be introducing over the will be introducing over the course of this parliamentary session. >> yes, and of course, there was an awful lot to get stuck into from that king's speech. >> as tom says, 35 bills announced so we'll be analysing what exactly the new labour government has in store. but of course, reflecting on what is a momentous occasion for our country, the royal family and of course, the constitution will have a number of fantastic guests with us throughout the show. >> we should say that we are just waiting for the king to leave the palace of westminster. >> this is , of course, a full >> this is, of course, a full scale pomp and pageantry ceremony. it's not one of those dress down years where the king, doesn't wear his his full crown, his his royal regalia. that's all. here today. it's a proper, full scale state opening, delighted to be joined in the studio by the former government special adviser, james price , special adviser, james price, and the political and

constitutional historian , doctor constitutional historian, doctor luke blaxill, doctor luke, we're going to start with you, this is, of course, an ancient ceremony that hasn't changed much over the course of the years. >> well, it has and it hasn't. there are certain aspects of it which date right back to the 14th century, certain ways in which the monarch makes the procession to the palace of westminster. but many of the actual things that you see, the precise order of the route that the monarch takes, many of the, actual noble offices that are seen and in world order have changed considerably throughout the years. >> and it was really in the 19th century, and especially at the beginning of the 20th century, where the monarch really begins to take front and stage again and actually reads out the speech. >> so i think the crucial thing with this is it's designed to be reinvented, to be to changed empathy, emphasise certain traditions , rather than merely traditions, rather than merely be a sort of grey, servile acquiescence to what had gone before. >> interesting. so it was actually there was a period where perhaps in the victorian age, queen victoria didn't read

out the speech, and it was brought back in the 20th century. >> right. that's exactly the case. >> queen victoria did begin by reading out some speeches, but then increasingly didn't do so. and it was her son, edward the seventh, who really, really put his flag in the ground and said, i'm going to make the state opening of parliament something that really brings together the crowned, dignified part of the constitution with the efficient, technical part of constitution, the commons. >> and the crucial thing to remember about this period of history, of course, is that the role of the monarchy, due to the democratisation of parliament, due to some respects growth of republican sentiment, was really trying to find its place in the new constitution. and so therefore, the king managing to put himself in a position where he could be combined with some of the technical aspects of the constitution, really cementing the role of the monarchy moving forwards, and was that a personal choice on the part of queen victoria not to read the speech? >> yes. it was a personal choice. >> i mean, at that point, of course, there was a lot more that the monarch could even do

with the speech. i mean, victoria didn't just get the speech handed to her, she was able to actually place sections in it that she wanted. for example, in 1886, she made her own views on gladstone's irish policy. very, very clear. >> now, i should say we are looking at the king now in the first carriage, making his exit from the palace of westminster. >> of course, through that grand archway, in, in victoria tower, which is the archway that only the king can use, reserved only for him, also with james price here, former special adviser to the government. this is a great, majestic display of what it is to be british. yeah absolutely right. i've just come out from a month in america and, you know, you think it's a great country andifs you think it's a great country and it's got lots of things going for it. and you come back, they haven't got anything on this have they. they kind of dignity that you see in this. the pomp, the silliness. and what it does is, as you say, that this whole ceremony is about uniting the dignified and the tactical and the real bits

of the constitution. but in a way, it fuses them together. it takes the sting out of some of this stuff. if keir starmer had been made the head of state instead of just the head of government, then he would be thinking, well, now i've got all these other ceremonial aspects. you get a bit big for your boots. you see what happens to american and french presidents when they combine both of those things. but by taking that out of there and putting some of the nice, fun bits of it, as we see into all this pomp and circumstance, it takes away some of the sting and hopefully gets us to a nicer kind of politics as well, so forth. there are many different carriages here, we should say. we're looking at the first carriage, the diamond jubilee state coach pulled by six grey horses here inside that grand state coach are the king and the queen. behind them is the glass coach with two bay horses. and further carriages behind that as well. a real procession. doctor blaxill. this is of course , something that has is of course, something that has been there in our constitution, through many, many different governments. >> yeah, absolutely. this is something that's designed to

bndge something that's designed to bridge that kind of constant continuity. we may have political upheaval in our in our constitution. we may see transitions between the life and deaths of political parties. we may see points of national crisis. but these ceremonies, whether it's just something as mundane as watching the same carriage proceed on the same route, the monarch going through the same entrance create a sense of continuity in the constitution and enable something which in many other countries can cause profound violence and instability . the violence and instability. the transition of one very long government to what could be another very long government to happenin another very long government to happen in a peaceful, democratic, and highly symbolic and ritualised manner. >> i mean, you make that point very strongly, james. i imagine you would agree on the importance of these types of ceremonies, these types of processions, this state opening of parliament. but there are a lot of people who are increasingly sceptical of this sort of thing. what would you say to them ? are they really? say to them? are they really? well, you know, we've seen the protesters outside there. we've got people commenting on our news feeds saying, you know,

what's all this about? >> so, so i was the chief of staff in the cabinet office when her majesty the queen, elizabeth the second died the second day of liz truss's short lived premiership. and my old boss, nadhim zahawi and i were in charge of organising that funeral, and it was obviously a terrifying thing to have to do straight into a new job. if you looked at twitter when that happened, you would assume half the country was republican. but we got all of the all the data and sentiment analysis from the boffins in the cabinet office and his majesty king charles ii's first statement has something like a 9,899% approval rating, which is just unheard of in a democratic society. i don't think we need to be worrying about the weakness of the monarchy for a long time yet. don't listen to the naysayers. >> well, i suppose doctor blaxill, this all seems like it is incredibly expensive because you see a lot of gold. >> you see these coaches, you see all. but i mean, we already had the crowds, we already had the ermine, we already had all of the sort of, golden elements of the sort of, golden elements of this ceremony. we're just getting them out of the cupboard. >> yeah, you could say we're getting good value for our

investment. yeah. in all seriousness, the actual price of this ceremony is not very high because the vast majority of people who are not, you know, paid offices are obviously doing this voluntarily. and so it's not as though there's a large wage bill that's being chalked up. it's not as though there's such an enormous security bill because it is happening already in venues that are already secure. and so the kind of cost argument that you might have seen pulled out about, for example, the coronation or the queen's funeral, i don't really think applies to the state opening of parliament. and so i think that that's a little bit of a silly objection if it is being made and just go and look in france when you have these sorts of these ceremonies, right down the champs—elysees, they have huge numbers of soldiers and pomp and circumstance, but instead of a divinely anointed king, you've got emmanuel macron going down it as well. >> it's not like republican countries don't have this kind of pomp and circumstance as well. and how many tourists do well. and how many tourists do we get coming to the uk to go and see the changing of the guard and the trooping the colour and all these lovely things? and, you know, the economics will just pay for themselves in terms of tourism alone, let alone the importance of it to our constitution. and

thatis of it to our constitution. and that is such an important thing about britain, a society that arguably hasn't had a revolution. of course we had a civil war. but people argue as to whether that was a revolution or not. we've had generally a sense of an evolving political and monarchical culture, that stretches back a thousand years. >> exactly. and it is that evolutionary tradition, the constitutional monarchy, as it is properly called, the fact that it is properly called, the fact thatitis is properly called, the fact that it is a monarchy, but it only governs with the consent of parliament. we had the glorious revolution in 1688, where where james was expelled from the throne and william was offered the throne in his place by parliament. but from that moment the monarch only governed with the monarch only governed with the consent of parliament, and thatis the consent of parliament, and that is that relationship between the crown and the parliament, and the shifting power balances between them and the unresolved status of that argument, if you like, that, you see embodied in the state opening of parliament, which isn't just all about the crown, it's also about parliament as well, but also, critically, the continuing antagonism between them, which is actually part of our story, which is, of course,

something that is evolving and crucially, like evolving things hasn't finished yet. >> absolutely fascinating. well thank you very much, doctor luke blaxill. we're now going to bnngin blaxill. we're now going to bring in our royal correspondent, cameron walker. cameron, thank you very much indeed for joining cameron, thank you very much indeed forjoining us. tell us, tell us what's been happening then from your perspective. >> hi there emily. well, it's been incredibly loud here, actually, to be honest. i mean, we've got the band that we've got one of the bands playing of the household division accompanying the music as the king and queen arrived back at buckingham palace very shortly. but we've also had two massive gun salutes , 241 gun salutes gun salutes, 241 gun salutes fired in green park, just behind me, which scared the tourists, who are all milling around waiting for the king and queen to arrive, the first of which by the king's troop, royal horse artillery, was because of the state opening of parliament. the second was because it's also the queen's 77th birthday. today, as i speak, the king and queen are in the diamond jubilee. state coach being escorted by the household cavalry back to buckingham palace. the king

wearing wearing his admiral of the fleet's uniform, and he was wearing, as you saw his imperial state crown, inside the house of lords chamber and sat on the throne delivering that speech. but what's also been quite funny is inside buckingham palace, there is a member of parliament who has effectively been taken hostage to ensure the king's safe arrival back at the palace. that mp, mrs. samantha dixon, m.b.e. the vice—chamberlain of the household, as soon as the king and queen arrived back at buckingham palace, that hostage will be released back. it's all that pomp and pageantry, the traditions which date back centuries. of course, the king, as head of state, is the person who can open a new session of parliament. he has now done that. he's a very important constitutional duty and it's been incredibly busy summer for his majesty. the king, despite his. sometimes i think we forget he's still undergoing cancer treatment and he's had a very busy schedule. and because rishi sunak, the former prime minister, called a summer election , it means he's had to election, it means he's had to squeeze into his schedule yet another state opening of

parliament and that imperial state crown, metaphorically and literally is quite heavy indeed. but he seems to have coped with it rather well, and he's on his way back to buckingham palace. >> yes, cameron, i should say we are looking straight down the mall right now and we can see just in the distance those six grey horses pulling the king's imperial state carriage , the imperial state carriage, the jubilee state carriage, i should say, but of course, you mentioned this, this hostage taking and again, that, that, that, that speaks to the peculiar relationship between parliament and the crown. doctor luke blaxill still with us, of course, this also mirrors the famous ceremony of black rod having the doors to the commons slammed in his face, dating back to a previous king charles. >> yeah, exactly. i mean, both the hostage taking and the black rod having the door slammed in her. in this case, face is an ancient. is an ancient tradition and also symbolises that kind of

antagonism. the critical point with the beginning of those antagonisms, if you like, is, of course, charles, the first. you know, the king that tried to rule personally, in 1642, attempted to arrest five errant members of parliament who were trying to undermine his personal rule, was refused by the speaken rule, was refused by the speaker. and this was a key, key event which detonated the engush event which detonated the english civil war. and so many of the traditions you see, like the famous slamming of the door in black rod's face, are designed to symbolise the independence that parliament has from the crown, but nonetheless also the fact that the crown is still involved in our constitution. >> now, as we're watching this rather magnificent footage, i must say, of the mall there and the procession, may i ask you a bit of a silly question, perhaps? how does one go about becoming black rod in terms of an actual sort of appointment? yes. how is it appointed? >> well, i don't think it has a large number of particular functions apart from this ceremonial one, although there is a general role for security of the palace, and there have

been a number of long running black rods over the years, although i would think, as is the case with a lot of royal sinecure positions, probably the job descriptions aren't exactly, you know, available on, a job website's forum for any app. >> you can't just apply. >> you can't just apply. >> although although i could be, could be happy to be put wrong on that. >> so the current black rod, her name is sarah clarke, and she actually used to be head of security at wimbledon. yeah, at the lawn tennis association for the lawn tennis association for the tennis tournament. and i think actually she does have a very big role in terms of the rest of the security of the palace as well. and so there's an interlinking, of course, with the police function inside parliament, with the parliamentary authorities. and so we'll be talking with the speaker of the house of commons and the lords speaker and the house of lords as well. so again, it's all these things. it's not just ceremonial to see the different bits of the state linking together like this . you linking together like this. you see it in the actual way that that parliament is run. you see it in the architecture as well. on the route that you've seen, the commoners go from the house of commons to the lords. you see in all the architecture and the images, you see crowns mixed with sort of ancient chivalric fleur de lis mixed with bits about the four nations of the uk and all these things, all mixed

in together to try and push these four nations and different bits of constitution together in exactly as doctor blaxill was saying, this kind of amalgam we've got now, and it is a complete amalgam , the whole of complete amalgam, the whole of parliament, you have the royal end and you have the common end. for the commoners, it's always quite funny to say that people like jacob rees—mogg are were a commoner, but of course they were in the house of commons and you have that, that melding together of a royal palace as it is a royal palace. westminster is a royal palace. westminster is where i think, king henry the eighth first brought the royal court, or at least massively expanded the royal court to that part of london. >> right? i mean, i think the really sort of governing principle here is that that this building that this is taking place in now is a new one. of course, it was burned down in a fire in 1834. the current monarch's entrance, the configuration of current parliament was built with this state opening in mind in 1852. the building is designed to fulfil this specific purpose, to be able to allow the monarch to make that separate entrance into the house of lords, not go near

the house of lords, not go near the house of commons, where of course, they have not set foot since that fatal event in 1642 that i mentioned. and so it's designed to be, yes, be something royal, but also something royal, but also something that is critically separate. a forum where both the crown and the common elements of the constitution can both engage in constitutional ritual in the same physical location. >> and, one thing that was mentioned in the king's speech, of course, is constitutional reform. james. i mean, we'll talk more about the contents of the king's speech in the rest of the king's speech in the rest of the show. of course , but house the show. of course, but house of lords reform, scrapping hereditary peers. >> yeah. well, as a commoner myself, certainly a common political beast. that's the bit i'm desperate to get my teeth into at some point. i think it's a bit of constitutional vandalism, actually, to get political about this. we're still, i don't think, have recovered from the kinds of constitutional reforms that tony blair's last labour government put in by scrapping most of the hereditaries by taking the law lords out and putting in the supreme court of the united kingdom, which i think has been a complete failure. i'm sure we

can get some lots of people calling in about that. but you'll remember, is it baroness hale with her little spider brooch, saying that the proroguing of parliament was unconstitutional and all these sorts of things, but to now get rid of these people and to have his majesty the king who is there because of some would say by god, but some would certainly say by his mother being his predecessor, having to sit there on that lovely golden throne and read out that they will be trying to get rid of the rest of the hereditaries who it pains me to say, as someone with a kind of chip on my shoulder about these things, when i worked in these things, when i worked in the house of lords, were far and away the hardest working, the most diligent people who understood their place in the constitution better than most, who understood the sense of duty and service to this great country. the fact that starmer can come along now and thinks he wants to tear all this stuff out, i'd say that he's got a mandate to do all sorts of things with the economy and planning laws and all these things if he wants to, but to mess with the house of lords when it works so much better than the rest of the country, almost, i think would be a big, big mistake. >> but the magic of our constitution is that we will never know. probably what the king makes of it all are your views on the hereditary peers, if you have any.

