UK's Labour govt legislation agenda 'will affect people's lives right across the social spectrum'
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00:00Britain's King Charles III gave his speech to open parliament not long ago, lining out
00:06Labour's first programme for government in 14 years.
00:09The King's speech coming after the centre-left Labour won a big majority in the national
00:14election earlier this month.
00:16Let's listen to what the King had to say.
00:20Securing economic growth will be a fundamental mission.
00:24My government will seek a new partnership with both business and working people and
00:30help the country move on from the recent cost of living challenges by prioritising wealth
00:36creation for all communities.
00:40My ministers will establish an industrial strategy council.
00:45It is my government's objective to see rising living standards in all nations and regions
00:51in the United Kingdom.
00:54Victoria Honeyman is a professor of British politics at the University of Leeds and she
00:58joins us now from there for more analysis on the King's speech.
01:02What were your thoughts here?
01:03I mean, here we heard the King just a moment ago speaking about how they want to secure
01:08economic growth.
01:09They want to provide more wealth creation.
01:11How exactly is Labour going to do just that?
01:14There weren't many surprises.
01:16We knew pretty much most of what was going to be in the King's speech because it's the
01:20kind of things that were talked about during the election and it was the things that the
01:23Labour Party was talking about even before the election.
01:26The point of the King's speech is to not only lay out what legislation they want, but also
01:29to give a direction of travel.
01:31Now the issues that they focused on with the economy are very, very difficult.
01:35Issues relating to productivity, issues relating to wealth creation.
01:39These are not easy to solve and we saw some of the bills that they're suggesting might
01:44go some way to do it.
01:45So for example, the creation of GB Energy, the renationalisation of the rail structures,
01:50for example, issues relating to renters rights, the things that will affect people's lives
01:55right across the social spectrum.
01:57We know that they're expected to bring in or remove, I should say, the tax break that
02:02private schools get.
02:03So they're looking at this in a variety of ways, but none of them are easy fixes that
02:06are going to work immediately.
02:08Were there any surprises for you in this speech or did everything seem pretty true to what
02:12Labour had campaigned on?
02:14Everything seemed pretty true.
02:15There were a couple of bills that were mentioned that are continuations of things that were
02:20suggested by the Conservative government previously.
02:22So for example, issues relating to the ability of individuals to buy cigarettes, for example.
02:30There were a few things that might have been included that haven't as yet.
02:34So for example, issues relating to votes for 16 year olds, but I don't doubt that they
02:39will come along in time.
02:40There's only so much that can be achieved in any parliamentary term.
02:44So no big surprises.
02:46It was interesting.
02:47A lot of focus domestically, of course, but also a lot of focus internationally, showing
02:52that this government definitely wants to give its support to Ukraine, reset relations with
02:56the EU.
02:58It's all behind a two state solution for the Middle East.
03:00Again, will Labour be more successful in those projects?
03:06They probably will be more successful in some of those projects, such as their relations
03:10with the EU, because that's actually relatively new.
03:13The idea that the previous government had was that they were, or I should say the style
03:18that the previous government had was that they were slightly combative with other members
03:21of the EU.
03:22The idea that the government would be more collegiate with the EU, would treat them as
03:26friends is a step change that we're seeing.
03:29And so they'll probably be more successful in that regard, because relations tend to
03:33work better when you have good relations rather than when you have poor relations.
03:37The key thing that the Labour Party, the Labour government now will want to do is to make sure
03:41that their foreign policy is viewed as being as robust as that of the Conservative Party.
03:47It's a very traditional attack line of the Conservative Party to say that Labour is weak
03:51on security, weak on foreign policy.
03:53So this support for Ukraine, pushing the kind of very traditional elements of foreign policy.
03:59We've heard talk about how they're going to restructure different elements of the military
04:05or increase military spending.
04:07This will be key to essentially defending themselves against those kind of criticisms.
04:11Indeed.
04:12It's interesting what you're saying about Labour being perceived as being weak on security
04:15because there were definite comments to strengthen borders, up the police presence, curb immigration
04:21crime, things like that.
04:22Yeah.
04:23The more domestic elements of foreign policy are things that Labour has been criticised
04:27for and that they conversely criticised the Conservative government for.
04:30So if you take immigration, for example, they argued that the previous government's policy
04:35of deporting illegal immigrants to Rwanda was completely ineffective.
04:39What you actually needed was to try and stop those individuals before they even got to
04:44the United Kingdom and to try and deal with some of those issues, such as, for example,
04:48policing of the channel, relationships with the French government, for example, and also
04:52issues relating to how you can actually create more legal routes for people so that they're
04:57not forced into incredibly dangerous crossings across the English Channel.
05:01So all of those kind of things will be focused on by the Labour government because they criticised
05:05the Conservatives for not doing those things and they will want to see those things done
05:09in an attempt to reduce illegal immigration numbers and immigration numbers generally.
05:13It was interesting we saw so much of the pomp and circumstance and ceremony that's so much
05:17part of the British heritage in this speech.
05:19It has to be.
05:20I can't even imagine what goes through King Charles's mind when he's reading about modernising
05:24the House of Lords, axing hereditary lawmakers.
05:27I mean, it's it's a bit incongruous at times.
05:31The British system is full of pomp and ceremony, as well as more practical elements to it,
05:35and the two are very much bound up.
05:37The job of, and it is a job of King Charles in this event, is to read out with absolutely
05:42no emotion, as little emotion as possible, what his government is going to do because
05:46he isn't allowed to express a political viewpoint on it.
05:49So his job is to essentially sit in all of his regalia in a kind of monotone, reading
05:55out what his government's going to do so that there is no hint of whether or not he agrees
05:58with it.
05:59So it's a very big day for him as king.
06:01He did it previously when he was the Prince of Wales, when required, when his mother was
06:05perhaps not fit enough to perform it.
06:08So he's not new to this, but this is nonetheless a new government and they want to make their
06:13mark.
06:14And it's King Charles's job to read it out in as completely unemotional way as he possibly
06:19can.
06:20Which he certainly did.
06:21OK, Victoria Honeyman, thanks so much for taking the time to speak to us.
06:23You are a professor of British politics at the University of Leeds.
06:26Thank you.