King’s Speech

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing today’s debate on the humble Address with such a personal and heartfelt speech. It was a privilege to be present to hear the King’s first Speech of his reign to this House earlier this week, and it is a privilege to open this debate for His Majesty’s Opposition. I declare an interest as one of London’s deputy mayors as I will refer to London in relation to housing.

The gracious Speech unfortunately demonstrated that this Government have run out of steam, have few new ideas and are rehashing old ones in the hope that nobody will notice. The Prime Minister started his introduction to the background notes to the King’s Speech by stating that he has delivered on his promise a year ago to deliver “Integrity, professionalism, accountability” in government, ignoring the fact that his party has been in power since 2010 and that his road to being Prime Minister led him from No. 11 to No. 10, and ignoring the fact that the King’s Speech was held against a backdrop of the Covid-19 public inquiry in which the Government in whom he served appear to have lacked any integrity or professionalism and felt themselves to be above accountability.

This King’s Speech regrettably lacks substance. With only 20 Bills announced, it is also seriously lacking in ambition. I will leave my noble friend Lady Merron to speak on health and social care in her closing remarks. However, I would like to highlight the lack of reform of the Mental Health Act 1983, which is outdated and discriminatory. People do not have trust in it and reform is long overdue. The Government first announced a review in 2017 and published its findings in 2018. Can the Minister explain why, given the Conservative manifesto pledge to reform the Mental Health Act, this was not included in the King’s Speech? We have a mental health crisis and the Government know this.

In the background notes to the Speech, the Prime Minister states that the Government are

“continuing to roll out our mental health support teams in schools and colleges across the country so that 50 per cent of pupils are covered by 2025”.

Place2Be, a leading children’s mental health charity in schools, is clear that by intervening early we can help prevent problems becoming more serious. How, then, is 50% cover by 2025 acceptable? Pupil absences are on the rise, not least due to stress and anxiety. Can the Minister tell us why this Government are failing to do more to tackle mental health issues among children and young people?

It also seems staggering that, with schools literally crumbling and teacher recruitment and retention falling, the only announcements on education were rehashing previous ones. There is no sign of further legislation on schools and no sign of ambition for our children. Instead, we got a repeat announcement of the advanced British standard. Planned for 10 years in the future, this proposed reform of exams is at least two general elections away. Plans for a DfE workforce plan have apparently been delayed because of work on the advanced British standard, but the Government need to address teacher shortages now. It is simply not good enough.

The King’s Speech also referred to proposals to

“reduce the number of young people studying poor quality university degrees and increase the number undertaking high quality apprenticeships”.

A former adviser to Tory Ministers is quoted in the Times Higher Education as saying:

“On an occasion when the UK pulls out all the stops to impress the world with tradition and pageantry, it is beyond belief that the UK government would even contemplate asking His Majesty the King to speak negatively of the national asset that is our world-leading higher education and research sector”.


Labour believes that people should have the opportunity to get well-paid jobs, whatever their background and whatever part of the country they come from. For the Conservatives, it seems, limited opportunity to get well-paid jobs and a cap on aspiration are things that happens to other people’s children. There are already mechanisms to assess the quality of courses and limit recruitment for low-progression courses through the Office for Students.

Labour would be delighted if the Government, having run out of their own ideas on education to put in the King’s Speech, wanted to borrow some from these Benches. We have plans to reform childcare and early years support and plans for breakfast clubs in every primary school. With 1.9 million children in the UK facing challenges in talking and understanding words, Labour will ensure that every child develops a strong foundation in speech and language. Labour will boost maths teaching in primary schools; we will have a curriculum and assessment review; we will establish regional improvement teams and implement a body to ensure that schools can recruit and retain the staff they need now. We will transform existing FE colleges into technical excellence colleges. Labour plans to break down barriers to opportunity in every part of our system, in every year of a child’s life and in every corner of our country. Aspiration and ambition should be for everyone, and so should excellence and opportunity.

On housing, Labour is clear that the Government should support the aspiration of home ownership and be more ambitious on what they aim to do. However, this Government promise a lot and are delivering little on housing for local communities. They are failing to give councils the tools and resources to deliver housing. It is hugely disappointing that, despite all the promises, the Government have dropped major housing pledges and failed to support housebuilding.

It is also of deep concern that homelessness apparently does not come into this debate: it was covered yesterday by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, in the context of a debate largely focused on crime. Homelessness is not a crime and being destitute should not be criminalised. Can the Minister explain why this Government apparently believe that tackling homelessness should come under the Home Office and not under the relevant department covering housing?

Despite promises to radically overhaul the housing system, the Government have watered down leasehold pledges first made six years ago, and U-turned on promises made to private renters four years ago. The leasehold and freehold Bill comes after six years and 115 further press releases or announcements on leasehold reform. It has been watered down to not even include those living in flats. If you want people to feel that they effectively have freehold, you could give them freehold. This Bill will not deliver on the Government’s commitments. It will benefit developers, not leaseholders.

The Renters (Reform) Bill claims to deliver on a four-year promise to abolish Section 21 no-fault evictions, but the Government’s own briefing reveals that they will not commence these parts

“until stronger possession grounds and a new court process is in place”,

and renters are facing problems now. In London, City Hall analysis reveals that an average of 290 London renters a week have faced a no-fault eviction since the Government promised an end to them in 2019. Based on the figures from 2023 so far, every further six-month delay could mean almost 15,000 more Londoners facing no-fault evictions. This picture is repeated across the country.

A Labour Government will get Britain building and boost home ownership through a housing recovery plan. This will combine policy and regulation, including reversing changes to the National Planning Policy Framework announced in December 2022; reinstating compulsory local targets; strengthening requirements to maintain a deliverable supply of housing land; and a presumption in favour of sustainable development. Labour in government will build and is committed to more action on housing in the first six months of office than the Conservatives have delivered in the past six years.

We can already see how Labour in power is delivering, with a new golden era of council house building in London, where more council homes are being built than at any time since the 1970s, through partnership between the Mayor of London and local councils including Southwark, Newham, Ealing and Brent. As we have seen in the past nationally—for example, under Harold Wilson in the 1960s—high levels of private housebuilding and high levels of social housebuilding can and should go hand in hand. Labour’s policy on housing will enable this, and we on these Benches are now, once more, the party representing the aspiration of the British people.

Finally, I turn to the subject of communities. With denial and distortion of the Holocaust rising and anti-Semitism increasing over the past few weeks, we all have a responsibility to tackle misinformation and hate. Discussion of communities in this debate comes at a time when we see parents anxious about their children even wearing their Jewish school uniform, and British families have missing or dead family members in Israel and Gaza. From these Benches, Labour looks forward to supporting the Holocaust Memorial Bill through the parliamentary process, having supported the memorial from the outset, as I know Members across this House do. The memorial and learning centre will be a truly fitting tribute to the 6 million Jewish men, women and children who were murdered during the Holocaust, and will also offer a place to learn about more recent genocides. It is indeed right that such a memorial will sit at the heart of our democracy, next to Parliament.

I look forward to an interesting day’s debate.