>> well, i mean, i think that in there have been several changes, major changes to the lords over time. we had the most major, perhaps as the parliament act in 1911, where the lords loses its absolute veto over the commons. that's the major moment where, remember before that you also have prime ministers sitting in the house of lords. and so that's the major moment where the commons really gains its kind of supremacy. i think the first set of blair reforms, i believe, in 97, 98, were much more destructive for one that cares about the hereditary aspect of the constitution, that removed many more of them. but the remaining 92, of course, whom were chosen from amongst the hereditary peers that remained by a sort of definition, i suppose, were the cream of that particular crop. >> and ironically, they're the only ones who are elected. >> yes, ironically selected , >> yes, ironically selected, erect, elected, elected, in a manner of speaking. certainly but but it's certainly interesting that without really, i think, any debate, or at least as i could tell about the status of the hereditary peers, and they represent in their own way , they represent in their own way, i think, something quite important, which is, of course, hereditary legislators. you know, in the functional part of

the constitution, that is a quite important principle that we would be removing by removing these remaining 92 hereditary peers. so it's a shame there's not been a debate about the subject, whereas i think there were vigorous debates about the parliament act and reasonable, although not perhaps vigorous enough for my liking. debates on the removal of the first hereditary by the blair ministry. >> and it seems that this whole argument has, perhaps to some extent, misunderstood the role of the house of lords. people talk about it as the second largest legislative chamber in the world, as if it was designed that every single lord should attend every single sitting, all of the time, rather than a body that has a pool of talent on which it can draw issue by issue to some extent. should we be concerned about the size of the lords when only a certain percentage of them might want to turn up on any given subject? it's supposed to be? perhaps a pool of experts rather than professional politicians who are there every day. yeah, we should be concerned about the size of it. it's not nearly large enough, but we need to have we need to have a lot more experts

going in there and weighing in on these things. no, but but seriously, when you see again, the house of lords has a bad rep. but when you see how it works behind the scenes and i was the special adviser to the leader of the house of lords for several years through things like brexit and covid, the ceremonial job, all you ever got to see of her was holding the cap of maintenance as you saw a lady there, baroness smith, holding this archaic hat. very odd.do holding this archaic hat. very odd. do do explain that, because a lot of people were saying, why wasn't she wearing the hat on her head? she was holding it on a stick. i think it was a i'll let doctor baxter correct me. i think it was a gift from the pope to henry the eighth before his break with the church of rome. so it's a symbol of him being defender of the faith, which is now still a title the monarch has. of course, it's a slightly tweaked faith now, and of course, one of the other wonderful ceremonial bits is that the new government chief whip in the lords and deputy chief whip, they have also lovely titles. i think captain of the honourable company of gentlemen at arms and the captain of the yeomen of the guard, and one of their jobs to get dressed up in all the finery and the red coats and everything, to go down into the basements and make sure there are no naughty roman catholics trying to blow it up the way

that guy fawkes and co did. it's a wonderful bit that you don't get the cameras to see. >> unfortunately, no, there you go.the >> unfortunately, no, there you go. the traditional scoping of the of the cellars. >> yeah, absolutely. i don't know, quite if that has a sort of a formal ritual because it's not actually seen. but of course, you know, at the beginning, you know, the beginning, you know, the beginning of the 17th century, we did have a ton and a half of dynamite placed rather close to where the monarch would have been sitting. and so it's probably a good idea to do some at least some spring cleaning to make sure that that hasn't reappeared, >> should we go back to 1834? >> should we go back to 1834? >> because i wonder, looking looking at the house, looking at parliament as a whole, it looks like some splendid medieval palace, but it's victorian. and looking at buckingham palace as we were just seeing you think of this, this sort of symbol of the monarchy that's lasted a thousand years. >> but again, the frontage of that palace was victorian or at least 1800s. of course, the back bit is a bit older, but sort of all of these symbols of these sort of institutions are perhaps a bit more modern than we'd like to think. >> absolutely. i mean , london is

>> absolutely. i mean, london is in many respects a victorian city. it's an imperial city, when we look at these institutions and these buildings, they are there's a very strong and visceral reaction to them. and it is a deference to history. but of course, it's a history that isn't just something that's been, you know, organically evolved in this way. been, you know, organically evolved in this way . there have evolved in this way. there have been moments where these buildings were designed to specifically evoke grandeur, to specifically evoke grandeur, to specifically evoke grandeur, to specifically evoke occasions. you know, where the monarch would be present, but also commoners would be able to look mighty and powerful. and on that , mighty and powerful. and on that, you know, one might argue britain and the empire was built slightly off topic. >> my favourite fact of these is tower bridge, designed to, of course, look like the tower of london or nato turrets. it's actually more modern than brooklyn bridge . brooklyn bridge brooklyn bridge. brooklyn bridge was built before tower bridge in london, which i just find extraordinary . but it does speak extraordinary. but it does speak to perhaps that same sort of style of how we design our living architecture, the house of, or rather parliament as a

whole, designed off the back of westminster abbey, which does have that sort of old gothic design. and where was where edward the confessor was crowned. >> yeah, absolutely. there are these reiterative links to these older kind of gothic buildings. you see, gothic styles used architecturally many, many years later. and i think one of the reasons why we still consider parliament today to be beautiful, which not everyone did when the new building was built, is because we probably are still in love with that kind of architectural style, and that's why victorian buildings and, you know, gothic revival buildings have still the sway over people's minds that they do . over people's minds that they do. if parliament was rebuilt to look like the holyrood parliament, for example, or some kind of, i don't know , sort of kind of, i don't know, sort of modernist concrete breeze block, multifunctional conference space facility, it might not command quite the same, you know, fire in people's hearts. >> yes. we weren't too overwhelmed by the senate the other day, were we in wales, james, tell me how the king's speech itself, of course, it is

short to the point. there's not a lot of detail in there about what the legislative agenda will look like. it's a bit of a shopping list, isn't it? really? how is it put together? >> so functionally, i think at the start of this year, when rishi sunak was prime minister, he gave permission for the labour party to start having conversations with bits of the civil service and their teams put for in all the different departments to go and talk with labour hq and the then leader of the opposition's office to start getting looking at the books of what was actually going on in some of these departments and start understanding some of their legislative priorities. now, that can be from as broad as we think. there's a problem in prisons. what's going on there through to we've actually, you know, have a better understanding of what's going on here. and we've even drafted a bill on x, y or z. can you look at it and help us refine it, ready for a potential victory. and that happens every election. so even somewhere like 2019, when it was clear that boris was going to smash jeremy corbyn, corbyn's team were able to go in there and find out information from the civil service and start drafting bills and things like that for it, for, for that kind

of eventuality. so that happens there and that work is still being done right now. and starmer will benefit from the fact that his chief of staff, sue gray, was a very senior civil servant for a long time and understands how all the mechanics of whitehall works, some of those things will be much more advanced than others, as you say. and that's when the sort of parliamentary timetabling comes into effect, what bills were going to be putting up first. so both in 1997 and actually again in 2010, in the department for education, both the teams, i think it was david blunkett in 97 and michael gove in 2010, they had a very clear vision for what they wanted to do with education. they had most of the bills actually already drafted and ready to go, and a very clear plan of what they were going to do and going and enacting it. now, certainly in gove's case, probably the most successful thing that government did because they were prepared and they were ready for it. and other bills will take more time. and we have a real bottleneck in the uk, where there's a small team of people actually drafting the legislation to get it ready. and those people, obviously they hold the pen. they've got an awful lot of power, unlike the american system, where it's senators and congressmen themselves whose offices draft bills, and then they go into the

kind of the debating about it afterwards. >> that's very interesting thinking about which bills may get priority, how long these things take when it's announced in the king's speech that there will be these 35 or so new bills, when will those actually come into come to pass ? come into come to pass? >> and indeed, that number of bills higher than in the last few king's speeches or queen's speeches as well. when the last state opening of parliament took place, there are only around 20 odd bills put before parliament. now there are 35 will that is that just a government? that's eager to get going, or will it run into these sorts of roadblocks that you're talking about, these bottlenecks? yeah, i think i think both i think it definitely there'll be these sorts of problems. they realise they haven't thought something through the most powerful law in the land is the law of unintended consequences. right. the best way to make god laugh is to tell him your plans. but i think at the same time, this is the labour party waiting for a long time. they've got in, they've got power and by jove, they're going to use it. something that my party, the conservatives, didn't do nearly

enough of. and that's something that frustrated me no end. why it was that previous king's speeches were a lot lighter on the ground with these kinds of things. sometimes there was understanding to it, you know, with the brexit shenanigans of theresa may, everything kind of ground to a halt. and we were looking now in the back of drawers for short bills to fill the time. there was one about pubuc the time. there was one about public toilets. i remember that i made so many jokes about that. i made so many jokes about that. i think it actually got pushed back a bit into the timetable in the schedule. >> there's a lot in that king's speech that could have huge consequences, not least, of course, the constitutional, bills and constitutional reforms that have been set out, no votes for 16, i note, at least not mentioned. it might be. it may be within the constitutional reform that they've talked about broadening the electorate and so on. it may be included in there, but no specific mention. very interesting. >> and doctor luke blaxill, we're looking, of course, at this, overall as a ceremony, but also as a practicable start of a government, of a parliamentary term. yeah, >> there is, of course, a

difference, perhaps in the number of bills and the quantity of what's in a king's speech, depending on the size of the government's majority. >> obviously, this is now a government with a very large majority. so it will perhaps be thinking about doing a lot more work. >> yes, it can do more and more easily. obviously, if you have rebellions, if you have to take endless amendments to get a bill through a knife edge kind of commons situation, that will cause delay . i commons situation, that will cause delay. i mean, we commons situation, that will cause delay . i mean, we saw cause delay. i mean, we saw delay, perhaps most famously under the administration of theresa may, but with his colossal majority of 174, he's better placed to pass more legislation. and actually, after this king's speech, there will actually be a debate in the house of commons, which will be keir starmer's first opportunity to show off his newly minted awesome power through the scale of the majority that is able to carry the speech through. it's technically possible for the government to be defeated on that, and that would be a resigning issue in itself. but the last time that happened was at the beginning of 1924, after stanley baldwin had lost his majority in 1923. so if that happened, that would be a rather

surprising, to put it mildly. i think we might then suspect that quite a lot of communists had actually got in. maybe instead, and something strange would occui'. >> occur. >> there will be those who attempt to amend the king's speech, won't there, james? >> yeah, i think that's right. i think again, these things are largely kind of ceremonial. and this is the problem that the conservatives are going to have to try and mount an effective opposition with. only what have they got now, 110, 120 and 21. oh, good. well, i mean , the oh, good. well, i mean, the majority the size that labour have, they can let a lot of their mps off the whip for quite a long time. they can go back to their constituencies, they can go on fun, interesting trips and they can still handily defeat all the other parties up against them. and that is just the prize and the power that starmer has now. and so one of the things the tories are going to need to do to try and show some competence again, is to see if they can affect and mount an effective opposition, rather than just opposing everything for the sake of it. and we do make these comparisons to the united states of america, the sort of hostage that is held in buckingham palace. it's almost

synonymous with the designated survivor. during a state of the nafion survivor. during a state of the nation state of the union speech, in in the united states. but there is a huge, huge difference with regard to the power of a president and the power of a president and the power of a prime minister with a large majority. keir starmer just on on sort of ability to pass legislation, has far more power now than any united states president. yes. >> because obviously, generally speaking, a president, unless he has really a very dominant position in congress. and of course, in american politics, presidents tend to lose congress dunng presidents tend to lose congress during the midterm. a prime minister who, of course, is part of the legislative body, unlike in america, where the powers are separate, has much more of an ability to even in small majority situations, to be honest, to be able to corral his or her supporters in pursuing a legislative program, and certainly with the very large majority , it will be extremely majority, it will be extremely difficult for the government to be defeated. and thus the power that keir starmer has and his sort of team around him have .

sort of team around him have. and also, of course, the authority he will have within the party for many of these new mps will know that they probably only got elected because of the red rosettes they had or the not blue rosettes that they had. as we as we might say, but his power will be very similar to that, that we saw with tony blair in 1997. and certainly if he is able to reform the house of lords as well, perhaps obviously removing retired peers at the age of 80 and removing the hereditaries, that might also disproportionately remove some of his opponents from the upper house as well. so that might also help make him a bit more powerful insofar as he's bothered about the upper house. >> very interesting. and the question of devolution as well . question of devolution as well. does that make him stronger or weaker, that's a debate. >> well, it depends, it depends where the powers are coming from, because i think there's some debate. i noticed the king in his, in his speech did say that he'll strengthen the powers of the metro mayors , but it of the metro mayors, but it could be very well the case that the metro mayor's powers are not coming from westminster , but are

coming from westminster, but are instead coming from local authorities, from local councils . authorities, from local councils. so sort of upwards devolution to those metro mayors rather than taking power away from westminster, perhaps. >> shall we bring in our political editor who i believe is waiting for us, christopher hope , are you there for us to hope, are you there for us to find out more about what was inside this king's speech? there you are on college green. fantastic. christopher. any surprises in that king's speech >> hi, emily. hi, tom. welcome to sunny college. college green here outside the houses of parliament, the palace of westminster. the king has left me. the smell of horse manure is still in the air. but, yeah, all that, all that's gone. now we're looking forward into the house of commons this afternoon where the prime minister, sir keir starmer, presenting his plans for government for the next two years or so, and rishi sunak, the man who would have been pm if he hadn't called the election, are trying to attack the government, the government's plans for it. i am struck by a number of things here 40 bills or draft bills. the remarks by keir starmer are interesting. in

the beginning of it, he says there that the challenges we face require determined and patient work in serious solutions. he calls populism the snake armed charm. it drives into the dead end, he says, of division and greater disappointment. so division and greater disappointment . so clearly this disappointment. so clearly this is trying to reset the debate on how we do our politics after those 14 years of tory rule . in those 14 years of tory rule. in this king's speech, 103 pages full of detail of what? of what lies behind the speech. i counted 15 mentions of the european union , zero mentions of european union, zero mentions of brexit. i am struck by that. i wonder if brexit is now a dirty tory word, and the european union is now a kind of friend you want to get near. so i'm watching that as a theme over the next two years. fascinating to see a new armed forces commissioner for veterans. that, of course, is to deal with the issue that they've removed. the veterans minister from the cabinet office. and given that role, giving that role back to john healey at the department of the ministry of defence,

controversial areas here, employment rights bill, that's going to be a way to give people arriving in a company immediate rights to holiday and maternity pay - rights to holiday and maternity pay . that may rights to holiday and maternity pay. that may be rights to holiday and maternity pay . that may be a big issue for pay. that may be a big issue for entrepreneurs, for small companies who can't afford to cover this kind of red tape , cover this kind of red tape, what this budget responsibility bill, this obr, the all powerful obr that liz truss hates the for office budgetary responsibility that will now have a veto over far more areas of government spending. will that be a problem for the labour party? i'm struck by about a quarter of the measures. if you shut your eyes, a tory government could have brought in. it's quite interesting. martyn's law reducing smoking, improving football governance, lots of carry over bills from a different party altogether . and different party altogether. and it strikes me this is a very limited, ideas in here and this, this bill, this king's speech. perhaps no surprise , given the perhaps no surprise, given the manifesto was quite limited in scope, but i think a lot of labour activists might think i've been waiting for 14 years for a labour government. is that

all you've got? and i find that quite interesting. and just finally looking further, further afield , the draft bills, tom and afield, the draft bills, tom and emily are very interesting. a draft equality, race and disability bill. this will give a legal right to people of colour, ethnic minorities to get the same pay as able bodied white people. that's going to be laid in the next two years. that will become a big row. i expect, as well as plans to deal with conversion of practice, a bill for that. so there's areas of controversy, but overall, it's what we knew from the manifesto, the labour manifesto, steady as she goes change but no real change. >> yes , people might suggest >> yes, people might suggest that. isn't it already illegal to pay someone of a of a different race, a different wage? but if labour wants to have that argument and reiterate how illegal it is, i suppose they're allowed to do that, chris, you mentioned these three bills that the tories were actually bringing in got abandoned in what was known as wash up at the end of the last

parliament, the football regulator, martyn's law. this imposition on any, any venue that could seat more than 100 people to train all their staff in anti—terrorism training. and of course, this , this peculiar of course, this, this peculiar iterative smoking ban. you say these are things that the conservative government could have brought in, but but could it not be the case that these were, fairly unconservative things that the conservative government was doing regulating football , regulating your local football, regulating your local church or your local pub and banning adults from smoking? i mean, perhaps one might think this was an example of a conservative government behaving fairly conservatively. >> and maybe it has lost its way. i mean, you're totally right, tom. you and i well know that before the tory party conference. no one was saying we should ban cigarettes for anyone born after 2009. and then that came in as a legacy idea, almost rishi sunak gay marriage vote. and then he decided to. it ran out of time and call the

election early. i mean, whether isuppose election early. i mean, whether i suppose mr sunak will welcome it when he comes to when he when he speaks against sir keir starmer. but yeah, many of those areas weren't really tory areas. i think the party really had lost its way and what it believed in, and perhaps it might try and to establish that as we go, go through the issue of leadership just to, to just grab my documents there. you mentioned there the draft equality bill. that's because the government says there are elements that the equality act 2010 only applies for issues. issues like gender, but not in, in not in the case explicitly of race and disability. so they're trying to close what they see as an issue from a historic labour, bill back in 2010. >> yes. presumably it will be like the gender pay gap reporting whereby businesses will be compelled to put this data out into the public realm and for the government to judge, as they have done with the big companies on gender pay gap and all of that, there will be a bit of an internal battle, though, i suppose , christopher, when it suppose, christopher, when it comes to this, new deal for

working people, some in the party want this to be far more far reaching than perhaps it was in the manifesto. do you, sense that there might be a bit of a battle there between the left and the right of the party? >> well, almost certainly. and the left and businesses. you've got rachel reeves, the chancellor, chumming up to big business, saying that they want to encourage investment, encourage companies to invest here. there's plans, isn't there, for a sovereign wealth fund bill, which will put a £1 of our money as taxpayers and leave off £3 from the private sector. so they're trying to get close to business, but they will be looking at the employment rights bill and worry about it. and the idea of giving immediate sick pay, parental leave. on day one of an employee arriving could act as a disincentive to actually hire someone, frankly, because there could be an immediate cost if that person disappears off to have a baby or is ill. and that's the worry. normally you have to wait for a few months, don't you? in a

normal job to get there, to get those privileges, fire and rehire is going. they're going to end zero hours contracts. again. many people do think that zero hours contracts work for them. and surely that should be a choice the worker makes, not imposed on by government. so that whole debate, that's an angela rayner piece of legislation. don't forget, she's the one who championed it. although whether it falls, whether it falls in housing and local government or goes across the jonathan reynolds and business will wait and see. and her role in that is interesting because she'll be the voice of the left. i think the news reports at the weekend she's been sidelined by this new administration. so if that happens, we'll see more more of that kicking off in the future. >> very interesting stuff. thank you very much. christopher hope, live from college green outside the palace of westminster. well, still with us in the studio are the former government special adviser, james price, and the political and constitutional historian, doctor luke blaxill. because doctor luke, something else is going to happen now in the house of commons, members of parliament might have a cup of tea first, but then they're going to head back to the house

