for administration, there is no way the expertise exists on these islands to deal with a lot of the competencies currently provided by HM Government so devolution is unlikely to be possible except for the largest of the overseas territories.
Put simply, it just isn’t feasible or fair on the overseas territories to attempt such a plan.
Rural and urban parity of funding bill.
Various funding formulas have under costed the effects of rurality on service provision including the NHS. Corrections are planned over a glacially slow pace. The proposal is to prioritise speeding this up to enable parity for rurality and urban areas, and for this to be a funding priority for traditionally underfunded areas and to ensure austerity disproportionately effects those benefiting from traditional overfunding, to ensure correct funding balance is achieved sooner rather than later.
Mine would be similar to John Berkeley Grout’s – to allow councils to borrow for directly owned housing to be secured against the assets. Will save millions in B&B and temporary housing, improve quality of life and leave lasting assets.
Although Alex Foster’s letterboxes bill comes a close second…
I agree with John Grout about us playing our part in helping the migrant crisis.
I would vote for Tim Farron’s priority.
The government are bringing forward a new housing bill therefor our alternative housing bill would offer a transferable discount payment to all council and housing association tenants seeking to purchase a new home on the open market based on the average house price in their locality.The vacant social housing would then be offered to a household in housing need .Assistance to developers to redevelop brown field sites where the land is contaminated or requires remedial works to make the project economically viable .This would be funded by a levy on greenfield site developments .This would aim to provide social or affordable housing to rent or part purchase.
We should follow the French example ban supermarkets from throwing away food (or fine them if they do) so cut down on waste and with the potential revenue stream being used for healthy foods and nutritional eduction
The Citizen’s Income Bill to bring in a non taxable Citizen’s Income for every adult citizen of the UK of at least £41 a week and to abolish the Income Tax personal allowance and ensure that the Citizen’s Income will increase annually by at least the triple lock for pensions rate.
Government Ministers and spokesmen usually assert that it would be unconstitutional, (lese majeste, etcetera) to predict what will be in the Queen’s Speech. More likely it is against the wishes of the PM or the government’s chief whip.
For example please see The Times 3/5/2016, page one: “Cameron reasserts his authority in Queen’s Speech”.
This is not to be confused with “The King’s Speech” which is a film about the diction of King George VI and the help he received.
How about the Queen giving her speech from Buckingham Palace or Windsor, to save her a journey, while repairs are done at Westminster? She would still be seen on television, heard on the radio and googled on the internet. On one occasion She went to St Pauls in a gilded coach pulled by horses and returned in a modern limousine with more horsepower to deal with the hill.
Ignoring political party affiliations, there were two MPs on the Daily Politics on 16/1/17.
One is a member of the relevant committee and knows what he is talking about. For instance the building is exempt from fire regulations (presumably because it is a royal palace). Whatever we think of our parliamentarians should we put the Monarch at risk in this way?
The other MP wants to be in the building at the same time as the builders. Sometimes builders are not fully informed of the risks. Sometimes they make mistakes. The artistically interesting building was erected before modern building regulations were enacted and, for instance, contains a lot of asbestos. He should get off his soapbox and check out more of the facts. He should then change his opinion.
There was no discussion of the alternatives. The Economist magazine proposed a new capital city to be called Elizabetha.
It has been suggested that packing up the whole of Parliament and Whitehall would be an enormous job, but the Germans moved from Bonn to Berlin after reunification, as they had said they would. The European Parliament moves from Brussels to Strasbourg both regularly and frequently. Nowadays more data are held electronically, less on paper or vellum.
Tony Greaves (of Pendle in the County of Lancashire) recently suggested something similar. There would obviously be a reduction of road and rail traffic in London.