A new Parliament session began yesterday with a the traditional State Opening of Parliament. The Queen was unable to attend due to mobility issues, so for the first time the Prince of Wales read the Queen’s Speech. You can read more about the State Opening of Parliament here.

The Speech – which is written by the Government – sets out the legislation that the Prime Minister intends to bring before Parliament over the next year.

As feared, the Speech did nothing to help people struggling in the Manchester Gorton constituency. We needed a Queen’s Speech that would tackle the cost of living crisis, with an emergency budget including a windfall tax to get money off people’s bills. Instead, a failure to tackle the cost of living crisis and low growth marks a major economic failure by the Conservatives.

For the millions of families facing the catastrophe of soaring energy bills, the government’s Energy Bill is hopelessly inadequate. Nothing to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, nothing to bring forward the emergency energy efficiency measures we need, nothing to ensure the green energy sprint which could bring down bills.

The Victims Bill has now been promised in 4 Queen’s Speeches and 3 manifestos, but never delivered, and even now it is still only in draft because the Government is failing to make time for victims. Meanwhile, more than 1 million victims drop out of the criminal justice system altogether. When it comes to victims, the Home Office is only providing empty promises, not the concrete, common sense proposals.

Once again, it seems that the Government have been so out of ideas to turn this dire situation around that instead they have reverted to rehashed, populist and reactionary public order measures. Whilst they could have legislated to protect women, by requiring specialist rape and sexual offence units in every force area and creating a national register to monitor serial sexual offenders. They could have backed Labour’s plans to make it easier for police to close drug dens, and introduce a national register for those convicted of county lines drug dealing. They could have consulted on options to increase arrests and the record low charge rate. Instead, having already completed one bill on protest rights, they are now simply doing the same thing again – re-introducing measures they tried to tack onto the bill last year.

I am happy to discuss the other Bills and proposals with constituents in more detail, so please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by emailing afzal.khan.mp@parliament.uk.

These are all the proposed Bills that were announced this year.

Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill
Audit Reform (draft)
Bill of Rights
Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions Bill
Brexit Freedoms Bill
Conversion Therapy Bill
Data Reform Bill
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill (draft)
Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill
Electronic Trade Documents Bill
Energy Security Bill
Financial Services and Markets Bill
Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill
Harbours (Seafarers’ Remuneration) Bill
High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill
Higher Education Bill
Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill
Independent Football Regulator
Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill
Media Bill
Mental Health Act Reform Bill (draft)
Modern Slavery Bill
National Security Bill
Non-Domestic Rating Bill
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Online Safety Bill
Procurement Bill
Products Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill
Protect Duty Bill (draft)
Public Order Bill
Renters Reform Bill
Schools Bill
Social Housing Regulation Bill
Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill
Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill
Transport Bill
UK Infrastructure Bank Bill
Victims Bill (draft)

Many of these Bills will be contentious, and deserve appropriate legislative scrutiny. I’ve no doubt constituents will be getting in touch with their views as each Bill is introduced.