of commons. >> yes. and they're going to start debating this, this king's speech and that's going to be in and of itself, very interesting. i mean, this can happen over a penod i mean, this can happen over a period of days, there will be speeches that will be, you know, from some people more, i suppose, kind of humorous, maybe lots of maiden speeches will be occurring as well, because we've had such enormous kind of intake of new mps that a lot of them may be speaking for the first time. you might see some humorous speeches from sort of old, wise kind of heads, but the substance of the legislation and where it may be controversial , where it may be controversial, may start to sort of come apart. and we've obviously already heard about the various sort of measures, some of which are perhaps a little bit vague. some of them have got some quite important principles in them, you know, like it being illegal to pay people on different salaries and racial lines. and we can argue about whether that's actually already enshrined in law or not. but there's clearly going to be, i think, an argument about what really the labour manifesto we could argue really even was the manifesto didn't have a great deal of substance in it. that

was obviously a political calculation from the labour party, you know, to run on literally a change ticket. i've got a leaflet through the post. they had changed with various pictures of sort of clip art of the countryside and people going for a jog and, you know, some people playing basketball. and i did think, well, i imagine most people can still do this under current conservative administration, but maybe in this, this king's speech debate, perhaps a little bit more of the substance and the key areas of antagonism might start to appear on what's the sort of change manifesto. and it's 45 bills or 35 bills i can't remember which actually embody. >> i mean, james, are you as concerned as i am about all this talk of more devolution, more powers to metro mayors and local authorities? >> when i look at devolution as it stands, it's not all been, all rosy. has it really? >> i mean, i think live on tv right now. it's all just finally sinking in a few weeks later. just how ghastly this government's going to be in all kinds of ways. this idea that it's taking the worst bits of the last conservative government of banning more aspects of freedom from our lives, of people being able to smoke what they want, and a football

regulator. and we almost won the euros you work for the administration that was introducing the football regulator that was introducing the smoking ban. i stopped it, didn't they ? didn't they? >> they decided not to pursue it. >> in my defence, i'd left before both of those things and think how much worse it would have been had i not have left soonen have been had i not have left sooner. but, you know, some of those terrible things in there. on your point about devolution, i think it's been a decided failure in all kinds of ways. it's true that the uk is probably the most centralised government anywhere in the oecd. i think the worst bit under, under the sunak administration was that local councils could apply to a little pot of money somewhere in whitehall to get chess boards set up in local parks. i mean, you know, each of these chess boards costing £3,000 somehow, i mean, it's amazing how much more the government can spend on something than than anyone else in the country. right? i mean, on local government, i mean, there's been i mean, the power that local government had formally in the 19th century where really a lot of what government did at that point were merely passing what you would call permissive legislation through the example demolition of slum housing so that they could be enacted by

some local authorities, but not others. >> you'd have some local authorities like birmingham, the so—called municipal socialist authority, that would tax its residents, the so—called ratepayers. hi. and do things like, for example, you know, build water and various infrastructure and other places where they would maybe have the sort of spendthrifts in control and would do maybe a little bit less . however, the 20th century less. however, the 20th century and especially after the local government legislation in 1928 has seen a really big centralisation of local government powers such that mainly what local government doesis mainly what local government does is distribute grants that have come from it centrally. and for all the talk of reinvesting local government with power, this has happened. so many times throughout the 20th century and indeed the 21st century, and i would be amazed if it ever actually did occur. >> but james, this is angela raynen >> but james, this is angela rayner. devolution. will this be genuine? you know, giving up of powers from westminster, from central government or will it, as i suspect it will be just an additional layer of bureaucracy and potentially more tax raising measures at the local level? >> yeah, i'm not sure what kind

of odds you can get on it down at the bookies, but this is the problem. you go into these departments saying, i'm going to make the world a better place. the tories they were evil and that's why things weren't going well. and that's, i think, probably what quite a lot of the labour politicians genuinely thought. well, if so, their analysis is going to come up slightly short when it comes to fixing things. and you do get to a point where you go, right, i'm going to devolve power now because i think we probably all agree, and most people listening and watching at home would agree that decisions should be made as close to where they're going to have an effect as possible. that seems like a very sensible idea when you're sat in one of these massive, powerful whitehall bureaucracies, you go, oh no, i need to fix things. i'm a smart, caring person. i can do this better than the last lot. i'm going to start pulling levers and doing things. and if you give away those levers to do things and you then get the criticism when things don't go right yourselves anyway, that's when you get this feeling. i want to hold on to it myself. it takes a very brave, strong, clever politician to actually have the comfort to push that power away from yourself onto others. >> well dug at national standards, do you? that's the problem. i mean, an addiction to national standards, the removal of the postcode lottery. to say

that you can get this provision wherever it might be, anywhere in the country, if you allow true localism, you must allow some deviation on the standards that are experienced by different people, who may indeed be held responsible partly for that by the local elected officials that they put in. and to be able to say that, to say that we are going to have a postcode lottery because we accept local diversity, very difficult for modern politicians, especially perhaps from the labour party. >> and look and look in america, where this happens between the states, there's a law passed in california that says that schools will now not have to tell parents when children want to change gender. well, elon musk is moving tesla and spacex and all these things out of there into texas. that's the kind of change you want to see right now. >> there's so much in this king's speech that we need to get through. we haven't even started on house building. no, but perhaps we could speak now to the liberal democrat member of parliament for edinburgh we st. west. >> christine jardine, because, christine, now the debate turns to the house of commons. what's the liberal democrat view? >> well, we've seen the speech today. it's a very different king's speech from the last one we had from the conservative government, which was tired out of ideas, little to inspire

anyone. of ideas, little to inspire anyone . we've got this very anyone. we've got this very energetic 40 bills that they're proposing. it's going to be a very busy period in parliament, but we want to see the detail. there's a lot of it that sounds promising. there's a lot of it that we think that's interesting, but we need to know the details. what exactly is that they're proposing with gb energy? where will it be housing? will they be building the right houses in the right places and, you know, rail and that renationalisation call it what you will. it's renationalisation. what exactly will it mean. we know that our railways are in trouble, that they need help. but what exactly is it the labour party are proposing? our job is to scrutinise it. and that's what we'll be doing. >> yes. christine, you're up in in scotland usually. of course you are in westminster, right now. do you suspect that gb energy will create enough jobs to overcome changes in the north sea? we've heard from ed miliband. well, reports from ed miliband. well, reports from ed miliband earlier this week and last that he wants no new oil and gas licences in the north

sea. will gb energy make up for those job losses? >> i don't think it's quite as simple as job losses in the oil industry. gb news gb energy will replace them. gb news can try us as well. gb energy will replace them. what we have is a declining industry that needs something to help. not the jobs but the people in it. the 100,000 people whose livelihoods, whose mortgages, whose rent are dependent on the oil and gas industry. we need a just transition to clean fuels. and so many of the people who work in that sector have the skills that we need for a sound, well balanced, well run , well balanced, well run, renewable energy sector. so if gb energy can use those skills and can make sure that we don't end up with another industrial desert like we did when we lost shipbuilding, when we lost steel, when we lost mining , then steel, when we lost mining, then good. but we need to see the detail. we need to know where it's going to be and what it's

actually going to do, how many people it's going to employ and how it's going to be effective. we need to know that . we need to know that. >> christine, you are now one of over 70 liberal democrat members of parliament. >> it's the largest liberal democrat contingent in the house of commons ever. it's the largest liberal contingent in the house of commons. if we're going to say that that's the predecessor party since before the second world war. but you're saying now that you're saying the last government was tired, there's a lot to be hopeful in this new king's speech. you want to see the detail, but you're sounding perhaps more like a critical friend than a member of the opposition . the opposition. >> well, i think the public are a little tired of politicians who oppose for the sake of opposing. we have had five years of turmoil. i have been an mp for seven years, and it started with brexit and we've just had one crisis after another. we've had mps arguing sometimes it has seemed to the for public the

sake of arguing. what i'm in parliament to do is represent the best interests, first and foremost of my constituents, and to make sure that i do everything i can to scrutinise the government and make sure that the legislation they bring forward is the best for the people that i represent. now, i'm not a member of that government, so i'm not going to, you know, be part of what they do. but if they come up with policy, which if it can be amended, will work for my constituency or which i think can work for my constituency, i will do what i can to make sure that it works. and it doesn't matter which party they're from. if they if the conservative party had done that, i would have been the same. but i think the public are tired of us just arguing for the sake of arguing. they want constructive politics. they want constructive politics. they want constructive politics. they want people to work together for their best interests. >> i think christine, christine, the liberal democrats should look at it. yes. the liberal democrats, they represent lots of lovely leafy areas where people don't necessarily want lots of new construction and

lots of new construction and lots of new builds and the like. what do you make of labour's plans to essentially overrule local concerns when it comes to housebuilding? that's not going to go down very well with some of your constituents. i imagine. >> well, my constituents know exactly what it's like to have housing developments built in the wrong place, and we need to make sure that this policy of the labour government doesn't do that. we need housing in this country. we have a housing crisis. young people cannot get on the housing ladder. they're having to live with parents into the 30s now. so we need new houses. the 30s now. so we need new houses . our policy was to build houses. our policy was to build new houses, to build more than 150,000 social houses. but they have to be the right houses in the right place. they have to have infrastructure. we want to see building on green, not in greenbelt but on brown belt. we want to see abandoned houses, derelict houses brought back into use , office blocks that into use, office blocks that have been abandoned. they can be converted. there's lots of ways of providing new housing, but they have to come along with

infrastructure. there is absolutely no use in taking a green belt site and handing it over to developers who build big, expensive houses that people still can't afford. and there's no infrastructure. >> christine, you talk about houses , you talk about houses, you talk about dilapidated housing. >> just today, the mayor of london has given a consent order to build on the green belt because it so happened that there was an old house, 250 years old, that was designated as green belt land in the 1950s. in hounslow, in london, and it couldn't be fixed until the green belt was amended. the mayor of london has done that just today. surely that shows that some brownfield land, some previously built on land, actually sits in green belt designated land . designated land. >> well, i've had some hairs split before, but that really is going too far. yes, there will be places where there has been housing before. there will be individual cases in the country where there was perhaps a house

before that. someone wants to build on that land. that's not what we're talking about. what we're talking about is protecting our valuable green belt and making sure that there are not massive housing developments built in the wrong place without infrastructure, without schools, dentists, doctors, transport. that's the problem. if you're going to build, you have to make sure you build, you have to make sure you build in the right place. >> i guess it's the order in which that happens that is that is very tricky. chris yeah. christine, just just lastly, you mentioned brexit. a little bit earlier, zero mentions of brexit in the king's speech. has it become a bit of a dirty word? is it is it best forgotten now? christine >> oh, brexit has become a dirty word, but there's no way we can forget it because it's damaging british industry. british business and british life every day. but what you did have in the king's speech was perhaps not as far as liberal democrats would have liked, but a recognition from this labour government that we have to repair our relationship with europe. yes brexit is a dirty word, but it's a dirty word because it's damaged britain's

prosperity and we have to move on. >> okay. christine jardine, thank you so much for joining us. liberal democrat, member of parliament for edinburgh west there on college green outside parliament still with us in the studio, james price and doctor luke blaxill . luke blaxill. >> james, what did you make of what christine jardine had to say? i mean, we've got 70 lib dem mps now. i'm not sure what their purpose or function is other than to help labour parties. it sounds like from the start there. i remember when the former leader of the liberal democrats, nick clegg, a video of him resurfaced recently saying there was no point in building any more nuclear power stations because some of them wouldn't be ready until 2021, or we're now well past that. we're in a real pickle when it comes to producing enough good, clean energy. i don't hear anyone from the liberal democrats trying to fix that problem. particularly, i don't hear anyone actually, from anything we've just heard. they're fixing the housing crisis, worrying about our precious green belt. despite you putting a great example to her of the fact that the so—called green belt is full of land. >> but she's right, though, isn't she? she's right that in order to have more houses, you need to have the infrastructure to support those houses. it's

all well and good. plonking a thousand new homes in a certain area. but if the train stations already rameau, if you've got no schools, you've got no dentist, you've got no hospitals, then you've got no hospitals, then you know what's the point? >> well, firstly, i'm in favour of building all sorts of that as well, but i suspect that if it comes first, i suspect if you ask the liberal democrat they would say, well, there's no point in building infrastructure if there aren't houses there. and as every liberal democrat knows, every silver lining has a cloud. >> well, doctor luke blaxill, this has been a marvellous state occasion. >> it's also been a political occasion. what's your big takeaway? >> my big takeaway, i would say one of maintenance, i suppose, a little bit like the cap of maintenance. we've had a profound election. you know, an election which produced perhaps a slightly more normal outcome than perhaps we were considering as possible. but nonetheless, which produced an absolutely historic one. the conservatives reduced to their smallest number of mps. you know , until right of mps. you know, until right back into the 18th century, when it was a different party, one of the largest majorities that we have ever seen. and we've seen the transition of power happen peacefully, not just peacefully , peacefully, not just peacefully, but also with grand pomp and

ceremony. we've seen , you know, ceremony. we've seen, you know, rishi sunak and keir starmer sharing a joke with each other. yes, we've seen, very famous, very famously this happens generally between the leader of the opposition. >> i'm terribly sorry. i'm going to have to cut you off, but it's been an absolute pleasure. doctor luke blaxill and of course, james price, we're going to be back very shortly indeed . to be back very shortly indeed. >> a brighter outlook with boxt solar, sponsors of weather on gb news >> hello. welcome along to your latest weather update from the met office here on gb news. a fine day out there. i'm feeling quite warm. it's going to get a bit warmer as well over the next few days, certainly for some of us under the influence of this high pressure system. but notice there are weather fronts just creeping in towards the west. they'll bring a bit more cloud this afternoon to the west of scotland. maybe 1 or 2 showers over the highlands, but for most places it's dry and fine. we had

some early morning mist and some cloud is now developing. it's not blue sky everywhere , but not blue sky everywhere, but generally sunny spells and a bit of sunshine will lift the temperatures up into the low to even mid 20s in the south—east. could get up to 25 celsius in the london area. a little cooler in the far north—west, and the cloud will continue to thicken across western scotland as we go into the evening. perhaps just a few more showers drifting in here. but for most of scotland it is going to be a fine end to the day, with temperatures still 1920 degrees at 5:00 this afternoon. fine two in belfast but increasing cloud to the west of northern ireland. we will see a few showers just coming in to here end the day for most of england and wales, though a pretty pleasant summer's evening and it'll stay fine and dry across england and wales overnight. but for scotland and northern ireland we will see that cloud continuing to thicken up . outbreaks of rain trickling up. outbreaks of rain trickling into northern ireland, certainly across western scotland, where it could turn heavy in places towards the end of the night. some mist and fog, likely across

parts of england and wales, and maybe the odd shower into west wales, but for most dry, quite a warm evening, but nothing too oppressive. 14 to 16 the low in most towns and cities a wet start, then, for western scotland on thursday said that rain could be heavy for a time. in the morning we'll see some showery rain across southern and eastern scotland for a little bit of time through the middle part of the morning and it's a dull, damp morning for northern ireland. but for most of england, wales it's another fine day, plenty of sunshine and it is warming up as well, with temperatures maybe in the capital 28 degrees tomorrow. >> that warm feeling inside from boxt boilers sponsors of weather on gb

>> well . >> well. >> well. >> all right. good afternoon . >> all right. good afternoon. britain. it's 1:00 >> all right. good afternoon. britain. it's1:00 on wednesday, the 17th of july. i'm emily carver, and i'm tom harwood. now today we saw parliament in all its pomp and splendour. as king

charles outlined the new government's plans in the king's speech. adorned in all his royal regalia. the monarch read out priorities to mps and members of the house of lords, delivering the house of lords, delivering the message of the first under the message of the first under the labour government since 2009. >> the first king's speech labour government since, since well over 70 years. well, housing was a big theme in the speech, of course, with the king outlining labour's plans to get britain building, pledging to reform planning processes and accelerate house building across the country. >> and one of labour's long standing pledges renationalising the railways. that was announced with bills to bring train operators into public ownership and the creation of a new dedicated public body, great british railways, is to be brought in by the new labour government . government. >> well, there's been a lot to digest.

