Safe Streets for All

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab) [V]]

This Queen’s Speech displays a hostility towards democracy and the rule of law, with a planning Bill that shifts power from elected local government to developers, which is a recipe for poorer-quality homes, the ruination of townscapes and fewer affordable homes; a voter registration Bill that aims to disenfranchise millions because, in the Conservative party’s opinion, they tend to vote the wrong way; a freedom of speech Bill that will curtail and proscribe the freedoms of universities; a proposal to hand the power to decide the date of the general election, for party advantage, to the Prime Minister; a renewed attempt to prevent public bodies considering human rights and international law in purchasing, procurement and investment decisions; and, four years after Grenfell Tower burned, a building safety Bill that does not begin to address the malpractices that tragedy exposed.

Three Bills in particular subjugate the individual to the state: the police Bill, the judicial review Bill and the borders Bill. We are familiar with the police Bill—the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Parts 3 and 4 are a sustained attack on civil rights, curtailing free assembly and free speech, and criminalising a way of life and the ethnic groups who pursue it. This weekend, The Times carried a provocative article that advocated ending both the requirement for local authorities to create Traveller sites and the ethnic minority status of Gypsies and Travellers. That just encapsulates the policy of this Home Secretary.

The borders Bill seeks to create two tiers of asylum seekers, the lower of which—those with temporary protection status—will have fewer rights and harsher treatment than now. That is likely to be in breach of the 1951 refugee convention, but this is a Government who do not worry about obeying the law. The recent Faulks inquiry into judicial review saw little to criticise in the system of legal MOTs that has developed over decades, and which mature Governments see as a means of road testing their decisions and powers. The Lord Chancellor spurns the judgment of his own independent review and presses on with a far more aggressive attempt to clip the judges’ wings. He wants to change the law before he has even seen the outcome of his review of the review.

There are shocking omissions here, too: no proposals for social care and no Bill to end no-fault evictions. Areas such as Hammersmith are in the bottom league for levelling-up funds, despite having some of the poorest communities in the country and having suffered the deepest austerity cuts in the past decade. There is nothing here to stop private companies such as the greedy US conglomerate Centene having free rein to buy up GP practices across England. These are examples of bias, self-interest and neglect at the heart of Government policy, but it is the trampling on civil liberties and constitutional rights that will make this otherwise forgettable Queen’s Speech notorious.