>> and it's not just the pomp and pageantry and getting to see the king in all his splendour, wearing his crown as he as he does. fairly rarely, actually. when i think of a king, i sort of think he should be wearing the crown all the time. but that must be impractical. but i think they're rather heavy. >> yeah. you know, get a bit of a pain in the neck. wouldn't you? yeah, but yes, a huge amount in their constitutional reform s. reforms. >> a right royal pain in the neck, a right royal pain in the neck. >> that is what you'd get if you wore a crown all day, every day. but lots in there. lots on constitutional reform, no specific mention of the votes for 16, but scrapping hereditary peers, lots on devolution, house building. say no to local outcries, local rebellions. no house building will go ahead under this labour government, but we're going to be speaking to the education secretary a little bit later in this programme to get the government's view on this mammoth group of bills, 40 pieces of legislation, some revived from the last government that got lost in the dissolution

of parliament, others brand new. >> we also want your say gbnews.com/yoursay is the way to get involved. but onto all of that and so much more after your headunes that and so much more after your headlines with sam . headlines with sam. >> tom and emily, thank you very much indeed. it's just after 1:00 and the top story as we've been covering today, the king has officially opened the new session of parliament, setting out the government's planned programme of new laws. in total, 40 pieces of legislation were announced, more than the 35 expected, which includes plans to get britain building, deliver greater devolution and enhance employment rights. the speech also proposed a football regulator, house of lords reform and a plan to tackle organised immigration crime . immigration crime. >> my government will seek to strengthen the border and make streets safer. a bill will be introduced to modernise the

asylum and immigration system, establishing a new border security command and delivering enhanced counter—terror powers to tackle organised immigration, crime . legislation will be crime. legislation will be brought forward to strengthen community policing, give the police greater powers to deal with anti—social behaviour and strengthen support for victims . strengthen support for victims. >> the latest figures show that inflation held at the bank of england's 2% target last month. all eyes now on the central bank and whether it will cut the interest rate this summer. the government says the data is welcome news, but prices are still high because of what they call economic chaos that was inherited from the conservatives government. shadow leader of the house of commons chris philp, accused labour of shameless spin and suggested the party will introduce what he's calling sneaky tax rises. >> this stuff the rachel reeves has been saying, claiming that the fiscal position is worse than she expected is obvious

nonsense. >> the obr obviously assess our fiscal position. they publish their own forecasts, a few months ago that she obviously saw, and we've seen today's inflation figure staying down at 2% on target, lower than the eurozone, lower than the usa growth. top of the g7. >> the family of a nine year old girl who was shot in an east london restaurant shooting say she may never talk or walk again. detectives have released new images of the prime suspect, 49 days after a lone gunman on a motorbike opened fire on the building in dalston. three men sitting outside were also hit in the gunfire, though they weren't seriously injured. however, the nine year old girl remains in a critical condition . it's feared critical condition. it's feared that two british men reported missing in sweden could have been killed. police have now launched a double murder investigation there after two bodies were found in a burnt out car in malmo on sunday, local media reporting they were shot . media reporting they were shot. police are still working to

identify the victims and in thailand , traces of cyanide have thailand, traces of cyanide have been found in cups of tea inside a hotel room where six people were found dead . police say the were found dead. police say the three men and the three women were likely poisoned by one of those who died in the hotel room of the grand hyatt in bangkok. that room was locked from the inside. investigators say money may have been a motive after evidence showed financial investments had been made among those in the group . and here those in the group. and here dame priti patel is reportedly entering the conservative leadership race. the former home secretary said to be assembling a campaign team funded by high profile tory donors, with the telegraph saying a formal announcement is expected from her by the end of next week. it would be the first time she's put her hat in the ring after colleagues urged her to stand. so far, though, no other candidates have officially declared their plans . those are declared their plans. those are the latest gb news headlines for now, i'm sam francis, back with you for more in half an hour for

the very latest gb news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gbnews.com forward slash alerts . slash alerts. >> good afternoon britain. it is 1:06 and we're going to cross straight to westminster where our political editor, christopher hope , is with the christopher hope, is with the education secretary, bridget phillipson . phillipson. >> hi, tom. hi, emily. i'm joined now by bridget phillipson, who's the education secretary bridget phillipson. what did the pm mean when he talked about moving away from the snake oil charm of populism? >> it's about putting politics back in public service and what we demonstrated in our first days and week or so as a new government is our determination to deliver for the british people and the measures that we've set out today are really ambitious. programme. people voted for change. we're going to

get on and deliver that change. >> you're the education secretary. the children's welfare bill will limit the number of branded items on school uniforms. why is that? >> because parents watching this will know that the cost of school uniform is skyrocketed . school uniform is skyrocketed. and we don't think it's right that parents are facing such big costs. we think it. children can be smart in school looking really great in school uniform, but it doesn't have to come at high cost. and that's also why we're taking action on breakfast clubs to make sure we've got universal free breakfast clubs in all of our primary schools to tackle those cost of living pressures that so many families have experienced . have experienced. >> if you look at the overall picture of these measures about a quarter, i think the tories could have done martyn's law and others. you are carrying over quite a few tory bills, aren't you? >> well, for example, the measure that we intend to introduce in the bill around a register of children not in school, that was something that's been talked about for years, and there were various attempts to get that through previous parliament. we're acting where the conservatives failed, but we're getting on with it. we know that there is a

real urgency behind this because we have too many children. we don't have oversight of where they are. we want to make sure that all of our children are safe, well supported and happy. >> i don't mention the b—word, but i've got to. the word brexit isn't mentioned in your 103 pages of background information about the king's speech. the eu, european union, union 15 times. is brexit a dirty word for your government? >> no, i mean, as you know , >> no, i mean, as you know, within the king's speech, not every measure, not every action that a government will take has concluded is included within that. and we have been clear that. and we have been clear that we want to get a better deal that we want to get a better deal. we don't think the deal that the conservatives secured last time around should be the ceiling of what is possible, and we know that businesses are facing some barriers. we want to take those away and make sure that we've got a really strong and successful export market. but what we can do here, alongside that and our plans on skills, creating skills england, making sure we've got good training opportunities across our country, that's an important part of what we need to do as well. >> yeah, you haven't banned the word brexit in government. >> no, no, i mean it's just about the practical measures

that we want to take on the employment rights bill. >> small firms might worry about hiring someone who might go to on have sick or sick pay, parental leave straight away. is that an onerous imposition on small companies? >> i think what we saw during the election campaign was that businesses were behind our agenda. we want to work with business, but we also want to make sure that we're delivering better rights at work, that we will, of course, make sure that we get these measures right. we want to work to implement them in a way that is responsible. but you know, too many people in our country are in insecure work. they don't earn enough for the job that they're doing, and we are determined to make sure that people are better off. >> some do want, though, don't they? zero hours contracts. not everyone is against them. will they allow to be on one if they want to be? >> it's banning the end of exploitative zero hours contracts. so we don't want people pushed permanently onto these kinds of contracts when what they want is the security of stable contract . of stable contract. >> you've dropped the idea of banning piers over 80. is that in the future you're only getting rid of hereditary peers? >> well, once again, not everything can make that cut in terms of the speech. so we

remain committed to the commitments of our manifesto on wider house of lords reform in the northern ireland legacy legislation. >> will that be easier to prosecute british troops now? >> no, it's about making sure that we respond to the legacy of the past. the previous government's legislation in this area was deeply contentious, including in northern ireland. did not have support of the parties or communities there . we parties or communities there. we want to take a responsible approach and get this right because there is still a legacy challenge there , and we want to challenge there, and we want to make sure that the continued peace in northern ireland, ngos and continues into the future. >> and you do pledge to publish draft legislation about ensuring that people of colour are paid the same as white people and those who are disabled as able bodied people. when will when will that become law? >> so it'll be a draft bill that we set out and there will be a process whereby we can look in detail at potential measures and make sure we're getting this right. but it is important to us as a party that we make sure that everyone across our country has a fair chance to succeed, and the idea is to make companies publish. >> how if there's a if there's a

race pay gap or a disability pay gap, publish that and justify it. yeah, absolutely. >> it's about making sure we've got transparency. but take education as well. you know, we've seen a growing emergence of an attainment gap amongst better off children and their less affluent peers. and that absolutely has to change. we have to make progress on that too. >> i just finally the king's speech does confirm the abolition of the vat, the imposing it back onto bills for private schools. do you worry about your your schools? you're in charge of being flooded by private school children who can't be private school anymore. >> i mean, we rehearsed all of these arguments at length during these arguments at length during the campaign, but what i'm determined to deliver is better state education, where the vast majority of children go to school. i've never accepted the arguments that were put forward about the impact and we've already got on with the job of delivering those 6500 new teachers that this policy will pay teachers that this policy will pay for. >> it might mean that some schools which look after disabled people do close some of the more marginal private schools. is that probably on you? won't it? look you know, some we've seen it before. >> some private schools close their businesses. they made decisions. and some of those schools in recent years have

faced challenges around numbers. so that's that's for them to conclude. but actually what we're seeing across our school system in england is falling rolls falling pupil numbers. and that's creating different pressures and this is the start of your government. >> the talking ends. you stop blaming the tories pretty soon and get on with it. >> absolutely. i mean, we've beenin >> absolutely. i mean, we've been in opposition for 14 years. we're not we don't want to waste a day. we all, all of us who were appointed into government on that friday got straight on with the job into our departments to deliver on what people voted for. we've got a mandate for change, but we know with that comes a big responsibility and we want to demonstrate to the british people that the trust that they have placed in us, we are honounng have placed in us, we are honouring and we are delivering. >> is it radical enough for 14 years of waiting for this? is it radical enough for you? >> well, i've seen a lot of i've seen a lot of those speeches in my 14 years as a member of parliament, and that was very different, far more positive, ambitious. and i think we'll give our country some hope and optimism. >> bridget phillipson, thank you for joining us. and bridget forjoining us. and bridget phillipson there talking over the noise of the council clearing up the horse dung behind us. but i hope you heard

what she had to say. >> we did indeed. thank you very much, christopher hope, for bringing us that. it is a it's a busy legislative agenda, isn't it? >> 40 bills. >> 40 bills. >> it's almost twice as many bills as the last rishi sunak king. >> i thought they were only going to be 35. but no, there's the surprise 40. it's a real rabbit out of the hat. bills, yes. labour. know how to make the most of a majority, don't they? perhaps. well, we shall see anyway. but christopher hope really creates a multi—sensorial experience for us. you can always smell it. the manure through the screen . so there you go. >> we can't smell it . go. >> we can't smell it. but of course, this comes amidst an early scandal, perhaps for this new government. sue gray, the new government. sue gray, the new prime minister's chief of staff, has been accused of personally dominating meetings about specific bailouts for renovations of a belfast sports stadium. >> yes , miss grey, who's known >> yes, miss grey, who's known for conducting the official inquiry into partygate, remember, has reportedly sparked

resentment among ministers in negotiations about casement park, a disused ground which would host matches in the euros 2028, which will be co—hosted by the uk and ireland. >> this, of course, comes in the context of restraint, spending restraint that many mps are worried about in their own constituencies . but sue gray, constituencies. but sue gray, who has a relationship to ireland she once owned a pub in ireland. is now wanting to subsidise this stadium. let's get the details with dougie beattie, our gb news reporter who's outside stormont in belfast, because dougie , this is belfast, because dougie, this is a bit of a scandal, is it not? >> well, it is, and that's why i'm outside stormont and not outside casement park , because outside casement park, because the politicians behind here that are unionist politicians are saying crying foul for want of a better word, saying, hold on a minute, we were all asked back in the early 2000 to look at a national stadium and of course , national stadium and of course, that national stadium was going to be in the mayor's sight. i

was in many of those meetings with the reverend ian paisley and martin mcguinness, who was then the deputy first minister. and what happened was the politicians couldn't agree amongst each other and the stadium on the site in the maze was then halted and the rugby got round about 50 to £70 million to build their new stadium. windsor park got exactly the same , but in 2013 exactly the same, but in 2013 casement park that was due to get exactly the same amount of money to rebuild that gaa ground was stopped in a judicial review, mainly by the people that lived in that area. because it's like one of these old stadiums that doesn't you know, there's no parking and access to it. so they wanted it built elsewhere. now, since then , the elsewhere. now, since then, the bill has went up to an eye—watering £310 million to build this stadium. and it's been sold as a place for the euros to be into our 2028. but the problem with that , of the problem with that, of course, is most people in that

area do not support northern ireland and in fact, to get northern ireland supporters into that stadium. well, it would be quite a job to be honest, because of where it's based now, the gaa must say i am a great supporter of the gaa. they're a fabulous organisation . they have fabulous organisation. they have encouraged sport and respected amongst their people. they do great things in amongst their own community, but they are very much community based in one side and the real rhi and why i'm outside stormont is that that, pubuc outside stormont is that that, public sector problems here with finance, etc. i mean, we have potholes in our roads , there's potholes in our roads, there's permanent strikes with doctors, nurses, much the way, the way it is across the uk and people are asking, well, who's going to pay the bill, the rates bill for this, who's going to own the stadium afterwards, who's going to take the profit out of it? and there doesn't seem to be any connection going either way with where that's going. and politicians here saying, well, if sue gray can put her foot in

to devolution matters and ask for 310 million for one side of the community, well, the rest of the community, well, the rest of the community, well, the rest of the community are saying, well, where's our 240 million to come out of that? and would we not be better spending that on education, health, security, infrastructure ? and at least if infrastructure? and at least if they were paying their rates, they'd be getting that back. now simon harris, the taoiseach, is meeting , today. i think it is meeting, today. i think it is with, keir starmer and chequers and there's no doubt at all that that will be discussed at that time, but also big problems around the legacy bill here because of course it was a labour government that gave out those letters of forgiveness. and, queen's pardons and mercy to those that were killed here that were in the security forces and many here wanting to know if labour do away with the legacy act , is there labour do away with the legacy act, is there going to be something put in place that those people that received those letters will now appear in court ? letters will now appear in court? >> really interesting, dougie, that the labour party says

there's no money, no money for projects, no for money many mps. >> but sue gray can find £310 million for a stadium in a in an area not favourable to unionists. she, of course, has a home in northern ireland. she ran a pub in northern ireland. >> she ran the finance department of northern ireland, devolved matters between 2018 and 21. she's got an interest in this area and suddenly she's finding the money for her own backyard. >> yes, that's exactly it. and politicians here are saying, well, if that's the case, why do well, if that's the case, why do we even bother having a budget? because it'll be overruled by one person in london. and when they are, when the labour government has just started. and if they have said we want a very good relationship with the devolved institutions , it's not devolved institutions, it's not a good start. >> well, thank you very much indeed. dougie beattie outside stormont in belfast for us. yes. and she's not elected . she's a and she's not elected. she's a senior civil servant. she's now chief of staff to the prime

minister. should she be having these types of discussions anyway? in any case, it's an interesting one, isn't it, about the power balance within keir starmer's top team? >> who's pulling the strings? who's pulling the levers of power? >> and of course, there were so many questions over her appointment initially. anyway, but turning back to the king's speech as legislation to overhaul britain's railways was included, which will bring train operators into public ownership, creating a new public body called great british railways to oversee the entire network. >> well, let's get the view of john bosco nwogbo, now the lead campaigner at we own it, a campaigner at we own it, a campaign group in favour of nationalising public services. thank you for joining nationalising public services. thank you forjoining us. thank you for joining us. i suppose the first question is will we actually see all that much difference given how many railway lines are already nationalised , thank you very nationalised, thank you very much for having us. >> i think we will begin to see some difference, >> it's useful for your audience to remember that , when east to remember that, when east coast rail was failing. so

dramatically some years ago when it was run by virgin, the government stepped in and took it into public ownership, repaired it fundamentally and made a profit of £1 billion the year after . year after. >> so the government does know how to run trains and what we're going to see is that with public ownership of the rail lines, we're going to be able to save £1.5 billion more per year that should be going out or that would otherwise be going out in profits or that is kind of as a result of waste, as a result of a fragmented, fragmented fragmentation , so i think it's fragmentation, so i think it's going to fundamentally improve the service. >> obviously, we think there are other things that the government should be doing alongside nationalisation that would make even more of a difference. >> but this is a brilliant start, >> john bosco, many of our viewers and listeners are old enough to remember the days of, of british rail and they speak often of delays . inefficiencies often of delays. inefficiencies are not a very good service. why

are not a very good service. why are you so sure that nationalising more of the railway system is going to dramatically improve the experience of people? surely the trade unions will have more power. there could be more disruption. there's nowhere they're not necessarily going to have any cheaper fares. why are you so sure that it's a good idea ? idea? >> so there are so many things to respond to. their number one is that obviously we don't need to go, thinking about the 1970s when we can think about last yean when we can think about last year, the crisis that we had with transpennine express , with transpennine express, avanti, all of which are run by private companies , private companies, >> but i think that taking the rail into public ownership is in many ways the gold standard for running railway lines across the world. the best railway line in europe is in switzerland. it's 100% publicly owned and run. the reason why it works better in pubuc reason why it works better in public ownership is, number one, you don't get profit leaving the system. by one estimate, we

would be able to reduce rail fares if the government were for example, to choose to put invest the profits that would otherwise have been leaving into cutting rail fares. we would be able to reduce rail fares by 18. >> but they could be sited the east coast mainline, the lner service that is run by the government. it's no cheaper than any of the other lines. i rode it a couple of months ago and it was delayed. it was busy, it was cramped. it was no different from any of the private services people complain about. the reason why that is the case at the moment is that you cannot achieve, the advantages of pubuc achieve, the advantages of public ownership by going a piecemeal approach. >> that's what we've always told the last government, and that's what we lobbied labour for. you cannot achieve, results. the kind of, wholesale results that we're looking for by taking them piecemeal , we're looking for by taking them piecemeal, you need to take we're looking for by taking them piecemeal , you need to take the piecemeal, you need to take the whole system. we also need to take the trains themselves. people don't actually know the changes that labour is

announcing today. don't include ownership of the actual trains. we need to take the trains themselves into public ownership. that would save us £400 million. that went out in profits last year, that could be invested into invest into improving the system. and i just wanted to add reform voters who labour will be looking to woo over the last, over the next five years, massively support this proposal they supported by around. >> yes, you're right, it's a very it's a very popular policy. when people are polled they do want to bring the railways back into national hands. thank you very much. johnbosco nwogbo, the lead campaigner at we own it. >> i did start to hear the beginnings of some excuses there, though, that the reason that one of these lines that has been nationalised recently is still expensive and is still cramped and is still delayed. oh, it's just not nationalised enough. yes, i think i think that's that's what we're probably going to hear a lot over the next 4 or 5 years. >> but coming up moves to tackle

the housing crisis, we're at the core of the new government's first king's speech. we're going to break it all down for you after this short break. stay with

us. well. good afternoon. britain. it's 127. and locals now won't be able to block new housing. this is under new labour plans. >> well, keir starmer has warned that his government will consult on how. not if new developments should take place across local authorities . all part of his authorities. all part of his pledge to take the brakes off britain. >> yes, new legal measures will force councils to quickly identify enough land to meet their predicted future needs, and local residents will be able to agree the style of new housing, but not object to getting built well. >> joining us now is the co—founder of the community planning alliance, rosie

pearson. rosie, i'm going to hazard a guess that this is potentially not what you wanted to hear . to hear. >> well, no, but i mean, to start with, actually, it's a bit of a myth that communities can block housing in their area anyway . you have to have anyway. you have to have legitimate legal planning reasons if you want to say no to something, just as you have to have legitimate reasons to go ahead with the project. so, so it's a slight myth. i mean, it's good because labour appears to be saying that communities must have involvement at the earliest stages of local plans. and it's really important that councils do have a local plan in place, because that then does allow you to shape the future rather than being at the whims of developers, which is something we've seen too much in the past. if you don't have a local plan at the moment as a council, and if you don't have the housing targets, achieved, then, you have the presumption in favour of development, which allows developers to pretty much do what they want . so, so i'd say what they want. so, so i'd say it's a bit of good and a bit of bad. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> so, rosie, do you think with all those caveats, from the new government, this will actually hasten house building, >> no, actually, i think that ,

>> no, actually, i think that, labouris >> no, actually, i think that, labour is missing the point. they are setting targets, which they say are obligatory for councils. but it's not councils who do the building. it's developers, we've seen even this week, one of the major house builders saying that it will slow down its output. and that's because of mortgage rates and demand. rather than planning . so demand. rather than planning. so if we want to actually solve the housing crisis, we need to look at who we're building for. and the main huge problem is the housing waiting list. and if you're on a housing waiting list, your hope of getting a council home is pretty dismal. and although labour is talking about building for all tenures, which is good to hear, there's no funding that we've yet seen for social housing. and we really, really, really need a massive social housing programme so that we're dealing with the affordability crisis for the people that most need housing. >> but rosie, we've got the fourth highest level of social housing in the oecd. we've got lots and lots of social housing. the problem we have is that more people proportionally need to access that social housing than other countries, because the market rate is so high. and i'd

put it to you that actually the market rate shouldn't be as high as it is. houses are so expensive because relative to demand, supply is constrained. >> well, i mean , we could >> well, i mean, we could probably sit here and have the supply argument, and i suspect we'd disagree. but, there is little evidence to show that if you keep building endless houses , you keep building endless houses, market houses, built by developers , that that brings developers, that that brings house prices down and evidence from auckland in new zealand. >> there's evidence, from, from from texas as well from austin, texas , where they allowed texas, where they allowed building up and densifying the city and rents unlike every other city in the united states, have started falling not climbing. >> well, there's arguments on both sides . and, if you look at both sides. and, if you look at even the kate barker review, which was the sort of seminal report that everyone's relied on since 2004in the uk, although she talked about supply, she did say that you would have to build a most extraordinary amount of housing to even have a make a dent on house prices. and actually, what's driving 300,000 actually, what's driving 300,000 a year. it's high mortgage

rates, which are controlling the supply. so if someone like barrett, who's just announced this week they're going to slow their output, is not saying it's their output, is not saying it's the planning system. they're saying it's the lack of demand and the mortgage, the mortgage rates. then that shows something different is going on. but anyway, whatever happens, we do need more social housing because people on the housing waiting list will be sitting there indefinitely under labour's proposals. and new towns is another thing that, there may be another thing that, there may be a place for well—designed new towns , if done properly. and towns, if done properly. and again, what i'm concerned about there is the lack of funding for them, because you cannot build a new town without putting the infrastructure in place first. so until we can see how that's going to be funded, then i have a suspicion of the new towns project and how they'll be done, and what we will keep saying, and what we will keep saying, and the community planning alliance is that you need to put the communities at the heart of development, and they should be shaping their futures, which labour might be wanting to do. that's a good thing. we want to make sure the right things in the right place. so that's affordable housing, that's sustainable and well accessed by pubuc sustainable and well accessed by public transport. and, active

travel. and that the environment is well protected. so i think all those three things no one could argue with, it's how we get there that i think is where some people differ. yes. >> i mean, last year the population grew by 610,000, though i think it's getting getting into crisis territory with our housing. but thank you very much, rosie pearson from the community planning alliance. thank you very much for your time. appreciate it. >> yeah. good to see. well, we're going to have to get to i mean, i wouldn't like to have to have tons of housing dumped on my area if i was living in somewhere where i thought the infrastructure didn't meet that demand. >> but, i mean, with the population as it is, i mean, how can we not? >> yeah, no, i think i think it's really key that infrastructure is built alongside the housing. hopefully that's what these plans will have as yet. we haven't seen all of the detail, but much more to come. borisjohnson of the detail, but much more to come. boris johnson urges donald trump to continue aid to ukraine should he win the us presidential race. but is it any of the former prime minister's business? well, that's after your headlines with sam.

>> 133 and the top stories from the newsroom this afternoon. well, the king has officially opened the new session of parliament, setting out the government's planned programme of laws in total, 40 pieces of legislation were announced. that's more than were expected. and they include plans to get britain building, to deliver greater devolution and enhance employment rights. the speech also proposed a football regulator, house of lords reforms and a plan to tackle organised immigration crime . organised immigration crime. meanwhile, more than 30 protesters have been arrested in central london over plans to disrupt the state opening of parliament. ten members of the group youth demand were detained in westminster, while another 20 to 25 protesters were arrested. a short distance from the houses of parliament this afternoon. police say they are now being questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance . police have released

nuisance. police have released new images of a suspect wanted in connection with the shooting of a nine year old girl in east london, a gunman on a motorbike fired shots at a restaurant in dalston on the 29th of may. the child's family say she remains in a critical condition and may never talk or walk again. three men sitting outside were also hit but weren't seriously injured . it's feared two british injured. it's feared two british men reported missing in sweden could have been killed. police have launched a double murder investigation after two bodies were found in a burnt out car in malmo on sunday, local media there are reporting they were shot. authorities are still trying to identify the victims and the latest inflation figures show that they have held at the bank of england's 2% target last month. all eyes now on the central bank and whether it will cut the interest rate this summer. the government says the data is welcome news, but added pnces data is welcome news, but added prices are still high because of the economic chaos they say they inherited from the conservatives

those are the latest gb news headlines. for now, i'm sam francis, back with you at 2:00 for the very latest gb news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gbnews.com forward slash alerts . forward slash alerts. >> cheers! britannia wine club proudly sponsors the gb news financial report , and here's financial report, and here's a quick look at the markets for you this afternoon. >> the pound will buy you $13029 >> the pound will buy you $1.3029 and >> the pound will buy you 151.3029 and ,1.1915. the >> the pound will buy you $1.3029 and ,1.1915. the price of gold this hour, £1,898.64 per ounce. and the ftse 100 is at 8165 points. >> cheers . britannia wine club the gb news financial report

>> good afternoon. britain it's 1:39. now. the former prime minister, boris johnson has urged the former president, donald trump to continue arming ukraine during a 30 minute meeting at the republican national convention in milwaukee. >> yes, boris johnson has previously endorsed donald trump, but also has remained one of president zelenskyy's most determined supporters during the war. >> well, we're joined now by media commentator and author of reporting the war in ukraine, paul connew. because, paul, this is an interesting, i suppose, difference . lots of people are difference. lots of people are deeply critical of president trump for suggesting that a quick deal should be cut to end the war in ukraine. boris johnson has been seen as one of the most steadfast supporters of arming ukraine to getting russia out of that country , could boris out of that country, could boris johnson actually have a bit of influence here?

>> i rather i rather doubt it, most of my ukrainian contacts are have long been living in fear of a second trump presidency. >> and his pick of jd, jd vance, as his running mate has only accentuated those fears. and bons accentuated those fears. and boris johnson , i'm sure boris boris johnson, i'm sure boris johnson, you know, argued the case for supporting ukraine at his meeting with with trump. but i doubt his influence is very great. and i think he's living in a false world of optimism by saying that he's confident that, that a, a second trump presidency would support ukraine. i, you know, i think, that the feeling pigs might fly, in fact , come, comes to mind in fact, come, comes to mind there and jd vance has already made his view very, very clear on though donald trump when he was president last time sent

nlaw missiles out to ukraine. >> the former ukrainian president met with donald trump, both of them businessmen . they both of them businessmen. they sorted out a hell of a lot of military aid that that was true. >> but since then, trump has had , >> but since then, trump has had, if you like, retreated on the ukraine situation and has made it clear himself. he thinks there should be a deal. i mean, he's boasted about i could settle it in 24 hours. well, in fact, the only way anything like that would happen is if trump agreed to the idea of ceding the seized land in ukraine. you know, that putin's already achieved leaving it with him and having a situation where 20% thereabouts of you of ukraine became part of russia and so far, president zelenskyy is not

entertaining that, what's interesting, though, where boris johnson might have some influence is there are those it was made clear yesterday. there were there were those, if you like, among traditional republicans who don't favour abandoning ukraine. but there were plenty of briefings yesterday from eu ministers that they fear that ukraine would, you know , and its hopes of you know, and its hopes of joining nato would go by the board if, if in fact , trump is board if, if in fact, trump is re—elected. and of course , this re—elected. and of course, this morning in the king's speech, we actually had a firm commitment from the starmer government to carry on supporting ukraine. but it could be that it's europe who who have to really take the take the hard decisions on how much to support ukraine. if a trump vance administration were, you know, were to row back, i mean, paul know, were to row back, i mean, paul, to pay to play devil's

advocate here, there's no end in sight to this war. >> could it be that the vast majority of americans want the next president to try their very best to put an end to it as quickly as possible ? quickly as possible? >> i'm sure there are a lot of americans who feel that way, but there are others who there are others who don't. and it's one issue that seems to split the republican party. itself, between if you like, the more isolationist wing, you know, and the more traditional republicans. but at the moment, unless the polls are wrong, we are going to have, like it or not, a second trump presidency . not, a second trump presidency. and there's no one i know in ukraine politically , ukraine politically, journalistically, who doesn't feel that a trump presidency is very bad for news ukraine's prospects. >> well , paul prospects. >> well, paul connew, thank you so much for giving us that analysis. >> author of reporting the war

in ukraine. really appreciate your time. >> well, coming up, the government is set to tackle the prison overcrowding crisis by fast tracking the removal of foreign inmates. we'll diving into that after

break. >> good afternoon. britain. it's 1:47. now the government is trying to tackle it. tackle this prison overcrowding crisis by fast tracking the removal of foreign inmates. >> yes. >> yes. >> so ministers are expected to announce plans to deport offenders from other countries. more swiftly. potentially, it could free up. up to 10,000 prison spaces. >> well, this move is part of a broader effort to prevent the criminal justice system reaching a breaking point. so who better to discuss this with than the barrister and writer stephen barrett? stephen, i have to say it was slightly music to my ears reading this that instead of,

instead of releasing people early, we might actually finally deport some foreign criminals. >> yes, well, we did have the first rwanda scheme, which failed. >> we then had the second rwanda scheme, and i said that that was going to fail, and i still believe it was . believe it was. >> this may well be music to people's ears, but the devil is going to be in the detail because what? >> let me give you a very simple example. if people remember the first rwanda scheme failing, they might remember the word refoulement and refoulement is woven through our laws on all of this. and unless you actually go through and pick that thread out, you're going to face legal challenge on the basis of refoulement. but then you're going to face legal challenge on the basis of human rights. you're going to face legal challenge on the basis of modern slavery. and it's been relatively hard to deport foreign criminals. the most success we've had is because we came to an agreement with

albania, and we managed to get about 40% back, but even people who commit really serious offences, i saw a firearms offences, i saw a firearms offence earlier this year, and that wasn't enough to get them deported unless you change all the wiring, unless you fix the laws, this is not going to happen. it really doesn't matter what you say under a lot of the obstacles. >> international law, which we know labour aren't going to want to remove us from. so is this just something to please the crowds but won't actually happen?! crowds but won't actually happen? i mean, how many times have we reported on people who've been foreign criminals and we haven't been able to deport them because of all this legislation? they get the best immigration lawyer involved . immigration lawyer involved. they get the best human rights lawyer involved in it. they just end up staying here. >> yes. and you have to talk about culture as well, because there is a very strong cultural belief that deporting criminals is wrong. now i'm neutral. that's a political belief. so i'm not going to criticise that. but you have to recognise that it exists now. keir starmer himself signed a letter four years ago trying to prevent the deportation of criminals. he

presumably did that because he genuinely believes in it. david lammy signed it too. you know, most of the lawyers working in this field will lots of them will be friends with keir stan and this is the really the cultural and political commitment to this or are or are we setting up the legal system to fail because that's the one that concerns me, because if there's a deep political will amongst the people, but not amongst the people, but not amongst the people, but not amongst the elite, and if we keep throwing this issue against the legal system and it starts to look like the judges are blocking the will of the people, that's not a very healthy position to be. now, that won't be the genuine position, because it will simply be that the legal system hasn't been fixed. to allow this, you can fix the legal system to allow this, but unless you're going to do it, this is just going to fail. >> i know keir starmer, when he was chief prosecutor, was quite proud of his rights or his record on on human rights, whereby he would , treat everyone whereby he would, treat everyone that he was prosecuting with the utmost sort of respect and his

argument is therefore the cases against these people are watertight. if you say, we're not going to deport these people to a country with the death penalty, if you say we're going to give them the best possible care, give them the best possible lawyers, you then have a completely watertight case. if something is found against them, there's no room for appeal. what do you make of that argument? >> well , do you make of that argument? >> well, again, i don't i don't i doubt it will. >> it will matter when it comes crashing against the system. we have. we emily's question was also very good. and i should have addressed that, more directly. it's international law andifs directly. it's international law and it's domestic law. both of them are currently woven. maybe i'll use that. i don't know if that's a tortured metaphor. i hopeit that's a tortured metaphor. i hope it helps your viewers, but they're currently woven to stop this happening, to stop deportation . they work very deportation. they work very strongly to prevent it unless you reweave it to allow this to pass through the net, then it's just going to get blocked again . just going to get blocked again. and that's that's really my concern that that we will bring

the legal system into disrepute. if for the third time, the pubuc if for the third time, the public see us effectively blocking something that they want to happen. >> i mean, stephen, this sounds like it might be an example of a snake oil populism if it actually can't be done without, taking us out of all of these legal issues. but thank you very much. stephen barrett, barrister and writer . always fabulous to and writer. always fabulous to speak to you. good stuff. right now i believe we are going to speak to a matt vickers, the conservative mp, returning to, of course, the opening of parliament. you are the mp for stockton west. thank you very much indeed for your time, matt. i mean, the labour government, they've, hit the ground running 40 bills. >> yeah, well, plenty of spending commitments in there, which is what we always expect. >> it smells like a labour government. it looks like a labour government. >> it's going to spend lots of money its usual way. and then we'll pick up the tab later. and the taxpayer will pick up the tab later, lots of ambitious things to be done, lots of questions to be asked. we're a

government now. well, we're a party in opposition who are not going to be in opposition for opposition's sake. >> we're going to scrutinise what comes forwards, ask the right questions, and make sure that we deliver the results for the british people. >> yeah, matt, it's doing all of these terribly left wing things. >> it wants to set up a football regulator. it wants to iteratively ban smoking so adults can't smoke , and it wants adults can't smoke, and it wants to have a duty against terrorism on even small hospitality businesses, a conservative government would never do those three things. now would it? >> well, there's lots of devil in the detail, isn't there? >> lots of headlines to be had, but lots of devil in the detail as to what those things look like in practice, whether those terrorism efforts do impact on small hospitality businesses or whether they don't. and those are the questions that we're going to be asking. >> you know why i put the question there? because these were all things that that the previous government, the government which you served , the government which you served, the government which you served, the government that you were a member of parliament supporting, was trying to do as well .

was trying to do as well. >> do you know what? i think there's lots of things there, but it is about the detail. it is about what the implication of some of these things are. >> i don't think any of us will argue that smoking is bad for the health of young people, and we should be doing something to try and control the growth in the number of vapes. i don't think anybody would would oppose lots of those things, but it's all about the detail. it's all about the implications and the effect on people. i think lots of people at home today would be looking at the country. do you know what the economy is in a much better shape than it was? there's lots of opportunities available to us, inflation is down. we're now the fastest growing economy in the g7. >> things are moving the right way. there are opportunities now as to what happens next. >> and that's that's what we're going to see. but we've got a labour government in there that only got 34. >> no. matt vickers, it is, of course, sir, it looks like it's going to spend a lot. >> it's of course, your job now, the conservative party to provide the opposition to this agenda at the moment, lots of whispers about who might be the next leader of the conservative party. who do you get behind? >> well, you know what, the betting still on the options are

still open, and i'm considering all of them and looking what they might offer us. priti patel, try to take this country forward and offer an alternative. i'm sure she'd be a wonderful option, but i'm sure there's lots of wonderful options. but i haven't made a decision yet, and i'll be weighing up those opfionsin i'll be weighing up those options in the days, weeks and even months possibly to come. >> now, of course, you were one of the few conservative mps, one of the few conservative mps, one of the few conservative mps, one of the minority of conservative mps, who kept their seats at the election. you were talking about the positive economic news, the growth figures, the low inflation. did the prime minister simply call the last prime minister call this election too early ? election too early? >> well, do you know what? >> well, do you know what? >> i'm sure if we will talk about that for years to come, we'll talk about whether it was too early to late or even whether we should have gone in may. >> but actually, what we've got to look at is that the country is in a good state in terms of its economy, that growth is the fastest growing economy in the g7. you need to keep talking about this, tom. but there's also lots of things that we came away from the doorsteps with, challenges that the government faced, that we're going to have to make sure we get on with as we move forward, whether that be

immigration, whether that be around what we do in our communities. you know, we've heard the government talking about devolution, devolution, max, throwing all these powers to local people, but at the same time trying to take away local people's say in what happens in their communities in terms of planning lots of big issues as we go forward. those are the issues i've been talking about to people on the doorsteps, and those are the issues i'm going to be talking about in there in the next few months as we move forward. >> okay. well, thank you very much indeed. matt vickers, a member of for parliament stockton west. good to speak to you. >> yeah. one of the 121 conservative mps who still remain on those green benches. lots more to come as the next hour we're going to be crossing to the house of commons. mps are gathering in there. we're going to hear not only

good afternoon. britain. it's 2:00 on wednesday, the 17th of july. i'm tom harwood, and i'm emily carver. today we saw parliament in all its pomp and splendour. as king charles

outlined the government's plans in the king's speech. adorned in all his royal regalia. the monarch read out the priorities to mps and members of the house of lords. a debate will commence within 30 minutes. >> yes, indeed. and housing, of course, was a big theme in the speech. the king outlining labour's plans to get britain building, pledging to reform planning procedures and accelerate that house building across the country. >> and one of labour's long standing pledges of renationalising more of the railways was announced with bills to bring train operators back into state ownership and the creation of a new dedicated pubuc the creation of a new dedicated public body, a great british railways is to be brought in by the new labour government. >> all right. >> all right. >> well, we want to know what you make of the king's speech. i mean, it's hard to cover absolutely everything in there. in totality, but perhaps there's

something that's stuck out to you. i think more powers to workers, more powers to the trade unions, more powers to renters, and more powers to local mayors and more powers to local mayors and more powers to local mayors, which are, you know , i've got a view on, know, i've got a view on, constitutional reform. there was no explicit mention of votes for 16, but scrapping those hereditary peers, does that make you sad? does that make you happy and joyful? >> we're going to be speaking to experts throughout the programme, picking up on some of the details within what was said, but also bring you that debate in the house of commons as, parliament begins several days now of debating the premise of these 40 new bills brought before parliament. we want your views throughout it, of course. post your comments by visiting gbnews.com/yoursay. >> but it's your headlines now with sam francis . with sam francis. >> tom, emily, thank you very much and good afternoon to you. it's just after 2:00 and as we

were hearing there, the top story today, the king has officially opened the new session of parliament, setting out the government's planned programme of new laws. in total, 40 pieces of legislation were announced, more than 35 expected, which included plans to get britain building, deliver greater devolution and enhance employment rights. and the speech also proposed a football regulator, house of lords reform , regulator, house of lords reform, and a plan to tackle organised immigration crime. >> my government will seek to strengthen the border and make streets safer. a bill will be introduced to modernise the asylum and immigration system, establishing a new border security command and delivering enhanced counter—terror powers to tackle organised immigration, crime . legislation will be crime. legislation will be brought forward to strengthen community policing, give the police greater powers to deal with anti—social behaviour and

strengthen support for victims . strengthen support for victims. >> the latest figures show inflation held at the bank of england's 2% target last month. all eyes will now be on the central bank and whether it will cut the interest rate. this summer. the government says the data is welcome news, but prices are still high because of the economic chaos they say they inherited from the conservatives. well, shadow leader of the house of commons, chris philp, told us that labour are shamelessly spinning and suggested the party will introduce what he's called sneaky tax rises. >> this stuff the rachel reeves has been saying, claiming that the fiscal position is worse than she expected is obvious nonsense. >> the obr obviously assess our fiscal position. they published their own forecasts a few months ago that she obviously saw , and ago that she obviously saw, and we've seen today's inflation figure staying down at 2% on target, lower than the eurozone, lower than the usa. growth topped the g7. >> the family of a nine year old girl who was shot in east london

say that she may never talk or walk again. detectives have released new images of the prime suspect, 49 days after a lone gunman on a motorbike opened, fired on a restaurant in dalston . fired on a restaurant in dalston. three men sitting outside were hit by that gunfire, but weren't seriously injured, though the nine year old girl does remain in a critical condition , a in a critical condition, a former army general has admitted disgraceful conduct. conduct of an indecent kind after being accused of sexual assault. james roddis pleaded guilty to the lesser charge at bulford military court in salisbury. the court was told the complainant indicated she was content with the court. roddis was made an m.b.e. and also earned two queen's commendations for his service in the military. he'll be sentenced in september. it's feared the two british men reported missing in sweden could have been killed. police have launched a double murder investigation. thereafter, two bodies were found in a burnt out car in malmo on sunday. local media is reporting that they

were shot, but police are still working to identify the victims . working to identify the victims. in thailand , traces of cyanide in thailand, traces of cyanide have been found in teacups inside a hotel room where six people were found dead in bangkok. police say the three men and three women were likely poisoned by one of those who died in the room of the grand hyatt hotel, which was locked from the inside . investigators from the inside. investigators say that money may have been a motive. after evidence showed financial investment had been made among the group and in the last hour or so, we've heard that prisoners of war have been exchanged following an agreement between ukraine and russia , 95 between ukraine and russia, 95 soldiers from each side were returned. the ukrainian men appearing emotional as they left appearing emotional as they left a bus finally on home soil. if you're watching on tv, you can see there those images as the men exited the bus and showed some very desperate scenes of emotion as they arrived back on ukrainian soil, president volodymyr zelenskyy saying all of those freed were from armed

forces and thanked the uae for its help in facilitating the deal. its help in facilitating the deal . those are the latest gb deal. those are the latest gb news headlines for now, i'm sam francis, another update at half past two for the very latest gb news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code , or go to scanning the qr code, or go to gbnews.com forward slash alerts . gbnews.com forward slash alerts. >> good afternoon britain. it's 2:06. now, before we delve into the king's speech and look ahead to that debate in the next 20 minutes or so, it's worth mentioning that some young protesters from the group youth demand have been arrested in central london over plans to disrupt the state opening of parliament. >> well, >> well, let's >> well, let's get >> well, let's get more >> well, let's get more with >> well, let's get more with our home and security editor , mark home and security editor, mark white, what is youth demand and how far did they get? >> well, it's an offshoot

activist group, an offshoot of just stop oil and other activist groups for the environment, along with pro—palestinian activist groups. they've all come together with the, set aim of trying to highlight the issues around the environment, but also around what is happening in gaza at the moment. and they a week ago had threatened to disrupt the state opening of parliament. so the police, acting on intelligence and spotting a number of these activists, moved in to arrest them pre—emptively. so ten people were arrested. first of all, in the westminster area about 9 am. this morning. then about 9 am. this morning. then about an hour after that, before the actual procession to the houses of parliament had taken place, another 20 to 25 activists were surrounded by police officers in victoria

gardens on victoria embankment, a short distance from the houses of parliament. they were contained there for a while and then the police moved in, picked them off one by one, arrested them off one by one, arrested them . they're all in police them. they're all in police custody at the moment . arrested custody at the moment. arrested on suspicion of planning to create a public nuisance, the police will do this from time to time if they have got solid evidence that a crime may be about to be committed, they can move in pre—emptively , as they move in pre—emptively, as they have done on this occasion, to stop whatever this group was planning, because it's not uncommon for these activist groups to try to cause disruptions such as jumping out in front of vehicles. have done it with political, leaders being escorted around central london before and even royal cavalcades in the past have also been the subject of disruption. so the police are taking no chances

here, especially in light of what happened in the us at the weekend. there there is always an underlying threat to life at these big public events here in these big public events here in the uk as well. so the police taking no chances, moving in pre—emptively arresting more than 30 of these activists? >> no, it's unusual that we see such widespread, wide scale arrests at a time like this. but of course , i suppose there were of course, i suppose there were threats from this particular group that were made public before this royal occasion. mark white, thank you so much for bringing us the very latest on that security element of today's big state opening. >> yes, i imagine the pro—palestinian contingent of protesters will be very loud with this new government. i mean, listening out for the middle east in the king's speech, there was a commitment to a two state solution. but i imagine any any government of any colour would make that same

commitment. so there's nothing there on, you know, arms sales or on, on anything like that. so there you go. >> no . and, of course, we >> no. and, of course, we haven't controlled israel since the late 1940s, so, not sure what good it will do anyway, anyway, members of parliament will reassemble in the house of commons to begin debating the king's speech in just some minutes time. >> yes. his majesty read out 40 draft laws, including plans to nationalise the railways, house building programmes and the economy. >> well, the government says its legislative agenda will take the brakes off britain and counter the snake oil charm of populism. >> well, we're joined now by former conservative mp miriam cates and former labour adviser matthew laza. miriam, how do you feel? 40 bills read out. we were expecting 35, but no , 40 were expecting 35, but no, 40 were squeezed into that, king's speech. this is going to be a busy new government . busy new government. >> it sure is. and it's certainly not a populist king speech. >> looking at some of the measures being, drawn out.

>> now, there are a few things in there that i do think are a good idea. >> for example, a bill to help people consolidate their pension pots. lots of people now work for a number of companies over their working lives. >> i think that's very, very sensible, very practical. i think another good measure is to scrap the £200 limit for shoplifting to be investigated, >> certainly there has been a rise in shoplifting. >> and one of the problems is that police have not been investigating any thefts of under £200. >> so again, i think that's a very sensible measure. but there are things in this king's speech that i think are very unsensible measures. i could speak for a long time on that, but i think one thing to highlight would be this budget responsibility bill, which would essentially give the obr power to scrap a government budget. >> so an elected government elected by the people, that bnngs elected by the people, that brings forward a budget to, let's say, cut taxes, or let's say make a huge investment in the future or change the way our tax system works could actually be overruled by an unelected body, the obr. >> and i think that's really taking away from the sovereignty

of parliament and effectively the power of the people. >> i think that's a very, very worrying. but i could go on. >> there's many, many things in there that are either meddling or actually causing serious problems. >> i'm glad you touched on that, because we hadn't given it enough attention yet , because enough attention yet, because handing that power to the obr , handing that power to the obr, matthew, that's quite a big commitment that may have, you know, consequences for years , know, consequences for years, generations to come. >> well, it's not handing the power to veto a budget to the obr. it's ensuring that the obr look at every budget before it's delivered. >> run it by. >> run it by. >> yeah . well i mean and they >> yeah. well i mean and they can raise points and it's up to the elected government or not to overrule those points. in some ways it'd be better than what happened under under liz truss and kwasi kwarteng where the budget happened. the obr basically briefed the briefing anyway. and, it would have been better to say , we hear you, this better to say, we hear you, this is the reason we're doing it. we're going to go ahead anyway. so i don't think it's giving away elected power, but it's ensuring scrutiny of the obr was a creation of the man who was foreign secretary till ten days ago, david cameron, when he was prime minister, and george osborne was the obr not in.

>> are they infallible? >> are they infallible? >> no, they're not infallible . >> no, they're not infallible. >> no, they're not infallible. >> and that's why i think it's right that they take a look at it. but it's also right that a government can can say, well, thank you for looking at it. we're going to go ahead with this anyway because this is a political priority. >> but the problem is, as we saw in the liz truss debacle, the obr has does have enormous power or certainly enormous influence. >> and it would be very difficult to see an elected government being able to get away with producing a budget that the obr disapproved of , that the obr disapproved of, particularly by entrenching their power in this way. >> and actually the obr does not have a great record when it comes to forecasting. >> they're very often wrong. >> they're very often wrong. >> and so it seems to me that actually the ultimate power and authority should, should stand with the people , which is with the people, which is parliament and not an unelected quango. and i think actually the obr was a bad invention. >> it's an interesting point. you raise miriam, because of course many battles were had 2015, 2016 and then right through until the 2019 general election when you were elected over that fundamental issue of the sovereignty of parliament. where does power lie? and it's not just with the obr, matthew, but it's also with devolved assemblies. it's also with extra powers for trade unions. of

course , big battles in the 1970s course, big battles in the 1970s over who. yeah. >> i don't think that the measures today amount to return to the 1970s, but of course there is a discussion here over where does power sit in britain ? where does power sit in britain? >> and that could be a big theme of the next 4 or 5 years. >> yeah, absolutely. >> yeah, absolutely. >> i actually think that mayors are going to be quite a big issue, because i think there's two things. one, i think the mayors, the labour mayors are going to be the effectively the real opposition. >> because they have these fiefdoms. they're also outside of london, where there is an assembly. they're also basically unscrutinised because they just basically are scrutinised by the leaders of the local councils. now you know, in greater manchester, andy burnham is the mayor. that's normally 11, occasionally 12 out of 12, sorry, nine out of. yeah. anyway it's all almost all of them, you know, and the same goes in other parts of the country. so you basically get one party state. yeah. and also, of course, what happens is the leaders of the local councils are all given jobs. they're all the deputy mayor for this or the lead on that. so it's not exactly like having a robust even a council chamber against them. so i am i think yes, we need to give the mayors certain powers. we're

giving powers on buses, for example, beyond the metro mayors. it's already happening in places like manchester. >> are going to want more, though, aren't they, matthew? yes, we've seen that with de—man in scotland was supposed to strengthen the union. and what happened instead? >> well, look, every time i hear the phrase devo max, a shiver goes down my spine because it takes me back to the eve of the scottish referendum, where that was the promise. in return for voting no in scotland it was, i think it was a covenant with the scottish people on the front of the daily record, and, you know, i think there has to be a limit. i think there has to be a limit. i think the government needs to be careful that in the first days where it seems nice, you know, they had the jolly selfie outside downing street with the mayors, even even being nice to the soul. tory ben houchen getting his in the selfie. it's just that, you know, nice warm words. but actually, as you say, look at the detail of how it's going to operate. >> do we want second rate politicians in this country to have more power concentrated in their hands? >> i don't think it's necessarily that they are second rate about any individual. i think it's that the model is completely wrong and i don't . completely wrong and i don't. >> i support devolution in principle. i think that power , principle. i think that power, that decisions should be taken as close as possible to the people they affect. but the problem with the model that we

have now is essentially the mayors are just an additional level of bureaucracy, and they don't have tax raising powers, which most people would probably think is a good thing or indeed tax cutting. >> but they don't have tax cutting power. >> so they can go to westminster and say, we want more money. >> and if the government says no, there is no more money, they can go back to their electorate and blame the government. now that's worked well for labour mayors under a conservative government because they have blamed conservatives and austerity for bad buses, etc, etc. it's going to be very interesting to see what happens next, because there isn't any more money. the labour run and yet there and then suddenly the labour mayors are not going to be able to blame it on the government. >> or if they do, they're very quickly going to lose support. >> this could be where more powers for local mayors is actually a very good thing for growth in the country. currently, if there's a local authority or a local mayor who says, i don't want this to be built here, i don't want that new power station or or whatever it is. this new business doing economic activity, well , if they economic activity, well, if they approve it, they don't get any of the benefits. they don't. they can't sort of, other than business rates . they don't

business rates. they don't collect any of the extra, economic activity, any of the spinning off. that doesn't happen. spinning off. that doesn't happen . if they were able to get happen. if they were able to get revenue from things that they approve that could generate more economic activity . it could. economic activity. it could. >> and that's the kind of model that could work better because you have power and accountability. but the problem we have in britain is that we're such an imbalanced economy, and we're the most imbalanced economy in western europe. >> and actually, you'd probably find that the vast majority of the metro mayors, certainly in south yorkshire, are actually starting from such a disadvantageous point in terms of the amount of business revenue, the kind of entrepreneurial headquarters and things like that you have. but they would never, ever catch up. >> and, you know, whilst as a conservative, i hesitate to say, say what we need is state intervention. actually in some of these areas, what we do need is state intervention, because outside of london and the south east, all of our regions are actually dependent on the wealth created in the capital. and that's a very difficult place for these mayors to start from. >> miriam, another area that we haven't spoken about, and it only got a quick mention in the king's speech, is this ban on

conversion practices, and this relates more so to transgender people, children mostly, i presume, and this is a bit of a controversial one. i'm not sure many people really understand what this is all about. the idea of conversion practices sounds awful, sounds medieval almost, but this could be worrying. >> yes. and, you know, you're right. some of the ideas that people will have of what this means are actually are of course, appalling, but are already illegal. and anything coercive or violent is already illegal. and covered by numerous other bills. but the problem with trying to stop somebody from preventing, let's say, a child from pursuing their gender identity. so let's say you've got a girl and she thinks that she's been born in the wrong body and she wants to be a boy. a bill like this could potentially make it illegal for a teacher or a counsellor to say to that girl, no, actually, you're not a boy. we're not going to let you go down the route of hormonal therapy or medical treatment. we're going to watch and wait and hope that, you know, you grow out of it, or

that you realise that this is not a good decision. now, obviously, that's an extreme challenge not only to free speech, but parental rights to prevent a parent from protecting their child from gender ideology. and what makes this position from labour such a nonsense is that just yesterday , nonsense is that just yesterday, wes streeting has said that he will continue the ban, that the conservatives put in place on puberty blockers for children. >> so the government is preventing children from pursuing gender identity. >> and yet at the same time, they want to bring in a bill that will criminalise people from preventing a child from pursuing their gender identity. it's a nonsense. but what's really interesting is that they've only committed to bring in a draft bill, and every draft bill we've seen so far, there have been two so far in parliament this year have been thrown out because it's been proven so difficult to legislate in this area. so i don't think it's necessarily guaranteed that it's necessarily guaranteed that it will happen. >> that's interesting. let's do that dichotomy over to matthew laza, because there does seem to be the government talking through two sides of its mouth on this issue, on the one hand, wes streeting saying no more puberty blockers for children. on the other hand, this conversion ban . conversion ban. >> well, no, absolutely not. because the ban, the briefing

the ban is quite clear that the new draft bill will respect the legitimate psychological support and treatment or non—directive counselling, and respect the important role that parents, teachers, religious leaders and carers have in supporting those exploring both their sexual orientation or their gender identity. so i think, you know, it is important those those caveats are in there. it's important that the lessons of the cass review are learned, but it's also important that we ban the horrific practice of conversion therapy, which it is appalling. it's still legal in our country . our country. >> i guess it's difficult to know exactly what they mean by conversion practices, because if it's something that's violent or physically abusive, then of course that is already illegal. you'd hope under. >> well, emily, i mean, i mean , >> well, emily, i mean, i mean, therapy is where it gets all vague because is therapy someone saying, you know, not affirming their new gender identity? it's not. i remember the vast majority of people that have been subject to conversion. yeah, subject to conversion therapy, have not been people questioning their gender. they've been people, questioning their sexual orientation. and

there have been and, you know, this is this is a bill that, you know, will mostly, mostly provide, as your sexual orientation and the sort of, you know, ex—gay movement, the kind of trying to exorcise the but it look, i mean, if and if it's one person, it's to one person to many. but yes, it's more widespread. the difficulty you look online, the difficulty is, which is why filming two bills have already been thrown out of parliament this year. >> two private member's bills, one in the commons, one in the lords. the problem is there is no legal definition of gender identity or transgender . and identity or transgender. and there can't be because unlike sexuality, gender identity is an idea. you can't prove whether somebody feels male or female. it's just not something that you can define in law . can define in law. >> true also of sexual orientation. there's no we haven't discovered a gay gene. we can't sort of look at anything physiological. >> no, but it almost. >> no, but it almost. >> but the thing about gender identity is that people who subscribe to this idea, they want other people to affirm them in that gender identity. so it's part of the whole, ideology that other people agree that you've actually now become a woman.

whereas, of course , that's not whereas, of course, that's not the same with sexual orientation. you have a sexual orientation, regardless of whether anybody else knows about it , agrees with it. whatever. it, agrees with it. whatever. gender identity is something entirely different . entirely different. >> you can't define it in law. >> you can't define it in law. >> and what the bills that have come before parliament have tried to do is actually create these circular definitions, and they've tried to create safeguards for parents, but the most recent one was, parents are protected from this, this, this ban on conversion therapy , ban on conversion therapy, unless they're practising conversion therapy. now, that's again a circular definition. so the government equality office has spent two years trying to come up with a form of words, two private members have tried to do it. they've all failed. i don't think it's possible. >> well, goodness me, much more to come on this program. of course, we've only just scratched the surface of what is in the king's speech many politically contentious issues to come. we're going to be heanng to come. we're going to be hearing from our political editor ahead of the prime minister, rishi, the prime minister, rishi, the prime minister, keir starmer, and indeed the leader of the opposition, rishi sunak, getting important to learn that way around to be debating the king's speech. >> up

next. well. good afternoon. britain. it's been a busy show today, and very shortly we're going to be crossing to the house of commons, where a debate will take place. of course, in relation to the king's speech. let's cross straight to our political editor, christopher hope, who is in westminster for us. christopher, what can we expect ? expect? >> well, we'll see for the first time, won't we? rishi sunak taking on as leader of the opposition, sir keir starmer on his plan for government. and i wonder what he'll try to tack on about a quarter of the bills . i, about a quarter of the bills. i, by my reckoning, are the kind of things a tory government would pursue. but there's elements around the edges there which are there's a chance here if the tories try and get an early blow on this labour government, notably about these rules, these new laws allowing people arriving for work on day one to claim immediate sickness benefit and immediate maternity and

paternity rights, things which small companies might object to. also, i think the veterans bill. i've been talking to someone over lunch about this northern ireland legacy legislation. it's basically going to restart prosecutions of veterans in northern ireland who are accused of being involved in deaths and the like, and i wonder if that could be a big, big problem here if this government is quite weak on the whole area of veterans. and so many voters, of course, have served in the armed forces, we saw them take away that role from the cabinet johnny mercer had in the cabinet office, giving it to a new commissioner. but the fact that they're going to restart prosecutions in northern ireland, which is what could happen, i think, from this, from from repealing the legislation, legislation on legacy passed by the last tory government could be a problem for them. i think elsewhere we're going to see, elements of why they've watered down their plans on dealing with the oversized house of lords. will the over 80s be banned or not? and the idea this attack on populism, snake, snake oil,

charm of populism. i don't think that's where rishi sunak sat in politics. so that won't that was more a jibe aimed aimed at liz truss and probably boris johnson . truss and probably boris johnson. so what will mr sunak say about that? but it's a change of tone for him. we've seen him before as a governing prime minister. now is he any good as an attack dog leader of the opposition? >> well christopher hope, thank you very much. it's just two minutes time, perhaps less when we'll be crossing to the house of commons. but we've got time for a quick bit of analysis in the studio with us. so let's turn to miriam cates. first of all, how should rishi sunak play this ? this? >> well, obviously it's very difficult for him. it's a huge role reversal, and clearly the conservative government made huge mistakes, which they're now paying huge mistakes, which they're now paying for. so he's going to have to be careful not to attack on things that the conservative government either promised and didn't deliver or supported at the time. so obviously he's not going to go on the smoking ban, which is his his idea and some of the sensible ones about policing. but i think i think he should go on, the proposed race equality bill because i think

that will be very, very divisive and very difficult to police . and very difficult to police. and also some of the things that are clearly going to harm small business, but let big business get away scot free, like the new worker rights. >> and how does sir keir starmer play >> and how does sir keir starmer play this? >> well, i mean it plays to his strengths, which is very straight. and the line they want to emphasise there are no surprises here. this is the manifesto, you know, turned into a king's speech. this is you know, delivering what we promised a very straight down the line , you know, managerial the line, you know, managerial government which is what they want to emphasise. >> matthew, do you want to just say a sea of red on, on the government benches? unusual apart from what angela rayner, who's in a blue dress. what on earth is the symbolism? >> bipartisanship, you know, showing she's governing for the whole of the country? >> i didn't get the memo, did you? >> we should say what is taking place right now is that members of parliament are taking the oath of office. they're swearing or affirming. there's sir geoffrey cox, who will be swearing in rather than affirming he's got a copy of the bible there just while we wait for that. >> it must be close to finishing that. >> well, i was 150 odd to get

through. i don't know if it was the same way millom was sworn in, but the. but apparently you can now swear in cornish as long as you do english first and cornish second, whereas if you do welsh, you do welsh first and engush do welsh, you do welsh first and english second, because the slightly different status of the languages. but apparently the new labour mps in cornwall did it in cornish, i was told this week. yeah, but also there's a plethora of religious books that you can swear in on now or indeed no religion at all. >> it's very inclusive. >> it's very inclusive. >> yeah, one mp did it on seven different books. you can choose more than one. >> what? that's really hedging your bets, isn't it? >> how do you hold seven books up like, i don't know, i mean, my leg may have been pulled, but, bob blackman did it, on the hindu text and on the bible. on >> that's interesting. well, i think people are hedging their bets or doing it for social media, but but when i was elected in, in december 2019, it was actually even more of a squeeze because you remember, it was a winter election. the election on the thursday was also on the friday and then we had that one week in parliament before the christmas recess to do all the swearing in and pass

the withdrawal act . so it was an the withdrawal act. so it was an even crazier week than than we're having this period. >> yeah, we have had a couple of weeks now for people. yeah there's even been one member of parliament who's had to swear in twice. >> yes, i saw that clive lewis. yes yeah. when we student politics, clive lewis was on the non—labor left. he was on the far left. so clive is remaining true to form? yes, absolutely. i know he's a member of the party now, but he, you know, he has his moments. >> well, but it is interesting, isn't it, matthew, that, that this is quote unquote a changed labour party? there are still quite a few members of what's known as the socialist campaign group on the backbenches john mcdonnell, clive lewis, diane abbott. yeah, but all the names you've mentioned were there before. >> so and of course they've been massively diluted. they've always been. they were there under under tony blair and gordon brown. there were about 30 throughout the clive lewis wasn't. but you know people like dennis skinner were and they were always about 25 to 30. it's actually a similar number now. they've been very few additions. if any actually from the new the, the, the hundreds of new labour mps elected because keir kept an iron like grip on the selection procedure, much to the

left. upset speaker is on his feet. >> let's listen in. >> let's listen in. >> as i say about the jewish responsibility of honourable members, it will be starting with the code of conduct for members and the behaviour code. i begin by reminding honourable members of their duty to observe the code of conduct, the behaviour code agreed by the house, and to behave with civility and fairness in all their dealings . their dealings. >> unacceptable behaviour will be dealt with seriously, independently and with effective sanctions. >> freedom of speech . the house >> freedom of speech. the house asserts its privilege of freedom of speech that privileges enjoyed by members of parliament only in their work in this house. as private individuals, we are equal under the law with those whom we represent. it is there to ensure that our constituents can be represented by us without fear or favour . it

by us without fear or favour. it is an obligation upon all of us to exercise that privilege and responsibility . accuracy of responsibility. accuracy of members contributions. it is incumbent of members to be accurate in what they say in this house, and to correct any mistakes as soon as possible . mistakes as soon as possible. all members can now submit written correspondences directly to hansard to amend errors of fact of the sir lindsay hoyle. >> there , the speaker reading >> there, the speaker reading the rule book for mps because miriam cates there are a lot of rules to the chamber that a lot of new mps might not necessarily know. >> that's right. there are a lot of rules. there's also a lot of procedure to get your head around. i think the most difficult one is learning to address everybody in the third person. my honourable friend, the honourable lady trying to remember who is a privy councillor and therefore is the right honourable lady, the right honourable friend. and it does seem a bit arduous to start with, but you soon work out why those rules are there and how they do keep the debate flowing and also respectful. so it is worth taking time to learn them.

>> yes, and also finding your way around the palace of westminster is no easy feat . westminster is no easy feat. >> yes. no, absolutely. and it's very easy to get lost and i think my advice would be when you find the river, at least you know which is north or south. yeah, absolutely. >> good point. yeah. of course there are lots of words that are unparliamentary. there's unparliamentary. there's unparliamentary language which members of parliament are not allowed to use. they include git, traitor. walk. >> careful. you could squirt sod slimy , pipsqueak, ignoramus or slimy, pipsqueak, ignoramus or indeed hooligan. i hope not many of those are on the ofcom list. otherwise you're going to be in trouble. >> do you know what? i don't think guttersnipe is on the. whereas it is on one of them. >> i think some of the best words in the english language, and you definitely can't accuse anybody of lying. >> yes. >> yes. >> that's very, very important. that's the biggest one of all isn't it. and they've all been on there training. over the last few days, i think both training from parliament and training from parliament and training from the party as well. so it really is like kind of first day at school or first day in a new job. >> and when you become a new mp,

how quickly are you allowed to get out there on the media and start making a big name for yourself, a song and dance? >> well, there's an argument that the wise ones don't do it straight away and sit back and one of the big issues in the labour party is that for people who have yet have literally yet to make their maiden speeches and they will be amongst have been made ministers, and apparently you have to be you have to do your maiden speech before you become a minister because obviously you can't go. so they have been fast tracked. so they have been fast tracked. so they have been fast tracked. so the four are and there is a lot of disquiet that they're at the front of the queue. and of course, because not only those four but several people in the lords were pushed in, that means that there already some disgruntlement of people who didn't get the job they were expecting or didn't get a job at all. >> this is going to be a big risk for the labour government, with a massive majority, because huge numbers of backbenchers, probably 200, are never going to get a ministerial job this entire parliament. and once they work that out and realise that their only opportunity for influence or making a legacy or creating a name for themselves is in the media and being a bit controversial, they could have some party management problems. now, of course, some sometimes members of parliament deliberately use unparliamentary language so that they create a

fuss. >> they create a social media clip. >> the snp were particularly were big on that. >> the snp were huge on it. they liked to be thrown out of the chamber and sort of show up the system for being terribly get on the lead at scotland at six. but it's only because they deliberately did something unparliamentary and then were removed from the chamber for example, alleging i think, i think use of the word dodgy might be one of those words that sort of implies someone is dishonest and therefore falls within that , within that lying category. >> and then they, they refuse to retract it after the speaker , retract it after the speaker, asked them to. and i think that's the thing about the snp that's the thing about the snp that i certainly noticed is because they don't really believe in westminster, they don't believe in the constitutional rights of westminster to rule the whole of the uk. they don't have the same respect for it as actually other mps, and they sometimes do pull these stunts. i mean, sometimes they are quite amusing and sometimes quite serious. so i think you'll remember , i think think you'll remember, i think it was february this year. there was a vote about whether there should be a ceasefire in gaza, and the snp were denied their vote because of some behind the scenes wrangling between keir

starmer and the speaker. and actually they all walked out of the chamber and a lot of conservative mps followed. but obviously the snp have got very different motivations for using the chamber like that as perhaps conservative mps. but it's all part of the richness of our democracy and part of the richard tice one of the one of the things that i saw when parliament obviously convened for the first time last week, and everyone was sort of in their new places, on their new sides of the house, was all the labour mps started clapping when keir starmer marched into the room, which the snp famously did when they had all their there in 2015, when all their great hordes elected entirely unparliamentary. >> and it's only because the speaker had not at that point been elected that they could get away with it. >> yes. i mean, we have seen it occasionally in the chamber when there have been a big the big occasion, but it is very much frowned upon. they need to get the practice on there, here, here's and there. and they're shouting, clapping very much. and banging the back of the bench. yeah. >> okay. well there we go. >> okay. well there we go. >> a round of applause for craig mckinnon. there was, there was. >> and for, the ukraine

president wasn't there. >> zelenskyy. that's right. yeah. and of course, when tony blair resigned as well, there was so very, very rarely. but of course the snp started clapping at just about everything just to make a point there. >> the naughty schoolboys at the back. >> but okay then why don't we all practice our here? here's oh, of course this is what this is what mps will have to be learning to do. miriam, can you give one a go? >> hey, here, here, here. >> hey, here, here, here. >> oh come on. yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. is what the. yeah. >> that's that's the 1922 committee kind of version of, you know, all the, all these kind of 23 year old labour mps will be very, very much of a culture shock. >> you don't think they're going to go. yeah, well i think i'd be welcoming the way they they're young people to me. >> i'm not going to humour you on that one till you're not. absolutely no chance. i go to. but. yes, sir. lindsay hoyle still on his feet. >> there's a lot of rules, a lot of rules, and a lot of procedures and of course, hundreds. >> i think it's right to emphasise this point. hundreds of new mps, this has been one of the biggest change. elections. the majority of mps in scotland, hundreds of new mps in england,

in wales as well dozens of new mps. it's been a massive changing of the guard and it's going to take a long time to get through those maiden speeches months and months and months. >> i would imagine that we'll still be having maiden speeches in january, and that's going to be very frustrating for people. and again, because you've got this huge imbalance, labour have got an enormous majority. the way that it's speaking works in parliament. so either in a debate or in question time is you take it in turns government, opposition, government, opposition, government, opposition . so labour mps will opposition. so labour mps will be lucky to get one prime minister's question a year. i mean, they really will. and in debates they may have to sit there for six, seven, eight hours before they get to speak and then they will only get their three minutes. so and then they will only get theirthree minutes. so i and then they will only get their three minutes. so i think it's going to take time for them to really adjust to the procedures of parliament. >> it's very interesting you say that because psychologically it must be tough. i mean, becoming an mp, you have to have a self—confidence perhaps, dare i say there may be a few who are self—important and to have to just sit there and wait your

turn, matthew. well, yeah. i mean , as you climb the greasy mean, as you climb the greasy ladder or attempt to with not even one pmqs perhaps in your whole year. >> yeah, absolutely. and one of the issues you say people have to be quite self—confident. that is true. but there are so many of these labour mps who were not expected to listen to lucy powell, the leader of the house, to be chairman of ways and means, dame siobhan mcdonagh, be first deputy chairman of ways and means and sir christopher chope be the second deputy chairman of ways and means. >> the question is that for the penod >> the question is that for the period of the first sitting day following the election of the deputy speakers under standing order number two, a sir edward leigh be chairman of ways and means, dame siobhan mcdonagh, to be the first deputy chairman of ways and means , and sir ways and means, and sir christopher chope to be second deputy chairman of ways and means . as many of that opinion means. as many of that opinion say , i of the country . no, means. as many of that opinion say , i of the country. no, i say, i of the country. no, i think the ayes have it, the ayes have it . i now have to equate

have it. i now have to equate the house that the house has this day attended his majesty's in the house of peers, and that his majesty was pleased to make the most gracious speech from the most gracious speech from the throne to both houses of parliament, which i have the great accuracy obtained a copy i shall direct that the terms of the speech be printed in votes, and the preceding copies are available in the vote office. before i call the mover in the second of the debate, i want to announce the proposed pattern of debate during the remaining days of the loyal address today. debate of the address tomorrow, foreign affairs and defence. >> now, we've heard some of the procedure. they're electing the chairman of the ways and means committee. this is a very important committee in the house of commons. and so happens when the whole house sits together. yes. >> and i think also it is the deputy speaker. i mean, that is the important part of the role. so this was dame eleanor laing in the last parliament. i think

they said it was sir edward leigh who's very, very experienced. so we have one speaker and three deputies because obviously the speaker can't sit there. >> peter dowd. >> peter dowd. >> ireland in parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to your majesty for the gracious speech which your majesty has addressed to both houses of parliament. mr speaken to both houses of parliament. mr speaker, happy birthday to her majesty the queen today . mr majesty the queen today. mr speaken majesty the queen today. mr speaker, it is an honour to be asked to give thanks to his majesty. so can i start by congratulating you, mr speaker, on your re—election and a warm welcome to new and returning members, including my honourable friend , the late member for friend, the late member for stalybridge and hyde . and stalybridge and hyde. and congratulations to the prime minister and members of his new government . mr speaker, i think government. mr speaker, i think it's worthwhile putting into context how i came to be moving the motion on the king's speech this afternoon. last thursday

morning, i was standing outside the library , minding my own the library, minding my own business, watching somewhat bewildered honourable members wandering up and down corridors , wandering up and down corridors, tentatively popping their heads into the odd room that may or may not have been a broom cupboard , and, mr speaker, they cupboard, and, mr speaker, they were actually the returning members . i were actually the returning members. i can't imagine what it must have been like for the hundreds of new members. and of course, it brought back memories of when i undertook similar meanderings in the corridors of power . then came the call from power. then came the call from the chief whip. my first thoughts were oh dear, oh yes , thoughts were oh dear, oh yes, what have i done or not done? as the case may be. fortunately, those thoughts soon dissolved when he kindly asked me if i would undertake the humble address to which i was delighted to accept, and relieved . mr to accept, and relieved. mr speaken to accept, and relieved. mr

speaker, unfortunately i'm not the most competitive sort, which is just as well as i'm afraid i can't claim to be the first to achieve virtually anything in my family. it started at birth as i was the last born child , and was the last born child, and although i was a counsellor at a relatively young age, alas, i was not the first by a long measure from my family. i was the leader of a council, but not the leader of a council, but not the first leader of a council. in my family, nor nor even the first, for example, to unveil a plaque on a new public building that was pretty much routine amongst my forebears . nor nor amongst my forebears. nor nor will i be able to look forward to being the first person to reach 100 years of age in my family and my late grandmother. nin ticked that particular box in 1984 and drove the point home by living until she was 105. as for being the first mp in my

family , well, i can't claim that family, well, i can't claim that accolade either as there were two before me, one was the member. no surprises for guessing, mr speaker, for bootle constituency and until today, my position in the back of the family queue has held sway for decades. so thanks to a good samaritan in the form of the chief whip , i am the first of my chief whip, i am the first of my family to move the humble address to his may day i am, i am, as we say, in merseyside, made up . it goes without saying made up. it goes without saying that being a member of parliament is an honour, but i think being an mp representing the town i was born in is the icing on the cake. for those who don't know where my constituency is, it used to be a small fishing village , then a bathing fishing village, then a bathing resort for wealthy merchants. just north of liverpool. how times change. today my constituency comprises of a

number of close knit communities which until after the war were farmland, ford, litherland, netherton and old roan. they comprised of the areas that housed thousands of families. after the challenges of the war. and i think that vision can be renewed. another part of my constituency, seaforth , is home constituency, seaforth, is home to the port of liverpool and i'll come back to that in future debates. the country home of gladstone of the gladstone family was based in seaforth. indeed gladstone wrote how he had seen, quote , wild roses had seen, quote, wild roses growing growing up on the very ground that is now the centre of bootle. i know the community oral expanded as time went by. then, of course, there's the lovely coastline on liverpool bay, which has waterloo and crosby running along its shoreline with beautiful views across to the hills of north wales and home to another place housing antony gormley's iron men statues and, of course, bootle town centre itself is now the home to many government offices. the charity commission,

the health and safety executive and even the for office nuclear regulation, amongst others . and regulation, amongst others. and given its location and its major dock system during the war, bootle was a major target of the luftwaffe . it was left badly luftwaffe. it was left badly scarred with, as many as 85% of buildings destroyed or damaged . buildings destroyed or damaged. it paid more than its fair share dunng it paid more than its fair share during that conflict , so i'm during that conflict, so i'm proud of my communities in their history , so i want the contents history, so i want the contents of the gracious bid to be part of the gracious bid to be part of its future. now. mr speaker, as much as i would like to think that built constituency with the largest majority in the country, so i'm told is down to my character, charm and charisma . character, charm and charisma. well known to my colleagues. i really know it's down to the ambitious programme trailed in the general election campaign and now formally set out in the

gracious speech . i welcome a gracious speech. i welcome a legislative programme based on security, fairness and opportunity for all investment, stability and reform. that's not a reference to the members over there . and perhaps above all, there. and perhaps above all, service. service to our communities , our constituencies communities, our constituencies and our country. it's about securing economic growth, raising living standards, getting britain building again with planning reform and quality infrastructure , recognising the infrastructure, recognising the challenges of climate change, harnessing technology, a clean energy transition and great british energy advancing investment into renewable energy is fundamental, if you like, mr speaken is fundamental, if you like, mr speaker, a sort of new social contract that delivers attainment and education challenges, anti—social behaviour refreshes support for the victims of crime, protects our borders, enhances the rights of renters , a new deal for of renters, a new deal for working people and the reinvigoration of our nhs, amongst many other proposals . mr

amongst many other proposals. mr speaken amongst many other proposals. mr speaker, a renewed local democratic settlement through the devolution proposals set out in the gracious speech is welcome in short, mr speaker, westminster and whitehall don't always know best. you're here on always know best. you're here on a day to day basis. i'm looking forward to getting back to work, especially with new members, hundreds of them, and i will continue to work on various appg that i'm involved in. but the gracious beat speech includes a proposals for a bill to champion our armed forces and their families. families being a key element in that proposal. i used that , therefore, as a prompt to that, therefore, as a prompt to mention the armed forces appg, of which i am a member. i also do this because as an associate member of my local crosby royal naval association, having links with local veterans of whom there are over 12,000 in my constituency as having members of my family in the armed forces, in addition to my mother

and grandmother both being both having received war widows pensions for decades, i feel the least i could do was to participate in the armed forces appq' participate in the armed forces appg, and in the last year i participated in the armed forces parliamentary scheme, the raf cohort, until it was so rudely interrupted by the general election . whilst i'm always election. whilst i'm always impressed, i have to say, with inter—service collaboration , i inter—service collaboration, i have to say as well i'm even more impressed with the rivalry between them . but before i bring between them. but before i bring the veil down on this part of my contribution, mr speaker, i want to relate the house an anecdote. just one of the many i relate. i could relate , since could relate, since participating in the scheme about the nonchalant and insouciant rivalry between the services. when a memberjoins the scheme and it's well worth joining , they will be asked to joining, they will be asked to go to the wellington barracks nearby to be measured up for a uniform. when i arrived, i was

led through the barracks to the stores. the conversation went as follows with a member of personnel who, it must be noted , personnel who, it must be noted, was from the army. good morning sir. how can i help you? he greeted me . good morning. i'm greeted me. good morning. i'm here to be measured up for a uniform, i replied. and which service will you be serving with, sir? the royal air force, i answered. in that case, sir, he said, you'll be needing a set of silk pyjamas and a smoking jacket . thank thank of silk pyjamas and a smoking jacket. thank thank. >> begum they they fit like dream. >> mr speaker. mr speaker, our country faces so many challenges, and i believe the wide ranging proposals in the king's speech will go a good deal of the way to tackling those challenges, both home and abroad. finally mr speaker, only on saturday evening i was at a

function for one of my local charities, sefton women and children's aid, at liverpool fc's anfield stadium, which is a real stretch as i'm an everton supporter. but whilst there i paid a visit to the memorial to the 97 victims of hillsborough. so i want to pay particular attention to the inclusion of what has become known as a hillsborough law. in the gracious speech . i also want to gracious speech. i also want to thank the many individuals, families, survivors and the coalition of other organisations who have campaigned selflessly for decades to achieve this outcome, including members of this house. it means so much to the families of the victims, of those who died and the survivors from our city region and beyond that, the government will be fulfilling its promise to ensure a duty of candour on public services, justice and respect. at last. thank you, mr speaker. hey souls who are privileged to

call the seconder florence eshalomi . eshalomi. >> thank you , mr speaker. may i >> thank you, mr speaker. may i start by congratulating my friend, the honourable member for bootle, on his fantastic speech? and as the eldest of three girls, we like the last ones because we blame them for everything and it's an honour to follow to second this loyal address , not only for me but for address, not only for me but for my constituents across vauxhall and camberwell green. and mr speaken and camberwell green. and mr speaker, when i was asked by the chief whip, my excitement was quickly replaced by fear because ithen quickly replaced by fear because i then remembered my attempt to make a big shaq reference during the second reading of the procurement act. bill which went completely over the head of the member for brentwood and ongar, andindeed member for brentwood and ongar, and indeed many members in this chamber. see, i nearly backed out. but then i remember that this is my opportunity to get on record. that nigerian jollof is

the best jollof. before the member for erith and thamesmead has other ideas. it's nearly 15 years since the last labour member seconded a loyal address and it was my good friend, the right honourable member for islington south and finsbury, and i have to say, the notices i receive when she is visiting my constituency are perhaps my favourite. i once remember receiving a note from her office saying she was going to tour the beefeater gin distillery in my constituency the next evening , constituency the next evening, and that i should join her. now sadly, i don't drink gin, but i know that she drank my share. i can only say that i look forward to welcoming other members to my constituency many more times dunng constituency many more times during this parliament. and can i remind all of you that it is

your duty to let me know if you are attending one of the many fabulous parties in vauxhall and camberwell green. otherwise, i will be complaining to mr speaker and it truly is a wonderful constituency. we have the national theatre, the bfi, the national theatre, the bfi, the southbank centre, the young and the old vic , the old vic, and the old vic, the old vic, which is currently hosting a play which is currently hosting a play about the life of an mp where james corden turns out to be one of your constituents . be one of your constituents. although i believe he lives in california, so maybe he should get in touch with the leader of the opposition. we . we also have the opposition. we. we also have the opposition. we. we also have the london eye , which i'm sure the london eye, which i'm sure the london eye, which i'm sure the whole house will be delighted to know. received permanent planning status earlier this year in may. that keepsit earlier this year in may. that keeps it safe , even from the keeps it safe, even from the clutches and planning reforms of the chancellor and the deputy prime minister. we have

communities from all over the world and even amongst the sea of england shirts on sunday, they were a few brave spanish friends proudly wearing their colours. although mr speaker, there may have been just the snp mps and we're also . home. and mps and we're also. home. and we're also home to a number of mps, advocacy groups , mps, advocacy groups, journalists, which means sometimes when i'm trying to avoid a journalist or politely decline an invitation, i often get hit with the dreaded line oh, but i'm a constituent. as well. i do warn journalists and members that i'll continue with my policy of giving no special treatment. when you come up to me with any casework. like many continuing mps, the area i represent has changed significantly in this election following the boundary review. this means that i sadly no

longer represent one of the brixton estates. i grew up on, as well as my church and my old primary school. the church is central to my life and it's a microcosm of lambeth . after microcosm of lambeth. after mass, i can see the impatience on my family's face, as i often discuss varied casework from the congregation, and i just want to reassure my honourable friend, the member for clapham and brixton hill. you are going to receive multiple blessings with all those varied casework , and i all those varied casework, and i know the wards that i'll lose will be represented by her. but then again, mr speaker, based on past experience, not all the journey lobbies will notice that anything's actually changed. if the house will indulge me, i wish to briefly speak to a couple of policy issues close to my heart and those of my constituents, which i'm most forward looking forward to working with the new labour government on now as an mp, one

of the hardest conversations any of the hardest conversations any of us will have are with the victims of violent crime . i've victims of violent crime. i've sat in many front rooms holding grieving mothers and fathers, and they tell me about their loved ones who've been taken too soon. and with every hug and tear wiped away , i can feel tear wiped away, i can feel their pain and the impact that this has on the wider siblings and other family members. crime rips communities apart, leaving too many people vulnerable and open to exploitation, and one of the areas i'm proud of working on is on preventing abuse of gang associated girls whose mistreatment is , sadly, just one mistreatment is, sadly, just one example of why our streets need to be safer . the example of why our streets need to be safer. the home secretary's commitment to halving rates of violence

against women and improving support for victims should be welcomed across the house. yeah over the last couple of years , over the last couple of years, i've seen first hand the impact of the cost of living crisis, and this has had on my constituents in vauxhall and camberwell green and communities right across the country . we all right across the country. we all know that tackling climate change is one of the most urgent issues facing our world, and we cannot delay any meaningful action on this any longer. i'm therefore very pleased that the government is committed to addressing both these issues with an investment in clean energy transition that will lower energy bills for households as well as restoring the uk's reputation as a climate leader. yeah, but mr speaker, for millions of working people. real change will not come without action on housing. that's why i welcome the deputy prime minister's plans to build

1.5 million new homes across the country, including a new wave of council houses like the one that gave me and my family that security. yeah. you see, mr speaken security. yeah. you see, mr speaker, i still remember that daily commute from a, b and b in kings cross and the excitement on my mum's face when we received the keys to permanent housing. yes, we no longer had to lug our belongings in a black bag , but to lug our belongings in a black bag, but sadly this is the case for so many people. still in 2024. yes vauxhall and camberwell green is home to a high number of people, many of whom are private renters. the power that section 21 gives immoral landlords to evict tenants for no reason is an outrage . yeah, i'm glad that outrage. yeah, i'm glad that this government will finally ban no fault evictions for good. amen. lastly, i'm proud to be an advocate for the eradication of hiv and aids, an issue on which

we have made so much progress in recent